I’m Don. I’m Type 2 diabetic. I live in North Wales and I ride mountain bikes.
That combination is harder than it should be. Not the riding — the deciding. Should I eat before this climb. Am I starting too low. Have I packed enough fast carbs. Is my mate going to know what to do if I drop on a remote section. What does the drive home look like after four uplift laps at Bike Park Wales.
For years I guessed. Some days the guessing was fine. Some days it wasn’t. The day I genuinely scared myself was the day I started building SHRED.SAFE.
A practical ride-safety system for diabetic mountain bikers. Built around the actual decisions you make before, during and after a ride. Pre-ride glucose checks that account for adrenaline and uplift laps. Per-trail fuel plans you can follow. A buddy card your mate can open one-handed if you stop responding. An emergency card paramedics can read off your lock screen.
Free tier covers the safety basics. Foot care, trail directory, buddy card, the emergency lock-screen tools. The stuff I want every diabetic rider to have whether they ever pay me a penny or not.
£4.99 lifetime Premium unlocks the personalised layer. Weight-aware fuel plans, hypo risk awareness based on your venue’s weather and your last 30 days, ride pattern tracking, GPX overlay, the full glucose timeline for every trail in the directory. One payment. Once. Forever.
Not a medical device. Not a CGM replacement. Not a substitute for your diabetes team. Not regulated by the MHRA and never claims to be. It’s planning support, written by a rider for riders, with input from a serving UK paramedic who reviewed the buddy guide for clinical accuracy.
If you’re in crisis, call 999. If your glucose management is off, talk to your team. SHRED.SAFE sits in the gap between “I’ve got my diabetes managed at home” and “I’m about to drop into Marin Trail with 30km of remote singletrack ahead of me.”
More venues. Deeper route data from riders who actually use the trails. Better integration with the CGM platforms diabetic riders already wear. The Trail Directory currently covers 43 UK venues and 134 named routes; the goal is full UK coverage by the end of next season.
If you ride with diabetes and there’s something SHRED.SAFE doesn’t do that it should, tell me. Every penny from Premium goes back into making this better. No investors. No subscription. No data harvested off your phone.
Just a tool I built because I needed it, and figured I wasn’t the only one.
— Don