Now is as good a time as any, I reckon, to give cycling a try.
Fuel prices going through the roof, road taxes set to burn deep into your pockets, congestion charges in regional cities on their way, traffic forever mounting up and snaking back further and further into the suburbs, insurance, speed cameras, maintenance costs... It just goes on, doesn’t it?
And then, in a Johnny-come-lately kind of way, the Government is doing a little bit to encourage a few people out of their cars and on to their feet or the seat of a bike.
Only this week, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly announced £100 million plans for a mini-cycling revolution to gear cities and towns up to the cyclists’ needs, starting with Bristol as Britain’s first “Cycling City”…although I would think flat, bike-choked places like Cambridge and York might have something to say about that.
Still, the plans for a bike rental network, recycling of bikes, changing facilities, education programmes and proper road schemes to protect cyclists has got to be a step in the right direction.
Bradford isn’t among the first batch of Miss Kelly’s designated areas, but we do have our own cycling ‘tsar’, Viv Carnea, who is dedicated to getting people to at least try the idea of using a bike.
And there are several excellent cycle routes already created and being created across the district by the biking and walking organisation Sustrans, which won millions of pounds in lottery funding this year to build even more.
So there’s plenty of encouragement – it’s just getting people to do it that is a major stumbling block.
My own love affair with the bike, to be honest, had nothing to do with commuting to work in the city centre when I first took it up about eight years ago. And it still isn’t anywhere near the prime reason I love being out on the mountain bike in all sorts of weathers, on all sorts of terrain.
If it were just commuting I was doing, I certainly wouldn’t have a mountain bike for the purpose. The tyres are too thick and knobbly for the roads, and it would be far easier and quicker to slide by the traffic jams on either a road bike or the new breed of hybrid bikes – a natty cross between an upright mountain bike machine and a roadie.
But no, I mount my trusty Santa Cruz Superlight mountain bike at least twice a week to explore the rugged off-road terrain and bridleways that are scattered all over the district’s glorious countryside and pit my skills and fitness against rocks, mud, ruts, rivers, puddles, long hills, steep hills, up (often very up!) and, of course, down, My skills and fitness don’t always win. When I first set out on this great biking adventure, I was the butt of many a cruel jibe from my fellow cyclists as I found myself face down in another pile of mud or heather or whatever.
And that wasn’t the only hurdle to overcome.
Fitness levels were, naturally, not at their cycling peak. I have always been sporty, and was fit from very regular enjoyment of a wide variety of sports from hockey to squash to indoor football.
But each sport has its own type of fitness, and it took gritted teeth and a fair determination to stick at the arduous task of trying to get up to the level of the rest of the group who had been at it for a lot longer than me.
Some evenings, I confess, when a particular route was suggested, I would wonder how on earth I would manage it, and would set off with a heavy heart thinking I would be holding back the group… or maybe even simply failing to finish! But, the merry band of brothers I happened to fall in with (the details of how that came about are unimportant) are a great bunch to be with, and encouraged and cajoled me to keep at it.
So it was that I gradually became hooked on the whole biking thing, through rain, wind, snow, on occasions, and every weather system in between, trying never to miss one of the regular weekly adventures, often returning home very late at night covered in mud, exhausted, bruised occasionally, but feeling very satisfied.
As comedian Billy Connolly often says, there’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing. If you’re kitted up properly, there shouldn’t be much that really gets through to the skin… and if you plan things well enough, there’s always the haven of a warm pub to seek refuge in! Cycling, it seems to me, is one of those sports where you can have a great time and feel fantastic fitness benefit at any level – from the beginner to the easy-does-it Sunday afternooner to the more serious idiots (among whom I might class ourselves) to the really serious riders who can take things to a whole new dimension.
On equipment, there’s a mind-boggling array of two-wheeled machinery from those costing in the low hundreds of pounds to the hi-tech models which will set you back literally thousands… and that’s before you start on clothing, tools, spares, lights, maintenance and the like.
Which means it’s not necessarily a cheap sport if you push yourself into the realms of serious trail riding. But, by God, it’s worth it! Just when my body was beginning to give up on all those other sports, with pulled muscles here and there, cycling opened a whole new avenue of sporting endeavour in (late) middle age and I can’t think I’ve ever felt fitter… and had an absolute ball with some great mates.
We regularly head up to the Dales with the bikes, winter and summer, for an evening’s riding, had great weekends and days away in the Lakes, tackled special trail rides in Scotland and Wales, and I’ve even taken the bike to Kenya and Vietnam for charity fund-raising rides.
It is simply brilliant to be up in the hills off the beaten track, with a barely or rarely a soul in sight other than the fitter – and younger – riders out in front.
Give it a try. Build up slowly, in fitness and equipment levels, and feel the enormous benefit.
Like we often say when people ask: “Do you really enjoy being out in that weather, doing that route?” – It’s better than being stuck inside watching moronic telly, any night of the week.
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