Back in the saddle It’s never too late to learn to cycle
ONE of my most vivid childhood memories is of sitting on a stool in the village shop, blinking back tears as blood drips down my leg.
A nice lady who works there hands me a fistful of wet paper towels – the sludge green colour like we used to have in the school toilets – so I can wipe off the mud and gravel caked on my shin.
I had been speeding down a steep hill on my friend’s bike and went flying off the saddle into a bush, after skidding on an uneven surface.
As far as injuries go, it was not the most dramatic, and I was fine to hobble home after a short while, sporting an angry-looking graze and a cartoon plaster.
It was still enough to put me off cycling, and more than a decade passed before I attempted it again.
Everyone says you never forget how to ride a bike, but that certainly wasn’t my experience.
I’m sure I knew the motions somewhere in my subconscious mind, but the main issue was finding the confidence to push off and get enough momentum to stop wobbling uncontrollably.
I had two failed attempts at relearning to ride a bike as an adult, which had me almost in tears of frustration – how pathetic, a grown woman too scared to do something as simple as riding a bike.
Looking back, the obvious mistake was borrowing my partner’s bike to practise on, which was far too tall for my 5ft frame and made everything more of a struggle.
It was uncomfortable, frightening and I gave up within minutes.
This is all the more ridiculous given that I have lived in so-called ‘cycling cities’ for more than five years – mostly in Oxford, and now in Bristol.
I’ve written countless stories with cycling campaigners about the need to encourage greener transport and better infrastructure, and sometimes felt like a hypocrite in doing so.
Road design and maintenance still has a huge way to go, but com
pared to other parts of the country, there are plenty of cycle lanes and few plausible excuses not to ride a bike here. Yet I resisted for years.
Even in lockdown, when everyone seemed to be reclaiming the roads on two wheels, I still chose to walk everywhere and was stubborn in my belief that cycling was just not for me.
That began to change a few weeks back, on a leisurely stroll to the pub, when I noticed a little white bike attached to some railings at the roadside.
It was the perfect size for me, and there was a scrap of cardboard next to it with a phone number and the words ‘for sale – £30’. That’s a good price even if I hate it, I thought.
The next day we collected it from a second-hand seller, checked that everything was in working order, and suddenly I had my very own bike.
We tentatively wheeled it to one of the quieter residential streets in our neighbourhood, and after about an hour of wobbling and whimpering that ‘I can’t do it’, I finally got the hang of it.
It took me a few tries to master basics, like how to gradually slow when approaching a junction, how to lean to one side and put one foot on the ground when at a stop, and how to cycle in a straight line without careering into parked cars.
It still doesn’t feel natural for me and I have to concentrate hard, with aching muscles and sweaty helmet hair, but it’s been a revelation in the way I travel.
Trips to the shop take a fraction of the time, and we’ve explored parts of the city that I wouldn’t have had the patience to venture to on foot.
I’m still scared to share the road space with vehicles, particularly when the cycle lanes are so often interrupted by potholes and cars straddling double-yellows.
Even on segregated cycle lanes I’m nervous, when experienced cyclists whizz by and I feel like I’m holding everyone up.
Given how jumpy I get when I hear the growl of an engine behind me, and especially after someone beeped at me (presumably for my sluggish pace), my attitudes as a driver have also changed.
I had always been careful to pass slowly with lots of space, but now I’ve been in the saddle myself, I find I’m much more patient when waiting for a safe time to overtake.
There is still a long way for me to go to build confidence, and I think the next step will be to take a professional lesson to help me ride on busier roads.
Bristol Family Cycling Centre runs ‘learn to ride’ sessions for both adults (£5) and children (£3), where instructors can guide you in a safe space.
If you’d written off cycling like I had, give it another try and make sure you’re on a bike suitable for you, as it can make all the difference.
I know it’s not saying much given how dire 2020 has been, but still – along with moving to Bristol, learning to ride a bike again has been the highlight of my year so far.