On Cycling

Today, I read “Freewheeling: Essays on Cycling.” It’s a collection of 10-to 20-page essays on what cycling means to or has done for the writer. I quite liked it. If you see it in the bookshop, give it a pick up. The essays are very casual, but they’re a perfect read for an hour or two in the sun. We should be more introspective about the things we have in life. If we’ve been out for lunch or a drink, you know I am an oversharer, annoyingly comfortable talking about myself. But I actually want to spend most of my time asking you questions, to learn about you. You are great. This book was nice because it was a group of people sharing something personal with me.

It inspired me to write a blog post about cycling.

I am a meticulous researcher when it comes to big purchases. In the year leading up to July 2023, I spent many evenings looking up articles and videos on various bikes. A year before that, I decided I was done being completely reliant on public transport in Sheffield and wanted to make the transition to being mostly dependent upon it instead.

To make it worth the expense, I have to obsess over the details, it has to be perfect. Or at least, whatever I find has to nearly match the arbitrary criteria that I set for it. Living in Sheffield, this was an ebike with a ton of power to get up the hills, folding to fit in the work elevator and our shed, and of course being cool. It never does match perfectly. Eventually, my brain (and wallet) will gave in, impatience and desire for the “thing” outweighing the most annoying of life’s constants, time spent living where I don't have the "thing".

So it was, on July 12th, 2023, I put 900 of my best pounds through the tubes on eBay, and ordered a second-hand Tern Vektron P9 in bright orange. It was the other side of Stoke-on-Trent (hallowed grounds from my University years) in Market Drayton. But that weekend, my partner and I got a train from Sheffield to Stoke, and then a taxi to Market Drayton to go pick up this bike I had spent a year waiting for.

I don’t know if it’s a common thing to remember, but I remember the first time I rode a bike. Well, I say rode. I actually mean “rolling down a slight gradient without falling over”, which felt like a huge achievement. Most things probably do as a 3-year-old, achieving life firsts every week. We were living in Scotland, in the middle of nowhere, near a village called Insch in Aberdeenshire. Our house had a fairly big garden and driveway with a slight downward gradient. Whilst my brother was probably off doing sick tricks with the 4 years extra experience with bikes, I rolled myself down from the edge of the garage to the other side of the drive. I managed to stay upright the whole way, and I can only imagine the pop-off and celebration went wild. I did this same 10-meter journey over and over, until eventually I also learnt that you also need to pedal to keep going.

We told the taxi to wait around for 10 minutes at a local shop, and that we would be right back with the bike. My navigation skills are pretty good, but I should definitely have given a bit more leeway to the timings. We ended up /walking quickly/ around the town, trying to find this guy's house. Eventually, we get there, I knock on the door, and the transaction is underway.

The seller was an older guy, must be in his 60s or 70s, and he had looked after this bike incredibly. Everything is there, all the manuals have been put into a binder, every wire and accessory is included and placed into the pannier bag included with the bike. Aware of time stumbling away from us, I quickly check out the bike, say “yes please”, and we’re on our way down the road with this rad new bike.

We make it back to the taxi, some 25-30 minutes later. Bless his soul, he waited for us, and didn’t ask for any extra money either. We shove the folded bike into the boot, where it just about fits. On the way back, he jokingly asks if my partner and I had a falling out because we weren’t talking to each other like we had on the way there. In truth, I just wasn’t feeling that great. I hadn’t been for a couple of months.

Like most kids growing up in the UK, my bike was a cornerstone of childhood. Going to a friend’s house on the estate? Forget walking, I have a bike. Meeting up at the park? Okay, cool, bring the bike and leave it on the ground whilst you play. Feeling sad? Awesome, go for a bike ride around the local streets looking sad. Pretty much any occasion you were going somewhere or leaving the house, you would go on your bike.

There is this one time I specifically remember when I was 11 or so. By this point, we had moved around a few times and had settled down near Cambridge on a typical UK millennium estate. You know the ones. All the houses are made with red bricks, there are no walking paths, and for some reason, all the roads are curvy with no straight tracks to any house, it has to look fancy on the map too. We hate grids in England.

We lived up the hill of the estate, and down the other end was that bit where they "gave up". When they were developing the area, there was probably a bit too much water from a local river to deal with. So they leave it as grass, make a big hole, plant a few trees to make it look natural. It was also the steepest hill anywhere close to the house.

So on a cold November evening whilst the heavens shat down upon us, my friend and I decided to cycle, at speed, down this grass-y, nothing hill. You know that feeling when something seems like a good idea, but the moment it begins, you realise it was a bad one. The moment the wheels touched that grass, dirt started to be flung up by the wheels of my bike and straight into my face. We had skimped on getting mudguards. I tried to slow down, but the ground was too wet to do it safely. So I rode it out, all the way to the bottom until I naturally came to a halt.

Shocked at the consequences of my actions, I cycled back up the hill. I walked back into the house, covered head to toe in brown sludge, and slinked straight into the bathroom to strip as much of the evidence off my body as possible.

A train, a tram, and a walk up a hill, we eventually got the folding bike back home. Immediately, I was a bit obsessed with it. I hadn’t owned a bike in a decade by this point, and the mounting excitement of a year had my mind running like crazy. The bike got its MOT from a local shop, and after a few shorter rides on local roads to get comfortable, I took my wee folding city bike out to the Peak District near me. A beautiful sunny day, up and down some green hills. It was perfect. It felt like everything I had wanted out of it.

For the next month, I used my bike to get to the office whenever I was in. My workplace's office elevator fits maybe two people uncomfortably, so the folding bike was worth its weight in gold. It sounds stupid to say, but I get stunned at how we have made something seemingly so simple (e.g., a bike that folds) work so well. Then, on August 29th, I took it home for the last time. The next morning, I got the call about having urgent heart surgery. I laughed and joked with the person delivering the news that it can’t have been that serious, I was cycling to and from work the day before! He replied completely seriously, “Oh, well, don’t do that. Please just get a taxi.”. I should probably stop joking whenever I have to deal with something serious.

Once I had left home at 19 for University, bikes played basically no part in my life until I got that folding bike. I only rode a bike one more time, when I met up with my elder brother and younger sister in London. We’re not a particularly close family. I blame our upbringing, but in reality, we have ourselves to blame as well. We made a specific effort for some reason to meet up that day. I can’t remember the details of what we got up to very well, my memory unfortunately has begun to fail me a lot quicker than it should thanks to my surgeries. But at some point over the day, we hired some of the Boris bikes, and we cycled over Hyde Park.

It might have only filled up 20 minutes of a slightly weird day, trying to pretend to be a functioning family. But I find when you’re on a bike, the day fades around you. It is pure and joyous, even when you’re commuting. You focus on what’s ahead, and you end up smiling. In the Peak District it's open roads and hills. In Hyde Park, it is groups of people walking incredibly slowly, stumbling all over the path, apparently trying to get hit by bikes.

Doing it with my siblings mattered too. My brother was there when I learnt to balance on a bike for that first time, riding around the garden himself on his Sonic the Hedgehog BMX. I remember my little sister learning to ride her pink bike on the patio in the back garden. We don’t share much between us, but when one of us is gone, we can still share those moments.

3 months after my aortic dissection surgery, I sold my folding bike. I was scared of it. During one of my post-surgery complication episodes, when I stayed in the hospital, a cardiac consultant had a serious word with me. It was probably the first time someone had been directly honest about my condition. I get it, you don’t want to tell the crying 29-year-old his life is over. But in his wee speech, he mentioned that bike I had, don’t ride it uphill. He knew what he was saying, knowing that we both live in Sheffield. When I got home, I looked at it sat there in the corner of the dining room. I hate it when things end up not getting used. Not getting loved.

An eBay listing later, a local couple in their mid-60s came to pick it up. The bikes I like trend positively with the elderly. They were looking to have an e-bike for their caravanning holidays. The bike impressed during its test ride as I knew it would, and they were happy with the condition and accessories. Offhandedly, the topic of why I was selling it came up. I told them my story. They turned around, “Huh, was this at the Northern General in Sheffield?”.

“Yeah, it was.”

“Oh! That is interesting, our son is a cardiac nurse on the Chesterman ward.”

“That’s where I was, that’s a crazy coincidence!”

That is not how the conversation went. I did mention I have memory issues. That coincidence didn’t affect me for a few weeks. Then I remembered it on a daily walk, how everything has felt both incredibly close and connected, and incredibly lonely. I burst into tears. That happens a lot.

A year later, towards the end of 2024, I decided to get another bike. Through a wonderful scheme through work, it was almost the highest tech bike I could get. With the biggest motor, a frame small enough to fit in the shed, and a cargo space to occasionally take the dog places on the back, it was perfect for my situation now. It has taken me about 6 months since then to want to actually use the bike. Being told you will be putting yourself in danger if you cycle a bike uphill doesn’t shake off easily. But at some point, the hard work I have put into being better has to make a dent in the fears I have.

I am scared every day of so many things. But last week I went out into the Peak District twice, and just had a wonderful time. The hills don’t feel like anything when you’re on them, and the flats feel like a good bit of normal exercise. Ebikes are kind of amazing.

I wrote some stuff about my new bike here at the end, and it started sounding like a review of the bike. But I think the bike itself is irrelevant. It could be any bike. In reality, it could be anything. To me, it is a bike, and the bike represents some freedom, and I associate it with a pure kind of childlike fun. It’s a slice of nostalgia from growing up that I can experience every single day. It makes me happy every single rotation of the pedals. A bike is something so pure in function and form that I wanted to share it with you now in this blog post. I have so many more things to share with you, with others, with no one.