The myth of the mad motorist

Perhaps I should first of all preface this by saying that I live in York. York is nice. Maybe outside of York, the roads resemble a Mad Max movie, but here I've found riding on the road to be far from the terrifying experience I was expecting.

Recently my wife started reading a whole raft of self-help books about facing fears etc. She got me to read one and it has brought a few things that I already knew into sharper focus. For instance, stop watching the news and you stop worrying about ISIS or whatever financial meltdown is over the horizon or whether Tony Blair is in fact a reptilian overlord (ok, ok, so that's just the internet but you get the idea). Of course, there are down sides to this; you will become a less informed 'citizen of the world' and find it all too easy to ignore the suffering of others or make informed choices about who to vote for. However, you also feel better, happier, more positive and spread a little happiness to others. You can't control or influence what is happening half way round the world, but you can make your immediate environment a more positive and happy place.

By now you're probably thinking, 'Shut up with your hippy bullshit and talk about bikes!' Well there is a point to this. Go on Youtube and search for things cycling related. Sooner or later, you will come across videos of men in white vans punching cyclists, running them off the road and generally abusing them. In the interests of balance, you will also see cyclists chasing after cars, tapping on car windows to tell the occupants they are, 'effing wankers,' then screaming 'You're on Youtube!' When the driver gets out to give them a slap. The comments section below is full of self righteous cyclists with similar tales or motorists spouting off about how all cyclists deserve to be run over. Hit the cycling forums and it's the same thing.

So I took to my bike armed to the teeth and ready for aggro (I didn't really, but I might have done) only to find that the reality is much different. Most drivers are aware, thoughtful and seem to recognise that you are pretty vulnerable on a skinny piece of aluminium/carbon weighing little more than a few bags of sugar. Any cyclists reading this are going to to say that I've only been riding a few weeks and sooner or later, I'm going to be run off the road by Mr Angry because he's going to miss kick off if he doesn't overtake me on a blind bend. I understand that, but I can only call it as I see it. I've probably ridden alongside or been passed by hundreds of cars already. One driver has passed me what I would consider to be too close - and I'm riding a metre out from the kerb - and one did sit right on my back wheel waiting to overtake, but on the whole I have changed lanes, filtered through traffic and navigated roundabouts and traffic lights without a bipped horn or a cross word.

Hopefully I haven't just jinxed myself and my next blog isn't written using the tip of my nose from a hospital bed.

Conformity and the price thereof.

No pictures of me I promise, but cycling is a weird sport - in as much as you look weird. Now there should be no reason why people should feel the need to join in with this absurdity, but they do; I do. Nowhere outside a fetish club (I'm told) would you ever see so much tight fitting clothing. Even if you wore trunks this tight (see below) in a swimming pool, you would be subjected to ridicule if not an outright ban for frightening the grannies doing their aquaerobics.

http://www.thecultureconcept.com/circle/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Perhaps-a-reason-for-the-anti-lycra-brigade.jpg

I wouldn't mind kowtowing to my need to conform, but then you start doing a bit of online shopping. Cycling tops - let's start there. I thought I'd pick three up, maybe a long sleeved one for the approaching autumnal weather. How much? What is basically a Lycra t-shirt can't be worth £75 surely? They've made a mistake on the website; either that or it's woven from the hair of medieval virgins. One of the two. Bib shorts. These ridiculous items are basically shorts with an extra bit that goes over your shoulders, presumably so that your shorts don't fall down when you are riding out of the saddle and cause a major RTA. Oh, and a decent pair seems to start at around £100. Fuck that, as my Mum never said. So I shopped around a bit and found some cheaper alternatives in the sales. Of course, I'm now suffering from 1st world guilt (and the sage advice of a former work colleague of mine: 'Buy cheap and buy twice' that keeps going round in my head like a mantra) because they were no doubt stitched together in some horrific sweat shop somewhere.

So while the bike feels great and my riding is really developing (I did 43 miles yesterday - hooray for me) the mental and physical benefits are offset an axis of evil: conformity, shame and guilt. Bugger.

Bike fit, bike fit and suicidal furry animals.

Maiden voyage day today The initial intention had been to ride what will (hopefully) become my commute. Of course, me being me, I hadn't got round to getting tyre levers, spare tubes or a pump I can carry. As much of the ride is without mobile signal, I decided discretion was the better part of valour and opted for the solar system ride on the other side of the Kavesmire. This has nothing to do with the fact that my commute is hilly and this one is flat. Honest.

After a couple of early stops for bike fit - my saddle was too high and I'd managed to seat my cleats so that I was riding pigeon toed, I got underway. The solar system ride is a family favourite - it's basically the solar system to scale with models of the sun and each of the planets, including the kids' favourite, Uranus. Now, I've ridden this plenty of times at speed on a mountain bike and it usually takes two hours, so I was hoping to do it a fair bit quicker on the Sensa. Unfortunately, I was finding it hard going. Really hard going. I rationalised that this was due to only having had four hours sleep, but I was on a stiff road bike that felt like it should have been fast and I was riding through treacle. Maybe I'm just not bike fit, I thought.

Overall, the bike felt right in every other respect. Gear changes were pretty intuitive, despite pushing brake levers to change gear (how cool is that?) and clipping in and out was simple, despite the guys in the bike shop telling me it was different to clipping in and out of SPDs. The reach was fine, so I won't have to bother with annoying things like stem length. Even the saddle and my arse got on well together! Regardless of all this, I was left with the disconcerting idea that I just wasn't going as fast as I should have been. On arriving home and giving the bike a quick wash, I realised that the rear brake was on permanently - not full on, just enough to stop the wheel turning freely. Idiot! Maybe because I'm used to the sound of disc brakes rubbing slightly in the mud, I didn't hear the pad on the rim; it's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

So what of the suicidal furry animals? Well they aren't a crap indie band from the 90s but they are a bit of a worry. Two squirrels and a rabbit tried their very best to commit suicide in my spokes. Maybe they're depressed. Maybe cycling would help.

Turning back time

I'm 41. That's a bit crap. It isn't as crap as being 51 or 61 etc, but it's still a bit crap. Like, I suspect, many people, I often catch my mind, which has been rambling merrily away, stuck on a problem: 'that can't be right!' whichever part of my brain it is that maintains our sense of self (the right frontal lobe apparently) seems to be saying, 'you aren't 41...this is some kind of mistake.' It isn't.

That all sounds a bit melodramatic. After all, I have a great life: a wonderful wife, two amazing kids, a good job and I'm relatively fit and healthy (more of that later). But still 41 - that's my Dad's age. Except of course it isn't as he is now approaching 70.

Being fit and healthy is great. When I was at school I did loads of sport - rugby mainly. I picked up a few injuries here and there, but nothing major. The one thing I did notice was that, after hard games, I was ruined - the next day I could hardly walk. During the game I felt great, but after... I didn't play much rugby after university. In fact I stopped playing sport full stop and forgot that I would be hobbling round on a Sunday while some of my mates would be playing their second game of the weekend. I took up running with my wife a few years ago. It was brilliant. I loved it...until the next day when I couldn't walk. My wife would ache for a short while immediately afterwards; I would feel fine. Next day she would bounce out of bed; I would crawl. We started open water swimming - great. Then we had an interesting experience in the sea that was a little too close to drowning than was comfortable. We do jujitsu and if you have ever been run over, you will know roughly how my body feels after that.

One thing I did continue to do from my twenties to very recently, was ride a mountain bike. In a strange reversal, cycling hurts while you are doing it, but doesn't hurt afterwards. I loved mountain biking. My wallet hated it. It isn't just the cost of the bike itself - that's a one off thing, deal with it. No, the worst thing about mountain biking is listening to the sound of grinding winter paste in your components, slowly killing them. The bike(s) started spending more and more time just sitting in the garage in various states of mechanical disrepair. I gave it up and sold them.

So I bought a road bike two years later - this summer in fact. I'm sitting here waiting for it to arrive in the middle of this week. It's very likely that I will throw myself into this with the same stupid intensity I do everything new. I might try and learn from my mistakes, but it's far more likely that I will start wearing Lycra, join a cycling club and want to race. I am not shaving my legs. Let me repeat that: I AM NOT SHAVING MY LEGS! I'm going to commute to work (we'll see how long this one lasts during the winter!) and ride as regularly as I can.

I'm hoping that the health benefits will be noticeable and that I can exercise without pain. I'm going to try some health products (I haven't decided what yet) and see if they can help me turn the cranks so fast that time reverses and I can stop being 41.