Another Cycle

Hay and I have dusted off the bikes and taken to cycling.

Hay's bike is borrowed from her sister and is adequate to the task, despite having sat under a tarp for a few years. Mine was a 2nd hand job bought from a junk shop for No.2 Son, who now has a better model.

The seat on mine is like sitting on a razor, so the first job was to order a far-arse seat resembling an armchair that doesn't split me in half. It's not arriving till Tuesday, so Hay fashioned a jury rigged affair with an old sock and some foam rubber. 

Not the most elegant solution, but it works, if in a rudimentary manner

The back wheel of said contraption is no longer circular and is eccentric, having a slight bulge at one corner (figuratively speaking). It necessitates the spokes being tightened to draw it back into a shape that doesn't have my arse bobbing up and down with every revolution.

The gears require some drastic adjustment to prevent the chain from coming off every mile or so, or the derailleur contraption to click, grind and select a gear at will while I'm riding.

The back brake, no matter how much I tighten the cable, refuses to stop the bike. I make do, therefore, with just the front brake.

Not having any proper cycling gear - full bodystocking, dorky shorts, really expensive cycling hat - I make do with a pair of baggy shorts, a polo shirt, trainers and my rollerblading helmet. Hay is similarly clad and we look like a couple from the 1960s out for a sedate bike ride, although a couple in the 60s wouldn't have been wearing any form of head protection - unless, perhaps, a trilby and a headscarf.

Naturally, I laugh at the lycra-clad fashion victims who race post me on their highly geared, carbon fibre bikes that are as light as a feather and cost thousands of pounds. I am accomplishing exactly the same on a mere fraction of the cost.

Following a gentle test run of some 9 miles on Monday around our walking route, we did a 14 mile circular ride on Wednesday - and I found I really enjoyed it. Far more than walking. For a start, we could take in more places than were inaccessible within the timeframe with walking. When riding a bike you can stop off at all the interesting places and then race through the more boring parts that, on foot, would take 10 times as long to traverse.We refer to the boring bits of walks as doom-walks.

In fact, I like cycling so much that I can easily outpace Hay on a hill, which given my COPD diagnosis is quite a feat. I've been off my COPD meds for nearly a week now and feel much better - and I actually believe I no longer have the condition - it's more like an asthma that's set off by certain chemicals, like the ones you find in Lush shops (I can't go into the places without a respirator). The medication I take is a powder in an inhaler and I'm convinced that the powder makes me produce an excess of mucus, resulting in an almost permanent, very wet cough. Since coming off the meds my cough has almost disappeared.

At one stage on the ride, we came upon a long, straight stretch of road opening up in front of us with a white line down the middle (most of the ride was unpopulated back roads through fields that hardly anyone knows), which resulted in me bellowing out Born to Be Wild at full power.

Our return journey took us down Old Sodbury Hill, a very steep and snaking patch of road that descends an escarpment from the A46 on the Cotswolds high plains into Old Sodbury. I managed to gather sufficient speed to enable me to travel 1.6 miles without a single pedal of the wheels. The eccentric rear wheel made my backside look like a rabbit's running from hounds.

Like Toad of Toad Hall and his motorcar, I'm now addicted to cycling - but on a budget. How long this will last is moot. How the hell we're going to get paddleboarding, kayaking, wind surfing and cycling paraphernalia in and on one car when we go on holiday is a project I'm going to have to work on. Perhaps a small trailer is in order.

Today I'm taking my bike to a local repair shop to have the eccentric wheel, duff brake and idiosyncratic derailleur gearing adjusted. For the duration of the servicing, No.1 Son is lending me his carbon fibre bike that cost him £1,000. I'd better not prang it.