BB the Conqueror!

That is, BB the Conqueror of Wightman Road.  Can I be a conqueror?  Is there a feminine form?  Conqueress?  Conqueratrix?  Answers on a postcard...

In any case, this morning I went and did the thing I've been putting off for a couple of weeks (and which I've been regretting putting off each time I have done so) - I walked the bike to the top of the road, got on it and cycled along Wightman Road, which is a fairly busy road that takes a lot of rat-run traffic avoiding Green Lanes (which is the main trunk road in our little piece of England).  It is not only busy, it is also hilly.  Well, I say hilly, but most people would probably call it gently undulating - my legs thought it was mountainous this morning!  I think I had managed to build up my fear of Wightman Road to the extent that it had formed its own ogre in my head, so I was pleased to give that beastie a good bashing with my internal baseball bat today.  Now, note that I only cycled a short way up the road - not because I got scared, fell off or was otherwise incapacitated, but rather because we only needed to go a short distance.

After my victory over the Wightman Road Ogre (or maybe the "Ogre of Wightman Road", sounds a bit more fairytale-like), we walked through the station and then cycled down the hill to the park - or we would have got to the park, had James not had to stop to fix his chain, which had come off, but we were nearly there by then.  As James had to do a bit of bike mechanics, I set off on my own for a lap of the park, and this was when I had my second major conquest of the day: I cycled all the way down The Long Hill (see previous posts) without using the brakes.  I only braked as I came up to the bend at the bottom, and I was about halfway round the lap before James caught me up.  This is particularly noteworthy because I have hitherto had a habit of relying very heavily on the brakes (particularly the back ones) when going downhill - it's a wonder I haven't set them on fire, to be honest.

The rest of our first lap passed without incident (other than James cursing about a badly-behaved dog owner on his way to catch me up), and we proceeded to a second.  Once again, I managed The Long Hill without the brakes.  However, James got so far ahead of me that he thought I must have "gone splat" as he put it, so he took a left turn along a pathway to go back to look for me.  I was actually not all that far behind so, not knowing what he was trying to do, I followed him and it was a little while before he realised that the reason he couldn't see me was that I was right behind him!

There is another, shorter but steeper hill on our route.  I haven't yet managed that without the brakes, but this is mainly because the surface of the road is very uneven in that part of the park, so as soon as you pick up any speed, you start to feel out of control.  That might be one of my next challenges.  Another challenge for me, which is coming in the next few days, hopefully, is a ride into work.  I think I'm ready to give it a shot now - it may be that I have to go across a few junctions on foot, and we'll definitely have to find a relatively quiet route (preferably one which avoids the canal as well - I nearly managed to fall into it when running a couple of years ago, so I don't think cycling along the tow path is coming soon).  I had a look on the good old Transport for London website the other day to see what "easy" cycling route they would come up with from our house to my office.  They failed at step one - the first instruction was "cycle along Pemberton Road to Wightman Road".  Pemberton Road is a one-way street that you can only enter from the Wightman Road end. D'oh.

A lot of people have, at various points in my life, laughed at me, been condescending towards me or sometimes been plain insulting when I've told them that I can't ride a bike.  However, now that I'm starting to ride on the roads, a lot of people are saying "rather you than me" or "I'd never ride in traffic".  So, I'm wondering why it is that people who don't cycle, don't cycle.  Are they scared?  Do they have better ways of travelling?  Are they lazy?  To try to find out, I've started a new poll on the bottom of this page - please let us all know why it is that you don't cycle.

Finally, as always, if you'd like to sponsor my latest conquest (that sounds soooo wrong), then please click the Justgiving donation link on the right-hand side of the page!