The Cycle of Cycling

Today, I want to tell you about a friend of mine.  She's just a few years older than me and she's vivacious, kind, funny, a talented singer and mother and she enjoys life to the full.  She's what I would call a "normal person" (or, rather, above average!) The only thing is, just like me a year ago, she can't ride a bike.  Just like me, she never learnt how as a child and spent a long time wishing she could but never quite found the time, energy or necessity to do it.  She's been talking about it for a while, so I was incredibly pleased to hear the other day that she has signed up for her very first cycling lesson.

On Monday morning at 9 o'clock (far too early, if you ask me), my lovely friend will arrive at a local park to participate in a class which will hopefully help her to find the same freedom that I have found through cycling.  The even better news is that, since she announced that she's going to take this class, one of her friends has said that she will also do the cycling course that she signed up for but never quite got around to doing - yet another lady taking up cycling.

My friend (she's going to remain nameless for the moment because she doesn't know I'm writing this, but I may change it later!) is probably going to be quite a different cyclist from me.  Whereas I have a Dahon hybrid full size folding bike (quite a sporty number, really), I think she will be going for something a little more elegant, like a Pashley.  I also have a feeling that she's not going to be racing around London in fluorescent Lycra, but I could be wrong.  However, the point is that she's doing it - she's just getting on with it.  It's too easy for us all to just sit and dream and ponder and procrastinate and never quite do all the things we want to.

Every now and then (especially now, in fact, given that I have this time last year to compare to) I do a bit of a reality check.  I was cycling home last night, on my own (no James to hold my hand - figuratively, of course; literally would be dangerous) in the dark, when it struck me how far I had come in just a year - and even that isn't really a full year, given my various set-backs.  Even after I had taken the plunge and got on my bike for the first time, I would not have believed you if you'd told me that in a year I would be cycling to work every other day, going on long bike rides to different towns at weekends and preparing to cycle to Brighton in the dark.  I'm not showboating here, I'm not trying to say "I'm so wonderful because I've achieved all this stuff in cycling in a year."  I'm just saying that a normal person like me can do it - it's not fun all the time and it's not easy all the time - it requires some perseverance and a little pain, but boy is it worth it in the end.

So, I wish my friend the best of luck in her endeavours, and I hope that she will also shout about how she gets on in the hope that some other people who never learnt to ride a bike will be inspired to join the ranks of the cyclists before too long.  We will conquer the world!