Getting in the saddle

The mad bastards

It’s an usual taboo, but one I must confess to.  I have managed to get in to my 30s without being able to ride a bike.

Apart from being toilet trained and learning how to walk, there are few expectations of an adult more universal than being able to ride a bike.  Even if you don’t have one it is expected that you could ride one if you choose.  After all, “you never forget”.

Of course, I did try to learn, and the important thing is that I was able to swerve to avoid the car, but my muscle memory involved in braking wasn’t quite there yet, so I hit a curb and flew over the handle bars.  One broken arm later and I gave up the idea of ever learning to ride a bike.

This is a concept I have been perfectly happy with, especially when in my twenties I learnt how to drive.  The car is a wonderful concept.  Unlike a bike it has a roof, a radio, and heating.  Added to that it is also entirely impossible to fall off the bloody thing!

However, times change.  I started a relationship at the end of last year with a wonderful woman who decides she wants the best for me.  Turns out, that includes getting me to ride a bike.  Despite my protestations, she was determined that she would teach me.

She had me riding up and down her street as she held my seat for balance.  An image immediately recognisable to all parents, made absurd by the fact that I’m not a child but instead a 6 foot tall man, with a bald head and a beard.  To add to the absurdity, I was learning using her bike, which is only a 16 inch frame.  The only way I could look more physically comical would have been by wearing clown shoes.  In this scenario she looked more like my carer than my girlfriend.

As it should be

And yet, with plenty of patience, she manages to get me cycling.  The thought of cycling on roads still worries me though.  Parks and pathways near her home have only the danger of social embarrassment.  Roads, with 4x4s, BMWs, and other assorted wankers present the very real threat of death!

My fear is in no way abated knowing that the only thing I have to warn drivers and other road users of any impending peril on my behalf is a tiny bell.  The sound it emits is less likely to make people think danger is afoot than to think their microwave meal is ready.  I’m thinking my head is about to be split open like a brick dropped on a cantaloupe melon from 20 foot, whilst around me people think their chicken Korma is ready.

But Sally finds a solution to this, by booking us in to the Manchester Sky Ride.  At this event certain road are closed off to provide a 12.5km route through the city centre just for cyclists.  Free from the worry of cars I am able to cycle along at my own pace with Sally alongside me through the city centre itself.

Passing The Etihad stadium (AKA the council house), Piccadilly station and the Town Hall I gain in confidence monumentally and start to really feel comfortable with my new bike, purchased merely days before the event.  It was a signal of commitment on my behalf to buy this bike, and one that has been justified because now, with a huge dollop of help from my better half, I now feel that I can say yes, of course I can ride a bike.

Ready for the Sky Ride