The Ginger Bearded Cyclist

The first bike I can remember riding often was purchased from Makro when I was in my early teenage years. This was a full suspension mountain bike in a fetching silver colour and manufactured by Apollo. I only used it infrequently until becoming a student at the University of York. It was here where I convinced myself it was too far to walk between campus and my student house. Cycling soon became

the answer, even though I was unfit at the time. As time went on, the rides became easier and I started to ride on the cycle paths alongside the River Ouse towards Bishopthorpe in my free time. There is an excellent off road cycle path here called the York Solar System Trail where you pass the Sun and all the planets of the Solar System (and Pluto). After lots of failed attempts where I turned back early, I managed to ride both there and back (around 15 miles) in my final year of University, and a couple of weeks later managed to ride from University to my parent’s house in Goole.. Whilst the cycling bug had somewhat enticed me, I rode nothing of note after that point until a combination of factors brought me back to it. I was aware that two of my work colleagues were members of a cycling club in Halifax, and at around the same time my friend had just rode the Pontefract Cyclothon on his mountain bike. This really piqued my interest, and I ultimately went on to purchase a B-twin Triban 3 road bike from Decathlon in 2013. Over a couple of months, I found myself able to complete increasingly longer rides as I built up my fitness. Unfortunately, in July 2013 I crashed and broke my collarbone. After six weeks off the bike, I completed two small rides totalling 41 miles. Only a week after that, I entered the ‘Leeds 100’ mile sportive with all three of the chums mentioned previously. This was by far the hardest challenge I had ever done up to that point – the furthest I had ridden in one go was 38 miles, and that was prior to my crash over two months earlier. I can remember feeling exhausted and a bit ill – especially at the last checkpoint. At that point, there were still over 20 miles to go. Not long after that, the driver of the sweeper car informed me that I had ran out of time. I was easy to spot and keeps tabs on, as I was wearing a Heinz Baked Beans cycling jersey. My friends all selflessly stayed with me and spurred me on to the end. When I finally made it to the finish, everything was packed up but I didn’t really care; I had somehow made it around the course.. I managed to find somebody who could give me a medal and vowed never to cycle that far again. The existence of this blog proves that didn’t happen.