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I Love Bicycling

I Love Bicycling is a website that is geared towards cycling for beginners with road cycling tips, training articles, nutrition tips, weight loss, how to’s and bike repair articles.

Get on Your Bike!

December 22, 2014 by Lee Agur

In the Beginning. . . .

Get on your bikeThey say that “Necessity is the mother of invention” (although that’s not quite how ‘the Chef’ in “Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels” described it. . . . . ) however, I digress.

I had been unemployed for a year after completing a diploma in visual arts & finally scored a job at Brisbane airport, which required working the most diabolical shift-hours I have ever known. It also required travelling 25klms each way, which is a neat trick when you don’t own a car. My art teacher, Dave, an avid cyclist, not only told me to “ride a bike” but very kindly loaned me his mountain bike in order to do so.

I hadn’t ridden a bike for something like 20 years, so it was with equal parts enthusiasm & trepidation that I set off for a ‘test-run’. That first ride to the airport took me an hour and a quarter: I wondered if I might die & was any job worth it. From zero kilometres for 20 years to 250klms per week.  It made me hurt in places & in ways I had never imagined !  When the people I worked with found out I was riding a bike to & from the airport, at all hours of the day and night, they not only dubbed me ‘Bicycle-Bob’, but laughed & declared I would not last a month. But I persevered.

Three months later, Dave got his mountain-bike back & I upgraded to a flat-bar road bike. Which I thought was some kind of wonderful, that’s a fact. I was, undeniably, thoroughly enjoying myself & not just because I had an income. I was surprisingly fit & simply loving riding empty roads & bike-paths at 2 & 3 o’clock in the morning (or not so empty roads at midday: stupid bloody shiftwork !) As an aside, my personal track-record on the Boondal Wetlands bike-path is 16 spider-webs in the face in one trip; a ‘delight’ you simply cannot experience in a car.

After another few months, Dave introduced me to clip-in shoes. He did warn me that I would hate him for it, (for not having told me about them sooner) & he was right.The difference it made was quite remarkable: not only do you not LOSE any power on the up-stroke, you GAIN it ! And, just for good measure, once you are familiar with it, you can isolate different muscle-groups so that when the ‘up-stroke muscles’ are working, the ‘down-stroke muscles’ can have a rest & flush a bit of lactic acid away. The upshot of which is, you can ride stronger for longer.

And then there’s the DOWN-side: for all this joy, there IS  a corresponding bummer: guaranteed. You WILL fail to UN-clip: almost inevitably in front of lots of people. You may wish the Earth would swallow you whole: you may believe embarrassment to be terminal: neither of these things will happen. You will hurt yourself to a greater or lesser degree: maybe a bruise & a bit of bark off: maybe a dislocated shoulder: maybe you’ll get a grass-stain on your shirt. That’s in the lap of the gods. Do not be deterred by this: it shouldn’t happen more than a couple of times.

Six months later: with a respectable tax-refund to splurge & insane urges to also ride on my days off, I lashed out & bought a carbon-fibre road race bike. OMG ! Now it was Dave’s turn to hate me: ah, jealousy. . . . . .

At this point, what had started as a poor-man’s-means-to-commute had evolved into something of an obsession & I found myself riding 40klms to Dave’s place so we could then ‘go for a ride’, generally over Mt. Mee & wherever else took our fancy. Several ales after which I would curse his name as I left his place to ride home. Can’t recommend that, to be honest. I mean, riding a bike half-cut is just plain stupid & dangerous. It also HURTS SO MUCH, having ridden 80 or 100klms, then sitting for an hour or so (& consequently seizing-up) before getting back on the bike for the ride home. Just DON’T do that: OK ?

I have ridden through floods & baking heat; I have crashed; I have sworn at punctures &   revelled in miraculous views. I have made friends who share the Joy of good health & positive energy ( & the occasional beer. ) I have scared the shirt off me (to put it politely) whilst screaming downhill at 80kph: I have busted-a-gut to get my butt UP those very same hills. Two years after getting on my bike for the first time in 20 years, I was doing the commute in 35mins. Quite simply; it is THE best addiction one could possibly have. So, if you are even idly contemplating the possibility of taking up cycling, there is only one thing for me to say: get on your bike!

Filed Under: Funny Stories

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