My cycling history....

While I was writing my first two posts I began to think back to my first experiences of cycling and how I got to where I am now. Like most people I learned to ride a bike as a kid, going through the usual motions and pottering about on the cul-de-sac outside my house or in the local park. My home town is fairly hilly, with a busy coast road, and our house was situated higher on a hill than is convenient for cycling. Nevertheless I duly passed my Cycling Proficiency test at Primary School at the age of 11 and was considered ‘safe’ on the road! My bike at the time was a Raleigh racing bike with dropped handlebars which may explain some of my reluctance to cycle more at that age. I must admit that I now prefer a more upright position where you can watch the world go by a bit more and don’t have your eye simply focused on the road ahead of you, but this was the fashion at the time, and as my Grandmother used to say ‘You’d be better off dead than out of fashion! ‘….albeit with a sarcastic edge!  Generally opportunities for cycling when I was really young were limited for these two reasons, but this all changed when my Mum and Dad took us (me and my sister Jennifer) to Denmark for a farm stay holiday in the summer of 1983.

I can’t remember really but I think this was the first holiday abroad where we took our bikes with us. We stayed on a farm for two weeks and explored the relatively flat central island of Funen, in particular around Faborg and Svendborg. Quiet roads, beautiful beaches and a scorching summer meant we were out exploring on two wheels nearly every day. The next year we went to Holland and stayed in a holiday chalet just outside Harderwijk. Again the bikes went with us on the back of the car, and it was then I suppose that we discovered just how family and cyclist friendly Holland is. Absolutely everyone cycles, from the youngest kids to the oldest wee ladies and men, and it feels that the bike certainly rules when it comes to priority as everyone is so considerate. The best thing about Holland though is the fact that, for the majority of the time, cyclists have their own separate routes, sometimes running beside the road, but often taking you through woods and fields for a break from the traffic. As kids my sister and I loved the fact that the cycle routes had their own signs, junctions and even traffic lights, which put our own UK cycle tracks to shame even back then. Cycling in Holland gave my sister and I a sense of freedom on our bikes, as my parents felt we were safe to go off on our own a bit more.

The next year my Dad decided to buy a tent. He and my Mum had camped a lot when they were first married, and camping was my first holiday, being taken to Spain when I was under a year old. Despite this prior experience, the decision was met with groans from Jen and I, as we thought camping a bit scruffy and cheap – we obviously thought we were too good for camping, but how wrong we were and we look back on this and laugh. Over the next six years we holidayed all through Europe, but generally in France, Germany and Austria, and spent three glorious weeks each summer under canvas. There was usually a rough plan as to where we were going, but this was liable to change depending on the weather, and what we wanted to see – one of the joys of independent travel. We took everything with us including the kitchen sink, but wouldn’t have left the bikes behind for anything as these had become a real part of our holiday experience.

My Mum and Dad continued to take their bikes with them long after my sister and I had reluctantly stopped accompanying them during the summer. After travelling through Eastern Europe, which was now opening up to tourists, they stumbled upon a campsite in Sondel, near the town of Lemmer in Friesland, Holland stopping there as a one nighter only. Little did they know that they would spend the next eight years returning to the same site every year and continuing the love affair with Dutch cycle paths they started all those years ago. My Dad loved this place so much (my sister and I returned there again for a couple of holidays with our parents who thought they had got rid of us!), that some of his ashes were scattered there when we went back six months after his death in 2005. One day soon I’ll go back with my Mum, before she gets too old to be on a bike (she’s only 66 so there’s time), and we’ll cycle through the Sondel woods and remember him. If truth be told we’ll probably have a wee cry too….

Fast forward a good few years and we start to see a gap in the cycling history. I had a bike as a student, but after a couple of bad experiences with theft, decided owning one was too much hassle. A few years ago, my firm took advantage of the Cycle to Work Scheme, a UK tax free incentive to owning a bike for employees who cycle to work. Admittedly I’ve rarely used my bike for this purpose, but then I only live 15 minutes walk from my office and fully intend to do more cycling when I move further out of town. Eventually I decided on a Specialized Globe Comp ladies touring bike, as I wanted something that could cover a lot of bases. Not a bike for really rough surfaces (though it has coped with some fairly rocky forest tracks), but one that would stand up to a wee bit of wear and tear. It was a reasonably expensive purchase for the purpose it was bought for (approx £600) but worth the money I think at the time. Al and I began including the bikes on our holidays, and they’ve become a more or less integral part of the long list of kit we usually pack in the car. For the last few years we’ve cycled a bit in and around Glasgow, only really upping the ante recently when my feet became too sore to walk any real distance. My next post will go onto a bit more detail about the places we’ve been with our two wheeled friends…..