Cycling Blues :-(

I have not ridden a bike in about two months. I feel like a real minority and cycling feels very much a kin to smoking. Perhaps I should go to cyclists anonymous or start wearing cure-c-cure patches on my arm, if I can get them to stick that is.

I am miserable in my car though. So many pressures. Especially when I get stuck behind a cyclist and the idiot behind starts tail gating and gesticulating at me. Go on! go on!! Pass the bugger will you. Groups fight for the cycle-ways that I very much appreciate but so many cyclists will not use. In my car, on my bike, it upsets me.

I had to stop cycling to work. The building work on our building and the loss of my old changing area. Feeling too tired and fed up at the end of the day, I cannot face the ride home. I mentioned to my line manager, “how about putting some film on the tea room windows for privacy”. His reply is “why can’t you just do what everyone else does Mike?”, referring to changing in the smelly toilets. My reply referred to the fact that ‘everyone else’ drives in. I have been driving in ever since.

I am sure some people change in their office. As a minority I cannot expect special treatment and facilities so my manager has a point. We are very lucky to have the shower block, though the showers are open plan and I am frightened of going in there one day to a naked hairy surprise. (Cringe).

Then there is my angry neighbors who do not understand why the weirdo next door goes off on a Saturday or Sunday morning and stays out all day on his bike; ending up cycling along the Kennet and Avon Canal, on the Ridgeway or out in the Cotswolds. I heard them going on about it. On my very last long cycle day out I ended up the other side of Newbury on Ladle Hill, an ancient iron-age hill fort. At seventy miles I bit off more than I could chew that day and did not make it back to Grove until 11:30 at night. It was minus five. It was dark and I hurt. Maybe my neighbors have a point?

Perhaps only oddballs do these crazy things? I go for walks and have done a little bit of backpacking this year instead. I think that is acceptable behavior. I really don’t know. I will stick a few more cure-c-cures on my arm.

Then there is my usual cycling fashion crisis. I still cannot work out what to wear, though you will never find me in Lycra. Even if I did not have a pot belly (I like to cook, well, sort of) I would still not wear the stuff. Having spent a few hundred quid on clothes I still look daft. At least the charity shop will do well one day out of my folly. I need to learn the ways of ‘cycle chic’ and educate myself.

I do not think cycling to work is something you can ever sell to the masses, unless oil prices go up too high or all the hills disappear back into the Earth’s crust. I think it would make more sense to campaign for better buses.

I am tired of driving my car. It is stressful and I hate it. I would rather come into work on a bus. The bus stops just along from my house on Churchward and a short walk from the bus park on campus would do me no harm. Perhaps we need a new web site called HarBUS! Maybe getting more buses would be simpler than more cycle-ways that many cyclists refuse to use.

I do miss my bike. More cure-c-cures…