It’s just like riding a bike, people often say. People who I can see are strangers to the wonders of matt lycra. Who don’t understand Presta vs Schrader and why knowing which you are is important. Who are oblivious to the snaking networks of connected shortcuts littering out urban landscapes (and our rural ones too).
But the thing is, they’re right. Even if they haven’t been on a bike in 20 years, they’re right. Getting back in the saddle after a rather embarrassing few months off is…well…just like getting back on a bike.
I can remember which way to flick the gear changes on the end of my odd looking but much loved drops. I can remember where the edges of the big wheel to small wheel cross overs are before the chain jumps. I can remember always to have my opposite leg at the top of the rotation when turning left or right so as not to bump into the mudguard. I can remember to switch down before decelerating and back up again after bridges, my dog dodging foo is strong and my people dodging skills are even stronger.
What I can’t remember, it transpires is how to work my works on both types of valves pump leading to my standing by the side of the canal towpath as people passed me by in oblivion as I utterly forgot how to work not only the pump but the valves on the tyres as well.
Not my finest hour. So instead I nursed the poor limping Cross Check home distributing weight carefully so as not to let the rims hit the bumps.
But.
The sounds of the wind whistling in my ears, of moor hens splashing, of fish jumping in the stillness of the canal behind me, of birds circling and the colour of the sky in the distance over the Bowland Fells. The beauty of the brief silences in the lee of afternoon walkers from Blackburn, Rishton and Church. Inside nature instead of bubbled away from it, experiencing instead of just seeing it.
I’m a stone lighter, and oddly it makes a difference. I push and the bike just goes. I’m running in the same gears before I stopped. I can sprint up the little hills still but the biggest difference is my riding position. I am comfortable, finally, riding on the hoods. Not on the drops, that’s going to be another 2 stone or so, but for know I’ll settle for pulling on the hoods, head bobbing and feeling the acceleration that no one is generating but me.
I don’t much care how silly I look any more. My weight is going the right way – down. And the power in my legs is still there. And really, that’s all that matters to me right now.
Merry Xmas :O)
need now