Here is one for you, last time I cycled (properly!) was something like 3 years ago. I used to cycle a lot, then I learnt to drive, then I actually drove (and had to endure the Chichester to Portsmouth daily commute by train which has got worse over time and no longer a train at the moment – its a bus some of the time!), then I used my bike and car together, then someone as mentioned earlier somehow broke my bike! Then brought another car, then another car, then another… it goes on until I ended up with more cars than I could think what to do with.
Today I had no real choice, Mr Charles Horton’s company, GoVia Thameslink Railway or (New) Southern Railway for us that don’t live on the Thameslink patch have absolutely positively and utterly no service. I know the parties to blame but I’m not going to publicly say in this blog! I orignally feared for the worse as I dragged out the white rusty monster and looked for the lock, detached everything that wasn’t necessary and started making my way, with nerves… oh fuck it, shall I just take the sodding car? I resisted and resisted, even called my dad to see if he thought it was going to rain, he confirmed not. So I mounted the saddle and pedalled into traffic then lost control of my rear brakes!
After about 10 yards, my nerves were gone and thought, “lets see how my 30 and a bit legs can propell me” as I headed up towards “New Fishbourne AHB” level crossing. Seems like I still can go quite fast, in fact keeping up with traffic even though I was on a race bike, if the computer was right and the bikes computer calibrated correctly, I managed in my unfit state to attain 23.28mph. BUT with a problem, now I stunk of sweat and visiting my local Tescos only attained a lot of odd looks and embarrassment of sweat. At least its a way of loosing weight. Today’s cycle was only 2.2 miles, but 2.2 miles is better than zero. I think I got a new years resolution next year, keep track of my bike mileage and attain 600+ miles plus throughout the entire year. It sounds a lot, but it isn’t if you work it out by the day. About a mile and 3/4 by quick maths. Here to Chichester is nearly 2 depending on the route and this at least should help me loose a lot of weight and reduce my car dependency.