September: I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride my bike.

 

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m on duty. You see, I have to be an educational force and law enforcer too. Each week I do three duties: before, during and after school. In the playing field of war, I stand sentry, scope out potential trouble, call for back up if kids go over the top. It’s me against a battalion of hormones – somehow peace usually reigns. Today, my detail is to watch at the turning circle, ensuring students leave in an orderly fashion. Given we have a mass of students walking out and a cavalcade of buses coming in, cyclists must walk their bikes off the premises. Under no circumstances must they ride them- this is for their own safety. My job is to ensure this. I get the rule, but I don’t like it. Because for me, bikes represent freedom; I don’t want to get in the way of that.

Films are responsible for this association. Remember Elliott in E.T.? It was as though he pedaled up to the moon. What about Paul Newman and Katherine Ross in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid? As though a horse, Ross sits side saddle, Newman behind; Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head scores the galloping laughter. And Wadjda: the titular longs for a bike in repressive Saudi Arabia. Her smiles when she gets it is a symbol for a better future.



So when I see a child morph from student to stuntman, leaning back, putting their bike on one wheel, I want to applaud, not deny. How are they not scared? Where did they get the courage to do such a thing? Don’t they worry about falling? They, of course, don’t because they aren’t self-conscious like me. They don’t consider consequences when the reward of liberation is so present.

I’m not like this on a bike. I feel uneasy, unsteady unsafe. I can ride a bike; however, I feel like it’s riding me. I don’t think I’ve always felt this way, but my poor memory means I can’t remember a time when I didn’t.

I know that as a child we used to go on family bike rides in Cassiobury Park. My dad out front, my brother next and my mum and me trailing. I think back then I was fine on a bike. However, I do remember one occasion when I went head over heels for a bed of nettles. It was a painful romance.  I didn’t cycle during my teenage years; I think because I would have been quite nervous and also because my dad would have worried. (The same safety-conscious man that would take us and his handbrake motor racing, delivering donuts to the end of the street.)

When I turned thirty Harriet booked for us to go to Rome. I haven’t been on a bike in nearly twenty years at this point, consequently, I feel nervous. I go to my mum and dad’s house and attempt to take dad’s bike out for a ride. I struggle to get on and stay on. So under the cover of darkness, my dad attempts to re-teach his 30-year-old-son how to ride a bike. He gives me a push start and shouts ‘pedal, pedal, pedal!’ I pedal and I pedal. I stay on, but only just. This training is enough to get me through the wide park in Rome; in turn, this makes Harriet over-estimate my abilities.

Dad giving me a push start.


****************************************************************************

“If we’re going through San Francisco on our honeymoon, let’s cycle across Golden Gate Bridge.”

An image of my body being dredged from the water comes into view. However, I block this out and reply, ‘Yes, that sounds great.’

It wasn’t great.

What was supposed to be a leisurely cycle across America’s most iconic bridge had all the tension of Line of Duty. Earlier in the day, we went to pick up our electric bikes that we’d booked from the cycle hire shop: we never got these because in the trial ride I was deemed unsafe to have so much power between my legs. I’d never felt less manly. The ride out to the bridge across cycle paths was fine, but all the human and cycle traffic on the bridge made my palms sweat and stomach churn. I’m fine when I’m going; it’s the slowing and stopping that I struggle with. I never really felt in control, so instead of savouring this incredible moment, I looked forward to a time when we’d be back on two feet again.

This is why my first challenge is cycling. I want to feel confident on a bike again. I don’t have huge ambitions to do London-Brighton or going between the three peaks; I just want to feel comfortable. I want to know that in a few years’ time when my little boy comes to ride that my wife won’t have to worry about two people falling off; that I’ll be able to focus on his safety rather than mine.

So over the next month I’ll be riding regularly to get to a point where I feel like a kid with a bike: free and joyous. I’ve taken my dad’s old bike to be serviced to give me some extra motivation. I’ll turn the pedals he once turned. I'll smile his wide smile. “Pedal, pedal, pedal”- I’ll hear his echo as I hurtle towards the great fantastic.

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