Thursday, February 09, 2006

On Yer Bike

I've now been without a car for a month. That's me, the man who can't normally last 24 hours without the smell of petroleum in his nostrils. Unbelievably, I'm not missing it. Well not too much and certainly nowhere near as much as I thought I would.

This must be due to the bike which still allows me to be mobile. So I surmise it's not the car but mobility and the chance to travel that is my "driving" force. Typical Sagittarian.

The benefits are;

  • I've not yet had a cold. No doubt due to the fact that cold germs perish when icy winds are chilling your body to sub-zero temperatures as you glide along.


  • I'm definitely fitter, measurable both by how long I can cycle without requiring pure oxygen and also that I now use a higher gear, or is it lower?, whichever means your fitter anyway.


  • Having lost about 3 stone in the last year it is helping tone up a few of the more flabbier places!


  • Being able to get from home into Ealing Broadway, about 2 miles, quicker than I ever could in the car. And you don't have to hunt high and low for a parking space.


  • The downsides are;

  • Reaching 11 o'clock at night and then having to drag your sorry ass onto the bike to pedal home.


  • Thigh muscles that sometime feel tighter than Yehudi Menhuins violin strings.


  • Saddles. They are not, even as a gel variety, anything like an armchair.


  • The cost of batteries to keep the lights working.


I have every intention of trying to keep the cycling up even when I do have the car back, although I suspect the journeys that require a late evening return will be the first to go. And then probably followed by the rest. However, if I am going to attempt the mad bike ride of my previous post, I'm going to have to keep cycling just as training.

Without tempting fate, I have so far managed not to come a cropper at any point, but I can't imagine that will last. So if any of you are travelling in West London and see some poor out of breath idiot wobbling like a jelly on an orange bike either give me a wide berth or offer me a lift!!!

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