So I got the bike, it was time to start cycling.
As I said, I started out gently with a six mile ride through Bushy Park. The sun was out, I was out, the deer were looking at me with ill-disguised disgust as I sweated my way through their home.
The first ride was fine, so I extended it a bit more, riding up through Walton then back round over Walton bridge and through Lower Sunbury and back through Bushy Park and Kingston.
Something was happening, at least I think something was happening, Over those first few rides, my breath was better, my distances longer, my recovery better. Still sweated like a pig mind.
So, I can do this I thought…
Then I met other cyclists.
Like all humans, cyclists are random, chaotic beasts prone to braking suddenly or veering out in front of you as they cope with hazards ahead of them or just because.
Some are slow, some are ridiculously quick, some jump lights others have a cup of tea and chat as they wait for the lights to change – OK, I made that one up but some do take an extraordinary length of time to get going.
Did I say others were slow?
No-one warned me that after 25 years of non-cycling how damn slow I was going to be.
I thought I was going fast until the first of many roadies bombed past me up the Portsmouth Road into Kingston.
Swish, swish, swish as they zoom past, inches from your elbow, leaving you no space at all.
You get your energy on, yahoo, let’s go. You push your pedals, heart picks up the beat, you see them getting nearer and nearer, you can do this. Push, push, push. Look! You’re catching them up, you can do this…
Oh, it’s a red light.
They pose in their expensive lycra, sitting on their 1kg carbon-fibred, racing frames, sipping out of their ergonomically designed bidons (water bottles to you and me), chewing their sports snack, without a care in the world.
Me?
Heart a-pumping, more sweat than the London Marathon, slumped over the handlebars, looking straight ahead in the hope that I am not noticed…
It is quite weird having someone swishing past you at first and you quickly learn to carry out life-savers – that look around behind you to see what’s going on – for other cyclists as well as cars after all, there’s only so much swearing you can put up with.
And there’s a hazard that no-one had warned me about.
Spit.
There you are, minding your own business, happy with the pace you are going when a huge globule of phlegm comes flying its way towards your face, if you’re lucky it fades and drops or you duck and avoid to. If you’re unlucky…
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