One thing or a mother: A guide on how not to cycle in lockdown

Fortuitously, I had bought a bicycle from eBay just before lockdown started.
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Maybe I have some kind of Mystic Meg-like sixth sense for incoming pandemics that will soon make finding a bike on sale more likely than finding a toddler who doesn’t like Peppa Pig.

(Remember Mystic Meg? All rising intonation and vague promises of a man with a car winning the big jackpot that week. Amazing Saturday night telly!)

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Or maybe I really did just get lucky and buy one at the perfect time to partake in the number-one early lockdown craze of cycling round the neighbourhood.

Katherine has decided cycling by the seaside is a lovely way to get around. Shutterstock image. SUS-201021-170223001Katherine has decided cycling by the seaside is a lovely way to get around. Shutterstock image. SUS-201021-170223001
Katherine has decided cycling by the seaside is a lovely way to get around. Shutterstock image. SUS-201021-170223001

Having not owned a bike since I was a teenager, it was a real novelty to be on two wheels again. And the near absence of any traffic meant my daughter could have her first taste of cycling on the road.

As rules relaxed a little, and as I was less like Bambi on a bike, I started to venture further afield. I started cycling down to meet friends for socially distanced summer evening gatherings on Goring Greensward.

Key features were a picnic blanket, one ready-mixed can of gin and tonic and enough peanut M&Ms to put even the most relaxed dentist on edge. (And I know we had lots of readers email in about the rubbish on the greensward during this time, but I can assure everybody I always took my rubbish home with me like the goody-two-shoes I’ve always been.)

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I loved that cycling had opened up a long-forgotten world of easy, cheap, informal outdoor get-togethers with friends. And cycling along and seeing people paddling in the sea and just generally enjoying the seaside was yet more heartening proof that we really do live on the glorious Worthing Riviera.

Katherine cycled to Upper Beeding at the weekend and was rewarded with pretty views like this. She's pleased to report her tyres were fully pumped up before the journey. SUS-201021-165949001Katherine cycled to Upper Beeding at the weekend and was rewarded with pretty views like this. She's pleased to report her tyres were fully pumped up before the journey. SUS-201021-165949001
Katherine cycled to Upper Beeding at the weekend and was rewarded with pretty views like this. She's pleased to report her tyres were fully pumped up before the journey. SUS-201021-165949001

Feeling like Worthing’s answer to Chris Froome thanks to now-regular use of my bike, I started to meet a friend for longer rides. I even tried the new cycle lanes on one trip, just to see what it felt like to have the entire lane of a busy A-road to myself. The answer was that I felt like the king of the road until I had to cycle over Broadwater Bridge, at which point I decided they were indeed the menace many readers had told us they were.

But there was just one tiny, niggling issue about cycling that I couldn’t shake. Why was it so much harder than it used to be when I was a kid?

I remember when I was about ten, I used to cycle from my home in Hove to almost Rottingdean and back on a bike with no gears with my dad. I don’t remember thinking it was hard at all.

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But now, pedalling along that same flat seafront road, even with 21 gears at my disposal, felt like I was riding up a mountain. I was exhausted and at times was going so slowly that my poor friend was almost cycling backwards in her bid to stay with me.

Katherine – Bradley Wiggins she is notKatherine – Bradley Wiggins she is not
Katherine – Bradley Wiggins she is not

I always thought I was pretty fit, and even through lockdown I’d kept exercising at home by doing virtual gym classes and the odd run.

I started to think that maybe I just had some strange late-onset inability to cycle effectively. And if nothing else, at least it was getting my heart rate up and giving me a really good workout.

But then, on one of our rides when we’d stopped for a break, my friend said: “Your tyres look a bit flat, do you want me to have a go at pumping them up?”

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh.

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It turns out it’s actually quite hard to cycle on two effectively flat tyres.

The journey home was a breeze, and I think my red-face had just about died down by the time we arrived back in Worthing.

So the moral of the story is this: cycling can really enrich your life. Just always make sure you have a bicycle pump.

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