Upped the mileage lately. In the car this weekend my girlfriend reached over and squeezed my… thigh… and said “ooh, very toned – muscly!” followed by a little noise of approval. She then kept squeezing it on and off for the rest of the journey.

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

My 2nd hand Brompton has already paid for itself in saved bus fares. 🙂

A few hours spent riding my bike in the woods always straightens my head out.

I’m not the fastest or the most skilled of riders. In fact I get my arse kicked, more often than not, when riding with friends. BUT I’d never give it up, unless there was a *very* good medical reason,as the feeling of being “out there” is the most addictive of drugs.

Despite being old enough for a bus pass (which I christened at the weekend), I wanted to save £1800 a year by cycling into work all the way and back again instead of buying a rail season ticket, so after prevaricating by thinking of all the reasons not to, I manned the ferk up and bought a road bike.

After two months of crippling pain but persistant cycling, I now find it doesn’t hurt (well, perhaps just a little bit) and I am comfortably managing 40 miles a day, 200 miles a week up and down the incredibly dangerous A24.

One of the benefits of taking this much excercise is the discovery that I can lose weight AND eat the most humungous amounts of food at the same time…

*Sigh* Dreams of the day when I can live somewhere where I can ride to work *Sigh*

Karinofnine – Member
… it IS, my idea was to balance all those “cycling is so dangerous/ near miss” stories with hundreds of reports of cycle journeys that went well.

I mean, you hear about one fatality (which is very sad) but the news reader never says “And in today’s news, 1 million cyclists rode to work, they all had a really nice time, and no-one got knocked off their bike”.

Got you. Well, I’ve never been killed, and had hundreds of nice days out.

honourablegeorge: I’ve never been killed either! Coincidence 🙂

I got a bit wet yesterday but luckily I’m not made of sugar and anyway I soon dried out, I didn’t “catch [my] death of cold” either (something I hear often from the non-cyclists at work).

got fed up with relying on public transport…took nearly 90 minutes to get home last night (6 mile journey) including waiting 45 minutes in the cold waiting for the stupid bus…while the wife phones me to ask “where the hell are you?!”
cue the reason to fix the bike up
rode into work today…temp on phone said -3.
face felt like a sheet of ice, water in the camelbak tubes was colder than ice, toes started to curl, finger tips numb (endura strikes-absolutely useless!!), speedo stopped working…..
but boy did it feel good!!
my work colleagues think i’m bonkers!!

Rode the trails on Sunday in brilliant sunshine, enjoyed the sections we’d spent Saturday fixing, bumped into two people I knew, had a nice bacon roll at a cafe full of mountain bikers, ran into someone else who I went riding with ages ago and had a nice chat, and saw a kingfisher by the river on the way.

I watched the sun rise and rode into work chatting happily to my wife, yeah my hands were really cold and I should have used full lengths not 3/4’s but it gave me a reason to swear lots when I got to work, and I really like a good swear!

Yesterday: sunshine, blue skies, me & mah dawg. (bit too muddy, but hey ho)

Since I started mtbing many years ago I’ve seen and been to places I never would have if it weren’t for my bike .
I’ve also met some great people and have many happy memories, cycling is fantastic .

She then kept squeezing it on and off for the rest of the journey.

hope you weren’t driving 😯

I look forward to my commute because I do it by bike. I enjoy getting out into the hills even more.

The pain fills my void and the pleasure encourages my soul to soar..

And if I didn’t ride I would have the legs of an hirsute 11 year old girl with knobbly knees

m8 x 1.5

This week I have walked to work instead of cycling and although its still exercise, it not the same as cycling. When I ride I dont feel sluggish and dont feel guilty about stuff I eat and drink. One day I was struggling on the last bit of a climb and an old chap (walking down the hill) started clapping and said “go on!, almost there-keep going”. Made me feel great and I raced the last bit to work. 🙂