Since 2006

A lot of stuff has happened over the last eight years. On a personal level, we bought a flat, lived in it for five years, sold it, and bought a house (which we’ve lived in for more than a year). We got married. My brother and his fiancé had a baby. Four of my best friends and their wives had babies. More colleagues than I can count have had babies. Another friend got married twice and divorced twice. I took up cycling, bought three different bicycles, and pedalled more than 7,500 miles. I got three new jobs, and start a fourth new job in April.

Les personally, some significant cultural figures died: Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussain, Michael Jackson, Jimmy Saville, Nelson Mandela, and Margaret Thatcher, amongst others. And the News of the World. And Oasis. And Woolworth’s. And smoking in public buildings.

Globally, culturally, technologically, and politically the world has changed beyond measure: we’ve endured a global recession inspired by dodgy banking and insane housing markets; the Arab Spring; the rise of social networking, mobile internet, smartphones, high-speed broadband, and on-demand TV – in 2006 YouTube and Facebook were tiny start-ups and Twitter didn’t exist – have changed the way we communicate with each other and consume media in absolutely unimaginable ways; 3D films made a comeback; Man City won the premier league; Arsenal didn’t; we didn’t elect a coalition government but got one anyway; America elected a black president who prefers assassinating people to starting wars…

I could go on.

The point is that things are different. I’m not the same; neither is the world. Nothing is. Existence is a process, not a static state.

A year in the saddle

This time last year I’d ridden a total of 15 miles, which was a New Year’s Day figure-of-8 through Rockbeare and Broadclyst that took about an hour. I rode again on January 5th; a regular 15-mile loop down to Lympstone, over Woodbury Common, and back into Exeter down the Sidmouth road.

And then I stopped.

I rode once in February – a variation on the Woodbury Common loop on the 16th – and then I didn’t ride again until April 20th.

In truth, I hadn’t really ridden since late October 2012. That month I rode three times, totaling 64 miles. The September I’d ridden three times, totaling 110 miles. August was five rides and 140 miles. I’d ridden 250 miles in July, 165 in June, 220 in May, 151 in April, 180 in March, 100 in February, 240 in January. What happened?

Weather happened; it rained in 2012 like I’ve never known it rain before; twice we took a week’s holiday to ‘staycation’ – looking for houses, tending our allotment and bike riding was all that was on our itinerary – and each time it rained all day, every day. Our vegetables died, the allotment flooded. There are only so many sodden bike rides one can stomach.

I’d ridden more than 3,000 miles in 2011, having got a bike for the first time since I was a student the year before. A simple, solid commuter, that I took to hammering down cyclepaths with in the evenings, which gave way to a cyclocross bike a year later, which I put skinny tyres on, made as aggressive as I could, would take over Dartmoor whenever I had the chance, rode 100 miles on in a day with Peter one (the only) hot July day, just to see if we could.

But in November 2012 we moved house – to a house, a proper, sensible house, from our awesome, cool flat in the desirable part of town – and the bike went in the shed and didn’t come out again. The move was expensive and protracted and stressful, and I couldn’t face cycling for a while; things needed decorating (most of them still do), and a year of rain with barely any summer had taken its toll. Once you fall out of a habit, it’s hard to get back into it.

I rode 80 miles last April, 70 in May, and 23 in June, despite the weather being better. Cycling didn’t seem like something I did anymore.

But then something changed. On a prosaic level, I took my bike to get a service, and it had a new bottom bracket and headset fitted, and became a pleasure to ride again. I cycled 300 miles in July, 300 in August, bought a new bike (a proper road bike) on September the 1st and rode 300 miles that month, too. The light faded and I managed 240 in October, 180 in November.

In the last 28 days I’ve ridden 344 miles. 225 or so of those have been since Christmas Eve. I’ve already done as many for this January as I did in January, February, and March or last year added together. I intend to keep it up.

What else changed? I bought myself some cycling indulgences to encourage me – a new helmet, new shoes, a new jersey, prescription sunglasses, a softshell – and though none of these on their own were amazing revelations (bar perhaps the sunglasses; how have I managed 20+ years without?), added together (with the bottom bracket and headset too) and considering the glorious summer we enjoyed, the aggregation of marginal gains made a massive difference to how it felt to ride.

It reminds me a bit of how I felt about music through 2008 and into the start of 2009; I was tired, alienated, bored, but a new pair of speakers in spring 2009 reinvigorated all the music I already owned and also made me want to get out and hear new music, too. A new bike, new shoes, new jersey, etcetera have made me want to ride all the old routes I used to ride, and also made me want to turn down different, newer roads, too. And I’ve got a nice network of people to ride with now, much like I have a couple of record clubs to keep my listening fresh, too.

I’ve nothing profound to conclude here, no insight to offer or epithet to close with. I want to ride 3,000 miles again this year, ride some more new roads, take the bike to different parts of the country, and just keep riding, and enjoying it. A year ago I’d have hated the 28 damp miles I did this morning (and being bitten by a dog while doing them!) but today I loved them. It’s the bit before you start riding that’s awkward, and those first two miles. Once I’m pedaling and beyond the city, I’m free. And once the days are longer…