Commuting, Lycra and (sort of) Reg Harris' bike

I had this article published a few years ago for a cycling magazine, as I granted them one time rights and the magazine is now defunct I thought I would share it with you, some of it ended up as the 'Original Viking ' article I published a few weeks and some made it onto my regular commuter column on Veloballs.com but here is the complete article, complete with my original title rather the one the magazine gave it. The original magazine artwork is used, courtesy of Andy Arthur at Magnificent Octopus

Image (c) Andy Arthur

Commuting, Lycra and (sort of) Reg Harris' bike

For most of my working life I have worked just far enough away to render commuting by bike impractical. A few years ago my commute was a forty-five mile round trip and I had to use a busy dual carriageway. When my fuel bill reached over two hundred pounds per month I decided something had to be done. I gently suggested cycle commuting to my wife using back lanes. She was horrified at the thought, at least I think she was horrified after she had stopped laughing. She explained I was overweight, unfit, over forty and type two diabetic, Thank you darling, love you too.

Something had to be done though, the ever increasing fuel costs were sucking our funds dry, so I took the option of changing jobs to one eight miles away. After a few months I announced I was going to save even more more cash by cycling. This time I got shrugged shoulders and a Catherine Tate style "Whatever" from my wife. I don't know if was I imagining things but she seemed to spend the next few days checking through our life insurance policies.

I dragged my heavy cheap full suspension bicycle shaped object (B.S.O) out of the shed and blew up its tyres. Changed the inner tubes, blew up the tyres again and went round our estate on it. After about a mile I decided that if I tried to commute on the B.S.O I would put myself off the idea and resort to the comfort and warmth of the car.

I ordered an entry level road bike, a Viking Clubmaster, bought because of budget restrictions and partly due to nostalgic reasons as in the early eighties my Uncle had given me a 1950's 531 tubed Viking frame which he had bought twenty years before hoping to be the next Reg Harris. I built it up over the next few months with the aid of a Saturday job. I sold it in my late teens for thirty quid to help fund an early mountain bike. WHY OH WHY?...... sometimes I wake up at night in a cold sweat, screaming because this painful memory turns in to a nightmare, Okay I don't, but I do still bitterly regret it and if I could give my teenage self one piece of advice, it wouldn't be about the opposite sex, l still don't understand women, the advice would be DON'T SELL THAT BIKE! 

I digress though, back to the new Clubmaster, after buying some Lycra shorts (cue more laughter from Wife)  I set off on some short rides. My wife still thought it was a cunning plan to buy a new and not needed bike. She thought my plan to commute would fall by the wayside along with other fads and hobbies like learning to play the guitar and astronomy, but on one Sunday afternoon ride I rang the Mrs, "Where are you?" she asked, "Outside work," I replied, she was quite impressed. I hadn't thought it through, had I?. I now had to cycle home again straight away, when commuting I would get a ten hour rest period, the combined ride that day though was five times my previous longest ride in the last twenty years.

The next day setting off over an hour before my allotted start time, I cycled to work. I was sweaty and very out of breath when I arrived but elated, I had got to work and hadn't spent a penny on petrol. Soon I was cycling most days and the weight started to come off. I am now a thirty-two inch waist, down from a thirty-eight.

When I arrive at work I always text my wife to tell her I have arrived safely. One day I got a phone call from her asking if I was okay as I hadn't texted her. I assured her I had sent a message and checked my phone only to discover I had somehow managed to text my Boss by mistake (who worked at another site), I got a text back from him saying "luv u 2 xxx" I rang him to explain, and he was actually quite impressed about my cycling.

Six years on and my wardrobe seems to contain more Lycra than normal clothes and I sometimes get "I'm not going out with you in that," from my wife when I absent-mindedly try to don a Lycra long sleeved cycling top to go down the pub in because its more comfortable than a normal shirt.

I won't say its all been 'a cycle in the park' though and while I risk turning this into an anti-car rant, I have had my share of near misses. A large brand new car nearly took me out on an island once, missing me by literally inches as I was cycling past his junction, I shouted a few polite words, inviting him to look more carefully, a minute or so later he pulled along side me and wound his window down. "Bring it on", I thought, but he apologised and said it had scared him as much as it had me. In all due respect mate, I really don't think it had.  And obviously there were the inevitable clipless moments when I changed to cleated shoes and pedals.   

As a self confessed Mamil or Born-again cyclist, I seem to spend a lot of time defending the cyclist's corner by explaining to friends and relatives that the people who ride on the pavement with no lights ARE NOT cyclists, they are P.O.B's (people on bikes) a totally different species. A true cyclist wouldn't dream of doing either.

Through commuting by bike I managed to save some of the fuel money into a big tin and in time I had saved enough money to fund a Carbon fibre Giant  Propel, for me a real dream machine. far more expensive than any of its two wheeled predecessors (and dearer than some of its four wheeled ones as well) The Viking has now been passed on to a friend who needed transport.

My wife (who doesn't drive) has sold her heavy town bike and bought a lovely 1980's dropped frame ladies 'racer' and we often set off on cycling jaunts together when our little boy is at his grandparent's house. This time on our bikes really seems to bring us closer together than we ever seem to achieve bumbling around our house or driving somewhere in the car.

Just a couple of final points to finish off this rambling memoir, when I was in my late teens I learnt to drive and did the 'car thing' to be cool. Now twenty-five odd years later my friends think I'm cool doing the 'bike thing' again (last year I clocked up three thousand miles) and they wish they could do it as well, to which I ask "and you can't, why exactly?" and now days if I take the car to work I get accused of wasting fuel by my wife. No pleasing some people.