Life goes on

Life goes on.

This picture was taken on May 2nd 2011. I was leaving to cycle over 4000 miles around the UK coast to raise awareness of mental health issues and to try to combat the stigma that still seems attached to all mental health problems. Since then things have changed beyond recognition. People are talking  to one another, exchanging their experiences in a way that I never dreamed of back in 2009 when I began my Riding2Recovery process.

To me now, it all seems such a long time ago. My life has improved beyond all imagination. I am working part-time and have recently become engaged to a wonderful woman. The work I am doing is the best work I have ever undertaken: I teach young children to cycle.

Most of my time is spent teaching these youngsters how to ride correctly on the roads around Devon, whether they are tiny lanes or the streets in towns and cities. It seemed to me to be the best possible way that I could help the widest audience of people to manage their own mental health, by giving them access to something that seems to help people relax and let go of  the stresses and strains of life. In short, to be mindful.

As a Bikeasbility instructor, you wont earn a great deal of money. You are self-employed for a start and that can bring its own worries with it if you are not careful. That said, you are then privileged  to be able to work with tiny people and see their faces when they first ride a bicycle. Or adults who missed out and now lack confidence in their own ability to ride. You get to work with young people, many of which don't even walk to school. When you ask what they think Bikeability is about they almost always talk about safety first, or the possibility of dying. How sad is that? Did you ever think about dying when you were young? No, me neither (until I got ill and that doesn't count).

Many of these young minds have already been poisoned into believing that riding a bicycle on the road will lead to imminent death, when the fact is that cycling is much more likely to prolong your life than to shorten it. We have to combat that negativity every step o the way, from making sure young people can cross roads safely to much more advanced riding on multi-lane roads, round-abouts and suchlike, in most cases by the end of year seven (11-12 years old). We also need to tackle parental attitudes that don't help, like driving short distances to drop children at schools, clogging p the roads around the area, instead of riding or walking to school and campaigning for better cycle/walking infrastructure along with public transport.

There are just two hours spent off road to teach and revisit Bikeability level 1. After that, it's out on the roads (quiet ones) to learn all about how to use them to your best advantage (and when not to). For many children this is real awakening, something they haven't really considered as possible. To ride a bike on the road is a huge undertaking and not one they have considered.

Unsurprisingly, once they have undertaken a few 'on-road' exercises they start to enjoy it. They ask questions like 'are we going for a ride,' and get all excited as they realise we will be riding to a location away from school to use the local infrastructure or road junctions. By the end of a level 2 course, most are ready to start exploring the roads, some with guidance from parents and carers and others independently.

By year seven, they can undertake a level 3 course, much more advanced riding on busier roads. Some are ready for that, other need to mature further first. And that's where we hit a problem. Secondary schools, with a few notable exceptions like West Exe in Exeter, don't play ball. They feel that time taken away from the classroom is detrimental to the childrens learning. But what about life skills, sustainable living, tackling obesity and getting children to see that time away from screens can be cool too?

These courses are free for the schools that sign up and in my humble opinion, all children should undertake all of the courses from Balancability to Bikeability level 3. Why? Because it potentially unlocks so much freedom, helps to create a healthier population, will increase demand for cycle infrastructure as more people feel they can cycle to school/work and make our streets a more pleasant and varied place once more by removing some of the power from those who drive everywhere.

I'm not suggesting for a minute that everybody should cycle around. Not everybody wants to. But everybody should have a chance to learn, shouldn't they? When I was young it was a right of passage to learn to ride a bike. I still remember the feelings of adventure as I set off as a seven year old with my sister and a bag of jam sandwiches to explore the area we were about to move to. Regardless of what screens and computers have given us, which is a huge amount, being outside, using your physical ability and resting your mind will perhaps have a greater and greater place in our lives as we rely on intellect more and more in our workplaces.

Cycling for health has perhaps never been more important as we face a world that simply can not cope with our demands to buy, consume and throw away goods at will. We have to change and we have to do that now. Cycling, and teaching it, is the small contribution that Bikeability instructors are making. No matter what you believe about cycling, better infrastructure will take more people away from cars, unclogging the roads a little, helping clear city pollution. It will help young people to be healthier and have longevity in their lives and along with that it will help reduce the burden on the NHS at a time when it is creaking under the strains put upon it by our lifestyles.

Cycle for health? Cycle for fun and the health comes free.

See you next time.

It's been many years and two websites since I last posted on this blog.  I've now cycled extensively around Britain and have taken my wheels to France. I've written three books and am ten years older. Most importantly, I'm no longer in a mental health crisis. A decade disappeared in that all consuming darkness. I fought and tried, battled and cried, struggled and almost got consumed before finally finding some release, peace and mindfulness. I feel as though I'm returning to my roots by writing here. Cycling for health is no longer an ambition to circumnavigate the coast of Britain. That is done. It's now a lifestyle. It isn't any longer a series of journeys to raise money for charity. It is me, and I am it. I am whole. Or at least as whole as I ever will be.

I am now working again, part-time, as a Bikeability Cycle Instructor. I'ts the best work I've ever done. I get to teach kids to cycle on the roads (adults too) and get paid for it. It beyond my wildest dreams that I have got this far from where I was in 2009 when I began this blog. I am simply unrecognisable from that person, although there can be no doubt that both of them are me.

Who was the one who pulled me through? It was every facet of me that did that.  The adventurous one created the challenges that helped me feel life was worthwhile again. I tried to take care of him and the little person, the frightened one who had no confidence, so they could both grow into something new. Like twins they argued and challenged one another. The adult not always understanding the fear of the little one and the little one wondering why nobody was listening to his point of view, unable to feel his pain.

Eventually they did both listen, to one-another and to the world outside that they were both so afraid of. A calm overcame them slowly, one piand a light switched on that guided them to where they are now, living side by side in one man, separate but conjoined parts of the same being.  And the sum of those parts is me: Graeme, a man I have grown to like and enjoy being, not one wracked in pain and inadequacy but a content and fulfilled man.

It feels as though the shackles have been thrown off. I am free as a bird. There is no cage now and I can truly fly. My mind and my life are much calmer. I cycle gently, without a thought of performance, distance or speed of travel. I simply pass over the ground, sometimes slowly and sometimes with a little more urgency. I have cycled to work at dawn and returned in the darkness. I have introduced new people to cycling and the joys of using a bike for transport and leisure.

That has to be the biggest joy in life: giving somebody a new life-skill, one that they will have for the rest of their lives. It helps me square my own consumption of planetary goods and wares, safe in the knowledge that another person may walk lighter than I have in their lives with their newly acquired cycling skill and ,I hope, a sense of adventure with the desire to explore. You can see the light come on when somebody rides a bike for the first time. That sense of freedom and speed felt for the first time in a young life. The smile that accompanies it says it all, at least for me. It seems to say: Wow, I never knew you could have this much fun on a bike.

Young and old are no different. Older people smile just as widely when they learn to cycle or gain confidence to use their bike daily. And I smile too, happy in the knowledge that I helped them to gain the skill or confidence to stride out alone and explore a new (to them) world.

So my journey continues apace. I have a wonderful partner and friend with whom I share everything. We walk, cycle, eat, laugh and generally goof around. We sometimes work together and even that is a pleasure as we make such a good team. There is never enough time for us to spend together  as we would like and separation feels unnatural.