Opportunity Knocks.

I have just finished my daily walk, the government backed short stroll for exercise that's permitted in this worldwide health crisis. It was a beautiful day, the sun shining down on Devon's rounded and lumpy landscape. Light seemed to be sprinkled randomly on dappled pools of water that in turn rippled gently over the pebbles that formed their bed. I saw nobody as I trod gently the same path I have for the last week. Some say it's groundhog day, the same one recurring over and over, presumably until we see the error of our ways and break the cycle?

Every day is another day in your life and one to be lived, restricted or otherwise. Each walk and cycle ride I do shows me the wonders of nature:  different birds chirping their songs on every occasion. Different animals appear in places where they weren't yesterday. Different trees blossom ever-greener in the spring sunshine. Everything changes, even the sheep sitting, lying, running towards me in the hope I might be there to feed them. Nothing is ever the same twice.

We have been given a golden opportunity to slow our lives, step from the gravy train for a while and to see what surrounds us. This is our chance to notice what is really important to us? Perhaps it isn't those shoes that cost hundreds of pounds, nor that shiny, fast car after all. Just maybe, it's the joy of being able to enjoy our immediate world for what it really is and to learn why we need to take care of it beyond surrounding ourselves with consumables and experiences that are bought and sold at the cost of our planets own health.

There's a gentleness in the air again. An overriding sense of quiet peacefulness. Others reiterate this to me. It's a sense I only usually feel in wild places and mountains. Is that because in those places I take the time to notice? Places with little human occupation have always drawn me to them. How often do we get the chance to just sit and be amongst all of this beauty and quiet and why do we find it so difficult to be still? Our world had become one of incessant noise, a constant barrage of sound, doing and achievement. If you don't have a major challenge going on, what's wrong with you? We have created a world where we have grown to hardly notice anything at all other than what we desire from it. Now it's gone, at least in the short term. Our world is speaking to us. Will we listen?

As I've aged I've watched successive generations work longer and longer hours, often for less and less money. Our downtime is such that many feel the need to fill it with personal challenges and tasks that leave us little time for thought and contemplation. I used to be one of those people myself but my mind and body (thankfully) stopped me in my tracks and demanded something different from me.

Without the choice but to listen I set off along a very different path. It still had some big physical and mental challenges but it lacks the old intensity that threatened to burn me out completely unless I changed. That intensity blinkered me to everything else in a single-minded haze and was slowly replaced with an quiet understanding that I wouldn't swap what I had, ill health or not, for anything. I loved my years climbing rock and flying paragliders. I got to do what only a few did back then and I treasure those memories and the people I created them with. Now I have a greater inner peace, an acceptance that I'm happy with what I already have, no longer chasing life but enjoying it.

Where there was speed and strength I have now found more calm and thoughtfulness. Where I was head down and pushing as hard as I could I'm now glad to be out enjoying simply being amongst the countryside, feeling it. It's all a matter of pace and it took me decades to realise that patience is the virtue some have always claimed it is. Like so many young people, I was in a hurry without knowing where I was heading.

I'm as happy cycling ten miles now as I am if I'm out all day long. I'm ecstatic when I see a child I have taught to ride  a bicycle pedal away from me to begin their own two- wheeled adventures. I smile as I watch their little legs spinning around furiously as they grin like maniacs, something all cyclists understand and remember and I feel a warmth in the knowledge that I have taught them a life-skill they will have forever. 

This moment of world crisis has given them and us the chance to ride outside with hardly a threat from vehicles at all. It's an opportunity to ride on the road with their parents, practise their skills we taught them in relative safety and prepare for a lifetime of virtually free fun and exploring. I wonder how many are actually doing this, how many have even thought along these lines?

And that is possibly a problem. We've been sold the notion that this virus and lock-down is a terrible thing, which to some extent it is. But there is always an opportunity in everything, either to be something different or to change our viewpoint and see things differently. Opportunities come and go but you have to sometimes grab one, hold it up to the light and get under its skin. In a world where many people seem afraid of going outside we seem to be rearing generations of children whose natural inquisitive nature is being ground away in readiness for something much more mundane than developing and exploring their imaginings, their own personal notions of our what life is and how it could be. Are we stealing their dreams blinkering them to what's beyond a computer screen?

As far as I can tell, social distancing is what has been happening since the advent of the World Wide Web. People getting up in the morning, steeping out to travel to work by car or train (another box), not speaking, locked in their own thoughts. And if you dare to speak to somebody you are often met with disdain. It just isn't done. You then work all day long and return home in the same manner only feeling more exhausted. Is this the future we want for the worlds children?

The things we label as leisure activities are perhaps those very same things that give us quality of life. I learned by accident how little money I can live on and how much I could still do despite that fact. Forced into a corner, partly of my own making, I had little choice and that was a life lesson I'm glad I was taught. Forced to look at what I really value, I found travel in my own country and under my own power was liberating and freeing in a way I had perhaps forgotten. I rediscovered that my freedom to move around is the most important asset I have in my armoury. Without that freedom we have nothing.

Now here we are. Freedom curtailed, feathers clipped. Our collective restlessness, for that is what I think it is, has seen us travel further and further for shorter periods of time as we try to make sense of life and justify the way we live. You have to travel to far flung places and I feel it's too easy and too cheap by far. Should it not reflect the cost to the planet to jump on a plane and head off somewhere exotic? We even have a name for it: Wanderlust, the desire to travel constantly, see new things and experience new cultures. Travel undoubtedly broadens the mind, but a weekend getting drunk in Barcelona or Praha, does that qualify? How about two weeks in a rich haven where every whim is catered for (and included in the price) on a beautiful island in the Pacific or Caribbean? Do those who choose that really get a cultural experience, or do they simply destroy and consume the very beauty they go to see through mass consumerism? I'm not judging, just asking if our planet can sustain this level of mass travel.

We go further because we can. Air travel is easy, cheap and quick. It takes little effort outside of choosing a destination, pressing a button on a keyboard and travelling to an airport. A couple of hours later you can be anywhere in Europe, almost. Sit back, relax (if you can!) and bingo, you get a magic carpet ride to take you thousands of miles away for your two week summer vacation. But should we do that? It'd not a question I can answer, other than for myself.

Now we can't do that I'm seeing more and more posts about how wonderful it is to pedal on quiet roads, he kind I remember riding on as a child. Many of those people are asking whether we could stay like this, make a choice to travel less. I ask you, could we?

Until next time...................

It's life Jim, but not as we know it!

It was cold and breezy as I stepped out of my front door. I'm not used to being at home any longer and as I wheeled out my bike I felt a pang of thankfulness that I could still ride. Most of my cycling recently has been teaching others how to ride on the road through my Bikeability work. Now, it's just for exercise and pleasure.

I use the word pleasure reservedly. It has been a while since I've ridden any hills around the area where I live. That's not just due to work. I've had a particularly bad winter regarding my asthma. Now armed with a second inhaler, I use two in the morning and one at night (plus the reliever), the elephant that had been residing on my chest seems to have gone for a walk.

Entering this new world, one without  the constant noise of aircraft, constant droning of traffic and general air of peacefulness, I was projected back the those days when as a child my friends and I would head out across the fields to play without a care in the world. This lasted some three minutes until I was found puffing my way up the steep Park Rd toward Hatherleigh Moor.

In all fairness, I have had a viral illness since Christmas. No not that one. Symptoms went away after about four weeks but I have't ever really fully recovered. Hence my visits to the asthma clinic. I'm about 20% down on my usual lung capacity and that makes a massive difference to my performance. Luckily I had all day to make this journey to the doctors to pick up my prescriptions and had every intention of enjoying my time away from home.

Out in the lanes, as my breath slowly returned and the strong South easterly wind battered my face, I rose above the houses to that wonderful view of  Dartmoor in all its magnificence. It was then that, once again, I was struck by the peace surrounding me. Bird song ruled the roost. There seemed a much greater quantity of birds chirping than my in my recent memory. Perhaps they were laughing at us. We had watched when avian flu took it's toll on them. Now the tables had turned it was their turn, maybe.

Perhaps the biggest single difference to all the other thousands of times I had ridden this route was the lack of noise from aircraft some thirty-thousand feet above my head. It was eerily quiet, no cars, vans, planes. just a few dog walkers. It was like being thrown back 50 years in time to a slower quieter world. Perhaps that's the point? Is Covid-19  natures way of showing us what we need to get back to? Whatever the reason, I was still enjoying being out on my bike, despite achy legs and struggling lungs.

Further down the lane, that wound tortuously towards Okehampton, I came across a buzzard sat on a low branch of a tree. I'd never seen this before as they usually fly away just as I approach. He stared at me eagle-eyed, the sun reflecting on the golden yellow of his own eyes. I didn't seem to ruffle his feathers at all. I said hi and we sat in mutual admiration of the beautiful scenery that surrounded us.

After a few minutes I left, needing to get to the pharmacy prior to it closing for lunch. I had advice from my doctor that I should wait outside until the pharmacy only had one or two people in and then pounce. It transpired that there was no reason to have worried about people. On arrival, aside from staff, there was nobody there.

It was a hit and run, without the hit. There was even a two metre gap between those picking up prescriptions and the desk on which they were placed. I sat wondering how my one-metre long arm was supposed to stretch the two- metre distance to pick up my prescriptions when I remembered that the pharmacist also had a one-metre long arm too.The gap was clearly marked using yellow and black striped tape, the sort you expect in any hazardous environment. I was no sooner there than I had my prescriptions in my hand and could go home again. That felt like a relief.

Despite the lack of traffic, one driver took exception to my (correct) road positioning and eventually passed me by as close as he took while tooting the horn on his car. Why is it that the idiots are still driving? Oh yes, they tend to be the selfish people, don't they? I didn't care. I didn't even raise my voice. I was too busy enjoying the tail wind that had previously been my mortal enemy.

My legs and my mind felt weak. I think all this Coronavirus onslaught is taking it's toll on my mental stability. I try not to watch too much news, preferring to lose myself playing my piano, but whatever my thoughts it's hard to escape what's going on. Instead I find I am turning to all those strategies I have learned over the years like: meditation and mindfulness with a little yoga thrown in for good measure. I managed to find a gentle rhythm as I rode down the valley, away from Okehampton. It always makes me smile as I ride away from towns. It's nothing personal, I just much prefer to reside in the countryside surrounding it.

I turned away from the small road that usually masquerades as a major artery/ rat-run and was taken by the daffodils and primroses that were quietly growing in the sheltered aspect of an old stone bridge across the river near the just as old ex-post office in Brightley. The river shimmered and glittered, sparkled and shone in a way that captivated me. I stopped, resting my weary legs and I just stared, listening to the burbling river making its way toward the sea, feeling myself filling up with nature.

It was a haven of tranquility. Nature was celebrating spring, even if we weren't. Pussy-Willlows hung from bushes and Catkins too. Primroses seemed to have taken over the grass, their soft yellow flowers perfectly contrasted in the lush green grass. Nowhere ere there any signs of the ravaging storms that tore at us for weeks on end, flooding the roads and fields, along with many houses. There was a new peace upon this part of the world, as though  the world is sighing with relief that, finally it had at least temporarily stopped the human onslaught that faced it daily.

I saw no cars on the way home until almost in Hatherleigh. Despite feeling weak mentally and physically I remembered why it was my bike was so important to me. It takes me into nature in such close proximity that nature ignores me. I become part of the scenery, part of the world, not in a destructive way, but as a passive observer of its wonders and a willing participant in it's natural gentle flow and ebb.

Last night as I sat dog-tired on my sofa, Boris announced that new, more restrictive measures on our movements, My heart sang when he clearly announced that we could still go out once a day to exercise by walking or cycling. For eleven hard years my cycle has helped me maintain better mental and physical health, providing exercise, routine and mindfulness. The irony that, now I feel better than  I have in many years I am restricted to a life similar to the one I lived all that time in solitude and often despair, isn't wasted on me.

For those feeling so restricted, remember this: You have been asked to stay home for twelve weeks, maybe longer. Some people are restricted to that kind of lifestyle for many years, without proper support. That is why I have written so much and spoken so openly for over a decade now. Nothing I could have said or done would ever have made the point better than the crisis we are facing at the moment. Think of others. Support those you can and remember those whose lives are always this way and stay well yourselves.

See you next time..........................

Once upon a time in the west.

There are times when what you intend to do and what actually occurs are something quite different. When this happens, you may be left mildly inconvenienced or you may find yourself in some epic adventure that you feel you don’t any longer have control over. We tend to call it Sod’s law; a world where bad things happen in multiples of three (allegedly) and a world where shit definitely happens, just not when you expect it.

Now I think you can see where this is going, can’t you? I have just had a big birthday, my sixtieth to be exact. I don’t know how I got this far, but I’m glad that I did. Having spent my life riding motorcycles, climbing cliffs, flying paragliders and cycling on and off the road, chances are that I should have been dead long ago!  But by hook or crook I’m still here and by Keith Richard’s standards I’ve led a gentle and sheltered life.

Teresa asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. Bearing in mind that nobody wants to party on the second of January, I decided that I would like to do a short tour. Maybe we could spend a few days riding back from Bristol, where Teresa grew up, to Dawlish where she now lives. Nothing too strenuous, a gentle new year introduction to 2020.

Not expecting the weather to be as warm as summer (It nearly was) we booked ourselves into a night with a Warm Showers host and a second at an Air B and B. Teresa was staying with me and part of the reason we were making this trip was to retrieve her Specialized Vita from her mums house, where it had been for two years. Therefore, we would initially travel independently. I would cycle to Eggesford from Hatherleigh and catch the train to Exeter whilst Teresa would catch a bus from my house to Exeter station. We would meet up, just as planned, and then travel to Bristol together. Along with one bike, get it? No, neither did the nice man we booked our tickets from during a twenty five minute phone call that only cyclists get to make, and pay for!

We had taken a quick look at the Vita on a previous visit to see Teresa’s mum and everything seemed to be in order. Even this was an omen; we couldn’t open the shed. It was stuck, and when I eventually forced it to let me in I then spent the next hour trying to rebuild a mortice lock that stubbornly did anything other than what it was designed to do. Having got nice and cold outside repairing the lock it was then time to ride Chuggaboom, my motorcycle, back to Devon, which was not ideal. The traffic was horrific on this journey and it took over twice the time it normally takes. But I digress.

The magic day arrived, and we were all ready to go. Excited like a child at Christmas, but a week late, I set off to ride to Eggesford station with plenty of time to spare and a great café to sit in at the station. The bike rode really well. It’s light and responsive nature made me grin and the vibration from the carbon-forks, when I braked, reminded me of skinny steel forks from times long gone.

It was cold, and windy, but it was also sunny and bright. The ride had two halves. Being only about twelve miles long it was mostly uphill for the first half and downhill for the second. Glorious Devon scenery of rounded, rolling hills in many shades green, unfolded like a woollen blanket as I slowly pedalled along. All the time I was getting closer to the warmth and the coffee that awaited me at the station café at Eggesford, a private run affair with excellent food and beverages.

I rumbled over the railway crossing and there was a big sign saying, ‘café open.’ I grinned. I love it when a plan comes together. I walked across to the narrow alley that leads to the door and there, all but hidden from public view, was another, much smaller sign saying ‘Café reopens on 6^th January 2020.’ Bugger. I spent the next 45 minutes shivering and shaking, waiting for the train, on a platform especially designed to allow and amplify maximum wind flow. The train arrived eventually bringing warmth and some comfort to my old bones.

Ah well, there are always a few hiccups. On arrival at Exeter St David’s I met Teresa and lunch was enjoyed by huddling in the Starbucks and pretending we had bought our sandwiches there along with the extortionately priced coffee. At least we were warm. On collecting our tickets from the ticket machine there was no bike reservation, despite the promises made during the excruciating long phone call with the man at GWR, who was actually a man in India who could hardly speak English. Having spent twenty-five minutes on the phone trying to book our bikes onto a train and paying for the privilege, I now had to go to the ticket office as well. A hopelessly useless and discriminatory system for reserving one of just two spaces per train.

Making our way to the suggested platform we noticed that there seemed to be a bit of a kafuffle going on. The screens had gone down and nobody knew what was happening. Our train, that originated in Plymouth, was delayed, first by minutes but growing all the time. Then we heard the Manchester train needed to arrive and terminate at our platform and we shouldn’t get on it. This was followed quickly by all the advisory boards going blank and then coming back online to say that they had been lying about that Manchester train and that we should all get on it if we still wished to go to Bristol and hadn’t lost the will to live. We were all confused.

Even the guards were clueless as this process repeated itself until nobody had any idea, nor cared, what was happening. Eventually we did board the train and aside from the guard constantly apologising for not being able to organise a piss up in a brewery every five minutes, we trundled off worry free to Temple Meads in Bristol.

A pleasant evening was spent with Teresa’s mum and the dawning of a new day saw us forgetting the hassle of getting here yesterday. It was bright and sunny as I removed the bikes from the now mended shed, Sadly, as soon as I did, the lock went again! After a short burst of swearing, and remembering what I did previously, I soon had it ‘fixed’ and we were on our way.

We were heading out of Bristol toward Clevedon when we came across the first hill of the day. I changed gear and was settling into a rhythm when the scraping noise of non-compliance from Teresa’s bike caught my attention. It wouldn’t change down at the front. Of course, I hadn’t checked that, being in a hurry to depart Bristol on our previous visit. It had been nagging me. Don’t tour on an untried bike, my mind kept repeating. This thought had been with me for over a week, but I kept suppressing it. What a fool I am?

For the next thirty minutes I was a whirring mass of spanners and swear words. I hate front mechs. They are fiddly and all seem have a mind of their own. I don’t mind when I’m at home with my tools, but not out here at the side of a main road whilst others stared as they went about their morning run. Why didn’t I try this prior to leaving? I kept chastising myself, unnecessarily. Oh well, needs must, as they say. I did fix it eventually, noticing the partly shredded cable that you couldn’t see until I removed it! I wonder if that will last I thought, as I remembered that I hadn’t packed a spare cable, something I always do. I also wondered whether the bottom bracket was the right one as the changer would only travel so far, but that’s another story.

We set off again into a world of ever-increasing peace and quiet. The noise briefly rallied to a sharp crescendo as we pedalled over the motorway bridge, containing masses of vehicles all travelling somewhere to the sales after the Christmas break. It was with great pleasure that we turned away from this and picked up the route we needed to follow to Clevedon.

National Cycle Network route 410 saw us riding through Pill and Easton in Gordano. Easton in Gordano is a much nicer place than anyone who has been to the services might think, strewn with pretty cottages. Pill made us laugh, especially the Pill Clinic. Anyway, we didn’t get the last laugh because as we climbed the hill somewhere in this region there was a loud crack from Teresa’s bike, and she had to stop. This had happened twice previously, but now it became obvious what was going on. The pedals turned quite freely without driving he wheel around at all. The freehub was broken. I knew from experience that if I could get some lubrication into it that it might free up the pawls that I suspected were all gummed up from the bike sitting around for two years in a garage. We sat by the pavement sorting this out and a nice chap from one of the local houses came out offering support and possibly a lift, if we needed one. We chatted about all and sundry and I worked on freeing up the not-so free-hub. Eventually it was done and working, kind-of. I’m sure it would get us back to Bristol, if ridden gently, and we decided that that was it, game over. How could we trust this to get us back to Devon? We couldn’t, so it was back to Bristol to decide what to do next, get it fixed or go home.

We said goodbye to the lovely man who and set off again. It seems that every time you have difficulty when touring that somebody will appear from nowhere to help. It’s very uplifting and alters your view of the world and the people that live in it as it is so often sold through the media.

We headed back through Pill and Gordano, picking up National Cycle Network 41 into Bristol along the south bank of the Avon river below Leigh Woods (famous for its mountain bike trails). This route was suggested by the lovely man we had been talking to earlier. What a surprise. It was stunning. We had both wanted to come this way for a long time and not yet made it. Yet here I was squelching through the muddy trail of my imaginings by accident and enjoying every minute.

Slowly, slowly, we made our way along the ten miles back into Bristol. Given the timings and the weather forecast, we had all but decided that we were being told to go home on the train, after which we could ride around with impunity in our local environment. For me, those miles brought great memories. I haven’t seen the Avon Gorge climbing areas since I last climbed there back in 1984.

My mind whirred, remembering he climbs that I had completed there with my friends, one of whom now lives just up above the cliffs in Clifton. They were fabulous days and fond memories and I savoured them as we rode under the suspension bridge as I recalled the routes I climbed on that great buttress of limestone, belaying under the bridge itself.

My mind jerked back to the present. We had a plan. Find out about the train and then eat. On arrival at Temple Meads we found that their monitors had gone down here also and that they were not able to book our bikes on the fast train. We looked at each other and laughed. They did manage to book us onto another, less direct train at a much later time and we could still try to gain access to the earlier, faster train. As if that wasn’t enough, the lovely lady behind the window told us that we couldn’t get a train from Exeter to Dawlish as everybody was on strike. We would have to ride, broken bike or not, the twelve miles home along the estuary as replacement bus-services don’t take cycles. We sloped off feeling that we really weren’t supposed to have left home at all but that we were having a great adventure none-the­-less. We had seen things we wouldn’t have if it had gone to plan and were still riding the same distances, despite not going in the same direction as intended!

Luckily, we made it onto the first, faster, train, finding the awkward-to- use bike cupboards a real challenge. We’d had a good feeling about getting aboard this train and we alighted in Exeter a while later knowing we could always dump the bike Ride On and catch the bus. Well we would have been able to if Ride-On was open. We later found out that it was still closed for Christmas holidays. It looked as though we were meant to ride back to Dawlish, so we just got on  with it.

The gentle ride down the Exe Estuary was stunning. The sun shone intermittently, with soft showers of rain and distant rainbows making our eyes sparkle. Tinted in shades of yellow the water almost sparkled as the sun sank low in the sky. There was nobody around, just us, and whilst we were pleased to arrive home, we felt we had had a proper adventure, just a different one from the one expected. Needless to say, the bike ran, and continues to run, faultlessly ever since. A few beers helped us to mellow out after the stresses of the day and we soon felt dog-tired from our efforts.

The next day we took the Vita out for another ride after I had done a little work on her. We cycled the lanes around Dawlish and Exminster, far from crowds and surrounded by peaceful and soft countryside. Sometimes you do what you plan and sometimes you do something you are forced into. Both are enjoyable and both have their own purpose. The bike that had let us down now showed no signs at all that it wouldn’t have got us home had we chosen to continue.

Uphill and down dale the Vita shone, and Teresa smiled. She loves this bike, and I have now promised to rebuild it for her. If I was shut in a garage for two years, I would complain. That’s what the Vita did. Now released from captivity, she is enjoying life as it should be, covering miles with smiles that only cycling can bring. The moral of the story is simple: never leave a bike alone for years, and if you have, give it a good service prior to riding it any distance.

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.

Round Britain is moving to a new site

Hi there
Just a quick post to let you know that this blog is moving to my new site at the following address . this is purely and simply to allow me to set up a future website for my adventures:
http://graemewillgress.com

Merry Christmas to everybody

Merry christmas to all those reading this blog. It's certainly winter now, and the last month has seen, firstly, ice everywhere and this was followed by about 8 inches of snow which is still everywhere across West Devon where I live.
It's made cycling really interesting for those of us stupid enough to want to try and keep getting out in it. I borrowed some MTB tyres from a friend in order to keep riding, and it's been quite successful. You cant really do anything on ice, other than fall over!! and it's impossible to get anything delivered at the moment, so studded tyres are out completely. Barring a few incidents wher the bike and I have ended up pointing the wrong way ,or just up ended, it's been great fun in a smal boy sort of a way!!!!
The scenery is stunning and the lack of any cars make it real fun. I saw a tractor the other day, nothing new in that, but behind it was a bag of feed on a long string, with a small boy sat on top!! he had a grin the size of Cheshire and was obviously really enjoying it.
i also saw three Fallow Deer, grazing right next to the road. I think they were as suprised as I was as the stared for a long time before bouncing off into the scenery.
Clothing wise, I've taken to ski salopettes, the warm kind, a woolly hat and windproof gloves. it all works rather well with a fleece and jacket over the lot, unthough it doesnt look very cool! I cant get very far unless the road is solid snow. The bike fishtails around all over the place, making for a very strenuous aerobic workout. What fun though, falling off in snow is quite acceptable really and doesnt hurt. There's no point to it whatsoever, as walking is easier, but I had a big cheesy grin by the time I finished.
So, dont commit your bke to the shed for winter, get out and have a laugh. I hope the New Year brings you whatever you desire. It will certainly be an exciting one for me, and I cant wait.
Happy New Year to all of you.
Graeme www.justgiving.com/Graeme-Willgress