Not so much because it's there...

...more like it’s in the way.

So there I was, being passed by five year olds on stabilisers but feeling great with it. But then I had an idea…why not cycle to work? Sure you’ve only been back on a bike for a month or so. Sure, your idea of speed has a tortoise looking in contempt at you but why not? Surely I could do it?

So first I had to plan a route. Being on a hybrid meant that I could veer off-road down tracks and bridle paths rather than stick to the tarmac.  So which route?

The route I chose took me through a couple of bridle paths, Nonsuch Park and onto the A232. I thought, hey that will be fine! But I didn’t count on one-thing…hills.

When I mentioned this on Cyclechat, a local lass on there said “What hills?” They may have not been hills to her, but to me they were Cols. They were Alpine passes.

I see these towering mountains of doom, these Everests, thinking of how on earth was a big fat bear meant to get halfway up, let alone over the top…

Others see a speed hump.

So I did what I have done since the start and hit the web. All of a sudden I was confronted by some really weird language – cadence? Grinding? What on earth was everyone talking about?

As far as I could tell, all those cyclists spinning like loons had not, unlike me, dropped down too many gears but were increasing their spin – this is cadence. Good cadence is meant to mean good climbing. Grinding was when you are in too big a gear and you slowly pedal..your..way..up (I think...trust me, the gearing on bikes appears to be the reverse of cars!).

So I went on a practice run. After risking limb at Chessington and a nice jaunt through Nonsuch Park, I hit the A232.

The one thing you will notice when you start is that all these roads that appear flat, are not necessarily so.

There you are pedaling away but then you suddenly start slowing down, So you push up a bit and you still slow down – bugger, it’s an incline. But that’s OK. It will soon be over.

Not on this road. After the lights, there is a slope up. Argh! And from a standing start. You push, you weave but, but, before you know it, you’re at the top.

Amazing, King of the Hill. I can do this, you think as you freewheel down the other side.

Of course what you forget is that a lot of Surrey runs on ridges, that means ups as well as downs.

Just pass Sutton, there’s a hill that even now can get to me. It doesn’t matter if you’ve managed to get your speed up on the previous downhill, gravity is your mistress and boy is she angry.  About half way up, my legs start moaning. I am now standing, bobbing and weaving and thinking the chant that goes into everyone who’s rubbish at hills' heads at this time: “Don’t stop, mustn’t walk. Don’t stop, mustn’t walk…”

But you’re out the otherside. Again, that elation when you haven’t stopped. Sure, you’re riding at 5mph, your legs are now jelly, your heart is beating like the timpani section and Niagara falls seems to have taken root in your helmet, but you’ve done it…until the next one.

Now, most of Ride London is fairly flat but for a big lump like me, I have to start training to get past Pyrford, Leith Hill, Box Hill and Wimbledon Hill. On top of that you have the ups and downs round Oxshott which, although slight, can happily sap my legs.

Some people have asked why should they sponsor me for cycling. After all, I cycle every day to work. But not only is it 100 miles – and having to maintain a minimum of 11.8mph  -  but, according to Sportive Cyclist I will be climbing 4,325 feet (1,318km).

And I seriously don’t like hills.

On the road....

So where to go on my first rides? I am fortunate enough to live in an area where Hampton Court and the towpath are easily available as well as some lovely country lanes after a mile so there was a good amount of safe riding for the returnee bear.

Safe riding…Safe riding can be pretty easy to do, but don’t think that going onto an off-road cycle path equates to safe riding.

No-one tells you about those little rats pretending to be dogs, yapping away, leaping into your path in a misguided belief that because they can bark/yap and have teeth they are as good a killer as a staffie from the worst estates.

Neither does anyone tell you about the kids bounding out in front of you, the elderly walker around the corner, the trendy 20-somethings that are walking along a riverside pub in the glow of an advertisement-led life blocking the entire bleeding path.

And no-one tells you about other cyclists.

Like all humans, cyclists are random, chaotic beasts prone to braking suddenly or veering out in front of you as they cope with hazards ahead of them or just because. 

Some are slow, some are ridiculously quick, some jump lights others have a cup of tea and chat as they wait for the lights to change – OK, I made that one up but some do take an extraordinary length of time to get going. 

Did I say others were slow?

No-one warned me that after 25 years of non-cycling how damn slow I was going to be.

I thought I was going fast until the first of many roadies bombed past me up the Portsmouth Road into Kingston.

Swish, swish, swish as they zoom past, inches from your elbow, leaving you no space at all.

You get your energy on, yahoo, let’s go. You push your pedals, heart picks up the beat, you see them getting nearer and nearer, you can do this. Push, push, push. Look! You’re catching them up, you can do this…

Oh, it’s a red light.

They pose in their expensive lycra, sitting on their 1kg carbon-fibred, racing frames, sipping out of their ergonomically designed bidons (water bottles to you and me), chewing their sports snack, without a care in the world.

Me?

Heart a-pumping, more sweat than the London Marathon, slumped over the handlebars, looking straight ahead in the hope that I am not noticed…

To be honest, some still do bomb past me, but I am a bear on a bicycle going at around 14mph on a gravel bike, and that will suit me.

It is quite weird having someone swishing past you at first and you quickly learn to carry out life-savers – that look around behind you to see what’s going on – for other cyclists as well as cars after all, there’s only so much swearing you can put up with.

There seems to be one particular type that comes out at the weekend. I think you can tell the difference between them and those that cycle every day. It's like what an old ex-army friend of mine used to reckon. He reckoned he could tell the difference between the weekend warrior and regular soldier just by looking at them – it’s an attitude.

They sit on their expensive machines, in their club or Sky tops, and they grimace around Surrey. I swear, they are not using their legs, it’s pure pain and rage. They throw empty bottles onto the road, leave empty gas canister and inner tubes in the road, they are angry. They should be at the top. They should be in the Tour de France. They should be a contender.

Either that or they should really be in therapy.

One other thing that people don’t warn you about is when you are behind one of these wannabes, one of these weekend wheelie warriors…

Spit.

There you are, minding your own business, happy with the pace you are going when a huge globule of phlegm comes flying its way towards your face…not nice.

And do you want to know how to freak out some of those grimacing their way around North Surrey or the Yorkshire dales, etc? Smile out them. Wave. Look like you are really enjoying your ride, even if, as an unfit bear, you are ten to twenty miles in, your legs feeling like jelly and you just wished you had stayed in bed that morning. Just smile. Say hello, wave. Freak them out by reminding them that cycling can be a happy thing as well.  

And for good measure, go on one of the forums and complain how no one smiles back or says hello. Everyone loves reading about that sort of thing... (actually don’t, that was a joke).

Boy, you're gonna carry that weight

So I have the bike, I have some gear – let’s get going…

But what do I take with me? To the interweb we go!!

So, as far as I could work out I needed some water and some substance like jelly beans to keep me going.

Stopping off at the local shop, I picked up a bottle of water that was big enough for the bottle carrier that came with the bike, and some jelly beans.

Then I packed my rucksack with the waterproof, puncture repair kit, two locks, two inner tubes, a pump, my phone, my wallet, the kitchen sink…

As I said, I had never done this. The fact that I was not going to be stopping (in theory) and it was a round trip did not stop me from lunking around a D-lock and cable lock, no siree.

As yes locks…

What do you do with your bike?

In my village, the trust had reached a point that the local police had had to write in the local magazine pleading with cyclists to actually lock their bikes up when popping into the local shop. I liked that about the village. It was the village that I grew up and then returned as a father and it had retained that part of the charm of growing up that alas was slowly disappearing even  here as the police had more and more bike thefts to deal with.

One of the things that people fail to realise is that the two most effective forms of theft prevention for bikes are 1) make it a pain for a thief to nick your bike which as a result b) makes your bike less attractive than another.

Bike thieves are, in the main, opportunists and do not like inconvenience so D-locks and another lock or two are very preventative.  You have a choice of being a pain in the butt to thieves or get Batman to patrol your area.

So, rucksack bungeed onto the rack and water forced into holder I was set to go.

After half a mile or so, I was beginning to realise something – I was cycling five miles. The last time I cycled five miles it killed me. Would I have enough fluid and fuel? Could I do this? Would I be found collapsed in a sweaty pile by the roadside, melting away in a puddle of unfitness?

I pushed on…

About another half mile after that I realized something else – why the hell have I brought all this stuff with me? Why take a puncture repair kit for five miles? Just either pump the wheel and limp home or if I couldn’t, put a new tube in and repair at home. Why take both?

And the locks. What on earth was I doing lugging these locks around when I wasn’t planning to stop anywhere?

I had a revelation...no matter how useful that kit maybe, just maybe, all that extra weight…only…slows…you…down.

Especially the kitchen sink!