Starting Out Again - by Graham Thompson

(From July 2010 Gazette)

Starting Out Again I thought that I cracked this cycling malarkey after more than 60 years of  riding a bicycle      The answer had been staring me in the face, but it took about four months of inactivity for the answer to dawn upon me. Don’t ride a bicycle! You can still enjoy cycling and be part of  cycling without any suffering and exertion. Many of my cycling acquaintances and friends seem to get by without sitting on the saddle and pressing the pedals. They are part of cycling and some have been around a long time and give invaluable time and effort to the sport.

There are some I have  seen on a bicycle in the dim and distant past. There are some who I can truthfully report that I have never seen on a bicycle. I have not led a particularly sheltered life and have been in the cycling wings for much of my adult life and I can even remember when I was a fledgling cyclist eager to escape the nest. However, all seem to enjoy their cycling life!

Perhaps I should take after the late Ernie Haldane who was a North Roader from 1935 until his death in 1985. He always appeared on club runs having ridden from his home in Barking to the starting point which may have been at Potters Bar or Waltham Cross and repeating the exercise in the late afternoon or evening to get home. I don’t think he kept any mileage records, but he must have clocked up a huge mileage in his lifetime. It has been suggested that one year he asked himself the question why am I doing this and finding no convincing answer stopped riding a bicycle. However, the real reason for calling a halt to cycling was to care for family members with whom he resided. He never married so to pay for the care he had received he gave up cycling to look after family members when it was his turn to do so. He retired from cycling and the Club lost contact with him although I did come across his name in the books of the firm of solicitors who were engaged to wind up his estate and where I worked until my retirement.

The non-cyclists in my life usually wear jackets, suits and very often blazers and ties and do invaluable work to keep the sport ticking over – they may be timekeepers, marshals, treasurers and secretaries and sometimes reach the exalted offices of chairmen and presidents. There were others who were always at races and gatherings, but I was never sure what they did. Many of them had large and important motors  So why not join them and ease myself into the position of being there, but without a bicycle.  No sweat, no hassle, no pain and no messing about with rain and wind and getting dirty hands with gears and chains and mending punctures. Bliss!

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.” But I am not young so there was a fly in the ointment, a mote in the eye, grit in the bearings and no oil on the chain. There had been no riding of bicycles. After six months of  awful winter weather and being inadvertently, but by ill chance laid up thoughts turned to cycling again. It was the merry month of May. The sun was warm, the trees had been refreshed and the flowers of  the kex (or Queen Anne’s Lace if you are posh or cow parsley if you are ordinary) enticed Annabel and I along the road to Ardeley for coffee, tea, toast, jam and marmalade at the Church Farm café. We returned home by the outward route of Cromer, Halls Green and Warrens Green and were warmed by the sight of numerous cyclists of all abilities and ages. It has taken nearly a full lifetime of cycling for the message to get through that cycling is good for you! So here I am again ready and willing to get along the lanes not far from home.

For the curious why Queen Anne’s Lace? It is a member of the carrot family and has at least a dozen names ranging from Fairy Lace to Step-mother through to Badman’s oatmeal so called after the seed pods. When Queen Anne (1702–1714) visited the countryside in  May people said the roadsides had been decorated for her. She suffered from asthma and to get fresh air came out to Kensington which was open meadow and farmland in the early 18th century. The flowers resembled the lace patterns which were incorporated into the lace which the ladies of the court were in the habit of making. 

Graham Thompson