A Reason to Ride

A Reason To Ride.

My name’s Jemma, I’m 36 and I’ve never ridden a bike.

There, I’ve said it.

Actually, that’s not strictly true.  I have a very clear memory of my dad teaching me to ride a bright purple bike with stabilizers, a white basket on the front and streamers on the handlebars.  I remember him walking alongside me, encouraging me across the path in front of the newsagents we owned.  I’d have been about six years old.  I remember the stabilisers coming off and then?  Nothing.  My mum and dad simply couldn’t run alongside me whilst I got used to not having stablisers. So that was that.  I took up swimming.

Fast forward to my being 21 and living in Amsterdam. Not only is having a bike a way of life for the Dutch, they are also ten a penny rust buckets with no brakes.  So I didn’t feel too bad when the bloody thing ended up in the canal, after getting on then immediately falling off in front of a load of (laughing) tourists. So long sucker.

And there in ends my love affair with bikes.  I was going to write ‘until now’, but my under carriage would disagree (it’s time for padded shorts).

So recently, a few things happened that led me to doing something truly spectacular/stupid.  

First, I’ve learnt to run.  I say learnt to run, more learnt to love to run, thanks to the C25K course in January with the lovely Notts Womens Runners.  I’m now a fully fledged club member and run two or three times a week, with a half marathon on the horizon and a 30km ‘jeff’ to complete next month.  But it was pointed out to me that if I kept running without any cross training or strength training, I’d not improve and worse, I’d soon be injured.  Right.

Secondly, my youngest child is about to start learning to ride, and how can we all go on bikes together if I can’t ride one?  I spy a problem.

Thirdly, I really felt the need to do something out of my comfort zone and to achieve something that I never thought possible.  I want to finish something I think ‘I cant believe I did that!’.

And finally?  I was truly shocked to learn that a fabulous woman in my life had been diagnosed with Breast Cancer.

And so, I signed up to Ride the Night, a 100km bike ride overnight through the gorgeous city of Edinburgh, to raise monwy for Women V Cancer.  Damn Right.

So, in a moment of madness, I got my husbands bike out of the shed (well, he did after much nagging), set off, and fell off.  And the bike sat in the hall for over a week, glaring at me accusingly every time I came through the front door.  So I tried again.  I fell off again.  Husband took a picture.  I bruised my leg.  I got cross with gears.  So then I tried again…. And rode 12km, all on road with a few hills thrown in for good measure!  I got to my turn around point and thought ‘sod it, I’ll carry not’, not really clocking it was all uphill on the way back until it was too late.  No matter!  My legs were (are still) tender but in that good ’ooh that hurts my muscles’ way.  And, my aforementioned undercarriage is feeling the bike-seat-burn.  I really must buy some kit.  My husbands too-big-bike and my dungarees just wont cut the mustard.  And, for now at least, let’s not talk about gears.

That was just half an hour ago, and whilst I was on the ride, I decided I want to document my learn to ride journey in a blog, for me to look back on, to hopefully encourage any new riders, and to give me another reason to ride.

• Days to go until Ride the Night Edinburgh- 302
• Number of rides (ever, in my life) - 3
• Number of falls - 2
• Number of KMs ridden – 16km
• Kit Acquired (since last post) – Nada. Riding husbands bike, wearing husbands helmet, in my dungarees and running trainers.