On your bike!

There is some signs that spring is on the way and so it must nearly be time to dust off the children’s bikes that have been gathering dust in the back of the garage for the never ending winter.

Personally I am a rubbish cyclist. I didn’t realise how bad I was until last summer when I picked up a couple of cheap bikes in a sale for my husband and I. In my head, I had this idyllic picture of us all going off cycling together. We would get a seat for A which meant she could sit on the back of my bike and we would have a summer of cycling bliss.

Did we? No! I told my husband about my plans, when he had finally stopped laughing, he pointed out that I wasn’t fit enough to ride a bike myself, let alone carry A as well. The other fairly major floor in my plan was that L is really struggling to ride without his stabilisers. We bought him a new bike the Christmas before last as his old one was so small, he was kicking himself in the chin with every push of the pedal. The problem with his lovely shiny new bike was that it is too heavy and he didn’t have the confidence to ride it for very long.

Undeterred, however, I went off for a cycle ride.  I hadn’t been on a bike for many many years and I was slightly surprised to find how much of an effort a short ride around the block was.  One lovely woman stood on the side of the road laughing at me, which at the time really irritated me, but looking back I probably was a sight to behold.  And let’s not even start on the painful bottom the next day.

That was last year though and I am determined that this year will be a different story. The boys both have lovely BMX bikes and A now has a Hello Kitty (big girl) bike that she had for her birthday. I’m no nearer to being for enough to ride a bike, but at least if I do start cycling it will improve.

Cycling is such good exercise and a really lovely way to get out and about. We are determined that L will be confidently on two wheels before the summer and I have been researching some lovely places to go cycling locally as there are too many main roads where we live to go out together safely.

I may well start going out on my own for a few short cycle rides first though otherwise the others will be leaving me behind.

This post was written on behalf of Tesco, but the sorry tale of me and my bike is very true.