I have owned a lot of bikes in my time, but my relationship with Sammy has always been difficult. Although a beautiful thing to behold, his 26 tooth rear sprocket and unfamiliar Look Keo pedals fuelled my ever present anxiety to the point where, although I loved and admired him, I could not bring myself to ride him. "I won't get me feet out at the junction", "Thornton Road feels hard, how can I get up any proper hills?!". So he sat in my living room and I looked at him. I watched the Tour de France on TV and I saw him from the corner of my eye, but I didn't ride him, I saw people flying along on their road bikes, but I didn't ride mine. For 18 months he proudly leaned against the bookcase, but we almost never ventured outside.
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| New and shiny |
A near broken ankle and the inability to run pointed me once again towards my road bike. "If you have two bikes, we could go out for a ride together...". The internalised anxiety and pedal related stress poured out, the response reassuringly pragmatic, "Oh for goodness sake! Take those stupid pedals off and just ride your bike!". He had a point and fortunately, I had a 6mm allen key.
We went to Haworth and came home in the dark. The hills were impossibly hard but the joy of riding a road bike came flooding back in spades.
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| Made it to Haworth |
My ankle healed (sort of), my pedals have gone through 4 iterations, my cassette now has 32 teeth and, when finally I cycled up Thornton Road, unclipped at the lights, turned left and continued up Keelham, I found a wonderfully welcoming and supportive cycling club: the Queensbury Queens of the Mountain.
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| With the Queens, off on a birthday ride to Grassington (Photo: Jules Graham) |
