How I fell off my bike

Not literally, but how I got out of the habit of cycling.  This is the first of a series of three posts on my personal journey away from regular cycling then back into it over many years.  This post talks of how I used my bike to get around and some of the barriers to me getting back into it. In the next post I will talk about how I got back into it, in a manner, and the final post brings us up to date.  This is only my perspective but I'm sure it is not unique and you may have similar experiences.

It happens to so many of us, that we regularly cycle as children and adolescents then “grow” out of it as adults.  Until I left school I cycled everywhere: to school, to the shops, to my Saturday job, to the swimming baths and any other activities that were farther than a five minute walk.  During the holidays I would make 30 mile (50km) round trips to visit my grandparents or 70 mile (110km) round trips to the beach and, a couple of times, longer trips over several days, such as the trip over the Forth Road Bridge in the photo.  Time and distance were no barrier.

Then I learned to drive.  I could get places quicker.   An hour's cycle instead would take 20 minutes. Except that never really happened because I didn't have a car; I kept cycling for nearly a year after passing my driving test.

My downfall wasn't the convenience of the motor car but moving away from home to study and staying close to college.  For too many years I lived within five minutes walk of my college, the pub and the supermarket and ten minutes walk from the town centre and the railway station if I wanted to go further afield.  Everything was close enough that cycling didn't bring any benefits.

Fast forward a few more years and I got a real job in the big city, but still living 10 minutes walk from the railway station. There was a good frequent train service in the morning and evening. This was a win for public transport so it never even crossed my mind to cycle, even though it was only 8 miles.  I had cycled into the city once but the traffic was scarily fast and busy and certainly not very inviting, especially coming into it after a lengthy break. There was no cycling infrastructure, even now there is no decent infrastructure in that route. There is a dedicated cycle route now but it adds around 50% on to the distance and is quite disjointed.  Perhaps more on that in another post. 

More recently (but still in the 90s), I moved to the big city, around five miles from work. There were fewer amenities close at hand but we did have a bus service. The bus could be unreliable especially in the evenings (not as bad as now) so I considered cycling and went as far as giving it a go. Not very successfully.  

The traffic was frightening, unaccustomed as I was to sharing the road so intimately with cars, buses and trucks.  I arrived at work drenched in sweat - the years without cycling had taken their toll on my fitness. It wasn't the most comfortable way to start the day in the office. Add to this my colleagues' dire predictions of near certain death were hardly the encouragement I needed. Everyone seemed to know someone that had been knocked off their bike with horrific injuries or worse. 

Eventually, after too many winter's evenings waiting for bus after bus that didn't turn up, I acquired a second (or more) hand car for the commute. 

To summarise, I initially stopped cycling due to a lack of need, walking was more convenient or public transport was mostly quick and reliable.  I didn't get back into it due to a fear of heavy traffic, lack of fitness, discomfort and doom-mongering of my peers, and I finally conformed to expectations and started driving. As life moved on the nursery run was added into the commute so alternatives seemed even more unmanageable. 

Some of this may be familiar to you, perhaps you started driving earlier instead of walking, cycling or using public transport. Perhaps there were fewer alternatives to driving in your circumstances. Or have you been able to maintain active travel as part of your routine?

In the next post, I'll describe how I managed to overcome some of these obstacles and get back in the saddle.  It was a start, definitely an improvement but it wasn't quite job done.