Going the distance

When I was a small cub, your bicycle was your passport to freedom. No longer did you have to rely on your parents to get to the library or to go to the nearest shopping area, you were free.

You’d jump on your bike and you were off. It is a cliché because it was true but in those days, you’d head off at sunrise and return at dusk.

These were the days of ET and BMX, of jumping on the bike and thinking nothing about heading into London on the A3, yep the A3 that blistering, thin fast road where nothing as really changed except the speed limit and cameras. We would happily head along it on the way to London and the comic shops and marts.

I even decided to cycle to Brighton to see if I could do it, not realising that you don’t go via Guilford, adding an extra 15 miles to my ride.

Distance, and time, was nothing to us.

But something happens. In those years from invincibility to mortality, distances start to appear longer. How long? You’ve got to be kidding?

Of course the lack of bike fitness at the start doesn’t help – where cycling five miles appeared to be a very quick way to the cardio unit – but even so, as you start and progress, distance still seem immense.

When I decided to start increasing my distances, I scoured the maps like Livingstone looking for the start of the Nile. The big journey into the great unknown.

I started going on every increasing circles wither to Richmond and back or through Molesey and round to Hersham.

The circles got bigger, I included pathways such as going through the Hinchley Woods and back round via Oxshott, across fields into Cobham. The distances each week getting larger.

And then the day I crossed over the M25.

I’d gone through Cobham and past the Plough  - an old haunt of my late teenage years – then there was a bridge on the rise. I had crossed the border, I was out of London and its burbs.

I had an immense sense of achievement and that continued when I turned round further east and headed back down Downside and came back in towards London.

If I didn’t fancy the country lanes, I could head towards Heathrow and the sprawling mass of North West London, or simply head into London itself.

As part of my training for Ride London, I have been taking segments of the course, 20, 30 miles, pushing up my range and seeing what my limits are.

Some people may now think that for me 100 miles should be a synch. I really wish it would be. I really wish that all that mileage, those hills, ascents and descents alike, the timing constraints – you must ride an average 12mph – but to be honest I don’t know.

Eventually I will attempt the route before the actual day, find out what speeds I can do over the distance, what foods I will need, what are my weaknesses (Hills!!!!) and strengths, what will hurt and where.

I may collapse in a puddle of effort and sweat.

Hell, I may do that on the day itself.

But whatever happens, I will pick myself up, walk up those hills if necessary, and finish the course.

Because a year ago, I was a bear on a clapped-out second-hand bike, scared of my lack of fitness and the lack of miles. I was a bear without a road-map and had no idea that riding for MSSociety in August was going to be the next destination.

If you are reading this, please share with your friends and colleagues and urge them to donate via the button below.