A red light and a reassuring whir tell me that the power assist is giving me the gentlest of shoves along the road, cycling to work. In the seventies, I laboured up Morningside Road to the City Hospital on my childhood bike. The early eighties saw me pedalling across Winn’s Common in South London for a night shift, while towards the end of the decade, I blasted along the Corniche to Antibes to paint a yacht or two. In the nineties, I could be found weaving through central London traffic on my way to Ronnie’s, or gliding along the canal towpath past the gasworks to uni in Kentish Town. Then kids happened. I was now singing Postman Pat with a tiny Duncan on the bike seat, heading up Lawhead for a view of the Bass Rock.
Twenty years of kids, dogs and not a lot of cycling followed.
Well, I’m back. My Cycle to Work Scheme bike has taken me on my commute for a few years now. There has been, however, a degree of misery. The undulations of the Hailes Road are killers after a long day. It took nearly an hour to get home. I believed power assist to be a cop-out. A cheat’s choice. What it actually meant was that my beloved bike just sat there, while I took the car to work most days. Something had to be done. With my £500 NHS Covid payment, I took a leap of faith and ordered a converter kit. It took a year to come due to a shortage of battery metals.
It’s like night and day. I go so fast I don’t get wet if it’s raining. It takes 25 minutes to get home. The hills are just not an issue except that they are beautiful. That steep hill to Braeheads or the one after Hailes Castle, even the long slope up to Roodlands, do not for one moment stop me from belting out the entire Kate Bush songbook, most of the hymn book, every song from Annie Get your Gun or Bob Dylan’s long, poetic ballads which I know by heart. Sheep stare, chewing, at the spectacle whizzing by in full song.
The seasons change before my eyes. Green fields become seas of whiskery gold. Rosehips appear where dog roses bloomed. Blossom in the hedgerows turns to gleaming brambles. Yellowhammers erupt from a hedge to escort me from Netherhailes Farm, past the cottage with the expertly managed vegetable plot. Hares run haphazardly in front of my wheel. Stiff hips have become oiled with movement and energy levels have soared.
I don’t live for holidays or travel or parties. Cycling route 76 with power assist four days a week, to a job that I love, and home again to people I love is up there for me. Retirement? No way. My sports bottle runneth over.