For a long time I imagined that my experience of bikes would amount to no more than a brief chapter of BMX- enhanced childhood. Though 20 years of cars, tubes, buses and walking had passed still the memories remained vivid. When I cast my mind back to my early years in a sedate north London suburb my little Raleigh bike figured in so many adventures. There was the joy of accomplishing stabiliser-free balance for the first time, giving my five-year-old self a glimpse of a wealth of possibilities beyond my home’s island-shaped garden lawn. In the following years no blade of grass or strip of tarmac in the N21 area was left unexplored in search for the new. My bike seemed to offer rich sensory experiences – I remember gliding around the perfectly smooth circuit of Grovelands Park’s lake (my very own outdoor velodrome). And making my way to the top of the park and whizzing down its grassy undulating banks right to the very bottom, the delightful slalom experienced from the tips of the fingers through to the toes.
On two wheels I could also emulate my film heroes. This being the late 80s, Michael J Fox’s character Marty Mc Fly from Back to the Future was etched onto my imagination. Especially the scene in which Marty sashays with effortless cool around the 1955 Hill Valley on a (newly invented! )skateboard, manoeuvring himself by hanging on to the back of cars while hotly pursued by beastly Biff Tannen. Time and again my brother and I would return to the same cul de sac to recreate the scene. Seniority ruled and, being two years older, he would get to reprise the role of the skateboarding Marty while I faithfully imitated a 1950s car using my BMX. Increasing velocity as I hit the straight, pedalling as hard as my boyish legs would go, my brother would finally let go of me and flash along before finally coming to a standstill precariously close to the main road.
But no sooner than I could say “Great Scott!” I was parted from the bike. I was off to boarding school in the Berkshire countryside with new routines and a new life. Immersing myself in these, I quickly forgot about my beloved BMX, which was consigned to the garage and to the recesses of my memory to accumulate rust and cobwebs.
Until last June when I picked up a £100 second hand Trek hybrid from a friend emigrating to Australia. The prospect of pitting leg power against the many many horse legs worth of power on hectic urban streets instilled in me a state of finger chewing panic. But I was feeling my life drifting along aimlessly and wanted to shake it up in however small a way. Perhaps I could rekindle some of that childhood two-wheel joy? So I picked it up on a sweltering morning and cycled back from Brixton to my Bermondsey flat- my first solo bike journey in 20 years undertaken in a state of heightened alertness. Reaching my flat the fear receded, my attitude to the bike replaced by feelings similar to those you might have for guests at a New Year’s Eve party you’ve been dragged along to. Respectful, polite, but without the slightest concern if you never crossed paths ever again. I locked it up outside my flat for the rest of the summer.
My interest was piqued again after encountering a bike aficionado, Bella Bathurst, at a literature festival in the autumn. Here was someone so taken with two wheels that she had decided to write a book all about them, The Bicycle Book. I met Bella briefly over a group dinner, and am not even sure I exchanged more than initial pleasantries. But something about the meeting resonated with me. Bikes and the people I’d seen riding them had generally intimidated me with their serious looking lycra wares, high-spec accessories and their talk of tyre pressure and inner tubes – an arcane language I didn’t feel a part of. Her book showed me that you could enjoy cycling for the simple reason that “there is no lovelier form of transport . So I got back on the bike, and I haven’t looked back since, apart from to watch out for approaching large vehicles, or, occasionally, with an ever so slight smugness as I burn away from a Boris.
The Bicycle Book tells the history of bikes and its evolution from a heavy wooden two-wheeled contraption, the velocipede, without pedals or steering. There are chapters on the lives of several messengers, a revealing interview with Scottish cycling legend and two-time hour world record holder Graeme Obree and a detailed analysis of the Tour de France, among others. I found the most evocative were Bathurst’s insights into the complex range of emotional scenarios the ordinary cyclist encounters each journey. There’s joy you feel , for instance, as the “transport system’s perpetual underdog”, as you weave past stationary vehicles and their irritated car drivers, easing to the front of a traffic light. The defiance at being the scourge of all things motorised and two legged. The collectivity you feel with fellow cyclists as you congregate at the front of a traffic light waiting for the green signal, a feeling which might quickly turn to enmity as a garishly coloured lycra-panted male leaves you trailing in his wake. And, ever so often, the sweet sense of revenge as you catch Lycra boy at the next traffic light and insouciantly pedal your way alongside him. I also feel conscience pangs ( and sometimes a sense of joy at the small rebellion) as I pass through red lights. I acknowledge the hypocrisy as, with tired, pedal heavy legs, I pass a zebra crossing I should have stopped at. I am keenly aware that I have often cursed cyclists for doing the same to me.
Time and again Bella Bathurst beautifully conveys the pure pleasure of pedalling. “Astride this perfectly balanced assembly of lines and curves, the world seems suddenly a place of infinite potential. There’s something about the rightness of bikes that your body always recognises whatever age you are. It recognises something that your mind may not: that bikes are really just about two things – simplicity and joy.” She explains how the French use the word ‘souplesse’ to describe the sense of grace, harmony and flow on a bike. Please forgive me for being a little self-indulgent. But when I pedal home from five-aside-football on a Monday night, the world glowing softer after pints of Guinness, the magnificent, illuminated dome of St Paul’s Cathedral brought closer to my eye line by my legwork, I feel lots and lots of that’ rightness’.
© Kieran Mullens 2012
