Mybike-guychapman

How I Came To Enjoy Cycling
Leaving aside the usual tricycles (including a very fine steel-framed fixie trike with mudguards and spoked wheels), the RSW-11 tiny bike and so on, the first decent sized bike had solid tyres and roller-cam brakes (yes, really, and I am only 38). This was followed by a Chopper Sprint (a Chopper with drop bars) which was a reward for passing my Cycling Proficiency aged, I think, 10. There was a small element of pressure as my dad was a Cycling Proficiency instructor. By the time I was 14 or so I had outgrown this, so was given (thanks to my Nana, who I miss dearly) my Grandad's nearly-new 3-speed Raleigh roadster. I did my paper rounds on this and rode it round Derbyshire one year (amazing - rubber coated rims and no brake blocks following a descent of Winnat's Pass). It soldiered on for years, with almost daily punctures on the clapped-out tyres. I used to ride over to Salisbury Hall to work in the aircraft museum on a Sunday, about 14 miles round trip, or to see friends the other side of St Albans. It was a typical gas-pipe Raleigh: unexciting, but pretty dependable. I remember carrying flowers across the handlebars to see a girlfriend..... Ah, those were the days! For a while aged 17 or 18 I also borrowed my sister's Raleigh Shopper because it had dynamo lights. It was on this bike that I was nearly killed one day, riding round Park Street Roundabout. I had lights on, was wearing light coloured clothing and a reflective belt, but a woman in a car pulled away from stationary on the M10 access without looking, straight into the side of me. I was unconscious long enough that I came round as they loaded me into the ambulance. The bike was paid for (my sister bought a mixte-framed Peugeot five-speed which was actually quite nice), and some time later I received the compensation which paid for my first decent bike: a 23 1/2" Dawes Super Galaxy in midnight blue. Now that was a bike to be proud of! I joined the CTC and used to cycle the eighteen mile round trip to the clubhouse at Hatfield on Wednesdays. I did my first century on the Dawes aged about twenty, and regularly used to cycle to Watford to the bike shop I used (Nigel Dean in St Albans was for racers - even then trundly tourists weren't well served). A man ran into the back of me and bent the frame - he was horrified at the cost of the repair! I rode that bike until I was about 21 or 22 when I outgrew itand bought a 24 1/2" Claud Butler Super Dalesman - what would now probably be considered an audax bike, very light frame for a tourer - which did one summer's CTC runs then was put away when I went to University (too good for a campus bike rack). The Dawes came with me to Uni, as did my Mini van. At Uni I hardly rode the bike at all, driving everywhere with my new girlfriend -> fiancée -> wife, and eventually sold the Dawes to a friend (who dropped it off the roof of his car on the A1, an ignominious end to a very fine machine). And the Claud stayed in the shed until 2000 (with only a few brief outings) - 2000 was the year I hit 15 stone and 40" waist, and decided to stop being a fat bastard. It took three weeks in the gym to lose the first stone, a further six to lose the second, and then I stabilised at 12st 7lb. At which point I got the bike out and started riding again. Weight training has increased my weight to 13st, a weight the bike seems happy to carry, and riding to and from work saves me hours in the gym. I've upgraded the wheels, gears, shifters, rack, lights, mudguards - but it's still the same bike, and it gets me 7.5 miles each way to work at an average of 19.5mph (was 17.5mph last summer). Last year I bought a second-hand Claud Butler Ravana MTB to tow Peter (5) on his Adams Trail-A-Bike, and now the whole family has started cycling - my wife Felicity, who only learned to ride a bike just prior to going to uni and had never really ridden properly at all, now has a Dawes Saratoga and loves it. Michael (8) has a Dawes Kokomo 24" and is getting very proficient - even if I do have to raise the saddle every two weeks because he's growing so fast. He now has strapless toeclips - very proud of himself! I still have a lot of time for Dawes bikes, I would have bought a 24 1/2" Galaxy if there had been such a beast but the nex size up was 25 1/2". The Galaxy was stiffer than the Dalesman (though heavier). Guy Chapman