2. On how to learn to enjoy cycling

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I thought of that while riding my bike.

Albert Einstein on theory of relativity

 

Now one thing about our mysterious current homeland (with dikes, channels and windmills, take a guess) is that everybody moves on bikes. So among our bucket list was to get our own, if for no other reason, to save money on public transport.

We had only two requirements; first they should be simple single speeds as they were going to be “stored” on the street at the mercy of the elements, second, they should be suitable for urban commuting. So we got ourselves cheap cruisers, proverbial couches on two wheels. We tested a few and then took the ones which felt nice. What happened next was something of a revelation for me.

Wonders of Speed

With a single speed there’s roughly only one speed to accelerate and to maintain. It was not the typical lung burning sports speed I had come to know from my previous bikes, but a relatively leisurely pace which came naturally like a cruise control on a car. Just a simple acceleration and then you just kept going as long as the trip would take. No more fiddling with gears to try to find the optimum revolution rate, no more pushing the pedals like a maniac. The limiting factors are the bike itself and the ambient conditions such as weather/traffic/road/load. I found very quickly that I actually did not think that I was biking at all, I was just going from place to place without effort and lettting the mind wander or enjoy the surroundings.

Utility

This speed is so effortless that there’s no need for specialised technical clothing to keep the perspiring down, casual normal cloths will do nicely like they would do for walking. So what about it? Well, after a few days I just took the bike off the street to go to downtown as naturally as I would have put the shoes on. No more acute need for public transport nor no need to have change of clothes at the destination. Also, we had no need for specialised detachable equipment, groceries and other things from the city came home without panniers as locals have developed a delightful front carrier that easily hauls anything from kids to fully laden grocery bags with ease. On the following photo you can spot at least different five type of bikes: mamafiets with a front carrier and kid´s seat in the back, bakfiets, three-wheeler cargo bike, folding bike for train commuting and the usual rusty oma/papa fietsers. The better bikes are probably inside and taken out only for sports or for a spin on a nice day. These bikes on the stree are the bikes which people use all the time.

 

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Change of perspective

Within a ridiculously short period of time we became from reluctant bikers to avid bikers. Even my S.O. who never felt at home on busy intercity streets on a bike went completely local within weeks. Rain and wind was just something you prepared for, it was not an excuse for not using the bike. We just bought the utilitarian 20€ rain gear everybody uses on their casual clothes. Even during the local ”winter” I prefer the bike to public transport as I could get straight to where I wanted without shivering in the cold. All this happened quite naturally and without any concious effort.

A realization that something had indeed changed came to me one late autumn morning, while I was on my way to work. It was probably 6am (dark) and pouring as it often does here. So I just put on the rain gear on and hopped on the bike instead of opting for the tram. Somewhere along the ride when the morning coffee started to kick in, I realized how strange this was and would not have performed such a stunt ever in the past. In the last three years I have not skipped a morning commute, unless there was something fundamentally wrong with the two-wheels or if the weather was outright dangerous. 

The lessons learned?

First  is obvious; I biked for a long time with machines which did not fit me. Why? Because I knew nothing about bikes. A pro cyclist or proper bike shop would have been a good start. Even a simple thing as going for a spin on several different bikes would have given a better idea of what fits and what doesn’t. Instead I tried only the model which had attractive technology on the paper and had a nice price. Twice. Now I know that for me the bike should feel intuitively comfortable from the start. If adjustments on saddle and the handlebar/stem areas do not bring any help, I should go for another bike.

Second, I think I needed to discover the joys of biking again. This means that choosing for the easy cruiser/cargobike was an ideal choice. It was a bike that I started use daily for short rides and simple things. Even better, I became dependent on having the bike and first time in a very long while I enjoyed the freedom it gave me. Once I had a hang of the cycling after the long pause, I started pushing the limits what the bike could do as far as speed and distances go.

Third, people use (and should use) different bikes for a different purposes. If you are just doing under 10k rides in in town for hauling groceries or hopping for movies, there’s no sense to go for a 2k€ roadmonster with dropdown bars and gazillion gears for speed. What you need is a comfort bike which has nice upright sitting position, and which is sturdy enough to take some loading but is light enough to make the biking effortless. If you want to have a long distance commuter, take a bike which does just that.

Now we are finaly coming to a more recent topic. In the past couple of years we have found the limits for our casual rides. They are still good and nice for their purpose but we’d like to start doing longer distances so our bike family is going to have some new members in the near future.  

Which brings me to episode 3: In search for a bit specialized bikes and how this took us to UK and to the world of hand made bicycles…

 

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Pictures/videos:

Rotterdam streetart

Leiden old town

Duch style front carrier: http://www.hembrow.eu/

Amsterdam Vondelpark bikers: Amsterdamize.com

Cambridge, Trinity college

Hyvinvointi Liikunta Mieli

1. On forgetting how to enjoy cycling

 

 

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A bicycle, often called a bike, is a human-powered, pedal-driven,

single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame,

one behind the other.

A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist.

– Wikipedia

 

I, like most people, have at least one vivid memory relating to bicycles or cycling as a kid. I still remember the anxious waiting during springtime for the snow to melt and for the day when the bikes were taken out of winter storage, tuned up and taken for a spin around the block. Back then I did not think bike as means of sport or exercise. It was means to get quickly from place to another and in our time when kids could roam at will, means to explore and taste a bit of freedom.

It did not matter if one friend had a single speed rust-bucket and the other a modern hybrid, we just got around together and it was fun. During summer holidays I used to take longer rides on my own and Dad took me for weeklong treks every year. I still reminisce those long weeks on the bike loaded with camping gear very fondly, especially the feeling of achievement after particularly strenuous day or after realising that never in my life had I done such a distance on one go.

Bike was means to move and source of fun back then but then something happened, or many something’s. I got a new bike to replace the ageing Nishiki Bombardier. A shining new hybrid GT. By all accounts it should have been a good bike but I still remember how awkward and uncomfortable it was from the first go. It took the joy out of biking and as that coincided with getting a driver’s license, start off studies (beer parties and, well, studying) and commuting with unlimited transport ticket. The bike spent more and more of time in the storage gathering dust and frankly I did not feel like jumping on the bike for fun anymore.

I can honestly say that I forgot about biking altogether. I still had the GT but I did not want to use it casually or for leisure. I used it for sports only, with sweat on the brow. Not very succesfully I must say, 

Fast forward to my mid 20´s and I thought that getting back to the saddle would be nice idea and maybe my significant other would like to try it out again as well. In hindsight I should have done proper research on makings of a good bike and figure what I and S.O. would need. So what happened? I saw an ad on hybrids on the newspaper and got them from a shop known for the price but not for the expertise. We got good hybrid bikes as far as parts go, but as there was no real fitting or testing different types of bikes, they had poor chance to be good bikes for us.

For S.O. the bike was kind of ok and could be adjusted for decent experience. I on the other hand got a worthy replacement to my dust gathering GT. It became evident from the first trip that the biking on the new hybrid Giant would be a challenge indeed. I felt that the driving position was odd, I got shimmies at higher speeds, my hands were numbing after 10k and by god I hated the front suspension as it just added complications to the already awkward cycling.  After several summers of adjusting and playing around with the bike, I have a more decent ride. On a good day it is ok, on a bad day it feels that I’m hand standing on a unwieldly unicycle. I use it nowadays because I have learned to enjoy cycling, not because I enjoy cycling that particular machine.

I thought that as I got older I just forgot what the biking was like, perhaps I was out of shape (true to some degree) and perhaps the time had gilded memories of yonder years and summer days on the saddle. Over the years we went on sporadic rides during summertime, tried trekking (miserable fail despite the usual comfort gadget shopping) and I even did a bit of sporty commuting. I just could not bring myself to enjoy it at all anymore.

Onwards a few years and I am a reformed man. Why? Well, I found myself and S.O. in the land of channels, windmills and bicycles…

 

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Hyvinvointi Liikunta