I used to love cycling and started with cycling to the school bus stop when I was 11, to the village to hang out with friends all through my young teens. Cycling miles to visit a boyfriend when I was 16, and to work from one end of Stowmarket to the other in my early twenties. Cycling with one child and then two children on bike seats all through the 1980s. Then after 1992 at the smallholding when we often only had one vehicle I biked the 2½ miles to Saxmundham or Leiston
for shopping every week, I had baskets back and front. At Clay Cottage I
biked the six mile loop for exercise quite often, especially during covid.
Cycling was always much easier than walking.
So why did I give up cycling 2 years ago after cycling everywhere for nearly 60 years? My old bike (bought in 1992 I think) was steel frame, very heavy and very front heavy. It had a puncture in 2022 which BiL repaired for me but not for several months, then we had that heat wave when it was too hot to bike anywhere, then somehow the bike slid down when I was trying to get on it back in 2023 and it landed on top of me and I was put right off. I did try again once but not with any enthusiasm or confidence. The bike was left in the garage getting rusty and I sold it for £10 last year when my knee was painful and I thought I wouldn't be able to bike again but my knee is 99% better now and cycling is good exercise.
So I'd been trying to decide all winter if I should get a) an electric tricycle or b) a non electric tricycle and neither have good reports from the cycle shop in Diss, in fact they stopped selling both because people kept having problems and they had to keep sending out their van to collect the trikes - you can't fit a trike in the back of a car or on a bike rack! You also can't get out of the way on narrow lanes or push a trike up hill.
As it wasn't through loss of balance that I stopped cycling, I didn't really need a trike at all, and an electric bike didn't really appeal - they are heavy and not always reliable and I'd no plans to do huge long bike rides so why not just get a new lightweight cycle - they are aluminium nowadays, with a lower 'step-over' and I could have the seat a bit lower.
That's what I did.
My first try out was wobbly, I only went a couple of metres, the seat was too low and I had to find an allen key to adjust it up. After getting that sorted I went a mile along the flattest road near home and back again, practising braking and getting off and changing gear. The brakes are certainly very effective! The bike just has 6 gears on a special turning bit on the handlebar, very easy to change gear and the wheels are really big so each push of the pedals goes a long way.
I found the large fluffy sheepskin saddle cover that was on my old bike, it's shedding wool as if a mouse has been at it! I elastic band-ed it to the smaller saddle, but what's really needed is a squishier, larger saddle and a new cover. I really knew I'd been sitting on a solid seat after 2 miles!
Next day I did the same 2 miles again, much less wobbly, this bike is so lightweight, I was flying along- why on earth didn't I do this a few years ago??
Next day I went a bit further and down a little lane and up a no through road to a farm and back again which was just over three miles. The gears are so good I was able to cycle up one of our small Suffolk hills that I used to have to walk up with my old bike.
I don't intend to cycle miles but there are a couple of loops I can ride out of the village and back again, to get back to cycling 6 miles - It's all very exciting!
Back Tomorrow
