In the winter of 2019/20 I was working in social care when Corona hit the country. My employers, being risk averse, decided to close our service down but, being in a supervisory role, I still had to go into our office every day to maintain a phone link for our service users and staff. This changed after a few weeks and we gradually increased the services we provided. I had recently gone through eye surgery therefore couldn’t drive so soon I was making a 10 mile bus journey twice daily.

This was a pain as I had to take two buses. One day I looked at my bike and thought that cycling would be a less time-consuming way to get to work as I was travelling for 2 hours, morning and evening to get to work and home, having to wear a mask, a limited service with no guarantee of the timings. I worked out that it was less distance and because it was along the canal the cycle was flat and therefore shouldn’t be too taxing.

So I started riding my bike to work. I had hardly been on the bike for years. The first day I arrived and my legs were so wobbly I thought I may need to leave my bike in the office and take the bus home. I had all sorts of thoughts going through my head. Was I too old at 64 to start commuting? Was it maybe a plan to just do one trip a day and do the reverse by bus?

Anyway, by the end of the day I felt better and cycled home. The next day I tried it again and it was easier. I was even starting to look forward to the journey and by the end of the week was committed to cycling every day.

By mid summer I was thinking of myself as a cyclist and even going out on my bike when I wasn’t working. I started buying cycling clothing and extras for the bike. Waterproofs followed and I was cycling in all weathers.

By March 2023 I had almost stopped driving altogether. I was a committed cyclist who was about to retire. So it was time to take my cycling to the next level and work out how I was going to continue when I was no longer commuting to work.