So why do I cycle

So why do we cycle? Its an easy question, but its not an easy answer. The answer was different when I was five, when I was a teenager and now as a supposed adult. I cycle now for fitness, fun and probably stress relief. Occasionally for achievement too. It's also a substitute for what ticked my boxes in the past. I was a ball player, a cricketer and a rugby player. At that time, I didn't even own a bike. Not because I had fallen out of love with cycling it was just not needed to tick my boxes.

As a five year old, it was adventure, even if that adventure only took me to the other end of the service road for our estate and the main excitement was wondering if Mr Brown was going to shout at us again for cycling past his gate on the footpaths.....

In my teens, cycling represented my first taste of freedom and independence, it also was a period when I lost more skin than at any other time in my life. My teens started with using the bike to go fishing and ended with cycling being a "legal" way of getting home from the pub. I tried competitions, I tried trips out, but it ended with my time trial bike being sold and buying my first motorcycle, all 100 snarling cc's of Yamaha "madness"

I suppose my cycling has gone in a circle or at least there is a bit of boomerang shape to the analogy. Cycling is adventure again, and I'm really not sure how a thought one evening turned into planning a 1,000 mile trip, not really into the unknown as I have ordered a SatNav, but into some other unknowns, like will my legs stand up to the challenge, will I get bored with it and catch a train home or will the bike break and I end up not finishing a day or will I get lost!

Starting a bog is harder than first expected, I hope it will improve over time and that the functionality of the site will get more interesting too.