First post… Makes sense I should briefly mention my journey of some 41 (indeed!) years to get me to now.

First Bike: The “Blue Baboon”. A second hand, steel framed, single speed, badly spray painted blue, bike. The ‘blue’ part is obvious, however I have no idea why ‘Baboon’ – perhaps I had been learning about them at school? I was 10 I think. I loved it. On my birthday I found it semi wrapped up in the kitchen of my Mum and I’s 3rd floor flat in a council estate in a small Scottish town near Glasgow. Mum and gran had saved up for it. It was the best bike on the estate, as far as I was concerned. It was enough to get me 1/2 mile along the road to the space ship. The Space ship was a tree. My friends and I would race to it, climb it, and in doing so, we became astronauts. There can be no better bike than the one that helped me take off!!

Second Bike: No name. Don’t know why. It was a racer. I was 14 maybe. It had gears, drops and was new. It was functional. Between it and I we must have delivered 10’s of thousands of Newspapers in the town! Perhaps that is why it had no name…work – it was my job!! Not fun. Not tree climbing! I assume the TDF riders I am watching now do not name their bikes either!

I like to think that year or so of early starts, several miles, a lot of it uphill, of riding is why I am such a natural now…22 years later!!

Wind forward 21 years.

I’m 40. No bikes between 14 and 40! Lots of other stuff, but no bikes! Classic mid-life crisis age. I’m also skint, or at least in a lot of debt, so saving money and getting fit can only be good. Cue the “ride to work’ scheme…