What’s happened to me?!
When I first learnt to ride almost 10 years ago, it was primarily driven by the need to commute to London in a more efficient way. I needed to get to work and back faster and cheaper than train, tube and bus. Too many changes, too much walking to/from stations and tight childcare drop off/pick up deadlines simply meant public transport was no longer working for me.
London biking wasn’t necessarily enjoyable, but infinitely preferable to public transport
Over the years that followed, I became a hardened London biker, commuting in all weathers, all year round, carving my way through the traffic, idiotic drivers, suicidal cyclists and oblivious pedestrians. I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as enjoyable, but it was infinitely preferable to public transport and it certainly kept one alert and on the ball. Though, London weather was rarely ever too bad to contemplate riding in.
Like many, the COVID pandemic changed everything. The office commute stopped just like that and working from home became the new norm. My employer reducing office space, introducing flexible days and new hotdesking plans meant that even when lockdown restrictions eased, I was still only commuting into London just once or twice a week. The change of pace, and the additional time freed up in the day all added up to a better quality of life and something I was keen to take advantage of permanently and somewhere outside of East London suburbs. If you can work anywhere, you may as well work somewhere nice.
If you can work anywhere, you may as well work somewhere nice
Fast forward to today, I’m working from my dedicated home office in beautiful Scotland and only pop back down to the London office for a couple of days every couple of months via train. It’s 5.5hrs train vs ~9hrs on bike and tickets are a similar price to the petrol! This is all great, but the amount of biking I’m doing has dropped considerably. No more motorcycle commuting, just fun blasts through the Scottish mountains on free weekends when the weather is decent. A leisure ride in Scotland in torrential rain or snow is not something you want to do out of choice…
Yep, I’ve become that stereotype I used to mock, I’ve turned into a fair weather biker and a weekend warrior. Uh-oh!
It’s been a stonker of a summer, Britain was taken over by a huge heat wave followed by almost monsoon rains. Now Autumn is well and truly upon us, the leaves are falling and everyone is all talk of end of season for biking… What’s that all about then?!