From reluctant exerciser to routine cyclist

André Jute

The young man who stops me in the street is vaguely familiar. He was at school with my son, and came on a day-long bike ride with us on the long hills and back roads of West Cork: Bandon, Kilbrittain, Timoleague, home to Bandon in the twilight. He remembers that as quality time. I don’t tell him the truth: that I bought my first bike out of a sense of duty. My son got his first “big” bike with which he would go on the roads rather than the quiet lane we lived on. I decided it was smart to have a bike of my own to give him a few tips and discover for myself which roads should be forbidden as too dangerous.

A couple of years later my weight, always a threat even when I was a youthful athlete, shot up so frighteningly that I gave up the car for good. It was one of the smartest decisions I ever made, and not for economically and morally suspect green politics either. A novelist who doesn’t take the bus and lacks interest in community activities can become very isolated. But best of all—though at first it was a pain in the posterior in every sense of the word—that visit to my doctor was the mechanism which introduced me to the bicycle as a tool of entertainment and health. Today I still eat whatever I like—and have the heart of an ox.

And I love riding my bike. I no longer have a schedule of exercise, because it has long since become routine that for my thinking time I jump on my bike and ride the lanes; to go to the shops or the library, I ride my bike; for entertainment with my friends, we ride our bikes in exactly the same way as we go to concerts or restaurants for entertainment. We brag of the heroic rides we took when we were new cyclists, of course, but we have long since discovered that easy social rides can do you as much good as painful exertion. We have long since lost the perpetual kids who brag that they can ride to Killarney or some other distant place in three hours. We have long since lost the macho idiots who want to whip on everyone until they are fagged out before allowing a stop for a drink and a health bar.

One of the great things about bicycling is that—unless you are practicing for the Tour de France, in which case you don’t need tips from me—the easy, rather relaxed way is most often the right way to do it for your heart--see Cycling for your heart.

It’s amazing how much less time we all have than we used to. Here’s a hot flash for people who believe that when the children are out of the house they will have more time for their dream: do it now, with the children, or you will never find time for it. I used to be a mad hillwalker and I still like walking, but now, when I should have free time coming out of my ears, hillwalking just takes up too much time I don’t have. I also started finding the few dangerous passages on Irish mountains less thrilling than I used to. But I still haven’t lost the thrill of racing downhill at exhilarating speeds on my bike on the many isolated lanes where it is safe. That by itself is a good reason to love my bike. Don’t let any killjoys tell you an occasional spurt of adrenaline isn’t good for you.

There’s good adrenaline and bad adrenaline. According to my heart rate monitor, I am less stressed even at the end of a hard uphill ride than when I am negotiating right of way with a big truck in a narrow town street. I have no hesitation in recommending downhill speeding on a safe, isolated lane. Cycling in general is a safety valve for the stresses of everyday life—and speed in the open air is a safety valve for extraordinary stresses. An open sports car doesn’t come even close to the thrill of a bike on a good long hill; there is a feeling of achievement in leg-power whereas the mere wallet-power represented by a convertible car induces in the right-thinking a sense of guilt. It is quite amazing how the creative functions, stalled and stressed after pushing deadlines, kick in afresh after a spot of speeding on a bike.

My last bike became fragile after fifteen years. I found it such a good investment in fun and health that I have invested in a better bike to last the next 25 years.

•André’s bicycle is a Royal Dutch Gazelle Toulouse from www.gazelle.nl supplied by Konrad Huff www.zweirad-huff.de, tel. 00-49-2-433-8068, André’s heart rate monitor/bike computer is a Ciclosport HAC 4 www.ciclosport.de

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Republished by courtesy of the Irish Examiner.
All text and illustration Copyright © Andre Jute