I was inspired by Jo Turner’s article “Walking to Happiness” in the summer edition of Shepperton Matters, to share my experience of cycling during lockdown in the hope of encouraging others in my situation.
Before lockdown, my physio, had me cycling at the gym 3 times a week to try to stop my knee arthritis getting worse. This was the first exercise for my knees that seemed to make a difference. I looked down and didn’t recognise my bulging knees, sur-rounded by muscle – and the pain had virtually dis-appeared. Come lockdown in March the gym closed and I didn’t want to stop. I was forced to dust off my old bike and take to the streets of Shep-perton.
It was hard at first. Every slight slope felt like a hill. But I enjoyed feeling it get easier as my legs got stronger. I also did the same route so I could time myself – 3 minutes faster might seem nothing but as a percentage of 45 minutes it is nearly a 7% improvement!
My route took me along Fordbridge Road all the way straight to Dockett Eddy Lane where I turned left to return along the river road, then through Old Shepperton and back along Russell Road. This involved 2 quite major roundabouts and the dreaded right turn from Old Shepperton. When I gained the confidence to stay on the bike rather than getting off and pushing it, I learnt to position myself in the middle of the road and cycle as fast as my legs would carry me to avoid cars getting impatient and trying to beat me and cut me off. Pointing in the direction of where I wanted to go and then hand-signalling clearly helped a lot. Safety was more important to me than looking silly.
Although there were few cars on the road, I still managed to only narrowly avoid accidents and quickly learnt to concentrate as if I were driving my car while still relaxing and enjoying it. I fell off twice but both times it was my fault, and I thought due to breaking badly. Once I put my arm out and braked at the same time so I lost my balance, which really was silly. The second time I was about to tackle a roundabout and a car appeared out of no-where and I must have braked too hard as I toppled over.
I was overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers, both drivers and pedestrians. I will never forget the couple who saw me fall off and memorised our home phone number to call my husband when they got home. Wow! Thank you so much!
Once I was encouraged by two guys in army uni-form who, seeing my flagging spirits gave me a boost with a cry of “Go on girl!” Needless to say, cyclists were all lovely. When I was stranded on the roundabouts or they could see the effort on my face, they often asked if I was OK. I enjoyed the small wins, like overtaking other cyclists for the first time – even though they were a family of 4 with 2 small children, that was surprisingly hard!
I never minded being overtaken by other cyclists. I told myself that they were all experienced, year- round fanatics and concentrated on what I could do to improve my time.
As I became more confident I started to improve my posture on the bike. I learnt to sit back on my pubic bone and pull in the core and relax my shoulders. This made it much more comfortable. When my wrists hurt I found that rocking them forward took off the pressure.
I found out that Local Authorities run cycling profi-ciency courses for adults. However, I took an ad-vanced driving course and we were shown so many awful car accidents to inspire careful driving that I almost sold my car! I was concerned that the in-structor’s similar stories might make me less confi-dent, and I had found a lot out on my own.
Bikes need regular servicing and I was a bit worried about my breaks as they felt “funny”. I struggled to find a shop that wasn’t booked up for the rest of the season but thank you to Neil’s Wheels in Molesey who took pity on me and fitted me in. It turned out that my brakes had started to perish so maybe it wasn’t the way I braked after all. As my bike hadn’t been used for a few years I realised I should have taken it for a service before using it.
When my gym re-opened and I returned to my exer-cise bike I was pleased that my previous level seemed easy and I was able to progress 2 more lev-els.
I hope I have inspired others to cycle for pleasure or to reduce the pain in their knees. I love to feel the blood rushing to my knees as well as seeing the changes to their appearance when I look down! Best of all is feeling my legs thank me afterwards by shaking with pleasure!