Bicycle riding is perhaps the activity that I enjoy the most. I have spent a great deal of time mainly racing and training. I did not get a bike until I was 11 years old  but by the time I was 14 did not think anything of riding to my aunts for the weekend fifty miles away.

 At age eighteen I wanted to go to Field Day with the Basingstoke Amateur Radio club, but my father surprizisingly was unable to take me. At that time I had not ridden my bike for about two years but did not think the eight miles from Kingsclere to the Field day site would be any problem. As it turned out that after two years it hurt quite a lot.

Not long after this I noticed a column in the Newbury Weekly News about the Newbury Road Club, a local cycling club that did touring rides on the weekends. This seemed like a good way to get back into some sort of reasonable shape. After spending some time taking part in touring rides on the weekends and holidays, I was invited to take part in a team race because they were short of riders.  At school I had been totally useless at all sports, so I was very reluctant to go near anything like a race. After a great deal of persuasion and convincing that it did not matter what time I did, I was just needed to make up the numbers, I rode the race, a 25 mile time trial.  I rode the 25 miles in 1 hour 6 minutes and some seconds, not a world beating time but very good for a first club race in the 1960's. That race changed my life, after being such a dunce at all sports, to find that I could actually be competitive at something raised my self esteem to a level that has allowed me to do many things that I would otherwise have been far too timid to attempt.

I have not kept a full record of the miles I have ridden on my bike but a  rough calculation puts my total lifetime miles on a bike at around 250,000. I have raced road,  track and mountain bikes. I cannot say that I really made the National level of competition either in England or the USA although I have a few top four positions  in divisional, State and National Championships.

Riding and Training with kids in upstate New York.