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Is it just me, or does everyone on two wheels look like they know exactly what they’re doing?
Back straight, shoulders relaxed, head held high – rhythmically pedalling as if they’re in a promo video for the latest cult-like spin class.
Emmie Harrison-West is a freelance journalist, editor and award-winning beer writer, who will be penning a column for Cycling Weekly every fortnight. You can find her cursing Edinburgh’s cycle lanes on the way to the pub, or as @emmieehw on X.
Some are kitted out in Lycra, crouching over the latest tech and gear adorning their featherweight frame. Others seemingly tootle around city cycling lanes with ease; weaving in and out of panting people like me, while casually taking a work call through fancy headphones.
Some can even do it with a coffee in one hand (yes, we’ve seen that video of someone making a pour over coffee while cycling, quite literally grinding while on the grind – though it’s not something we’d recommend at CW – ED). I’m too scared to even cycle with no hands.
I can’t help but feel that I’m not doing it ‘right’. ‘It’ being cycling: a sport that I’ve loved and cherished since I was a girl.
So why, at the age of 31, do I still question my ability every single time I get on a bike?
Back when I was young, there was no ‘right’ way to cycle. After my stabilisers were removed from my squeaky pink bike, I followed my dad’s lead. It was all I knew. I remember carefully wobbling up and down our back lane with his arms outstretched beside me, my mam giggling behind her camcorder.
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There were no rules, just a will to learn. It didn’t matter how I did it if I was doing it for me.
It’s really only when I reached my adult life that I started to become aware of other cyclists around me. To take note of what they were doing on the confines of roads and cycling lanes, or what they were wearing, and compare myself. I started to care too much about what people thought about me, my body and my ‘technique’ – if I even had one.
I felt like I was too fat, too poor, too afraid, too bad, too wrong to be a cyclist.
Obviously, at school in the UK, I learned about the safe way to cycle in Cycling Proficiency lessons. To never cycle on the pavement; to use the left-side of the road; to indicate with your arm; to give way to pedestrians; to wear a helmet; to invest in lights for safety, and to stop at red traffic lights (even if that is a contentious topic for some…).
I had a badge to prove that I was ‘proficient’ and everything, but why – as an adult – did it feel so wrong?
For years, I avoided cycling as a result. My bike grew rusty in the shed as I avoided cycle lanes. I felt like I wasn’t an ‘expert’ – and didn’t know how to become one.
I felt like to be a cyclist, or to cycle in the ‘right’ way, I had to have a goal in mind. A destination, or a personal best to continuously keep beating. A mountain to tackle, or had to know what a crit race was – or had to own an eco-friendly, superlight, carbon-whatever e-bike that cost more than my rent.
That I had to go on cycling holidays, cycle in the rain, wear an expensive sports bra with matching pants and socks, or give up my weekends to sweat profusely while training for some indeterminate future event.
Emmie’s Pendleton, ready to ride
(Image credit: Emmie Harrison-West)
Now, I know that not to be true.
All of these things are totally OK if they add to your happiness while cycling, that’s a given – but they’re not the recipe to being a cyclist.
Spoiler alert: there isn’t one. There simply isn’t a prescribed or hard-and-fast ‘right’ way to cycle.
Though I still question myself, and feel self-conscious every time I jump on my bike (or step-through it, as it’s a gorgeous mint-green, 17-inch frame Pendleton) I know they’re my own battles to conquer – and don’t affect my, or anyone else’s, ability to be ‘a cyclist’.
I know that it’s OK to just be cycling to the shops, the pub, to the beach with my husband, or aimlessly with no destination keyed into Google maps.
Safely, confidently and with joy – not with a goal – is the ‘right’ way to cycle, if ever there was one. It does well to remember that cycling is a personal journey, not bound by rigid standards.
Today, I can safely say that I never regret a bike ride – even if I can’t cycle with a coffee in one hand just yet.
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