A role model is like a lemon zester: it’s only once you’ve got one that you realise you wanted one. Belinda Scott, 55, organises rides for the Bella Velo cycle club, and I joined them for laps around Richmond Park. They are insanely fast and gymnast-lean, in matching cycle jerseys that read Queen Of The Mountains.
Probably I could have idealised any one of them, but Belinda is the only one who would wait for me. Her face is a portrait in good decisions. She met her husband cycling in the Dolomites. She is (did I mention?) incredibly good at cycling. But more than any of that, she seems to embody the spirit of club cycling: collegiate, adventurous, footloose, the direct descendant in some karmic way of those string bean hobos of the 1930s, egging each other up impossible mountains, trying to get home before a war started.
You’ll need a racing bike, and you’ll need cleats (the shoes that lock on to the pedals), otherwise you’re using only your quads (the ones that push down), not your hamstring (the one that pulls up). I have those things from my leisurely commuter cycle, though “commuter” is a big word for someone who works from home. “You need a helmet,” says Louise Harris, 50, who’s just qualified for the World Amateur Cycling Championship. “I never wear one.” “Yes, but you need one. Sorry, I’m very blunt. I just don’t understand why anyone would cycle without a helmet.”
The etiquette is clear: cycle two abreast, not three; when you see another group, make some indication of fellowship – a nod will do; if you lose someone, at a roundabout say, wait for them. The technique is more complicated: the through-and-off is when two cyclists are abreast, a third behind the wheel of the one on the left – after a bit, the right-hand one cycles ahead, putting the person on her left in the wheel (to give her a break from the wind), and the one at the back comes alongside the one at the front, and so on. In the time it took me to explain that, they could have done it 15 times, unless I’m involved. They left me in the wheel for a long time, in a delicate acknowledgment of the fact I was about to die.
Richmond Park is packed with cyclists who do a 12km lap around the perimeter, called the Tamsin trail (I don’t know why) or a ballet loop (which is a half-lap around the ballet school). That’s meant to cut out the worst of the hills, but I found it completely punishing. We did this for what felt like hours, but was actually 40 minutes – did I mention the vicious headwind?
If, like me, you’re fundamentally lazy and will stop anything the minute it gets painful, cycling in a pack is probably the closest you’ll get to pushing yourself. It’s embarrassing to slow the others down, and shameful to lose them. I’ll be back: I have a role model to impress.
This week I learned
If you wear cleats to cycle, you use both the front and back of your legs
