World Bicycle Day

*This post was originally published as a Facebook post on Tuesday 4th June 2024*

It's World Bicycle Day today. While I had the use of my legs they were either to walk or cycle with. I didn't really grow up with any great knowledge of spina bifida. I wasn't disabled but I was. Spina bifida was on a need to know basis and I, most fortunately, didn't need to know for three decades, but I also always kind of knew I was on borrowed time with my legs. If you don't use them, lose them, and, while I could, I most certainly put them to use. Walking and cycling, two of the great pleasures in my life. I made sure I got my money's worth while I had the ability for both.

My first bike was a Raleigh Boxer, bright yellow, beautiful. I was six years old and it was my first Christmas in Toryglen. It was a white Christmas and I was gutted because I couldn't get out on the pedals that morning. I had to bide my time and build a snowman instead. 

I soon devised this little triangular circuit from my house I would do laps of, which didn't mean crossing any roads, but included a downhill section on the pavement of the main road I would build up speed on to freewheel down. It was here I began to notice these lycra clad guys (only ever men) whizz past me on the road. They looked like man and machine in perfect harmony, like the bike was part of their body, every aspect in perfect sync. It blew my tiny little mind, I so wanted to be them! 

But who were they? I would go out of my way to sit at the top of my street waiting for them to appear and race them down the hill, attempting to keep up with them, my wee legs going like the clappers while they seemed to glide effortlessly past.

Over time some of those I 'rode with' came to acknowledge me and I would notice they all rode in the same kit. They were from the Glenmarnock Wheelers cycling club based in neighbouring Rutherglen. One or two of them would stop long enough to tell me their route and the miles they expected to do and for me to "stick in" with my cycling - mind blown yet again.

Fast forward a year or three and I am beginning to read the sports pages of the newspaper. The coverage of cycling is nothing more, usually than the Top 10 in the General Classification of the Tour de France and the leaderboard is all foreign names until one day I notice the name Robert Millar (GB) included. Ex Glenmarnock Wheeler Robert Millar as I'm later to find out! 

My first sporting hero. I still hold onto the, albeit remote idea that he might have been one of those who told me to stick in with my cycling. 

Pic stolen off the internet