Cycling

sometimes its about 2 wheels

These days I’m probably more of a fair-weather cyclist. I used to be properly into it and even did the London to Brighton bike ride, but I slowly fell out of love with cycling as it got more popular, along with the rise of the MAMIL or “middle-aged man in lycra”, sometimes less politely known as the full-kit wanker. I never really got on with being clipped in either. I did try, but it wasn’t for me. Yes, I did the classic slow-motion topple in front of a load of people, followed by the blind panic of hearing traffic backing up while I desperately tried to unclip and stand up again. The final straw was being out on a ride and getting criticised for riding flat pedals instead of being clipped in. For me, cycling is about enjoying being on the bike, not stressing over pedal efficiency or whether I’m doing it “properly”.

One thing I did love doing on my bike was taking “Ickle Man on a Bike” out with me and photographing him for my Tumblr page (remember those?). Like most of my ideas, it’s been an on-again, off-again project for years. I later extended it to taking Ickle Man on holiday. When we were at Magic Kingdom in Disney, I was taking a photo of him when a twenty-something asked what I was doing. After I explained, they said, “Awesome dude, what’s your Insta?” I replied, “Erm… I’ve got a Tumblr page.” They had absolutely no idea what that was, so the Ickle Man on a Bike Instagram page was born Click HERE to see.

Incidentally, I also did a bit of geocaching back in the day and had an Ickle Man as a travel bug, with the mission of getting as high as possible – in metres, not via a massive spliff. Impressively, that particular Ickle Man made it all the way to Everest Base Camp. Sadly, he seems to have been lost somewhere along the way, as I haven’t had an update for years.

The original Tumblr page is still alive but never updated HERE