​10½yrs old…. just passed my 11+…. achieved a place at grammar school BUT it’s over a mile from home so I need to learn to ride a bike!
 
My parents refused to buy me one until I could ride, so I had to learn on the fairy cycle which the girl who lived over the road had.  She was a few years younger than me… but really!  I never was tall, but even my knees came up to the handlebars!  After much struggling I managed, and come my 11th birthday, I got my brand-new bike in royal blue and yellow with straight handlebars. Off I went to school in September with my satchel on my back as proud as punch.  No helmets in those days, just the wind in your hair, dynamo lights and a 3 speed Sturmey Archer gear system if you were lucky.
 
All went well until one rainy evening in late November when I was on my way home from school.  Harlow, where I grew up, was criss-crossed with cycle paths which was brilliant for keeping cyclists off the roads, however I think it tended to make us all a bit complacent. This misty night I’d had choir practice, so it was a bit later than usual and I was on my own. I saw ahead a group of boys from the secondary modern school coming towards me, one on a bike and the others on foot.  They were messing about and the boy on the bike was swerving all over the track.  I rang my bell and shouted, but the cyclist was still heading straight for me on my side of the track. At the last minute I swerved to try and avoid a collision, but so did he and we smashed head-on into each other.
 
Both our bikes were severely damaged and unrideable, and I was bleeding profusely from a gash on my hand, the scar from this you can still see today! My parents were furious; apparently it was all my fault as I was on the wrong side of the track! 
 
Over the Christmas holidays they got my bike repaired, but I had to pay for it with my Christmas money instead of presents. When I got it back, I saw they’d replaced the front forks with silver ones instead of painting them blue, and my bike was never the same again.  Nevertheless, I used it for all my high school years until I went to college and by the time I left home, my parents had disposed of it.
 
I briefly had one again in Leeds when my second child was at infants’ school, but I couldn’t ride with him on the back, so I spent more time pushing it home with him sat on it!
 
Living at Hard End, Marsden, as I do now, makes it silly to even think of having a bike as I have only to walk up Mount Rd, so I never even thought about cycling.  However, about 9 years ago when my granddaughter needed to do her Cycling Proficiency test for Cubs, I bought her a course in Bradford so that she could pass her test.  On the last day, her instructor asked me if I could ride.  I wasn’t sure after almost forty years whether I still could, but they sorted me out with a bike and while the test was on, I attempted to get around the park on a bike.  After a few false starts I managed, although I got a bit stuck with the gears – there seemed to be an awful lot more than the three which I’d had on my own bike.
 
It did go to prove that you never forget how to ride, but I’m afraid I’ve no intention of cycling outside as I hated the helmet and frankly, I feel much safer and warmer in my car.
I’ll stick to my exercise bike when I can’t go for a jog and BONUS, I can watch TV at the same time too!
 
Linda Osgood
United Church Marsden

It’s a sunny Sunday in August 1979, my family and I are living in Mount. I had resigned from my job as PE and Games teacher at a school in Halifax, and taken up an appointment as an Assistant Manager at a Sports and Leisure Centre near Wallasey, on the Wirral. We had one car, having no need for two, as my wife had stopped working to bring up our family, a boy nearly six and a daughter of three.

My new job meant working shifts and I’d come home for the weekend. My next shift started at 4.30pm on the Sunday in question. I decided that my wife needed the car more than I, with a young family, and so I decided to cycle to Wallasey.

I set off in high spirits on that lovely day and was soon off the Pennines and on the A580 East Lancs. Road, pedalling into a prevailing West wind. Travelling that road in a car seems quite flat and easy, but on a bike cycling into the wind, I felt every rise in the road and wished I’d bought a bike with more gears.  Mine had five gears and with every little hill, I wished I’d bought one with ten gears; after all, five gears had been ample in the hills of Yorkshire! I pedalled on getting more and more tired, the total journey was 90–100 miles. After 70 miles I felt I’d hit the wall, a bit like the 20-mile mark in a marathon when you have another six to go. As I checked my watch I got more and more worried; would I make it in time?

Then I saw the tall buildings of Liverpool on the skyline and it spurred me on, a bit like the light at the end of the tunnel.  I kept checking my watch; would I make it in time? Would there be a ferry on time to “Cross the Mersey!”  I was in luck, the ferry was there and with a sense of relief I boarded it, made it to my temporary flat in Wallasey, got cleaned up and changed, and then cycled the last five miles to work on time! 

​A journey of highs and lows, of hope and expectation, and some depression - a bit like life itself.
By Ieuan Jones
 

Visitors and locals alike I’m sure will remember “Joe’s Cycles” on Huddersfield Road in Holmfirth, facing Greenfield Road, now a bridal shop.

Until his death a few years ago the shop was owned and run by Joe’s son-in-law, Bill Peabody. For many years Bill and his wife, June, offered an unusual welcome to customers. The shop was lit by a single bare low wattage light bulb and stock was piled up everywhere. On entering, you would usually have to wait to be served while Bill and June argued behind a curtain as to whose turn it was to greet the customer! Face to face, Bill was always very helpful and willing to take on any cycle repair. Was the shop an inspiration for some of the settings and characters in Last of the Summer Wine? I wonder!

The name “Joe’s Cycles” comes from June’s father, Joe Collins, who ran the shop until around 1965. My interest goes back much further - to 1947!
​
On moving to Holmfirth in 1974, I discovered that my father, who was a rep for Dunlops based in Leeds, regularly travelled to Holmfirth in the years immediately after the war. Joe was a good customer for Dad’s Dunlop cycle tyres, inner tubes, puncture outfits and other accessories. It’s a small world!

Peter Beetlestone

​At my secondary school the main school and the junior school were about three quarters of a mile apart. In the first and second year (now Years 7 and 8), we had to travel between the two daily; most walked, but some cycled.
​
For the cyclists, the daily challenge was to ride “no hands” between the two schools! It was a winding route with an incline through the village, though in 1952/3 the traffic was very light.
We regularly achieved the challenge when there wasn’t any traffic. I am sure the staff knew what we were doing but turned a blind eye.

Very different times!

Peter Beetlestone

Coventry, where I was brought up, was a centre for the manufacture of bicycles since the nineteenth century. Riding a bike was as normal to me as eating my dinner. I always had one, even though it may have been fashioned out of wartime scrap by my engineer dad. From an early age I cycled everywhere. I encountered new places, fresh experiences and made new friends. It was thrilling and fun, particularly when freewheeling down steep hills with the wind buffeting my face and blowing through my hair. True I sometimes came off, as I spectacularly did when distracted by a very pretty young lady sitting on a gate near the roadside! Thus, I learnt a little bit more of how we can make fools of ourselves and how to get over it. A big bonus was that cycling also made me very physically fit.
​
This stood me in good stead, since although I had not cycled since my late teens, I was able to take cycling up again on my retirement - it was as if I had never stopped.   I restarted cycling through a Lake District ride with the grandchildren. I enjoyed it so much, that on returning home, I bought a hybrid bike that took me on many excellent rides on and off road.

These eventually led me to the Tandem Trekkers, an independent cycling club formed to provide tandem riding for blind and visually impaired cyclists.  Out of interest I went along to one of their training sessions on the Leeds Road Track in Huddersfield. I was greeted with: ‘We could do with another tandem from our lock-up down the road, can you get one?’ This I did despite never having ridden a tandem before. After arriving back at the track unscathed, I met up with the Stokers (the visually impaired riders) and the Pilots (the sighted volunteers.) I was very impressed by what I saw and heard and have been cycling with them ever since.

Tandem riding is completely different from solo riding because on the latter, the two riders must operate as a team. The background of the riders in experience and ability is very mixed, so tandem riding is a very good way of getting to know people and making friends. I am always very conscious of the way that all the riders care for and help each other. It is a very inclusive group.

Great care is taken for the health and safety of all participants and all activities are risk assessed. This is particularly necessary since the activity of aiding people to cycle who would otherwise not be able do to so, is a worthwhile risk in itself. I have found piloting extremely rewarding, seeing people who may never have ridden before, graduate from the safety of the enclosed track onto cycleways and then onto roads. People gain a great sense of achievement as they progress. For instance, one person managed to cycle just 100 yards on the track, next session 200 yards and the one after that she travelled all round the track and more. It is common for riders to express their delight at feeling the wind on their faces and in their hair. Their degree of enthusiasm is high.

The atmosphere is very friendly with a strong sense of comradery. Interestingly enough this has not declined during the Covid-19 lockdown. In some ways it has been strengthened through many varied Zoom activities including: cycle spin sessions, Pilates, baking, quizzes, book and poetry reading.  Everyone is looking forward to cycling again together. Hopefully this will not be too long with the promised availability of vaccines.

It is quite clear that the provision of bicycles can engender much more than the ability to travel from A to B. Through owning a bicycle people can accomplish much more than without. Lives can be beneficially changed through life-enriching experiences and friendships. This too will lead to a greater feeling of accomplishment and increased fitness. Change Begins with a Bicycle is therefore is a very worthwhile project.

David Joyce     Nov 2020

I wonder what memories you have of riding a bicycle?

For many of us, our first introduction to a bicycle often comes in childhood. Other memories might include a shiny Christmas present, cycling adventures, delivering parcels in the ‘old days,’ being part of a cycling club, getting to work, spectating the Tour de Yorkshire… and many more.

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