I started in 2006 when I decided I had to do something about the weight I'd put on after quitting smoking two years before. Just at that time, my work began offering the Bike2Work scheme as part of our flexible benefits package - so I thought I could get one and cycle to work to get fitter. A quick peruse of the Spokes map of cycle routes confirmed I could ride almost entirely off-road between the Shore and Ed Park, so I signed up and became the owner of a Carrera Vulcan MTB. I started by cycling the commute two days a week, but after 4 months I decided to do it 4 days a week (taking a week's worth of clothes, towels and other sundries for my locker in on a Monday by bus)
As the months went by, I decided to brave the roads and took to Ferry Road for a chunk of my route on the way to work when it was quiet, but stuck to the path on the way home during rush hour. By the end of the first year, I'd made the decision to cancel my annual bus pass and save £500-odd quid.
In 2008 I got a road bike through the scheme, and decided to stick mainly to the roads both ways as the paths were becoming risky with lots of feral kids around and very few other cyclists. (I was variously threatened with bricks, had glass bottles thrown at me, had a Rottweiler set on me and - at one point - had an old bike thrown at me!)
In the next few years I did a few Pedal For Scotland rides, and a 100 mile ride to accompany my work's Chief Exec on a stage of his LEJoG ride.
3 years ago I bought an old 70s steel-framed Peugeot racer from Wilmington's Cow & converted it to a fixie for summer pootles, just for a bit of variety!
In the last year, I've moved back to riding the paths most of the way home again, as Ferry Road got more and more potholed on the homeward side and it's become too unpleasant (not to mention frame-cracking) to try avoiding them without placing myself at risk from other vehicles which insist on driving a few inches from my back wheel. However, with the upsurge in cycling there are now so many cyclists around all year round that it's much safer than it was in 2006 - 2008!
If CEC ever get around to resurfacing Ferry Road (and the utility companies don't immediately dig huge chunks back up and do a substandard refilling job), I'll probably move back to mainly road-riding on my commute again.
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