routes

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle

(Responding to criticism for learning to ride a bicycle at 67 years old) – I feel that I am entitled to my share of lightheartedness and there is nothing wrong with enjoying oneself simply, like a boy

It’s one of the worst things in the world to wake up and not see your bike where you left it

I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle; I want to ride my bicycle; I want to ride my bike; I want to ride my bicycle; I want to ride it where I like…; I don’t believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein or Superman; All I wanna do is bicycle, bicycle, bicycle

As a kid I had a dream – I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed

Wednesday January 7th: Nigel came round on his new bike this morning. It has got a water bottle, a milometer, a speedometer, a yellow saddle and very thin racing wheels. It’s wasted on Nigel. He only goes to the shops and back on it. If I had it, I would go all over the country and have an experience

Ride lots

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised the Lord doesn’t work that way so I stole one and asked him to forgive me

Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain – at least in a poor country like Russia – and his vanity begins to swell out like his tyres

The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man’s metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion.  Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well