routes

Learn to ride a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live

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

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

Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use

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

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

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

(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

I was bought a nice racing bike for my eleventh birthday and I got the bug… I suddenly thought: I’m on my own! My parents aren’t here. It’s quite good!

Here’s the routine I’d advise for the evening before a race: a pheasant with chestnuts, a bottle of champagne and a woman