There are many journeys to being an expert in anything – my journey in cycling training is no different though it has a few wrinkles. My life with bicycles started in a very difficult way. Around age 8 or 9, I received a bike for Christmas. It was a 24″ black shiny Raleigh with back brakes. The difficult part was it was stolen before I had learned how to ride and i had to wait for a while before a replacement was found. I eventually taught myself to ride – it was not as hard as I thought. Find a nice grassy slope – sit and let the slope do the work to create enough momentum and I was riding a bike. I relished the freedom that bike gave me. In an age where there was a lot less traffic and on the outskirts of a big city, we had an amazing scope to relish the freedom that getting a few miles away from home supervision could give. Johannesburg is a hilly place – a fixed gear bike and those hills was a hard way to go but for sure I got very fit by riding hills – it is the best way to get fit on a bike – ride hills.
In these pages I plan to share my experiences – on a bicycle and otherwise – to share the things that worked for me (and continue to work for me) and to share the ways I have overcome the challenges from food intolerance to relationship breakdown to divorce to hypertension to “heart attack” to depression. I will share the fun and the pain. I will introduce you to some of the people who have shared this experience with me – to some of the greats and to some of the ordinary folk who do extraordinary things. This is my story about how to use the bicycle to breathe your dreams. I will include materials on cycling training, on cycling a century, on using time trial techniques, on using intervals and hills for training. I will include materials on managing food intake and ensuring proper electrolyte management especially for cycling on hot days. I will include materials dealing with health and mind fitness too.