Goodbye, Old Friend

Four years ago, I thought I would give cycling a try and, on an impulse, bought a bike. So began the healthy addiction…..

Yesterday The Old Boy went to a new home for the princely total of 280 Euros, all of which will go to Stichting MS Research. For pretty obvious reasons. Great that an old friend is going to a new home, even better that the money paid for it will go to an important cause for me.

The best part? Someone I don’t know liked the action and has plenty of bikes so he just came in and gave 400 Euros to the charity. Generosity! So heartening.

So it was a fond farewell. I am not sure how many kilometres I have ridden on that bike, the first year was not tracked in any way. But it must be around 10,000 km at least, certainly more. Badly looked after for the first year, the learning curve!

Part of the learning curve will always be crashes. After the first one we noticed the first symptoms of what would turn out to be MS. We thought these were just side-effects of that crash but it turned out that this was a coincidence. The story is one I have told before elsewhere in this blog and does not need to be repeated. It may sound a little strange, though, but cycling will always be bound with that diagnosis for me.

Bound in a positive way. Last year was the sponsored climb of Mont Ventoux. This year, the triple challenge, one of which is left and one was just…… amazing. It’s a personal way of sticking a (shaky) middle-finger at my condition and getting on with life.  The Old Boy shuffling off of my personal stage to the profit of MS Research is appropriate.

And this can only lead me to think about next year’s challenges; something sponsored and, though I am not sure what, it will certainly be in the saddle. I am absolutely sure that, alongside the support of so many friends and colleagues (so many are both), cycling is what has kept me moving, fit and strong. I will use it to raise more money for something that is important.

And it all started with an impulse and a Bianchi. The Old Boy is somewhere else and MS Research is 680 Euros wealthier because of it. A fine way to say goodbye to an old friend.