Cycling

I had always promised myself that if one day I move to Europe, I will start cycling. The reason for waiting for Europe was that Europe is generally flat(ter), Istanbul is also known as the city with 7 hills and trust me, there are more than 7 hills in that city. I know cyclists love that but as a beginner, I wasn't ready for it (which I learned here to be true).

So before I moved here I asked for some tips from my cyclist friends on what to look for in a bike (a second hand one), disregarded everything they said and bought the cheapest bike I could find. But before that, let's talk about bikes a little.

As a kid I cycled a lot (in Cyprus that is, since I'm a Cypriot). In my grandmothers neighborhood everyone had a bike and we would cycle all day just for fun. I realised this later on that we rarely cycled for transport. It would take me 10-15 minutes to cycle from my grandmothers house to ours but it's weird that I have never cycled that distance. It's because cycling is not considered as a vehicle for transport in Turkey or Turkish Cyprus. Istanbul with a population of 20 million and a total area of 5,343 square kilometers, has 2km of bicycle roads which are populated by pedestrians, cyclist are harassed (physically being pushed or talked down on while they are cycling) and as I've said before, the city has shitloads of hills which only seems to bother me since every cyclist I tell this to loves it.

So as a kid, I never considered cycling as a way of transport and even though I use for transport now, it still seems a bit odd of a concept, but I'm getting there!

So, where were we? I wasn't sure if I was going to use the bike enough since I'm quite a lazy person in general. I found a second hand bike shop, was willing to pay around 60 70 pounds for a bike which I know is quite high, but a friend of mine bought two cheap bikes which became unusable in a week and she couldn't sell them back, so I was willing to pay a little bit more and just play safe. So the cheapest usable bike I could find was for 40 pounds, together with lights, a lock and a new seat it cost me 70 pounds. Yes I still don't have a helmet but hopefully I will get one soon.

The hardest thing to get used to at first was my way around Old Stein to The Level then up Lewes road to campus. Here's an image:

The straight arrow that you see is not so straight when you're trying to cycle or drive. Just zoom in on this and check the arrows. So yes, this part was my biggest problem which I managed to figure out after a week so I cycle happily now is what I want to say but alas, then came the bigger problems.

Problem no 1 is my physical unfitness for cycling. The first thing one notices is ones quads. I always thought I had OK quads since they felt like bricks when I contracted them, turns out it was all just a dream. The pain that struck while I'm cycling was at first interesting. The thing that was more interesting was that I could always push them a little bit more, they held in there, I haven't had sore quads since I've started cycling even though they get tired. I can feel them getting stronger, the ride to practice which is mostly uphill is getting easier and easier and the ride to school doesn't make me sweat anymore (hmm, is it because it's -1 degrees outside?). My unfitness is becoming less and less of a problem and more and more of a benefit since even when playing ultimate, my quads are generally the first part of my body to give up after a hard day, interesting why I never questioned their weakness before. I might have some denial problems..

I realised that I still have lots to say, so I'm dividing this into two parts too (tootwotoototot). I want to keep the posts on this blog short so maybe that's a better idea right? I'm off to a friends birthday party with me bike now, see you guys later.

Tune back for things like problem no 2, how does it compare in transport time of the famous Brighton Buses, additional costs and is it really worth all the trouble? Does this count as a cliffhanger?