It’s been roughly two years since I last rode my bike and recently it has been calling to me.

It began softly at first, “move your legs more. Round and round and round. It will help your running” and has gradually become more insistent “feel the wind, it’s faster than running, the road out at Tung Chung to Disney isn’t so bad. There’s hardly any hills” and then practical “it’s exercise sitting down, it doesn’t get much easier” and even more persuasive, “you’re skiing in a couple of weeks and a bit of extra fitness would do you some good”.

So I gave in to my bike yesterday.

I rode from Tung Chung to Disney return which is roughly a 30km trip. It’s along a side street to the freeway which buses and trucks use. I was nervous at first as I knew four different cycling clubs would be out and I’m slow and by myself. Typically a peloton would swallow me up and spit me out the back as they’re so fast and I can’t keep up and it can be quite scary for a novice.

While there were four groups out, they were all polite, greeted me as they passed and gave me a wide berth – probably for their own safety as much as mine. The buses and trucks did the same and the whole feeling out there was very amicable.

I had missed the feeling of getting somewhere on a machine that I’m powering along myself. My thighs had forgotten what the action was like too but it soon came back to them. They are still being reminded of it today.

I am also being reminded of my Barbie dolls. For anyone that has ever pulled a doll apart (is there anyone that hasn’t?), remember back to taking off the leg. There’s this little ball on the end of the leg that attaches into the socket. I’m sore on the person equivalent of that joint on my left leg/hip.

I’m also a little tender in what I like to refer to as the ‘cycling bones’. This is the part of the anatomy where, on Barbie, the legs join and then there’s just a lump of plastic. In a human, it’s the ‘cycling bones’. The only time you know you have this bone is when you haven’t cycled for a while and you start again. It is tender for the first few times and then it’s tough.

Overall, I’m feeling pretty good for it and I’m keen to go out again next weekend. That should stop those cycling bones from hurting the next time around. It should also stop my bike from talking too much.

* Thanks to Queen for the title to this post.