Sometime in June 2017, Max and I went to a lovely little weekend retreat in Chichester where we stayed in a “Shepherds Hut”.
A few days before the trip Max had started looking for a road bike for me so that we could start cycling together. My old-granny bike and his top-of-the-line durace road bike were no match! When we arrived at the Shepherds Hut we wanted to relax a little before finding a place for dinner. It was a long drive and I was exhausted.
Max played with his phone and I just looked at brochures of things to do in the area. At one point he just jumped up and exclaimed: “YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS” – not only had he found (what seemed the perfect bike for me) but the people who wanted to sell it lived 10 minutes away from where we were staying! I immediately called and the lovely lady even agreed for us to come over the same evening! Julie and Trevor were truly lovely people. They not only sold us the bike, but even threw in proper pedals and Julie’s mountain bike shoes so I could clip in! I was so excited I had a road bike – let’s leave out the fact that I could not ride it properly for now.
Surprisingly, I quickly got used to the bike – once back in London I rode around the house a LOT until I was comfortable with clipping in and just sitting on the bike. Our first ride was around Richmond park (it’s on my Strava if you want to have a look). It was so much fun I did not even realize how uncomfortable the saddle was and what bad quality my bike-shorts were.
PS: I am not being sponsored by anyone; the jersey is from Max’s riding days – so I am still accepting sponsors! 😉
