The evolution of a MAMIL or maybe a OAMIL.

Today I decided it was time to blow the cobwebs off my trusty turbo trainer and do some hard miles of work (or plastic miles as some club members label them). I decided i should write an article about it.....but it escalated into this.

My early years.

Ever since I was a wee lad (yes, I was small once), I have loved sport. Inspired by a teacher at school who said, "My god, you have got skills, Parry." He was not saying that my skills on the football pitch were sublime, but simply that I actually had some skills, no matter how limited they were. It's amazing how powerful a few words can be to a young person's mind for their whole life. I was determined then to enjoy sport and to try and take part in it as much as possible. Here is my journey towards cycling, i hope its not too boring.

I joined the school rugby team and trained hard. I was a big lad then, not massively fat but stocky and heavy. I loved it; I could carry that ball with two or three of the smaller lads hanging off my back, and they couldn't get me down on the floor. On one occasion, I was heading to the try line with aforementioned smaller lads grappling with me to put me down. I felt and heard an almighty crack, and that was that, a broken tibia and fibula. It took me a while to recover physically and psychologically from this injury. It didn't stop me from loving sport, so I decided to take up boxing.

I had put some weight on (the beginning of a life of yo-yo dieting) and was determined to lose it. I got myself into fighting fit shape and had a few bouts of boxing around the country, weighing in at 10st 7lb (light heavy back then). I was 17 and at the prime of my life. I joined the T.A. and spent a year training up for military life in the infantry. Children came along and caused me to have to drop the T.A. commitments. On the day I took a bus to the T.A. headquarters to hand in my notice, I spotted some lads practicing rugby on Oak Park. That got me thinking as to whether I had the guts to play rugby again... so I turned up for their training the next week. I was still a good rugby player and spent the next 10 years playing a sport that to this day I love.

My lifelong battle with weight.

Eventually, I had to stop playing rugby as I came down with a debilitating illness known as Sarcoidosis, which I now know was a consequence of the working conditions I was enduring on a daily basis. Well, the cure was a year of steroids, up to 20 tablets a day. My weight escalated from 11st to 16st in that year, this was one of my worst yo-yo experiences. I was now in my early 30s and longing to get back into some sport, but the side effects of the sarcoid held me back for a fair few years. In this time, I decided to give a bit back to sport and become a football manager for junior teams. I managed kids' teams for over 10 years and don't regret a minute of doing it.

My own kids had now grown past the age of junior football, but I still had the sporting itch. I joined another rugby team and started playing for them. Again, I loved it, but my weight had begun to head upwards between the end of junior football manager and resuming my love for playing rugby. I played for two years or so, weighing about 17st. Meanwhile, my career had taken off, and I was being paid well by my employer. Towards the end of the second season, I was playing a game where I received a brutal injury to my shin on my right leg. Two parallel cuts running down my shin bone and heavy bruising. While at work on the Monday following this, I found my suit trousers were sticking to the wound and causing me some considerable discomfort. I knew that day that at 47 years old and with responsibilities, I would have to hang up my boots for good. My weight started climbing; I found myself comfort eating each time I felt pressure or stress. My job was mainly office and desk-based while working away from home. I spent 2 years comfort eating and growing like a pumpkin in November. I climbed the stairs in my office one day and thought I was going to have a heart attack when I reached the third floor! That was it, I needed to do something about it. I signed up at Slimming World that day and began on my biggest yo-yo of my life. I weighed in at 24st and felt like shit. I needed sport again.

My journey in and love for cycling was about to begin. I walked into Dave's Cycles in Aldridge to look at the bikes on offer. It was like being in a sweet shop and being 6 years old again. Everything was shiny and new... and very expensive. One of the lads in the shop came over to me. I was embarrassed to say I would like to ride a road bike but managed to blurt it out to him. I waited to hear the words "you might be better with a mountain bike"... but no, he said, "Which one do you like?" I said, "Will they carry my weight?" "Yes," was his reply. I could see a beautiful Orbea Aqua which was about £1,100, but I had to go away and think about it. The next day I was traveling through Wales on my way to my office in Cardiff. I decided to take a look on eBay to see what was available. Well, DAMN! Not 5 miles from me, someone was selling a 9-speed Orbea Aqua for £200. It was mine before 30 minutes had passed.

Next was to buy some kit from Wiggle (remember them?), shorts but not bib shorts which was a mistake, and some of those clip-in shoes... oh boy, they were a shock. I had never paid more than £20 for shoes before. My first ride out was a ride around Brownhills, almost 5 miles. I had wobbly knees when I got back home, and I had managed to not dive off anywhere because of me being clipped in. On that ride, I passed an old mate from my football manager days who I shouted "Alright Mick" as I passed him. The next day he messaged me on Facebook saying, "Was that you?" Anyway, he had a bike as well, but didn't ride it much. This is where the first club I was involved in began to evolve. We decided to meet up on Sunday mornings and do some really long ride outs to Lichfield and back, almost 15 miles! My weight was dropping off and the club was growing, people noticed us and asked to come out with us. Sunday mornings went from two to four riders, then six, then 9, then 15, 20, 30... and so on. We got a kit and an identity (Shire Oak Leisure Riders). We joined B.C. to make the club more official. A committee was formed, my weight went down to 15st 6lb, I won slimmer of the year and the title of "Mr. Slimming World" with a total loss of just over eight stone.

our Shire oak kit at Birmingham velo.

racing through Birmingham.

People in the club wanted the club to become more racey and the name changed to reflect that. I completed in a time trial of 5 miles at an average speed of 27mph completing in 11:49 which put me 5th overall.....my finest moment as i was on a road bike and competing against TT riders. The Leisure Riders soon became Shire Oak Cycling Club, and a new flashy kit was designed.

Old school original kit.

The newer kit at shire oak, some good friends there and one or two Judas....im not bitter though.

Things were moving at pace in the club, lots of new faces, lots of ideas. I was chairman and having to implement or veto changes. This caused a few people to challenge me, including some of the people I had trusted and built the club from scratch with. The treachery was too much for me and I resigned from the club allowing them to have their way. SOCC lasted less than 12 months after that, which broke my heart. My weight escalated in this time, probably due to comfort eating, etc.

Some of my friends asked me to join them and try to build a new club shortly after my resignation from Shire Oak. At first, I didn't fancy it, but my love of cycling had not gone away so I agreed. Some wonderful people found a HQ for the new club, formed a committee, and organized our first ride out.

The first Sunday roll out from the Railway.

Well, the rest is history as they say. The club has gone from strength to strength. My weight was up, down, up, and back down again. I went through a divorce and lost about 3 stone and got myself into good shape. I was riding out with the fastest groups mid-week, I managed a 20-mile ride at 21mph+ average speed and was loving it. Work had changed, I managed to get a better-paid job but it led to more money and thus more responsibility. It also involved doing 12 or 13-hour days 5 days a week. This curtailed my evening riding and had me exhausted on weekends. I was also renovating a house and unable to find time to ride on evenings. I found a new loving partner who also enjoyed to cycle which has helped me massively. My weight climbed again as the stresses of building a home and working my ass off took its toll.

This brings me to this last 12 months, my weight is up but my love for the bike remains. I've dropped over 1st in 5 weeks and hope to keep this going so I can ride a bit quicker and have more endurance next year.

We now arrive at the rather uninteresting part of my life story... indoor training.

the dreaded turbo.

soaked with sweat.

A lot of my clubmates over the years have referred to Turbo trainer cycling as "plastic miles." I somewhat agree with them, it's a bit boring for some people. I don't massively enjoy doing it but I also know firsthand that it's tough. If you go on the turbo and go hard you can easily raise the levels of your fitness some considerable amount. Today I did a 45-minute CTX workout which involved about 15 hard efforts of between 20 and 70 seconds. I was sweating like a dyslexic on Countdown, after just 10 minutes. By the time the 45 minutes was up I was drenched and knackered. I probably only covered 12 or 14 miles but by god, I knew I had done it. The weather this time of year can leave us cyclists in a quandary as to if we can get out or not. Some days far too windy, other days the icy conditions prevail and others it's blooming chucking down with rain and the roads are flooded. I don't mind the rain so much but if it's cold as well I have to take a realistic view on it. I have to go to work on Monday and being ill because I got hypothermia on my bike just doesn't stack up. We have some hardcore turbo trainer riders in the club who use Zwift to keep themselves interested, and I doff my cap to them. I myself will get out on the tarmac whenever I can within reason, other than that I will endeavor to jump on the turbo trainer.

Cyclists are tough people by definition, in my opinion. As you will have read if you made it this far, I have done a fair few sports in my life. Boxing is the most daunting sport, 3 rounds, 6 or 9 minutes of pain, pleasure, fear, and adrenaline. But cycling is the toughest all-around sport for me. It punishes you if your weight is high, then rewards you mentally for your achievements. If you're skinny and undernourished, it punishes you with exhaustion, and the man with the hammer will visit you here. On the other hand, if you're skinny or lean, you will destroy the muscular and heavy people when on a climb. Power to weight in cycling is the critical factor, but getting into the watts per kilo debate can be mind-blowing and mind-numbing, so that's all I will say about that. As I have quoted many times from the Velominati, "Cycling is a tough, uncompromising, unforgiving sport." Even at club and social ride level, this matters. People come and go, but cyclists come and stay and suffer and battle and show their mettle.

Over the years i have made, and saddly lost friends through my cycling life. I dont regret a minute of my life in cycling, because the painful memories are built out of the many good memories i have had.

A friend lost,but memories remain.

I hope I have many years of cycling left in me, and that I can share them with other cyclists on many, many more club rides. thanks for reading, if you like it let me know and send me your version of this, i will post it up for you.