My tyres may have gone mouldy, but being a mum of two hasn’t made me any less of a cyclist

My most recent micro-epiphany came to me on the bike, as almost all of the best epiphanies do: What cycling means to us might change drastically over the years, but it doesn’t ever have to leave us (or, us it).

My mind flitted into the territory of cycling and identity as I picked up the pace with my now one-year-old on the back of my own bike, watching the now ‘big girl’ riding shotgun with her dad. It was our first ride as a family of four; I was on the aluminium hybrid designated for exactly this kind of excursion. We covered about eight miles, stopped at the pub for lunch, then rode four miles home.

Twelve miles total, but the feeling of turning the pedals again outside made me feel out-of-body euphoric – this from the rider who once crammed in the most miles of the Cycling Weekly team in a year, racing several times a week to gain my first cat license.

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I’ve barely ridden during the last year, but it’s not for want of trying. Today, I went to pump my road bike tyres, to make my bike rideable, should the opportunity actually arise. As it turns out, the tyres had genuinely gone mouldy. I can only assume I rode through some sort of organic matter around a year ago, chucked the bike in the garage and dashed off to feed a hungry baby, before letting a slightly damp environment, probably a little sealant seep, and nature take care of the rest. Regardless, I got two pumps into inflating the mouldy tyres before a call from the nursery saw me abandoning the ‘maintenance’ session, which perhaps helps to illustrate my point: I do not have a lot of free time.

Garage dwelling fettlers will no doubt be aghast that such a situation could arise, but frankly, I’ve enough maintenance to take care of in my life without my bike needing me to look after it, too. If it helps, now I’m back from maternity leave and am the proud owner of a ‘lunch break’, I have remedied the situation.

I took up cycling in my 20s, quickly rampaging through the disciplines: triathlon, time trialling, track, and road racing. I lived for the moment the breakaway took flight, thought Oakley Radars were a perfectly wedding-appropriate choice of facial attire. Cycling gave me my partner in crime, eventually my husband. And then, my husband gave me my two children. At which point (well, a decade and many wonderful road trips later, but allow me some artistic license), bikes took a back seat.

Growing two new, utterly amazing humans didn’t stop me riding, I’m confident that cycling through pregnancy is a healthy and beneficial activity. Barriers have been breastfeeding, contact napping, and caring for two young children who, entirely naturally, need my love and attention above all else.

And, I’m not alone. Over 75% of women with children experience barriers to regular activity including time, social support and fatigue. One study showed that having two or more dependent children was associated with an increased likelihood of men bicycling for recreation at least monthly, vs a decrease for women.

I certainly don’t think mums lack motivation – my own alarm is firmly set to 5.30am, the hour at which I sneak downstairs for around 45-minutes of weightlifting or Zwifting; carving out the time for exercise isn’t the problem, and neither is my thoroughly supportive family network. The higher proportion of women cycling indoors vs outdoors suggests this scenario is far from unique.

But, the tides of change are here. My smallest has turned one, making a helmet a safe proposition according to guidelines, and therefore, family bike riding a possibility for us. The sheer joy that filled my heart as I tucked into an aero position to race the daddy-toddler duo showed me that, despite cycling (outside) fewer times in the last year than the actual number of bikes I own, I am still very much a cyclist.

The intersection between cycling and my identity has shifted substantially, most of my lycra is losing its elastic, but the strength of my attachment to bikes hasn’t dwindled one bit.

Cycling is a rather unique hobby, in that there are so many ways of engaging with it. We don’t give it up when the going gets busy, we simply become more efficient by morphing from racers to commuters. Should things get truly dire, and our only time to ride is well before the sparrows are up, Zwift never sleeps, either.

We are, I believe, extremely lucky – cyclists are a community bound together by a love of turning the pedals that truly need never leave us.

I hope we’ll get out as a family of four again, soon. In a couple of years, I’ll probably find the little fingers grip less tightly, and I can spin along on my own more, too – but right now I want to savour the years they need me the most.

Perhaps in a decade or so, you’ll find me on the other side of the tapes, cheering the next generation of racers should either of my girls choose to take their interest in that direction. But suffice to say, there will always be bikes in our garage, the only question remaining is ‘how many?’ – we’ll let the old N+1 equation take care of that one.