Not learning to ride a bike meant I was mocked

AGED five, I briefly had a bicycle. It had a neon yellow frame with stabilisers.

- Ethan Croft

But when I tried to get the thing going in our back yard, the dog ate the tyres. After that, bike-riding was put on ice in favour of other early learning feats. Swimming, for example, which I mastered for reasons of self-preservation.

As I grew older, the bike became rusty and undersized. So too grew my fear of trying something I was no good at. That is how I became, for two decades, the odd-one out. The metaphor, "as easy as riding a bike" was lost on me. Bank holiday weekend transit was limited to stuffy cars.