
Blimey, do I love cycling. This week I've ridden 15 miles in my lunch break on a friend's cargo bike, collecting second-hand garden furniture (I'm trying to cut my carbon footprint). I've also spent three hours after work riding off-road through Epping Forest with a women's and gender-variant's 'gravel club', laughing and weaving between the trees in the growing dusk. Add to that riding my cheap commuter bike across town with a heavy bag, leaving the bike at the station overnight and returning home the next day. Finally, I've also ridden my big pink ebike 20 miles back and forth across central London one day, running errands and social engagements in searing 30°C+heat.
Of all of these positive, practical and joyful experiences, the ebike is among the financially hardest for most people to access, with prices starting at around £1,000 - putting them out of reach of many. This includes the self employed, jobseekers and retired people, who aren't eligible for tax-free bikes under the Cycle to Work scheme.
Esta historia es de la edición September 2022 de Cycling Plus UK.
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Esta historia es de la edición September 2022 de Cycling Plus UK.
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GANARY A COALMINE
The James Brown tune 'It's a Man's Man's Man's World' comes on the radio, filling the coach, and does nothing for my pre-event nerves as I sit surrounded by serious-looking, wiry, tanned men in Lycra. It's 6.30am, pitch black outside and I'm feeling very out of my depth as a relative newcomer to the world of clipless pedals and hurting for fun. Last night's stress dream involved being very unprepared to get married and being handed my great-grandmother-in-law-to-be's hideous silver dress with lace trim to wear minutes before the ceremony was due to start. I'll let you psychoanalyse that one.

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