My Passion with Keith Richards: Cycling – a lifestyle filled with variety, enjoyment and challenge

Cycling has always been in my life and even as a boy I loved to ride my bike fast.

It wasn't until my mid-teens that the sport took a proper

hold, though, and I fondly remember my first summer cycling trips, hostelling across northern England with my brothers.

It took a while for biking to overtake my early all- encompassing passion for football, but when the transition came it was rapid and permanent. In August 1977, I was a Leeds United fanatic and set for another season playing in local leagues.

By October that year, I'd joined my local cycling club, Askern CC, in Doncaster, and the weekends became full. I relished the new challenge of long rides into the Pennines or the Lincolnshire flatlands.

I soon began competing and, for a time, I travelled across the North racing time trials and, a little later, road races. I found modest success but at a frequency I'd never experienced before, and to a 17-year-old, this brought excitement on an altogether new level. Although the buzz faded, as did the successes, my competitive instincts prevailed and I continued to race until my mid-forties.

It took years to recognise the downsides to cycling. Like golf, and, indeed, life, there is a burden of angst and frustration. It's horrible to lose a race because of a puncture in the closing miles or to run out of energy far from home, and crashes really can hurt.

And what pleasure is there in riding mile after mile into a blizzard, or mending punctures in freezing rainstorms?

But the payback is in the little victories and simple pleasures such as a brisk Dales ride, a quick trip to the office, a coffee stop with friends and a tail-wind home.

I've cruised the velodrome's steep wooden bankings, crossed whole countries in a day and climbed the highest alpine slopes, resting on mountain snow drifts under glorious July sunshine. There is no satisfaction like conquering the grandest Tour de France routes.

Cycling is a lifestyle that has completely enveloped me. Its variety is still astonishing: simple effective transport, healthy exercise and an intensive, varied and always demanding sport. Most of all, there is the camaraderie of the cycling scene and friendships of 20, 30 or

more years.

Nowadays, with a busy working life and a wonderful family, my racing days may be over, but cycling remains my passion. I'm a big fan of great races like the Tour de France and one-day classics like the Tour of Flanders.

I love the changing technologies, and thrive on a few hours hard riding with my son and friends.