Monthly Round-up #4

In which I celebrate Pride Month, and talk about getting back in the saddle

Hello friends,

And Happy Pride Month, whether or not you celebrate – but you really should, for reasons I’ll go into.

Photo by Josh Jones

But first of all, a warm welcome to everyone who’s signed up in the last few weeks – I noticed a strong uptick in readers after Unfinished Journeys was featured on Substack Reads. I’m obviously delighted that this has happened – it’s an honour to be selected – and also quite surprised, because this newsletter only went live about three months ago.

This early success tells me a few important things. One of them is the reassurance that I am on the right track – ever since my early days of blogging (and my later days of book-writing) I’ve felt that long-form prose is the medium in which I shine most brightly, and this reaffirms that. Another is that I’ve found the right audience. It’s often a worry, when you put thoughts out into the world, that people just won’t be interested, or won’t find anything in what you say that they can relate to. But the response I’ve had so far, and the ideas that people have reflected back to me, tell me that there are a lot of people who are interested in having the sorts of conversations I want to have.

Anyway, back to Pride Month – which I believe is a relatively new phenomenon. When I first celebrated Pride, it normally consisted of a single day, on which there’d be a big march, followed by bacchanalian festivities. I only ever joined a few marches. Despite feeling more and more committed to the principles behind the event, I quickly realised that I don’t enjoy large crowds, especially during the years when I was a cycle courier, and already spent every weekday in Central London.

There has always been a lot of valid discussion about whether Pride is inclusive enough, and my feeling is that a physical celebration, on a single day, just can’t be everything to everyone. There are all sorts of reasons, personal and logistical, why a lot of LGBTQ+ people and their allies can’t, won’t, or shouldn’t spend a Saturday marching through the streets in a city centre.

But having a whole month broadens the celebration, and gives us all the opportunity to do Pride in whatever ways work best for us. I normally miss out on a lot of the UK celebrations because I’m out in France, riding the TDF route, so this weekend just gone ended up being my own personal Pride. On Saturday we pottered through Bloomsbury, browsed books at Gay’s The Word, ogled homoerotic sculptures at the British Museum, an spent the evening watching Pride (the 2014 film). Then on Sunday I (with Rapha) led a relaxed bike ride around various LGBTQ+ landmarks in London, accompanied by a bright and beautiful peloton of assorted queers.

I’ll admit, I tend to grin broadly when I’m surrounded by any group of cyclists. I feel like an excited child at the start of a busy audax. Riding in big groups of women fills me with joy. And I love rolling into Paris every summer, surrounded by exhausted people who have just ridden the entire route of the Tour de France. But riding the streets I know so well, accompanied by this group of people who all looked different from each other, and somehow were still clearly a gang, topped them all.

Photo by Josh Jones

I think it might have been because my cycling life, and my queer life, ran as parallel lines for so many years. In the cycling scene, I was “the gay one,” and in my queer friendship groups, I was usually known as the one who was obsessed with bikes. It’s only comparatively recently that the two have begun to merge, and there’s still a long way to go. (Gay men are still rare in most cycling scenes, and trans people are mostly made to feel very unwelcome. But queer women are everywhere – in some of the ultra-race line-ups, I swear they’re now a majority.)

It was also wonderful to share the fruits of all my earnest research into London’s queer history – a lot of which still affects our lives today. Some of the people in the group were married, which has only been possible in this country for the last ten years. (Civil partnerships had existed from 2005, as a stepping stone on the way to full marriage equality.) And as we rode away from Westminster, a few of us reflected on the impact Section 28 (1988-2003) had on our upbringing, and in many cases our adult health and happiness.

It's especially important to know about LGBTQ+ history – whether or not you’re queer yourself – because, despite the incredible progress we’ve made in recent decades, history is never above repeating itself. The current ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law in Florida bears a depressing resemblance to Section 28. And the transphobic rhetoric we hear from certain quarters of politics and the press is uncannily similar to the sorts of things I remember hearing about lesbians and gay men in the 80s and 90s. It can be easy to forget how quickly things have changed, how easily they might go back, and how many of us, of all ages, still bear the scars of growing up when things were very different.

This is why I’m glad we have a whole month to think about this. In fact, we have two, because there’s also an LGBTQ+ History Month in February – and you can bet I will have more to say on the matter then. For now, I’d love to hear which aspects of queer history are particularly important to you, and whether you’ve found your own alternative ways of celebrating Pride.

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Ask Emily

This is my monthly agony aunt column, in which I answer your questions about bikes, travel, hopes, fears, and anything else that google won’t help with. If you’d like to submit a problem, get in touch (you can do so by responding to this email), and I’ll answer your question in a future newsletter.

Ex-messenger of 13 years now off work for a year due to a head injury on the bike. Any tips on slowly getting back on the bike when exhausted and out of shape? No anxiety about it, just physically how to start again and listening to your body. Thank you.

First of all, I’m so sorry to hear about your injury, and that you’ve been off the bike for so long. That must have been unspeakably hard, and taken so much strength to get through.

Second of all, I need to issue a very strong disclaimer that I am not a doctor, and I have no personal knowledge or experience of head injuries. So, any advice I give is on the assumption that you’re in good health now, and safe to ride a bike. If what I say clashes with what any medical professional has told you, or how you yourself feel, then please defer to the experts.

It may be surprising to hear, but I feel excited for you. Even though I know how depressing it can be, adjusting to feeling weaker and slower when you used to be super fit – you also have a journey ahead of you, and that’s always something to look forward to. There’s no saying when (or whether) you’ll get back to exactly what you were before the accident, but there will be adventures and discoveries along the way, and plenty of stories to tell later.

The most important thing, I’d say, is to think about the athlete you are now, and try to avoid comparing yourself to what you might have been, or what you were before. That’s highly likely to make you feel sad, frustrated and resentful. Rather than thinking what this recovering cyclist can’t do, focus on what she can do, and celebrate her progress and victories. These may look very different from what you would have celebrated before the accident. I’m not sure what stage you’re currently at, but you might want to think about milestones like the first time you run an errand by bike, the first time you ride for more than an hour, the first time you ride with friends.

Don’t worry for now about setting targets just yet, or trying to stick to a training plan. You probably will get back to full fitness, and it will probably start to happen of its own accord, as the rides you do gradually start to lengthen. Now is the time to rebuild your relationship with cycling, and find the motivation to do more of it. This might look different from how it did before – life has changed over the past year, and you need to move forward, rather than looking back.

One thing I think might really help would be to try some forms of cycling that you haven’t been into before, and use this as an opportunity to explore. This will help avoid comparisons with how you were before the accident. If you’ve mostly ridden alone, consider joining a group or club. If you’ve been into long-distance, try something shorter and more technical, like cyclocross or bike polo. If you’ve always ridden on the road, now could be a great time to experiment with gravel. Embrace being a beginner, and enjoy the opportunity to build new skills and relationships that you might not have had time for before.

A crucial thing, I’d say, is to keep your expectations loose. You’re still getting to know this new cyclist, and you might not yet understand where her limits are. Don’t be dismayed if a ride has to end prematurely – treat it as a valuable data point, because it tells you something about where your current range of capability lies. You may find your strength fluctuates from day to day – a ride that felt easy on Tuesday might seem too much for you on Thursday. Treat all of this with gentle curiosity, and as well as noticing how strong (or otherwise) you feel, pay attention to what you’re enjoying, what makes you feel good, and what you find yourself wanting more of.

It might help to document your progress in some way. You could keep a journal, or fill in your rides on a spreadsheet. Or you could post on social media, or update friends via WhatsApp. You could take a daily selfie and send yourself a voice note about how it’s going and what you’ve been up to. Or you might be the sort of personal who writes a daily sonnet about her cycling journey, or draws a cartoon.

As well as creating a gentle sense of accountability, this will give you something to look back on. Progress isn’t always obvious or linear, but having a few weeks or months of records will help you to see patterns, to look back on how things were in the earlier days, and to demonstrate to yourself that you’ve had low points and difficulties in the past, and overcome them.

I hope it goes really well, and I’ll be willing you on. Please do let us know how it’s all going!

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Upcoming appearances

I’ll be busy with Le Loop for June and July, but there are a few things coming up in August and September. I’ll pass on more details as soon as I have them, but for now here are some dates for your diary.

I’ll be appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, interviewing some very exciting people. The full programme will be released on the 14^th June, and I’ll be in Scotland for most of August. (My Edinburgh events are all on Saturdays and Sundays, so I’ll probably roam about a bit during the week – there’s also talk of an event down in Innerleithen on the 24th.)

Duncan Steer and I have pencilled in dates for more events in September – nothing’s official yet, but look out for us in Hebden Bridge on the 12^th, and Liverpool on the 13^th.

If you’re a) LGBTQ+ and b) interested in getting into bikepacking, then you’ll probably be delighted to hear that I’ll be collaborating on a weekend with the amazing Sisters In The Wild at the end of September. Tickets aren’t on sale yet, but click here to register your interest, and you’ll get an email when they’re released. I am a huge fan of what SITW do, and already very excited about being part of it – and another opportunity to ride around in a peloton of fellow queers¹.

And finally (for now), in November I’ll be involved in the Kendal Mountain Festival – quite simply one of the best parties of the year (if you like films and books and outdoor activities and the company of likeminded folks). Tickets go on sale on the 6^th July, and I’m already looking forward to meeting some of you there.

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And, now that everyone’s listening, I’d like to give a big shout-out to Hannah Henderson, who created the branding for this newsletter. Working with Hannah was a wonderfully collaborative process, where she seemed to take the vague ideas that were in my head, and transform them into beautiful images. I am not a visual person at all, so it was reassuring to be in such safe hands, and the result is even better than I hoped for. If you’re looking for a logo for something, I could not recommend her more strongly.

Thanks for reading this far. If you’re a paid subscriber, next week’s letter will be about some of the lessons I’ve learned from being ill. This is a matter I’ve put a lot of thought into over the last year – as, I suspect, have a lot of other people, in the aftermath of COVID. If you’re not a paid subscriber, you can change that by clicking on the button below.

Have a great week,

Emily

1. We’re still looking for financial sponsorship for this event, to bring the costs down for participants, and to create some fully funded places for people who otherwise couldn’t afford to come. If your organisation would be interested in helping, please drop me a line.