So many flavours of cycling

Wednesday was a night for hard work, chain gangs and sprinting.

As a 'slow' rider I was one of the first to set off on the 4 mile time trial but a bit of a competitive monster emerged and, with burning quads, I chased the girls in front to finish in 11min.

Celebration was with a tooth-achingly sticky lemon and poppy seed cake.

Thursday was a change of pace and I got to soak up the evening sunshine on my ride to dinner in Easterhouse. I must be the only person who lives in the West End to have gone to the East for dinner but I was there to meet the lovely people behind FreeWheel North, a small social enterprise with big ideas around green transport, cycle networks, access to facilities and generally improving the health of people in Glasgow.

As part of the Commonwealth Games legacy, loads of the schools in the East End have fleets of bikes rusting away in their sheds, sporting punctures and dodgy chains. One of the plans afoot is for FWN to bring a bit of 'bike love' and also some trained cycle leaders into local schools. Hopefully this will also extend to families and youth groups and link into existing schemes like the Sky Led Rides (which is where we all met last year). And there's so many other exciting directions it could go in with the right amount of passion and commitment.

This morning I was coaching the Glasgow Riderz at the track. 10 year olds learn so quickly that mastering fixed wheel and no brakes just seems effortless to them. One wobbly ride of 10m and then suddenly they're racing each other at break-neck speed. When did I lose that learning skill and grow the 'fear' bit of my brain?

And for tomorrow, I think I need a different kind of ride again (hopefully somewhere beautiful and on nobbly tyres this time).