Ed Miliband: I was 50 when I finally mastered the art of riding a bike
Better late than never and all that.
Next task is defeating a bacon sandwich.
Ed Miliband: I was 50 when I finally mastered the art of riding a bike
Better late than never and all that.
Next task is defeating a bacon sandwich.
Which tells all we need to know about his childhood.
To be fair, even 50 years ago, Primrose Hill isn’t exactly somewhere you’d have wanted to learn to ride a bike. Traffic’d be a factor, for a start. And then there’s be whether you got to keep the bike. Like a lot of posh areas in London, it’s bang alongside areas that aren’t. Other side of the hill’s ethnicly enriched Camden & Kentish Town. Places nerdy Jewish boys would have been regarded as prey.
The important thing is when did he start. If at childhood, then it proves that he’s incompetent at everything. If he was 50 when he started, then he’s just late going through his midlife crisis.
Damned if I know whether I can still ride a bike. I stopped about half a century ago.
Next task: Not selling the Labour Party to the Far Left for £3
After foisting this green millstone on us that is the Climate Change Act, perhaps he belatedly thought that he should get with the green agenda. A pox on him and all his works!
Rob is correct–the millionaire Marxist twat helped fix Labour’s wagon. Much as –altho’ it isn’t yet apparent– Bogus Blojob Johnson has done for the Tories.
At the same time, all his friends were buying Harley-Davidsons.
Justine is the real winner in all this
Was he presented with his Cycling Proficiency Badge?
Doc Bud–Hopefully pinned to his arse.
I actually found my certificate the other day when going through our ‘Harry Potter cupboard’ under the stairs. We also found my Tufty Club hot water bottle cover and all my swimming and life saving badges.
“Then it proves that he’s incompetent at everything”
Surely that was already beyond any doubt?
Uh-huh…. Electric bicycle… Electric mountainbike… Doesn’t count. As usual he is cheating…
Only positive is that the article doesn’t feature spandex..
( And yes, I’m a Cloggie.. We have Opinions on what counts as a bicycle… 😛 )
The childhood badges I regret losing are the ones I got for being an ace collector of rosehips. I presumably spent the money I got for the rosehips on Mars Bars or liquorice or crisps or comics or Meccano or squibs. Not lashings of ginger beer though.
If you don’t count Bob-a-job those must have been my first earnings, and a powerful lesson that it’s wise to earn your money from something you enjoy anyway.
I wonder what lessons Ed Miliband learnt from his early attempts to earn money.
Isn’t it quite flat in Cloggie Land? If you had actual landscapes you might appreciate E-bikes a bit more.
I’m a fan of E-bikes, although I don’t want one yet. I have a friend in her late seventies who has loved cycling all her life. Her E-bike lets her keep joining in with the same outings she’s no longer strong enough for.
What Mr Milliband’s excuse is, however … ?
Which tells all we need to know about his childhood.
Actually, it also tells us all we need to know about his adulthood.
@Geoffers
Overall clogland is “flat”. The amount of man-made geography in the shape of dykes, bridges and ramps is considerable, however.
And being “flat”, there is this thing called “wind”… Which of course never comes from a favourable direction relative to your intended route, and effectively makes any appreciable distance out in the open Very Much Uphill.
And really.. the biggest danger to cyclists (and general traffic) over here are the old folks on E-bikes, who come zipping by at speeds even a “trained” cyclist would consider “unsafe”, while being a tad more…brittle….
Is this the sort of wind you’re talking about Grik?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMinwf-kRlA
BoganBoy
When we were over in Normandy a while back, She said – let’s get bikes then we can cycle around and enjoy the countryside and get fit and all that.
Having learned a while back that the best way to treat this class of madness is to go along – it’s not much money – we duly did so.
When I were a lad I used to frequently ride 20 mile time trials, and go on long rides through the countryside (in the general area around Oxford) and cycled to school every day.
I must say that my body had forgotten all that. Have leapt onto the infernal machines a couple of times, but I’m directionally wobbly and not at all confident, and…
So good question…
And really.. the biggest danger to cyclists (and general traffic) over here are the old folks on E-bikes
I heard recently (from a retailer) that a third of all new bike sales in pancake clogland were now e-bikes?
Grikath, good luck!
“ And being “flat”, there is this thing called “wind””
I’ve been cold in my time: exercise on the North German plain, exercise in north Denmark in January and February, including living in snow holes, out in the sticks in the Falklands, to name a few, but the coldest I’ve ever been was working in Den Haag in January with a north easterly blowing and having to walk back to the hotel because we couldn’t get a taxi.
@Adolff That one was a bit extreme.. But every schoolday morning there’s a parade of kids doing that stretch, yes.. And similar all along the dykes all over the country.
Builds character… 😛
@PF Sounds about right… Mind.. old pensionado’s are the ones that can afford an E-bike.. Plus the subsidised Green Work Commute crowd.
A new E-bike is about as expensive as a decent second-hand car ( €2.5k upwards here )… So most people ride secondhand to 5th-hand bikes.
Or, like me, build their own out of compatible parts from wrecked bikes. Mine have been Frankensteins for the past 3 decades…