MAJs gay bikes [she’s in her fitness era]

London to Leipzig: One womans reflections on how much a holiday can achieve

On the previous pages I report on the goings on of 3 friends chopping around leipzig by bike, in the following post i tell that same story but from a different perspective, exploring what cycling is and can be to one woman in a changing landscape:

...

I was sitting in an airport lounge when riaz first said

“I think you should do a solo Holland trip, you know, ride around”

I sort of locked up and spat out some excuse as to why I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t convincing to me or him and he knew me too well to know there might be more to this but to not push it right now.

…

It’s worth noting that I’ve known riaz the longest of any of my internet friends.

when I was 17 I boldly wandered into a fashion advice IRC asking for jeans recommendations. A bombardment of information came my way, usernames whizzed past, brands recommended were only outnumbered by the price tags next to them. My frontal cortex, still developing, could identify none of it; I couldn’t decipher the valuable information from the nonsense or calls to kill myself. One voice did cut through however, a user that went by bela Bartok. He mentioned I was a kid and should just get some cheap jeans; that if I had to buy nice jeans I should get some unbranded Raws then forget all about it.

I did get those jeans, but I also met riaz,

…

“Like it’s so good, it’s just like cruising around, like no hills… 40k between towns”

As we got off the plane I still couldn’t find the words to say why it filled me with such dread, I hated the thought of it. I was hoping another squishy answer would send a successful signal.

…

The friendship between me and riaz was one that lasted far longer than the overly slim jeans did. Riffing online went to dm’ing each other about other users, which went to talking about ourselves and eventually meeting up in various forms. He introduced me to my first chemex in a long forgotten Birmingham coffee shop, he was there on my first fashion forum London meet. A scene which went on to define my late teens and early 20s.

Most relevant to this story however, he also got me into bikes.

I had just broken up with my girlfriend of 4 years, which meant I’d also moved to Birmingham from cosely. At the time I was depressed out of my mind. I’d go to work at the mailbox then go home and fire up my monster RGB gaming rig to play siege with some equally depressed people online.

The public transport was so bad in Birmingham that riaz had given me back the old bike said ex had made me get rid of when we moved into a smaller flat in Worcester. It was sick on reflection, however at the time I was naive and wanted something more. Riaz tried to talk me out of it but when he realised he couldn’t, he talked me into something worth my money. This cool orange/ yellow fade Kepler with a sram groupset. I was really into tactical clothing at the time so “double tap” shifting sounded cool. The first bike that took me from seeing bikes as transport to something that could be a hobby.

It was however, on the one occasion I broke the aforementioned daily routine with a trip to my parents that I was burgled. They took my jackets, my pc, my old bike and anything else they could get their hands on.

Needless to point out that I was devastated.

It was riaz that organised a go fund me amongst friends when he heard, it was also riaz who approached me to say we should go on a cycling trip to Norfolk, something I’d never done and never considered previously. I trusted riaz though, he’d always been right, he’d always known what I needed, he’d always looked out for me like an older brother.

Me and riaz formed Jackets cycling club for that norfolk ride with his friend naomi, without out it we wouldn't be there in leizig, disapointed by the weather and tired from lugging the boxes.

…

“It’s bike lanes like this why you should go to the Netherlands Hayley, isn’t this great”

I still hadn’t thought of a convincing answer to this question. I kind of hoped if I did riaz would accept it and stop asking, but more importantly I’d be able to tell myself why it filled me with dread

having gotten in later in the day yesterday, we hadn't built our bikes up till the morning of our first full day in germany. A short faff after they were together however, the three of us set off to find coffee, food and friendly conversation.

It was my first time riding a bike outside the uk, first time flying out with my bike. Doing so was easy it turns out. All those years of experience building bikes had paid off.

Although I wished it hadn’t.

If it hadn’t I could probably tell riaz the reason why I couldn’t fly out was because I hated doing it. That would be convincing. I didn’t hate it tho, this freedom from life back home was the best I’d felt in months.

…

Before flying out I was experiencing the first major bout of depression I’d had for a while. A creeping sense of self loathing, hatred and anxiety had been working itself around my body. Presenting itself as anything from agoraphobia and misanthropic tirades to venting at loved ones under the pretence of jokes.

Something was up, I felt like shit.

I felt trapped and heated, I felt existential and inconsequential. Approaching 29 I had a greater connection to myself than at any other point in my life, I had more love in my life than ever before and I had a support and community network so rich and varied it was impossible to be left wanting.

Yet here I was, choosing to be alone, in my room, watching films, painting models, not wanting to leave.

The week before the flight I’d been almost certain I just wanted to call it off, I could barely speak to my girlfriend, I’d had a break down to my boyfriend the weekend before. I couldn’t comprehend getting on the flight and being normal around friends, I couldn’t imagine being good company.

The tickets were paid for however, the trains were booked, at worst I could just stare at my phone and go sit down in the woods.

…

It was only when I was laying in bed later that evening, full from he beautiful meal tijjy and his partner Rosa had made, that I started putting the pieces together.

My aversion to answering riaz’s question and my spiralling mental health were linked. Obvious really. So obvious, so daunting, i felt it hard to get to rest till I scribbled some notes in my phone, promising to revisit them in the morning.

It’s impossible to engage with an activity which is so hostile to you, that although elements are supportive, the structures and majority population sees you as an inconvenience or a pervert. How can I possibly enjoy the time I spend here and feel safe

…

By day three, with just coasting between coffee shops and around town, it was the most I’d ridden a bike in months.

There was a time where I’d ride daily, to work, to friends, to events. There was a more recent time where I’d at least ride to the park, to the pub or to a social gathering. But in the last year I’ve found myself reducing even that till the number of rides hit zero.

First measured in weeks, then months.

Sure I’d been sick, the weather had been bad, I maybe even I had bike trouble. This never stopped me from riding in the way it did now however.

Even with the motivation of a new custom frame designed to my exact specifications, the idea of staring at the ceiling for days on end seemed more appealing than a light spin around town. I felt sick at the idea, it filled me with dread, I wanted to do literally anything other than ride and or think about bikes.

…

My stomach gurgled from another fantastic meal by the master chef duo; I was back staring at the ceiling unable to sleep.

I couldn’t help but staring at the notes from the night before, in-between riding an after action report in my thread. I’d even felt the thoughts creeping into my brain as we spent the day at the park, viewing tijmens office and eating what was quite possibly the best falafel wrap of my life.

I tossed and turned, having the words ‘It’s impossible to engage with an activity which is so hostile to you’ bounce around my head. Laying there I wondered if this is how Beth Harmon felt as she moved the chess pieces in the shadows of the moon light ceiling.

I had withdrawn from cycling in the last year. Much like my riding, my interaction with the people and spaces being far less often than my excuses for avoiding it. I can only really pin it to the point where British cycling updated their rules.

Being a trans person you’re quite used to seeing weirdo christo-fascists target you. You’re one of their many wedges along with abortion access, sexual health education, racial equality and immigration. However, there is a certain dread when you see a rad-lib handmaiden in a suite of power do those gammons jobs for them. The term crabs in a bucket springs to mind, as it often does with anything involving the uk. I said to friends at the time this is particularly scary as you’ll see liberal social institutions adopt this positioning in cultural spaces at first; then in legal or state spaces. That’s exactly what happened over the next months.

People will say they’re just asking questions, scared for children’s safety, or being precautionary. But for every reactionary observer subscriber believing me washing my hands at the pub, or a friend losing a race at Herne Hill is a threat to them I reserve a certain type of sigh. A certain feeling of desperation as my head lays in my hands. I feel the generational queer trauma of my elders who saw their friends die as the same liberal political media class condemned them to section 28 or AIDS bigotry. Wishing we could skip ahead to the point where they pretend they always supported it.

Seeing this creep into a space I was such a part of, be it riding around the city and suddenly being nervous about who I bumped into at the loos of velodrome on a British cycling day. Or logging onto the forum hoping it was no one I considered a friend typing stuff about how they think me and my friends are perverted freaks really soured my excitement for it all.

It was hard to deal with that supported by my community in london, let alone in a country which is accelerating regressive queer policies quicker than the uk.

Someone who hasn’t experienced a societal current like this flow against them might think you can simply build around it, insulate yourself. You can to a certain extent, but ultimately the aim of this sort of slow attrition is to ice you out over time. It’s not really like a restaurant not providing for your allergy, it’s like going to the doctors and having them simply refuse to diagnose your allergy because they don’t think peanut allergies exist. Absurd, but in this analogy the hospital will say they are not authorised to diagnose peanut allergies, if they are, the provider might refuse because they didn’t take the training out of a belief difference. Meanwhile there are people dying of asphyxiation in the corridor

You can insulate from the peanuts sure, but doing so would mean a retraction from public life, never quite trusting anyone again.

…

Waking up the next morning I felt exhausted, but ultimately motivated by the idea what wonderful thing was for breakfast today.

As I sat at the kitchen table I started to think, with all holidays there is a certain period where you suddenly forget your worries back home, then you start to remember them and use the space to process those feelings. I was however entering the third stage where I was dreading returning to them

Going back to work and my job, a job which supports me but I feel tethered too mostly out of the fact they’re supportive. The fact that for my sort of work, being trans means opening myself up to harassment and relying on my company to defend me. It means going back to a city I increasingly wrestle between enjoying and loathing but I’m ultimately chained to because the two before it denied me health care while being baron of any trans community to feel part of. To return to a neighbourhood where I wasn’t a forgettable tourist but a member of the community where it was increasingly ok to harass me directly or structurally.

My one reprieve today however, was that we’d be cycling off road to the lake, through a section of woodland. This wasn’t some historic ancient space, but a pre planned managed estate that was for timbre or wood waste product. If anything this was more special for the headspace I was in. The well managed fire roads and monoculture biome was reminiscent of the forest back home. The forest I had found myself going to frequently when I had moved back from Manchester years earlier.

I had just came out a few months before and after a particularly traumatic conversation with a gp who’d told me they would not offer bridging prescriptions. That I must wait the four plus years to even be screened by a GIC (gender identity clinic). I left, I put all my bikes in my dads car and moved back to my parents, where anything I didn’t have to pay on rent would be for the thousands of pounds a year I’d have to pay for private healthcare.

More uncanny was the time of year.

It was just before my 26th birthday and I’d spent the last few months getting myself to fill out the private GP paperwork. Contrary to what the media would have you believe it was an intense vetting process which required begging doctors to do blood tests and discussing every intimacy of my life. I’d persisted however, they’d signed off. I’d paid them hundreds of pounds for them to deliver the first few bottles of estrogel and a GNRH blocker to nuke my prostate.

I distinctly remember being an emotional mess as my mother drew that needle giving me my first shot, leant against the dining room table. No NHS doctor would see me. The best I had was my mum's experience with insulin pens. When my belt was done up again I gave her a big hug, the sort you give your parents as a child when you’re scared at night. Nervous, unsure, but ultimately relieved someone is there to help. Awkwardly,’ with no idea what to do next I did the only thing that had my interest at the time, rode my bike to the forest.

Much like the present day, I was blasting through those compact dirt roads. The only difference between home and Germany was the tree species, the distinct lack of mushrooms in saxony forests and my emotional state.

On that first ride after the injection I did my usual route, the usual tracks, the usual cut through , the usual jumps, the only thing that wasn’t usual was on the path back to the road home. I just started bawling. So much so I had to pull over and lay against a tree.

These were the sort of tears you have when you’re overwhelmed with relief, as a burden lifts, as light rushes in to push any doubt you had out of your consciousness. Laughing and smiling was the only thing that interrupted the crying, that and reaching for my phone to message a friend at how happy I was I made it through. As the Manchester GP reminded me themselves when they denied me this feeling all those months ago, so many people never come back, so many people just disappear.

Here in Leipzig however, I could remember that joy but I couldn’t feel it. I could appreciate my tenacity and my victory at that time, I could revel in the obstacles I had overcome in the years since. The sense of hope I once had, the felling of joy and wonder about my future, both seemed incomprehensible for me currently.

I think the position I found myself at that moment, riding my lovely bike, with my lovely friends, in a lovely forest all while feeling this existential dread was the perfect microcosm of the trans experience.

That often trans people lead wonderful fulfilling lives and show such immense resilience. Their determinedness is attractive to others, their life experience develops character others find endearing. So much so they often develop rich, loving and supportive networks of family, friends and loved ones as a form of insulation. But those networks are no match for the almost cosmic horror of the wider society around them. That we can almost carve out a piece of mortal normalcy, but it’s ultimately a tiny island floating in a galaxy of lovecraftian nightmares.

What the trans person is left with is what I was left with on this ride, pushing out the doubts and anxiety of how far off the finish was, how bad life outside of this immediate situation feels; instead imagining what could be there at the end. For me on this day it was the simple promise of an extra large Burger King.

…

Being back in bed I had given up the hope that this night would be different and I’d somehow drop off to sleep. I was instead scrolling through my phone thinking about the conversation we’d had at dinner.

This wasn’t the same question riaz asked me in the airport, but it did, as everything had this trip, cause me to think about it. He was asking what makes good ride reports, why do some feel exciting and some feel trite?

I hypothesised there are two types. There was the one written in a glycogen deficient haze which reads like a person debriefing after they’d been pulled off the frontlines of the touring wars. Then there was the other which read like a socio political ethnography that so scarcely mentions cycling you almost forget there are bikes involved. I went onto to mention that I feel what often gives writing a spark is exploring vulnerabilities, that so often people confuse vulnerability or introspection for self flagellation. We’ve all read reports of gruelling adventures where the rider states it helps with their emotions then forgotten what or where they went by the time that coffee brewed. Ones which stick we me are those that show how the experiences of the trip help them understand pain or confusion they might be experiencing away from the cycling, as part of healing, or understanding, but not as punishment.

Tijjy had mentioned at this point about one of riaz’s ride reports; how one passage stuck with him, the time riaz visited a mosque in the Netherlands. The idea of a space being so familiar but feeling more alien than the foreign landscape around it. How it made him think of his own life experiences. The wonder of travel writing, or non fiction writing in general, is the ability to experience life through another’s eyes; have those experiences build connection between two individuals with wildly different lives.

It was mid way through this conversation I thought of my own pain and confusion. How, as often happens, talking about this with a friend had helped me understand feelings I was having and questions I’d been asked. I started to think of my own mosque, my own Netherlands, if it was possible to convey this to others I was feeling alienated from.

laying there that night I started mapping out these thoughts to what’s written here. Trying to join all those loose feelings I had about the anxiety back home, the question about touring from riaz; that I couldn’t tell anyone who asked why I didn’t want to cycle anymore. Be it round Holland or London. Hoping the lense of a ride report and my experiences would provide the framework to process these feelings through abstraction.

…

Waking up to our last full day in Leipzig and I was more tired than ever but lucky for me we had planned to to pack the bikes this morning so i didn't have to risk adding to the exhaustion. Choosing to walk around town as tijjy had chores to do.

After a few days of riding I was reaching the final few percent of my social battery, not helped by the nights awake and early risings. So the idea of walking around the city, eating whatever we found sounded quite good.

Sipping a rather boozy batch brew, I flicked through notes I had made the night before inbetween talking about the tasting notes with riaz. I felt like a ride report should have some grand reflection or breakthrough. A epiphany to say “I fixed the thing”. My current writing felt more of a depressive report to a therapist than something that energises you to ride a bike or an enjoyable distraction to read while avoiding work a week later.

It was a feeling I’d been having a lot lately, re-reading old posts or writing up new ones. I can’t bring myself to have that same joy or novelty to the narrative. The brevity feels so out of place and even re-reading what I’ve written I notice I do not write like a person observing, but a person resenting.

A large difference however was the fact I was in a quiet Northern European city on a Tuesday, not in my London flat staring at salesforce while trying to put words together. I was with friends chatting in the background and a nice coffee on a patio, not with faceless colleagues on slack. I at least had headspace to think about why I couldn’t just cycle around Holland, to think about why I had continuously gotten more and more reclusive over the last few months.

I guess that Is what holidays for but also what cycling breaks are. Life gets in the way for us all, it removes us from our hobbies, for many it might be that they’ve had kids or started a new job, for me it was the bureaucratic attacks on my personhood. Ultimately the end result is the same and it was helpful, not only to this conversation, but generally, to be reminded I do like bikes, I do like cycling, I do like doing it with my friends.

I had time to think about that regardless of how I felt about my writing, or what it signified to me on reflection, the lovely comments I’d receive from users in person, in replies or in DMs ultimately told me it was having some impact on others. It was reaching people to have their own Amsterdam mosque moment.

By the second coffee of the day I had more time to develop these feelings and compartmentalise that no matter how I felt, my issues were not going away by simply laying under my duvet slowly working through Brad Pitt’s immense filmography. That if I wanted people to perceive what was happening to me and my friends, I would have to use any platform I had to reach them. If not to convince people or change their mind, then to let other people also experiencing it know they’re not alone in their worry.

By the tram home I had accepted my report for what it was, I had even appreciated having the space to think about these things. Arguably most importantly I could get on the plane tomorrow feeling if not better, than knowing things were not still spiralling. Often that’s all we can ask from a bike ride.

…

Waking up a little later than usual I thought that all the navel gazing yesterday must have served some purpose as I got some extra sleep. That, combined with the reassurance my bike was safely in the bag and I could lay in bed, resting before lugging my luggage to the airport.

I started off this report thinking why I couldn’t go on cycle trips, but throughout the week I was reminded why I should be going on cycle trips. Even if I feel uneasy about it. It’s important even if it’s just to have more space like this to think about what actions I should take to get my life back.

At the very least I wanted to travel more with my friends.

waving off to tijjy and Rosa I distinctly felt that whatever the inconveniences of distance or political landscapes, I wanted to return and continue to build our friendship. Sometimes when you make a friend on the internet you make a hobby friend; sometimes you make a friend friend. Tijjy and Rosa fell into the latter category and although we had a brief Irish goodbye, I hope if they read this and know how much I value them, not just their cooking.

Standing on the train with riaz I felt the same towards him, I always had. All the way from those first forum days, to the first tours to the first german flights. I’d done a lot of firsts with that guy and I’m forever grateful for him helping me through it.

…

I’m on the plane now as I type off this final note. Having just been disappointed by german food for the last time and getting groped by the security guard who could not work out why the machine said I had breasts. Both things that I feel would have knocked me far more than the light irritation they did now if they had happened earlier in the week.

It seemed reassuring and telling of how my mindset had changed.

Taking your bike on holiday won’t sort your life, it won’t make you change it, but it will give you some headspace to think about it. You can decided to do the rest or not when you’re back

I don’t think I’ll be going to Holland, but I now know why I wouldn’t have 5 days ago; I know I will be going somewhere else.

Hayley x

(here is a picture of me, trying on some goofy glasses for making it to the end)