My family moved to Malawi when I was ten and the local school was a bit rubbish so after a year i was sent to boarding school in Powys. It was nearish my extended family in Hereford, where i had a five speed Raleigh which i rode when i went to them for half terms and exiats. I always terrible at team sports and so one weekend I took my bike back to school on the train. Having a bike at school i discovered, 'wasn't allowed', but i argued that id never been told this, nor seen this rule written down anywhere. And, it was common knowledge that i couldn't catch a cricket ball or kick a football - and, i pleaded, "cycling is a sport that i'm actually good at" . He let me keep my bike on the condition that i start a cycling club at the school and eventually there were three or four of us. But for those first few weeks of the summer of 1975, when all the other boys traipsed off to play football or whatever, i rode off all alone around the lanes of mid Wales. Glorious.