17

Did a thing the other night, due to circumstances beyond, that I had not done for years, which is ride my bike in the dark without lights. Plus I'd had a couple-three glasses of wine.

Which is nothing. But it struck me, in my heightened state of consciousness, that I always feel more or less the same on a bike. Obviously, I've been riding bikes all my life, and unlike many adults, I've used bikes to commute (around 12 miles per day for several years), and it's still my favourite/only form of exercise - in spite of the pain in my knees, hips, etc.

I feel about 17. Because I think that age is the height of self-consciousness, about the time when a lot of people will stop riding to protect what they think of as their dignity. Because at that age, you feel like nothing so much as a Church of England vicar doing the Parish rounds.

So I'm not saying that I feel good, or better, nothing like that. It's not an entirely comfortable feeling, no, but the years do fall away.

Well when it smells like rain and the clouds are grey
My raggy tee-shirt been thrown away
I wanna walk my bike to dig the rocking band
Wanna kick my kickstand in the sand