Pedal Power

Not only is it healthy, it is, thanks to the National Cycle Way, now safer than ever. Over the past decade the charity, Sustrans, has developed twelve thousand miles of cycle tracks across Britain a large part of which is in Scotland, criss-crossing the country and linking the Highlands to the Lowlands, the East to the West and including routes in the Northern island groups of Orkney and Shetland. It's closer than you might imagine. Three quarters of the UK population live within two miles of the network and it's spreading, like the spokes of an Olympian's wheel, to new routes all the time.

Cycling is not just something to be enjoyed as a sport by the leanest, fittest and fastest though there are plenty of champions, past and present, who have donned the dark blue lycra of Scotland. There are very obvious benefits from using pedal power. On average even the most recreational cyclist lives two years longer and if you use a bike regularly you could become as fit as an average person ten years younger than you.

So maybe it's time for Scotland to fall back in love with a pastime that we actually invented almost a hundred and seventy years ago. It was in 1839 that Dumfriesshire blacksmith, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, tinkered around with a hobbyhorse, adding gears and crankshafts, to produce the world's first, albeit rudimentary, bicycle. His fellow villagers thought him mad for dreaming this up and for a while Macmillan was known locally as 'Daft Pate'. To test his invention, he rode the cumbersome machine 68 miles over rough tracks from his tiny smithy home to Glasgow where, unfortunately, Macmillan entered the history books for a second time when he became involved in the world's first bike accident. He was fined five shillings after speeding at 8 mph and knocking down a little girl in the Gorbals area of the city. A local newspaper reported the amazing sight of a "gentleman from Dumfries-shire ... bestride a velocipede ... of ingenious design". The judge in the court case that followed was sufficiently impressed to ask Kirkpatrick Macmillan for a figure-of-eight demonstration in the courtyard, and is said to have given him the money to pay the fine.

Macmillan's bike was a far cry from the sleek machines of today. Weighing fifty seven pounds and with wooden wheels and iron banded tyres it must have taken considerable energy to propel. But it was the prototype for the most successful form of sustainable land transportation. There are still twice as many bikes in the world as there are cars. Like many inventors Kirkpatrick Macmillan never thought of patenting his creation and did not make much money from it. With some accuracy, the plaque on his smithy home reads "He Builded Better than he Knew".

But if Macmillan actually came up with the idea for a bike, then two other Scotsmen are at least as important in making it an effective means of transportation. A velocipede without anywhere suitable to ride upon might have remained a curiosity. A Victorian folly. Fortunately Ayrshire man John Macadam had already developed a means of changing rutted and pot holed roads into smooth surfaces through a combination of crushed stone and gravel. This Macadamised', and later tarmacadamised' system, pioneered in 1816, became the standard way of building roads across the world.

But the boneshaker bikes, though evolving from Macmillan's original, remained heavy and at times dangerous. It took until 1888 for a dramatic leap forward that would really point the way towards the modern machine. In that year, John Boyd Dunlop, another native of Ayrshire, became so worried about the effects riding on a solid tyred tricycle might have on his ten-year-old son, that he invented the rubber tyre. And with Macadam roads, Dunlop tyres and the Macmillan velocipede, cycling had at last come of age.

Mass produced bicycles offered a cheap means of getting around and cycling quickly caught the imagination of the public. It also became increasingly attractive as a leisure pursuit, opening up parts of the countryside that would otherwise never have been accessible to the masses.

Of course cycling has long been a major sport as well as a popular pastime. And Scotland is fortunate in having produced more than its fair share of stars. Maybe it's something about Ayrshire, because fifteen years ago another young man from that county stunned the sporting world. Graham Obree smashed the world one hour record, previously held for nine years, with a distance of 51.596 kilometres. What made this feat all the more remarkable, was that Obree, taking a leaf from the book of Kirkpatrick Macmillan, did this on a home made bicycle called Old Faithful' and included some parts from the family washing machine. Though he later regretted revealing this, believing that it overshadowed his many other innovations, Obree's achievements continue to make headlines around the world. The Flying Scotsman, a feature length movie about Obree was recently awarded the Grand Prix prize at the Sixth Russian International Festival of Sport Films held in Moscow.

The current cream of Scottish cycling is led by multiple Olympic Gold Medal winner Chris Hoy, can you think of any other British competitor from any other sport who has collected nineteen world and Olympic medals – including ten golds – in the last decade? And Hoy has done this across an unprecedented spectrum of disciplines – from individual and team sprint to the lung bursting ‘kilo', completing four laps of the track in just over a minute.

But in the annals of cycling endurance few can ever hope to match the record set earlier this year by the remarkable and redoubtable Mark Beaumont. He pedalled more than 18,000 miles across twenty countries in just 195 days to blitz the previous world record for cycling the globe by a truly astonishing 276 days. Enduring road rage, robbery, bumps and a lot of bunions, Beaumont also went through loads of those tyres first developed by John Boyd Dunlop. His motivation, like all champions, was simple. "The challenge was one of those things which was out there to be done. I love the idea of being the first and the fastest and I felt I was capable of beating the record."

Obree, Hoy and Beaumont are, or have been, at the top of their sport. But cycling is all about participation and in some ways things have come full circle. There are plenty of opportunities to get out and about and to get fun from using safe cycle-paths and bike networks. But Scotland is now recognised as one of the world's best venues for off road biking. Year after year the International Mountain Bike Association has voted the country number one and with stunningly rugged backdrops like the Cairngorms and Ben Nevis, who could argue with that?

A quarter of all car journeys in this country cover less than two miles. Could we walk or cycle instead? Add up the estimated 2kgs of carbon saved for every short journey made using a bike instead of a car and it is obvious how much of a difference could be made to the planet by a bit more pedal power.

Whether it's a gentle pedal around the park, a more adventurous spin down a near vertical mountainside drop or a vigorous time-trial work out at the velodrome, cycling is one of the cheapest, most environmentally friendly and healthiest things to do. It's also a lot of fun.

Time to get on your bike!