Full of the enthusiasm of youth and the pent-up anger of small-town life, three skinny boys started writing songs that fell between melodic pop and shouty punk, depending on the time of day. They persuaded a drummer to join them, and played their first gig at lunchtime in the school hall. Spending the proceeds in the pub, they decided to take on the world. They didn’t get any further than Brighton, before imploding in the kind of mess it takes most bands three albums to get themselves into.
This is the beauty of cycling - the rhythm puts serious activity in the brain to sleep: it creates a void. Random thoughts enter that void - the chorus from a song, a verse of poetry, a detail in the countryside, a joke, the answer to something that vexed me long ago.
It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness On Two Wheels