Yesterday, I caught one of Rhoda’s schoolmates studying the Onderwater. Not for the first time. ‘Do you want a ride, mate?’, I asked. Suddenly, this boisterous little ball of trouble wasn’t so sure of himself. Hid behind Grandma’s leg. I asked if he’d like to make an appointment.

Cautiously, he stuck his head out and nodded, slowly. ‘OK, let’s do it tomorrow, then. Pinky promise?’ - his wiggled his little finger, back at me, his face turning to a smile, and then a quizzical expression. ‘Grandma, does it still count if your pinkies don’t touch?’ #Covid19UK

This little lad has had a difficult start in life. He’s still finding his feet, and can be a bit of a handful. Can’t ride a bike yet, but energy to burn. He’d be easy to write off as a naughty child. But the spark in his eye, about his appointment!

Got to the school last night and there he was, eyeing up the bike again. I sensed he was psyching himself up. ‘See you in the morning, yeah?’ - I thought this would be the point he backed out - yet out came his little finger, and a smile.

This morning, I drew up at our appointed meeting place, having dropped off Ruth first. Grandma and grandson stood to attention, ready for the 500yd epic journey we’d planned. Other parents watched as I pulled up. Not sure who was most nervous.

Rhoda took the lid off the crate; our guest put his bag and drink bottle in with hers. More cautious now, he elected to sit in the middle, rather than take Rhoda’s seat up front. Then, as he tried to get on, his coat caught on the seat. For a moment I thought he’d lose his nerve.

Nope, he was on. ‘Quick, let’s get this moving before he changes his mind’, I thought. Segregated cycleway full of stray pedestrians as usual. I scooted the bike down to the toucan crossing. He didn’t say a word....

We got to the park near the school. Downhill time. ‘Right then, team, it’s all yours. YOU take us to school!’ Rhoda uttered some manner of ‘war cry’, and with barely a sound, her colleague started pedalling. And some. Grandma was walking to catch us up, so I extended the ride!

The little boy jumped off the bike. ‘Can we do it again tomorrow?!’ The two children grabbed their stuff and skipped into school. Grandma turned to me. ‘I can’t remember the last time he smiled like that. Or me. Look at him - he’s going to have a good day, now’.

The shortest of rides on a bike that, rare-as-rocking-horse- as it is here, is common in the Netherlands, only a couple of hundred miles or so away as the crow flies, made that much of a difference. Infrastructure, and his own bike, would be transformative for that little chap.

Moreover, the wattage his exuberant little legs churned out reminded me that one of the most frustrating comments we get about the girls’ achievements is when people imply they must have some physiological advantage. That little boy could ride LE-JoG. It’d be the making of him.

It also underscored my strong belief that lots of kids simply aren’t getting the physical kick-start to their day that helps get them ready for learning. @thomas_ivor did 40 minutes on the turbo before school this morning, and his maths teacher will notice that. She’s said so!

Unfortunately, many schools and LAs don’t help themselves by promoting cycling, providing the simple infrastructure to park a kid’s bike under cover at school, and making it part of the school day, normalising it as a means of independence, freedom and fitness for families.

Above all, and I needed this because of the levels of abuse we often take for it, I was reminded of the simple pleasures of riding a bike, how instant and exciting they are when they’re novel, and how being left to do that in peace seems to do the human spirit so much good.

Grandma said when word gets out about how fun my big bike is, I should charge £1 for a lap of the park, and tell them to form a queue. I only wish I could hand every parent the bike that best suited their family, to trial on infrastructure that gave them peace in use.

Sadly, we don’t have the bikes, or the infrastructure, and most of the little cherubs, who haven’t been to the Netherlands ‘to watch the cycling’, know another paradigm, will continue to be driven about, to not know the excitement of having wind in their hair, and to miss out.

How do we break the deadlock, when car is king, the Chief Constable doesn’t care about how they report crashes, the council can’t master basic active travel schemes, and natives, on balance, hate anyone trying to do anything different, whilst moaning that the place is a dump?

It’s the big rides that largely win us attention and an audience, and we love that stuff - we are adventurers! - but our focus in terms of ‘spreading the love’, is on reaching the mainstream, and influencing to remove the barriers we rail against but others just turn away from.

Lockdown (nearly) did it for some folk. We saw families cycling past our house. Some of them are now riding to school. There’s been a 14% increase in cycling to school, with the extra measures we secured. We don’t have critical mass, but a small core group nonetheless.

I wonder if what our context requires, is letting more kids have a ride on our bike. On exchange trips with Dutch families (not just the kids!). On big organised rides for families, (equipment supplied?). On loaned family bikes. On class sets of balance bikes for infants schools.

Give people the pieces of the jigsaw, enough at least to see the picture they will want to make. Increase the number of people persuaded by the prospect of better, and keen enough to try what they can in the present. I think that’s where we are, truthfully.

Maybe the way we might hope to change all this, is to find ways of giving people enough of a taste of what makes us love cycling, and enough appreciation of what is happening elsewhere, to cause them to care enough to want to change things, too. Ideas on a postcard... Or a tweet!

EPILOGUE! (and ‘thank you’ for the kind comments) - not only did he ride back on the bike tonight (uphill!), he more than did his share... and immediately asked if he can do it again in the morning

One last tweet for this thread, for now. We’re bowled over by the way people have responded. We’ve just taken a step in faith and struck a deal to make sure the little guy has a decent bike of his own. It’s a stretch for us, so if you’d like to help... https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-bike-for-the-boy-in-the-park?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1