I’ve always thought that riding a bike isn’t particularly frightening – after all kids as young as 3 or 4 can do it without much difficulty.
Let me tell you though; being dressed in lycra, with your feet strapped to the pedals and no visible means of slowing your progress around a slippery and eye wateringly steep track… it’s a whole new take on cycling.
As I mentioned in my last article, PruProtect are proud to be the headline sponsor for Ashes winning, ex-England Cricket captain, Michael Vaughan’s charity bike ride this September. The ride will be raising money for two great causes - the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation and Chance to Shine.
I’ve agreed to represent PruProtect on the ride personally and so was invited to join Michael at the media launch for the event, which was held at the Manchester Velodrome – home of the iconic Team GB squad which has been so successful over recent years.
Having been an avid cyclist for some time, I was excited by the opportunity to pit my skills against the banked circuit of the indoor track which, over the years, has been graced by the rubber of legendary figures such as Sir Chris Hoy, Sir Bradley Wiggins and Victoria Pendleton.
However, upon arriving at the venue nerves kicked in for the first time. We met Michael and the other riders inside the Velodrome, at a vantage point above the circuit from which the steepness of the banked corners came into sharp focus (at its maximum, the slope is at an angle of 42.5 degrees!).
The first thing you notice, is that the bikes are nothing like the ones you and I use for recreation or our daily commute. For one thing they are phenomenally lightweight and slender but, disturbingly, they aren’t equipped with brakes – at least, not in the conventional sense.
Instead of pulling a lever, mounted on the handlebars, applying backwards pressure on the pedals activates the anchors and so simply ceasing to pedal will cause the bike to stop. This would be tricky to adjust to on a level piece of tarmac but is especially worrying when attempting high speeds on a heavily raked track.
After much useful advice from the National Cycling Centre coach, Bob Barber, and a few laps of practice, we lined up behind Michael (a keen cyclist himself, since his retirement from professional sport in 2009) for a timed lap of the circuit. I was pleased to finish second overall in the timings, behind only Michael himself, although I should point out that a stopwatch error robbed me of a time for my first attempt, which I’m confident was much faster!
We all joked on the day about how we’d each checked that our life cover was up to date before we rode brakeless bikes, at high speed around a track which is almost at right angles to the ground but of course, in reality, it wasn’t that dangerous. The biggest risks in life are the unseen ones which we’re all aware of; illness, injury or accident and it’s these which we should be ensuring our clients are cognisant of and have protected against as much as possible.
We want to give Financial Adviser readers the chance to join Michael Vaughan and some of his celebrity friends on the PruProtect Chance to Ride cycle tour. If you think you can tackle one of the four ride stages and then watch England take on the Aussies in an exciting One Day International game, visit winachancetoride.co.uk and register your details – we’ll choose four lucky winners at random at the end of July.
Justin Taurog is marketing and distribution director for PruProtect
