Page 113 - Healthy (March - April 2020)

FITNESS

After years spent
cheering her son
from the sidelines,
Lesley Reynolds,
53, bought her
first BMX bike four
years ago, and
finally got in on the
action. This May,
she’ll compete at
her second World
Championships

hardly exercised before this – I’d go to a spin class
or Body Pump once a week, and I’d occasionally
“I took up ‘I was it. Every week, I stood at the side of the track
go on my mountain bike with my sons, but that
watching my son Jacob, now 15, train or race in the freezing
BMX at 49, cold, shouting, “Pedal!” I was always telling him what to
do, but obviously having never done it myself, I didn’t have
a clue. People would laugh and say, “If you think you know
how to do it, you should give it a go.” The nature of the sport
and now meant that I was always looking for parts for Jacob’s bike as
he grew. I’d need to change the pedal cranks or get a longer
stem, and one day I came across a complete adult cruiser
for sale, so I decided to buy it.
I’m world You can’t sit down and pedal because the seat’s so low. It’s
‘The irst thing to negotiate is riding a bike standing up.
harder than you think to learn to do that – even for little
number 10” kids. I rode around and around the car park practising, and
once I’d mastered that, my next challenge was getting brave
enough to go down the start hill, because they’re steep.

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