Ladies Who Ride Part #2

one of my goals in featuring lady riders and bloggers is to create, connect, and expand a community of voices of those who are a part of this big and small movement of bicycling and blogging. i keep saying community because we are so few and all over the interwebs and world but we come as supporters, mentors, inspirations, where many women who ride are inspired by many of these ladies who live their lives loud and share their stories of why they ride.

pedaling all the way from manchester i give you LC of Naturally Cycling: Manchester. LC has been a great inspiration for many readers by encouraging them to naturally explore Manchester by bike.

Hailing all the way from Manchester, LC of Naturally Cycling : Manchester

In an effort to save money and be more sustainable I got rid of my car in 2006, relying on public transport to get me places. But my love for bikes didn't develop till 2 years ago! My partner has always been into cycling, commuting to work everyday with his bikes and loving every minute of it, but I used to see it as too aggressive, especially as where I live, in Manchester, cycling infrastructure is rather poor. However, a trip to Germany and Denmark in November 2008 was inspirational, and since then I never looked back! I love using my bikes for transportation as it's fast, cheap and easy, you just hop on and go!

I got my first bike in the spring of 2009, which got me going, till I stumbled across my Pashley and then it was love at first sight!

Through my bikes I am definitely discovering my city and my neighborhoods, I am also re-learning to appreciate the weather, the seasons... the good and bad times. Cycling is my me-time, my detox time after a busy day.

I am appreciating, more and more everyday that less is more, and how empowering this can be. Simple things like food shopping becomes a fun thing to do, not to be rushed. It's easy to overbuy and overspend when you have a car boot to fill, but when you only have a basket or panniers you become more careful on what you buy. What's the point of buying 2 for 1 lettuce, when one of them will undoubtedly go off in the fridge, because you'll forget about it!

Similarly to food, lately, in an effort to move away from consumerism even more I have been inspired by a fair few people that I have 'met' through the blogosphere, and so I decided not to buy ‘new’ clothes for a year, unleashing my love of vintage and charity shops finds. I see it as a fun and creative way to try and hopefully show that we don’t need to buy so much stuff to still be happy.There’s such a misconception that buying less equal being miserable and boring. But I am so glad there’s been a revival of crafts, creativity, hand made, make-and-mend etc, as trying to move away from consumerism has never been more fun and there’s no more the risk of looking dorky, yay!

So, I have to thank my bikes and cycling, which has certainly made me grow as well as develop a clear understanding that everything we do has an impact on everything else, the "Butterfly Effect", which is affecting, positively, other parts of our lives.

As a means of supporting the bike community here in Manchester, I organise "Wheelers' Brunch", which is a monthly get together of like-minded people, who sees cycling as a viable alternative to the car and to discuss common interests over some good food! More info here: http://naturallycyclingmanchester.wordpress.com/wheelers-brunch/

thank you LC for sharing your story!