Cycling Stories: Neil, Glasgow Bike Station

Ahead of the opening of cycling exhibition 'The Perfect Machine' at Summerlee Museum in July 2014 we are profiling cyclists from around Lanarkshire and Glasgow. Neil works at the Bike Station in Glasgow (www.thebikestation.org.uk/glasgow).

“I've been working at the Bike Station since September and been cycling for I don't know, since I was a wee boy. I remember having a bike when I was wee it was a brown Raleigh and it had a drop frame. It was sort of rusty orangy-brown and it had a number 4 on it because I was 4 years old. I remember growing up with that bike and when I got too big for it we asked the neighbours for a tin of spray paint and we sprayed it against my parents' wall. We ended up with a big red outline of a bike on my parents' wall, which got me into a lot of trouble.

“Where I grew up I was fortunate to live next to some woodland so I was cycling round in the woods a lot when I was a wee boy that was in the '90s when mountain bikes were becoming a lot more modern so mountain biking is what I've definitely been growing up doing and that's what I still really enjoy doing. I'm fortunate to be able to work in the outdoors a lot of the time, taking folk mountain biking and stuff like that so mixing my job and also fun has been a great thing to do.

Like a lot of folk here it's the same, we've all got the same passion just riding bikes and things. It's been great so mountain biking's definitely where I'm at, but that's changing.

“I've not been into road cycling much at all but I think now I'd be keen to try that. The opportunity to build up a bike is here to get myself on a road bike and do that so yeah I like bikes of all kinds, I'm changing in that respect just trying new things and stuff you want to do more.

“I've entered the Scottish Cross-Country races. You get a few different types of entry level so I started off in a totally open category. I was doing quite well in that and thought I'm not pushing myself enough you know I was doing... not easily but quite well so I moved up to the next level and that was a lot tougher! I'm wanting to do the cross-country races again this year - I've had a couple of years out of it, I've just had a wee baby as well so I'm keen to get her on a bike already.

“I see bikes as a totally functional thing though, I've got a car so it's great but in a city you can use a bike for anything and you'll be good. I got this bike - one of my old bikes I got gifted and just from all the corrosion and it ended up snapping the frame so I found this little frame and just built it up and it's been great for me.”

If you would like to be featured in 'Cycling Stories' please contact Justin Parkes, Industrial History Curator on 01236 856376; ParkesJ@culturenl.co.uk

'The Perfect Machine', Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life, Coatbridge
5 July to 14 September 2014