Ben Spencer

Research Fellow, Oxford Brookes University

I can’t really remember not cycling.
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I think it started with a blue Triang tricycle when I was about three. It had a very handy rear carrier which I busily loaded and unloaded with toys and other important stuff as I moved around the garden. I started cycling the mile or so to school when I was nine and since then a bike has always been my preferred form of transport.

My best cycling experience was a solo trip setting off from home in Berkshire on a five-speed racer. I went to meet friends on the Spanish Costa Brava and ended up being so fit I could combine cycling West-East through the Pyrenees with the all-night village fiestas I stumbled across along the way.

These days I cycle for fun with my partner and two girls around the few flat parts of Stroud and a bit of mountain biking in Scotland. But mainly I cycle to get around, including combining bike and train to get from Stroud to Oxford – still carrying all my important stuff.
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Oxford Brookes University Profile
www.brookes.ac.uk/templates/pages/staff.aspx?uid=p0077057