The Christmas Ride Ritual

The Christmas Day ride ritual, from a story I wrote last Christmas - the uncut version

Well, I do admit that I am one of those people; the ones who don’t much like Christmas. It’s not so much of a grumpy old fella thing, or at least if it is I started young with it. I’ve just never liked Christmas or all of the trimmings that go with it. 

Bah humbug, or so some may say, but that’s not the case, as there is one very special thing that I do love about Christmas. It’s not the Morecambe & Wise replays, or Christmas pudding, and I’ve never even watched the Queen’s speech. The highlight of Christmas for me is my own ritualised Christmas Day bike ride.

What it’s all about?

Back pedalling to the three speed gearing and patch pocket days of the 70’s and Christmas Day and bikes were very much part & parcel of the festive experience. This was not so much about cycling as we know it as adults, but more so about the fact that getting a bike for Christmas was the ultimate for many children back then. Without fail on each and every Christmas morning the local streets would be lined by the lucky ones – those who got a new bike for Christmas, all of them riding their new pride and joy and with bells a pinging and brakes a squealing. 

It’s a real shame that we had to grow up, and that Play Stations and then iPads took over form bikes as the Christmas gifts of choice. The world would surely be a much healthier and happier place if small screens were swapped for small wheels once again.

When I say grow up, there are still those out there who may consider that us older cyclists never quite did that (grow up), and that somewhere whilst out pedalling along the back roads that we got lost in a Peter Pan like cycling abyss. Of course we all know that there is always an element of playfulness in riding a bike, and we also know that there’s far much more to it than that. 

My first true Christmas day rides started when I got my first Raleigh Europa racing bike (which I wrote about last Christmas). Suddenly there was independence and escapism laid out before me. The open road really did await; and I was able to ride off into the icy local country lanes of a Christmas morning and get away from all of that seasonal madness. Even back then I couldn’t be done with sedate over indulgence and the fanfare of Christmas, and it’s been that way ever since. Thank you Santa for showing me the true meaning of Christmas - a bike!

Joining the Christmas Day ride cult

It didn’t take long for me to get hooked on cycling and to join the local cycling club, where the Christmas Day ride really had become ritualised over the decades before. 

Each Christmas morning we would meet at a local pub and then ride the steep dirt track up to the top of a local “mountain”. 

Those rides were huge gatherings of cyclists of all ages and abilities. For that one single half-day ride each year any personal differences were set aside and every one of us put our own two wheeled twist and shout on the festive occasion. The tinsel wrapped happenings of the day were something to be talked about for months afterwards, and even for years in some circumstances.

One of the most memorable of these rides also turned out to be the most forgettable. It was a freezing but dry morning and as we panted through the morning mist on that hallowed and steep dirt track climb there were just a few of us still managing to ride. Suddenly the club “clown” decided to yank back my handlebar end gear shifter. This sent my rear mech clinking into the wheel, leaving me on a bodged single speed for the rest of the ride.

There were always a few flasks of some brandy like snifter passed around at the summit, which was followed by a slalom like chase back down to the pub. 

I was 18 at the time, and had to ride on to my brother’s house for Christmas dinner, and then to go on and visit my then girlfriend’s family in the evening. 

Things didn’t quite turn out that way. I only drank 2 half pints of the local brew (the second one was under duress). Somewhere between the bar and the table the afore mentioned jester must have seriously spiked those drinks. Right up until now I have no idea what went into those drinks, but I was legless, and kept falling off the bike at every turn in the road on the ride back.

I can still blurrily remember holding the rocking doorframe of my brother’s house as I rang the doorbell, and oh the looks I got. Within minutes I was clinging onto a spinning bed with the inevitable consequences. 

There was no Christmas dinner for me that day, and it really did not go down well with anyone. That day was one that I’ve never been allowed to forget.

Legend has it that the gear smashing and drink spiking jester later fell asleep face down in his Christmas dinner, due comeuppance if true.

Sanctuary over Santa

Over the year’s life has moved on some, but somehow I still manage to take my own solo Christmas Day ride each year. The rides are rarely long, but always solitary and I always try to do something a little bit “special”. Maybe a ride slightly out of the ordinary, something I don’t do too often. A gift to myself you could say.

I do build up to it for some time ahead, thinking what I could do and where I could go, where I could stop in solitude for 5 minutes to take it all in, or rather to shut it all out.

Mostly, in recent years Christmas has been spent in countries where they just don’t do Christmas and where cycling is considered purely as exercise, much like a gym session. I’m pretty used to that attitude by now, and yet I still kind of struggle with the misunderstanding of what Christmas and the ritual ride actually mean to me – although I’ve never even tried to explain it. Even though I don’t much like Christmas, I still acknowledge the day with a ride, and feast. 

In 40 odd years I think I’ve only ever missed 2 Christmas Day rides, and I’ve been really uneasy with those misses. It somehow feels as though I’ve let myself down by missing them, but they have both been unavoidable, which makes it a little bit easier on the conscience.

One year (around 2004) I was in Malaysia, and late on Christmas Eve I made the first and only ever mountainbike descent of the KL Telekom Tower, and then flew home on Christmas Day. I think that I missed that year’s ride – but am not 100%, as I’m half sure that I would have at least tried to do a short ride as soon as I got back home, which I often did straight after a long flight.

The other one I missed was a couple of years ago, after having just had surgery. Even though I could not ride a bike I still made an effort and went out and drove around one of my old training routes, it was the first time back on those roads in 20 years, which was some kind of redemption.

As this Christmas comes around I’m already flirting with ideas for a ride. Having been pandemic stranded for some time now and having been forced out of action for a few weeks I’m chomping at the bit to make something of the day.

Be it short and sharp, long and epic, or simply an hour of solitude, the Christmas Day ride is the one ride a year that I appreciate more than any other; it’s my time.

I’m quite that sure that I’m not the only one out there with a festive ride ritual, and one with some kind of personal meaning embedded within it. Given the past 2 years of living hell we’ve all endured this one really does need to happen, and to be something different than the others - and long may the ritual continue.