Why a Bike Mechanic Loves Cycling

Paul takes you on a bike ride and discusses how cycling has helped his mental health but also discusses his personal journey with cycling and how, if you have a seed of an idea to start cycling, it can be very beneficial.

Paul is a professional bike mechanic not a mental health professional. All the topics in this video are about Pauls personal experiences and thoughts.

If you are struggling with your mental health please reach out to a friend or family member or contact one of the organisations listed on this webpage (if you are in the UK): https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/crisis-services/helplines-listening-services/

We are Paul and Sarah of Velo Works; specialising in components, wheel building, mobile cycle servicing/repair, custom builds and vintage bike restoration.

You’ll find a range of videos all about cycling on our YouTube channel including Gravel riding, Bromptons, Hand Built Wheels, workshop videos and much more.

Hi I’m Paul from vorks it’s January 2024 so happy New Year to you all come join me today on a reflective bike ride where I think about how cycling has impacted my mental health over a 20 plus year period of being a lifelong cyclist let’s go so cycling and mental

Health I think if some of you watch our YouTube channel you’ll kind of understand and have a bre of mine and my wife’s love of cycling and hopefully our passion for it comes across I’ve been cycling all my life and I absolutely love it especially as I’ve

Got older I’m kind of acutely aware of how important it is to maintain my mental health now whilst I’m not a mental health practitioner I wouldn’t necessarily say I suffer with any debilitating mental health problems I am aware of the impact it has on my life

And by being there how my life is enriched and how at the worst times of my life it keeps me positive and is just such an enjoyment I’m a mechanic I obsess about bikes I fix bikes I ride bikes and I love it for me cycling is don’t dare I say everything

It’s a huge huge part of my life and it’s how I meet people it’s yes so sociable Fitness just encompasses everything think if if I’m feeling a bit obsessive more anxious you know it’s a good medium for me to focus on you know and I build Wheels super meditative I’m

On my road bike at the moment and just the repetitiveness of turning the pedals for me is pure meditation and I absolutely love it so I’m not sure where I’d be without cycling in my life thankfully I don’t have to think about that cuz it is in my life and it’s in my

Life in a big way I’ve always had a bike in my life and through my 20s a mountain bike which was a huge social thing lots of gatherings always meeting up with people to go mountain biking and loved it lots of trips to Wales and as I’ve

Got older I’ve done more touring I’m really interested in like folding bikes love folding bikes and I’ve recently well probably over the Last 5 Years got really into Road biking on my vintage SL retro road bike I’ve also got into axing since I moved back to Bristol and that

Is just wonderful just to have this meet up with people um so sociable and already I’ve only done a few axes and I’ve already got a little group of friends that I do it with so you know I’ve always found cycling to be super accessible Now cycling there’s so many

Genres of cycling people get involved in cycling for so many different reasons it could be that they wish to get fit they wish to be out and about I mean it’s January I’m out on a bike ride I see I can see loads of people on their bikes

Maybe for the first time there’s a few clean bikes out there and it’s great and you know the impact for people just to be out and about it’s not a miserable day it’s a bit cold but for me I can’t not cycle all year round it’s just

Really important for me to be getting out and it’s part of the challenge as well and I think that’s where cycling comes into it I’ve always been into the outdoors and to kind of it’s not suffering but it’s it’s challenging yourself or pushing yourself you know having goals and that’s what psych gives

Me as well giving me kind of things to aim for and again that I just think is very positive in people’s lives you know if we don’t have something to aim for you know it doesn’t have to be intense but like I do think it is important uh

You know it could just be something very basic I know some people get into cycling because they love it Fitness and it’s all about racing and stuff and that’s great and it’s for them I would hope that me and Sarah get across in our YouTube channel that we’re certainly not

At that level and we’re certainly not elitist in any way we have very much our specific areas of cycling that we like but you know cycling is it doesn’t have to be one-dimensional it’s threedimensional and you know you can get into it for whatever reason you know

Whether it’s you just want to cycle to the shops you know I’ve met people where you know they just cycle to the shops on their bikes but it’s everything for them you know and that regular contact with a bike is just yeah super important and you know I I love coming

Back to Bristol where it’s such a cycle Hub I guess you know such a there’s such a breath of cycling you know on Saturdays and Sundays you see all your Ries out you know and then through the week you see your mountain bikers out and it’s going to turn

Wooo and it’s great you know people using bikes to get their children round delivering it’s it’s all it’s all there and that kind of bread of cycling is really evident here and I love it and that’s why I would really love to get across in this video that I’m not

Talking about one specific area of cycling you know cycling can be anything and it’s really it just depends what it means to you and that’s the beauty of it and I think that’s the beauty of a lot of outdoor sports um I’ve participated in a few I used to be an outdoor

Instructor I used to do a lot of canoeing I used to take young people mountains in Scotland I have my Mountain leader qualification which enabled me to do a lot but I’ve always come back to cycling and for me cycling has always been a very friendly and accessible sport um or pleasure Leisure

Activity and yeah I believe it’s everything I think that the motion of cycling is really good the socialness of cycling you know I could get by with my later years so I’m 41 now not that old but I could probably get through my later years just just cycling three four times a week

Going to cafes and just chatting with friends and that it makes me so happy and I’ve heard stories of you know where people get into cycling and you know they lose weight or it’s just really had such a positive impact there’s some people on YouTube that where this has happened to and cycling’s

Changed their Liv so whether this is you know about mental health this video or it’s more me promoting saying get on your bike you know it is just wonderful I’m into Road cycling I’m not saying it’s all an easy ride there’s certainly some things that uh s of some situations

That go the other way like people coming too close to you in cars so all of you in cars please take heed you know that type of thing but again that’s a stress for me to overcome and for me Road cycling the benefit of it outweighs it I

Guess the things for me that really I love at the moment about cycling is when I say I’m doing a 40 mile ride and there the ride will have its characteristics but then there’s sections that will just stay in my memory let’s say a nice flat section

Where I’m doing lows of miles and you know I’m eating up say 10 miles in 45 minutes and you know that’ll just live with me for a whole week um and I’ll take so much pleasure I’m in this ride today I’m out on the Downs in Bristol

It’s a pleasan is day there’s nothing too bad there’s no rain chatting to you guys love it I think it’s just you know it will stay with me I’ll be so happy for the rest of the day and whether I can I really pinpoint what it is I it’s

Just everything you know for me definitely cycling is everything it’s every aspect of my life there’s not a day that goes by where it’s not in my life and it doesn’t have to be that obsessive you know but I I would encourage people if if you want a sport

Or Leisure activity to get into cycling is brilliant and and it doesn’t have to be majorly expensive ideally you know you should go to like a secondhand bicycle charity and see if they can sort you out with a bike relatively cheap uh my brother went to one recently and got

A bike for his partner 160 quid I’m not saying that everyone’s got that money in their bank but for me that that’s accessible in terms of getting involved in other sports or leisure activities why I say go to a bike charity is they generally keep the bikes in really good

Order so it’s it’s quite a good idea in Bristol we got like life cycle they do it in hfield and we have Bristol bike project you know these are good uh people to get bikes from and just start cycling you know if you just do a mile a day it’s not no

One’s no one’s out judging you it’s about just going out and being on your bike I mean some of my best rides are the tiny little rides that me and Sarah do where we go to a coffee shop and we just have the most fun you know it’s it

Should be whatever you want it to be if you want to go out and involvement is going and getting in clubs getting involved with clubs being social meeting new people excellent you know it’s all depends on what it is for you and that’s what is so

Good about it I love having all my cycling kit over my life I’ve collected lots of kit that I love um you know if I’m feeling a bit unmotivated I might be like oh I’ll buy myself a new pair of gloves um you know and and this is I’m

Not spending loads I’m not spending hundreds you know this is over like 10 plus year period And I keep with all my stuff until it wears out but it’s just little bits like that or Winter’s coming up right I get my winter clothes out and I love cycling in Winter absolutely love

It as long as there’s no ice around if there’s ice around it’s time to head to the forest that’s where having a mountain bike comes in but it’s you know I just love it I love wrapping up warm in some regards cycling in Winter’s easier because you can wrap up for it

Summer’s a bit more difficult because you have to kind of think about what am I taking but all through the a cycling as I’ve said it’s my life and you know I hope that yeah people watch the video they can take some inspiration from my love of cycling if you watch our

YouTube channel you’ll see these different areas of cycling that we’re into like I said I’m mechanic so it’s part of my day-to-day job I build hundreds upon hundreds of Wheels a year for customers and I love that process of being able to build wheels and specific kind of custom products for people just

Going to do another turn and you know riding wise it’s for me it’s progression you know I love cycling through winter getting to the other side of winter and you know being really fit ready for the summer season touring cycle touring wooo I love it absolutely love it haven’t done as much

Recently as I would like um mainly due to we’ve got an elderly dog we don’t like to leave him by himself so um he’s kind of our motivation um for that so if we do go away it’s generally we support myself or Sarah will support each other

Riding but that works for us and that’s great and Mikey is our dog is a love of our life and yeah it’s just really important like cycling to US cycling for multiday going and seeing friends on bikes um a trip I’m about to plan the moment is going

Over to Belfast to see my friend not 100% sure of what how I’m doing it kind of thinking of going up to Liverpool getting the boat across a bit reluctant to fly but um we’ll see how it pans out but again that’s a little bit that I can

Think about go and see another part of the world my friends from there so I get to see him and that’ll just be a wonderful trip I love cycling in France cycle touring in France um and there’s so many lovely routs uh in France but mainly in the UK

From sust strands you know if you want to go and cycle and you don’t want to be on the road and you just want some time out to ride along side a friend chat you know be away from traffic there’s so many roots if you look up Sands check

Out their map there’s loads of roots and everything that you can put together small rides I mean I take my parents on a short ride from bitten towards bath um on the psychopath just to Salford and we have a great day we did a ride on our

Bromton it was a glorious day we talk about it all the time how is that we just did I think we just did three miles and we had the best time they had there two bromton I had my bromton and for me it just ticked all the boxes odax seems

To be a thing that’s creeping into my life nice I’ve got my next odax at the end of the month so aax is basically a it’s a longdistance cycling uh organization I wouldn’t say I do the long distance long distance over Christmas people were doing like a th000

Kilometers uh my motivation is kind of 100 kilometers maybe I’ll work up towards 160 because for me that’s a nice day out with friends and I get to meet some people and it’s great the last one I did we turned up in a car park there’s about 50 or cyclists you know everyone

Really into cycling it’s not comp comptitive you pay a nominal fee of say £8 and you go and do a route and it’s always usually a lovely route that someone’s given you you put it into your GPS or you can have it printed out and then you get a card that gets

Stamped along the Route so it gets stamped cafe or a meeting place and then you may have a question about somewhere uh on your route to prove that you’ve been in that direction and I absolutely love it Sarah is going to do her first one hopefully in March uh my

Partner so she uh that would be great I’m going to probably do it by bromton it’s a 50 km one and you you know we’re talking about it thinking about it and you know another thing to really think about and look forward to and I think as

Humans we like that you know we like to have things to look forward to especially January when we’ve been looking forward to Christmas and New Year and then it’s all like back to Earth of a bang isn’t it you know so to have those things to look forward to um

So WX is working really well for us um it’s not competitive suits are kind of approach to cycling so yeah a few things that keep me motivated to get on the bike and get out and about there we go I mean I’d love to hear your experience

Of cycling and how it affects your mental health I think it would be great if people could comment and share their feelings on it um because obviously I can only give us a certain amount of perspective I try and be articulate but it’s not always the best so you know so

I can only talk about it from just a love of cycling really um so it’ be great to hear other people’s points of views and yeah as always me and Sarah will reply to comments and you know engage with people as we like to so um

I’d like to say happy New Year to everyone uh we’re currently on 3,047 subscribers so I guess we must be doing something right to have all of that in just over a year so yeah I’d like to say a big thank you to all those that have subscribed and it seems as

Though after a recent poll you all like be doing silly stuff on the Brompton so hopefully we’ll keep that going so yeah please share your thoughts and uh please subscribe thanks for watching