My MARS Mantra Podcast, invites you to listen to changemaker Ed Clancy OBE, a three-time Olympic gold medallist from the United Kingdom, in team cycling. Ed grew up in Barnsley, a small town in the beautiful South Yorkshire, in England. Ed’s successful career started because of his passion for cycling as a child, receiving opportunities to be trained for the British Olympic team as a teenager and those mentors who encouraged him throughout his life. Ed also emphasises the importance of teamwork, and the sacrifices one need to make to achieve success. Now Ed is an ambassador for sustainable cities and is designated as an Active Travel Commissioner, by the Mayor or South Yorkshire. In this role, Ed is promoting cycling as an opportunity for all, for good health, wellbeing and a safe travels.
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Creator and host: Rumana Kabir
Editor: Zahid Shumon
Promotion: Ahasan Faisal and Tasnim Latif
Music: ASEIS
#Cycling
#Olympics
#RoadSafety
#HelthandWellbeing
#SustainabileTransport
#SustainableCities
#ActiveTravelComissioner
#SouthYorkshire
#Barnsley
#mymarsmantra
#changemaker
#Olympics
#RoadSafety
#HelthandWellbeing
#SustainabileTransport
@MyMARSmantra
Hello and welcome to my Mars Mantra podcasts and today it’s a very special session and I’m really excited and I’m doing this session on a video app today because I want you all to see this special person called Ed Clansancy and he’s also an OBBE. Nobody knows what OB is. What’s OB, Ed? That’s a great first question. What is an OBBE? So, there’s different levels, isn’t there? MBE, OBBE, CBE, and then I think you get your nighthood or damehood and um sir. Yeah, I think OBBE stands for officer of the British Empire. Oh, dear. It’s Yeah, yeah, don’t get me wrong, it’s a really nice day and it was it’s amazing to bring um you know, my mom and my sister and my stepdad into the palace, but um I’m still trying to work out what it gets you, but it was a nice award. So, yeah. Okay. Yes. So, Ed Clansancy OB is a cyclist and he won the Olympic gold medal three times and a bronze medal for team GB cycling. Am I right? Yeah, that’s right. So three of them golds, one bronze. Yeah. And hundreds of other other medals in the world cycling championship was it? Yeah. So I think I I won maybe five or six world championships and I got um a fair you can’t remember how many. Yeah, plenty of silvers and bronzes, but there must be hundreds of medals from uh smaller races over the years. But yeah, I when I was You must be filled up with medals. Yeah, I’m I’m guess I’m kind of lucky these days. I have a little downstairs part to my house and it’s almost uh I’ll get rid of it at some point, but it’s almost like a bit of a shrine down there to sort of like the glory days of cycling and you know the I’ve got a couple of nice bikes hung on the wall and yeah, it’s it’s nice but honestly remember like the older I get the less I’m bothered about the the medals and the achievements and winning or or losing even. I just think I just think it was a great way to sort of misspend my childhood, you know, my youth. And um you know, I’m 40 years old now. I retired when I was 36. And um you know, maybe we’ll go through this journey a little bit, but when I was a kid, I I didn’t really have any interest in academics or like, you know, school work. And I just love riding my bike. It was my first love. And um yeah, as a four-year-old manchild, I still love it. Still the best thing of my life. Yeah, that’s brilliant. So tell us more where you grew up. I know that you grew up in a city called city or small town called Barnsley. Tell us about the place where it is. Barnsley. Yeah. So Barnsley’s in South Yorkshire, which is uh in the north of England. And I guess South Yorkshire is really characterized by um the sort of decline of the industrial revolution really sort of all the the the pit mines and villages, you know, went through hard times in South Yorkshire and all the mills and the steel works, you know, eventually sort of um fell upon hard times and Barnsley when I was a lad was, you know, a relatively challenged place. But I’m I’m really pleased to say that there’s a fellow called Sir Steve who’s been leading the council there for for decades now. And yeah, he’s done a great job and Barnsley is actually a really really nice place. They’ve uh pedestrianized the the whole city center and yeah, it’s a grand place to to be. Honestly, it’s really nice. I was sat at the outside the glass works. It’s called having a cappuccino the other day and um I thought, “Wow, this place has transformed.” But yeah, I grew up around Barnsley and um I guess following my parents divorce when I was four or five years old, we moved um just across the border to a place called Dembiale. I think that was just on the border of South and West Yorkshire. And yeah, I still went to school in um a place called Spring Veil in Penniston, which is in South Yorkshire. And yeah, I mean as often is the way, you know, following parents divorce, I was a little bit lost and no like positive male role model in my life and yeah, I uh just gravitated toward bikes and lived my grandparents for a few years and my granddad was a great guy. Remember him fondly and yeah I think that’s where my sort of love of cycling came from and um yeah and that kind of takes you to um my sort of formative years. M so 4 years when you started cycling. Yeah, I think it was about that Ramana. I think um yeah I mean I wasn’t from a cycling family. I wasn’t from a cycling background. So you know for me it was just it was anything that I could get my hands on. you know, if that was a a recycled bike that we got from the dump and did a bit with or you know, sometimes my big brother had bikes that I remember used to get passed down to me when when he grew out of them and I grew a bit bigger and um yeah, like I’d trade an awful lot to have that first white BMX I had. I remember it like yesterday with this like plastic five-spoke mag wheels and yeah, but of course back then, you know, I never set off trying to be anything or do anything particular and and then what happened? Well, you know, when you were picked for the Olympic training. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, there’s um as you know, there’s a lot that happens between sort of being a child and being a teenager and being a young person. And there was this really fertuitous moment. Well, there’s a couple of ftuous moments. I think there’s a guy called Kevin Clancy who’s my stepdad. And um you know, that’s where I got my name from. And uh yeah, Kevin was a great guy. He still is. You know, he still mentors me. he still helps me out. And um yeah, I I think there was just a bit of a like a marriage in my head. I was like, “Right, there’s a guy here that’s ambitious and he does well and you know, he’s got his uh got a couple of Specs Savers franchises. He’s um essentially a trained optician, which is which is great.” Specs. Exactly. Perfect. Yeah, we’re advertising. Got a Spec Savers ambassador in the room. Yeah. So, yeah, he um he was just an optician, but he worked hard and he was a good role model. And then I just sort of combined this ambition and the love of cycling and off we went. And we did a few club races and local races. And yeah, I remember um there was again another ftuous point in time where British cycling were recruiting for the talent team. It was called and literally that you know instead of just trying to find existing cyclists that always came from cycling families, it was a case of like talent ID. So they’d go into schools with like a what bike or a techno gym bike that you might see in your in your local gym and you know we did like a threeminute test and a a one minute test and a sprint test and I passed the criteria and I guess that was my golden ticket to um get on the talent pathways to the Great Britain cycling team and you know of course it was um many many years before we got close to our first Olympics. You know, it was about um about seven years of hard work and I lived and grew up with some really big names in the sport. Mark Cavendish, Garrett, Thomas and we all lived together and moved into Manchester and sort of traveled the world as teenagers and um when we were in our young Yeah, it was it was great. It was really exciting. Um yeah, it was tough. It was tough. You know, we had literally no money. We were all dead broke. We had um a coach called Rod Ellingworth who was amazing in hindsight. Absolutely amazing. So dedicated and you know we learned some like really high performance values off that guy and I think this stood with us for life. Yeah this is brilliant and you mentioned that you know you won all these medals as a team. So teamwork is very important and tell us more about all this teamwork and the amazing relationship you had with your teammates. Yeah, I mean teamwork. Let’s start with that. I think there’s I mentioned the words high performance principles and I’m very much of the opinion that no athlete I don’t care what you see on um Instagram or what you see on the TV, no athletes made it on their own. Um I don’t think anyone’s really become a self-made millionaire. Like when you think about it, somebody’s had to buy their product, somebody’s built them a website, someone’s delivered their services, or somebody’s at least bought them. What I’m saying is success is a team sport. I don’t care what walk of life you’re in. And um it was absolutely the same for me. You know, I was um you know, when you’re an athlete, it’s probably a little bit like being the lead singer in a band, isn’t it? kind of there and you know you have to deliver on the under the lights on the on the big stage but ultimately there’s there’s so many people that help you get there the physios psychiatrists the sports scientists the aerodynamicists and yeah I mean success even in my new role as active travel commissioner it’s just about successful collaboration with multiple stakeholders if that makes sense. Yes. And that’s a good segue because Ed is the active travel travel commissioner for South Yorkshire Mal combined authority. So there are four cities Doncaster, Sheffield, Barnsley and Rotherham which is combined as South Yorkshire and Ed has been appointed by the mayor to promote active travel and that’s why Mars Mantra podcast listeners will understand the importance of active traveling and yeah more. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s start with the job role. I mean, yeah, I was um like a lot of athletes, you know, I’ve been through this really successful period of time and done a lot of good things in cycling and truth be told though, it’s kind of hard not to see, you know, retirement from being an athlete, you know, when the tide goes out in your career, it’s it’s easy to see it as a tragedy. You know, you kind of lose everything you you built built up for so many decades. And um this opportunity came along to be active travel commissioner and work for Mayor Oliver. And you know in terms of Mayor Oliver and his manifesto he wants he’s got this ambition this ambition to be the healthiest region in the UK. Um he wants to be the best place for walking wheeling and cycling for kids. And um you know there’s a couple of things about him and his belief in health that um drew me to the job. And you know, speaking about bikes, I won’t bore you with the detail, but cycling is the best sport in the world. I’m convinced of it. But the the interesting thing to me about cycling is it’s it’s way more than a sport. You know, you can have a such a humble simple thing. That’s the most efficient machine known to humankind. You know, when you look at how much energy it takes to transfer a certain distance, walking, running, buses, trams, trains, airplanes, helicopters, nothing even can hold a candle to how efficient a bike can move across a certain distance. I think it’s a great tool for mental health, let alone physical health. And um yeah, I I just think, you know, in terms of like fixing some of our worldly problems around like growth inequalities, getting people to jobs, opportunity, education, you know, if people can’t afford cars, and um even if there’s a well integrated public transport network, um which there is down in London and you know, it isn’t elsewhere, you know, it’s still out of reach for a lot of people. So um yeah, I believe in bikes. cuz I believe in health and activity and yeah so I mean that’s what drew me to the job. So what do you do for this job role? Yeah. So I think you can really sort of split my role uh in two halves. It is pretty much 50/50. So 50% of the time you’re local boy done good. You advocate for walking, wheeling and cycling and the positive health benefits it brings. you know, and sometimes you’re speaking to elected members, sometimes you’re speaking to the u the leaders and the execs of the councils, and sometimes you’re speaking to school kids. So, you know, you promote walking, wheeling, and cycling. That’s half my job. The other half of my job is working behind the scenes with the officers. So, all the people that make the good stuff happen and um the local authorities. Yeah. So I work for the combined authority and then we have these four local authorities. So we have Doncaster Rother and Barnesy Sheffield and they’ve all got their own transport teams right and usually within each one they’ve got dedicated resource to to walking wheeling and cycling or at least a matrix system and it’s our job to coordinate a big plan of attack across South Yorkshire. This is what this is strategizing isn’t it? So we make a strategy. We say, “Right, if we’re going to have a finite amount of energy, time, and resource, how can we make the biggest impact to our health inequalities in South Yorkshire? How can we make this place healthier, happier? How can we bring people to jobs and opportunities, you know, through walking, wheeling, and cycling?” And we’ve got to decide what’s important to us, you know, what we prioritize, who we prioritize, where we prioritize. And um and that’s the other 50% of my job. So it’s half advocacy promoting and it’s half strategizing with the team. Yeah. And that is that is how I came across about your role because we were working in South Yorkshire combined together with the south Yorkshire combined authority and we came across this um travel plan. There is an integrated transport plan and because you mentioned already that London’s got a good transport system but not the rest of the country. So that’s very important that you know other parts of the country gets the equal opportunities as well as health issues. You mentioned I remember reading that Barnsley’s got very low life expectancy rate. Yeah. Health and well-being. So what’s what’s that? Why is that like that in Barnsley? Why is it is it deprived or Yeah. Yeah. Great. What’s the cause? because you know it’s a really nice outdoors part of the country but why are there not enough health health why aren’t there enough health issues the truth is it’s still um I sort of briefly mentioned like the uh the sort of decline of the region you know through the sort of mining and steel industry when it went south and um I kind of uh it’s still a region that’s overcoming economic renewal and you Now, this isn’t something that’s unique to us, but um you tend to find that the the places that are sort of struggling economically are the ones that are struggling in terms of yeah, healthy life expectancy, life expectancy. Um we’ll have a big burden on the NHS where we are. And um but I mean before we go all doom and gloom about South Yorkshire, I mean I I just believe in it. I believe there’s strong, resilient, hardworking communities that have um that that stand the test of time. You know, we’ve produced way better Olympians than me. You know, there’s Jessis down the road in Sheffield and I think there’s so much potential because yeah, like it’s it’s a region that’s shaped by the sort of industrial past, but it’s also a region that’s shaped by like some of the most beautiful green surroundings. like you said, like you know, I’ve traveled the world with my cycling gig and there’s so many beautiful uh rivers, lakes, reservoirs, mountain bike trail centers. Yeah, I think South Yorkshire’s got loads of potential. And that’s what I really like about Mayor Oliver. You know, he believes in his potential, too. And you know, if we’ve got physical potential, that means we’ve got mental health potential as well. and it means we’ve got productivity and growth potential because all these things are inextricably linked and um it’s for me it’s an unbelievably exciting project. Um and I’ve absolutely loved it. It’s well totally different world to elite sport but it’s um yeah he’s great and I remember Mayor Oliver Coppard was saying that Sheffield is the outdoor city of the country and I was there in December and it was so cold. It is really a very tough place but very beautiful. And you mentioned about Jessica Inis. I remember reading her autobiography. It was so scary because she had to sacrifice so much for practicing and the health. I mean you know we all see the glory of being an Olympian. You have to sacrifice a lot. It’s not easy. Yeah. And maybe that prepares you for all these big strategy you’re doing now. Yeah. 100%. So, a couple of things in that you talked about sacrifice. Um, sacrifice. So, this word focus is often glamorized, I think, like I’m going to focus on my career, right? And it’s like a wow, that’s a nice thing to do. But I think the ugly truth is the word focus to me really is like 90% saying no to stuff. It’s saying no to friends. It’s saying no to family. It’s saying no to going out and having a drink with your mates. It’s saying no to kicking a football around on a stag do. It’s, you know, saying no to weddings, funerals, birthday parties, Christmases. And um yeah, you know, for me that’s what focus meant. And that’s what it took to be a good Olympian. And to a lesser extent, you know, that still applies today perhaps. You know, I work hard. I’ve um I haven’t been home for the last eight days. um try to slide in the odd social occasion like last night. But um yeah, I still work hard. I still sacrifice things and but that’s all right because you know I’m working on things I believe in. But um I think another thing you alluded to there was like the learnings we took from sport and yeah I’ve heard and seen Jessica and his talk as well and there’s no doubt that sport is a a great teacher you know particularly for I believe particularly for disengaged kids you know it can teach you everything you need to know about teamwork resilience overcoming adversity performing under pressure you know understanding what a strategy is in very basic terms you know football, rugby, there strategy sports and um yeah, I think um more so than like elite sport these days, I really believe in the power of grassroots sports and just getting kids involved in um just sport. I think it brings out the best in people in um in ways that perhaps you just wouldn’t get engaged with them otherwise, you know. Good that you mentioned you know getting people engaged especially kids but computers you know games we spend so much time on screen and we are doing this on screen people will watch us but this is it it’s it’s a balance and Pelton yeah was it Pelton you call it those bike people were you know using during COVID everything is fancified I have invented a word fancified elite sport so it’s just you know you think oh it’s for it’s a luxury thing. It’s for the posh people. Yeah. Break break break it down because you know I that’s why I really liked and I wanted to talk to you because you grew up from a humble background and you came up this far. So you don’t really need to be having all these facilities around you. If you have a dream you can achieve. Yeah. Yeah. It’s you’re right. I mean I I came from like you know really quite a challenged uh life you know my formative years and it was um you know I was glad to escape the family house to be honest and live with my grandparents for a while and um yeah it was it was a challenged upbringing um but I I really believe that everyone has hidden potential you know I’ll say that I think it’s a myth that you know you’re kind of born to be a surgeon you’re born to be an athlete. Obviously, some of it will come down to genetics, but I think 9/10en of it, it’s just about a working hard that’s something you’re passionate about, b having opportunity, and c having a good mentor. And I think, you know, with those sort of three things, you’ve kind of got a bit of a holy trinity of achieving great things. And, you know, opportunity is an interesting one. And you know in some ways I was very very lucky that Jason Quley won an Olympic gold medal in the year 2000. That funding brought around this talent team that I mentioned. Uh there was my opportunity. You know I worked hard because I love bikes. I love cycling. I was passionate about it. Um and I had a good mentor with my stepdad Kevin. But I think the truth is like you know not every kid will have that. You know there’ll be kids that are working really hard at something they’re passionate about. whether it’s education, they want to be a doctor, a surgeon, an astronaut, a teacher. Um, but you know, unless we provide opportunity and good mentors for them, you know, I think unfortunately some hidden talent will slide through the net, if that makes sense. Good that you mentioned the word mentor because I think when I watch my son doing all these computer games and watching YouTube videos, I think they have plenty of influencers out there. Yeah. And when I ask him, “What do you want to be?” He used to be saying when he was young that I want to be a train driver, but now he wants to be a YouTube gamer because there are plenty of influencers and mentors who are influencing them. And it’s really a difficult time kids are growing up in. It is difficult. It’s um I’m of an age where I can’t really see what some people see in it. You know, for me there’s nothing can touch like the joy and the freedom of being out out of this even like you know where I live um I’ll go into the Pete district and I ride my mountain bike or my electric mountain bike and I just feel alive and there’s loads of evidence and research that shows being outdoors in green spaces is uh you know strangely beneficial for your mental health and I like that and you know I I like everyone you know I’ll get carried away and I’ll start scrolling on Instagram. And um the funny thing is it’s kind of addictive, but at the same time, I always put the phone down feeling worse about life. So yeah, I’m very grateful I grew up without that. You know, we just about had a Nokia 3310, but I think the the next generation might argue that it’s it’s it can be a blessing as well as a curse. And yeah, I mean, it depends how you use it. Exactly. Yeah. Like a knife, you know, you can use it to injure someone. You can use it to nourish. And I just kind of think, you know, now and again there’s there’s things that pop up on my Instagram. There’s sort of like philosoph philosophy quotes and things like that and um inspirational quotes and like, you know, good performance consultants like Matthew Sed and um sort of Steve Kovi quotes pop up and thing now and again and I’m like, “Wow, that’s actually been a positive experience.” So, I don’t really know what the answer is. And I’m pretty sure that it’ll be a difficult world to govern anytime soon. But yeah, I think it could be a positive thing as well. Exactly. And this is why we think that you know Mars mantra is leaving people with their own positive note. And you already mentioned about three things which is opportunity. Yeah. Oh, it’s opportunity. First one I forgot. Good mentor. Yeah. So yeah, opportunity, a good mentor and working hard at something you’re passionate about. Yeah, exactly. And uh you know you mentioned that all these influencers and Instagram and things like that, but you are doing a brilliant job. You are training children to ride bikes and so you didn’t mention about that role. Yeah. Yes. This is a few years back now, but I mean when I um initially retired, I I’ve got a um a cycling academy called Clancy Briggs and I set it up with a great fellow called Graeme Briggs and his wife who was an accountant. So she was the brains behind the business really. And you know, me and Graeme had a name from the cycling world. And yeah, Graeme’s a great guy, super passionate as well about getting kids on bikes. And yeah, we started off at the Doncaster Cycle Center, which is in South Yorkshire. And it was great. You know, there’s loads of kids still that ride the bikes on the the Doncaster Dome Cycle Center. They do a lot of mountain biking these days, and I know they’ve just been to Warm Cliff Woods in Sheffield recently, and um yeah, I like that. It was something I was really passionate about. Um but yeah, the truth be told, you know, I um I was just so busy with uh work with British Cycling and my active travel commissioner. I I just had to sort of step back from the the project. Graeme and Sam were and still are doing an amazing job. So yeah, I was very proud that I could play a small part in getting that set up and doing a little bit. But I mean that’s just um it’s one of many things you know there’s so many great um I mean there’s charitable projects out there like Bikeability government funded uh Cycling UK you know I was down at um their big birthday celebration for the big bike revival in parliament a couple of weeks ago and yeah I’ve kind of realized in the afterlife of cycling there’s so many great people uh you know with the best intentions doing like amazing stuff and um I’m not quite sure I’m there yet, but I hope in 5 or 10 years time that I can do a little bit more of that. Um you mentioned afterlife of cycling. I think this is more more impactful life you’re leading now Ed because you’re doing this influencing or mentoring all these children and especially the reason I was attracted to your work is that because you are building the city in a very sustainable way and as I come from Bangladesh we had cycle rickshaws but now it’s just you know we are copying the west we think that you know if you just block the rickshaws because they’re slow they make traffic jam and have cars things would be better but now we have too many cars like rest of the world and more traffic problems. So this is why I I wanted to have this key message from from you that you know there are good role models which we can learn from the east as well and in London or other like Paris I’ve seen they have cycle rickshas for tourists and they earn they earn a lot than a normal taxi. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, hey, I know I’m biased and, you know, of course, my sort of um my early experiences, my, you know, experience as a young adult and, you know, as a middle-aged fellow now. But yeah, I believe in health and I believe in movement. Movement is medicine. I believe in that link between physical health and mental health and being a positive on those around you as well. And um you kind of touched on my purpose in life these days. And you know, truth be told, when you’re um an athlete, you know, it’s despite the fact that you work in a team, I still think to a large extent, it’s quite a it’s a self-focused act, if that makes sense. You know, really, you kind of you want the best for your team, you want the best for your pals, and you want the best for yourself. You know, you want money, you want prestige, you want power, you want success. And um you know all the the smartest people I’ve seen yeah they’ll they’ll do that you know in their 20s 30s you know they they might go and try and be an athlete or a tech entrepreneur or whatever it is but I think you know there’s there’s a lot of people that I’ve seen really successfully sort of change in the second half of the their working life to be good managers to be good leaders which is not about barking orders. It’s about bringing up those that come behind you. And um you know I think a lot about Chris Borman who is our national active travel commissioner and he was I had a poster of that guy on a bike on a wall when I was a kid you know and he was an athlete and you know he’ have pursued all those um things that I just mentioned there but you know now his life purpose is about making the world better for everybody else. you know, he advocates for cycling. He brings in a lot of money uh to support bike lanes so people can feel safe and able to do it. He’s a massive advocate for things like Bike Ability, you know, which teaches kids how to ride bikes in school. And yeah, I I think um I think when I’m looking back on it all on my deathbed, I won’t be that bothered about what bike races are won and lost. But I think I’ll see my time just trying to advocate for cycling and uh you know, trying to upscale South Yorkshire a little bit as time well spent. That’s a brilliant ending, Ed. You mentioned that you know uh what you want to see from your deathbed. So you won’t be able to count all your all your assets all your medals but you know it can go to the antique road show and people your grandchildren can make a lot of money selling granddad’s medals. Hey honestly I mean we joke about it but I mean they honestly mean less and less to me like you know with every sort of um passing week and month and don’t get me wrong it’s great that I can show them to kids. That’s a recognition. And yeah, I was down at a big dinner in London a couple of nights ago and um there’s a lot of business people that were, you know, excited to see the medals because it’s just a different walk of life. But um that’s the only thing that’s meaningful to me about them now. And um yeah. Yeah. I really want to focus the next half hour of my working life on sort of altruism, cooperation, and um yeah. Yeah. Trying to make this place a little bit better. Fantastic. Thank you, Ed. And you know what? I learned how to ride a bike when I first came to Oxford in in my 30s. So maybe I should go and do some bikeability training from you guys or in my local area. 100% scared. I have to learn from my son because when whenever it comes to turning, I just stop and then walk with my bike. I’m too nervous because I think I’m fall going to fall down. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, honestly, I mean, like there might be more people that listen to your podcast that feel like you, but the things, like I said, I don’t just see cycling as like um an elitist high performance world record smashing thing. It’s um I want it to be accessible to everyone. And um I’m a huge fan, honestly, a huge fan of ebikes. I think they make it more accessible. They’re comfy. They have mud guards on, big tires. You don’t have to worry about having punctures. They’re relatively maintenancefree. And um yeah, I think like electric assist, micro mobility is going nowhere. So um yeah, get on your bike for me and I hope you enjoy it. Yeah, that’s another message. Do what you’re good at. Don’t try to do everything. Yeah. Yeah. Or at least do what you try. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But again, like I mean it’s it’s I think it’s great that you’ve started riding bikes, you know, in your 30s and you know, I sincerely hope you you do it every day or as much as you want. And um but I believe in kids and I believe that, you know, if you have a passion and interest in something in your youth kind of stays with you for life. Like me and I never really went swimming as a kid and guess what? You know, I still can’t swim now. But I know I’m biased, but I just think cycling is such a great life skill. I can hop on a line bike round here in London and beat the traffic and I don’t have to go on the tube and I can go home and get out into the great outdoors and Yeah. You brought your bike here? No, I didn’t. No. No. I I just hire the bikes. I use like bike. Yes, you can hire the electric bikes. Oh, yeah. They’re good fun. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. They’re much better than the scooters. They look scary and scooters in Paris because of traffic. Yeah. Yeah. It’s an interesting one with electric scooters. I mean, like you said, it’s cars can become problematic if there’s too many in cities and towns, but yeah, I mean, electric bikes are generally wellreceived. We’ve got to make sure they’ve sort of parked where they’re not going to block, you know, wheelchairs and buggies and things like that. But yeah, e- scooters are a little bit different, but um yeah, I guess everyone’s learning. Nobody’s seen this before. No. And I think that there are you know sometimes there are cycling accidents even in Oxford and London. So people still have this fear about you know having accidents. So yeah absolutely lots to do for you Ed. There is there there’s a lot to do and you you’re very right to pick up on the safety aspect. You mentioned it yourself. You know you feel a bit nervous on bikes. Safety and you know feelings of safety are the number one reason people don’t ride bikes. So again, we spoke about Chris Borman earlier, but he campaigns hard to get proper segregated bike lanes away from roads and yeah, that’s that’s what makes a big difference.