Well, firstly let me say there really isn’t one. This is just an exercise in finding excuses for the lack of recent cycling in my life, but having thought about it while I’ve been typing this first sentence I think my semi-fertile grey matter may have conjured up a very tenuous connection that I can expand on for a couple of hundred words. Bear with me while I flesh this out.

The thing about a new hobby or interest is that it’s all new fascinating and exciting. A voyage of discovery into hitherto uncharted territory. Theres a whole new secret language to learn before you can converse with and understand your fellow enthusiasts. New internet sites, forums and YouTube channels to explore, new local specialist shops  to nervously venture into as a virgin neophyte vainly trying not to look stupid in front of the über knowledgeable staff. Its exciting and intimidating in equal measure.

This journey into uncharted and rather salty waters has given me an insight into what it must be like for the thousands of new riders who have entered our cycling world over the last few years. I’ve been riding and building bikes for many, many years and have of course without really thinking about it amassed a considerable amount of experience and background knowledge that I simply take for granted. Tubs or clinchers? Carbon or steel? what brand of bib tights fit me best? whats that strange braze on for on the right hand chain stay? etc. These are all questions I don’t really have to think about. Even when it comes to controversial questions which have split the cycling community such as the perineal wheel size debate in Mountain Biking  (26′ all the way obviously) or the roadies which frame material rides best argument (steel is real folks) I can (and have just in fact) give an informed opinion based on my experience and hours of wasted time reading magazines and internet forum posts. And like many cyclists of long standing I’m certain that on occasion I’ve been less than probably as patient as I should be with newbies to the scene. (What do ya mean you don’t know the difference between Presta and Schrader????)

Now instead of forums like ‘Bike Radar’ and ‘Singletrack World’ I’ve been devouring the faq sections of ‘Ultimate Reef’ and ‘Reef Central’. I’m learning a whole new set of acronyms and abbreviations like Ro/Di, Sps, Lps, Alk, etc etc. I’m having to relearn what feels like basic chemistry after being bombarded with information on water parameters and reading very complex articles on seemingly arcane subjects such as the best ways to raise the calcium level in a tank without adversely effecting the phosphate element……… I’ve watched lots of YouTube tutorials on water flow and how best to glue corals to rocks, I’ve absorbed (or tried to anyway) important information on which fish like to eat their tank mates at night (bad) and which like to munch nuisance algae (good).

Finally of course I ventured out to find whats known in the reefing world as my LFS (Local Fish Shop). My LFS I was told would be pivotal in the success or failure of my reefing endeavours. It seemed that finding a decent local LFS who would give sage advice, and most importantly sell me suitable and disease free fish was crucial to the newbie to the hobby. The internet forums seemed to be full of terrifying tales of woe and distress from people who had unwittingly introduced to their tanks some dread and incurable disease imported on a fish or coral that they’d bought from a source they hadn’t used before, and within weeks their previously flourishing and lovingly cared for slice of the ocean had been reduced to a desolate salty backwater devoid of life. Others had equally horrifying tales of buying a new breed of fish from a different supplier to their usual ones who assured them the newcomer would be a terrific addition to their aquarium community. However on releasing the said fish into their tanks it quickly became apparent they’d been sold the aquatic equivalent of Hannibal Lector, a finned fiend who was taking great pleasure in hoovering up its tank mates whilst proving impossible to catch and flush down the nearest toilet. Finding a good LFS who took decent care of their stock and gave decent and impartial advice became my first priority.

Now it quickly became apparent that the LFS’s within reasonable reach of my home all fell into a broadly similar category. It’s what I like to call the ‘Ohhh, I never realised that was there!’ category. These where all shops I’d either seen but never really noticed before, or driven past but never registered their existence, they were all  tucked down obscure side streets near shopping centres or in little back waters of the big  local Garden Centres just waiting to be discovered. Very similar in fact to the old small independent bike shops that used to be found in most towns before the big web-based behemoths such as CrC and Wiggle drove them out of business.

I did have a couple of false starts looking for my perfect LFS. I was roundly ignored in the aquatics section of my local garden centre before a spotty yoof completely failed to answer my tentative questions. The next place was located in a ramshackle old barn in the middle of nowhere. The staff here were very helpful but fearful that the building was about to collapse on top of us I found it a little difficult to concentrate on what they were saying. Finally tucked away behind a big retail park on the outskirts of on of the local towns I found it. Yes, it didn’t look like much from the outside, in fact I wasn’t even sure if the place was open so badly was it lit from the outside. However when I finally plucked up the courage to push through the door the first thing I saw was perhaps the most strikingly beautiful fish tank I’d ever seen. A riot of gentle movement and colour from the swaying corals being stirred in the current to the darting brightly coloured fish I was so captivated that by the time I’d left my wallet had been gently parted from a sum of money large enough to make the next bank statement very hard to explain to my good lady wife. All my questions had been answered with patience and good manners and for the first time since accidentally buying a second-hand fish tank on eBay the previous week I left reasonably confident of being able to sustain life in it.

Now, all this LFS shopping put me in mind of the LBS (Local Bike Shop) experience. There are some striking similarities. Finding and building a good relationship with your LBS can dramatically improve the newbie to the sports experience. The perils of buying unsuitable and badly fitting bikes have been well documented in the cycling press and discussed ad-nauseum on the bike forums of the inter-web. A good LBS will steer the newcomer through the critical early stages of bike ownership hopefully avoiding the pitfalls which can put people off the sport so quickly. Unfortunately for every good LBS out there, there’s a pants one. One that in a similar vein to selling a homicidal fish will happily wave a new rider off out of the door riding a bike that’s totally unsuitable for them, but that the shop really needed to shift because nobody who knew anything about bikes was ever going to buy it.

There was a bike shop close to me that seemed to specialise in this particular brand of mis-selling. Operating as a small department of a much larger kind of village shop that sold everything from curtain poles to mouse traps the store as a whole had an excellent reputation and an extremely loyal local client base. So loyal in fact that many folk in the local area wouldn’t conductance going anywhere else for their bikes. Unfortunately despite being excellent at stocking that elusive odd sized tap washer and always having a bag of fire lighters on hand for when the spontaneous summer barbecue urge struck they were spectacularly bad at selling bikes and cycling accessories. Some summer afternoons I’d regularly pass rider after rider wobbling along on an ill-fitting cycle that patently wasnt ideal for them, each frame emblazoned proudly with the shops “Supplied by M****S of H*****s C****L” sticker. (I’ve blanked out the name because this shop is still trading and I don’t want to be stoned to death for heresy by its loyal acolytes) I remember once waiting in the shops ironmongery department for some keys to be cut watching the bloke that sold the bikes persuading an elderly lady that the low-end full suspension MTB that had been in the window for months was just what she needed to get around the village ‘because its designed for comfort this’ and ‘very easy to get on and off’ – well it was a cheap copy of the old Cannondale ‘V’ frame design so it certainly had a lowish stand over height. Sure enough about a week later she came tootling past me as I walked the kids to school struggling with the gears and with a basket somehow grafted onto the riser bars. Thankfully when the shop relocated to new premises a few years ago they dropped the cycling department, and slowly their legacy is disappearing from the local roads.

This however was not supposed to turn into a ranting monologue about the failings of my local bike shops. It’s supposed to be about the links I’ve noticed between cycling and keeping small swimming Nemo like fish, and while there are definite similarities between the two hobbies such as the ability to spend quite horrific sums of money very quickly, there are also some stark differences. The main one to my mind anyway maybe a little controversal. It may even offend some people and for that I’m sorry and I don’t say this lightly,……. but……. I’m sorry but,…….. . Look, I’ll just come straight out and say it,…..

The fish keeping community is just nicer and friendlier than the cycling one. Sorry but I think that’s true, both online and in person. I’m yet to meet even a vaguely ars*%^le like person in the fish keeping world. (I’m not counting the previously mentioned ‘yoof’ at the garden centre as he was just a typical product of his age group unfortunately) It’s sad to say but cycling does seem to breed some pretty obnoxious know it all’s. The online cycling community especially seems to attract a particularly nasty subspecies of ‘keyboard warrior’ who inevitably is an expert on absolutely everything and will tolerate nobody disagreeing with him. The most innocuous question or discussion on some cycling forums can quickly turn into a unpleasant tit for tat exchange between self-proclaimed guru’s who will seemingly go to any length to win any argument.

It can be the same out on the road or trail. I wrote recently about some random acts of rudeness I’ve encountered when out on my road bike, and I’ve seen some pretty questionable behaviour out on the trails as well on my MTB. My struggles to get one particular local clubs riders to acknowledge my existence have been mentioned in this blog several times. In contrast the fish keeping world possibly by dint of attracting a more mellow and  less competitive sort of person has been a breath of fresh air. I havent been patronised, all my daft newbie questions have been answered with the utmost patience and my aforementioned LFS instead of taking my money and selling me unsuitable and very expensive items has just taken a little less money and sold me the things that I’ve needed. (and hopefully will survive my tentative first steps into reef keeping)

So am I going to trade my cherished Ti Sabbath road bike in for a bigger fish tank anytime soon? No. I’m not that disillusioned with the two-wheeled fraternity. For me the salty watered box in the corner of the room will be a direting hobby for sure, it’s going to provide me with endless hours of visual escapism when either boring relatives or Strictly Come Dancing is dominating my front room, but it’s not going to stop me riding bikes anytime soon. Do I think there’s lessons to be learned from the fishy community to the Lycra one? Yes, definitely. I think as cyclists we can most certainly be a little less elitist, and a little more welcoming and tolerant to those coming into the sport. After all, we were all beginners once.