My Bike Healed My Brain

Graham Newling

My journey back into cycling is quite different to many other middle aged men. 

As I’m very grateful to ABC Bikes and I want to share my story.

Just before last Christmas I had a stroke.  Cause unknown.  It happened to me when I was riding my motorcycle. Fortunately I was able to park it without crashing.

It was a left brain artery blockage and it destroyed my language centre.  I couldn’t talk, read or write.  Some of my nerves on my right side were damaged but luckily my body was still working fine.  I couldn’t work so I had time on my hands at home. 

I grabbed my old bike out of the shed.  First of all I had to test my balance to make sure that I could still stay upright.  Step one gained me some confidence.

Step two was to spend time exploring new routes and finding some more hills.  I went out first thing in the morning.  It started to feel really good.  Something like endorphins, adrenalin, breathing, oxygen, zen, karma, all of that came along with it.  It felt like my heart was pumping more blood through my brain and speeding up my healing process.  During and after the ride my body and my brain felt better.

I noticed that my speaking, reading and writing improved after every ride.

Step three was joining a bunch of local guys riding 50kms each Sunday morning and doing a few short rides at 5.30 on weekdays.  I practiced talked to them as well.

Gradually the hills felt flatter, my speed increased.  Speaking, reading and writing are all connected so all of it was all starting to come back.  It got me into cycling which I now do regularly.

I realised that my 25 year old Ricardo was a bit less slicker than the other bikes.  I learned a lot about bikes from the guys and I got in touch with ABC bikes.

Nine months after my stroke I’m now going back to work (part time) and now commute to work on the bike 24kms per day.  For me cycling went hand-in-hand with my speech therapy.  From my experience I believe that cycling may also be able to prevent dementia and fix many other types of brain injuries.

That’s the story of my journey.  I write this as part of my therapy and practice.  Of course I wrote this just after my ride this morning.  It was even better on my new Avanti from ABC bikes.