RIDE Cycling for me a few years ago was an absolute necessity. In the late seventies and early eighties, there were no battery-powered scooters or wheelchairs, everything was manual and you had to do it yourself. I had no internet or a mobile phone. I was living in the prehistoric stone age, in terms of Parkinson's awareness and I had to figure it out myself. In fact, in many ways, it was the only way I could transport myself because I spent most of my time falling on the floor. It was never suggested to me or even considered by any neurologist or physiotherapist and that was simply because they didn't believe that I was capable. But it's not always easy to go against professional advice because they were worried that I might damage or hurt myself. I think I lost confidence in my own ability to walk which sounds ridiculous, but if you are convinced you have a problem, then you have a problem. And so I was put on Parkinson's medication to help with that and in some ways it did, but it also caused me other issues as well. Mainly psychological ones. If you are told enough times that you have a certain neurological condition then you are going to believe it even though at the back of your mind something doesn't feel quite right. But who are we to question neurological reasoning? Everything you are being told makes sense, and you show all the classic symptoms but something doesn't feel quite right and you don't do anything about it because it's easier to go along with it. It's easier to keep taking the drugs and believing they will help but do they? After forty or more years of thinking that I have been suffering from a serious neurological condition, I am beginning to have my doubts. There is no denying that in a lot of ways I show all the classic signs of having Parkinson's but there are certain aspects that contradict that theory. How is it that I lose my balance when I am walking but I am perfectly able to balance and ride a bike? I have absolutely no problem at all with that but it doesn't make any sense. Riding a bike is a confidence thing and so is walking but a few years ago a had no confidence in my ability to be able to walk so I stopped. But, the problem is if you stop doing something on a regular basis then those neural pathways forget and the brain starts to become lazy and I am starting to think that it might have happened to me. I convinced myself that I had problems with walking and balance and I stopped doing what came naturally. You convince yourself that you can't walk and it becomes psychosomatic. And then everything changed because I decided that I had to do something about this. So I started talking to my legs and telling them what to do. This may sound absolutely crazy but that's what I did. And the more you repeat something the more it comes naturally to you again. The neural pathways start to remember and repair themselves and find other routes to carry out the same task. A few years ago I attended some classes arranged by the Peto Institute from Hungary in Birmingham in the UK and they followed exactly the same theory. You have to reeducate your brain to start doing things again because repetition is the key. And look at me now I am walking again.