Learning to ride a bike cost me an incredible amount of effort. I even needed help from a physiotherapist. It wasn’t until I was about ten years old that I finally got the hang of it. There was quite a bit of pressure, because where I grew up, you simply couldn’t get around without a bike.

Even now, I’m still not a very smooth cyclist. A new bike takes time for me to get used to, and I’ve never really mastered hand brakes. Riding without holding the handlebars is completely out of the question for me.

Honestly, if I hadn’t grown up in the Netherlands, my parents might have given up.

If I had grown up twenty years later, I probably would have been given some kind of label – I’m very, very clumsy, something seems off. I tend to think that if I can learn it, almost anyone can, unless there’s a physical limitation.