The snow was piling up outside the Norfolk Cycle Workshop in thick, cloud-like flakes. It was early January, but the snow flurry still caught the workshop’s owner, Simon Worley, off-guard. Suddenly a post-work spin was looking more like frozen fingers and treacherous trails than the gentle leg-stretch he’d had planned. But he’d promised his friends they’d go riding. And so they went.
“There were so many things stopping us from going for a ride that day, but we still went anyway.” Worley told Cycling Weekly.
“I don’t know what had happened if we hadn’t met up.”
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“I felt something wasn’t right. And shortly after that, I went to the GP, and he…he was a little bit flustered by what he found,” Worley explained. “It went from me going to the GP for what I thought was a pulled muscle to all of a sudden finding out I’ve got testicular cancer.”
It was because of the cold and the bumpy, off-road terrain he’d biked on that had led to an early diagnosis, his consultant later told him. If he’d been less active, it may have gone on undetected for much longer.
“The bike ride itself was a blessing in disguise…I owe that ride quite a lot.”
But it wasn’t just the bike ride that led to early detection. It was in talking to two customers and cancer survivors that Worley learnt more about the need to check your body when things don’t feel right.
“One of them had penile cancer – I naively didn’t really even think that was a thing. And the other man had stomach cancer. They were both fairly young men as well,” Worley remembered.
“Them talking about it did open my eyes that I’m not indestructible, no one is, and these things happen to you regardless of how old you are. That’s why I’m fairly open about it as well, because I think: even if one person hears me talking about this, they might react to it as quickly as I did.”
It has, for Worley, the owner of Norfolk Cycle Workshop, been a life-changing few months. In January he was quietly thanking the unexpected flow of bike customers that had allowed him to financially weather the winter. The spring was looking good as people were preparing to ride – and to inevitably break – their bikes with comfortable regularity.
And then the diagnosis happened. And within a month, Worley was undergoing an operation. Self employed with no sick pay, he received only a taxable £90 monthly stipend from the government to live off. It wasn’t near enough to keep his workshop afloat until he recovered.
Simon Worley in the Norfolk Bike Workshop
(Image credit: Simon Worley)
“As many will know, the cycle industry is unforgiving,” Worley’s partner Pirry wrote on the GoFundMe page she started to help support him. “Like many self-employed people, a serious illness can mean the end of the business. I can’t stand by and watch this happen whilst he also faces down cancer. That’s just not fair.”
The GoFundMe has an aim of £8,000. Right now, it’s sitting at £7,945. The response to the call-out was overwhelming. Customers, friends and fellow bike shop employees all chipped in, both financially and through offers of hospital pick ups and drop offs.
“This kind of support is out there,” Worley said of the community that’s come around him, “but you do just have to ask for it sometimes, and it’s not a bad thing, and you shouldn’t be embarrassed about it. You do just have to put yourself out there.”
According to Macmillian Cancer Support, over 2000 men are diagnosed with testicular cancer in the UK every year. If you would like to find out more about early detection, you can visit their website here.
If you’d like to donate to Worley’s GoFundMe, you can here.