To the Maen Mawr and Cerrig Duon; Dusk riding a deserted valley road in South Wales

I made this ride at the beginning of August when we went to South Wales, but it has taken me this long to put it together and load it up. I smuggled the Brompton in under the luggage in the boot of the car, and one evening I walked it up the steep stone chipping track of the cottage where we stayed, out of the farm gates and turned the bike up-valley on a deserted unclassified road. The dusk was slowly gathering over the mountainside as the sun dipped beyond the horizon. The river Tawe, freshly sprung from the mountain and not yet the torrent that rages over the rocks two miles seaward, rushed past playing sweet, watery music as it danced from pool to pool, this was the only sound in the valley. Sheep moved slowly out of the way as I eased the Brompton over the crest of the hill. At a small gravel layby I folded the bike up then carried it down to the water’s edge, following the river toward its source, looking for a safe and easy place to cross. Eventually I elected to wade through where it widened slightly, the current was not too strong, but the water was freezing, a shock to the system as it numbed me from my feet to the knees. I scrambled up the bank, immediately my sodden trousers and trainers felt incredibly warm in contrast to the chill of the river. As I followed the tracks of a sheep trail I could see the standing stone known as the Maen Mawr appearing on the horizon ahead of me. When I reached the plateau on which the stone stands, I put down the Brompton and walked round the attendant circle, Cerrig Duon. This is a small circle, the largest stone being only about two foot in height, curiously it’s not actually a circle, more of an egg shape. What most people don’t realise about this site, is that there is an avenue of small stones nearby with the flat sides of the stones all aligned in one direction. With the flat plateau, the large stone, the circle and the avenue, it’s actually a significant complex, carefully aligned north to south (or south to north) and set up for processional ritual. The view down the valley toward Dan yr Orgof and Craig Y Nos was spectacular, a few lights glowed gently, marking out the country park buildings. Back the other way the sun had solidly set, but strangely left two areas of glowing golden light on the horizon due to the nature of the mountain, the effect in the sky was quite magical. I wondered if this was significant to the builders of the complex?

As the darkness raced silently over the mountain, the dew settled gently on the spiky grass and the sound of the river became clearer and sharper. A soft mist appeared above the river, even in the 21st century, the atmosphere became liminal, other worlds felt close by, within easy reach.

This was not at all unpleasant or eerie, I felt very comfortable there, but with the light disappearing I thought it best to wade back over the river and head for the road. By the time I reached the track there was no light to guide me in save starlight, and the warm glow of the cottage windows where the moths battered softly against the panes, the whisper of their wings audible against the ubiquitous piping music of water over stone.

Of rides to abandoned villages and ruined abbeys

I wish, if I may, to point you in the direction of Jez’s blog, Novemberfive. This time he and his missus, The Pine Martin [sic] have been out on their bikes exploring some Salisbury Plain abandoned buildings. Lovely and haunting photographs on his blog, and probably a few more he’s kept back for himself.

Photograph by Jez Whitworth - Novemberfive

Coincidently, yesterday I briefly caught up with a friend who gave me an amazing book called “Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration,“  by Troy Paiva, a superb photographer. He finds abandoned military bases, hotels, towns and takes astonishing night time shots on really long exposures, so atmospheric. The book is an absolute thing of beauty, Chronicle Books clearly knowing how to present these photographs in the best possible manner. Check out Troy Paiva’s Flickr photostream for a taster of the images within.

All this reawakened a memory, jogging it loose from the silt in my mind and sending it bubbling up through my consciousness. Many years ago I used to ride the Wiltshire Historic Churches Trust annual bike ride. The idea was that one would visit as many churches as possible in one day, an attendant at each building would sign your sponsor form (or you would sign the visitors’ book if there was no one there) to prove you had been there. You would be sponsored an amount per church that you visited. In my latter teenage years I took to riding with Dave Mitchinson and George Knighton, who I worked with on Freegrove farm, hauling bales, herding cattle, clearing ditches and, (God preserve me from ever having to do this again) picking potatoes. One summer we set out on the annual church cycle ride along routes often followed by the members of the Highway Cycle Group. Foxham, Spirt Hill, Sutton Benger, seemingly hill after hill after hill, rolling up and down. For long hours the only signs of life were cows lazily chewing up against the hedges and swallows swooping along scant inches above the scorching tarmac. It was a blazing hot day, the distant hills and patchwork fields were laced with haze, micro-mirages of puddles formed in the road ahead of us, rippling in the air before evaporating before our eyes as we laboured up the slopes of the steepest hills North Wiltshire could throw at us. I think it was Dave, who after guiding us into the tiny church at Bradenstoke, took us on a detour down a farm track dusted with powered white clay-soil to the ruins of Bradenstoke Abbey. Approaching the old farm there, we experienced a frisson of excitement. None of us really knew if we were on a public right of way (we weren’t), the tyres seemed unnaturally loud as we freewheeled over the chippings towards a rotted, wooden five bar gate sagging pathetically on its hinges. We hid the bikes in a tangle of weeds behind a low ruined wall before slinking down an avenue of ancient lime trees to where a doorway stood, or at least the stone arch of what was once a doorway. Then we lowered ourselves into what we assumed were the vaults, choked with brickwork and stone piled in the centre of the room. Dust danced in fierce shafts of sunlight that illuminated the ruins, we hardly dared to speak, tense whispers were all we could manage to raise. Then climbing up the rubble and out the other side, nearly falling down a well hidden in the ivy and ground elder on our way to the tower. Dave, being the smallest, but also the most flexible and speedy climbed quite a way into the tower, owl pellets were scattered at the entrance and up above we could hear the beating of wings. Dave came down, pretty quickly. Here and there a collapsed wall revealed a glassless window where we could peer into the stygian darkness below ground, still, quiet, air, reeking of musty stone, disquieting blackness. Out into the long, dry stalks of grass and wild barley. Chirruping grasshoppers leaping out of our path as we struggled back towards the bikes, sunburn prickling on our arms as we wheeled them past the seemingly deserted farmhouse. Then mounting up and riding away down the dusty track in a rattle of mudguards and loose chains, back towards civilization and the prospect of a ice cold bottle of cola from the stores in Lyneham.

Strangely enough, the abbey was not ruined that long ago. American newspaper baron Randolph Hearst had a thing for British historical buildings. He bought the Abbey and had it taken down brick by brick, either to be shipped to America or his castle in Wales depending on which version you hear. Legend has it that a warehouse somewhere still contains unopened crates of the bricks and stone. I’ve found it quite difficult to track down some images. Since I rode to the abbey that summer, it has changed hands and the present owners are doing a lot of work to restore it. It is not on public view though apparently one can walk past on some public rights of way. I visited a few years back and the owners gave permission for me to have a look round. sadly, but also sensibly, the vaults were boarded up with keep out signs everywhere.

A postcard of the Abbey before it was dismantled by Randolph Hearst

The ruins - showing the rubble

The Tower in 2006 after some extensive refurbishment and cutting back since the time we visited.

The tower can be seen on the ridge at the back of Lyneham and Bradenstoke that faces the M4, the trainline from Bristol to Swindon runs even closer.

“All things human hang by a slender thread; and that which seemed to stand strong suddenly falls and sinks in ruins.” - Ovid

Day Two, By George, he’s got it!

He was the last amongst his peers to learn to ride without stabilisers, always very worried about falling off, but then he is the youngest in his year. I had tried the ‘correct’ technique of taking the pedals off so he would learn his balance before pedaling, but he just never got on with it, too panicky about wobbling and falling over to even get the bike going. I got a secondhand BMX for his birthday it was heavily in need of some TLC which I duly supplied, along with a sweatband and a t-shirt with ‘BMX’ on, his Grandma got him a full-face helmet. I hoped it would stimulate him into wanting to learn to ride again. Yesterday he got his first bike out, with the stabilisers and started rolling down our garden path. As we were set to go and see Lucy’s parents, I casually suggested that he might like to take the little bike with him. He did, he even rode it down to their house (with stabilisers on). The whole afternoon he just rolled round and round the drive, until late in the afternoon I said “Hey let’s have a quick go without stabilisers ok?”. His grandad took them off, then pumped up the tyres. I just held onto the rack, not letting go for about thirty or so runs, then he naturally started pulling away from my hands so he was riding without me for a couple of meters. Emboldened by success he got me to let go earlier and earlier, until all I was doing was holding him steady while he got his feet on the pedals. That’s how we left it yesterday,  he was pedaling ten meters or so on his own, wobbling a bit, but absolutely elated. Before he fell asleep that evening he said “I rode my bike today”.

This afternoon he took the helmet down again, within ten minutes he was setting off by himself without anyone holding the bike, five minutes later he was turning corners, and ten minutes after that he was cycling round and round, swooping in and out of the car port, up and down the drive without putting his feet down.

What amazed me was just how quickly he took to it, the absolute pleasure of riding a bike, the ease of it. Even he could not believe how quickly he’d learned. In his mind, riding a bike had been a seemingly insurmountable problem, blown up to huge proportions, but all of his anxiety just melted away over the last twenty four hours as he learned how to ride.

Mind you, he hasn’t properly crashed yet. Just as you never forget how you learned to ride (Owain Carter, a year above me, running alongside me as I eased my red vindec down the weed infested gravel drive of our house he was shouting ‘you’re doing it, you’re riding!’) you also never forget your first crash (straight over the handlebars five seconds after Owain Carter shouted ‘now use your brakes!’ I looked back ‘my whats?’ crump! Into the sandpit!).

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post when the stabilisers first came off.

Big hand please for the new cyclist

Learned to ride without stabilisers 25th August 2008

Shanaze Reade – The Gold or Nothing

It was a shame to watch Shanaze Reade crash out of the medals this morning on the debut of BMX as an Olympic sport. I’ve got a lot of time for BMX, it’s often derided as being kid’s stuff; the bikes are small, the music that accompanies the races and events, the emphasis on fashion etc. Yet if I’m heading for the train in Trowbridge I pass the skate/bmx park there and it’s just brilliant to see loads of kids there, really honing their skills. These kids invest so much time and effort into not only achieving speed and stunts, but pulling them off with panache. It’s one in the eye for anyone who says kids just play computer games and don’t get out. Sure it’s dangerous, it was pretty sobering to see a bloom of blood soaking through Shanaze’s kit as she spoke to camera after her crash, but that surely hones the senses and heightens the rush of achievement when it all goes right.

GB has done so well in this Olympics that no one could begrudge Shanaze going for the gold instead of playing it safe and taking silver.

Here’s what she said in the post race interview:

“Why settle for silver? I put absolutely everything into this, my heart and my soul, everything since the age of 10.
“You don’t train as hard as I do for silver. It’s about the gold or nothing.”

That’s a refreshing attitude for a Brit, it wouldn’t be a gamble if sometimes it didn’t work out. I want my country to be represented by this sort of athlete, not because I think this is the way we should win more golds, but because striving to be the best, giving everything you possibly can, is what I believe it’s all about. If Shanaze had sat back and cruised in second, which she could have done easily, she would have looked back at the race, seen that opportunity that she could have taken and she would have kicked herself, hard.

She’s 19, she dominates her sport at World level, I hope she comes back in 2012 and maybe next time she makes a gamble, the dice will roll her way.

You’re going to see that clip of her falling off over and over again, so here’s a clip of her powering round a BMX track in Wrexham instead.

*In Addition*

Well there’s a ton of carping going on at the BBC Sports blog, A whole lot of rubbish being talked about whether she should have taken the gamble or not. One poster even has the laughable nerve to claim Chausson showed pure class all the way through. Perhaps that particular viewer fell asleep at the point when Chausson made her spectacular face-plant in the time trial, that was diluted class, not pure class at all. Some people were complaining that the loss of a silver will affect the British standings on the leader board – not so unless there’s a tie. Silvers count for Jack unless there’s equal Gold, which is one of the reasons why she went for it.

She did the right thing by going for gold. And furthermore, I will put forward the motion that attempting that gamble was absolutely in the spirit of BMX. The outsider status of the sport is confirmed by the tripe being spewed out all over the BBC blog, it’s a rebel sport, it’s supposed to be dangerous and it is ALL about risking it all, even life and limb, in the pursuit of winning. In terms of dramatic narrative, this sets her up beautifully for a storming comeback win in 2012, expect slow-motion re-runs of the crash with dramatic music in the BBC coverage before the event.

Two rides with John – ‘Eight Snorkers and a Naughty Ferret on the way to Heaven’s Gate’ And ‘How we took the canal path home despite John’s grumblings’

I really am appallingly behind with this blog, weeks behind in fact. So much has happened in that time, Team GB dominated Olympic Cycling – with riders from all the corners of this sceptred isle winning medals; I went to Wales and smuggled my Brompton over the border to sneak in a dusk ride on a deserted mountain road; John, Andy and I rode to Cheddar and back, including about a three mile climb out of the gorge on a full English breakfast with 1.5 litres of tea in my panniers and a slab of cave matured cheddar cheese.

But, friends, let us start with a couple of rides I went on with John. the first was a Tuesday ride. Unfortunately, my father in law had fed me from his barbeque that evening. In my lust for nosh, I had consumed no less than eight sausages of fine pedigree. As I eased onto the tarmac with the bike I knew this was a mistake. John took us round the back of the Longleat estate, and didn’t need much persuading to make a short detour to The Bath Arms and a pint of Naughty Ferret. Then we slipped into the Longleat house grounds and took a right to tackle Heaven’s Gate Hill. In the gathering dusk I struggled up in John’s wake, my ribs were near bursting with agony and those eight snorkers(1) were banging about in my stomach. Somehow, I made it to the top where John stood looking out over the landscape. Here are some pictures of that ride:

Naughty Ferret and a Guinness Please

Riding towards Longleat House

The view from the top

On the way out of Longleat

The next ride was, I believe, a Friday ride. We took to the lanes around Melksham – and were bullied into the verges by endless streams of fast traffic. So fed up did I become of cars screaming past too close, or overtaking on blind corners, that I persuaded John to ride back to his house along the canal path. He was not happy about this at all. Worries about puncturing proved unfounded and we were soon safely ensconced at the table back at his garden. To my great surprise and delight, he pulled out the tea set and some biscuits. Cue endless jokes from John about proper strength tea.(2)

Manor house

By the MOT Centre - Outskirts of Melksham

Proper Tea (3)

Footnotes

(1) My use of the word Snorkers when referring to sausages can be traced back to this article in Fortean Times about the Wild Man of Sutton, known locally as Bark Foot:

“Patrick Sheehy told how his cousin Oliver was jogging through the 2,400-acre (970-ha) nature reserve one morning last May and was cutting through one of the holly groves when he collided with a man crouching over a pan full of sausages as he put out a fire. The man’s breakfast went flying. Oliver apologised and quickly departed as a gravelly voice shouted: “My snorkers are ruined!”

(2) Note that, as we shall see in later posts, John returns time and again to the issue of proper strength tea. One feels that he may be unable to move on from the whole ‘tea not strong enough’ incident. Had I known it would have scarred his psyche so deeply, I would certainly have checked the tea strength before pouring.

(3) Why did Chairman Mao and Karl Marx drink herbal teas? – Because all proper tea is theft.

Striking Gold for British Cycling

“Hoy, with shoulders as wide as a barn door, and legs as strong as motorway pillars…”

I’m not sure who the commentator is there, what a terrific, slightly silly, yet very British description of Scotsman Chris Hoy.To see the video and hear the rest of the commentary click here.

Otherwise here’s a video of Bradley Wiggins setting a new Olympic record.

It’s setting up to be a great Olympics for British Cycling. Bradley Wiggins on form, already breaking records, Nicole Cooke, doing what she does best in the road race, and Emma Pooley bringing in a Silver medal.

Ride Journal back in stock!

Quick! Quick! The Ride Journal has been reprinted! This wonderful, and beautifully designed publication sold out almost instantly on its first print run of 1000 copies (numbered). The new run is not numbered, but I guarantee that they will still become collectors items. Even if The Highway Cycling Group had not contributed a piece, I would still be urging you to buy a copy. According to the editor, the new print run is being snapped up incredibly quickly. Reserve your copy now for despatch on the 19th August. Seriously! Click here to go to the website and order a copy.

I am very behind in my blogging and need to get it all clear before the weekend. Big ride planned.

There will be a deluge of new posts!

The need for bacon compels me to ride.

The very next day after riding to the Railway Bridges, I had great need of bacon in the morning.

Ah Bacon, food of kings, breaker of vegetarians. Oft have I longed to partake of a sandwich stuffed with thy fulsome bounty, eaten fresh from the pan in a room redolent with the sweet whiff of thy preparation.

So I saddled up the Brompton and rode out into the splendor of the day in search of the magical pig product. The sky was deep blue, laced with gentle white and wispy clouds and the verges were humming with a chorus of grasshoppers and crickets, an insect orchestra performing a glorious symphony in praise of Summer. The sound took me back to cycling holidays in France with the original Highway Cycling Group. Glass bottles of Coca-Cola, handfuls of warm baguette broken from the stick of bread hanging off the panniers on my father’s bike. Poring over a michelin map, on the verge, dry white grass-stalks, heat haze, shimmering mirages on the dusty tarmac, and the steady insect hum from the crickets and grasshoppers.

Riding out of the village I passed the fields of sunflowers, now in full bloom, their faces seeking the light. The main road was busy and I was relieved to pull off into the local farm shop. Then, loaded up with sweet, sweet bacon, I rode back through Beckington to the village, where the bacon was then cooked and consumed.

Why, I even made you a little film of the ride using my compact digital camera. I’ve added some music by My Two Toms, I’m not sure what this track is called, it may even be unreleased, you lucky people.

First, an apology for not blogging

Hello,

How’s your summer going? It’s all gone a bit rainy here in dear old Blighty, but then we’re getting used to this sort of summer here.

I am conscious that I have not blogged for a while, for which I must apologise. I have been riding, a little, but yet again work has o’ertaken me and left me with such a small amount of time that I have barely found the time to ride, yet alone record my pedal-spinning here. I have of late recieved some very kind comments from people who have discovered this blog, for which I am very grateful indeed. So with that in mind, having finished my work, I find myself in the workshop at 01:00 in the morning, fortified by a big mug of tea, and ready to record my last three meager rides in the next couple of posts.