Night Riding to the Thankful Village

It’s not long until we go on a cycling camping trip to Belgium and France. I remain woefully out of shape, carrying at least a stone and a half too much weight, the majority of which seems to be round my middle forcing an inadvertant ‘whuff!’ noise to escape from my mouth whenever I bend down to pick anything up. With a barely suppressed sense of mounting panic, I decided that I’d better get another ride in before we go. So I arranged a weekend pedal once again with Mike.

The night before, I made an adjustment to the rack on the bike. I like to have my panniers quite far back so my heels don’t clip as I spin the pedals. Unfortunately this has the unwanted side-effect of obscuring any light attached to the rack. Also, with a tent slung over the panniers, a light on the saddle bag would be covered. So I fashioned an extension bracket out of an aluminum strip. In order to keep it flush to the rack I used my tap and die set to cut some threads into the metal, ensuring a nice snug fit with no wobbling. Using a hacksaw, I carved off a bracket from an old plastic light set and bolted it onto the metal. It worked perfectly, pulling the light out from under the pannier and, as it’s box shaped, remaining strong. I then added the HYmini wind charger to the handlebars, choosing to sling it underneath to keep the top clear of clutter.

As Earth Hour kicked off, I took the bike out for an eerie spin through the country lanes. The Bike Hut Ultrabright front light was certainly bright enough to ride with at speed and confidence in the dark, but it was a little leaky, throwing some of the powerful beams up into my face and ruining my night vision somewhat. However, this did seem to have the effect of underlighting my face in a demonic manner, which is always good. I spent the best part of an hour shooting around the roads, trying to make the rear light fall out of its new location and also testing out the speed I needed to be going to get the HYmini wind charger turning in order to create charge.

I stopped the bike at Tellisford crossroads and propped it up against a five-bar gate. I walked twenty or so yards away down the road and turned back to look at the light arrangement, trying to imagine the right eye-level to get a driver’s eye view of what my bike would look like in the dark. I was pretty pleased with the result. In combination with the Hi-Viz vest, and the stickers on my helmet I should be visible from space.

Away from the comforting pool of the bike lights, the darkness enveloped me. Thick cloud smeared the sky above the horizon cutting out the starlight and I suddenly felt very vulnerable and exposed. This crossroads and these lanes were old and filled with the weight of unspoken and unrecorded events. Mere yards away, the red LEDs on the rear of the bike blinked out an organic rhythm, moving in a line from left to right and back again. For some reason I enjoyed the frailty I felt then, the smell of damp turned earth, the way the searing white light from the front of the bike picked out freshly-exposed flints in the field beyond the gate, the silhouette of the tower of All Saints church.

Tellisford was dark, perhaps because this was still Earth Hour, or maybe the owners of these big houses had retreated into some inner sanctum, unviewable from the outside. As we are going to be visiting some WW1 battlefields in France and Belgium on this ride, I recalled that Tellisford is one of the initial so-called ‘Thankful Villages’; thirty-two villages in England and Wales which lost no soldiers in World War One, all those who left to fight came home again. The writer Arthur Mee popularised the phrase in the 1930s when he wrote ‘Enchanted Land’, the first volume of the The King’s England series of guides. It is sobering to remember how so many communities lost so many people in that first ‘great’ war, what a huge vacuum the loss of so many young men must have created in a village. In WW1, villagers often enlisted as a group, and were kept together in the regiments. They trained, barracked, traveled, fought, and so often, died together. Tellisford truly had much to be thankful for in the return of all her young men from those killing fields.

Arthur Mee wrote especially of Tellisford “We do not remember a more charming place in all our journeyings”. So with that in mind, I remounted my bike and pointed it back through the darkness to my own village.

Salisbury Trike

I saw this rather nice tricycle in Salisbury yesterday, it was being wheeled across the Market square. It would appear that Zoe’s not the only one riding three wheels in Sarum City.

John’s Bicycle Maintenance Clinic

My good friend John Hayes, who long term readers will remember is my summer cycling buddy and who works for Moulton Cycles, came along to one of our Explorer Scouts meetings in order to give a talk on ‘looking after your bike’.

He turned up with a toolbox and stand, looking lean and keen, and I provided tubes, lubes and cleaners. First the Explorers gathered round while John took everyone through cleaning the bike, lubing and simple maintenance. He talked about the basic mistakes that people make, damp in the cables, dirty chains and soft tyres. Then he moved onto how to get some longevity out of your bicycle, mainly through the use of GT85 to chase out water and give a teflon coating. Mike’s chain was pretty filthy, so it was a good opportunity to use it as an example of how to clean and maintain a chain.

All the Explorers had brought along their bikes, and soon we had them all upside-down and John was getting everyone to check over their bikes, clean out the water and muck and relube.

The chain is clean, now the dry lube goes on

John then got out his spanners and went round adjusting brakes (including mine, the back blocks had been worn right down in a month by the grit from the muddy roads), sorting out gears and recommending which bikes needed attention from a bike shop (including one that needs a complete wheel rebuild – but that was a 1980s Peugeot). He also shortened Howard’s bike’s chain by two links and sorted out his gear problems.

John sorts a rear mech

By the end of the night the Explorers departed with bikes in a much better condition than when they arrived, and hopefully John’s talk has inspired them into looking after the bikes a bit better. It was good to see teenagers who had no real bike knowledge gaining confidence as they found their way around the components. Even the simple act of inflating the tyres to the correct psi (45 for knobblies, 85-100 for slicks) gave an instant and marked improvement to every bike. They took them for an excited spin round the car park at ten, and I think all of them were delighted, the thanks they gave John was certainly ethusive and genuine. From Mike’s and my point of view, we certainly felt a lot more confident about the forthcoming cycle trip to Belgium and France, knowing John had given the bikes a good look over.

Afterwards Mike and I took John to the pub for a couple of pints. We left at 23:30 and, as Mike and I both had our steeds and full kit, we briefly considered a quick night ride, luckily the cold wind instantly disuaded us from this excellent, but ultimately foolish idea.

A great evening, cheers John.

Howard’s way

Your author facing the wrong way, halfway down the wrong hill after an unfortunate wrong turn

A ride had been arranged for early Sunday morning, until it became apparent that it was of course Mothering Sunday and lie-ins would, quite rightly, be expected. So the ride was re-arranged for Saturday. At 07:45 I rode down the gravel track at the farm to meet with Mike. It was freezing; there had been an unexpected (by me anyway) frost in the night and cold hung in the air, numbing my fingers as I rode downhill. Seconds after my arrival, Group Scout Leader, Howard arrived on his hybrid. He had sensibly put a coat on and had full finger gloves and long trousers. Mike was immediately out through the door, zipping up his bright jacket and putting on his helmet, deciding on the route as he mounted up. Up the track and left over the mill bridge, then we were out of the village and heading for Colliers Way and Radstock. We followed the same route I took last Sunday, albeit at a slightly quicker pace than my meandering speed. Howard was going to take us through the middle part of the ride as he knew the route well. Howard is a keen cyclist, often to be seen riding the Tellisford-Farleigh Hungerford hills just for fun, he has a great level of fitness and an observer taking note of our riding from a distance would be hard pressed to place his date of birth in the 1950s. Mike was riding at his usual pace off the front, a nice steady 15-17mph, I’ve heard Mike described as a Mountain Goat by more than one other person. I flitted between them both, sometimes riding up with Mike, sometimes dropping back to chat to Howard.

Pleasingly I can feel my level of fitness improving after just a couple of long rides. This time I was not dropped on the hills and could actually take the lead on some of the steeper efforts. It just goes to show that you can quickly return to form (or something like form) after a short time off the bike, even if, like me, you are carrying two stone more than you should be.

The cold was starting to evaporate in the morning sun. Even so, there was a haze on the horizon that the sun had not yet climbed out of, and the shadows still sparkled with a light frost. There was no wind save the chill we created when pushing through the air on the way downhill. There was little traffic around save the odd tractor here and there, easing out of farm gates or chugging gently along the narrow lanes. The Buzzards were out in force, finding pockets of warm air and spiraling up high above the trees, calling to each other across the landscape. By the time we reached the Colliers Way cycle path it was really warming up. This is a short but really pleasant stretch of railway path, oddly with much of the railway track still left behind. Howard, a bit of a railway buff, told us it was because the quarry railway is still in operation at the terminus. Apparently, the plan was to open the railway line alongside the cycle track and have it as a tourist attraction, but it never happened. Now trees have pushed their way through the sleepers and brambles have crawled over the tracks.

We stopped at the top of a rise where the path departed from the tracks and mused on the navvies and men who had physically built the line. In the days of great engineering feats, behind every great man, there were thousands of other blokes who did the actual work.

We followed the path into Radstock, then Howard led us over and round the roads until we pulled into what seemed to be a carpark, but at the last minute it turned into a tiny route through to a main road. A few yards on the tarmac then a sharp right and we were suddenly on a lovely straight lane in the quiet of the countryside again.

All went well, until we came to a crossroads where the cycle route was clearly marked as straight ahead. Howard insisted that our path lay down the hill to the right, and it was a steep hill. Upon our, quite reasonable questioning of the navigation, Howard explained that he was 100% certain it was down the hill. Mike and Howard then launched themselves down the slope, followed by a fat barking dog lolloping down the hill in a garden parallel to their descent. I was yet to be convinced that this was the correct route so I hung back a little, knowing full well that what goes down, in the event of a mis-navigation, would have to come up again, probably in the granny gear. I dropped gently down to the next crossroads, in time to gaze down the awful slope and see that Mike and Howard were turning around on the bridge at the bottom. Slowly, they climbed the hill back towards me, standing up out of the saddle and wrestling the reluctant bikes so that the handlebars pointed up the dreadful slope. I took the opportunity to have a break and swig from the water bottle. I took a picture of my reflection in a handy convex mirror used by residents to check the road is clear before pulling out, then leant over the handlebars to watch Mike and Howard draw level. I let them puff past me, before ambling up in their decidedly slow-motion wake. The lardy hound was still in the garden bouncing around and barking with what seemed like delight, but in retrospect could easily have been apoplectic rage.

Howard explained his mistake, it was of course the next turning right, and indeed that’s exactly where the cycle route sign was pointing when we arrived at the correct junction. Luckily we saw the funny side. Actually, no we didn’t, at least not until we had our breath back.

A few more wiggles of the road, and to Mike’s and my surprise we emerged right next to the house by Stoney Littleton Long Barrow with the pillbox in the garden. Howard pointed out that pillboxes are usually in pairs, and sure enough there was another one on the horizon that Mike and I had missed last time we rode through. We rode into Wellow and I raised my head to see if I could detect a whiff of bacon, for I had a craving for its heavenly taste. Just as I thought I had perhaps caught the faintest hint of frying procine goodness, Mike peeled off to the right and downhill to the ford. This time we took the left fork and avoided the endless grind of Baggin Hill, electing instead to cruise to Norton St Philip. The road was beautiful and free of traffic. Winding uphill through some woods, I saw a photocopy of a map on the ground and stopped to scoop it up. It was for the exact area we were riding through, which makes perfect sense really.

There was a final hill up to the main street in Norton. It was unexpected and painful. Even my bike seemed to be protesting as I weaved back and forth across the narrow steep lane behind Mike the mountain goat and Howard. Finally we headed for Tellisford. As we passed an enormous pile of brown stuff in a field to the left,there was a horrific miasma, a foul and noiseome acrid stench that tore the breath from our lungs. Mike explained it was poo, human poo from the sewage works that would be spread on the tilled ground as fertiliser. The fug seemed to stay with us so we upped the pace and attempted to finish the ride at great speed. Down the hill we sped, first a weasel darted over the road in front of us, and as we neared the village, a blur of movement exploded from the hedge and crossed the lane mere feet before Mike’s front wheel. Persistence of vision had imprinted the tell-tale shape of a running hare on my eyes.

Mike slipped to the post office to pick up a paper (and no doubt a free cup of coffee and cookie for that’s what you get if you go to the post office on a Saturday morning) while Howard and I sped on ahead to his house to ready the all important finale of the ride, the coup de grace, the dénouement.

Mike joined us just at the hallowed point when the bacon was coming out of the grill and onto the bread, the perfect end to a great ride.

A quick ride around Highway on a borrowed bike

After work today, I took my youngest son over to my sister and brother-in-law’s new house in Hilmarton. During the course of the afternoon, my brother-in-law opened up his shed and pulled out a couple of mountain bikes. One of them, a Trek full suspension, was a bit of a frankenbike, with Alivo shifters and XT rear mech. Manitou front forks and v-brakes where there had once been discs. The cranks were mismatched and the cogs worn down, but the frame looked good. The other bike was a blue Claud Butler. Everything looked pretty new on it, in fact it had only been ridden a few times in the two years since it was bought. This was clearly a crime. I asked if I could take it for a quick spin, and promptly rode the three miles to Highway, the spiritual home of the Highway Cycling Group.

This tiny linear hamlet in North Wiltshire is where the genesis of the group took place. My father lived in a semi-detached 1930s cottage here in the eighties, and as he was the founder member of the Highway Cycling Group (or Cycle Group, it changed almost daily)  it was from here that we struck out on many club outings. Not much had changed in the hamlet, apart from there being more cars parked on verges, I guess nowadays the two or three car family is a normal thing. There were still daffodils lining the road by the farm, the old barn had rusted further and seemed to contain more holes. The farm track next to it that leads up to the ridge looked the same. Taking that track will lead you six miles to Avebury stone circle without touching a road.

After the barn the road turns left and then the rider is on Highway Common. This supremely straight stretch of road was a joy to cycle, it still is. The Highway Cycle Group would ride side by side or strung out chatting. very rarely did any cars appear, but they could be spotted over a mile away and evasive action could be taken with ease. In the summer this road is heavy with chalky dust from the dried up mud on the verges, as teenagers the boys in the Highway Cycle Group would hold sprint races here, and great clouds of dust would follow in our wake. Ideally, a rider would pull such a terrific skid that the dust would obscure him from view for a few seconds, only to reveal the rider posed heroically with one foot down and a defiant look on his face. More often than not the dust would clear to reveal the rider sitting on the road next to his crashed bike, wheels still turning.

This road is the antithesis of the typical winding, steep banked, occluded country lane. On Highway Common one can see uninterrupted for maybe a mile or more.  A real treat, was to ride this stretch by the light of a full moon, when the dust seemed to glow and sparkle. Long shadows would reach across the fields, and perhaps, if a rider was lucky, he or she might see a barn owl or a hare.

I saw a hare today, some twenty feet into the field, it crouched down low to the soil when it saw me, ears flattened against its back. I had my compact camera with me and took some video footage as I rode through the hamlet and along the common. The result is posted below.

Then I was back onto the Bushton road. It was much busier than the golden years of the Highway Cycling Group, and I lost count of the cars that flashed past me in both directions. Where Highway seemed to have been in a state of stasis for the last twenty four years, the Bushton Road had been reworked and promoted. New signposts were dotted everywhere and the fields had been rearranged, hedges grubbed out and replanted, ditches drained and fences reset, only the route itself remained the same, the route and its memories..

As I rode out one Sunday morn.

Daffodils line the lane into Buckland Dinham

Sunday was bright and clean, perhaps the first proper day of Spring weather round here, there was no hint of frosted breath nor chill breeze. The warmth had penetrated even into the shadows, and there was an air of expectation in the countryside surrounding the village, as if the sun had woken the soil from a long hibernation. Birdsong danced about the trees and hedgerows, sweet sounds flickering back and forth in call and response as the business of territory and feeding rights were settled. The few people that I saw as I pointed the bike towards the back lanes looked as if they could scarcely believe they were experiencing bright, pure sun and the gentle warmth of spring.

I had spent an hour or so before the ride cleaning the muck off the Lemond Etape and replacing the rear tube. I had both wheels off and a diverse range of rags which took in a whole spectrum of status, from clean to absolutely filthy. Slowly and carefully I had removed the grime, washed, dried and re-lubed the machine. I noticed a few new chips and scratches on the paintwork that had appeared since last I had cleaned it, they didn’t worry me. There is a difference between a bike that shows signs of wear through use, and one that shows the tell-tale signs of neglect, but that is perhaps the subject of a different post.

Now the bike was performing beautifully as I skimmed the A36 and turned for Laverton. This time I took a left before the turning to Norton and headed down towards the village of Buckland Dinham. The roads here are convoluted, every now and then I recognised a crossroad or junction that I had passed on some other ride to another place. One of the lovely things about living in this part of the world is this network of roads; junctions within junctions, lanes that are barely more than farm tracks, half forgotten B roads, ancient rights of way, drovers lanes and spirit paths. I can cycle less than ten miles from home and still end up happily lost when I come out in this direction. I shot past other turnings and junctions, the promises of new routes and rides, and followed signs to Buckland. Cresting a hill I emerged from the cover of a copse that sheltered the road, to see the lane lined with daffodils. The road dipped away out of sight into the gentle valley, then emerged zig-ziagging up the hill on the other side. The shape of Buckland Dinham church stood silhouted two miles away on the hill. I paused to take a drink from the water bottle and capture the moment with a photograph (at the start of this post) before mounting up and heading down the hill.

In the hollow of the valley was a farm right on the road and I rode briefly through a cloud of bovine whiff and sleepy flies before the momentum from the drop launched me up the other side. The lane switched back and up, crawling round a sharp bend and the first houses of Buckland Dinham. I crossed over a main road, the car that flashed past before I hit the junction was the first vehicle I had seen for six miles. At the next junction along, a beautiful evergreen stood on a triangle of grass and I followed the signs for National Cycle Route 24 and Frome, which tipped me down a narrow lane lined with rough stone walls. At the bottom I stopped at an idyllic pool spanned by an old stone bridge. Some Chopinesque piano work drifted through the birdsong from a large house on the waterside. I sat on the bridge to drink in the scene and watched three mallards drift laconically under the bridge.

Your author on the bridge at Buckland Dinham, taking in the birdsong and piano music

A bright yellow butterfly wafted past me, taking an interest in the decals on the bike before making its way over the surface of the water. When it went out of sight by a nearby boathouse, I put the helmet on and pointed the bike uphill. Here the lanes were very narrow and steep, I crawled up slowly, dropping into lower and lower gears. In my exertions I missed the point at which I entered Frome and I was suddenly in traffic. Slightly dazed by the ensuing noise, I allowed the bike to coast to a halt at the top of one of Frome’s short but steep hills while I got my bearings. Soon I was being hailed by two fellow cyclists, clearly they were of a much more healthy build than I. Matt and Ho, two happy and amicable chaps, had cycled to Frome from Bristol, and they would be cycling back again, aiming to put in 100 miles!

Matt and Ho, clearly keen cyclists and super-fit with it, aiming to complete a century in one day

They seemed in fine form, with no hint of road-weariness or aching. This was especially impressive since Ho had only recently recovered from a debilitating illness. After a chat and some replenishment of waterbottles, they mounted up and with cheery waves entered again into the flow of traffic. I admired the state of mind and the physical ability that would lead two riders and friends to say to one another: “Today let us ride a hundred miles”. I salute their epic century attempt and hope they made it.

I walked down St Catherine’s hill and remounted at the bottom. A mere five miles to home meant I only completed fourteen miles on the ride, but what a beautiful and life-affirming ride it was. It will be a sad day for me when I have ridden every hidden turning, every crumbling lane and derelict track in this small area of Somerset and I will have to hunt further afield to enjoy getting lost in the lanes again.

Other People’s Bikes

I had to go to London yesterday to attend a meeting. Walking down Fisherton Street on the way to the station in Salisbury I watched an old gentleman pull up to the kerb slightly ahead of me on a clearly much used Roadster. He had his right trouser leg tucked into his sock and was wearing a battered old fedora rather a helmet. He spun the cranks with his foot and rested the pedal against the kerb in the time honoured fashion, before crossing the street and entering the homebrew shop. I made sure he couldn’t see me then furtively took this shot of his lovely bike on my phone.

Nice Roadster on Fisherton Street, Salisbury.

Later on that day, walking through London I came across a nice fixie with Japanese sweet wrappers in place of spokecards. The bike was chained to some railings on Charing Cross Road, just after the intersection with Shaftesbury Avenue. I slipped off a couple of pictures, but again very furtively (and the focus was appalling).

Sweetie wrappers for spokecards, Charing Cross Road

I don’t know why I feel worried about photographing other people’s bikes. Maybe the bicycle is such a personal thing that in some level it might be conceived as an invasion of privacy. The relationship between cyclist and bicycle is a curious and intimate one, the bike has no power of its own and can only go as fast as its rider can push it. Each bicycle has its own interface with the rider, on my road bike I feel the slightest movement from me, a gentle leaning to the right, and the bike follows. On my Mountain Bike, it’s like steering a shire horse, on the slopes I must lean and pull to point the wheels where I want to go, there is an element of the bike choosing the line for me.

I have many, many of these voyeuristic pics of other people’s bikes, and each bike seems to have its own narrative built into it, whether that is through tyre choice, the saddle, the bags attached, the choice of grips, decals… Perhaps I should post a few, what do you think?

Riding into Spring

Spring can be a messy time of year

I had a ride planned with local smallholder, home-brewer, engineer and cyclist Mike, however as the hours ticked down the evening before I suddenly realised that my Lemond Etape was locked in the shed at my in-laws, and they were away. As the ride was scheduled to begin at 0745 on Sunday morning, this meant I would be trying to pull my mountainbike out from under the accumulated junk in our storage shed at 0700. Before going to bed I looked at the weather forecast, absolutely filthy. Rain, wind, cold and more rain. Nothing was going to stop me from getting in the first ride of Spring, (not even a sore knee) so I sorted out my waterproofs before calling it an evening, leaving a choice of cape or light rainjacket on the chair along with my cycling plus-fours and merino wool top.

On waking I was amazed to see sunlight streaming in through the window. Stepping outside to retrieve the mtb provided further amazement as the sky was colouring up a lovely shade of blue with not a cloud in sight. I began the task of attempting to find my mtb in the storage shed, this turned out to be a bit of an archeological dig as I uncovered a veritable strata of garden tools, cardboard, ladders, planks of wood and children’s toys, beneath which lay my mountain bike. In common with an archeological artifact it was still caked in the mud from the time of its burial. As my road helmet was locked up with my road bike, I was relieved to see my trusty old mtb helmet amongst the associated grave-goods. Once the tyres were pumped up, the mud scraped off and the chain cleaned and re-oiled, the bike looked half decent.

I saddled up and rode down to Mike’s farm, passing the tall grove of bamboo by the driveway which was now beginning to sway and rustle gently in the light breeze, the morning calm was immediately shattered by Mike’s dog running out and barking in greeting. Mike just had to feed the chickens and chuck some oil over the chain of his Dawes Supergalaxy and we were away.

I took us past the redwoods at the manor development and towards Woolverton. There we crossed the A36 and headed into the empty back lanes. Speckling the hedgerows were tiny buds, a promise of Spring that presented a subtle, barely perceived green fuzz as we rode gently along the meandering lanes. It was still stark enough that a chaffinch flittering amongst the scrub created a riotous blaze of colour that stood out like a flashing beacon amidst the branches. The landscape pulled us into steep hollows, giving us enough momentum to be catapulted effortlessly up the hills, until gradually we were pitched up to a point were the view in all directions seemed endless. Far in the distance there was nothing but whitish haze where the horizon should have been, it might as well have delineated the edge of the world. We turned the bikes toward the sun, and hit the high gears. Chains thrummed, driving us along a rare stretch of straight and level road. The lane switched suddenly right, and the ground to our left fell away. Now we were riding on the highest ridge of a lopsided valley with the breeze behind us and the countryside laid out below in patchwork to one side. Gathering speed, we pedalled in bursts as the road surface became sketchy. Water had eaten away at the edges and dumped gravel everywhere. Mike’s bike skittered about a little, but my shirehorse of an mtb ploughed through it all with ease. The velociraptor tyres spat mud, water and stones in all directions including up my back as we turned right again and sped into Faulkland and past the derelict Faulkland inn, one of many pubs to have shut down recently in the county. Our tyres barely touched the main road before we were off into the lanes again. Now the road began to undulate heavily, before flinging us down in to the valley. With the confidence that a heavy bike and fat tyres can give I let the brakes off and hurtled down the hill, it was about the only time that I was in front of Mike for the whole ride. At the bottom I waited where the stream had torn the tarmac into shreds, gouging a channel of water into the road.

Mike rode up and carefully picked his way over the ruined road surface and impromptu stream. Away from the flood damage the road pitched briefly upwards before throwing us down again, but this time I took us right before the bottom of the hill, pulling the bike into a skid to make the turning. The lanes became narrower as we passsed Stoney Littleton long barrow, climbing up Littleton Lane which suddenly deposited us into the top of Wellow. We found ourselves entering the village in the slipstream behind a huge, red front-loader, its engine gunning noisily as it took the gradient. We peeled off from it’s fumes and hot engine air and dropped down into the valley again, this time down to the Wellow ford. Mercifully it was not flooded this time. Unmercifully we now had to climb Baggridge Hill, a long, long slope, much given to drifting about and becoming narrow here and there where the fancy takes it. Mike was way, way off the front and I was puffing away in the granny gear. It probably would have been quicker to walk it, but with such low gearing there’s no excuse to put a foot down or dismount in shame. I wheezed my way to the top where Mike was just pouring out a couple of cups of coffee from a flask he had secreted in his single pannier.

We stood there for a while and talked about that elation a cyclist feels when, towards the end of climbing a long and infernally steep hill, the cranks spin faster and the gears start to move up again. That feeling of having made it, of getting up the hill, the light at the end of the tunnel.

We were off again, turning into the wind. Wind? Yes, the horizon had cleared and was being troubled by clouds, the breeze was becoming insistent. It mattered not to us, for above us was deep, calm blue and ahead of us, flat road, for the next two miles at least. We crossed the A366 at Tucker’s Grave Inn. The site of the interment of a suicide from 1747, one Edward or Edwin Tucker. As usual with folklore the facts are not easy to come by. If indeed there is a grave here though, it is safe to say that Tucker died in some abnormal way, as crossroads burial was certainly not the norm, and was said to be a way of pinning down or confusing the doomed soul that could not find rest in heaven.

With the clock counting down, we left morbidity behind trapped at the crossroads and shot towards Lullington, the next node on our ride. There was hardly any mishap en route, save the boulder in the road we both managed to miss, and my failure not to throw the chain, though that’s what happens when you try to get from the big ring to the little one without touching the middle one. We skimmed the A36, frantically spinning the cranks to get off the main road and away from the hurtling cars. Then back into the village, where Mike paused briefly to engage in the well-known Somerset practice of gate-leaning and striking a deal with a farmer.

Striking a deal with a farmer.

Clouds had gathered and the wind was starting to rage as I arrived back at the house. By the time I had finished having a shower the rain was hammering down. The last gasp of winter, but Spring cannot be stopped now, here’s to warmer weather and more rides.

The Fecund Motion of the Soul: Of Salisbury bike shops and the sheer joy of riding for the sake of riding

My colleague and friend Zoe, she of the Trikidoo has been saving up her pennies and, after much deliberation, has chosen a bike. I went with her to the bike shop (Stonehenge Cycles in Salisbury) to pick it up. I’ve bought stuff from them before, they even ordered in my awesome poncho for me, and I’ve always been impressed by their customer service. However I was not prepared for how much their customer service would blow me away when watching them set Zoe’s bike up for her.

I knew they’d looked after her Trikidoo nicely, setting up her  dog basket etc and servicing it beautifully, so they knew Zoe. She’d been in once before to try out some bikes and be sized up for the bike, we were going in to pick up the made up bike. Zoe isn’t bikey (yet), but they were brilliant, the mechanic checked over the sizing carefully and made a few adjustments. Then he went through some basic maintenance tips, showed her how to get the wheels off, how to adjust the brakes. Took her through the gears and explained how they worked, made reccomendations for carrying things and which lock to buy and then checked and double checked she was happy with the set up.

Taking Zoe through the set up of her new bike

They had done her a deal on some additional stuff like the water bottle, lights, saddle bag, pump etc. so the bike was fully kitted out. Two thumbs up to Stonehenge Cycles for customer service, they really looked after her and made sure the bike was perfect for her.

Zoe and I often work in our own offices so I only see her about twice a week. I got an email from her yesterday after she popped to the leisure centre on her bike at lunchtime:

I’m back – slightly delayed because I rode to the leisure centre on my fab new bike, and on the way back got distracted by the fun of riding a new bike in the sunshine, so took a longer route home. It’s lovely. I’m so in love with my bike! I now see why you enjoy riding so much..

Zoe's new bike, expertly and perfectly set up for her

That’s the beauty of a bike that is totally tailored to your needs. For someone who doesn’t ride much, getting hold of your perfect bike is an absolute revelation. I recall going for a ride with my brother in law along the Bradford to Bath towpath, and he shot on ahead quoting Withnail and I “I feel the fecund motion  of the soul!” as he exceeded the 10mph speed limit. There is that point when you ride when you find yourself grinning for no other reason than the sheer pleasure of riding a bike. I’m smiling now, remembering a perfect ride,  those moments where it just doesn’t matter where you’re actually going, what your speed is, or how many calories you’re burning. All you’re aware of is the bicycle, the rhythm of riding and the pleasure of being there in your present moment and how perfect it is. These moments of loving cycling just for the sake of cycling are to be savoured, enjoyed and recalled with happiness.

Almost as pleasing, is to see it in others.