I spent most of yesterday being cross that I hadn’t managed to ride. Cross with life, cross with myself. As I sat on my exercise bike squeezing a workout into the remaining time available to me, my only real consolation was the thought that at least today was due to be a clearer day, from both a timetable and weather perspective, so the odds of a ride were more in my favour.
And ride I did. Me and my filthy summer bike went out and enjoyed some sunshine. I even ran an errand whilst doing so, which I’m always oddly pleased about. I may love riding my bike, but I’m rubbish at using it as a form of sustainable transport. I don’t use it to get from A to B, I just use it as a gym replacement, and I sometimes feel a little bit like a traitor to some unspecified green cause. So when I do actually manage to do something constructive using the bike, usually in a two birds one stone way, rather than deliberately it has to be said, I’m still just a little bit proud of myself. This time my my errand involved a quick stop in Winscombe which set me off in that direction, and left me to make the rest of the route up as I went along.
The mental process involved sort of went like this…
…I am riding. Riding is good. Man, riding is good. But I need to get better at it, what with the whole being left in the dust by everyone thing. So I need to go up a hill. Which hills do I like? And yes, there are hills I like. Cue mental shuffling through a short list… Where would climbing those hills leave me? Is that somewhere I would like to be? Where would I go from there? Does that work with a two hour window? Which finds me wriggling my way through to Wrington, and brought me to the lovely climb that is Burrington Combe, and then to the top of the Mendips, which is a very beautiful place to be on a sunny Spring day.
Right, so I’m at the top. On top of my world. The Rock of Ages has once more failed to break me, and actually, it’s gone surprisingly well. Where shall I go now? At some point I have to go home right? But not yet. Time to kill, time to enjoy the Mendips having made the effort to get up there. Why not check out some of the bits I don’t do so often? Like that odd almost North York Moors-like bit in the middle on the top that’s sort of neither here nor there, just before going down the Old Bristol road to Wells. I like it there. It also has ladybirds 🙂
Right. Time to go home. But how? Wells, Burcott, Fenney Castle, Wedmore…? Yes, but that’s way too boring, do it all the time, snooze and you lose… Tell you what, let’s go through Wookey. I don’t go that way very often. And then I can cut across and join the Nyland loop and get home that way. Ooh, but then again, you know what…? Well, one hill isn’t really enough, I should probably do two, right? And if I did that, then I could just go straight along the top, down the Gorge, and be home in no time. Right then, oh go on then, how hard can it be, why not? Deer Leap it is 🙂
Yes, apparently I can still get up there. There were a couple of twitchy front wheel moments; the Cinelli is a tad prone to them. There were also a couple of stupid motorist moments. Now is apparently the season for taking groups of yoof and cramming as many of them as possible into a small low insurance group car, to be driven by the one inexperienced eejot with a Mummy and Daddy who thought it was a good idea to buy him that car, with mates who can’t decide whether to egg him on to drive past you at all costs or to yell insults out of the window when they finally do pass you, or presumably both. Somewhere there is an analogy to be made between them and sardines in a tin, but I can’t be bothered to work it up and it would be wasted on them anyway. Besides which, there’s something delightfully old skool about “slag” as an insult, and I’ve heard way worse! 😉
Somewhere along the way to the top of the Gorge, my mind was finally a million miles away, wherever it is that it goes when the body is working well, the eyes distracted by the road vanishing past in a chiaroscuro of tree shadows and broken sunlight; lost in that nowhere in particular place where all the mental clouds have been chased away. Pretty much as zen as I get. Very…something. And flying back down the Gorge sure didn’t make me feel any worse 😀
Cycling time: 2:17
Distance: 33.6 miles
Avg: 14.6 mph
ODO: 4130.4 miles
It was a good ride, far better than I was expecting it to be, and so maybe, just maybe, I can make it round the White Horse Challenge on Sunday ok? *fingers crossed* :).