French reflections

After forty years of cycling I can confidently assert there are only two ways of riding a bike: in the company of friends, or solo.

The former is more popular, and rightly so – for riding with companions provides encouragement, support, a touch of good-natured competition – it’s what the old cycling journals used to call ‘fellowship’. For the vast majority of riding, and unless you’re an anti-socialite,  it's the best option.

So with typical perversity, on my holiday this summer I chose the second option: in part from necessity (no one else would contemplate peddling in 30 degree heat), but also because I wanted to ride alone.

A few days after arriving in the Alps I climbed the Col de Joux-Verte, riding from St Jean d’Aulps.  The road reaches 1760 meters - every one of them in shrivelling heat; every one an effort of will.  On the steeper sections, I was down to 4 miles an hour – and for the first time I can remember, I didn’t overtake a single rider. I lost count of those who left me in their wake.

It didn’t matter.

Some say the pleasure in riding solo is that it takes the pressure off – there’s no need to set a pace or keep up with the group.  Others like the flexibility – with no fixed schedule, you can stop and deviate at your whim.

There's truth in both these perspectives – but to me the attraction of riding alone is more cerebral than physical.  For in a lifetime of outdoor activities, I have found no better way to access to the introspective pleasure of self-reflection, primed by a landscape that requires physical effort.   

To cycle the high cols requires that you are either super-fit (and there’s plenty of testosterone on two wheels to remind you of what’s possible) - or stoic to a level which embraces the difficulty, less as physical challenge, and more as philosophic opportunity.

I tend to the latter approach!

Which is just as well, because the truth is, riding the cols hurts – a lot.  

And yet the odd thing is, I remember those few hours on the bike more than any other on our holiday:  the pull on my calves as the road steepened; the smell of the pines and the cool of their shade; the lake at Montriond and the speedometer hitting 40 mph.  It’s not pain that I remember – it’s delight.  And when it was all over, I remember yearning for more.

Tomorrow I'm off on another challenge - travelling to Paris then peddling back home. It’s the third year I’ve ridden for charity, and this time I’ve again raised money for the National Autism Society.  I’ll not be alone though – I’m riding with twenty colleagues who’ve also supported good causes. In three years we’ve raised over £100,000, so the pain seems worth it.  

I have no doubt it will hurt again – frankly, I’m out of shape and practice. But I know I'll get through. And if I drop off the back and find myself alone… well, that’s almost a bonus. I've promised to write the blog of the trip - and who knows, if I spend enough time thinking, I might even write a little more on here, when I get back.

Wish me luck.

Cycling by numbers

In March this year, I went cycling in Majorca. I rode 510 miles in eight days - an average of 63.75 miles or 102.5 kilometres.  One ride included 6525 ft of ascent, via the road from Port Calobra, which has 32 hairpins and took me 76 minutes to climb. It was 19 degrees and I burned 6000 calories that day.

Cyclists love numbers. It comes with the territory, so to speak.

As a youngster, the first pocket money accessory I bought was a cyclometer – click , click click… the miles totalling to and from school; all the lads had one.  Cheats would attach the device to their dad’s Black & Decker and spin up an extra hundred miles in a matter of minutes.

And still today, the first question I’m most often asked after a cycle trip, is, ‘How far did you go?’  I know of only a handful of cyclists who don’t use trip-computers; in Majorca, many wore heart rate monitors; some had GPS devices.  For decades Cycling Weekly used to publish charts each January to record weekly and monthly mileage for the year – it probably still does.

But cyclists’ love of numbers doesn’t stop at distance.  We like times too – many keep meticulous records of their performances over set distances - on courses that are named by numbers  (the U44, the B41). Some enthusiasts will happily travel the length of the country to ride ten miles of dual carriageway in the hope of shaving a second off their personal best.

And as for gear ratios…  do you have a spare hour or two? Did you know that dividing the number of cogs on the rear into the number on the front and multiplying by the diameter of the wheel gives you a number equivalent to the measurement of a penny-farthing’s front wheel’?  So a 12-cog rear into a 48  front, combined with a 27inch wheel amounts to 108, and we still measure gears this way today. 

If you didn’t follow that last paragraph it doesn’t matter – it’s just more numbers.

I could equally have mentioned the 21 bends on Alpe d’ Huez, the 3200 kilos in last year’s Tour de France, or the hundreds of thousands who’ve come to the sport through the new fangled ‘sportif’ rides, which are basically a way of adding numbers and targets to a long day out on the bike.

This latter point has an interesting twist. 

For years cycling has been a minority sport – a mix of old farts (like me) trundling the lanes with their saddle-bags, and wiry testers, grinding big gears at the Sunday morning time-trial or riding in chain gangs for training. Today it’s mainstream – almost trendy: there’s a plethora of organised rides, charity challenges, medals to be won, standards to be achieved… and not surprisingly lots of numbers too. 

A friend who’s relatively new to cycling, wrote to me after completing a Sportif, - he’d ridden 100 kilometres in just over three hours and achieved a silver standard for his age group.  Excellent, I said, and where exactly had he ridden? He couldn’t say – or at least not in any detail. But that wasn’t really the point, he explained– he was aiming for Gold on his next ride!

For all my light-hearted love of numbers, this approach seems rather sad. 

There’s a hugely popular but rather noxious mobile app called Strava, which feeds this new mindset.  You download it on your phone and it tracks your rides, recording your route, distance and speed. It even compares your performance to others, and in a very popular function allocates virtual awards for the fastest time over a course the rider sets. Believe it or not, here now are thousands of riders chasing meaningless times over equally meaningless sections of road.|

And if you think I’m exaggerating, let me tell you of a bloke I met recently who told proudly me of his  Strava awards and how he loved being the fastest over a particular section of road – some of which began from his front door. Turned out he lived in a place (I’ll not reveal exactly where) in which there must be at most a dozen regular cyclists. Talk about the tallest dwarf!

 

I’m being unfair and a touch unkind in the paragraph above. He was a nice bloke, a good if mildly obsessive new wave cyclist, certainly much better than me – but boy does it show how easy it is to lose the plot.

The vast majority of the lifelong cyclists I know are not actually obsessed by numbers at all  - even my good friend Stuart, whom I had once considered beyond hope. Over the years, they’ve come to understand that whilst they serve a purpose, what matters most is something deeper, something more experiential.

If numbers matter at all, it’s the hours on the bike, the days we never forget, the years of friendship.

I can bring to mind hundreds of rides that punctuate my adult life: the smell of Leicestershire’s rape fields; the red- squirrels I disturbed near Keswick; the eagles over Mont Blanc; the descent of the Col de Tourmalet on a tandem; the time I froze myself senseless in a storm above Alston.

These memories are mine till I die or go senile.  

And yet I couldn’t tell you the time, the distance, the speed at which I rode those days. None of that matters; it never will and for all but a precious few elite athletes it never should. In a few months, I’ll have forgotten the cold hard figures from Majorca – but not the softness of the breeze or the warmth of the sun.

Numbers - who needs them?

A long and slow way home

A friend of mine tells a good story about a kayaking trip he once led. In a remote region of the Himalaya, his expedition party came across an elderly English traveller. They exchanged pleasantries and my friend explained his plan to make the first descent of a white water canyon.  'Are you from Birmingham?' the old man asked. My friend nodded and the traveller paused before replying, 'You've come a long way to get wet!'

This Sunday I'm doing something similar, albeit on a smaller scale.  And I'm riding a bike not paddling a kayak, though judging by the forecast I suspect it won't make much difference. Next week I'm peddling from the English Channel to the Angel of the North; from Southampton to Newcastle, the most southerly and northerly of my company's operating locations.

It's a small joy of my job that I get to organise our community and charity programme. In June 2011, I rode from west to east across the UK (that's so 'last year', someone said the other day) raising money for Whizz-Kidz. This year, I'm raising money for the National Autism Society, a charity that's especially important to a colleague of mine.

Many of us will have raised money this way - it's become a cultural norm to ask for donations in return for completing some difficult feat or other. When you think of it, that's quite an odd proposition, but let's not get philosophical. The point I want to make is that few of those feats will involve the courage my colleague has shown - sharing her personal story, working with others and acting as an ambassador for a charity that has supported her autistic son.

Autism is a widely misunderstood condition affecting hundreds of thousands of people. At root it a developmental disability that affects the way those people communicate, how they relate to the world and make sense of what's around them. It's not strictly a mental or physical illness, and yet it can be equally devastating. The National Autism Society provides support, information, and services to help autistic people and their families better cope with the world. 

The paragraph above is my summary description - easier to write that truly comprehend. 

I've not done as much training for my ride as I'd have liked. Frankly, I'm overweight and unfit - yet I'm looking forward to it immensely. I'll be joined by colleagues riding for other good causes and for once the talk won't all be about profit and loss. And we're heading north, which has a certain resonance for me; every peddle-rev taking me nearer to the place I grew up. I haven't been back since my father died, but that's another and very different story.

I was thinking the other day of that traveller in the Himalaya and what he'd say if we met him?  Are you from Newcastle? he might ask.  I'd tell him I was. Well, that's a long and slow way home. 

Wish me luck.

The passing and turning of wheels

Albert Winstanley is dead, and so is Alan Oakley. I'd bet very few readers will have  registered the former (Albert died this March), and whilst you might have heard the news about Alan, I doubt you knew his name before today.

Alan Oakley was the chap who designed the Chopper bicycle: the best selling bike that Raleigh ever made. It was a Seventies icon that saved the business and wrought havoc to the testicles of twenty thousand teenage boys. I was never allowed a Chopper - they were for 'bad lads', my father used to say - and my pleas that it would be good for the paper round made no difference. Instead, he got me a twenty year old three-speed roadster which weighed a tonne and was laughed at the first time I rode it to school.

Albert was from a generation previous, and a writer not a designer. He rode a touring bike with a cotton duck saddlebag, a rolled cape strapped on top; the old photos show him in brogues and baggy shorts, about as far from the street-cred of Chopper riders as it's possible to imagine. Albert had toured across Europe when most folk were still heading to Blackpool for holidays - but he was best known for his forays in the North of England. In the unassuming columns of the Cycling Weekly and Cycling World his recollections of 'golden days awheel' captured a delight in the outdoors that was keenly felt by many of the post war generation.

I was twenty five before I could afford a decent touring bike. That hadn't stopped me cycling camping as a kid, or riding the hundred mile round trip to see my girlfriend when I was at university. My most vivid cycling memory is riding in Leicestershire through fields of oil seed rape. It was a new crop back then and I remember marvelling at the acid lemon landscape - and feeling more free and less troubled than ever before. I still love rape fields; I know they've replaced swathes of pastoral countryside, but I can't help it - every time I see them, I remember that day.

This evening, in the park near my house a group of teenage lads were skulking under hoodies and baseball caps. They came to sit by the bowling green, some way from the club house but near enough to provoke discomfort. 'Here's trouble,' said one of the members as the bowlers finished their twenty-first end. In the event, nothing much transpired; a bit of swearing, the odd kick to a litter bin, and then they departed, two of them on BMX bikes - the modern equivalent of a Chopper. Jane was annoyed they'd spoiled the peace. Bad lads, I thought, and though I know that's unfair for it's only youthful rebellion, I couldn't help it either.

It's stretching things to say that cycling has defined my life. But it's been a constant presence and, in many ways, my bikes, and the joys they've given me, mirror my journey too. There's a part of me will always wish I'd had a Raleigh Chopper; another that knows they were never for me. Just as there's a part that's delighted to see the thousands of enthusiasts riding cyclo-sportives each weekend; and another that thinks they should travel more like Albert...  with a saddlebag and rolled cape - through fields and fells that would harvest memories of gold.

The water in Majorca...

Those of a certain age might remember an old Heineken advert. It was a send-up of My Fair Lady and featured a Sloan Ranger being trained to talk in a cockney accent. She fails miserably until one swig of the amber liquid has her drawling, The worta in madjorca, don't tayste like it orta! 

This last week I've been to see for myself- not drinking lager but riding my bike with Andy Cook Cycling. It was my first visit to Majorca, and before going I'd have struggled to say much about it.  If you'd pushed me I'd probably have ventured that Magaluf wasn't quite my kind of town! The truth is, our pre-conceptions of places are often pejorative and unfounded - and no more so than mine of this stunning island.

The day I left, my friend and blog-hero Michelle sent me an email vouching deep envy. She'd once worked on an environmental project in the mountains near Alcudia - by coincidence, where I was staying. She wrote of eagles and kites, of fabulous coves and of ancient monasteries in the hills. I saw all of these and more, riding 400km in the Serra du Tramuntana, through orange and lemon groves, under cobalt skies and a temperate sun. On Wednesday I rode to Cap Formentor, the northern-most tip of the island - mile for mile I can't think of a more scenic ride in thirty years of cycling.

It's estimated over 80,000 bikers come to Majorca each year, providing an early boost to the tourist season. I vaguely knew this, but wasn't aware how comprehensively the island has embraced the influx: the resurfaced roads, the signed routes, the cafes with free oranges and cakes, the cries of hola from the locals. Add those to the mountain landscape and it is near enough cycling heaven.

You might suppose that hills and heat would make it more like a cycling hell. But it's surprising how the landscape inspires. One lady on our trip had never peddled more than 30 miles; she rode 100km with us on Sunday and beat me to the top of a 400-meter climb. I spent much of another day riding off the back with Andy, the trip organiser and a friend who goes back almost as far as those Heineken adverts. Confidence makes the biggest difference we agreed, and I thought how it applied to him too; he left a steady job to started his business two years ago, a leap of faith that's paid off in self-belief as much as financial returns. Hopefully, both will continue to grow.

I came home on Thursday, into a damp Bristol with the usual queues and traffic jams. Today I rode the Fosseway in a southwesterly headwind, the sky inking and the temperature barely 6 degrees. Not quite cycling heaven, but just as surprising in its way. Recently, I lamented the ripped hedges on Common Lane and doubted there'd be bullfinches there this year. Yet as I turned for home, a male was calling from the top of a hawthorn, its peach-pink chest as dazzling as the Majorcan sun - actually, that's not quite true, but you know what I mean.

Cutting back

Last spring I was preparing for a bike ride that would take me across the UK from Aberystwyth to Great Yarmouth. And on my training route, I'd always cycle a particular lane - it had the most fabulous hedges, all overgrown and shady and bursting with wildlife. I saw a bullfinch there in March, a hare lolloping down a side track, brimstone butterflies right into summer - when I returned in the autumn the hedge was heavy with sloes.

On Saturday I was back on my bike, starting my training for another charity ride (you'll hear more about that in another post). I was looking forward to that lane; indeed, as I approached it I was thinking how, when passing through much of the middle of England, it was the hedgerows I'd liked best. Throughout the ride, there'd been pretty much a direct correlation between bushes and birdsong - I remember commenting as much to one of my colleagues.

So I was in a light mood as I pressed on the pedals and into Common Road. Only the day before there'd been goldcrests in my garden, long-tailed tits on the silver birch and a blackcap on the forsythia. The warmer weather was hinting at spring - perhaps that bullfinch would be there again - or a flock of yellowhammer? There was a sharp cerulean sky.

Some people might think it peculiar that a little bit of hedge trimming could conjure any sadness. After all, it's only a few gnarly trees - overgrown bushes really.  Didn't I read somewhere that it's good for certain species if the lanes are kept in order?  And doesn't pruning make the trees more robust in the long run?

It's true that pruning makes the hedges thicker.  And cutting every few years, even quite severely, is probably better for wildlife than annual trimming. For every summer of growth, it's estimated two additional bird species will come to nest - so cutting less frequently is a good idea.  On the other hand, there are butterflies which only lay eggs on new growth and many birds prefer low hedges - for these species, regular trimming is what's needed. The ideal is to prune every three years in careful rotation, ensuring no area is reduced too severely at any one time.

But all that is clearly too much hassle for the farmer on Common Road. I reckon it was ten years since he last cut those hedges (ironically quite good) - and when the time came that something had to be done, he wasn't going to be worried about the niceties of yellowhammers or bullfinches. Judging by the results of his mechanical flail I don't reckon he's bothered about much in nature at all. He's not only cut the thinner growth, he's slashed the nearby trees, splintered the blackthorn into shards, even smashed his own fences. In all, he reduced the hedge by over six feet.

I know most of it will grow back; I know that Common Road isn't a conservation imperative, and I know it probably looks worse than it is. But there's something quite brutal about all this. Something that doesn't feel right - a sense that with just a little more care, it would have made such a difference.  As it is, there'll be less birdsong on my training rides this spring, and I guess this autumn I'll be going elsewhere for sloes.

Coast to Coast

It's nice when a plan comes together. Especially when it's others who benefit as well as yourself. So the picture of me with my bike in the sea - taken last Friday - is as much a celebration for them as it was for me. It marked the end of a six month and a five day journey.

Last January I had an idea. Why not organise a bike ride from my company's most western depot in Aberystwyth to our most eastern in Norwich, and then on a bit more to the sea? We'd travel from coast to coast, across the middling spread of England and Wales. And as part of the deal we'd all raise some money for charity. All I needed were some others to join me and a bit of training.

Finding volunteers wasn't a problem and my company got behind the plan with gusto. The training wasn't too bad either and last Monday myself and twenty colleagues set off over the Cambrian Mountains. Five days later we arrived in Norwich having raised around fifty thousand pounds for charity. For my part, when the cheques all come in I shall top two thousand pounds for Whizz-Kidz. To all of you who sponsored me, encouraged me, and inspired me, many thanks - you can take pleasure in knowing that your donations really will make a difference.

But what of the ride itself?

It's a long time since I rode a tour of that length and my legs are sore, but the impressions are more than just physical. Crossing the country by pedal power has left me with thoughts, not all fully formed, about the landscape, the places and the people we passed. Most of it is positive, if a perhaps little biased.

If I'm honest about the landscape my overriding impression is that after Wales it was all down hill. Given the height of the mountains this is almost true topographically, but it's also true, for me at least, in a scenic and cultural sense. It's not that Shropshire or Warwickshire or Northampton or Cambridgeshire don't have their good points - it's just that none of these could lift my spirits as do the mountains and forests I've adopted as my second home these last twenty years. The only sadness was the wind turbines despoiling the hills above Cwmystwyth - why is it, I wondered, that I saw more turbines in Wales than the three hundred miles which followed. I could weep, I really could.

The sound of the landscape is pertinent too - and again, the further east we went the quieter it became.  Not from lack of road noise (that tended towards the opposite) but from birdsong - never before have I been so aware of how silent the huge industrialised fields of modern farming can be. It was eerily so at times, and all the more noticeable as we passed the intermittent hedgerows from which the chattering would return.

And yet I rather liked the Fens - to some extent they were an exception that proved the rule - I especially liked their wide skies and whispering fields of corn. We met a farmer near Ely who allowed us to shelter from a storm in his barn - he and his brother worked five hundred acres with the help of two tractors and his wife who graded the potatoes. He told me he had always wanted to go to Wales to see the hills, though he loved his flatland farm and pointed out, with pride, that it was below sea level.

My impressions weren't just of landscape. Most of the people I rode with were neither experienced cyclists nor the senior managers I typically know. They were front line staff, out to do something different and significant. They rode with courage and humour and were supported by wives, fathers, brothers, children, colleagues, customers... Throughout our week we recieved hundreds of messages, emails, tweets, blog comments and personal visits. One of the most memorable moments was the unexpected visit by the family of one of our riders, his children waiting for us at a village green with cakes and drinks and banners.

And so on Friday lunchtime I arrived at the east coast, at California Norfolk. Ironically there were turbines off shore, just out of shot in the photograph - that too gave me pause for thoughts, but I'll leave those for another time. Most importantly, I'd made it - half a stone lighter and a great deal prouder of myself, my colleagues, my company and even my adopted country, than when I began.

Like I said, it's nice when a plan comes together.

Going widdershins

This spring I've been training for a ride across Britain, cycling the lanes of north Wiltshire to improve my fitness. In January I was struggling to manage an hour, now forty miles in less than three isn't a problem. So it's being going well; I ride a carefully planned route, taking  me through pleasant if not spectacular countryside. And over the weeks I've seen that landscape change: the hedgerows budding, the golden rapeseed, the finches and flocks of yellow hammer, the May blossom falling.

But after a while any route can become routine. Last Sunday was thick with clouds, the roads damp and a northerly wind threatening showers. 'Are you sure you want to go,' Jane asked, heading upstairs with her book and a cup of tea. As I togged up in waterproofs the prospect of a lie in seemed a lot more appealing than yet another circuit of the lanes.

So, as if in perverse delight, I decided to reverse my usual direction. Instead of riding clockwise I'd go north up the Fosse Way and meet the wind on that straightest of Roman Roads. It would make a change I thought, and if nothing else, would boost my fitness. As I rode from the drive I turned right instead of left, then paused at the next junction. It was one of those 'senior moment' when your memory fails you; I've travelled this route dozens of times and yet there I was reorienting myself after less than a mile.

The ride wasn't as tough as I feared. A heavy shower brought brighter skies and the wind never quite reached a gale. Indeed it felt easier this way round, the hills a little less steep, and I was soon passing the teashops of Tetbury. But I pressed on, turning left at the next village, right down a farm track, same again at the junction and straight on at the cross roads.

And maybe that's where I went wrong. I'm not sure, it could have been the previous crossing - but anyway I found myself riding past a lake and I was darn certain I'd not seen it before. Quite where the lake was I wasn't sure, or what direction I was heading - the water was bounded by trees so even the wind was unreliable. I pressed on, hoping for a road sign.

The evening before my ride I'd been to an event that was part of a literary festival. The writer Olivia Laing was talking about her book, To The River, a journey down the Ouse in Sussex; the place where Virginia Wold had drowned. My first question to her was, which way had you travelled, upsteam or down? Later we talked and I mentioned the different experience that kayaking brings - the closeness to the water, being part of the flow, at times in it - as opposed to looking from above.

After passing the lake I stopped at a gate, searching for clues to my whereabouts. There was a gradual fall to the land, the scarp of Lynham banks to the south, the last of the rapeseed turning in the breeze. I hadn't seen the fields this way before - or at least I hadn't noticed them. Gradually I pieced it together, and ironically it was a tower I've always regarded as out of place that put me back on track. If I reversed my route and turned left after the lake, with a little fiddling I'd soon be on familiar ground.

When I got home Jane remarked that I was late. I explained that I'd ridden an unintentional ten mile loop. It's odd I said, the difference a change in perspective can make. Habit too plays a part. I usually play my banjo with fingers a blur, yet if I reverse the roll pattern, suddenly I'm stuttering, taking one string at a time - pausing at each note.

And sometimes that's a good thing to do. For with banjos it's easy to lose the melody to speed, and I suppose with our routines, cycling or otherwise, there's an equivalent prospect. Whatever, I shall certainly ride anticlockwise again - and maybe I'll go visit that lake in the sunshine.

From A to B

I'm looking forward to cycling this... mmm...

One of the most pleasing aspects of my job is that I get to oversee our community programme.  Every year, hundreds of people across the company raise money by shaving their heads, walking over mountains, or  whatever challenge captures their imagination.  Others volunteer their time, sharing their expertise or simply getting involved with some hard graft when a good cause needs it.

And every year, I don't set the best of examples... too much on; too many pressures - too comfortable more like!

So as I approach my fiftieth birthday I've decided to do something about it. This June I'll be joining some of my colleagues and riding a bike from our most western depot in Aberystwyth, to our most eastern, which is called Bertrams in Norwich. So from A to B... then on to the coast, just for the heck of it.

That's about 360 miles and I know it's going to hurt - a lot. But actually, it'll be great fun too and already I'm enjoying the training. Last week as I rode through the lanes I glimpsed a Bullfinch calling from the hedgerow, its great puffed breast a sure sign of spring.

And I thought, how lucky am I?  I've riden bikes since I was six and always loved them. From my first wobbles down Holystone Avenue, to cycle touring as a lad, to crossing the Pyrenees on a tandem and the Alps with my son - whose effortless climbing brought me to tears.  Bikes are so simple, yet they've given me more freedom and joy than any other piece of technology I can think of.

But not everyone is so lucky.

And that's why I'm riding for Whizz-Kidz. It's a charity we've been involved with for some years and they do a fantastic job helping disabled kids to have some of the mobility and independence that I've taken for granted.  Their website sums it up well:


Whizz-Kidz provides disabled children with the wheelchairs and other mobility equipment they need to lead fun and active childhoods. But that's just the start. All around the country disabled children are meeting and making friends at a growing network of Whizz-Kidz clubs. They’re having fun around obstacle courses, knocking over skittles, doing wheelies and learning about boring but important things like road safety. They’re also forming campaign groups and meeting MPs, contacting the press, and designing campaign badges and posters. And because growing up can be a bit scary, they’re taking part in work placement programmes and life skills events.

In riding from A to B I'm hoping to raise at least £2000 from personal donations, and as a group we're targeting up to £50,000 by the time we've called in a few favours with suppliers and supporters at work. But every encouragement counts, and all the more so if it comes from friends and supporters.

If you'd like to leave a message of support that would be great, or to sponsor me click my just-giving page. But most of all, think of me the next time you get in the car to drive anything approaching 360 miles - it's a long way by bike.

Land of Lost Content

Two things snapped this week.

Usually I’d regard this as a problem – snapping not being associated with matters going to plan. But whilst neither break was something I'd have wished for, after some reflection, I’d like to think there is a brighter side.

On Wednesday I met my old and fine friend Ian. We’d planned a short cycle tour that would take us from the village of Clun in Shropshire over the Marches to the wonderful Elennydd Mountains in Wales. The route wasn’t long (about 120 miles), though with only sixty miles cycling in my legs this year I wasn’t expecting an easy ride.

In my twenties and thirties, cycle touring (alongside climbing and kayaking) was a simply a part of what I did: I rode the Pyrenees on a tandem, the Alps many times over; long tours in Britain, France, Germany. To cycle a hundred miles was no big deal.

And for the last eight years I’ve supported my son, training with him for his races, taking him abroad, mountain biking in the woods, riding the velodrome...

But it’s easy to kid yourself.

I may have remained close to cycling, but in truth I have practiced it less and less. As I reached my forties I took up other interests; as my son got faster I rode in his wake; faster still and I cheered from the stands.

To be fair my lack of miles this year was largely the result of breaking my ribs – more painful and debilitating than I ever imagined. Nonetheless, the general point stands: as we readied to leave Clun I had the distinct feeling that my cycling pedigree was more historic than contemporary.

But hey, it was only a hundred or so miles; we had two and a half days; I could get through that couldn’t I?

And of course I did. What’s more as the miles passed I began to enjoy it too. The first day was a hot but short hop to Kington. The second was damp and tougher, but always we were heading toward the mountains I consider the most special and lovely part of Wales. Indeed, as we neared the Abergwesyn Pass I felt bold enough to say, ‘It’s interesting but even though I’m out of shape, I know I’ll make it.’ That inner confidence, I speculated, comes from a deep core of experience; without it your doubts would be overwhelming and you’d just give up.’

About five miles later that core snapped. 

At the foot of the Devil’s Staircase – an aptly named hill with a 1 in 4 gradient – I got off and walked; no disgrace in itself, except I didn’t even try. The excuses I could make (the broken ribs, the wine in our panniers, the ridiculous gradient, fifty miles that day) – all of them counted for nothing. I had ridden this hill only two years previous – admittedly with more grunt than grace – but least I had done it.

I recalled the lines from Housman’s poem, that two days earlier I had recited to Ian in jest – it was written not far from Clun and seemed appropriate to two old gits setting off on a cycle ride better suited to younger legs.

.... The happy highways where I went  

And cannot come again.

As I looked down from the top of the Staircase I realised this was the first time in thirty years I had voluntarily walked my bike up a hill.

The next morning, after a night at the gas-lit Dolgoch hostel, we set off for Llanwrtyd Wells. Again I walked the hill; this second time less painful than the first; reflecting how quickly we adapt to our limitations and taking comfort that that old age might be like that too.

Freewheeling down the other side, something else snapped.

This time it was my chain – the first time in forty-nine years never mind thirty! We fixed it at the side of the road, using tools and knowledge that younger riders would be unlikely to have. I thought of the Tortoise and the Hare (Dylan’s favorite story) and I knew – from a deep core of experience – that we’d still make it in time to catch the train that would shorten our journey home.

But most of all I thought ‘Thank God I didn’t cycle the hill’.  For the torque of my weight on that chain would undoubtedly have snapped it as the gradient steepened. I remembered the chap I knew who did something similar, his forks collapsing and him crushing his bollocks into the bars - the scars on his face, the bruises on his thighs and the bandy legged walk.  Perhaps there was a brighter side to failure after all.

As it was I finished our cycle route in reasonable style. We hitched the short train ride to Llandrindod Wells – wheeled out of the station into a bike shop opposite, bought a new chain and cycled for thirty or so miles above the delightful Ithon Valley before the deceptively steep climbs on the outskirts of Clun.

Ian had been impressed when I’d recited the Houseman poem. As I sped down the final hill and into Clun I recalled it in full.

Into my heart an air that kills 

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,  

What spires, what farms are those?
 

That is the land of lost content,  

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went  

And cannot come again.

Pulling to a stop at the packhorse bridge, my brakes hot from the descent and my heart gradually slowing, I couldn’t help but smile. Maybe that second verse wasn’t quite as apt as I’d thought – at least not for few years yet.

Full circle.

The Joux Plan is over the hils on the right

Yesterday I cycled the Col de Joux Plan. The road climbs from Morzine, past the chalets and farms on the lower slopes of the Pic de Nyon, before hairpining through dense pine forests to the summit at 1800 meters. The Col is a regular on the Tour de France, classified as haute category; we once stood on its slopes for six hours to watch Lance Armstrong cruise past us in seconds.

I last rode the Col with Michael, my middle son and a precociously talented cyclist. I remember advising him on his climbing technique, reminding him to save his energy, to drink and to eat regularly. He paid little regard, and as the road steepened, he gradually pulled away. All my experience counted for nothing against this slim boy, cruising each harpin with effortless grace. By the time I reached the top he'd been resting for fifteen minutes.

I took a photo of him by the summit plaque before we began the descent (I have a copy on my office wall). 'Be careful,' I warned him, 'and don't go too far ahead.' He didn't want to listen; he was sick of me telling him how to ride, he said - he wanted to do it his way.

And I remember, as I watched his blue jersey streak ahead, being suddenly overwhelmed with fear. Not of him crashing - he was too good a rider to worry about that - but of losing him. Quite to what I was losing him, I didn't know. But I was desperate to catch him; descending as fast as I dared, each turn more reckless than the next - and all the while the wind drying my eyes. 'Not yet,' I kept telling myself, 'Not quite yet...'

That was three years ago. Michael raced over forty times that summer and only once came second; by the end of the season he topped the national rankings. Cycling was a huge part of our lives then, but from that day onward he increasingly rode on his own terms. He's more relaxed now, and interested in other things besides bikes, (a good thing too) but he remains a wonderful rider.

Climbing the Col yesterday we rode our mountain bikes; big lumbering things, not suited for taking hairpins with effortless grace. I am fitter too and could stay with him longer; he grumbled about the heat, which made me smile. But by the second half of the climb he had pulled away. Groups of tanned riders passed me with ease, but I watched them stamping on their pedals to catch the young boy up the road. For despite his talent, and the three summers since we rode here, he is still a young boy in body and at heart.

I reached the summit only five minutes behind - progress of sorts. No photos this time; he dropped over the lip and within seconds was two hairpins ahead. No risk taking too; I'd go down at my own pace.

He was waiting for me at the half-way chalet. I snatched at my brakes and almost skidded off the road. 'Are you all right?' he asked, passing me a water bottle and a handful of Haribo.

'I'm fine,' I replied. 'Just doing it my way.'

'That's cool,' he said. 'For a moment, I was worried I'd lost you.'

Never too old

My friend (and blog follower) Sara writes in her erudite blog that we are never too old to regain lost skills. She says there is a mindset that believes we peak early, especially at physical skills, and that this mindset is rubbish! I feel like I want to disagree, but that's probably because I'm a bit of a pedant, or maybe more truthfully, because I'm nursing a torn hamstring after taking up running again. However, her central point – that there is no reason why age should deny sporting excellence – is well made, and in my case, a timely reminder as I ponder what next.

It's significant, I think, that Sara's return was to horse riding – a perfect example of what I call a piloting sport. Piloting sports can involve considerable skill and physical fitness but providing the 'motor power' is not the job of the participant – so motor racing is a piloting sport, so is sailing, show jumping, etc. These seem to me to offer greater possibility as 'sports for life' with the opportunity to continue performing at a high standard as we get older – certainly, more so than say, rugby, gymnastics or basketball. 

My grandfather took up sailing in his fifties and gliding soon after. He used to say, somewhat disingenuously, that anyone could take up these sports, no matter how decrepit they were; perhaps so, but in his case he won many trophies against younger crews and stayed active in both sports until he died aged eighty four.

Sports of skill and accuracy regularly provide champions with no respect for age. Snooker has long list of older greats – think, Ray Reardon and Joe Davies – as has bowls, darts and even golf (though less so). When I was marginally involved in sports funding for Wales it used to make me smile that the Welsh Quoits Association was given a grant each year, but hey, why not?

Outdoor pursuits have similar possibilities, particularly where experience is as important for your chances of success as physical prowess. Many mountaineers reach their peak (ha) as they get a little older; Doug Scott, Kurt Diemberger, Reinhold Messner, Don Whillans and legions of others. Closer to home, my friend and one time coach, Stuart Woodward, was kayaking some of the world's largest rivers in his forties and continues to do so fifteen years later.

Indeed, where endurance is concerned there is evidence that being older is an advantage. Marathon runners tend to peak in their early thirties and ultra distance runners even later. Mike Cudahy, the first man to run the Pennine Way in under three days – an astonishing feat when you think about it – did so, aged forty five. His physical and mental preparation is described in his excellent book, Wild Trails to Far Horizons and it's an inspiration for anyone returning to run. Similarly, Joss Naylor the infamous fell runner was setting records well into his fifties that would stand for decades.

And what of cycling? The fact is, the very best cyclists are relatively young, and at the elite level I don't think that Sara's hypothesis is true – Anno Domini takes its toll on power and heart rate, no matter how many hours we put in. But one of the wonderful characteristics of cycling is the way it attracts and retains its enthusiasts for life. They say you never forget how to ride a bike, and that's amply demonstrated in my club where we have active members ranging from eight to eighty. One old boy, who looks at times like he's about to keel over, regularly tells me about the latest 200 kilometre ride he's just completed.

As for me, yes I'm still nursing the hamstring after it pinged in my sixth week of running following a seven year layoff. But that aside, Sara is right, it's surprising how the old skills come back and how rewarding it feels too. I no longer think of personal bests, at least not in terms of minutes per mile – but there's still much I'd like to do: such as running those few sections of the Pembroke Coast that I've yet to complete. And perhaps the long ridge above Llantony, the one that bounds the Golden Valley and ends at Gospel Pass – I picture myself running there at dawn, the path dropping towards Hay Bluff, mist thinning as the sun rises... An excellence of sorts.

Friends, Romans, Citizens

My friend Ian once said you know a true friend when you ring them at three in the morning and say your car's broken down in the snow. Thankfully that's not happened yet, but I did email him to ask if he fancied driving five hundred miles to ride as my co-pilot in the World Mountain Bike Chariot Racing Championships. As you can see, he doesn't do things in half measures.

Our charioteer, Paul, was similarly cajoled into making the journey. Actually, Paul needs little persuasion for this sort of thing, and as I hadn't seen him in a few years it seemed a good excuse to have a laugh.

Most of the competitors had the same idea - we raced against two polar bears pulling an ice queen and narrowly lost out on a place in the final to Anthony and Cleopatra. We met Sally and James from Wacky Nation who spend their lives doing these sorts of events, and cheered a trio of Roman Goddesses who took twice as long as anyone else to complete the course. It was a shame that the eventual winners were the only competitors with serious bikes, full cycling kit and a silth like charioteer who must have weighed less than my left leg. Talk about missing the point.

The venue was Llanwrtyd Wells - home of the famous Man versus Horse race and World Bog Snorkelling Championships. They make a big deal of these events, not just because they attract visitors, but because they bring the community together. It seems to be working. Later, we met the three Roman Goddesses having lunch with their kids the Drovers Cafe; in the evening a toga party was planned at the pub. As I left, a drunken senator was stumbling across the square to a backdrop of the snow covered Elenydd mountains.

The Great Cyclist’s Caff

The subject of good caffs, or rather the lack of them, was in the air at my cycle club the other week. It's all supermarkets now was the cry, and they're not proper cyclist's caffs are they?

This got me reminiscing about the great caffs I've known, and being in a philosophical sort of mood, to thinking exactly what it is that makes a proper cyclist's caff.

For starters, you notice that I've used the word caff; not café, or tearoom, and certainly not coffee shop - all a poor substitute for the real thing.

A proper caff must have:

• Formica tables with wooden or wipe down chairs
  
• Big mugs of tea, preferably served from a huge pot
  
• Serve greasy English breakfast and bacon butties
  
• Open on a Sunday, and
  
• Be situated on a cycling route
  

Equally, it mustn't have:

• Customers that look as if they're going to a craft fair
  
• Lace tablecloths and fancy menus
  
• Carpets
  
• Self service counters
  
• Cream teas
  

Your definition might be different to mine; it's a bit like good art: hard to pin down, but you know it when you see it. But if defining the perfect caff is tricky; finding one is altogether more difficult. Do any still exist, and if so, where are they?

The far north still has many good caffs, but that's a long way to ride for a cup of tea. A little closer, there are some good ones in the Peak District: Lovers Leap caff at Stoney Middleton takes some beating, as does Grindleford Station caff, tucked away under Froggat Edge. Both of these are climber's caffs, but this makes little difference; climbers, kayakers and cyclists are much the same – except cavers, who are very dodgy in my view, but that's a different story.

Wales also has some excellent caffs too. Pete's Eats in Llanberris even gets a mention in some good food guides. They used to offer a prize if you could eat all of the Big Breakfast - another free breakfast! Just up the road in Capel Curig is the Pinnacle Cafi ( Welsh for Caff); I once saw a cyclist there wearing shorts and a string vest when there was three inches of snow outside – he asked for a glass of orange squash.

In fact, my all-time favourite caff is in Wales. It's in Bala, renowned for its lake, its fair, and as a place you couldn't fail to score on a Friday night unless you were very, very ugly. In the middle of the High Street, just down from a hardware shop that displays most of its wares on the pavement is The Cyfnod. It is a shining beacon in a town without any supermarkets.

As soon as you walked through the door you could sense The Cyfnod was special. Its tables were pale yellow Formica, contrasting with the red leatherette benches that were screwed to floor so you had to slide between table and chair. On the walls, pictures of the Bala Women's Institute, circa 1971, (sitting proud and bandy legged in Welsh knitted tweeds), were placed side by side with photos of old Bala that looked much like the High Street outside. The serving counter was one of those glass chillers with a Frigidaire logo and the whole place doubled as the local chippy in the evening.

The smell of tea and sizzling bacon hung in the air as you waited for your breakfast, passing the time by trying to lift the vinegar bottle using only its spout and the tips of your fingers. (Never played this before? You've missed out on hours of fun) Even the waitresses were pretty.

The Cyfnod may have changed by now. But I hope not - for it was a Mecca to those of us who appreciated the finer things in life. In fact, I think I'll make a pilgrimage soon.

I have always loved bikes

I have always loved bikes.

My mother bought my first from the bin-men; I’d spotted it hanging from the back of their cart as they passed our house. She paid them ten shillings and told me to share it with my brother. It was purple and red with a step-through frame and a white sprung saddle. I learned to ride with stabilisers, removing one, then the other a few weeks later. When I first rode without them, I peddled straight into the back of a parked car and knocked myself out.

That bike gave me my first taste of freedom. I’d cycle down our tree lined road, turning right into Etal Avenue, then left to the cul-de-sac by the station, where I’d watch the children on the other side of the line, laughing as they sledged down the railway sidings on wooden boards.

Later I was given a green Hercules that had been standing outside for years. I spent days taking it apart, scraping off the rust with brillo-pads, polishing the chrome. It had a three speed Sturmey Archer hub, but only two gears would ever work. Not that it mattered; to my eyes it had a cross bar, thin wheels and, most important of all, drop handlebars. It was a racer!

I soon learned, that my Hercules was no racer at all, and that Sturmey Archer gears were the stuff of derision amongst the cognoscenti at school. Ten speed derailleurs were the right stuff; Raleigh Choppers were acceptable too – they were best for giving ‘backies’ and were popular with the kids from the council estate.

You’d find it hard to buy a junior racing bike nowadays, though the Chopper is making a comeback, re-launched as a retro alternative to the mountain bike. My boys don’t see the appeal. ‘One wheel’s smaller than the other. It’s like a girls bike,’ they say. I think it’s marketed at Dads – like those, who years ago, longed to ride on the other side of the tracks.

November reflections

Where did November go? I seem to have missed it this year.

November marks the end of the cycling year. As the nights close in the racing schedule gradually dies away and evening rides become ever more snatched. By the time the clocks go back the racing season is all but finished. Only a few diehards turn out the peculiarly British torture that is the round of autumn hill climb championships, a simple activity that consists of riding up the steepest imaginable hills in the shortest possible time, usually in driving rain. Thinking back, I once won the Tandem Club’s championship for doing just this up Horseshoe Pass, assisted by a partner with an crude indiference to pain.

And for those who really don’t know when to stop, I suppose there is always the cyclo-cross season, which requires much the same indifference, except this time, to sanity. For cyclo-cross is all about riding rough shod bikes through muddy fields until you are head to toe in muck and the whole contraption - usually body and bike together- breaks down.

But for most cyclists November is for sitting down with the latest edition of Cycling Plus, scanning the rehashed articles on winter lighting and reflective clothing - Be seen; Be safe - and the hearty encouragements to keep you riding through the depths of winter - Your Ten Step Guide to Winter Training. November isn’t so much about riding; it’s about cleaning the club trophies and electing the Committee; it’s about old pedants proposing absurd resolutions at the AGM which nobody cares about but lead to a row anyway. Most of all November is a time for winding down and reflecting on the year just gone.

In my case it's been a paradoxical year. I've cycled less than at any time in the last decade and yet I'm probably more involved than ever before. After years of avoidance I joined on the dreaded Committee, organised a packed youth programme and spent the best part of the summer chasing round the country taking my son to races. To keep track of it all I had a colour coded year-planner on the wall of my study; at one time there wasn’t a free weekend all summer.

For my son it was meant to have been a year of transition. The previous year he'd won all but a handful of his races. This year he had moved up a category and was racing against older and more experienced riders. 'We’ll take it easy this year,' I’d said, and see how he gets on. My wife knew better, ‘So you’ll be off every weekend then.' As it turned out we were both wrong.

His first race was in March, it was sheeting hailstones and we huddled in a shelter as he rode round some godforsaken airfield to finish ahead of only a handful of competitors. He found the new category difficult at first but by the early summer he was racing well, getting reasonable results in the national events and riding particularly well on the velodrome. Then in May he broke his jaw, falling off a BMX bike on an evening which was meant to be fun but became, in a single slip, one of the most frightening of my life.

He recovered quickly, but in a way it was a wake up. I realised I was becoming one of those parents who, living vicariously through their children, lose all sense of perspective. We backed off after that, skipping most of the major events. By the last weekend of the season we choose to ride locally rather than trek up to London for the last of the national series.

This year has also been about the riding the track. I realised yesterday that we had made the ninety mile round trip to the velodrome over a hundred times. It’s ridiculous of course. But to watch him, circling the boards with effortless grace, is one of my greatest pleasures