Easy for you to say

Cycling and aggression seem to go hand in hand in the UK these days. I ride to work about once a week, and it's a rare commute that does not involve someone driving aggressively around me, or more usually casting some casual abuse in my direction.

But occasionally some interactions with the motoring public almost defy description and analysis. These was one, last Friday, that left me more befuddled than annoyed, and for once, there was no outright aggression. This time it was wrapped in a not-so-invisible cloak of passivity.

I was riding home from work, through a village called Nailsea. For once I was on a well-lit, quiet street, with few parked cars, two carriageways and (shock) a smooth surface. Topically, and topically, I was ablaze with lights like the proverbial Christmas tree, with lights, reflectives and hi-viz galore about me.

My on-bike Garmin sat-nav was doing glitchy things, so I pulled over into the side of the road, under a lamppost (for illumination), but also to make myself extra visible, to sort it out. The road was residential and quiet (Whiteoak Way if you want to look it up), and quietly fettled. A couple of minutes, and a couple of cars, had passed, before one drew up behind me and honked on her horn. I looked up, saw the whole road was clear, and gestured her to use the empty space on the other side of the road.

She pulled up alongside me, wound down the passenger window, and the conversation went like this.

"When I beeped you, there was a van coming the other way, and I couldn't get through"

"Well it's clear now"

"But I couldn't get through with you there"

"Well just wait then"

"But I have somewhere to be, I need to get somewhere to get to urgently"

"Well, you're wasting more time now talking to me"

"But I'm being very polite"

"Yes, and so am I"

"But someone might run into the back of you"

"I don't see why they should, you didn't! I'm well-lit, in a very visible place, there's plenty of room to pass..."

It was at that point that her time-pressure must have overwhelmed her and she drove off.

This interaction left me perplexed for days, and I chatted it through with a few people, all of whom had interesting perspectives on it. Maybe she'd had a bad day, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe I was looking at the situation differently to her, you'll find a lot of people who will say I should have got onto the pavement, which to be fair I could have done.

But in the end, whether the aggression was active or passive, it was still there, and it came, in my opinion, from a sense of entitlement. As in "this is my road, not yours, you get out of my way". It's something I think we have more and more of in our culture. Not just on the roads, although it's pretty bad there. But in many of our interactions, in shops, workplaces, and most prevalent of all, in our political discourse.

An expectation of our "rights", then drives all kinds of horrible behaviour, whether it be passive-aggressive, shouty trumpeting of self-righteousness, smug gloating about getting one over on others, or outright aggression and violence. All driven from this believe that if my rights are being challenged, someone else should be on the receiving end.

By contrast. Christmas Eve, cycling home (no Chris Rea jokes please), through Dark Lane in Sandford. A car driver patiently waited to pass me where most don't, until the road opened up and the way was clear. The car drove alongside and the window was wound down, and the woman in the passenger seat, exclaimed to me "Merry Christmas". So it is possible. Better.

A new decade is coming next week, my seventh. One that always seemed so far away. I'm not saying I always react in the way I'm preaching about here. But I'm going to do my best to do so from now on. Put me straight please if you see me displaying a sense of that entitlement, and not enough kindness, empathy and understanding. Our roads all lead to the same place and I believe we would be better off if we all realised that a bit more, and turned our paths away from the road we are on now. It's not a nice journey.

Enjoy your road.

 

 

Take me to that other place

I used to laugh at those circulars you get this time of year. The ones that attempt to tell you all about how much better other people's lives are than yours, but don't. What else is a blogger's end of year post but that?

Anyway, in times like these there's no real need for any of that. Most of us are so narcissistic that all of our witty. clever, erudite lives are all over various forms of social media. Believe me, no one is listening. So let me be quite clear, to quote one of our recent clutch of Prime Ministers, I'm doing this for me. Prime Ministers are like West Ham managers. They used to last for ages and now they come along faster than London buses.

I've been ill a lot this year. So fewer (thanks Stannis) kilometres on the bike than for many a year. But what with Everything that has happened around all of that, I'm feeling very optimistic about my cycling for 2020. I think I may have finally have kicked the habit of kilometres for kilometres sake, and the gym work I've been doing seems to be paying real dividends in terms of the metrics.

But. It's still about Joy. It has to be. I have won the lottery of life to be fair. Born at the right time in the right circumstances with a lot to be thankful for. As I'm fond of reminding people, none of us are going to live forever, I've had a pretty good life so far, and the overall quality, if not the elasticity of my face's collagen, seems to be going up.

I know that for many, many people life is tough, unfair, a struggle, sad, depressing, achingly lonely. I count my blessings. I also know that by and large, most people are doing their best to be kind, friendly and decent.

With the demise of Game of Thrones this year, it's hard to find heroes. But we actually don't need them. There is more that unites us than divides us, if you want to be. As a wise woman once said to me, "do you want to make a difference or just a point?"

And if Game of Thrones teaches us anything, it's that Dragons and big armies don't win you love or kingdoms in the end. So as an even wiser woman said to me, "Be Generous", because if you want it to be, every day can be a beautiful one.

Merry Christmas

Progress

For once a story about cycling, which I will get to in a bit. First, some context, which may not seem related, but, well, you know me...

If you are a regular reader you may have noticed I've upped my volume of writing of late. This is partly due to the fact that I am about to change jobs. Next week in fact is the official start date for my new one. With my son finishing his A levels, and other family changes, it has turned into the Mother of all transition periods, and the most recent posts have really been all about those. But this one, well, it will be about cycling.

If you've read this blog before you will know I had whooping cough in the late Winter and early Spring. It was an arse and I didn't really exercise for the best part of two and a bit months. Since I've got back on the bike, I have not ridden anything like the typical mileage I have done in previous years, and have lacked a bit of oomph for all sorts of reasons.

I hadn't factored in just how much fitness and strength I would lose, and I'm still not fully sure how much its caused by the remnants and ravages of the infection, and how much by the absence of work, and lack of application since I came back to the road.

There is one thing in particular that had started to become a bit of a thorn in my psychological side. I have yet to ride over 100 miles in one go this calendar year, something that is even more remarkable given the focus I placed on getting my Edington number up to a 100 a couple of years back. Most recent years I usually have turned in 15-20 century rides, so even more of an impact on my lack of fitness.

I've had a few near misses, a few bail-outs and last Saturday, a broken spoke from Martyn's rear wheel and a shortage of time meant we aborted almost before we got started. As I am in between days, having a week's holiday to break the two jobs apart, this week presented the ideal opportunity to have a crack at it, with no distractions.

More that that, the omens could not have been more heartening. A high-pressure system ushered in a warm spell of weather over the country, slap bang in the middle of my break, and the Tuesday offered up warm, but not unduly hot temperatures, with virtually no wind. More than that, I actually had a destination to get too. THe wildflowers near Stogumber are at the end of their time, and it was now or never for 2019. A round trip there could easily be made into a great century ride, with a bit of challenge of the QUantocks and Brendons thrown in.

To cap it all, it was a rest day on the Tour, I had little else to distract me, and I knew the weather would not last the week. It simply had to be done. And done on my own, with no distractions, much as I love cycling with my mates I could do this at my own pace, without worrying about when or for how long I stopped.

So 0830 I was off, down the hill towards the hills. But before I could get to them, I had to navigate the early morning traffic of the A38. And outside one or two schools, and a certain amount of grumpiness. But once that was out of the way, I bumbled along back lanes of the levels, weaving around to make the miles up and heading for my favourite cycle path. The one that takes you under the A39 to Bawdrip. I don't know why I love it so much, but on Tuesday it was especially lovely. As were the cheerful dog-walkers and others I passed on my way.

Bawdrip cycle path

The one downside of the ride (two if you count the return journey) was having to navigate Bridgwater. I tried to find away through a different part of town, but got lost, and ended up on the A39 anyway, so that didn't work. But once out into the country, the day continued on its lovely way. With one exception. The lorries. The Cannington area has become a route to one of the largest construction sites in Europe at the moment. It's a source on never-ending bemusement to me as a cyclist that we are building another nuclear power plant. I've just watched the series "Chernobyl", I know it was a drama, but it didn't exactly end well. As someone who knows how many headwinds we have out on the levels, surely wind turbines would be better?

After a quick diversion for the picture above (taken from afar), I had to get back on the main road to cross the Quantocks. I elected to take the easier but busier route through St Audries, but this did mean putting up with the traffic. There are a couple of steep bits, but I was generally able to keep up a good speed, especially on the downhills, so what is it that makes all those people overtake me, despite the solid double white lines on that stretch? There must have been about 3 near misses where impatience nearly caused an RTC with the oncoming.

Section 129 of the Highway code if you're interested. Backed up by Road traffic act 1988 section 36 and TSRGD regulations 10 & 26. You can quote me!

After a quite stop for a snack, in the very pleasant churchyard at Williton, it was onto Washford and onto the climb up to the wildflowers. You can read all about the fundraising here.

I could have stayed there all day, but contented myself with a brief rest after the climb, some snaps and taking in the marvellous views. The flowers will be back I'm sure next year. But until then, here's a sample of some of my pictures.



 

 



Lunchtime was now approaching so I pushed on down the undulating road to Wiviliscombe, which is an interesting place. You'll have to go there yourself to find out what I mean. I contented myself with a sandwich and drink from the Co-op, eaten on a bench in the small square, let's just say all the usual characters were on show!

 

After that it was on down to the base of the Quantocks at Bishop's Lydeard, before skirting around to Kingston St Mary and up the delightful valley and climb to the Pines café. Where for once, I received a friendly welcome and some much needed fluids. By now it was getting quite hot and I was tiring as well as very, very thirsty.

 

View from the Pines

 

A quick scoot down Enmore, through THAT place again, and back up the Bawdrip path. It was now seriously hot and I'd run out of water, so I headed for Wedmore to take advantage of the village shop, and my last stop of the day, for an ice cream! Only seven miles home and I'd done it. My first century of 2019!

 

So now my time of transition is at an end. I even have a plan. For getting fit I mean, the work plan will be done on Sunday night (only joking, really). Of course, this blog only ever uses cycling as a device to give me an outlet to get stuff out of my head so that I can move on. Which I am fully intending to do, there are lots of very exciting times coming along. I feel this week I have used one of my core competences to slay a growing monster.

 

A bit dramatic? Yes.

 

An exaggeration? Naturally, you wouldn't expect anything else.

 

But to all the pretenders and blaggers out there, the would-be tyrants and despots, remember this. I am not going gently into the night, and I never, ever, ever, give up.

 

Was this about cycling? You decide.



There is a light

Back in September 2018 I wrote this. It was superficially about cycling. But of course, as a friend said to me this week, my blog posts are full of coded messages and hidden meanings.

Mostly directed at, and hidden from, myself.

But it turns out my prediction was right. Something bigger has come along. My brilliant job in a great organisation turned out to have less lustre and grace than I realised, and a new professional challenge has come along to tempt me away. Before you ask, yes, a gold guitar is involved, as well as bright lights right in front of me. But as it turns out, I've been waiting to get home a long time.

Whisper this very, very quietly, I've found a friend to lend a hand to in return for grace. So I'm not letting it get away. Even if that doesn't ring true. So I'm off to pastures new.

Always the second chorus. Because I'm not a hopeless case.

I told a few of my cycling friends I was changing jobs, and told them it was for a fresh challenge. One, a Scouser obviously, said "what the bloody hell do you want to do that for?". Empathic lot.

It will be a wrench to leave behind so many great colleagues, but in this day and age you are only an insta or tweet away. You can't hold onto every little thing so tightly. In any case, my new base is about four minutes from my old one. So we have no excuses, if you don't keep in touch it's because you didn't want it that much anyway.

It's a new job, almost invented for me, so I'm packing a suitcase for somewhere none of us has ever been. It has been a wonderful eight years. But I've got to leave it behind.

Someone at my current place mentioned that it was the end of an era. Which is troubling. Sounds like someone old is now past it. Which is definitely not true.  That said, big and fragile as my ego is, not even I'm irreplaceable. No, I mean it.

Coming up in September I'm off to Bretagne to cycle a few byways with Monmarduman himself. Taking the ferry again, with the ship that stole my heart away. Overnight, in the darkness. On the cycling front it's been a quiet and somewhat frustrating year. But I have embers glowing for 2020, ready to turn into a conflagration. If you think you're done, you've just begun.

 

Because there is a light, don't let it go out

 

.

When fact is fiction, and TV reality

Last weekend I went to Ireland. Aside from being a witness to a spectacular road collision, in which thankfully no-one was seriously injured, I had a great time. The main reason for the visit was a family wedding, the ceremony at a church in Derry, followed by a reception at a venue on the shores of Lough Earne in Fermanagh.

Lough Earne

I've been to Ireland many times since I met Mrs Mendip Rouleur in 1994. Back then she wasn't Mrs Mendip Rouleur of course, she was Miss Sperrin Grimpeur. Just after we met the Provos declared their first ceasefire, and shortly after my first visit to Derry they revoked it. I don't think the events were connected but you never know.

Incidentally I once cycled in the Sperrins, this was long after the Good Friday Agreement, when all that bother seemed like it was well and truly behind us. After turning into the hills at Strabane I cycled back to Derry and passed through the Protestant enclave of New Buildings (it's a small inconsequential place on the road to Strabane). Whilst Strabane had its murals to Republican martyrs, New Buildings had its red, white and blue kerbstones. What struck me then was how faded and chipped the paint was on both the gable-end faces, and the pavement ornamentation.

It was more than a metaphor. I felt safe, there was even a bridge built across the Foyle to the Waterside. The Peace Bridge.

Last weekend I drove part of that route again. New Buildings not only has freshly-painted kerbstones, it also has more flags than a dodgy Strava segment. Union flags, Red-hand flags, and one we had to google because none of us had seen it before - the Orange order flag. Lamposts are bedecked with the things, all new.

It's not just there either, there were Irish tricolours in some villages or estates, cheek by jowl with more Loyalist regalia in neighbouring streets. There was also an undercurrent that I had not encountered, a certain nervousness amongst the older members of the family. I chatted to a few and that fear is real, they know that the extremists are gearing up their preparations.

On both sides.

Of course to English people this is all still alien, intangible, historic. Maybe so. But don't be taken in by those that would try and brush all this sectarian stuff under a carpet of ideological purity, and dismiss fears of a new hard border as "Project Fear". The fear is real, because there always have been, and still are, people in Ireland prepared to kill, and to die, for what they believe in.

And do not dismiss them as mindless, fanatic or otherwise. They may not be the most compassionate, or the brightest light-bulbs in the pack, but they hold their beliefs as sincerely as you do. I say this, not to excuse the threat of violence, but to help you understand that this type of thinking is different to yours.

How long?

As ever, what is to be done? I don't pretend to have answers, but this I know. As ever, complex problems are not solved by simplistic solutions or slogans. For people to make and keep peace, they have to engage with each other, and understand their enemy is human too.

Not today

 

If you have ever read any of my posts before you will know that this is a blog that uses cycling to lure you in, then bombards you with stuff that these days bears little resemblance to my original metier. The central message of this blog is that Death is the enemy. I was with both of my parents when they each took their last breath and both were profound experiences.

Even if you are Beric Dondarrion you die eventually. Britain's oldest person died this week, 112 apparently. See, no one is immune. But in the west, (I don't mean Somerset, or even Cornwall, you know what I mean), no-one likes to talk about the inevitability of our ending. Uncertain in timing and form it may be, but the God of Death is coming for you all.

This Sunday is designated Father's Day in the UK. An excuse to sell stuff of course, cards and cycling kit mainly. I chose mine a couple of weeks ago at the Rapha outlet store, I know it takes the surprise away, but it's more convenient and everyone is happier. Anyway, I insisted it be hidden away until the anointed time.

But commercialism aside, there is a nice side to honouring your father if you can. My Dad and I had a complicated relationship. I'm told he was intensely proud of me, but he never told me, strangely he told my wife that he was. He drank a lot. No, a lot, like you can't imagine. And yet he seemed so sober most of the time.

I remember lots of stuff all maudlin and sentimental, that believe me, you don't want to read. He was capable of great acts of kindness and charity, and also capable of some pretty nasty behaviour too. He was compulsive, I'm a watered-down version of that, he could be incredibly generous, and also worry intensely about money.

In other words, he was a human being. He helped shape my politics. Of course I argued and railed against him when I was a teenager, but I'm probably quite similar to him politically. He loathed small-mindedness of the Daily Mail variety, we agreed on that. And he hated petty incompetence. Sound familiar? Loved football too, took me to West Ham when I was seven, which I do genuinely thank him for. It's also unfashionable to appreciate it, but he provided for me, his family, through love and a strong sense of duty and obligation.

But family life was difficult, although I only realised that many years later. As a kid, I thought it was all normal, I guess everyone does. We had our ups and downs, I didn't really talk to him for about ten years, but we became close later on.

But of course he died, and although the edge has gone from the grief by now, and we had made a kind of peace by the time he died, some of the emotional impact of that complicated relationship sometimes returns to mess with my psyche. Sometimes consciously and obviously, at other points it's a more insidious and unconscious thing. That said, all of that stuff did help me to be quite resilient and good at bouncing back from tough stuff. I hope it also gave me some empathy and compassion, but you can be the judge of that.

But I think I've had enough of it now. I won't forget, but that clock is ticking, and I want to feel the rest of my life is not constrained by its past. Because one day I'll be just dust, or ashes or some such, and all this stuff will have stopped me from living.  No, really living.

Next week Steep End Down and I are off to Dartmoor for the annual classic. All thoughts of fast times are gone, my cycling form and weight are both far too poor for that, but it is an excuse to enjoy ourselves. There is no better place in England to cycle than Devon. Then in two weeks' time The Mendip Rouleur family are going to a wedding in Fermanagh, and they don't come much more fun than that. Dancing will be done. I promise.

 

Then a week later comes the ultimate in leaving do entertainment. A new chapter in my professional life is about to open. Much as I've enjoyed the last one, this one is going to be much, much better. So on 4th July, in Bristol, there will be fireworks. Wild hysterical laughter will be compulsory. Because, for now, what do we say?

Come in, come out of the rain

One day in November 1983 I arrived back from my day in the Biochemistry lab at University, to the fourth floor of a Gothic Victorian monstrosity of a mansion. As usual. It was about six weeks after I had finally escaped the battlefield of emotional confrontation and turmoil that constituted my parents house. AKA my home.

I was revelling in the freedom. The alcohol. My new-found friends. The academic stuff was unfortunate, but it was a price that was well worth paying for the freedom. That day, although I didn't know it at the time, was different.

As I pushed the swinging double doors of the corridor open and walked down the threadbare carpet, a single note hit me. Then it hit me again. And again. And again. Hundreds of times. Actually, by the time my Hall of Residence neighbour finally stopped playing it, sometime in February 1984, I probably had heard that single D-note, millions of times. He played that record over and over, every nights for months. At the time it drove me, and all the other residents of the corridor, fucking nuts. He was not playing it quietly either.

But now, nearly 36 years later, I realise what a great experience that was. I do like Simple Minds of course. They are in my top 20 bands probably. I especially like "Waterfront". There may be better songs on New Gold Dream, but it's up there. But I don't love this story for what it tells us about music.

For that day, even though I only realised it many years later, I was finally free. I could do what the fuck I wanted, and as long as I did no harm, no one could stop me. Don't expect this to be a complex Millsian treatise on liberty, I'll leave that to others, and anyway it's been done. Nor was the rest of my life plain sailing. But it all started there.

And the live version is brilliant.

We all need beginnings. All the time. Over and over. Maybe it's just me. Sometimes we need events that are traumatic and shit to really show us how the future is going to be better. Because if you approach it with the belief that you will persist, that you have a small number of genuine people in your life, and that things can and do get better. It is always OK. A new chapter will always open, and it will be better than the last one.

And I like to think I looked a bit like Charlie Burchill.

How do you solve a problem like Arnie?

This blog is of course all about cycling. Really. Anyway, today, for a change I'm going to give you a short post about something else.

Marko Arnautović is currently a West Ham player. Not that you'd know it. As I write the teams for tonight's capitulation to Salford United have been announced. He's not even on the bench. He has some kind of sick bug apparently. Yeah, right.

Since his abortive move to China in the last transfer window he's barely featured for us, scored no goals, sulked a lot and generally been out of sorts. His form has mirrored that of the team to an extent, only occasionally turning up, putting in minimal effort, and getting very mediocre results for such a talented squad. Were it not for the excellent form of our player-of-the-season goalkeeper, Łukasz Fabiański we would be facing a decidedly tense end to the season.

As it is, we will finish in the middle of the table somewhere, in an underwhelming finish that splutters over the line. Last year Marko was without doubt superb, smashing in the goals, leading the line and harrying opposing defences mercilessly. The club was offered £35 million to sell him in January, and he was reportedly keen to go for a huge uplift in salary. My neighbour at the taxpayer-funded London Stadium tells me that there is a rumour Marko has a gambling debts problem and desperately needed the cash that the move would bring him.

But we didn't sell him, and he apparently signed an unspecified contract extension. Therein lies the dilemma. A great player when he can be bothered, when he's fired up and motivated, and you might say that a good manager could get the best of him. A lot of fans want him to stay, our attack looks pretty toothless without him, and strikers of his ability are hard to come by. Perhaps he can be re-energised over the Summer and persuaded to stay.

But I'd say that at that level, his motivation has to come from within, he needs to want it. China may have given him the cash, but I doubt he would have given of his best. No, he needs a move.

For a move to be successful, he's got to know what is in it for him, respect and admire his manager, and really be up for the challenge. The club and fans may be sorry to see him go, but they will be well-rid of him in the Summer, for go he will. This form is part of a pattern, and we should have spotted it when we bought him, for he does this kind of thing a lot.



I just hope he can find a challenge that motivates him, and he finds some kind of inner peace. Preferably in another country, otherwise the next time we see him will be bearing down on our goal and smashing the ball into the top corner after leaving the defence for dead.

As ever then, self-awareness, that's the key to it all. Unfortunately Arnie has very little of that. I do however know a good Coach/Counsellor, now that would be a worthwhile challenge...

Something else

"Is it true I'm an eagle? Is it true I can spread my wings?"

Is there a better country that Sweden?  Successfully managed the transition from berserk blood-soaked conquest and pillage, accompanied by rabid Protestantism into peace-loving, militarily-neutral social democracy and a liberal approach to love, peace and something else. And general acceptance of beards.

When I was a kid I used to get a lot of enforced bed-rest every time I got a cold, it triggered asthma that used to last for a couple of weeks. Before I discovered The Clash, Boomtown Rats, U2, XTC and a whole load of other credibility (spiky hair, leather jacket etc.) I still enjoyed simple pleasures. Riding my bike for fun, and jumpers for goalposts. and listening to Abba.

How was I to know that life would come full circle? For it turns out that the Mendip Rouleur family have somehow managed to acquire whooping cough. Unfortunately the only vigorous exercise I'm allowed to do, well actually capable of doing, is walking out to my car and driving to work.

I am grounded. For an unspecified indeterminate period.  Never mind flying like an eagle, I can't even stumble like a partridge (Alan or Andy). In a way it may turn out to be a blessing. I haven't watched as much TV for years, and I get to watch every bit of the Brexitshambles unfolding in front of my disbelieving eyes. Lucky me.

But I have also dived deeply into YouTube, surfing from Larkin Poe to Jimmy Page, from Taylor Swift to No Doubt, and from Joe Strummer to The Dead South, and of course from Bono to Agnetha Fältskog.  I still can't even grow a beard.

I'm all over politics. I'm all over work. And I'm all over music. Sort of.

But the bike, well it'll have to wait.

When we dance in the light

There are quite a few people alive today who not only can't remember a world before the internet, they also think there was no football before the Premier League. It's as if the world started in 1992. What? Yes of course it's a metaphor, I don't deal in anything else. Come here, get big picture, other blogs are available.

My cycling this year has been rubbish, well not rubbish exactly, but sub-optimal. I've been ill, with varying degrees of severity, in the respiratory department since 9th January. For three weeks, my bike languished unloved and without use in its high-security steel shed. Even without these latest setbacks and indignities 2019 was going to be hard. When you've been to the top of the world, it's quite tough to scale new heights. Whatever new people think.

I've been here before, in 2008 after quite a few years of mountain biking, I felt I'd taken that oeuvre as far as I could.

Likewise my stand-up comedy persona. Even if no-one really knew I was doing it. And you thought it was real. No one could really be that grumpy in real life. Or that clever. 

So I switched to the road. What a long road it has been too. It didn't necessarily take me to where I thought it would, but I have enjoyed the ride. And my achievements, albeit downplayed, have been remarkable. And there have definitely been so many good people along the way, as well as a few trying to knock my block off. But it's time for another change, and quite a few people could be annoyed if I do. But the angels won't.

But it was always about changing the world. Of course. And when the road is no longer steep enough, or just a mild false flat into a headwind,  and people who know nothing of the 1980s belittle those achievements, it's time to look for a new country to ride in. I don't know where that country is, but I'm sure there will be plenty of options. If I can't ride or run, I'll just walk, because the spirit is in the house.

So big question for this weekend, to take to the road or not, despite the frequent coughing and wheezing from within and the rain and wind from without. But just as the life inside my head belongs to me, so the road belongs to us all. We are all on it, even if some of you are trying to run me over. You just don't realise. But little by little you will.

Here I go then. New goals time.

 

And if you don't understand this, well, you need to stop talking and be quiet. It's all right in front of you, you just need to listen.