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

 

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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.