It has been a very lean year in terms of writing. This is the first post I have done since way back in early January, and that was really a retrospective for 2024. So it's with a light heart and a cheery wave that I bid you hello to 2025 from the Mendip Rouleur, just as I'm about to turn tail and scarper into 2026. Perhaps next year will be different, I do have a set of very big plans for the year. But then again my road to now was paved with some good intentions for the last 12 months, and sadly, none of those have come to pass.
That's not to say those plans can not be resurrected at some point in the near future. I had intended to write a series of seven stories, loosely based on some of my ancestors true stories. Part of the preparation involved me wandering around old haunts of Spitalfields, and other places, imaging Huguenot and other ancestors past. The idea was to make them much more interesting that the reality probably was, and get Hollywood scriptwriters interested for a major seven-film deal that would see the next seven generations comfortably into the next couple of centuries.
Not quite true, obviously, I just fancied writing something a bit more interesting than random stories of cycling and work. I thought I might paint a literal picture for each story too, in my own inimitable style. All of this would have been purely for my own creative interest, but who knows, some people might have been interested. Let me know, and I'll get onto Lazarus.
That said, the stories are not going to be written by anyone else, and just as a leaky tap will sometimes fix itself (especially in areas with hard water), so I feel these stories will one day just get written. The longer I leave it the more chance I have of being even more inspired in my painting. The Tate Modern has become a bit of a second London home for me this year, it's a veritable treasure trove for all those people who ask "yes, but is it art?".
Yes it is.
One thing that did get written, though not by me, was a BBC news story about my road crime reporting. It also made local and national news and a load of social media. That was my 15 minutes of very tiny fame, and although the headline was a bit lurid, and the lovely below-the-line comments were predictably vile, overall the piece did a good job of calling for safer roads.
But life as they say, had other plans. Fortunately no major illness or injury this year, although I was too keen when I woke up in the middle of one night in May feeling like someone had hosed the bed down with a few hundred gallons of water. Nor did my mood improve when the Doctor spoke of crackles in the lungs and possible trips for scans and the like. But fortunately the chest infection was sorted within a couple of weeks and didn't interfere with my trip to the Ariege at the beginning of July.
Where it was inordinately hot for a few days. So much so, that the first couple of days' riding was confined to early mornings, before the mid-40s Centigrade temperatures made riding up mountains too uncomfortable. By the end of the week it had cooled to require the use of gilet and arm-warmers coming down in the mist from the Etang de Soulcem climb. Something that had been on my to-do list for over three years since I had contemplated going for a swim in the lake to escape from 2022. For once I am glad that plan didn't work out either.
Nor did illness stop me getting another 110km Dartmoor classic gold medal. It was a filthy day, blowing a gale and wet, so much so that I abandoned the quest for that elusive 100-mile gold, I simply wasn't enjoying it enough to want to make it worthwhile. Life is for the joy, and there will be another day to come.
It's been quite an eventful year in many other ways too. In August I was the victim of a road rage attack, which subsequently ended in the perpetrator admitting guilt and accepting a police caution. Much to my relief really, I really didn't want the hassle of a court case, even as a witness, and the bloke had no previous and admitted he'd acted out of character. Maybe he'd just never been caught before, but everyone deserves a second chance. In my moral maze they do anyway. This photo was taken about an hour before the event, how quickly things can turn? This is the way I'll choose to remember that day from now on.
The Mendip Rouleur family enjoyed a week in Malta in September, which was hot and relaxing, but combining three holidays into the second half of the year made for a long wait to get there, then a bit of added pressure in the back half. Still, the highlight of visiting Cambodia and Vietnam really made it all worth it, for us anyway, I think I'll be apologising to colleagues for some time to come. Either way, it brings home (yet again) how fortunate I am to have been born who I am, when I was, no-one is yet trying to murder me as a matter of policy.
Stewart Lee was funny but not at his best.
I also decided to step down from my role as a Chair of Trustees at Wesport, where I'd been working with Steve Nelson for five amazingly educational (for me) years, and take on a smaller role as a volunteer Trustee at Lifecycle - a charity that uses bikes in many ways to help people. Steve is one of the best leaders I have ever met, and he and the team at Wesport are doing amazing things to promote physical activity. I'm proud I played a very small part in that, and hope I can continue my contribution at Lifecycle.
This is not supposed to be one of those round-robin things, no really. They are all on Instagram these days, or podcasts. I think blogging is a dying medium. But I enjoy the process of tapping it all out, reviewing my pictures, remembering what the year contained. If someone else gets this too, then great. But I'm writing it just for me. I started writing about cycling many years ago, and of course we all know the cliches about cycling as a metaphor. But how about identity?
Maybe, but I'm far from convinced. It's just about keeping up isn't it? With friends, with the weather, and with yourself. So yes then.
Last year I ended up doing the Rapha Festive 500 by accident. Now I know you can not cycle 500km in eight days accidentally, but regular endurance cyclists will know a serendipitous occurrence when they see one, and that was one. This year, well I can say that the "plan" to make 2025 the year with the second greatest distance cycled didn't really enter my thoughts until early November. Randomly looking over my Annual Summary spreadsheet (doesn't everyone have one of these?) I noticed that, two week holiday at the end of November notwithstanding, if I continued cycling to work twice a week, with an added ride at the weekend to boot, I'd make 2025 the biggest year for ten years.
Back in 2015 I rode a staggering (for me) 18 rides of 200km or more, with a further 4 imperial centuries. Add to that a trans-Pyrenean ride, and plenty of commuting, well it all added up to 13,574 km on the bike. As I write this I'm about 1500 km short of that for this year, but given the downward trend of the last few years, it's pleasing to have overtaken some other big years in 2018 (Cent Col) and 2014 (also an Audax-heavy year).
It's all pretty meaningless though, what does it ultimately prove? I'm slower than I was then, do fewer big climbs, and spend much of my life cycling to and from work in Bristol. But it does prove one thing I think, and that has been a recurring theme for much of my life, and I hope will continue to do so for quite a while longer.
I just keep going.
You can throw stuff at me - Brachial neuritis, knee injuries, or more psychological stuff like crises of mood or confidence - but I (so far) have always refused to let these things stop me forever. I did some of the best work of my professional life too this year, and although it's small beer by comparison to others, it reinforces my belief that I will not let the advance of decrepitude define me. One day I will be forced to give in and hang the bike up on the big rack up in the sky. Until then, I'll just keep trundling on in my own plodding way.
Which brings me to forty. Or more precisely, "sing this with me this is 40".
2026 represents another anniversary. Forty years since I started work, earned my own living and paid my taxes. Whilst I do not have forty paintings in my head, I very definitely have forty stories I'd like to write. I just have to figure out a way to tell them without getting sued.
Let's hope I finally get round to writing them this time. I have been asking my new friend a lot of existential questions recently. How to get the cover off a boiler, the effect of statins on HbA1C and the violent crime demographics in the UK. But last week I asked "what is my life for?" and got a surprisingly insightful answer. No, I'm not going to share it, that is definitely just for me. But the word my friend suggested that best summed up 2025 for me was also very close to the mark.
Pivotal, a year where your work, influence, and direction noticeably shifted - and set up what comes next.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
