Category: Cycling

Argos and an east wind

For some members of the older generation, cycling is one of those things like Marmite and Lyle’s Golden Syrup, that hasn’t changed in a lifetime.

You can forget your garish lycra, your fancy Pinarellos and your Eddie Merckx racing bikes, your knobbly tyres and your crud-catchers and your twenty-one gears and £150 lights sets for scorching secret trails in the dark.

You can also forget your tricksy BMX bikes and your iconic Moultons and Pashleys.

Many of the older generation stoically make their way to work come rain or shine on a bog-standard, sit-up-and-beg bikes which are simply the means of getting from A to B cheaply. Continue reading “Argos and an east wind”

The rare Aegean sea pasty and curious creatures of the not-very-deep.

The guy had been to Sharm el-Sheikh. Red Sea. World-renowed diving site. But he didn’t go diving. So I had to ask why.

“I did a bit of snorkelling that’s all. I don’t really like the sea. It’s such an alien environment. It’s best left to the creatures who are designed for it.”

Seemed a terrible waste of one of the world’s best diving locations but yup, the sea is an alien environment, which is precisely why it’s endlessly fascinating. I can’t go into space, I can rarely go into the sky, I can’t climb mountains but the sea is always there. In the sea, you can feel like an explorer in a largely unknown world. Continue reading “The rare Aegean sea pasty and curious creatures of the not-very-deep.”

Pedal(o) power

You’ll no doubt feel completely indifferent to the news that my pedalo blister has almost gone.

Its arrival was unexpected and quite painful.   I was just getting over another injury (thrown by wave against coral-covered rock of St Nicholas Island causing v painful weals on thigh) when it I got the foot pain. I binned a pair of sandals thinking they were responsible, then discovered the cause was actually a squash ball-sized blister on the ball of one foot.

When you think about it, I suppose it was inevitable, really;   two cyclists on holiday without bikes. Continue reading “Pedal(o) power”

A cracking time

You know how it is when you come back from having a couple of days away, people are interested. They ask you where you went. If you had a good time.

When I told them we’d been to Weymouth for a surprise weekend, the reaction was generally that of masked disappointment with the subtext “Oh. ..so he only took you to Weymouth..hmm…that’s a bit crap.”

It’s as though they were hoping for Cornwall, or Brittany or Bali. Actually they were really hoping I’d been somewhere they had visited, of which they have fond memories; a cloudless summer, a fabulous beach, maybe a Kirrin Island look-alike that they could swim to at low tide.

Instead of all that, they said “Yeah. I remember going there as a kid with mum and dad, year after year. Have they still got the trampolines?”

They didn’t say “It was wonderful.” or “It was really good.” Their unsaid words indicated there weren’t too many happy memories. Caravan holidays, no doubt. Continue reading “A cracking time”

Ferry good cider

I’m not very imaginative with my cycle rides – at least, the ones from home that I fit in before or after work during the week.

They are all within the same fifteen mile radius with innumerable variations; some off-road, some on road, some circular, some there-and-backs, some figures of eight, some routes reminiscent of tangled knitting wool, some no-hands practice, some  little hills several times. Continue reading “Ferry good cider”

So very very green…

You know how it is when you’re returning to Blighty having been abroad somewhere hot on holiday?

You’ve had a week or two of sand, sea, parched-looking potato fields (I’m thinking Cyprus) and dusty tracks and you’re gawping out of the little window of the aircraft at beautiful Britain laid out below and feeling inordinately fond of it with it’s patchwork fields and lakes and stuff and as the plane descends for the landing you can’t believe just how very green it all is?

Well it was like that today when we were cycling in the Forest of Dean. I kept saying, inanely “I can’t believe how GREEN everything is! Just look at the green. No, but seriously, it’s really REALLY green. Beeoooootiful and green.”

Well DT man can only put up with so much of that stuff and eventually dropped behind me so that he was out of earshot. But I didn’t care. I just kept thinking it anyway. This time of year is the most spectacular time – when all the young leaves and fresh ad vibrant with colour, the big soft foxglove leaves are out and the bluebells have pushed up and are a haze of subtle blue with buds coloured up and waiting to burst open. Continue reading “So very very green…”

Sport

There is a part of the game of cricket that many foreigners don’t get, even people from other cricket mad countries. When I lived in America, Indians would try to taunt me about the latest defeat for England, but for me cricket always meant sitting in a deckchair at a village game, slightly disorientated from the alcohol and unable to get out of the chair except by slowly toppling over sideways and collapsing in a heap on the grass. Sometimes something would happen on the field and an uncertain applause would trickle around the edge of the green as the spectators tried to figure out what had transpired.
Continue reading “Sport”

Mud, mud, glorious mud….

I got caught in a bog yesterday on the bike.

I thought it was just a bit of soft ground but it was genuine pedal-stopping,  smelly bog.  For a couple of seconds, I was balanced there stationary, thinking  “Bugger.  This hasn’t happened for years!”  before gloop – one foot went deep down into the soft stuff above the ankle.

There are some things you can ride through and some things you can’t.

I haven’t encountered unrideable territory for some time.  I blame the expedition leader, Bob,  who was determined to go off-piste to stop me and my pal V.  slacking and chatting.  He was successful in that, at least.

CB’s pic of the bridge with the mud pool underneath it reminded me how things used to be in the Forest of Dean, before they constructed the cycle trails and invited the world and his wife and kids to come and cycle there. Continue reading “Mud, mud, glorious mud….”