Bristol, Wells, Cheddar, Axbridge, Glastonbury, Wells, Chew Stoke, Bristol

This weekend I took advantage of Karin's trip to London and Simon-next-door's offer, and cycled to Cheddar; camped overnight and then cycled back.

Having a titanium bike doesn't lend itself easily to steady riding and so true to form I pushed at a decent lick across the Chew valley lakes towards Litton.  With a windless day offering a calm and warm atmosphere, it was a sustained pleasure to ride in an area I didn't know very well.  There were very few cars and as I travelled past cottages and stockbroker-belt mansions with olive-painted doors and green oak timbered car ports, all I heard to break up the natural calm was the occasional lawn mower.

Past William Waldegrave's demesne, including the Waldegrave Arms pub, and up the hill toward Priddy.  I cut off the main road to Stockhill and the Old Mineries, a smooth tail-flow giving me a gliding impetus.
The sun seems to like the Mineries and this sheltered curve in the road was warm with bird song and the must of elderberries.  Blackberries and elderberries alike were providing an autumnal olfactory haze that attracted insects of all kinds. I rode past beech trees, crushing their burrs on the road with heavy-lidded crunches.

Old Bristol Road leading into Wells must be one of the great descents in this area; a good two miles of winding road that threatened to drag the rider out of their margin of safety.  I hurtled down at a speed I was grateful for not knowing, held up at one corner by a nervy jam of three cars and two other cyclists; I nipped through a rather small gap and left them to it.

Into Wells - it was packed. It was market day and the locals jostled with the tourists for all the space on the road as well as the pavement.  I wove through the crowds and freewheeled into the space around the Cathedral.  A stretch-out and 9-bar on a bench, and the world was pretty good.

Karin and I like to go to Wells; the cathedral has a worn-away age about it and the town still retains some resistance to cosmopolitan modernism.  Medieval buildings jostle with branches of Boots and WH Smiths and I half expected to see a black-fronted Woolworths with glass windows reflecting out onto the street like a ghostly childhood retail opportunity.  We thought about moving there some time ago but the only houses that seemed to be up for sale were scabby concrete boxes or leafy treats that were out of our range.  Well, I don't want them if they don't want me.

I sat and thought about how Karin's illness has re-ignited an interest for both of us in visiting churches and the like to soak up the reflective calm; inhaling motes in the air like ethereal soup.  We have experienced some life-defining moments in places like this recently, with the redolence hanging around us like sandalwood for days afterward.  No religious message, just the availability of introspection sitting against age.

Sitting in such an established placed wearing lycra seemed very wrong - I nudged over the cobbles and left everybody to it.

Cycling: three types

One of the things I love about cycling is the huge number of forms it takes.  Utilitarianism or bourgeois sportiness, the two wheels offer a wonderful variety of interpretations.

This last Saturday I went out for a testosterone-fueled burn with the local triathlon club.  We shot down to Chew Valley lake with the speed often sustaining a good 24mph; glad to say I was at the front most of the time and can take credit for at least some of the race-like attitude.  Cars seemed in a bad mood as we were beeped and sworn at repeatedly despite our generally good road behaviour.

We eased off towards Ubley and bowled along, willing the sun to come out.  The Mendips were shrouded with cloud which added weight to our rather pathetic refusal of the monster hill at Blagdon due to one of the group needing to go home early.  However, my competitive interests were given an outlet by our choice of finishing the ride up Brockley Combe, a 2 mile slide up toward the Bristol Airport.  I like Brockley Combe as the road surface is good and the gradient allows for a good pace - you could almost ride up in the big ring.  I was joined at the front by another rider who was benefitting from more youth than me, and we steadily cranked up the speed until both of us were flat out leaving the other four out of sight down the road.  We pulled in at the top and after a minute of discomfort and oxygen debt had recovered enough to pull the group back to Bristol.  Truly a muscular thump of a ride.

In the afternoon (after I had showered and had lunch plus of course two mugs of tea), Karin and I took the tandem into Southville to buy veggies.  We floated along at a very sedentary pace, crunching crack-dry beech nuts under the tyres and watching the wheeling of birds in the sun-touched air.  Nudging past football supporters taking their beer bellies to watch someone else run around we parked in North Street and headed for the lovely greengrocers; packed with seasonal veg, middle-class women, and stray apostrophes lurking on every label.  The journey home was even slower as the utilitarian nature of the errand set the level of athleticism.  Who cares; we saved the petrol, got some exercise, enjoyed each others company, felt smug.

This evening I took my usual route to yoga, over Ashton Court on my cyclo-cross bike.  The journey there was the usual slightly panicky scuttle up the hill followed by an urban trot to ensure a timely arrival.
The return was cool and redolent. I pinged up the hill while the sky dropped its tone to a hovering deep blueness. Echoes of the yoga class lent a calm interpretation to the journey.
 The dusty gravel threatened wheels with loss of control, and occasionally I moved over to the grass in the hope that it was a smoother ride only to reutrn to the gravel - bumpy but quick.  Funny to think the Parkrun races go up here every Saturday; runners edging round the larger potholes.  However, the sky provided the big note this evening as I climbed up to the old festival field, with a wide expanse of clarity dominating the odd wisp of cloud.  I really needed my lights on but prefered to ride in the dark, my lack of vision causing me to drop into unseen bowls of dried up puddles rather than skirting round them.
On the top it was really quite cool and the evening gently excised the warmth I had built up during the yoga leaving me on the edge of chilliness.  Out onto the road, lights on and a dramatic chute down Providence lane and home; mentally noting that this could be the last evening ride without a night jacket.