Cycling week 49

Cycling Week sputters along in fits and starts.

What can I say? Cycling Week fell over. It fell over good and proper. I have still been on the bike, getting in people’s ways and feeling my feelings as usual, but I’ve been struggling to put down words about my rides – most of which have been decidedly not that good. At one point I emailed (a polite email! I think) a company whose truck passed me closely, and I got kind of an angry email in return, and somehow that depressed me and I lost energy for thinking about cycling at all. Anyway, look. In an effort to break out of my crazy-eyed tunnel vision of this time of year, I tried to notice some things about this week’s very ordinary bike rides.

Monday

The morning ride. A blustery sunny morning with blackbirds swooping low over the road. Sudden horror: rode over a huge dead rat. It was on a blind corner when I was going uphill, and it was too late to swerve, so I had no choice. The rat was flat but fresh, and in the split second of riding over it my experience of the morning ride broke into two distinct parts: before rat, after rat. Before rat: hopeful, energetic, a little nervous about the week ahead but determined. After rat: fearful, weary, newly alert to pain in the world. To be clear, the rat was big.

On the ride home – greyish, warmish afternoon – I passed a boy on a bike with a loud squeaky chain. A squeaky chain is a sad noise. It’s one of the few things on a bike that is very easy to remedy – even I can do it – and that provides instant gratification for you and the bike.

This felt like a hard ride. I was feeling deeply frazzled and this always makes riding feel harder, or increases my rate of perceived exertion, as the kids say. I had to hop off and take two trips – first bike, then pannier – to squeeze past a truck that was parked on a narrow bit of road.

Tuesday

The morning ride. Grey and rain-spattered. I confess I did the fingers to a close-passing car on Raroa Rd. Was immediately disappointed with myself. I’d thought I’d been getting better in the last few days about keeping a handle on my rage, but sometimes the handle just flies right off and your arm goes with it.

Going fast downhill on Glasgow, a little car sped past to overtake and then pulled left without indicating. Grumpiness increasing.

In the afternoon I rode into town – scary red light runners on Karo Drive, like clowns cartwheeling across a stage – and then rode up the eternal hill to get home and get back to the second eternal hill: my manuscript reading. My chain leaped off its sprocket on Mt Pleasant and it was nice to have a rest for a moment while putting it back on.

Wednesday

I’ll just come out and say it: I woke up from a dream in which I was riding my bike in my undies. I was going uphill, and trying to ride along confidently to trick people into thinking I was wearing some kind of sporty get-up instead of undies. But I knew, and everyone else knew, that these were straightforwardly undies. What interests me about this dream is: why wasn’t I just completely nude? Why did my mind say: ‘She needs to be made anxious by this dream, but not TOO anxious – let’s put her in undies, at least.’

Today was a four-ride fully-clothed day. It was a work at home day, but I rode into town to work in a cafe for a while and rode back at lunchtime, and then at the end of the day I rode to the university for a book event. The ride home, at first a minor slog, suddenly opened out into a good ride. A good ride! The roads felt quieter and the air was soft. On Highbury Rd I heard a saddleback doing its loud chattery beeping noise from a tree and I stopped to see if I could see it, but I couldn’t. I nearly always find it hard to spot a tīeke, even though their call is so insistent. I think they must do this on purpose.

Two tīeke rummaging around. Saw these two while out for a run around Clinical.

Thursday

Non-bike-related: Started the day with an early-morning run/plod around Clinical, no one else out, sun plinking through the trees. I’ve been trying, very slowly, to get back into the running, with a max of two runs a week – I miss running more than that, and in terms of head-clearing power, nothing comes close – but my cranky leg always starts up when I push it, and after much trial and error, many physiotherapists and acupuncturists and massage therapists, and endless rolling and stretching and mobility work, I’ve learned that I simply cannot reason with this leg. This leg is my dark matter. Where did it come from? Where is it going? How do we study it? Does it even exist? Is the bad leg the secret to solidifying the standard model of particle physics? Will understanding the bad leg fundamentally alter how we view and understand the world around us?

Rode to work. Had to hop off at speed and scramble onto the footpath to let a bus coming up the other way go past. Did the wave and nod, and but no wave and nod were forthcoming in return. But fair enough. Driving a bus in Highbury must be stressful enough without factoring in waves and nods.

Rode home at lunchtime to continue my work. This was one of those teeth-gritted rides, but I did see a good dog – a large black Lab – waddling along behind its owner.

Friday

Pumped up my tyres. Have been making an effort to do this weekly, and it really does make a difference to comfort levels on the road.

Jerry came for a walk to the top of the hill this morning –

– then I set off for a fast morning ride, pannier heaving.

Rode home in the afternoon to continue my work. I’ve been experimenting with a new mindset for going up hills, and all it is, is telling myself when at the mid point of a long hill: ‘You’re practically home!’ Sometimes this helps, and sometimes I get into an argument with myself. ‘You idiot. There’s still miles to go,’ etc.. Both of me has a point on this.

Haven’t managed a big ride in ages. Resolved to get out and do one this coming week – probably just a golf ball ride, because quiet roads are needed, and the golf ball ride is a manageable length of ride to fit into a day if you start work early and finish later. Speaking of the golf ball: on Friday night, talking to some cyclist poets, I heard tell that a windsock recently appeared up there near the radome. This was very exciting news and I was sad that I hadn’t had a chance to see it, because apparently the windsock has now disappeared, and all that remains is the pole from which it once flapped. What happened to the windsock? Why did it appear, and who took it away – and why did they take it away? And how? Or was it simply that the windsock wasn’t properly attached to the pole, and a strong wind took it?

No choice but to pedal on into the unknown.