It was the second to last week of 2023, and I just kept on riding, except for when I caught a bus.
Monday
Rode to work in gusty grey winds. Legs feeble, brain like pile of leaves (alternately whirling in the air and lying in a dingy heap). Was wearing a skirt that wasn’t ideal to ride in but that was somehow enjoyable too – on the downhills I liked the feeling of it billowing around like an exhaust fume, and on the uphills it was easy enough to keep under control.
After work I rode into town for necessary beers. On the ride home, twilight-ish, zooming past a bus stop, I saw that my bus was on the way and – emboldened by 2.5 beers – decided to catch it.
I’ve used the bike racks on buses a couple of times before, to and from Paraparaumu when I was house-sitting and the train was cancelled. But I’d pretty much forgotten how to do it and I’ve always feared holding other people up, due to my ineptness at anything involving levers, springs, ‘arms’ or brackets. But this time I realised: what’s the worst that can happen, other than somehow getting my entire body caught in the mechanism and requiring a team of firefighters to free me?
Some back story. A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday, I was waiting for a bus (sans bike) on Aro St and the broadcaster Bryan Crump came along, preparing to load his bike onto the rack. Many years ago Bryan Crump interviewed me, on Nights with Bryan Crump. But I decided not to say anything and just pretend we’d never met before, which somehow seemed more polite. He’d been prepared for rain, he said, so he had planned to use the bike rack on the way home, but as it turned out the rain hadn’t come, which meant he could bike up the hill after all – but he wasn’t psychologically prepared. So he was still going to use the rack. The bus came along, and it was incredible to see him flow through the encounter: a hearty wave and a bold showing of the bike so the driver could see what was coming, and then a seamless loading of the bike onto the mechanism. A masterclass.
So, I was inspired to try the rack the next time I had the opportunity.
Back to Monday night: The bus surged towards the stop. I experienced a thrill of fear and excitement. I rolled up with my bike, making towards the rack as if I knew what I was doing. But the driver – he could smell my confusion – was already on his way out to help. Then off we went, up the hill with my bike on the front while I relaxed like a happy hog. Even better, there were only two other people on the bus to witness my incompetence. At the top I managed to get the bike off and then I sailed un-sweatily along the top of the hill towards home.
Tuesday
It felt like a lot of riding today, always running late, always riding as fast as I could go.
Rode to work in glinty sunshine. Then down the Terrace to meet a writer for coffee. Zoomed back to work at top speed – after the coffee this was a really enjoyable ride, somehow, the air still cool-ish and the road quiet-ish, lungs feeling good. Some days the best way to get up the Terrace is to meet it on its level and really attack it. The misery comes when you allow the unforgiving churn of that road to get into your bloodstream.
After that, I weaved through traffic over to Mt Vic for a Christmas lunch, and then, sweating and full of cherries and regret, up the hill back to work. This time, the Terrace really did defeat me; roly-polying up it would have been more efficient. Then, finally, biked home, with overstuffed panniers and tired legs. Lay on the floor.
This was one of those days when an e-bike would come into its own. And one of those days where resistance feels increasingly futile. ‘The e-bike thing has been building, Ashleigh,’ said my friend James recently, and he’s right.
Recently, on a week when I didn’t write this blog, I tried out an e-bike for the first time, going up and down a steep hill. What struck me most about the experience was the ridiculous delight of moving at such speed with so little effort. I found myself screeching with joy – a wholesome, uncontrollable screech. I felt a bit like Klara in Heidi, returned to health after weeks of fresh mountain air and goats’ milk, when she surges up out of her chair and miraculously walks.
Wednesday
Rode to Thorndon at lunchtime for a brain appointment. This was a bad ride, not helped by running late again; the wind was blasting from all directions and there was a feeling of craziness in the air, of things building and curdling and spilling over. Ahead of me Mainfreight truck trundled along with one of its shouty motivational quotes – I don’t remember the quote exactly, but it was something like ‘You are an idiot’.
It hasn’t been a great year for the brain. But I’m grateful for my bike for continuing to get me places, even though so much of the time I am complaining about the getting there.
I saw a beautiful cargo e-bike on this trip through town, one of those ones with a long wooden box that look kind of like a sideboard full of secret fancy plates.
Afterwards, I slogged south up the Terrace back to work. Technically, the university is now closed and work is over, but I’m not finished. Afterwards I rode home very slowly, panniers once again overstuffed and left leg starting to gripe. Flax and a few little branches are tendrilling out on Glasgow so you have to duck to avoid them now. I let out a gargled groan at a close-passing ute.
Thursday
Rode to the National Library. Then rode a bit further into Thorndon and got an extremely painful but excellent massage mostly on my bad leg.
The roads had reached a new level of insanity, with rampant red light runners and drivers crossing lanes chaotically and without indicating. I tried to keep my head down and just get through, hopefully without being too obnoxious in my occasional weaving through long lines of stopped traffic. At one point I was in the cyclists’ stop box on Victoria, preparing to go straight. The light went green. A tall white van behind me tried to accelerate past and cut in front to go left. I heard a guy yelling – a weird, high tromboney noise, like Telly Savalas on The Extraordinary, but angrily – out the window of the van. I honestly can’t work out if I was in the wrong there or not. I think I wasn’t. But he sounded so annoyed that I wonder if really I was.
Further up Victoria St, at the point where it turns towards Aro, a van sped past me too close and I heard the guy inside say, ‘Fuck off!’ and then he cut in front of another cyclist – an older lady – to turn left; a second later and he would’ve knocked her off. This is some bananas behaviour.
Rode to a cafe and jabbed at my work laptop. Drank two coffees, became less productive but more frantic.
Rode home up the hill in weirdly steamy fog and rain-flecked air. The hills like sheepish blobs. Stopped to say hello to a grey cat on Mt Pleasant.
Friday
Rode up to the golf ball on Hawkins Hill this morning. Rather than a reset ride, this was a depression ride, which is a bit different – a depression ride is about just keeping on going, pressing through the moment, keeping your eye on your front wheel, and, ideally, exhausting yourself. I feel depression in my body as well as my head – I think this is pretty common for garden-variety depressives – so it can be helpful to get really tired.
Moving at approximately the pace of a slug, I went from Aro Valley up to Brooklyn – as always, the sharply steep bits of Durham and Mortimer, then Apuka and Mitchell were killers – and then began the climb towards the turbine.
I’d hoped that this ride would improve as I went on and my energy would return, but the ride was actually kind of miserable, and I probably should’ve turned back at the turbine rather than making for the radome. Partly it was the fog. The world was the colour of a lint filter. The higher I climbed, the thicker the fog became and the colder it got and the more my head ached and the more depressed I felt. The metaphor was embarrassing. At one point, I was churning along up a particularly steep and gritty bit, and I started sobbing like Homer Simpson over spilt milk. The sobbing was not bad enough to stop riding – in fact maybe it gave me a bit more forward propulsion. Luckily I am now able to zoom out on this moment and find it quite funny.
And maybe the ride did improve, a little bit? I noticed things: a pair of little quails jogged nervously over the road, headgear wobbling. Another cyclist – only one, today – came zooming down. Pink foxgloves trembled at the side of the road. An occasional truck or car, always speeding. By the time I got to the top I had made several major life decisions three times over, all of which became ridiculous as I zoomed back down the other way and my senses returned. All up the ride took me 1 hour and 45 minutes, which is outrageously slower than usual for that ride, but I’m pleased I managed to get out and do it.
Thank you very much to anyone who has stopped by this silly blog this year. I am very grateful to anyone who has read my complaints and unfocused thoughts as I’ve ridden around – mostly over the same roads, having the same thoughts – and left me nice comments or emailed me. I don’t quite know why I am recording my very ordinary bike rides in this way, but somehow it’s fun, and it keeps me going, and maybe helps me be a little bit saner too.
Having just written that paragraph I have just realised that there is still one more week of 2023, so I take it all back. I will ride around a bit more, and then will be back next week. Meri Kirihimete!
I always feel happy when I see there's a new eyelash roaming post. Thanks for writing 💙
Thanks for the writing, Ashleigh, you’re the best. I grew up around Thorndon/Kelburn/Aro/Highbury so it’s very evocative. I love that you go into town for beers (often) and ride home (mostly). Gutsy. Have a great Christmas.