Cycling week 51

Cycling Week goes on its final rides.

I can’t lie – I really conked out this week. And I hope you did too. The rides I did do this week were pretty good, though.

Monday

For the Christmas ride, I cycled over to Brooklyn in the morning. I wanted to cruise along Highbury Fling, but on Sunday it was heaving with rain, and I didn’t want to slip into the mud and roll down a bank, which is something that definitely would happen to me on Christmas Day. One time on Christmas Day I went out running and fell over and fractured my arm. So this morning I went down Aro St then up Brooklyn Rd (again, I thought up going up Ohiro instead, which is a bit shorter, but I was feeling more like a long, less steep ride than a short steep one).

With the separated lane, Brooklyn Rd is so much better for cyclists than it used to be. It’s almost peaceful to ride up there now. The roads were quiet-ish of course, and the temperature was exactly right, if on the muggy side. I saw one other cyclist, plodding up Happy Valley Rd, and we gave each other The Nod (Christmas Day edition).

I was going to have coffee at my friend Morgan’s. The problem with cycling to someone’s for a visit, especially if it’s uphill, is that for quite a while after you arrive, you’re going to be sweating. And you just have to accept that; fighting it will make it worse. I’m a profuse sweater, especially on the face (and the shins – why the shins?) and the polite thing to do is to discreetly blot with a hand towel you’ve bought for the purpose or, at a pinch, with your t-shirt. And you have to be patient: it’s not just the first wave of sweat to deal with, but the subsequent ones. I usually get two waves; three if it’s really hot. After that, there’s the need for sunscreen re-application. There is no point in attempting make-up. And ideally you’ll get through this whole performance without making a scene. It’s all a faff but it can be done, as long as you make your peace with looking bedraggled. There are two things I want in the future world: the ability to teleport, and the ability to switch off sweat (somehow with no detrimental effects to the body). If I could have other impossible things, I would also like a Surly Midnight Special and for Jerry to never die.

Anyway, after that I rode home, zooming along Tanera then Mortimer then down Durham, then back up Raroa and Mt Pleasant. In the past I’ve liked to do a big ride on Christmas Day, but today it was necessary to lie around and read. I’ve been on a huge Willy Vlautin bender for the last few days. I’m trying to think if there are any bicycles in any of his books, and actually I don’t think there are, so this is irrelevant. A lot of great cars and trucks, though, and a horse.

Tuesday

A no-ride day. But I went for a little run around the trails in the morning, and I must have been the first person around because I ran through approx. 125 spider webs. Apart from this destruction, it was quiet – I saw no other runners or walkers or bikers at all – and a total delight to be out running, with the birds blipping around. Then I lay around and read another Willy Vlautin.

Wednesday

I went on an errands ride into town. This was very satisfying – there was no particular urgency or time limit on any of it and I took both panniers and just cruised along. I saw a girl on a really cool racing bike. Although I often talk about how much I love the look of the new e-bikes flying around, especially the cargo ones, it’s the pedal-powered bikes, especially the racing ones, and especially the racing ones ridden by women, that truly have my heart. Nothing will ever look cooler, and that is just a fact.

After riding back up the hill – and attempting to ride on the road for a little bit up Raroa, but then giving up and going onto the footpath out of sheer terror of close-passing maniacs, festive edition – I lay around and read another Willy Vlautin.

Thursday

I lay around and read another Willy Vlautin.

Friday

First thing in the morning I went for a little ride up the hill. On the way back, pannier full of bread and milk, I did a couple of loops around Highbury. The air was soft and cotton-woolly and there were just a few runners out. When I got home I did a bit of bike maintenance (by which I mean I pumped up my tyres and de-greased and re-greased the chain, and nothing else).

I may have overdosed on Willy Vlautin. Everyone I know is getting tired of me going on about him. So I’ve moved on to Sigrid Nunez’s latest for a change of gear.

This is going to be my last Cycling Week, at least for a while, and this blog will go back to being more occasional. I’m not sure what the heck it will be about now, but rest assured, it will be ‘something else’. Secretly, of course, Cycling Week will continue on, at its usual glacial speed, because every week is a Cycling Week for me, but I just won’t be writing it down.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing, recently, and how bad I’ve been feeling for not writing the book I have been wanting to write, due to a total loss of confidence and a surfeit of highly effective avoidance strategies, and that this year I would like to try to make a bit more headway, rather than letting work take over my brain and heart quite so much. This is the eternal struggle of life for anyone who is trying to be a writer (although, I say that about many things: email, mornings, parties, eczema, etc.. – all are the eternal struggle of life). But if I can write even a sentence each day (or each week!), I will be going further than I’m going now. And some of it might go on this blog – we’ll see.

Thank you so much for reading. Pedal on!