Inspiration?

Since I started this blog, all of two days ago, a few people have emailed me, to thank me for providing a little bit of inspiration in these months when, let's face it, it's in short supply. I'm chuffed to bits if that's the case. Riding bikes, as we all know, is brilliant. But sometimes, getting out of the house is very, very hard.

Back in May, I posted this article on Singletrack. I don't really know what came over me to be honest... I'm not normally the wordiest of people but it was such a good night, and the computer was free when I got home... It just poured out.

The trails were pretty dry then, but it's still all out there, it's all free to ride, and... well, for the first time I'll post it with a few Streetmap links, just to give some pointers. Thanks for indulging me...


If it wasn't for an astonishingly clear drive home from work tonight, I wouldn't even have bothered. Having told Clare I was going to be home "hopefully by eight o'clock", I'm astonished to find that the suspiciously clear M4 has whisked me home almost an hour sooner than that. And the sun was coming out for one last effort. And my bike is gleaming and clean.

She sees the look in my eye. "Go on then." The dithering commences. A phantom pain in the bad knee. Those eighty miles covered over the past four days. I don't need to ride. I've had a good few days. The sofa is comfy. It's nearly dark.

But then tomorrow's day out at a tricky client springs to mind. And the three days of flat-out work to follow if I actually want to have some sort of bank holiday. And... ahh what the hell.

The Camelbak is still holding the remnants of yesterday's energy drink... an underhand but effective cheat when riding with the keener, fitter members of my club, this, which at least keeps me in their dust cloud, if not their slipstream. A bit of faffing later, and my lovely boutique frame is sporting a badly colour-matched, defiantly cheap bottle cage. My supply of excuses and deliberate delays pretty much exhaused, I'm off.

"Just a gentle one, Jon", my inner voice says. "Eighty miles in four days, remember. Think of what the physio said about that knee. Call it 'active recovery'... that's really good for you, you know". It's remarkably persistent, that inner voice. Coasting out of Reading, onto the Caversham Warren, I muse that the voice, for once, ought not be ignored.

Until the first hill. The ache in my legs from the long commutes last week, and from yesterday's hilly jaunt around Hambleden... well, it's there, but it's not really unpleasantly bad. In fact, I feel really strong...

The planned trip onto the granny ring never materialises. Forks locked down, I mash up the loose slope through the trees, round the road, and onto the singletrack across the golf course. Hammer down, and I'm flying now. The ground is packed solid, the nettles on each side of the trail aren't quite touching, and... my word I'm feeling good tonight.

Round the corner, down the concrete track, and up Lilley Farm hill... a beast of a farm road, pretty much straight up the side of a hill, modest in height but not in gradient. It's easy today. Onto the nose of the saddle... a fast spin in a midding gear, and I'm up.

The time passes in a blur. Perfect forest trails, in top-notch condition for the first time in months and months. Dust and gravel flying, my bike and I feeling like a single unit as the corners are railed. A quick stop is made at the top of a track to look down over the town and laugh silently at the sheep sitting in front of their soap operas. The longer it goes on, the more I am grinning, and as I pull a ludicrous two-wheel drift round the off-camber chalk hairpin at the bottom of the Hardwick Farm descent, scattering a group of utterly disbelieving deer, I'm laughing out loud now. This is damn near perfect.

Back over the hill I go, and back along the golf course singletrack, the quick way this time. As I rush along, two, then three, then four birds fly along in front of me. For ten, twenty, thirty... a hundred yards, they swoop and whirl and spin just ahead of me. Martins... swallows... I have no idea, and I've never seen anything like it before. It's the last bit of singletrack now, and as I wonder whether I'll get the chance to wave at the doggers I passed on the way up here an hour or so before, I notice the fox charging down the track ahead of me. I yell at it to startle it off the trail, and am suddenly faced with not a fox, but a bloody great big badger. They're sharp, those things. And growly, and huge. Fortunately, it's not interested, and strolls off indifferently.

As I cruise back into Reading, the same three words keep going through my thoughts. "The perfect ride... the perfect ride!". Bike, rider, rails, wildlife, and weather... all coming together for the ultimate few hours of enjoyment. It all felt so right... so damn good... so perfect.

It's the home stretch now, and as I trundle along the river front, I come across the first puddle of the ride. Easy. I crouch down, launch...

THUD. I land the back wheel at a ridiculous angle, and hard. The tyre compresses, slides, then holds, narrowly preventing me from hitting the gravelly deck in front of an audience of bemused swans. A few pedal strokes later, and it's clear that the tube is toast.

It's a little reminder. "Jon...", something out there is saying. "The perfect ride doesn't start and end in bloody Reading. Grow up. Go to the Peaks or something."

Fair point. And as puncture stops go, a park bench by the Thames, with swans swimming around, and the sun disappearing over the distant trees in a beautiful red sunset... now that IS perfect.


After a promising start to the year I had a lapse yesterday... getting home from work planning to get out, but the weather was bad and I dithered, and, well, it didn't happen. Tomorrow I'm working from home all day... a great excuse for a few hours out at lunchtime... paid for in the evening with extra work, but what the heck. I WILL go out, and if I don't then you can shout at me.