Why I Love Cycling

Prologue

We'd carefully planned a two-week cycling trip to Norway. But, as usual, things went wrong, and with only five days of our holiday remaining we still hadn’t left home.

There was nothing else for it. Mike and I would just have to saddle up our bikes, throw in a toothbrush, and go. Anywhere. Straight from the front door.

Because the world looks entirely different from a bicycle. It turns the mundane into the exotic, the familiar into a voyage of discovery. Tiny bank voles and weasels will flee across the road ahead and into the hedgerow tangle of pastel-coloured flowers. Arduous hills will rise suddenly up from previously flat roads. They were all there before, no doubt, but you'd just never really noticed.

Criterium Stage

We set our wheels northwards to the Shropshire plain, into a countryside of canals and cabbage fields about as thrilling as a British Cycling newsletter.

Then the following morning we couldn't find our way out of Market Drayton. And no one else knew the way out either. But everybody was happy to direct us to the Yogurt Factory. The good people of Shropshire are rightly and justifiably very proud of their world-renowned Yogurt Factory.

We completed several circuits of the town, seeking our escape route. In any other country of Europe the townsfolk would merely assume that we were cycling a criterium. But here, in the nether regions of England, we were just a couple of sad old boffins going round in circles.

So we found the Yogurt Factory and headed out west from there, directly into a gale force wind sweeping off the Irish Sea. The sheltered bird sanctuaries on the tranquil meres were whipped up into a cauldron of surf and tidal waves. Not a single bird to be seen anywhere. Not even a hardy duck on a surfboard.

We battled doggedly on through an outback landscape of deserted byroads and corrugated iron chapels. Then, ravenous from the exertions of cycling all day into a fierce headwind, we stopped at a village Post Office for supplies. But just as I was tucking greedily into a carton of processed cheese triangles I became aware of the appalled eyes of a young boy staring up at me.

"My mom sez you’re meant to eat those with crackers," he scolded.

I hung my head in shame. This one blatant display of public gluttony had probably unraveled years of painstaking parenting.

The Tour Visits Wales

The following day we turned south into the hills; firstly over the Breidden, and then onto the marshy upland of the Long Mountain. Here we were instantly engulfed by a dense swathe of cloud and drizzle that had swept up from the valley below. Yes, we’d inadvertently strayed over the border into Wales. But what a sexy dude I looked in my new waterproof overshoes!

We descended into Montgomery, where knights of olde had attempted to Anglicise the local population by plastering an elegant Georgian Square onto the side of a savage mountain. It had all been a complete failure of course, for the town remains resolutely Welsh, and wet with it.

We crossed back into England over Offa’s Dyke, stopping to toast the ancient King of Mercia with a precious gulp of Scotch from our hip flask.

Exactly how his shallow bank of earth was supposed to repel a spirited nation of seasoned mountain-dwellers I’m not entirely sure. But it certainly works well against the rain. For as we danced up over the Kerry Hills the clouds magically parted, and with each gasp of breath our lungs were filled with the heady fragrance of hedgerow honeysuckle and dog rose, warmed in the evening sunshine.

Hurtling down into Bishop’s Castle, we screeched to an emergency halt as a flock of ducks waddled across the road in front of us, making its way from the churchyard to the pub garden. We remembered to ask the landlord of our B & B about these ducks.

"There have always been ducks in Bishop’s Castle," he replied.

Well of course there have been. How silly of us.

The border town of Bishop’s Castle used to be a rural backwater. The scruffy smoke-filled bars would be packed with flat-capped Welsh and Shropshire farmers swigging back Jack Daniels and complaining noisily about the level of sheep subsidies.

But now it’s a New-Age centre. The small shops that tumble higgledy-piggledy down the precipitous High Street are crammed full of ethnic rugs and energy-giving crystals and even the odd witchcraft spell or two. Small groups of youths shout friendly greetings as they saunter downhill, leaving behind in their wake a lingering trace of sweet cider and other questionable substances.

We wandered into a newsagents’ shop to buy some postcards, and were warmly reassured that they would have some ready for us within a fortnight. By this time even the ducks made sense.

Mountain Stages

With another day and a half of steep climbs ahead I had to wrestle hard to overcome the lure of the performance-enhancing crystals in the witchcraft shop. But I couldn’t risk losing my British Cycling racing licence – after all, it makes a very handy beer mat.

The Shropshire Hills are not an upland range as such, but more a diverse collection of completely unique individuals. The eerie pinnacles of the Stiperstones, the heather moorlands of the Long Mynd, Caer Caradoc’s stately hill fort, and the densely forested ridge of Wenlock Edge, to name but a few, are all totally different from one other. And each in turn presents the cyclist with a compellingly new and exciting challenge.

Or at least, that’s how Mike successfully managed to persuade me that it would be far, far better to pedal up and over the vast whaleback hump of the mighty Brown Clee than to explore the quaint-sounding villages of Stoke St Milborough and Clee St Margaret nestled on its slopes.

Then, as we grafted over this, the final climb, of our tour we stumbled upon what we’d probably been looking for all along. Glancing to our left, through a gap in the hedge, we caught a glimpse of the long-forgotten Saxon Church of Heath, still standing isolated and alone in its field of hay and cornflowers after one thousand years. A perfect gem; just the kind of oddity that you’d be sure to miss when sailing by in a car.

From Ditton Priors, it was an eight-mile descent into the Severn Valley. How I’d been looking forward to this opportunity to try out my new, improved, aerodynamic position.

But it wasn't to be. For nothing turns out as expected on a cycle ride. Our entire route had been freshly covered with a deep layer of loose chippings - the real economy mix of dusty white boulders, stones and grit. The strade bianche of the Bridgnorth District Council. Who needs Tuscany when you’ve got Brown Clee Hill?

No way could I control my bike on this shingle. When I turned it to the right it slid off into the hedge on the left, and if I tried to navigate a left-hand bend it merely slithered onwards and downwards into the ditch. It was a thorough nightmare. And to compound the misery I could but watch in disheartening disbelief as Mike steered his masterful course steadily downhill, and over the horizon. How unbearably smug he was going to be - leaving me to complete this, the final stage, of our Tour of Shropshire 2.3 or whatever, as the lanterne rouge, in a lonely and pitiful gruppetto of one.

When I eventually reached the tarmac road my hands, arms and shoulders were throbbing from the strain of keeping the bike upright, and my entire body was shaking from head to toe. This, I hoped, would mark the end of my first, and last ever, experience of cycling down a scree chute on a fully laden touring bike. If this is learning how to suffer, you can keep it.

The Final Sprint

I wobbled across the river Severn and over the dingles and bridges of the Worfe Valley into the thatched village of Badger.

Here we rested on the wall that overlooks the duck pond. In a few weeks time we would be entertained by the antics of newly hatched and bedraggled moorhen chicks splattering to and fro across the lily pads. But not quite yet. So we sprinted the last few miles home, for a steaming mug of hot tea and a big plateful of egg and bacon.

And just as I was tossing this sizzling feast into the frying pan, Mike hurried in from the garage in a flurry of excitement.

Hadn’t I noticed that my bike’s headset had become completely detached from the frame? As I didn’t even know where to start looking for my headset the answer had to be no. Yet by rights I should have finished our Tour either at the bottom of a dingle, beneath the wheels of a tractor, or washed down the River Severn. It was due merely to a remarkable combination of good fortune and my supreme cycling skills that I’d managed to steer a safe course home.

My heart swelled with pride. Not only had we had turned a gentle tour of the Shropshire countryside into an epic adventure, but for one fleeting moment in time I had also transformed myself from a boring middle-aged office worker into a cycling super-hero.

And that’s why I love cycling.