Riding the bike is becoming a little addictive. Today, I normally ride work but on this occasion I had a day off and if the truth be known, the best thing I could have done would have been to go out on an early morning ride, to Oxted. I should have jumped on the bike, hit the road and had a mug of tea in the Starbucks in the High Street, just me and Philip Roth's American Pastoral, which I am currently reading. But I didn't. I lolled around being lazy and it's all because I'm wound up with work and no holidays. I allow myself to get wound up, there's not enough down time. I have a lot of trouble unwinding, it takes a few days and when you're just taking the odd day off it simply doesn't work, unless I'd bitten the bullet and taken the bike out. That would have been the solution. The exercise would have done me good, not just physically but mentally too and I should know it because for the past few weeks I've been riding four times a week in the morning and in the evening and while the return ride certainly takes it out of me, that's half the point. I get home, I eat dinner, I then relax and fall asleep and it's that nice kind of tired you tend to get after exercise. Or is it exhaustion? Sometimes it feels that way. I'm often told that I'm overdoing it, or rather that I'm overdoing 'things' meaning I'm overdoing the cycling, but I don't think so. The cycling makes me feel good inside and the ride home is far better than taking the train, sitting there next to a lot of stressed people heading home from their respective workplaces. I'd much rather be out in the sticks, miles from the nearest railway station and on my own, just me and the bike against the world. Riding gives me the chance to think things through, sometimes I think through the wrong stuff and it gets fretful, but all I need really is the challenge of a major hill, like White Hill Lane, and then I find that I'm concentrating my mental faculties on just getting to the top of the hill. I feel great when I get there. On the return route there are plenty of hills and completing each one feels good. Not that there isn't something daunting about the ride home. I start to think about those hills long before I get on the bike. I think about them a little more as I ride towards them, through the Merstham council estate and out towards Warwick Wold Road where they start. In fact, it's probably best not to think too much about them and just pedal onwards, remembering that every yard, every inch even, takes me closer to home. The ride home is an ordeal, but only because of those hills, but the ordeal is part of the fun, part of the enjoyment, part of the challenge, although I never think as much at the time. After a day at work it's tiresome, but not overly so, it's good to be doing it rather than waiting on a hot platform for a train. That said, I've started (as I say in the previous post) riding in and then taking the bus home. I did this on those really hot days a few weeks back when it was inadvisable to ride home in such heat, especially attempting the hills. So I jumped on the 405. When the kids have all reached home safely, say around 5.30pm or a little later, the bus is empty and with a cool breeze coming in through the open windows, and a good book, it's a pleasant way to wile away around 40 minutes. Taking the bus home means taking the train the next day and then riding home, but it's one of those 'change is as good as a rest' things, sometimes it's nice to break it up and not make the whole thing a pain. I don't want to find myself not doing this because I get tired of it so to mix it up a bit is good, I still ride three times per week, I just split up one of the rides.
Riding a bike is quite an amazing thing and yet it's something nobody really thinks too deeply about. Riding a bike is riding a bike and that's it, you might think, but just the different route, the quieter route to wherever it is you're going is like finding a new world in which to exist, a world that might not be too far from the one you know and love but a new world nonetheless, a route you wouldn't otherwise take, houses you wouldn't normally see, wildlife you wouldn't have seen. A couple of rides back I followed a small brown mouse as he waddled his way along in a dirt track that ran parallel with the road, it was quite a funny sight if I'm honest and eventually he disappeared in the undergrowth, but it was good to see him. In fact, on the same stretch of road I saw a lonely goat herd in a hillside, which, as I said in the previous post, reminded me of the song from The Sound of Music. These are all things that don't happen on the train or the bus or the car, but they're all life-enriching, albeit on a small scale. I love that idea of new worlds, but that's what it is, new worlds, different routes, roads not normally travelled, houses not usually seen, it's great the way the bike cuts through this new territory and gives its passenger a different perspective on life. Suddenly there are different views, no longer the back gardens of houses close to the railway tracks, or that boring windscreen view you get whilst sitting in the passenger seat of a car looking at the rear of a bus or another car. My route at this present time is virtually car-free, there's nobody around in the morning and by leaving the office around a quarter to six in the evening, the sun still shining brightly, by the time I reach the sticks the cars have gone (almost). It's important to remember that there's always going to be a car coming out of nowhere so I never get too complacent, but by and large the ride in and out is quiet and I like that.
Sometimes things happen out of the blue and I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but the other week, near the Whyteleafe Tavern, I stopped to fix the chain back on the bike only to discover that the rear wheel had come loose. It was a new rear wheel and I reckon I simply hadn't tightened it enough. I managed to cover both hands in thick dirt from the chain but eventually I managed to put everything back together and head off towards the last hill of the ride, Tithepit Shaw Lane. I tend to bring water with me and I have a couple of cups of it before tackling the hills. I don't know, but I reckon it helps in some way, unless its psychological. Something else weird - and very dangerous - occurred as I made a left turn into Park Avenue off of Stanstead Road. Over the past couple of trips I'd been slowing down a little to take the sharp and blind turn and being as there were no cars around (and to gain greater visibility of what was around the corner) I'd edge out into the middle of the road and then into Park Avenue without the need to brake or slow right down. Fine, you might think, but it's important to realise that hazards materialise out of the blue. On one occasion as I lined things up for a smooth left turn without needing to use the brakes, a woman in a motorised wheelchair on the wrong side of the road and right at the end of it (she could have been hit by a car turning into the road and wouldn't have been able to avoid it) appeared out of nowhere. What she was doing on the wrong side of the road and about to turn right on to the main road I don't know, but there was no problem, I managed to avoid her because I wasn't travelling that fast and it wasn't even a case of having to avoid her, more that I saw her (thanks to moving into the middle of the road) and took minor evasive action, which meant drifting to the right slightly and then back left and following the road down and round to the old church on the corner of Manor Avenue. Park Road sort of becomes Manor Avenue, the road bends right, it's a nice piece of road, pleasant houses, and only a short distance from the start of Whyteleafe hill except that this time, unlike on the outward journey, I'm riding downhill, which is fast and again there's a strong need to keep my wits about me as the road is full of sleeping policemen, the sort that cars can drive over, and a few left turns from where cars can emerge.
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| Chilling... |
As I didn't ride today I'll be riding tomorrow, to Oxted, where I'll probably stop for tea. I'm planning on taking Philip Roth with me and will likely spend half an hour reading before riding home and tackling Titsey Hill. Believe me, it's nothing. It's long, yes, but it's not a problem ride. I'd rather ride up Titsey than White Hill Lane any day. Until then, I wish you all a good night.
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