Spinning Wheels

Now and again, I like to do a bit of knitting.  Some time ago my cycling friend Chris, who happens also to be a demon knitter, coaxed me into the local cafe Acanthus on a Wednesday morning, in order to knit and generally chat over coffee.  Over the following few weeks this became a regular thing, and three other ladies gradually joined us, knitters and cyclists all.  

One week the obvious question was asked - how is it that we knit together, but never cycle together?  We all cycle individually with our husbands, and our husbands sometimes cycle together.  But when our husbands cycle together they ride in a fast and furious dash, poisoned by their Y-chromosomes which seem to make them ultra competitive.  We ladies, on the other hand, like to ride more sedately (don’t get me wrong though, we’re not opposed to the occasional challenge).  And if we’re riding sedately, why not take our knitting with us, and ride to a friendly cafe which won’t mind us sitting there for an hour or so?

And so it was that Chris and I rode with our knitting yesterday. The other three ladies unfortunately were not available, but that wasn’t going to stop us. We rode just a 31km round trip to Montgomery with a long stop at the Castle Kitchen cafe, and a quick look around the gallery next door (long enough for Chris to buy a skirt).  Just to make it a little bit challenging, we put in a nasty climb on the way home!

We certainly won’t abandon Acanthus, as the people there have welcomed us taking up a table without complaint for many weeks - so we shall be alternating riding-to-knit with just sitting and knitting.  Besides which, Acanthus is a fantastic place to meet friends, cyclists and non-cyclists alike.

So what have I produced with my knitting needles?  Well I’m a jumper knitter, but a part-knitted jumper won’t fit in my saddlebag.  So here’s a picture of my very first sock - I just need to knit another one now!

The Bad Times, and the Very Good Times

Sometimes, when I’m out on my bike, I lose sight of why I do it.  Normally this is when an arctic wind is blowing icy rain into my face, just underlining my coldness despite too many layers of clothing constricting me to the point of cutting off my circulation, and when my fingers are so numb that they feel like they’ve been cut off. On these days I’m normally going so slowly I think that riding backwards would be quicker.  Sometimes, cycling seems to be beyond hard work and it just doesn’t seem to be fun at all.   

Finally, I'm there!  Ravenstor Hostel

On Friday, 4 May, that’s how I felt.  I was on day-2 of my ride to Ravenstor Youth Hostel to meet up with my friends, the Chester Fabulous Ladies.  The head-cold I thought I’d put behind me had come back with a vengeance, the head wind brought freezing rain into my face, and I was exhausted from my ride of the previous day, in pelting rain, which had been lengthened by my inability to find my way with the torn out pages of a road atlas, the only map I’d brought.  By the time I’d reached my Travelodge I knew my head-cold had become a chesty cough too. 

But I made it, and I met up with my friends, the end justifying the means, because I had a terrific weekend amongst great people, truly good times.  But rather than write about the weekend myself, here is a link to the Fabulous Sue’s write-up of the weekend.

So why do I cycle in bad weather when I’m unfit?  Why do I cycle at all?  Here’s a brief description of another ride I did, just a few days later on 13 May, when I’d finally recovered from my cold and chest infection.  

I slept badly and woke up tetchy, but my hubby levered me onto our tandem and we set off to ride into a beautiful Spring day.  We hauled ourselves up the impossibly steep street to the top of our town and then up the Kerry Ridgeway.  From there, the views were extensive - so many fabulous trees bursting into leaf that I wanted to stop and embrace them all.  Spring was in full and glorious flood, the hedgerows dripping with wild flowers, and a few butterflies floating from flower to flower feeding.

We rode up out of Newtown on an A-road, but this is a very lightly trafficked part of the World, so there was hardly any traffic to trouble us.  An even graded hill and a good surface was a treat for us, leading us up to the turning for the barren and wild “Source of the Mule” where we rode along a B-road without seeing a single car for 14 kilometres.  We descended on sweeping bends seeing only sheep and the occasional pheasant.  We heard ravens calling, and pipits’ plaintive cries were carried on the wind which also helped us on our way. 

We ate sandwiches by the roadside in a small village where the people, dressed for a funeral but in fact heading to a christening, chatted to us, and made us feel like friends.

We rode home on undulating wooded lanes with nature bombarding us at every turn.  We pounded the pedals, seemingly gaining strength from the beauty around us.  So good did we feel, that we added a loop onto the end of our ride, powering ourselves up an additional hill and descending to our house on our local lane which is often my first climb of a ride.  After a hilly 95 km, I felt far from exhausted - I felt invigorated. 

So again, why do I cycle in bad weather when I’m unfit?  


It’s quite simple.  The bad times make the good times, and without the one there cannot be the other.  A little fitness is necessary to enable full enjoyment of the good rides.  And fitness is gained through enduring a certain amount of hardship, pain and discomfort.  

I may struggle to remember that on a bad day, when I’m tired, cold and wet.  But somehow I always do remember it, and that’s what keeps me turning the pedals, however bad it seems to be.