Good Cyclists

My husband is away with a friend just now, chasing ticks on Simon Warren’s app in relation to cycling climbs all over the UK. They are tackling some of the Welsh ones, and I am following them from home with the book in my hands. 

But I am slightly disturbed by something which the esteemed Mr Warren has written on the back cover of the book. He says, and I quote: “... Wales, under clear blue skies, is cycling heaven”.

Praise indeed, for the country of Wales, and justified praise too. But for me, it’s simply untrue. I can’t ride up those hills, and if I were staying with my husband in his accommodation, I would have very few bike rides available to me on account of those hills. For me, it’s a walking area. 

I’m not alone. There are plenty of people who ride bikes every day who wouldn’t want to ride up steep and hard hills only to ride back down them again. Riding up and down hills purely for the sake of it might be what some people want to do (and judging by Mr Warren’s rapid rise to fame, evidently quite a lot of people), but it’s not what everyone wants to do, nor is it what everyone is capable of doing. 

Are those of us who don’t enjoy cycling up pointless hills somehow lesser cyclists? I would argue that we are better cyclists. I have a reason for saying this. I think that if at any time you replace just one car journey with a bike ride, then you are a better cyclist. That’s because as they pursue “Warrens”, there are far too many people who drive back and forth to the foot of each of these climbs, creating unnecessary car journeys in the process, and calling themselves “good cyclists” in the process.

In fairness to my husband and to clarify, our car is still outside our house, my husband and his friend cycled from home to their accommodation, taking in a spot of tick-collecting as they went. I’m not claiming any high ground for him, and I am not saying they are better, or worse, than anyone who drives to the start of each climb.  

I’m just saying:  have respect for yourself. Because you are also a good cyclist. 

New World

It’s raining, finally. After record breaking heat, and too much of it, our country is finally getting a watering. But in some places at least, it’s going from drought to flood over the course of one rainstorm, as water flows over the concrete-like baked and unprotected earth without any intention of soaking in. Crops won’t get the water they need, and farmers will carry on feeding stored winter feed to their cattle before summer has even ended. Some of us are going to struggle to afford to buy food, which is what the farmers are struggling to supply us with. Some of the farmers, whose businesses have been stretched to breaking point by other recent challenges, won’t see those businesses survive.

This is our World now. And our World forever more. I’m scared, not of starvation, but of the possibility of society falling apart at the seams. Desperate people do desperate things and I don’t like what I see when I try to look towards the future.

For years I have failed to see the bigger picture. I’ve always seen cycling as being a part of the solution for the future world but I never thought about pandemics, or religious fundamentalism, or megalomaniacs who like to keep a finger on the button. I was only looking at the little things, like cycling to save the NHS, or cycling to help the environment, or cycling to cut congestion and help combat climate change.

But then of course, climate change is the biggest thing of all. Climate breakdown has the capability of causing starvation, migration, food insecurity, power insecurity and war. Too many wars have been fought over territory and when a country loses its ability to produce food or to afford sufficient food imports to feed its population, then surely war must inevitably be the consequence.

My wish now is that if we cannot avert this (and we are not even trying), then hopefully it will happen beyond my natural lifetime.

Back to the little things. Here’s a picture I finished painting yesterday!