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.