Riding in the Evening

Here in Bishops Castle, we have a friendly, all-comers cycling group called the Castle Cyclists.   Yesterday my cycling and knitting friend Chris organised an evening ride on behalf of the group, and as she’s such a popular lady, there was a terrific turnout.  The weather hadn’t looked promising, with rain all day, and some of it torrential.  But the forecast had said it would clear and so it did.  It left behind a stormy purple sky and a wind to assist us homeward.

We set off at a moderate pace, some of our number being new to riding in a group.  We diverted along a balcony road which is a favourite of mine and were well rewarded for our climb - beneath the stormy sky the air was clear and the views were crisp and lit beautifully by the evening light. 

There is a very friendly fish and chip shop next to our destination pub, the Sun Inn, Leintwardine, so friendly in fact that they take your order in the shop and then bring it into the pub for you.  So our fish and chip supper was taken with good beer and accompanied by excellent conversation.

We took a very pretty lane out of Leintwardine, called Jay Lane.  The lane crosses a river in an exquisitely pretty spot but once over the bridge we found ourselves riding through mud, washed onto the road from the fields in what had clearly been a recent flood. I rode from then on with so much mud between my mudguard and wheel that little scraping noises accompanied me all the way home.  But I felt good, so much so that I’m not in the group photo - in a departure from my usual cycling behaviour, I’d ridden off the front of the group!

So good did I feel, that I tackled an extra and quite unnecessary hill before the end of the ride.  Finally, following a scary descent in the rapidly fading light, I tackled another half pint of excellent beer in my local pub, the Six Bells. 

The evening light throughout this ride was so sweet that I am reminded that in the beautiful countryside we live amongst, all times of the day have something to offer to a bike ride.  Midsummer’s gifts are especially benevolent, but winter has its charms too.  Whatever life throws at me, the natural world offers salvation, and at all times of the day and in all seasons, it is there for me.  All I need to do is to go out and soak it in.

What does this say about us?