Cyclokairos

“And in some of the people of the town and the community surrounding it, one of the characteristic diseases of the twentieth century was making its way: the suspicion that they would be greatly improved if they were someplace else.”

Wendell Berry

This article on Bikepacking.com is the best writing on cycling I’ve read in a while. It, and the comments section, introduced me to new two writers: Wendell Berry and the author of this post’s title, Mary Oliver. The article elaborates on Oliver’s declaration – “The kind of attention Oliver invokes and attaches to devotion is not just avoiding distraction the way a teacher tells a child to “pay attention, please.” Instead, her attention is an effort to notice. Slowing down, studying, and knowing”. Like the author of the article, surely like the majority of bike riders, it is not multiple days in the saddle, touring the back of beyond, that represents my cycling – it is the lanes and bridleways on my doorstep that I cycle the most.

It is on these lanes and tracks that I escape the quotidian, where I slow down, study, know. At times there’s a fine line that when crossed, a tumble into overfamiliarity brings boredom, but the moments of joy, experiencing nature outweigh. Surrounded by flora and fauna, and a reminder my species is as much a product of nature as all the others I experience.

To study, to know – I could ride these routes eyes closed. The stretch of undulations from Norton Lindsey to Snitterfield – down, up, down, up, down, and one last up. That Stag Horn Sumach in the garden of the house on the corner of Saddlebow Lane and Gannaway Road – come Autumn a blaze of red. The barn wall of Cherry Tree Farm, a mass of wisteria, cascades of mauve in Spring. Those lanes past Claverdon, towards Pinley Green, where it always seems to be just you, the bike, and greenery, and the legs are always feeling good.