Cyclokairos

Term time is frantic. The holidays in contrast, a chance to slow down. A chance to let things proceed at their inherent pace – eigenzeit. In finding ways to live slowly, a look east is common for me. ‘The Abundance of Less‘, the latest vicarious taste. Not the eigenzeit-lite approach I take, but a document of really slowing down, really stepping away from the grind. Backs turned to the mainstream, life lived on your own terms. Inspiration to pack it all in, do a Reggie Perrin. But, of course, I don’t. Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? wrote Mary Oliver. Er……..

Neglected in favour of The Green Bike of late, The Black Bike has undergone some changes. The black headset has gone, a more aesthetically pleasing silver one now in place, and with a short credit card tour in Wales on the horizon, I’ve added a front rack to support the randonneur bag that usually lives on The Purple Bike (That Is Also White). With the addition of saddlebag, I should have enough carrying capacity for the tour. I went with a Hyacinth Wild Child, bought from one of my go to bike shops, Freshtripe. The lamp holder is a Nitto.

The Black Bike in its current form, a contemplative cyclotourism cruiser.

It’s evolved over the years – some parts purloined from other bikes, some parts new, some parts that shouldn’t work together but do (a 105 rear derailleur and a cassette with a 40 tooth cog).

For a shakedown ride, I scratched an itch and sought out Campden Lane, an old drovers’ road in the Cotswolds. I first read about it in The Roughstuff Fellowship’s Journal and had skirted by it on previous rides, the last in November. Picking the lane up at Stumps Cross, it proved to have a bit of everything: wide tracks of yellow oolitc stone the Cotswolds are famous for, hard packed earth trails through avenues of nettles, and grassy field edges.

The weather was equally varied too, that typical UK combination of all shades of cloud, rain showers, and fleeting glimpses of the Sun. Entering the private estate of Farmcote, something of a novelty, an electronically operated gate.

Past Roel Hill Farm, a bench to take in the view, a reminder of a line from ‘The Abundance of Less’ – learning directly from nature, in perceiving more closely the life cycles of plants, insects, and seasons, and in knowing that the mind works best when unhurried.

After Hawling, it was sealed roads, barely at times, the most worn advising motorised vehicles to avoid. The rack did its job, rock steady.