Cyclokairos

May and one of the driest on record. Weather for lifting the dust sheet and taking The Green Bike off the garage wall. It may have mudguards but the filth of winter roads have to be long gone before it’s ridden.

Back when the bike was built, the handlebar tape started off yellow and it took several coats of amber shellac to get to its current colour – some sort of orangey-brown that’s close to matching the saddle. Cloth bar tape and shellac, up there with Barry and Paul Chuckle in the pantheon of perfect pairings.

I chanced my legs on a lumpy Cotswold ride. Two days prior, on local roads, they felt akin to lifeless iron rods. Souplesse? Elegance, fluidity, effortlessness, all strangers. Maybe it was the bike – The Not The Burgundy Bike and its robust pipes. Maybe it was the wind. A circular route and yet always a head wind. Maybe it was me and legs that had taken the ball and were refusing to play. Well, starting out at Fish Hill car park, just shy of Broadway Tower, it was a different story. Legs on board and The Green Bike’s lithe tubes seemingly in tune with them. And have I mentioned the fork? Yes, often. That taper offers comfort like no other I’ve used.

The Roman road Ryknild (or Icknield) Street runs through here, often marked as Buckle Street on maps. Ride its full length and you’ll get from Gloucestershire to South Yorkshire. Despite the supple legs and tubes, I was going for something slightly more realistic. Being Roman, in places it lives up to the reputation: STRAIGHT. Particularly the case when passing by Trafalgar Estate (some sort of Nelson connection?)

Minor undulation aside, a steady descent to Bourton-on-the-Water. But although it follows a B-road, it’s far from quiet. SUVs thunder past and being the Cotswolds, it’s massive SUVs. Is such size really necessary? Only one winner if hit by one of them. Still, a chance to appreciate the simplicity of a mechanical bike. Change of gear, cables tighten, cables loosened, the springs of the derailleurs defied or yielded to.

Why Bourton-on-the-Water? I don’t know. I knew what awaited: tourists, lots of tourists. A brief stop by the river to eat and then a search for empty lanes. Photo? Try the lid of a tin of overpriced biscuits. That or a tea towel.

Back towards the start and the lanes soon narrow and it’s just me and the bike. Through the Slaughters, Upper and Lower, and a spot by the river Eye where I should have stopped for a feed instead of Bourton-on-the-Water (noted for a future ride).

Then back on Ryknild Street, a part called Condicote Lane – Cotswolds’ strada bianca turning into an increasingly rutted track.

Blockley next, followed by Broad Campden, and tiring legs, the souplesse of earlier vanished, those rods of iron returning. A dry stone wall something to lean against as I sit on a grass verge by the side of the road. Sandwich duly munched, a mechanised tramp. On through Chipping Campden and Dryers Lane to properly finish the legs and a reminder of just how little I’ve cycled recently.