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Well, not to the east of Offa’s Dyke, in fact, west, in Wales, the dominant colour is also brown. You know it is dry when, in its entirety, Wales is suffering a drought. In the higher ground of the Cambrian Mountains I found green, just not the intensity I’m accustomed to. Similar to last year,…
…they pull you back in. Mudguards. If I had to pick one style of bicycle as my favourite, it would be one in the style of a classic French randonneur. They have mudguards and various bikes I own or have owned have sported them. When building up The Other Green Bike over the winter, I…
Early sixth decade, planet Earth. Should I be less perturbed? More at ease with circumstances? The thoughts prey—predating on quiet moments. What I have done to date—does it amount to much? Does it matter? How to fill what remains? Does that matter? In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera writes: We can never know…
In assembling The Other Green Bike, much of The Purple Bike (that is also white) was stripped. In turn, The Burgundy (Aubergine?) Bike became donor, and with top ups from the spares’ box, The Purple Bike (that is also white) was born afresh. I think it better suits its new guise—a reminder of my first…
… is maintenance, at least according to the Pete Seeger quote at the start of Stuart ‘Whole Earth Catalogue’ Brand’s latest book ‘Maintenance: Of Everything. Part 1’. I was expecting some bedding in with The Other Green Bike, and the first ride threw up a spongy front brake and some ghost shifting / chain skipping.…
Kant said beauty was subjective yet universal. What type of bike can we all agree is beautiful, even if it’s one we wouldn’t ride? Surely a potential candidate would have thin steel tubes, a 1” curved and tapered fork, rim brakes, leather saddle, and shellacked bar tape? The Green Bike is the closet I have…
Autumn and the lanes are draped with crimson caparisons. Fleeting as it is, my favourite time of the year to cycle. Larkin the Buddhist, living in the present: Where can we live but days? Of course, Larkin being Larkin, they are to be happy in, is most likely ironic, and the coming of the priest and doctor a…
I once went to a reading by Michael Rosen of the book of poetry he had just released. One poem concerned loving your children for who they are, not what you want them to be. The Black Bike, I’m talking to you. Some years ago, while riding a predecessor of The Black Bike on a…
The back garden. Around the centre of the picture there’s a gap between two rows of purple beech hedging. Pass through it and the section of the garden beyond was once lined with box. Perhaps 20 shrubs in total that I grew from tip cuttings some 15 or so years ago. As they grew, they…
70 miles, they said. 70 of the finest Anglo-Welsh miles. On a clear day, I assume. Something in the region of 7 today, perhaps 17, was all I could see. The Welsh Marches, largely rolling green farmland, that green coming from the liquid that falls from above, the liquid packaged in clouds. The heatwave had…
Cyclokairos 