Cycling as Assertiveness, Driving as Obedience

Cycling is, if you do it properly, ultimate awareness. It is moving more rapidly than you would ordinarily do if you walked, therefore your awareness has to be stepped up to accommodate this extra speed. One develops a taste for distance and space and the fact that one can see things coming. This is all the more so when you are out in the countryside in the open - embodied, energized, and quiet - and there are no buildings to block your views. The cyclist thus asserts himself at every moment as he alters his speed to accommodate the space and whatever options may present themselves. This is how the cyclist tunes in to the flow and becomes wild: by never stopping, or at least when he does stop to allow that stopping to catalyze a contemplation and consideration of his surroundings and where he actually is. In this way the cyclist is 'genius' (by accommodating and harmonizing the great cosmic flow and thus sharing a solidarity with all creatures), whilst the car-driver is 'moron' (by going against the cosmic flow and allowing his self to be carried, and stopping). The car-driver is obligated to stop everywhere, and not for contemplation. He cannot escape the rigidity of traffic signals or other cars precisely because he has become outsized in his new chassis and too large for his own good. The wild cyclist by contrast is as slender as the body that powers the bicycle which of course is the slenderest creature of them all. This slender-ity allows  the cyclist to weave in and out, to avoid, to nip by, to jump over, to slip onto, without ever having to stop. Because the wild cyclist knows the secret of stopping: that to stop is to be stupid (look up their etymologies if you don't believe me), simply by recognizing a sign that is not Nature's sign, and by obeying it. 

 

The Drunken Bicycle

 I used a new manoeuvre today au velo - the drunken bicycle manoeuvre - to remind certain car-drivers that they're not on a drag strip anymore. The incident occurred on Hazelwood Road in the upmarket part (Ranfurly) of Bridge of Weir where two cars, in separate incidents, were haring it up the hill at what appeared to be (to my ear at least) an excessive speed. I was on foot with Pegasus at my side and so upon hearing the revving engine behind me I slowly started to weave out into the middle of this quiet and empty residential road. Naturally, the car slowed down as it saw me and was forced to come to a stop as I deliberately dawdled. No horns were sounded or shouts hurled in both situations, just a quiet recognition that, yes, this road does not belong to cars first but to people and children and bicycles (if not the odd scurrying fox, hedgehog, or low-flying blackbird). You can almost hear this acceptance in the quietening down of the car engine - the driver's realization that they've been caught red-handed - and the appreciation (in the lack of insults hurled) that the catcher has done this in such a way as to allow the car-driver to save face, (at no point do I confront the car or driver but as is apt for the drunk to do appear completely oblivious to them),  thus, perhaps, next time, allowing them to be reminded by this saved face not to do it again.

Houdini on a Bicycle

 












Houdini on the train heading to Paisley Canal where we will head along the sustrans path to Kilmacolm and then up and over to Finlaystone Park which we cut through to get to Langbank train station and the train hame.

 












Houdini on one of his favourite benches of serenity on the beautiful backroad between Kilmacolm and Finlaystone...













From Langbank station looking north towards the lang crags above Dumbarton.

 












How I would love to have a tennis court next door to me. In certain parts of the world having a tennis court in your back garden means you are a millionaire. In Scotland, the sick man of Europe, it means weeds and neglect and more weeds. No doubt some property developer will fill this space in with a block of pokey little flats, mark my words...

 












Why would you ever stare into your hand on a train when you have a cinema screen onto the world like this? [Here, passing Arkleston, looking north, between Paisley and Hillington.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The largest glass roof in Europe at Central Station offers some spectacular opportunities for the budding painter-photographer...

 

And that's how you break your chains: bike  + train = brain.... Get into the country, and out of the strait-jacketting city.... If you do this often enough you will have earned your nickname of Houdini. And if you do arrive back at Central Station, see if you can find the car park exit and you will definitely earn your escapist moniker.

 

 

 

 

 

Fifty Minutes of Forever

Here we are again, up above Barrhead and Paisley, in the forever land, and those spaces that leave you feeling eternal if not infinite and invincible. I couldn't believe how quickly I traversed this plateau. Fifty minutes is all it took today from Barrhead train station to Paisley Canal train station. And yet...

To be sure, it was a bit dreich and so I never stopped for my usual break of water and blueberries at the top. But fifty minutes was amazingly quick. And yet, it never seemed that quick. This is what these spaces do to you: they space you out, time you out, until there is nothing left except the territory. And like all naturally-abiding entities, the territory is timeless, which may explain my own timelessness.

Once you've been up here, done a bit of cardio, spaced (and timed) the self out, going to a gym is never the same again. 

 

The cup and ring stone on the way up to the kissing tree...













The kissing tree with 'pendulum'...

 

See those wee trees on the horizon... that's where I was less than half an hour ago...













Beautiful Paisley from Saucelhill (42m) right above Paisley Canal train station.













The wild cyclist... ;)

 












The catapult train....