The Window onto the World

The sun came out this morning for only the second time this month. I did similarly. Are we not all suns after all, stars that radiate and glow? And so I headed through Pollok Country Park to Pollokshaws train station where I was going to catch the train to Barrhead. But it was cancelled and so being the shamanic cyclist that I am I thought for a moment and headed over to Muirend for the train up to Neilston. It's only a few stops but it is emphatically uphill, and what a view as you approach the terminus. A widescreen window onto the world!

The lovely and peaceful island of Muirend train station. Maybe one day I'll put a book together on Glasgow's idyllic train stations...

Between Patterton and Neilston you have the most exquisite vista onto the Glasgow strath.

From Duncarnock Mount

Duncarnock Mount

Up and Over

There are so many hills in Glasgow and around its periphery (that's what valleys do) that it's not difficult to go 'up and over'. The trick is to find an up and over with a good approach (for me that means about 6-10 miles of flattish car-free path). This means that you are warmed up before you tackle the climb, your limbs are loose and your mind awake. Then I get off the bike and walk! Or 'hike' as the case may be.

Today it was the great tap-route Paisley Canal to Bridge of Weir and then up and over to Kilbarchan and back to Paisley. It's a great release and a great 'feeder' as all tap-roots are. It releases you from your hitherto egofied self whilst feeding you full of freshness and renewal. As far as this is concerned, Glasgow with its myriad hills, outer braes and fells, is a wild cyclist's dream. And if you go up and over as regularly as I do (three times a week), and allow that healing/renewal/freshness to have its way, the wild cyclist soon becomes a cycling saint.

The cycling saint complete with halo ;)

No Arms & One Leg

There are few stories as inspiring as the story of Jose Florian, a former Columbian soldier, who had his arms and a leg blown off by a bomb, and became as a consequence of this and the help and support of so many a paralympic champion and superhero of Columbia. In his own words Florian said:

"In Colombia, people with amputations are called mochos. When I started cycling, I said to myself that if we have heroes like Superman or Batman, why can't I be Mochoman?"

Already an accomplished swimmer and cyclist, Florian calls the bomb that nearly killed him "a gift of life and my second birth".

But I think it's not the bomb but the bicycle that gave him that possibility of renewal. That, and the many people who have tirelessly worked to help him get on it.