Cycling and Poetry

Every member has a clear job to do, serving the leader, and there`s no room for poetry. 

Yves Blanc (Editor, Le Cycle Magazine, talking of the Tour de France)


Do not concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.  

Bruce Lee

Having just returned from the Serra Tramuntana in Mallorca where the roads are pocked with pelotons (with cyclists in full regalia, and heads emphatically down), I feel compelled to elucidate my own philosophy of cycling. It`s quite simple really. It`s Go slowly and pause often, and, as the old Czech proverb goes, allow time to `gaze at God`s windows`.

The bicycle is not just a vehicle for the body but also for mind.

Fluency is all about the pausing. Otherwise, you're just a bullet in the barrel of a gun.

On a bicycle there is room for poetry...

Vast draughts of it!

Above Port Glasgow

Millport Beach, Great Cumbrae

The Kilpatrick Braes

The End of Progress

When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle. 

Elizabeth West 

Atop Auchineden & The Whangie looking north...

City Centre & West End Loop

This is a great little loop through the city which if continuous and at a regular pace should only take an hour or so. Nevertheless, there are some interesting places en route, like the city centre itself, the canal, Ruchill flagpole, the botanic gardens, and the river walkway. So, ostensibly, what could be done in an hour might actually merit a whole afternoon. There are also, inevitably, a couple of hilly climbs - great for energizing! - which also have their counterpart downhills. This variety, I feel, gives Glasgow a special quality, as well as offering the cyclist an opportunity to get that blood pumping. Cycling in a flat city just isn't the same.

Anyway, if you're starting at Bell's Bridge follow the walkway east to the city centre under the Kingston Bridge and then take one of the streets on your left (I usually take York Street but you could take any on these streets) up to Sauchiehall Street and on to Cowcaddens Underground (amusing yourself at the shambolic state of cycle paths on the way). On to New City Road, past the old Savings Bank building and Chinatown, through the underpass and on to George's X. Here, just before hitting George's X and Gt. Western Rd., take a right into St. Peter's St. and then a left onto St. George's Rd. Head up the road towards Garscube Rd. and straight across it. About 100m further on a cobbled street to our left veers up to the canal. Take it, join the canal, and maybe sit and have an orange, and see how many wildflowers and birds you can spot. Just to the east you will see the large red brick building of TWB (The Whisky Bond) which is now a compendium of sculpting studios and galleries. Always worth a quick visit.

Heading west along the canal towpath we shortly pass Partick Thistle Football Ground at Firhill Basin. You should also be able to see Ruchill Hospital's copper-domed water tower poking out of the foliage to the north. A couple of hundred metres further on we come to the Nolly Brig and here we could leave the towpath and join Firhill Rd. up into Ruchill Park. Finding the flapole shouldn't be a problem, and it is worth it, for the view from this platform is quite incredible (and there's never anyone there!). It is one of the great vantage points on the city (and the country - the views north to the Campsies are formidable) that you will find this close to its centre. 

 From Ruchill Flagpole: the view south over the city.

The view north to the Campsie Fells.

From here, head back down to the canal where you can join Garscube Road and then Queen Margaret Dr. This will take us downhill over the River Kelvin, past the Botanic Gardens and onto Byres Rd. From here, it's a gentle downhill all the way to the bottom, crossing Dumbarton Rd, onto Benalder Street, crossing the Kelvin once again, and then Ferry Rd. down to the walk/cycleway by the Expressway. Here, you could take the underpass towards the new metallic Transport Museum or just keep on the cycleway, heading east back to the Clyde Walkway and Bell's Bridge where we started.

Milngavie Loop (via Clachan of Campsie & Lennox Forest)

The train to Milngavie takes about twenty minutes from Partick. From the train station head up the hill (a great energizer to start us off!) past Mugdock Reservoir to the village of Mugdock, and then, after admiring the views, take the Old Mugdock Road downhill towards Strathblane.

 From Old Mugdock village head for Strathblane down the Old Mugdock Road.

At Strathblane, opposite the church, take the path towards Lennoxtown that runs parallel with the A891. It is an excellent path for both walkers and cyclists and offers up equally excellent views of the great Campsie mesa to the north. Before reaching Dunglass look out for Ballagan Burn, (a fine little stream with some overhanging trees), which comes down from the Ballagan Glen in the Campsie Fells. It's a serene little spot to rest and get the flask out (assuming that the cows haven't beat you to it!).

Dunglass is a strange formation 153m high, more or less directly opposite the great fissure of Ballagan Glen. It's well worth a walk to the top (15 minutes should do it from the path) for the views along the Blane Valley. These views might give you some idea of how (on earth) this hulking rock got here. Moreover, it's a good vantage point from where to spot birds. Ravens have been known to nest on the sheer east face (in front of us).

Clachan of Campsie is a lovely little village at the foot of the fells. There's even a bike shop if you get into a bit of trouble. Campsie Glen is a day trip in itself and is a wonderful place for a picnic should you decide to stop here. Right next door is the Schoenstatt shrine and religious retreat which moved here in 1989. It's certainly worth a look and its grounds are impeccable.

The fascinating graveyard at Clachan of Campsie.  

From Clachan of Campise head back to the path which now runs alongside the Glazert Water. Things have changed a lot since my 1968 OS map so be prepared to get slightly lost. All I can say is that somewhere along the line (not quite as far along as Lennoxtown) there is a rough farm path leading up into Lennox Forest. Follow this and you will come to Muirhead Farm and Lennox 'plantation' itself. Again, you will probably notice the silence, the complete absence of people, and the almost scary sense of space. From here, you can either head down via Blairskaith Quarry or through a patch of forest and along a makeshift trail (marked in blue on map above) which will spit us out on to Tower Road. Here, there is an opportunity to check out the Old Wives' Lifts (thought to be some kind of druidic altar) on Craigmaddie Muir (marked as a pink pyramid on map), and/or the remains of Craigmaddie Castle next door. [For more info. on these, check out the superb Archaeology Around Glasgow by Susan Hothersall and Gordon Mason's excellent Castles of Glasgow  & The Clyde Valley].

 

The view south over Glasgow from Blairskaith trig point.

The Old Wives' Lifts.

The back roads here lead us gently down to Baldernock and its ancient parish church and graveyard before sweeping through Dougalston Golf Course and back to Milngavie.

Con-Touring

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. 

Ernest Hemingway

  
The ‘with’ is not just a mode of being-in-the-world, but our transcendental condition.

Jean-Luc Nancy, From the Existence of Communism to the Community of Existence.

The word 'Contour' I have discovered is as much a verb is it is a noun, since at a deeper level of reality, and as Jean-Luc Nancy eloquently makes out, we are all fundamentally 'with'. When you're out and about, cycling-walking-energizing, this soon becomes clear, but when you're sealed behind screen and speed, or sedentariness, it doesn't.

This kind of exploratory cycling is more than just cycling. There is a transcendental aspect to it that reveals itself to us in those quieter moments of encounter, or when we simply pause to rest and take in the view. It's not just the contours of the land that become more 'felt' and 'integrated' (and thus more memorable), but the contours of Heart & Mind too. Through the simple (and yet apparently paradoxical act) of 'getting out into it', the beyond can be realised within.

These cycling trips and rural excursions thus present us with an opportunity for gradual dissolution and enlightenment, and an opportunity to get to know the world (to re-cognize 'world') which at that deepest stratum of reality (so deep that there is no reality) is at one and the same time our very self.