Cycling Meditations: June 2013

The Greatest Show on Earth

On this the first day of the 100th Tour de France, and having just watched the wonderful documentary The Greatest Show on Earth, charting the 1974 Giro d'Italia (and ultimately Eddy Merckx's victory), I got to wondering how Merckx, often lauded as the greatest cyclist ever, would regard the practice of slow cycling, and the idea of a 'non-race', and of cycling not as a means to an end but as an end in itself.

I suppose I am wondering if Monsieur Merckx, now 68, ever goes out for a slow cycle in the Belgian countryside, his head swaying from side to side as he takes in the passing pastoral landscapes... a 30km cycle taking a whole afternoon...

Surely, the greatest show on earth cannot be appreciated at 80kph and with your head down....?

'Eddy Merckx, Half Man Half Bike'

The Saintliness of Cycling

The inspiration for this little number was the idea that in using your own steam to travel and to think for yourself one became closer to 'sainthood', sainthood not just as a cleansing of the impurities that have hitherto encumbered selfhood, but also, in the spirit of the boddhisattva, of trying to show others the way. Here, I was taken by a photograph of Eddy Merckx and his colleagues sitting on the grass with an upturned bike behind them. The composition transformed the upturned wheels into halos, and the seated riders into saints. They were, after all, in the 'Zone', traversing the 'Pure Land'... in union with the white-gathered element...using their own steam to travel and travail, and find their way...

He whose reflective pure spirit sinks into Atman knows bliss inexpressible through words.

The Upanishads

Dalmuir Loop (via The Slacks)

This is a great little circular, utilising (again) the wonderful Loch Humphrey path from Old Kilpatrick. Accordingly, you could start from Kilpatrick train station and not Dalmuir, but I prefer the couple of quiet kilometres along the canal towpath from Dalmuir to warm the body up before tackling that high road up into the Kilpatrick Hills.

So, from Dalmuir train station, join the canal until just before the Erskine Bridge, and then turn right crossing the main road, and left for a 30 yards or so until the path that leads up the little glen to Kilpatrick train station. Cut around the bowling green, over the little bridge, down the hill, left under the carraigeway and the Loch Humphrey path is right in front of you. Just follow it all the way up until it begins to descend towards Loch Humphrey. Here, keep your eyes peeled for an unmarked footpath to the right. Take this, up and along the ridge (Boglairoch) - you will see in the far distance (about 2km away) the trig point for The Slacks. Just head towards it. The path is good enough to cycle too, but usually I walk with the bike in tow, allowing me a chance to inhale some of these cracking views.

Epic-ness awaits on the Loch Humphrey path...

Loch Humphrey and, in the distance, the silhouette outlines of The Cobbler (on the left) to Ben Lomond (on the right).

From The Slacks looking eastwards to Greenside Reservoir, The Birny Hills (covered in sitka spruce), and the Campsie Fells beyond.

Looking south-east over the city to the volcanic shadow of Tinto Hill from The Slacks (from the Gaelic 'sloc' meaning ridge or saddle) -

The Greenside path (down to Cochno Road) with the Loch Humphrey burn aside it.

From The Slacks, continue along the footpath, down to Greenside Reservoir, and then the path down to Cochno Road (there is now a bypass in place further down which you can take). Here, you can either elect to turn right and continue down to Hardgate and back to Dalmuir train station via the A810 and Parkhall/Dalmuir Golf Course trail, or equally, take a left and head round to the Duntocher Road and Peel Glen Road which will take you eventually onto the canal once again where you can follow it eastwards to the west end and the city. The last route is, admittedly a little longer, but no less serene. (At the end of Peel Glen Road, turn left onto Kinfauns Road and then at the traffic lights head right opposite onto the little park path towards Westerton and the canal, or train).

The Awakening of Mr. Hoopdriver

The title here comes from a chapter heading in Herbert Georges Wells comic novel The Wheels of Chance, first published in 1896 at the height of a cycling craze in Britain and America, when practical, comfortable bicycles first became widely and cheaply available. Dissapointingly, the 'awakening' in question does not refer to the main protagonist's enlightenment aided and abetted by the riding of his bicycle but simply to his getting out of bed.

At any rate, whilst browsing the shelves for Wells' book I came across another (oh the joys of browsing!) - The Utopian Vision of H.G. Wells by Justin E. A. Busch. In it, I came across this:

If we are to avoid desuetude or extinction, we had better do the work ourselves... there is little to believe that the workings of nature have been suspended for the benefit of humanity [...] the Modern Utopia must not be static but kinetic, must shape not as a permanent state but as a hopeful stage leading to a long ascent of stages. In a teleological utopia, someone comes along ans sets it up for the inhabitants; in a evolutionary utopia each inhabitant is responsible for her or his own place or involvement.

So there we have it. The beauty of bicycling: doing the work ourselves, enactive involvement; involving ourselves responsibly and naturally, towards an evolutionary utopia... towards an awakening of a mister or a miss hoopdriver...

Mr. Hoopdriver and his hoops.

Linlithgow to Caldercruix via California!

The route is in red with a couple of either/or options.

There are many strange and beautiful place names in any given country. A few years ago I discovered Moscow (Moss Haugh) on the Volga Burn not too far from Fenwick just south-west of Glasgow on the way to Kilmarnock. This week, I finally visited California, high up on the back roads behind Falkirk.

The route here follows part of the canal towpath before branching off onto quiet country lanes and back roads. There's not too much traffic to deal with along the whole route. Indeed, at certain points on the road, such is the quietness of it all that you almost get the feeling that you are the last man on earth (especially on California Road leading up to California, the Greyrigg Road outside California, and the Telegraph Road outside Longriggend!). There are, also, a couple of either/or options before and after Slammanan that you can choose to take, all on equally tranquil roads.

From the canal at Linlithgow looking towards the unmistakeable St. Andrew's steeple of St. Michael's church.

From the California Road looking towards Grangemouth, the largest petrochemical works in UK.

Going to California....

A beautiful day in Californ-i-a...

The slightly creepy Greyrigg Inn on the Greyrigg Road south of California.

The whole area here is gently undulating and beautifully curvaceous, whether roads or land. It is, coupled with the quietness of the roads, a joy to cycle through.

The aptly named Telegraph Road out of Longriggend.

From Longriggend to Caldercruix is only a few kilometres. The latter town has a train station now, so we can ride it back to Glasgow and give our poor feet a rest. Trains are once an hour, so check times, just in case you arrive two minutes too late (there's not a great deal to see and do in Caldercruix!).

Around Great Cumbrae

'Miami Vice' - Nardini's Ice Cream Parlour in Largs.

What a wonderful little island Great Cumbrae is! And it's perfect, thanks to its cycle-friendly roads and lack of cars, for any cyclist no matter their age or expertise. It's surprisingly easy to get to from Glasgow with the train from Glasgow Central to Largs taking about an hour, and the ferry (every 30 mins. from Largs) taking 10-15 minutes. The variety of transport too: train, ferry, bicycle, foot, is also something that imparts a certains sense of accomplishment within one's bones. The route around is simple as there really are only two roads in Great Cumbrae: the ring road around the island and the interior road up to its highest point, The Glaid Stone, and back down. Its main town, Millport, is a quiet marvel of Victorian villa architetcure, and simplicity. Its promenade, harbour and beach, inevitably incline one to want to live here, if only for a few weeks. It has that sort of spell. I think it may be something in that invigorating sea air!

There is plenty to see and do with odd geological formations, the wonderful flora and fauna, the daintiest cathedral in all Europe, and the spectacular views from all around. It's an ideal location for a day-trip from Glasgow...

The quiet road around Great Cumbrae, looking westwards to the lumpy southern half of Bute, and beyond
to the craggy Isle of Arran.

On the beach at Millport.

From Ninian Brae looking west.

Anarchy in the Saddle

People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth.

Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life

Wherever I cycle (indeed, wherever I am) I try to keep as much distance between myself and cars as is humanly possible. It's not just for the obvious dangers that cars convey, but also for the monstrous corporations that they represent, corporations hell-bent on polluting and raping the planet for the sake of speed, greed, and progress. The automobile (and the internal combustible engine) is the great malevolent sorcerer that bewitches us at every turn and forces us to outsource our own locomotive force, and our own automobility, to that of a machine.

Rule # 1: Never trust anything that usurps your own hyper-organic energy, for in the end, ineluctably, it will bleed you dry.

In his article Capitalism Getting You Down? Then Ride Your Fucking Bike, Hart Noekers writes:

The automobile is the greatest weapon of class war the 1% ever devised. Petroleum is killing our planet and car culture is killing our souls. This capitalist circle of death has imprisoned us, and it's time to liberate ourselves. In an age when the automobile is literally destroying our way of life, simply riding your bicycle becomes a revolutionary act...

Only when we cease the indulgence of being transported will we awake from the torpid slumber that has thus, via the machines that pitifully plagiarise our own vitality, numbed us into a living state of death.

Anarchy begins with your own energy -

Vive la revolution!

Forever Bicycles!

The following image is that of an exhibition '42 Bicycles' in 2003 by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei when he conjoined forty-two Forever bicycles into a circular sculpture. Manufactured in Shanghai since 1940, the Forever bicycle was an essential mode of transportation that has become an icon of the post-revolutionary era. Made of heavy steel, these utilitarian bicycles were meant to last forever.

8 years later, Weiwei configured another exhibition using Forever bicycles this time employing 1200 of them in an exhibit entitled simply 'Forever Bicycles'.

...one bicycle is only a bicycle, but one thousand, two thousand - you cannot say this is only a bicycle.

Cai Lujun

Humans are destined to be narrow-minded empiricists. But only by venerating the mystical world can we rise above our petty quandaries. Humans are animals who have renounced nature, and from among every possible path, humans have chosen the longest and most remote path leading to the self.

Ai Weiwei, The Grey Book

As Lujun states in an interview (Lujun himself spent 3 years in prison for speaking out against the Chinese government), the exhibit is symbolic of a call to arms (perhaps better a call to 'feet') transforming the bicycles into would-be dissidents... In other words, the bicycle, as a vehicle of autonomy and integrity (you need backbone to ride a bike!), subverts the status quo, and brings us perhaps onto a more direct path with the mystical world and that path leading to the self...

Cycling: The Way Ahead for Towns & Cities

A European Commission report called Cycling: the way ahead for towns and cities published in 1999 reveals some interesting statistics about cycling and driving. In the introduction, the report states:

The mobility that we associate with the private car has merged with apocalyptic images of towns that have come to a complete standstill... The car is the victim of its own success.

30% of trips in cars cover distances of less than 3km.

The level of pollution inside a car is invariably higher than the ambient air pollution level.

We are in danger of creating generations of obese people with fragile bones if we do not instil the habit of physical exercise in young people.

Cyclists enjoy better physical and mental health than non-cyclists.

And that's just the introduction!

It goes on to illustrate the potential benefits of ditching the car and taking up the bicycle, benefits that I'm sure we are all now aware of: economic benefits, health benefits, ecological benefits...

But the benefits of bicycling needn't stop there. There are deeper benefits that are associated with the simple act of cycling. Metaphysical benefits...or, let's say, spiritual fringe benefits.

One's openness to the outside, for instance, and one's own auto-mobility affords bicycling the power to reconnect us to our more deeply-rooted selves, by re-injecting us into the world, and by exposing us once again to its elements and energy.

Cycling is thus not just the way ahead for towns and cities but, and at a fundamental level, it is the way ahead for a more deeply ecologically invested self.

Christ on a Bike!

A good friend sent me this picture, which I believe is now called 'Cyclist the Redeemer'.... ;)

Redemption comes in through understanding the cycle....

Route 76: Linlithgow to Alloa

Never before in the history of cycling day trips has a route inhaled so much 'Time', human and geological. Although this route is on the eastern part of Scotland (nearer Edinburgh than Glasgow), such is the speed of trains these days that it is often quicker to get to Linlithgow from Glasgow than it is to get to Dumbarton or Greenock. At any rate, distance is not an issue. From Queen Street the train to Linlithgow takes around half an hour. Linlithgow itself is like all the towns on this route replete with history, the various architectures screaming out their tales as we pass them. Linlithgow is also St. Michael's Place, and St. Michael, so the stones say, is 'kinde to strangers'. But this is the beauty of cycling like this: one's openness to one's self and to 'strangers'. I have never had so many impromptu discussions by the sides of roads as when I am cycling through towns and villages and farmsteads. I guess the bicycle is a great facilitator of union, the tacit diplomat which everyone recognizes.

Linlithgow's High Street

As luck would have it, I forgot my maps this morning, but I needn't have worried, the route is well-signposted much of it on extant sustrans or local authority trails. The only concern really was the small 5 mile section between North Queensferry (the north exit of the Forth Road Bridge) and Dunfermline which seemed to be mostly on shared roads. Nevertheless, the Round the Forth Cycle Map will help here and point you in the right direction.

From Linlithgow to the Forth Road Bridge is relatively easy to follow and contains some splendid structures along the way -

From Linlithgow, follow the canal towpath for a couple of kilometres until the second road at the garden centre, then enjoy the sweep downhill towards the shore of the Forth and Blackness, passing along the way the House of the Binns. The roads here are quiet and typically rural. At the end of the road, we have the small coastal village of Blackness and its castle.

From Blackness the route 76 follows through a couple of fields and into Wester Shore Wood, a cool green zone which hugs the shoreline until more or less South Queensferry, passing such notable structures as Hopetoun House (Scotland's largest and, some say, finest stately home), and this beautiful freshly tarmacked shore road pictured below.

Across another fine structure, The Forth Road Bridge, aside the Forth Rail Bridge, takes us past the idyllic haven of North Queensferry onto Inverkeithing and Dunfermline 5 miles or so further on. It would be a good idea to consult the Around the Forth map here -

The haven of North Queensferry from the Forth Road Bridge.

Inverkeithing

Dunfermline has a host of fascinating buildings, past and present, none moreso than the abbey and the historic town. The Carnegie Library is also a fine structure in the centre of the old town.

Outside the Carnegie Library, Dunfermline.

Dunfermline's Old Town.

Lunch in the abbey's graveyard.

From Dunfermline to Alloa is a skoosh, following a converted railway line for the whole distance. About ten miles in, on this The West Fife Way, the medieval contours of Clackmannan are visible to the south-west, contours that would have made Cezanne proud. Here, there is a brief interchange onto the path to Alloa which lies a short distance ahead.

The country lanes of Clackmannanshire, looking to the Ochil Hills.

Alloa.

Alloa itself is a fascinating place, its tower house the largest of its kind in Scotland. The town centre is replete with a variety of architectures rendering an almost skansen quality to it. The railway station is right next to Asda, so it's a good time to get an orange or two. Trains to Glasgow are once an hour, usually about quarter to the hour, and take roughly an hour (via Stirling, Larbert, Croy etc..). But it's direct, and you can space out on the train, and watch the views melt. Look out for the approach to Stirling...!

Bell's Bridge to Erskine Bridge Loop

Another fine riverside route which has plenty of scope for improvisation!

The initial part from Bell's Bridge through Govan and Linthouse and past the George V docks down to the riverside path at Braehead is on quiet roads though you may have to brace strong headwinds and hold your nose whilst passing the sewage works between Linthouse and the docks.

Kenny the Cormorant chilling out at Braehead opposite Yoker shipyards.

Once down at Braehead promenade you can marvel at the enormous shipyards at Scotstoun and Yoker, and wonder at how quiet the river is nowadays when once upon a time you could not see the water for traffic and pollution. Moving alongside the river past Xscape and the new riverside housing complex, take a left from the path onto the main road, turning right here into the industrial corner between Renfrew and the river. The path here is a little concealed so keep your eyes peeled. It follows a route behind the scrapyard eventually reaching Renfrew golf course and the river continuing round to the confluence with the White Cart Water whereupon it veers north towards Renfrew.

Between the river and Renfrew Golf Course looking west to the Titan Crane, the Kilpatrick Hills and the Erskine Bridge.

At the Normandy Hotel and Inchinnan Bridge (here, you can see St. Conval's Chariot stone) turn right across the bridge and onto the Greenock Road towards the town of Inchinnan. Here, take the Old Greenock Road through Inchinnan until the main dual carraigeway. This is the only place where you need to take care since it is a main drag. You could take a more sedate detour through Erskine if this is a little hairy.

From Erskine Bridge the views east to the city and west down the estuary are awe-inspiring. It is one of the city's many great vantage points from which to breathe things in.

Looking over Old Kilptarick towards the Loch Humphrey path snaking up and over the Kilpatrick Braes.

On the other side at Kilpatrick we slide down through the glen by the burn to the Forth & Clyde Canal towpath which takes us back to the city serenely via Clydebank (check out the Titan Crane by the new riverside Clydebank College for more superb views!), Yoker (we could take the short ferry ride across the river back to Renfrew), Scotstoun (take a detour through the wonderful Victoria Park), Thornwood and Partick. After a serene and eye-opening 3-4 hour trip we are back where we started at Bell's Bridge.

From the Titan Crane looking towards Renfrew Golf Course (the path we took skirts the rim of this) and the confluence of Clyde and Cart rivers. [Clydebank College is just out of view on the left]

The Crow Road

Any cyclist worth his or her salt will know the Crow Road (coming from the Gaelic 'crawdh' referring to its use as a drove road in the past), that elevated artery that traverses the Campsie Fells between Lennoxtown and Fintry just north of Glasgow. It is quite something, not only for its gradients and views but for that quiet quality of solitude when cycling across the high (invariably misty) plateau surrounded by hills. There is a definite resuscitative quality to it all, not just in the endorphins released through a little physical effort but in the 'being in the midst of mountains' aspect (whether we are aware of it or not, the 'glen' has engraved itself deeply into the weathered Scottish psyche). As such, the Crow Road is a great connecting road, connecting not just towns...