It's a rare thing when I nudge someone on a bike or when I accidentally brush a pedestrian when cycling, but it does happen albeit as an event as rare as Haley's comet. Take this morning for instance when I (lightly) collided with a man's shoulder as I was rounding a narrow bend on an even narrower foot-cycle path in Elderslie. I had done this before not so long ago, this time with a woman, who simply refused to budge out of my way as I hollared 'coming through' from 100m away. This chap did try to move as I shouted to him with plenty of warning, but he actually moved into my corner and not away from it. As I brushed his shoulder he quickly said, 'Sorry' before I did, realising his mistake, but it was no big deal, just a case of 'friendly fire'. Yet it is amazing how many people I see out and about who are so caught up in their own egos (it's a rare thing to see a person walking without any modern technological crutches or pets) and unaware of what's coming at them. Even when they do see me coming they seem particularly inept at getting out of the way. This may well be a Glasgow thing - 'am no moving' intransigence - but it may just be that people are becoming increasingly inept in their own bodies having outsourced most of it to machines that destroy its capacities and capabilities. As a cyclist I see everything, but particularly how people are now so inept at walking - people waddle, they no longer walk. Walking after all, much like cycling, is a form of waking, and if you're not awake then you're not walking but involved in just another egofest that destroys your awakeness. And so the gentle skelp, the friendly fire, is there to tell you this, in the hope that you yourself will realise how primally inept you are and do something to remedy it.
Comanche-Romanche
I used to consider myself as some kind of Glasgow Apache but now I am more likely to side with the Comanche. Why? Well, for one they were equestrian nomads of the great plains which kind of appeals to the wild cyclist within. They were one of the first tribes to acquire horses from the Spanish and breed them to any extent. Their name, Comanche, deriving from their language Ute (itself deriving from the northern branch of the Uto-Aztecan languages) also appeals to my wild animal within. Why, you may well ask. Because it means 'enemy with everyone' or 'someone who wants to fight all the time'. This was the name applied to them by outsiders who only saw this side to them. Their own name was Nermernuh which meant, simply, 'the people'. Their Comanche appellation as 'the permanent berserker' may seem rather bellicose and unfair in comparison, but if your land and people were being raped by invaders you'd be rather bellicose too. The Comanche also fought with other indigenous tribes for the best lands well before any Spaniards arrived, like the Apache who they drove south from the Wymoming Shoshone into the barren deserts of Arizona and New Mexico. So this is me: Comanche-Romanche on a bicycle, enemy of everyone friend of no-one, someone who is not afraid to stand up to the invaders, the invaders being those who have allowed technologies (like the car, the smartphone, the aberrant economy) to overtake (and violate) their own bodyminds (not to mention this fine land now paved with roads, heavy industry, and pollution). And like the Comanche, especially now given their tiny numbers, I feel alone and outnumbered in my crusade for land and freedom.
I actually have a tomahawk believe it or not, a very sharp one. Not sure if it would be a good idea to carry it with me, although it would show car drivers that I mean business ;)
May the universe bless the aborigines of the Earth and all who Listen to Nature...
Cleaning Your Bowl
It came to me at the end of a two hour pastoral cycle as if as some reward for the clarity of mind attained from that elemental excursion. The cycle itself into the empty misty back roads between Barrhead and Howwood and then along the sustrans path to Paisley Canal was remarkable if only for the complete absence of people and cars en route. To be sure, my routes are always blissfully quiet (that's why they're roots) but today was unduly blissfull. It seemed that in spite of covering some 20 miles I passed no-one and no-one passed me. And it wasn't even cold in spite of it being mid December. Sure, there was a little drizzle, and it was overcast and misty but surely people know how to walk in the rain? Apparently not, which suits me just fine. Because it is the emptiness and complete lack of distraction, along with that moving blood and those pastoral and primal landscapes, that lets you into your Self. And it's this Self, this Master, who will tell you to 'clean your bowl'. And of course, the bowl is not a bowl but an animal body and the 'vessel' that contains emptiness.
Who are you, the pupil asked the master. There is no who, the master replied. Then, what are you, the pupil asked. And the master replied: I am awake!
When In Rome...
When you're on a bicycle don't behave like a car driver. It seems a pretty obvious thing to say but I constantly see cyclists like the one today in Elderslie waiting behind cars at traffic lights. Not only are you sucking on that exhaust pipe like a big old Cuban cigar but you are also vitiating the purpose of cycling: spontaneity, flow, and freedom. So, when I passed this middle-aged cyclist waiting behind a long line of cars in Elderslie I said to him: 'You're on a bicycle man, get to the front.'
This is where you belong, at the front. Are you not, after all, the vanguard of a new world order that says 'move everywhere under your own steam, spontaneously and renewably'? But this is man, not the aborigine. And so man needs telling once again: when you're in an animal body do not behave like a robot.
The (Cosmic) Circuit
I've been cycling this 'circuit' between Paisley and Bridge of Weir and back again via the plateau of desolation, Kilbarchan and Johnstone, for years now. It is one of many circuits and routes through the strath that I have 'engineered' over the past twenty or so years. Like routes (roots), if you put together enough of these circuits, you get a bona fide mother board (or tree). This mother board or treeness allows one to tap in to the Earth in a way that had previously been kept from you. One taps into the current of the Earth by moving as its animals and plants do (of their own accord) and moving as the Earth herself does, that is, circuitously.
Is the Earth not a circuitous entity? Does she not perform a circuit of the sun every year? And in so doing, does the Earth not become more cosmic because of this?
Never Look Back
Look not behind thee... Escape to the mountains lest thee be consumed.
Genesis 19:17
Car drivers look back all the time. Cyclists, not so, because a cyclist's ears have evolved to become their rear-view mirror. Car drivers by contrast have halted their evolution and growth by aligning with the unclean machine. Compared to cyclists, car drivers are thus inferior beings, deliberately so, for I have never met a car driver who lamented the fact that he was 'forced' to drive. Car drivers are obligated to look back for they have created a device that is outwith their own organic self-cleansing technology. They are no longer 'being' whilst sealed into this pollutant perambulator, but rather 'having' as in 'in possession of a machine and technology that usurps and violates the aboriginal bodymind'. This causes man to have to look back. And in looking back man defies natural organic momentum. He loses the moment and replaces it with 'that which has already been'. By doing this he begins to 'stop'. But 'Stop' in all manner of ways in terms of growth, maturation, and overall health. And by stopping man loses contact with his own body (and, by extension, his own land) and becomes stupid. This stupidity (a function of being stupefied) encourages man all the more to putt-putt-putt about in his mobile gas chamber. And the more he does this the more he stops, and the more he stops the more stupid he becomes. Never look back. Never behave like a car driver when you're on a bicycle.
Rainbow & Fox
This morning, the sun and the wind equals rainbow. And it arrives just before the train does as I stand on the platform at Pollokshaws West train station. I marvel at its sturdiness along with another person waiting on the platform. We discuss the scarcity of rainbows within the Glasgow region considering there is so much cloud movement and moisture in the air. 'Scarcer than a golden eagle' we conclude before hopping onto the train. A couple of hours later, after a brief wander in the hills above Paisley and Barrhead, I arrive at Paisley Canal train station just before the train does and I see a flicker of gold crossing the railway about a hundred metres yonder. No, it's not a golden eagle or a rainbow, but something more rare than that. It's a daytime fox scuttling between shrubbery. I feel blessed at such sights. What life there is when your eyes are open!
The Spirit of Blane: Milngavie Circle Via Blanefield
This late November morning, I can feel the cold but I can also feel the dryness. I head up to Milngavie with a view to seeing the holy mountain, Dumgoyne, from afar. From the Old Mugdock Road just above Strathblane there is an awesome sight of the Campsie Fells draped in a light mist. I am toasty already, half an hour out, having just scaled a hard-to-kill hill up to Mugdock. I am surrounded by Earth and not by machines and people. I skirt through Strathblane holding up as many cars as I possibly can as I dawdle through the village. Just on the left there is the Blanefield road which will take us up to Carbeth where we will nick onto the West Highland Way down to Mugdock Wood via Craigallian Loch. I pass a few walkers along the way, all oldies who seem to have realised a little too late in life what life is all about. I head on down to Mugdock Wood and out the other end, down the hill and onto the train. Never hurrying, I arrive back at 13.24 having left the station at 12:07. Amazing, absolutely amazing!, the territory, the sights, the Earth encounters, that you can see and feel in less time than it takes you to watch a shit movie. Alleluja!
Announcing Your Presence: The Dumb Stalker Cyclist
The Art of Wet-Drying & The Paradox of the Periphery
There is no greater coincidence of opposites than cycling through a wet and windy November strath. Here, in the blissful peripherals there is nothing to break the wind, nothing to distort it or tame it. The same applies to the rain: all is open, nothing tempered. And so today, as I was cycling through God's washing machine I was also cycling through God's tumble dryer. As I was getting gently seasoned from above my forward travel into a headwind expedited an air-drying too. And so it was that as I was getting wet I was also getting dried. God bless the paradox of the periphery.
Legassy & The Law of the Leg
Legassy means that you use your legs and ass. In other words, if you're a legassy person, it means you walk (or cycle) everywhere whilst eschewing the act of being stretchered. Here, legassy is an adjective as opposed to 'legacy' as a noun. So, for example, you might say that I am a legassy person for all the walking and cycling that I do, and for the simple fact that I refuse to be stretchered. You could also say that the legacy of the modern world is not the legassy person but the de-legassied people whose legs and asses have been removed from the equation, and who now sit on their asses with their feet up in a state of suspended animation. The wild do not sit. At best they perch. The wild are always on the move. As such their animation (and 'anima') is never suspended. Their Soul and Mind is ever-present as is the Origin. The lagassy creature then is an aborigine in touch with everything.There is no legacy of the wild that is ever delegassied. This is what makes the wild wild, legass, and what makes modern man a farm animal, the absence of legass.
When your world has been removed from the law of the leg (and its adjoining ass) then you're in trouble because clearly you're obeying another law that is not the leg but a replacement of it: the law of the prosthesis. This prosthesis dismembers and displaces and does not renew or regenerate. Under this law we lose touch with everything and become miniscule and insignificant. We are no longer ambassadors of the Earth by way of our legs (and by extension our anima) but envoys of the filthy machine and all its ancillary features (waste, destruction, perversion). This is your legacy - disease and unwholeness - until you realize your essential legassy nature which conjoins and unites the creature in a universal connaturality with all things.
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'...
Beautiful Paisley from Saucelhill (42m) right above Paisley Canal train station.
The wild cyclist... ;)
The catapult train....
Hard to Kill Hills #4: Nolly Brig to Ruchill Flagpole
The other day as I was taking a cycle along the canal from Spiers Wharf to Murano I nipped off at the Nolly Brigg and up to Ruchill flagpole. No sooner had I done this than I realized this was a pretty steep hill. In fact, I got off the bike and walked it up to the park entrance where I remounted and cycled up to the flag. It's a real tester to be sure (my excuse was that I wasn't in a low enough gear to start off with) and if you make it to the top without getting off you can claim your invincibility. No holding onto the bannisters as you go either...
The Cruising Bicycle Overtake
This is a rare cycling manouevre, not so much man-oeuvre as simply oeuvre and masterpiece. I am of course speaking of the cruising bicycle overtake which involves the masterful act of overtaking a car whilst cruising (and not pedalling). This means that a steep(ish) hill and perhaps a tailwind is not too far away, which means in a hilly windy valley like Glasgow, the cruising bicycle overtake is always a faint possibility. The last time I performed the manoeuvre was in Kilbarchan down its main street from the north. There is even a speedometer in the form of a speed camera that tells you near the top how fast you are going. I regularly hit about 22-3mph by the time I pass the camera which means further down (and on this particular day with wind behind) I must've been nearing 30mph at cruise speed. This is where you will find the overtake, just beside the wee cottage celebrating Kilbarchan's textile past, as there is an another road on the left as you're descending that joins the main road here. Coming down, cars have difficulty seeing you as there is a bend in the main road, so on this particular day, a wee wifie pulled out as I approached from behind. As she was changing gears moving into second or third and at about 15-20mph I knew I was going fast enough to simply pull out and overtake. And so this is what I did. And boy, what a move it is! Cruising past an overweight driver in their dinky little pollutant not even looking at them. You can almost hear them shouting at their car: Go faster, change bloody gears, there's a bicycle overtaking me! It is a supreme feeling but not without risk, so it requires skill and nerve, and is not for the faint-hearted. The other hill that I have performed this oeuvre on is Kirkhill above Cambuslang coming down from Kirkhill Golf Course (where you can practise overtaking golf buggies!). I have regularly maddened young upstarts in their souped up motors by cruising past them often because they have to stop up ahead at the traffic lights queue. It's amazing really to see the frustration in their eyes and to hear it through their false bodies of the car's revving engine and screeching brakes. This is a wild cyclist's wet dream, and coming down from Kirkhill all the way down to the river Clyde path (a distance of some two miles), overtaking and irking these little disembodied polluters, has to be the best there is. But be warned, car drivers in this part of the world generally go apeshit when they are overtaken by a humble cyclist especially if like me you give them a little 'wave' as you pass. Just make sure you know your territory and all the little ramps onto pavements and exits that cars just cannot take. A bicycle the wild cyclist knows can always out-manoeuvre a car simply by stopping and turning around, but when you do it the car's way and perform a bona fide overtake (with wave) this is when you know you have shaken off your farm animal status and become truly wild.
The Immortal 8: Barr Hill
Three hours is all it took, not that I was rushing or watching the clock (since I don't have one), door to door via the immortal Barr Hill in between Twechar and Croy. I started off at Milngavie train station and headed up through Dougalston, Baldernock and Torrance, to the canal towpath that takes you (like a conveyor belt) all the way to Twechar just past Kirkintilloch some five miles away. Here, we branch off, head up the road for couple of hundred metres before turning up onto the path that leads to Barr Hill. After enjoying those expansive views over to the Campsies and the Kelvin valley we head down the other side to Croy and the waiting train (yes, it was waiting just for me;) and a twelve minute bullet through the bucolic back to the newly renovated hauptbanhof of Queen Street. Another ten minutes by the river and I'm hame. It's 14:04 and I left my gaff at 11:00 on the dot. What's not amazing about that? The fact that I have entered another 'zone' of being - the bucolic and the pastoral - and been in contact with so much life via that canal and those country back roads. In those three hours I've cycled through woods, fords, passed countless streams and ponds, seen a million lifeforms that are not human-shaped or even human-like (fortunately), breathed in the silence and the space, nevermind that blissful solitude, and climbed a half dozen hills of varying sizes. And as if to seal the deal, the train is literally waiting for me at Croy station as I arrive.
God Bless Glasgow!
I thought I had taken the wrong train there for a minute arriving as I did at the newly refreshed Queen Street station. No sure if I like it though given the fact that the square frontage seems to clash with the semi-circular facade that used to be there and whose top you can still see. What I do like is the fact that the roads are slowly being taken back by the people. 'People first, not pollution' would be the motto of my city, and no-one would have cars, they would all walk or cycle.
The Singing Bicycle
All bicycles sing. It's just difficult to hear it sometimes since you are invariably surrounded by noise. And also because there are several parameters that must be met before your bicycle will enchant and serenade you. The bicycle rarely sings when there are cars present, and like a true wild bird, it will rarely break out into song unless it knows its territory and where it is. This is why my bicycle sings all the time, because it knows the land and respects it, and it is always (even in the city) as far away from cars as possible. Yet, there is another stipulation for the bicycle's song, that is, that it will only appear after you have dismounted and are walking alongside the bicycle. This is why most cyclists never hear their bicycle's song: because they're always sat on its mouthpiece and 'forcing the bike to move'. But when the bicycle starts walking, and enters the great paradox that life is, its song is never far away. Try it and see. And don't wait for a steep hill either. You can get off your bike anytime and listen to its song.
Climbing the Walls
This is a continuation of the previous post which celebrated the 'hard to kill' hill at the foot of the Loch Humphrey path in Kilpatrick. I realised from the past two days outings that there are hard to kill hills all over my home range that is greater Glasgow. The last two days saw me climb them by bicycle but I guess you could walk and/or jog them as well. The first one is Hillside Grove just off Gateside road in Barrhead. From the bottom to its summit at Woodneuk Farm is about five hundred metres but what a hill! You can if you want continue all the way up on the farm path to above Ferenese golf course. It's a real opener-upper! And no cars!
The second starts from Milngavie train station and heads straight up to Dogmuck via four 'stages' although it is the last one as you get up to top that is the realhard to kill hill here. I have been known to get off the bike and walk up to the village post box before I remount for the superb downhill down the Old Mugdock Road to Strathblane. Again, the beauty of this road is that there are never any nutters in cars roaring past you. Which isn't the case with some roads that I used to cycle like the one up from Paisley Canal station to the Gleniffer Braes via Stanely Reservoir. Sure, it's a hard to kill hill and the braes and plateau at the top are well worth it but the amount of times I've been overtaken by supreme idiots in their dinky toy souped up cars is too much for me to recommend it as a safe route to ply your invincibility. Nevertheless, these are only a few of the many roads, paths, tracks, up the side of the strath that Glasgow sits in. When many are climbing the walls due to being locked down for Covid (or indeed out of work) maybe you should be exerting your divine right to exercise and breathe (and work naturally), and climb these walls instead.
Hazelwood Road just off Sustrans path at Bridge of Weir. Beautifully steep road, no cars, some lovely big houses (built by slave owners and tobacco merchants no less) and birdsong to accompany as you go. And at the top you have the plateau of emptiness which you can dawdle through to Howwood or Kilbarchan on the other side.
Top, Middle, or Bottom?
Here is Hillside Road (the middle one) and 800yds of stepth that cleanses the bodymind-earth system. Moreover, if you continue all the way to the top you'll cleanse that manky little soul of yours as well. Beautiful, no cars, no people, great views... and it's two minutes from Barrhead train station. What are you waiting for?
Feel The Train
Don't think. Feel.
Bruce Lee
There's spookiness afoot when you're constantly powering your self into the desert of the real. And this morning was no different. I left the house not looking at the time, (easy enough since there are no timepieces in my gaff and I don't have a dummy (smartphone)), intent on arriving at Cathcart train station (some twenty minutes away by bike) just in time to see the train pulling in. I never rushed, and never moved as if I was moving in order to reach somewhere at a certain time. In the great shamanic tradition, I was weightless and without the weight of time. And so it was today, that feeling before I left the house not so much of being on time (or rather, time being on me) but of being in time. And right enough, I arrived at the station a single minute before the train arrived. Just in time. I'm tempted to think that this is now 'instinct' for me, that I have a fair idea of the schedules of trains from past excursions, and how long it takes me to get to a given station from where I happen to be, and so without thinking about it the body just does it. The brain is bypassed by instinct - the ingrained imported memory of previous navigatings - so that now the body thinks and remembers without you having to worry about it 'up top' so to speak. Some refer to this as the subconscious but it's really the 'Great Body' (that includes your body) sending you signals and communicating with you.
This communication does not come from the 'future' (it just seems like the future since your greater Body is so capacious) but from your greater Body and Self (which contains all time-space) and thus from that which 'has already happened' but which just hasn't reached you (and your small ego-body) yet. The more capacious you become - the more you flow aboriginally - the more easily it is to 'hear this communication' since you are always in direct contact with the source. So, this morning, when I arrived at Cathcart just in time, you could say that I had simply been listening to my greater Self speak.
Halo
I've always maintained that cycling (shamanically) makes you sane (and thus saintly). It's all those hills and elevated regions, paradeshas and uncontaminated celestial zones. So when a halo spontaneously appeared above my head today whilst sitting on a grass verge at Paisley Canal train station I wasn't too surprised. The sun behind me had momentarily split the clouds and in so doing had caused the wheel of my upturned bike to cast a circle around my head. Not only this, but my head and new found halo also contained the 'Mind' part of the 'Mind the Gap' warning stencilled on the platform's edge.
Coincidence you say?
There are no coincidences I say.
Motorized
People are now 'motorised'. They cannot carry their selves anymore. They trundle about in a variety of ever-pretty prams polluting with impunity. And it's not just the air and the land they pollute with their fumes and their roads, but their very bodies. In subscribing to the 'motorised pram' man has lost his way and let the pram and the infantilizing tool guide him. But of course, infantilizing tools simply guide him into more lostness, until eventually, he is so far gone eco-existentially that the mere mention of the words 'ecological' or 'existential' sends him into a tizz, like the overweight woman this morning that I had to remonstrate with due to her driving her moped onto the sustrans cycle-walkway. 'No motorized vehicles on the path,' I shout loud enough to penetrate her helmet (and her evidently thick skull) as I pass her. 'It's electric,' she shouts back, as if cleaning the blade of the guillotine makes any difference to the ethics of execution. 'An electric motor?' I rhetorically holler. And I wonder if it's the body or the brain that suffers the most when you abandon your own locomotive force and pumping heart.
The Ben Hur Manoeuvre
The Ben Hur Manoeuvre is a cycling term (that I just made up) for that peculiar breed of wild cyclist who wants to fight back against those car drivers who think they can use their cars as weapons with impunity. In order to perform the Ben Hur Manoeuvre effectively you need to get crafty and craft out what I call a stone-ring (a ring with a nobbly rock poking out of it) that you can place on your index finger of your right hand (or both hands if you're feeling particularly wild) when you're cycling. So that you can, as I did this morning when exiting Pollok Country Park (a country park that doesn't just have a road running through it but which appears to vitiate its country park status by giving priority to car drivers over walkers and cyclists), rub up against the oncoming Range Rover who refused to move out of my way (despite there being plenty of room for it to do so). And so, as it passed dangerously close to me, I simply extended my ringed knuckle and 'offered (this virgin white Range Rover) my hand in marraige'.
King of Cool: My New Favourite Downhill
Steve McQueen - cool?
You ain't seen cool until you've seen yourself on a bicycle heading downhill from the Gleniffer Braes through Glenburn and Carraigehill into the great city of Paisley.
This is my new favourite downhill. Try it, you won't be disappointed. Just keep your fingers on those brakes at that initial steep part, coming down from Glenburn Reservoir or Paisley Golf Course. But once you hit the housing estate, it's smooth soaring all the way with a brief dismount at the ultra steep Park Road until we get to the top and then we're back on again at arguably the coolest cornering you've ever seen as we exit Park Road (just after Brodie Park) and plough down Calside Road towards Paisley Canal train station.
Beautiful!
As soon as you see this, you can ease off the brakes and start freewheeling all the way more or less to Park Drive. Just watch out for stray kids and dodgy car drivers.
Taproute South: The Unsexy Circle - Cessnock Circular via the Kissing Tree
This route (root) is a belter, not just for its brevity (2hrs and 10mins. door to door at a leisurely pace), but for its capacity to enlighten and space out, given that you are entering one of the strath's great empty spaces with no people (and no dolls) and only the sound of Nature to inform you. The 'Kissing Tree' is the goal, the highest point (219m) on our expedition. There is a swing now from its branch, so you have the added bonus of swinging over the strath as a reward for your ascent. The way back down (to Paisley Canal train station) is great too with the residential roads that pass through Glenburn and Carraigehill and past Brodie Park being quiet and beautifully smooth (very few cars and no traffic lights) in its descent.
Jump the train at Paisley Canal (which, if your timing is as good as mine) will just be pulling in, and take it to Dumbreck where it's a two minute jaunt over the motorway and hame. The initial cycle to Pollokshaws West train station takes about fifteen mins. and takes me through the wonderful Pollok Country Park.
The train bits are marked in blue on map above with the cycling bits in purple (with walking part dotted).
The unsexy part comes from the video I made at the top where I consider the etymology of the word 'sexy' (and 'second'). Watch and learn...
Motorcycle Maintenance in the Art of Zen
No cycling blog would be complete without some kind of thanks for the various mechanics and bike fixers in and around Glasgow. I've had some great finds like RT Cycles in Glengarnock one day when my chain broke all of a sudden and your man replaced it on the spot. Or, Dales out in East Kilbride where Jim the mechanic did a sterling job on my worn out Trek. Or South-West Cycles at Pollokshaws West train station whose stand pump and spanner have saved my bacon many a time. Then, there's Doolies in Paisley, again, right next to the train station(s). And of course, Gear Bikes and West End Cycles in Glasgow's West End, George being my regular goto guy for repairs in the latter (see pic below).
So, here's to the repairmen, the galvanizers of galvanizers, all over the strath. I've only named half a dozen here, but there are many more I wish to thank, some in other countries like Poland where I lived for three years and had some great cycling times.
If I had the space I would probably do it myself, but I kinda like letting a professional do it. No-one can fix a shoogly wheel quite like George can. And out of all the shops and stuff about, bike shops are amongst the most essential, for they get you on your bike and back into your own body (big and small). And that can only be a good thing.
Taproute North: The Three Heron Three Golf Course Trail
Glasgow is a fortunate city in many ways due to its topography. Its circumambient hills prevent a sort of neverending sprawl like London or Paris, cities which are very flat. As such it's quite easy to get out of the city and into its empty pastoral exurbs. Although, as I discovered today property developers like British Land PLC do their best to build on land and veto councils and locals (who actually live there).
At any rate, the taproute north is the TOE or the 'Towpath of Emptiness' by the Forth and Clyde Canal which I joined at Lochburn Road at Maryhill/Gilsochill. This used to be my main staple this route when I lived in Scotstounhill and it was a great run north into the Campsies, and up to Falkirk. Since moving to Cessnock ten years ago I've only been up a dozen or so times but it's still a phenomenal root/route for its absolute primal quality of leaving Maryhill's built-upness and noise and being injected into nothingness as serenity, silence, and space.
From Cessnock, the route is actually quite pleasant, over to Partick by the river, and up through Dowanhill and Kelvinside. I used to take the Kelvin Walkway until I realised that dog-walkers are worse than car-drivers. At any rate, Dowanhill and Kelvinside are so quiet that there are no cars and if there are they go so slow that they might as well be bicycles.
From bottom centre, follow the turquoise line north to Cadder, then through golf course, across bridge over Kelvin and through to Balmore. Head up and through Balmore golf course (there's a path all the way through then course) and out at Fluchter primary school. Here, we are veering west towards Milngavie through Baldernock and Dougalston golf course. All in all, with a few short stops along the way, it took about 2 and a quarter hours. The train back to Partick from Milngavie takes twenty minutes.
Quiet Downhill Street but still too many cars, parked or otherwise. Head straight up over Highburgh Road into Crown Terrace - Victoria Circus and across Gt. Western Road into Kirklee Road, then into Garrioch Rd up to Maryhill Rd. and then into Lochburn Rd. to get to the canal towpath...
The canal and towpath at Lochburn Road.
Heron #3
Cadder Church graveyard. See if you can find the metal mort-safe. Take the lane off the TOE down to the golf course and follow the path over the Kelvin River towards Balmore village. Cross the main road and head up and through Balmore golf course.
Just before Baldernock X, the views over Glasgow are quite something.
Heading through Baldernock Parish towards Dougalston and Milngavie.
Sooner or later some muppet is going to knock this quaint little shed down and build a seven storey block of pokey little flats. Mark my words... Probably corporate outfits like British Land who are already preparing the land out here for construction, in spite of the locals not wanting it. You may see some flyers posted on the millstone opposite to get you to sign up against these monsters who invade your home and turn it into a carnival for holidaymaking outsiders.
From here, it's a lovely ten minutes or so through Dougalston Golf course or rather the road that splits the golf course to Milngavie train station, and a much deserved seat on another empty train ('cause everyone's got mobile gas chambers).