The Bike as Badge

It's only really at times like these that you realize certain truths: man is a monster (by degrees), the child is an (immediate) angel, and the bicycle is a set of wings that you propel (and which propel you) into Freedom (which necessarily returns you to your original angelic and graceful state). When those police vans overtook me yesterday on my bike, I wondered if I would be stopped. But I needn't have. For the bike is a badge that people see whether they want to or not. The bike is an emblem of freedom, and a symbol of the confused animal (under a faulty economy) trying to de-fuse itself (from an aberrant way) and re-fuse that self with the natural order. Cycling thus becomes an admirable act, entirely non-threatening, and a call for not contaminating ourselves, the animals and the land, and 'shitting in our own nest'. Everyone sees this, even the police, and especially children who are not so removed from the cyclist in spirit.

So, the question then becomes: How could you possibly stop a cyclist (this freebird dispensing freedom to all) with a view to reprimanding them and sending them home? Surely, you should be genuflecting?

The Beauty & Bliss of Blairskaith

Late March, lockdown in process, the creature with the huge home range rejoices, for everywhere is local now. And you cannot close the great outdoors. In spite of this, I did see more police vans (3) on my way up to Mugdock from Milngavie than people. Thankfully though they knew better than to stop a non-helmet wearing wild-bearded cyclist, and so it was bliss all the way... no cars, no people, only the naturally-abiding... In the whole two hour trip Milngavie train station to Strathblane and then along to Lennox Castle and up to Blairskaith trig point before heading down to Fluchter, Baldernock, and Dougalston on my way back to Milngavie, I saw less than six people. And yet, it is such a wonderful set of paths, routes, car-free roads. Surely, I thought, everyone should be out and about enjoying their new found freedom. But no. Maybe people have forgotten how to walk after all, having relied on the great pram to carry them for so long. At any rate, what a route! Perhaps because I hadn't been up here for six months or so and I had forgotten just how serene and majestic it is with full-blown Nature all around: the great Campsie mesa, the Glazert Water and Ballagan Burn, the Blairskaith plateau, the Highlands beyond... You get a real sense of the remote and yet I can see the university tower poking up just down there in the city. Today, also, because of the clarity, I could see way across the strath too towards Tinto. And so, from Blairskaith, you have the whole central belt in your vision with the Lowlands to the south and the Highlands to the north. In this way, you can see all of Scotland from this humble little spot. This, along with the silence and serenity of this secluded space, is the beauty & bliss of Blairskaith.

 

Take the blue pill.... the square in the middle, straight up from Milngavie train station to Mugdock and then down the other end to Strathblane before joining the Thomas Muir path towards Lennoxtown.

Tinto Hill from Mugdock.

 Heading down the Old Mugdock Road to Strathblane.

The lovely Thomas Muir path, and the great Campsie mesa. Lennox Castle is just up ahead in that foresty bit on the right.

The beautifully dilapidated (and some say haunted) Lennox Castle.

 Finally, the gateless gate...!

The Highlands and Dumgoyne from Blairskaith.

The wild-bearded man atop the plateau of desolation... (Blairskaith trig just behind to the right)

Looking south from Blairskaith into the valley that the city of Glasgow nestles in.

For those of us with dodgy Latin (and/or Monty Python) it means 'Humans, go home'.

Once down from Blairskaith, there's a whole new beauty to be found in these bucolic back-lanes between Blairskaith and Baldernock and Dougalston. See below links for more details.

 

https://cyclingmeditations.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-odyssey-cadder-blairskaith.html


 https://cyclingmeditations.blogspot.com/2013/04/milngavie-loop-via-schoenstatt-lennox.html





https://cyclingmeditations.blogspot.com/2016/09/roots-routes-milngavie-to-cessnock-via.html

The Bald Head as Evolved Valve

What is a bald head (at least for the cyclist) if not a valve through which steam may be released? Is this not then part of the evolution of the cyclist, dispensing with the non-essential (hair) in order to get to the essence of areodynamic perfection and metabolic thermostatic control? Have the bicycle, (bald) cyclist, and earth, (like the wing, bird, and earth), not then become one in their conviviality and intimacy together? Has the bald cyclist in becoming more streamlined and elementally aligned, in his headwinding and allowing the wind to slide over the body, become an earth-being that is still shaped (formed and in-formed) by the elements and the earth? Is the cyclist not then, when compared to the industrialized and the closetted, the carried and the over-clothed, some kind of bird who by way of his attunement with the earth can still regulate his metabolism, migrate under his own steam, and survive in the most lachrymose and inclement of climates?

Getting Your Leg Over

Getting your leg over isn't a sexual event, it's an existential one. This is what I did this morning and what I do every morning: I get my leg over.

This morning it was walking over the Kilpatrick Braes, yesterday, it was trudging over the great mesa of the Campsie Fells, and the day before that it was getting on my bike and cycling over the small desolate bump between Bridge of Weir and Kilbarchan.

This is your 'leg over', whether walking over hills or simply getting onto your bicycle and powering your self as Nature intended. This is the up 'n over that is also your moving yoga and your supreme breathing in wide and quiet natural spaces.

It is also your primary existential event.
 
Every day is a leg-over day.