Falling on Your Arse

I don't know how stunt people do it. I really don't. They must have some sort of death wish or something, because it's never a laughing matter 'falling on your arse' or as some prefer to call it 'crashing with style'. There certainly wasn't much style today when I body-slammed a little blue Scottish Gas van whose young overweight driver charged into a roundabout I was haring across. The result had me slamming into his flank whereupon I upended myself and landed on my arse. But I didn't 'land' did I? Chance would have been a fine thing. Instead, I hit the paved road and the tarmac which is not the land. This time I cycled away unbroken though somewhat bruised and accordioned. And I thought to myself: how on Earth do stunt people do it? And then I realised: lots of padding, and by falling on surfaces with give. And, accordingly, by never ever falling on an unforgiving surface like concrete.

Oh, and by the way, if you think I came worse off, you should've seen the van. 

Missing Cat

Up here, cycling through the plateau of nothingness, I saw the note attached to a fencepost, and I almost handed myself in.

The Wild Workout

Wild cycling is a natural workout, a workout like the wild animals workout. Not just in the cardio and cycling/hiking, but in the lifting of the bike over farm gates, and the primal walking through unstandardized (wild) landscapes. This workout works out the mind as well as the body, for they are inseparable. This working out works out the toxins that have infected you down there in the city until you are pure. This purity comes from a 'pouring of the self back into its self and the untamed land'. It comes from the elements and from simply being out 'in the open' and 'in the air'. The universe and the wild itself is a 'pouring of oneness' where everything lives together in Life. When this oneness is no longer poured into Life but into a closet that stifles Life it is no longer the universe that is being poured but an intoxicant. One then becomes intoxicated with one's ego, instead of being amazed at one's universe.

David & Goliath

 It's like that bit in the film where our child hero (moi) scurries into a drainpipe only to have the monster's hand follow her in and chase her until the hand - this clawing claw - is forcibly stopped by its own shoulder. That's what happened to the wild cyclist this morning in that great game called 'Life'. I overtook a monster (a big black Range Rover SUV) as the lights changed, and he did not like it. He pumped his horn to let me know this thus giving me the satisfaction that another elite pollutant had been summarily put in its place. He then hared it after me in spite of endangering other vehicles and pedestrians paying more attention to me (for no more than overtaking him) than he was to the lights at the pedestrian crossing a hundred metres in front of us. No sooner has he passed me than he has to slam his brakes on almost ploughing into the queue of cars at the aforementioned crossing. Naturally, I don't stop (only the stupid stop). As I pass his now stationary vehicle, I hold my right hand out to give his big chunky passenger-side wing mirror a 'wild hand-shake'. The thump is a sound of beauty as its slams off the side window and chassis. I revel in the moment as I sweep through the now green traffic lights, because I know where I'm going. In other words, I know my territory as the wild animal knows its territory. And so I hang a left knowing fine well Goliath is right behind me, fuming. I turn round to see him swing round the corner and race towards me (like a raging idiot with tunnel vision), but I've got another corner I'm about to take  (that leads into a pub car park), at the end of which is a gateway that opens onto the Sustrans cycle path. I make it through the gate just as this bellowing beast reaches me. For a moment I thought he was just going to crash through the gate but that would have meant engaging the brick wall behind it. As I made a ninmety degree turn right onto the path he reversed and roared through the car park in my direction. But the car park has a ten foot wire fence all around it. And so as he reaches the fence and stops he gets out and screams blue murder. But by that time, I'm gone. And I think to myself: this is the pinnacle of wild cycling, putting a beast in its place, and thus worth a full fifty points (the new maximum) in the wild cycling game.

I'm turning left from the main road up by the dry cleaners into this road and haring it downhill before turning left into this pub car park...

He pulled up just short of hitting the wall as I swung a hard left onto the Sustrans cycle path.... leaving him in tatters screaming at the top of his voice....

Another satisfied customer!