Corkerhill to Langbank

 

Ok, so that's us in Paisley and already we've been through the bucolic, the riverine, and the pastoral. The natural spaces between Corkerhill and Paisley are wonderful. There is the White Cart Water at Mosspark running all the way to Paisley and beyond. Here, there is also the wooded Corker hill backlit by the late autumn sun. There is Crookston Castle in there somehwhere too, a 14th century tower house with exceptional views from its turret. Then there are the morning fields of Bathgo Hill, Leverndale Tower, Rosshall Park and its redwoods, Bull Wood and Jenny's Well. We even have some art deco housing too to admire near Hawkhead. All in all, a beautiful path to cycle, which I had almost forgotten because normally I jump the little train from Dumbreck to Paisley Canal (and thus miss out on all this wonder). At any rate, this morning, the train halted at Corkerhill claiming a points problem and would go no further. So, an opportuniity arose...

Approaching Kilmacolm...

Kilmacolm

Cutting up the back road behind Kilmacolm and down to Finlaystone Park which you can then cycle through and out onto the path alongside the motorway which will take you to Langbank train station.

At Langbank train station, finally, they've replaced the decrepit ash tennis court. 

Let Your Legs Breathe!

I once wrote a poem that included the line 'the eyes breathe'. And they do, believe it or not. In fact, the whole body breathes, but you'll only notice this when you start disrobing and taking off the 'proofs' and fancy clothes that prevent you from feeling. Once you get out into the land nakedly you begin to notice strange things about the body. The eyes breathe, the face breathes, the legs breathe. Yet, today, this balmy mid-November morning, I see too many cyclists with long trousers on. I made this mistake myself the other day but realised my error at the train station whereupon I took my trousers off (I had shorts on underneath!). You really feel the difference. It's as if you suddenly have more power inside you because of your nakedness and thus your 'elemental and earthy conviviality'. Trousers are handcuffs for your legs as well as anaesthetizers. Unless it falls below five degrees you should never ever wear them, because legs, like the face, need to breathe.

Biking While Beligerent

This is the summons Alec Baldwin got way back in 2014 when caught cycling the wrong way down a New York street. When officers stopped him and asked him for ID he said he had left it at home whilst asking them if they knew who he was. Instead of answering, they slapped a pair of handcuffs on him for being beligerent and swearing. And I thought, wait till they get a load of me. 

When A Cyclist Indicates When There's No-one Around Does It Still Make A Sound?

You know what I mean. You've done it yourself in a car, indicated when there's no-one around. It should be illegal, should it not? For it says that you're not paying attention to what is around you. Or that you are on auto-pilot, and just do things automatically without thinking.

I just saw a cyclist from my fourth floor window cycling down my empty street indicating left just before he turned into the empty road. The point is not my grumpiness at all things unnecessary but that indicating when there's no-one about demonstrates a brain-wash that mimics similar brain-washes in our wasteful and largely unnecessary society. Automated behaviour mimics the machine and the mechanic, because the machine cannot think. And now I see a cyclist, whose whole raison d'etre is to be aware and to see/hear his circumstances behaving like a dumb car driver (who has more of an excuse because of blind spots and the fact that they cannot hear their surroundings as a cyclist can). Cyclists who seal their ears up with the echo chamber are no better than car drivers at the end of the day. It's like an owl who wears ear plugs voluntarily. In other words, there's some serious brain damage going on. 

So, if you see them, do not indicate, just steer well clear.

The $50K Strait-Jacket

When I slid past this very expensive SUV today stranded at the traffic lights and behind another car, I simply saw the animal in a strait-jacket, albeit a very expensive strait-jacket, that could not fight back against the potential attacker. Except this two-wheeled attacker was not so much attacker as attackee whose life had been endangered just a few seconds beforehand by said SUV and his 'must overtake bicycle' inattentional blindness. As such, it wasn't just my life he endangered, but the oncoming traffic too whose lane he had to occupy for several seconds as he struggled to overtake an already speeding bicycle. So, when I came upon him at the traffic lights, I bitch-slapped him and removed his passenger wing mirror in a moment of Wing-chun beauty. Naturally, being in a strait-jacket, the only thing he could do was honk and fume. And I thought to myself not just what a wonderful world it is when Goliath gets his comeuppance but what a fool you must be to actually buy and wear a strait-jacket no matter how much it costs.

Your Bike Language

We've all heard of body language but what about bike language? Bike language as the language of the body plus bicycle. What does your bike-language say to predators like car drivers? Does it say: Come close, perhaps even hit me, because, look, I'm cycling in at the kerb, I'm wearing safety gear, I'm not using my voice, and I'm not wobbling about? Or does your bike language, like my bike language, roar and shout at potential predators, by behaving accordingly. By not hugging the kerb, by not wearing protective and hi-viz gear, by not cycling straight, and by using my voice a lot. In other words, by being wild. 

What does your bike language say about you? 

Five Million Push-Downs

Your push-ups ain't worth squat if you don't combine it with the push-down. Where push-ups strengthen your core and your upper body the push-down strengthens your heart, your overall cardiovascular system, and your lower body. The push-down in other words comes before the push-up, because if your upper body cannot be lifted by your legs you're in trouble. At any rate, the push-down is of course the pedalling. And so today, au velo, I wondered at how many push-downs I do on an average 'pastoral excursion', and at how many push-downs I may have done in my whole life. I figured five thousand push-downs wouldn't be amiss on an average outing, perhaps more. And then in my total cycling life I may have completed millions of push-downs. But the numbers don't really matter. What matters is the pedalling. And not so much the pushing down but the pushing of your self upwards towards paradise through engaging your own internal engines.