Daily Shrine

TSK walked through the door, back from work.  "Do you want a cup of tea?" 

"No", I grumped past him, "some stupid bastard pledged I'd ride every day this week".

Actually, sometimes twice.  Which I managed on Monday - two mountain bike rides.  Long ones too - and satisfying ones where you see the sun rise and the sun set and your legs hurt from carrying up hills and your arms hurt from slashing through the undergrowth.

Monday day was a blur at work.  I made HT plans at the weekend and couldn't wait to carry them out so I spent the day on Monday sizing up a new frame bag for Sunshine.

On Tuesday morning I needed to catch up with work stuff so started at 5:30am and finished my working day at 5:30pm. 

I slithered out for a road ride afterwards.

Last night I dreamed that the bathroom floor was caving way underneath the toilet and the whole bathroom was falling into the kitchen so I went out to go to an interview.  I stayed in a hotel and had breakfast with a load of people from the Highland Trail but when I placed my order I came back and they had all gone and I was faced with eating breakfast opposite a suit.

It was a metaphor.  I left the breakfast table and went to watch a play with my theatrical family then realised I didn't know what time my interview was so I had to leave early and I never did find out what time the interview was.  I woke up, swung my feet out of bed and went to the bathroom.  There was 2cm of water in the porcelain bowl we keep on top of the toilet as a rain gauge - a bowl on top of a bowl.  The hole is in the ceiling of the bathroom, not the floor and it's very real.  I was moderately pleased I live in a house that allows me to spend some of my spare cash on bike and soon I'll be somewhat be free from mortgage shackles.  It's my urban cabin in the woods.  I'll be free from a mortgage and living in a shitty crumbling house.  Sometimes I don't know if it makes me happy or sad.

I got up - just early enough to go for a ride but that didn't happen.  It was viciously windy and raining outside and not at all tempting.  I went upstairs and scrawled through social media.  Couldn't face starting work at 8:15.  Couldn't face going outside either but gradually I wanted to be out more than in so I dressed in cycling clothes, selected new shoes to try out (no cleats yet) and added a waterproof hat and coat.

I padded into the back garden and pottered about my bike.  I felt epic as the screws (where the cleats in my shoes will go) clattered on the tarmac and the rain pattered on to my Carradice.  I expected JP Robertson to appear in next doors garden to capture the stony grey sky and my gritty determination as I put my house keys in my bike bag, swung into the ginnel and tickked down the hill.

A short, bleak ride along with the motorists to Hagg Hill where they suddenly disappear left to skirt Southwards around Sheffield and I keep going straight on.  I'm so used to them overtaking then swerving left, it doesn't piss me off anymore.

Instead I rumble along happy (I'm still dry and warming up).  I'm aiming for that place where I just want to be on the bike - nowhere else - and at the moment I can dig that.  There really is nowhere else I'd rather be.  The simple stroke of pedals, sway of bars, sloosh of water.  I could keep going all day.  I'm not quite on the pedals I'd hoped to be on and these touring pedals aren't brilliant as flats.  My feet fly off them once or twice when I forget they're not attached.

The rain soaks through my shoes into my waterproof socks and I can feel it's chill but my feet stay dry.  The new socks are, thankfully, impenetrable.  I've been trying them out with different under-socks - most of my cycling socks are a bit shit in them.  Bamboo is OK.  This merino linen blend is bloody good at keeping my feet warm.

At fairy glen I can't resist a trip onto the middle road, past the pub, twisty round the lanes and momentarily think about ascending the 1/6 incline offroad but without cleats on my shoes yet, decide it's not a good idea.  

I could carry on up to Rivelin from the top of the road, do Wyming brook and Lodge Moor but I'm already late for work so I take to the A57, now quieter with the reduced commuter volume safely ensconced at their desks.  I wind around a few urban Crescents to miss the school and dodge through Crookes traffic to home, on the downhill water sloughs off my front tyre and straight into my face as it's almost impossible to get a mudguard to fit Lauff forks.

For the first time this morning I'm glad I'm not on a long ride and can sit at my desk for a few hours with a cup of coffee and shoot the shits with my grads.  

I might even make it out again later.