19 March. Back on the bike again
Our lives hang by such slender threads. We only notice from time to time, with a lurch and a feeling of dread as the certainties and immutability of normal life falls apart. I have spent too much time in hospital this year.
So I need to get out on the bike from which I have been banned for the last fortnight. Fortnight? It feels longer, a lifetime ago, before corona panic and the gradual locking down of normal life.
I try to sneak out of the house, dressed for cycling like a medieval knight is for warfare, the bike waiting for me like a patient horse. On the threshold of my getaway Madame Crow spots me. An interrogation on my proposed route, an admonition on health (not the first - I have been self isolating for days) and then I am told not to do the route I propose. I promise to do something shorter, flatter and escape up the lane, sunshine breaking through the clouds with no intention of changing my route. But then....I consider the possible need for rescue by car if my stitches pull. And I cannot lie to her. So short and flat it must be. Cornish 'flat' anyway
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My steed waits patiently for me....
My breath is short and my heart fast but not because of the effort of moving a bike. It is just the adrenalin from being on the bike again and worrying if this is too soon after surgery. I really don't want to be in a hospital right now. 'You need to be careful' - I keep hearing those words but I am bored with being careful, excited by speed and distance, the essence of cycling.
The roads are quiet. The bike is moving easily. My legs are spinning nicely, the breath is calming. Out of Truro and down the cycle path hill, greasy after the rain with a momentary rear wheel skid from making a sharp turn on mud. I have forgotten how to ride. The gyro of the wheels keeps me upright, the magic force of spinning spokes. Through the riverside village of Tresillian, the tide out, mud banks glistening in the coming and going sunshine, clouds never quite leaving enough blue sky. The hill up to Probus I take slowly, but its fine. The village is quiet, just a van delivering fish to the farm shop, local fishermen trying hard to find a market for the shellfish they are catching but which they can't sell to continental Europe anymore. The school is quiet too although it must still be open for another couple of days. Normally you can hear the children as you go past, the soundtrack of my working life, but it feels dead. I wonder what it will look like by September when it re-opens, the hedges gone wild, dust collecting on the desks, a scene from an apocalyptic film.
The next few miles are quiet lanes, up and down and I stand up on the ups rather than change down, worrying about the stitches but full of joy at being able to move, to be outside, to be cycling. I missed this. The blur of hedges, the glimpses of yellow primroses, dry roads, grey rather than black, mud streaked and puddled as they have been all winter. 'Spring has arrived' I shout and the nodding daffodils agree with me.
Time to return and a drop down a steep lane to Ladock and back home on the 'death road', a fast and flat B road with sharp bends that steepen after they begin. Overhung by trees with a drop to boggy ground and a river on one side and a steep slope on the other. I have lost two ex pupils killed on this road in the last ten years and the trees are scarred with reminders of cars that tackled the bends too fast. Or worse, came around the bend to be presented with a car coming the other way and a cyclist in front. My imagination again. Catastrophe around every corner, but this no road to hang around on. I pedal quickly and stay well out on the bends so cars can see me some way ahead. The road is quiet though. Three cars in fifteen minutes. I worried too much. Now back through Tresillian, the tide flooding and covering the mud banks as it does twice a day, every day, taking no notice of the ways of humans or their pandemics.
The final hill goes well and although Strava tells me later it was not a great time, it was fast enough. Just one other cyclist has been up this hill today taking away my chance to be the 'KOM for the day' - he has done it at 34mph and a 1000 watts and I suspect it was in a car.
Home again. Bike gets washed and oiled. I feel fine. It is great to be on the bike again but Madame was right to suggest a shorter route. Today I am tired after this short ride but tomorrow or the next day I will go further.
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and could only do about 11mph but great on the way back as I could reach speeds of 24 mph in parts 
but unfortunately , my overall speed still was 11.9 mph. Not bothered really as I enjoyed the ride 
and also noticed there was less people about too. I shall use tomorrow to recover and maybe go out again on Sunday or Monday.
