Glad to be Alive

Books. I love books. So much so, that I strongly resist all attempts to dispose of any book whatsoever from our house. When the pressure to clear space on our six bookcases (and a couple of them are floor to ceiling) I insist on sending them to a charity shop so that at least someone can have the pleasure of reading them. This even applies to crap books, just can't bear parting with them.

My other habit is reading a lot of books at the same time. Not the same second, but say during 2010, I'll read a bit of book A, then a bit of book B and so on. I'll probably read as many as the next man, just not in a sequential way. The book I'm reading at any given moment depends on my mood. So at the moment, I'm reading 8 books- Bury my Heart at wounded Knee, Freakonomics, Cochineal Red, 101 Philosophers, a book of short stories, a novel, and for the cyclist- the Time-crunched cyclist and finally at last, A dog in a hat. You can look them all up on Amazon, but they are all good, I'm enjoying them all and hope to finish them by Christmas.

Well today the two cycling books had particular resonance. First, I have realised that I can use the journey into work as a kind of interval training session, and the journey home to practice doing hills. Second, the journey home was so like a Belgian classic-more on that later.

I left early today, had a meeting scheduled for 8.30AM, so wanted to be showered and changed in plenty of time. I fair belted in along the predominately flat route. Had I not decided to detour up Jacob Wells Road and down Park street my average speed would have been over 17mph, not bad considering there was no wind to speak of. Coming down Park Street at 7AM at 35mph was fun. Until someone pulled out of a side street without looking. This involved a diversion on the outside of a car waiting to turn right, into the path of oncoming traffic, and an elevated heart rate.

Said driver caught me up at the next lights and I was unbelievably polite, no really I was, and asked her if she had seen me coming down the hill. The look of absolute shock and contrition on her face almost made me feel guilty and she apologised profusely. Maybe I should try that approach more.

It had been a lovely ride despite that, blue skies and fluffy clouds. One of those days when you wish you could just carry on cycling all day. Still, work to be done and all that so in I toddled and it was a good day.

I was a little concerned about the clouds banking up in the afternoon, but the forecast was for dry weather with a possible chance of a drizzly, light, short shower.

Oh no. It started to rain as I pulled out of the car park, and didn't stop for an hour. Drizzle? Oh no. Big fat drops of heavy rain, in bucketloads. By the time I had gone a mile I was drenched, my shower proof jacket being just that. I was on the A38 and realised that with my summer gear on, I had to go up to keep warm. I also had to get off the main road, because the spray from the hordes rushing home to watch England at the World Cup, wasn't helping.

I veered off towards Felton, and kept trying to find roads that went up. Eventually though I was going to have to go down. It was still raining, and because it was the first rain for a few days, there was a bit of a greasy surface, and the rivers of water running down all the slopes had washed all kinds of muck into the road. If I went slowly, I'd freeze, if i went to fast I ran the risk of a tumble. What to do?

I decided to get on with it, peddle like mad and hope I didn't meet any traffic on the road down to Wrington. I decided on one last hill up to Rowberrow and Shipham, down to Cheddar and back home. By the time I crested Shipham Hill the rain had stopped, in fact the road was still dry indicating it hadn't rained there. So I bombed down, and as I hit the final corner I put everything I had into it, topping out at around 43mph. Great fun. Like a Belgian classic perhaps?

Charlie stats below:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/37314913

One final plea, I realise you get requests all the time, so please feel free to ignore this one. My son's classmate died recently from leukemia, and to honour his memory and raise money for the Bristol Care appeal, raising funds for the Oncology and Haematology centre where he was treated, I will be cycling from Bristol to Land's End over three days in September. I'm hoping for a large fit cyclist to follow, but in the absence of that, your donation, no matter the amount, is very welcome.

If you are able to sponsor me, the best way to do so is via the attached link. Thanks.

http://www.justgiving.com/Guy-Buckland