This time I paused. Drank some more and thought about the sign, pointing back the way I had come this time. Do you know what that sign says? Not Cleeve, or Yatton, or any tangible destination. No. This sign says, "Motivation" and points in a very specific direction.
It probably does mean something very prosaic, but why let the truth stop my flight of fancy. And what is truth anyway? Over-rated and all relative, that's what. But motivation is not a destination, and at the risk of descending into Brentisms, I think I am fairly certain, it's a state of mind, not something that you can get from anyone else. Perhaps it's a sign to the motivation shop, or just one person's idea of a joke.
Maybe I should put up a direction arrow outside my house, with the word "happiness" with the sign pointing at the shed. Or go down to Draycott, and put up a sign that says "Challenge" and point it up towards the gliding club.
Needless to say I'm in post Pyrenees reflection, thinking about what is next and how I'm going to do it. I have some ideas, some wheels, and google street-view, but not much else. A couple of sportive to do in the next six weeks, one on closed roads, then there is the OCD job to do more miles than last year. Surely it can't snow like it did in December 2010, can it? I'm 254 miles up at the moment, but I did 861 miles in September 2010, two big trips away accounting for most of that, so it is a tall order.
I rode in to work yesterday and today, and was surprisingly speedy and able to cope with a few chunky hills, except that compared to France they are mere pinpricks of gradient and length. I wonder how Bunny is coping on his London to Paris trip. He's guiding a group of three others, and I suspect he may have to call on his vast reservoir of tolerance and patience.
I did notice, on returning to the roads of my native country, three things. First the surfaces are a veritable disgrace. Potholes, cracks, grit, and gravel, not to mention cow s*%t, muck, all sorts. Top-dressing, what is that all about? Two surfaces, Burrington Coombe, and the road into Backwell, which had perfect smooth surfaces on them, have now been transformed into slippery and dangerous gravel storage areas, thanks to this appalling method of re-surfacing. Meanwhile there are dozens of other roads where you could go caving because the potholes are so big.
Second, the cars. More of them, going faster, closer to you, trying to squeeze past rather than wait 30 seconds till a better spot emerges.
The third thing is a tad more upbeat. It is, despite the foregoing two points, much nicer to go to work on my bike than in my car. For once I can find the quiet, honest, car-free(ish) roads, I can start to think, to breathe and be human. And I think that is what the French intuitively know, and most people in this country have forgotten. In all our hurry, our rush, our busyness, our search for things which don't really matter, we have forgotten that we are all humans, just trying to find truth, happiness, challenge, and yes, in my case, motivation.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/111311297
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