Last night I got in from the pub and was sitting around with Penny chatting about it being the Winter Solstice yesterday. For some reason, we decided that we’d get up, walk to the top of a nearby hill and watch the sun coming up at dawn this morning.
So I wake up at 6.30, but is there any chance of anyone coming out with me, hell no. Suddenly I have a change of plan, I grab a quick bit of breakfast and bung a bunch of sis go gels into my camelbak along with my work clothes and set off alone to watch the dawn on my coker.
As I head out in the dark, I meet a lone dog walker, with a psycho alsation from hell, which attempts to eat me, but fortunately is held back by the owner. I’ve got the lights on, as there’s no light at all yet. I head up along a back path behind a school, then I have to go along a massive road and do a right turn across it. At this point I had a real scare, as I’m not entirely awake and neither is the person who stops as if to give way to me, then suddenly starts as I’m in front of their bumper. I bang the coker up a kerb and end up safe but a bit shocked.
After this, I head up on a path along the side of a field, this is much nicer, it’s starting to get light, the birds are singing, I see rabbits and field mice running across the path. I’m riding flat out on the coker down a lovely slightly twisty narrow downhill. The sky is kind of bluey-pink now and I’m full of energy.
I get to the canal, which goes pretty much to work, but then I have a cunning thought, which is that there’s an old railway route that’s been converted into a cyclepath which is really fast to ride along and according to the map is only 2 or 3 miles away. So I head up the road towards this, forgetting to look at the contours, only to discover that someone put the biggest hill in the world here and I was stupidly riding straight over it on a road with lots of big lorries going along it.
Whooshing down the hill, I nearly miss the tiny turning onto the cycle-path and have to do a u-turn. It’s properly light now, so I look at my watch and notice that it’s 8.47, so start riding super-fast towards work. Until I hit the canal again, when I suddenly get blown backwards by a massive headwind, which continues all the way to work.
I get into work to some funny looks, my face is pretty muddy, I’m absolutely knackered, I’ve just been for a long ride for two hours and it’s only 9.15 in the morning. It’s a great way to start the day though.
Joe
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