Rides bikes, paddles sea kayaks, takes pictures. Life on the road & my home in Cornwall.
June
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A low key catch up.
From time to time it’s brought to my attention that there are folk who look forward to reading my nonsense ;-) as such I feel I should apologise for the lack of stories so far this year. Inspiration has been in short supply – in much the same way as our sun has periods of high sunspot activity, I seem to have periods of wild immune system over-activity, and consequent periods of deep depression. Things are settling down now but there was a period of almost 6 months where I was losing almost every other week to the physical symptoms.. throw in the general angst that would seem to go with living in a nation that feels increasingly like a banana republic*, and it was hard to feel inspired. A few weeks of summer has been helpful and earlier this week, while not an epic adventure, I did manage to muster a couple of mates for a lovely post-work bivy down west. Onwards and upwards and all that…
Mostly road from my place.. I could’ve strung it out in a more significant trail ride, but couldn’t be bothered. Just the last couple of km of dirt lanes and then bridlepath out on to cliffs.After weeks of almost unbroken sunshine, conditions were cool, cloudy and windy. Ideal really, keeps the people away, as did being a Monday night. Happy days.I hadn’t been down this way amongst the granite since January.. it felt good to be back. These rock-based ecosystems are fascinating.. populated initially by lichens, a little bit of dead organic material accumulates in the cracks and depressions over a few generations, until there’s just enough for perhaps a windblown seed of heather or thrift to take hold… the sea pinks are long over now, however that absence of overwhelming colour allows the variety of earthier tones to be appreciated.Dinner on…..and a spot out of the wind in which to enjoy it.Bed.I have a lightweight hoop bivy from Outdoor Research, I like having the inner mesh hood these days… there seem to be more ticks around with each year that passes. On still, muggy nights condensation can be a problem at the foot end but the breeze made for a beautifully comfortable night.As the cloud briefly thinned, the half-hour before sunset was beautifully ‘smoky’… perhaps more so as a consequence of the terrible wildfires in eastern Canada, that plume has reached this side of the Atlantic now.Back on the road at 7am. I was back at my keyboard by 9.30.. sadly ;-)
While I have not, as a rule, been bothered to take my camera with me while out and about there have been a couple of occasions.
Earlier in June… this is the mountain bike trail to BBQ o’clock. It’s also the MTB trail to probably drinking more than is sensible on a school night.. but what can you do when invited to a Tuesday night BBQ when the sun is shining except sack off work early and spend a couple of hours making the journey south as convoluted and interesting as possible. It was an excellent evening.The ride home next morning was a bit of a grovel with heavy legs….. but at that time of day the coast path is empty.... as are the beaches. I should have made the most of the opportunity for a swim really but wasn’t feeling it… probably as well, the late night, alcohol, and ride home on a mostly empty stomach was enough to trip me over the edge into another immune system flare up. I’ll not learn… ;-)Trails like these…Also June. I’ve spending quite a lot of time on my skinny-tired fixed wheel.. when friends can’t ‘come out to play’ it’s just something I can go out an hammer on for a few hours… I do still love it, just not all the time. Interestingly despite the fewer miles of this flavour, I haven’t noticed any loss in ability to get up all the climbs on 48×16.. I’ve been doing that for almost 20years now so perhaps it’s that, and being stubborn. This view is on the classic coast road loop of Penwith.
I don’t really have much in the way of plans for what’s left of the summer. I was planning on 6 weeks or so on the road come mid-August but knocked that on the head… I’m very busy with work at the moment, which feels lucky given everything, and while not doing things because of work goes against my principles, we’re still in very much of an early deployment phase of a new software system I’ve been working on for the last 8 months or so, and leaving them potentially exposed without my full support while I’m out of reach in the mountains also goes against my principles. They are a really excellent client and the requirements have been technically challenging, which I like, and the work satisfying, so it’s not all bad. Stress from work demands also had a pronounced negative effect on my time on two wheels in Spain last autumn so I feel the best thing to do is just sit tight and finish this phase, find some fresh energy and look forward to some laptop-free adventure come winter and next year if I can. In the meantime hoping I can muster more friends for some micro/mini adventures at home.
* I’m constantly reminded of a conversation I enjoyed with a chap in a bar in Argentina in 2019. He had a vision of the UK as being the gold standard of democracy and transparency… I explained that while in comparison with his own corrupt and dysfunctional government the UK may seem as such, in reality the UK is, and always has been, a place dominated by the interests of wealth and privilege, and while for years it was perhaps not so obvious, the UK feels a little more like his country with each day that passes, just with vastly more expensive beer, and worse weather.
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12 thoughts on “June”
Glad you are feeling better and able to report some fun
Lovely photos, Mike. Sorry to hear about your immune system issues and the subsequent issues. I hope things work out. I know for me that one thing that keeps me balanced is getting outdoors. I get too much into a funk if I don’t. I really hope that you’ll be able to do more outdoor adventures and not suffer side-effects.
cheers, yeh.. it does help. it does mean i seem to react to allergens a lot more but that’s mostly manageable. It’ll settle down again properly at some point.
Great to have you back Mike, I realise that I’ve missed your lovely pictures of Cornwall. I think there are lots of us who enjoy reading your ‘nonsense’ as you call it, but please don’t let that make you feel pressured into writing a blog when you don’t feel like it – less can be more!
hehe, cheers Mike! Thing is I do actually like having a reason to push out a post from time to time, it’s a nice hobby. Inspiration and ideas are creeping back :-)
Mike, Thank you for your honesty and for these wonderful images, and captions. Once again, I so envy your bike path locations.
I think it’s safe to say that you’re not alone in having these feelings. As for Banana, it’s been the go to fruit in the political world for a few years now. Cheers
Great to get another update Mike. Sorry to hear about the heath issues. If you are ever up in Scotland let me know as my partner had recently started her therapy business, the main focus being craniosacral therapy (CST).
Anyway enjoy the rest of the summer and look forward to your next update 👍👍
I’d love to head up to Scotland in the autumn for some riding but it’s so difficult from here.. for ex a rail ticket is almost £600 return (insane) not to mention the lottery of trying to get a bike booked on for every leg (3 to 5 each way). Only real option is driving sadly but that leads to issues around where to dump a car for a few weeks…. so dunno really!
Glad you are feeling better and able to report some fun
cheers! yeh loads better thanks :-)
Lovely photos, Mike. Sorry to hear about your immune system issues and the subsequent issues. I hope things work out. I know for me that one thing that keeps me balanced is getting outdoors. I get too much into a funk if I don’t. I really hope that you’ll be able to do more outdoor adventures and not suffer side-effects.
cheers, yeh.. it does help. it does mean i seem to react to allergens a lot more but that’s mostly manageable. It’ll settle down again properly at some point.
UK weather may improve due to climate change,… but the price of beer in your country is definitely tragic
hahaha :-)
Great to have you back Mike, I realise that I’ve missed your lovely pictures of Cornwall. I think there are lots of us who enjoy reading your ‘nonsense’ as you call it, but please don’t let that make you feel pressured into writing a blog when you don’t feel like it – less can be more!
hehe, cheers Mike! Thing is I do actually like having a reason to push out a post from time to time, it’s a nice hobby. Inspiration and ideas are creeping back :-)
Mike, Thank you for your honesty and for these wonderful images, and captions. Once again, I so envy your bike path locations.
I think it’s safe to say that you’re not alone in having these feelings. As for Banana, it’s been the go to fruit in the political world for a few years now. Cheers
haha, cheers and yes the funny thing about bananas is how quickly they go rotten during the summer months especially..
Great to get another update Mike. Sorry to hear about the heath issues. If you are ever up in Scotland let me know as my partner had recently started her therapy business, the main focus being craniosacral therapy (CST).
Anyway enjoy the rest of the summer and look forward to your next update 👍👍
hey, cheers for checking in!
I’d love to head up to Scotland in the autumn for some riding but it’s so difficult from here.. for ex a rail ticket is almost £600 return (insane) not to mention the lottery of trying to get a bike booked on for every leg (3 to 5 each way). Only real option is driving sadly but that leads to issues around where to dump a car for a few weeks…. so dunno really!
Have a super summer!