Once I was lively and now I am merely alive but that in itself is an achievement worth maintaining even with a long walk uphill pushing this infernal machine and serenaded by song thrushes from the coconut scented exuberance of gorse on an empty Bodmin Moor. 

I am almost there although the ‘there’ in question never seems to arrive. ‘There’ is a shifting horizon of promise that I hope will recharge my soul  – if I can just get to ‘there’. Punishment is always followed by reward. Flagellation of the legs is good for the soul. 

The top of the hill is attained with hawthorns in full old man glory and a fractal vision of ancient fields, a kaleidoscope of old stone walls, gorse, heather and rough pasture freshly greened by the spring sun. Time to mount the infernal machine again but a moment yet to see the view, not just glance at it as I am wont to do. 

I am sure I can remember being strong or at least stronger but now I am no longer sure if that was just a dream. My heart grumbles on, measuring out its beats as a miser reluctantly watches their  coins deflate with time. Can I be both cold and hot in the same moment? An uncomfortable itching of skin against cloth, of arse against saddle. A jersey that is too thin downhill and too thick uphill. 

To continue is the only option as stopping will make me colder and after a while I should anyway be bored of simply watching nothing change or staring at the same tree, hoping for enlightenment or perhaps to just catch it breathing as trees are alleged to do. To stop will change nothing but to keep moving will offer the possibility of change, of better things just around this bend. A long down hill lane perhaps, open to the sun and with no potholes or hidden bends layered in gravel and no chance of meeting lane wide tractors driven by distracted farmers who worry about the cost of fertiliser more than the brief possibility of a cyclist appearing suddenly. And just as suddenly would be the end of me, but I like the downhill speed and the power of a sweeping bend too much. Suspended between fear and exhilaration, hoping for the best, fingers hovering near the brakes, daring myself to go faster, to lean into the bends more aggressively.

I recycle my thoughts with each cranky spin which is becoming boring and I want something new to consider. I must set my mind forward to a ‘there’ being somewhere just ahead and therefore to keep going. A place where the reason for this bike ride will be revealed to me. If there is a reason. 

One reason to be out today is to embrace the infernal machine again because she has been languishing in a shed for a week and calling to me in the night, asking to be released.The infernal machine always wants to be outside, in the wild, the wind in her bars and and tubes. It is all she is built for: every sleek carbon limb to be  stretched out with me on top searching together for what is to be seen over the horizon. I cannot sleep knowing her pain and so I have to crawl from my sick bed and take her out even though my heart and lungs have no desire to do more than eat chocolate and read books and my teeth itch and my stomach is rebellious. 

Which is how I arrived at the top of this hill with a hundred kilometres of weakness and complaint behind me, a thin trail of decisions and choices and road junctions and tortured breath, of ups and downs and the removal and addition of clothing and all the things that make up a long bike ride with the saddle gripping my arse and knees complaining that they are unhappy with the present state of things although to be true they have never been happy with the state of things for as long as I can remember. 

Which is not to say that I have not enjoyed the songs of birds, especially the skylarks whose trills remind me of Daruda’s Sandstorm for those that know this electronic anthem and if you don’t, then just imagine in your minds ear the song of a skylark from a sky clear and pure whose hue I will call blue because I am poor with colour and stick to the primaries. The birds have sung and the hedgerows have pulsed with green life, the fertile earth is pushing the fresh growth skywards and on this April day there are daffodils still but with blue bells pushing through, pink tendrils of ragged robin running along the road edges and the white froth of fresh garlic whose scent lingers on my tongue as I pass. 

I am happy. I am on an audax quest. Pain is necessary to induce happiness although it may perhaps only be the happiness that comes with a journeys end. But if that was all I would not have even begun so there must be more. 

Seventy kilometres are left to me from this hill top eyrie where I am paused. The skylarks have been left behind and the only sound is a distant tractor mechanically turning a field brown. There is a small copse here, a forgotten fragment of something once much bigger, a bramble edged oasis of dark shade, the sunlight slanting through the branches and pulling blue bells up through the leaf littered floor. 

The mornings promise has curdled into a darkening sky and a more than fitful breeze has begun to shake the skinny bare branches just showing a new flush of growth, an adolescent fuzz.. I will perhaps be lucky to stay dry and that thought lies heavily on me although it is true to say that the infernal machine does not mind being either wet or muddy, neither of which cling to her slick carbon skin. She only wants to move on, to reach the next horizon and I can only mount her again, reach for her handlebars and settle for the embrace of the saddle. I am home. I am where I am supposed to be and together we have another three or four more hours of riding because we are slow and old both of us and it will take us that long to navigate the course. 

I haven’t spoken to a soul all day nor did I intentionally start a conversation with the soul-less although how you would identify those is beyond me so plainer to say I spoke to no living person as I avoided shops and tea sellers. I route planned around  settlements as much as I could and rode past the inviting allure of a pasty shop or cafe to keep the ride outrageous as audax is supposed to be.  It is a DIY and I can make up my own rules and my rule is that I carry everything I need for a whole day and leave no litter. Apart from warm patches of piss in farm gateways. I am not taking that home.

As to truth, who is to say what is remembered and re told here would be the same as another persons memories This is my ride as I remember it. My memory shaken by the ruts in the lanes, seduced by the curved intimacies of ancient hills, the secret spaces and the quiet places between sky and moor. 

You will want to know where I am and where I have been and even what I ate and how steep were the hills and how cold was the rain but this isn’t that type of story. I can tell you I am on Bodmin Moor at this point and I can smell the coconut scent of new gorse. The road undulates although I remembered it being flatter the last time I came. I can see the bits ahead where it rises out of cross valleys and I have to ignore the trepidatious steepness that is hidden from view but which I know is coming. There would be no point in making this ride too easy. And so the ride winds on, just keep pedalling and leave my worries behind. So easy to say. 

The day winds on too. I am beyond the moor now, hung between the hills left behind and Dartmoor ahead which is a purple hulking presence on the horizon where I will not go today but perhaps another day. For some reason I thought the steep hills were over now but they have only just begun. A muscular flexing of the granite beneath the skin and I have to flex with it, riding uphill through what we now call Atlantic rain forest not woodland, sunlight slanting through holes in the tree cover, dust suspended in smoky light, my breath too fast and my heart complaining. An ancient and secluded forest, mossy and green, lichen hanging from small oaks as the lane twists and rises and will not end. I am looking for a good reason to be here, nauseous and unable to eat. The infernal machine creaks with displeasure, she dislikes this steepness, this unrelenting uppity-ness as much as me. I am losing beauty to fear, wonder to pain, serenity to impatience. I want this to be over now. At least it isn’t raining.

The summit of the moor regained and now downhill through the village of Minions  with widespread views to distant Devon behind. Ahead are old engine houses poking through the moor, memorials to the wealth that has now passed on to some other place. Downhill, breathless speed; the machine running wild.  I am cold again, sweat evaporating and goosebumps on my newly exposed arms. 

Best not to think of how far to go now but to force down a bar of something apparently healthy although wrapped in plastic and made in a factory. The crumbs of which are stuck in my teeth and my mouth is too dry to swallow properly. The stuff no one tells you about long bike rides. A glance at the water bottle shows the foolishness of not filling it in Minions, blithely passing the shop, unwilling to stop even for a minute. Now I feel I may be sick. I am certainly not eating or drinking enough.

These are ancient hills here on the southern slopes of Bodmin Moor and the lanes lead across the grain of the steams and valleys that drop down to the distant sea which means every down must have an immediate up. This is Cornwall and everyone knows what it is like here to ride a bike. Stop complaining or move to Norfolk. 

I am heading westwards to home. The lanes rise and fall like ocean swells and I rise and fall with them. Another couple of hours will do it, busier roads now with the evening rush hour making me feel unsettled about what is coming up behind, the bike radar beeping urgently. I am happy to pull over and let them pass. Sneaky rests. The infernal machine does not like stopping but I need to and I am in charge am I not? 

Do you think I am not enjoying myself? I embrace this roller coaster of emotion, ambition and self loathing, mixed and shaken. I drink deep from the revealed secrets that only a journey uncovers. I would be fidgeting at home, turning from one thing to another, unsettled and bored.  Here I have a purpose even if only to spin the cranks until the journey ends. All that I am and all that I have done meet in this single shining moment. It is enough. 

Time is not linear and neither is this story of my ride. The infernal machine and I get closer to home, the landscape becomes more familiar and the whining tyres are forgotten and I am smiling and joyful. Time and space collide and meet on the final lane, the swooping descent to the hidden valley of home. The watery spring sun is leaving to shine elsewhere and shadows pull at the road edges. A cold wind smoothes the ragged grass, cows deeply engaged in eating before the light goes, letting me pass without calling a comment or enquiring with moon eyes whyI am entering their world.The rain postured and threatened but eventually ran away. A buzzard circles like a half remembered dream, revolving, as do my freshly made memories of this ride. 

Time has flowed on depositing me at my door on its ebbing tide. The journey is finished and I have stopped, no longer needing to see what’s next.  The infernal machine is satiated, at least for the moment, smooth skinned tubes mud flecked and dulled, chain clogged with dust, a tired rear light still pulsing.

We gaze at each other, bike and I, once back at the bike shed door. We have had a good day out, made some memories, left a snail trail of electrons across the internet, seen some new things, perhaps understood ourselves a little better, lived our lives in a bit more colour. Long rides alone like this bring truth and insight, the settling of a restless spirit, a soothing of the anxiety of not wasting time. They are important but ephemeral, both pointless and vital. It’s been a good day out.