And listening to the new Bowerbirds album The Clearing. Want to listen? Give it a purchase here. Don't want to?
TOUGH.
You really are missing out on one of the most adventurous albums I've heard in a while, even by Bowerbirds standards (and certainly by Bon Iver standards, if I had to scratch for some analogy to something you may have heard. Actually, I think some of this album was recorded in his studio with his engineer. Fun fact.)
As I go through my camping gear, I think back fondly on the 30 pounds I had to strap to the back of bike.
***
In lieu of the West Highland Way, Jason and I found National Cycle Route 7 from Glasgow through to the south of Loch Lomond. It hugged a tributary that slowly, calmly trotted parallel the great River Clyde.
Sort of like this but the much windier route up to the bottom of the lake
For the initial part of the ride, we wove through villages and the little hills that separated them from the path. In some portions the village and hills became one, where businesses set up shop along the bike path and seemed to build their establishments into the hillsides, like Magic Cycles.
As during the first few feet of our failed attempt at the West Highland Way, again we biked through shaded paths, leaf strewn and damp, often covered in a thin veneer of mud. Stone archways gated the path at some points along the way. And again, the wholesale uprooting of trees every few hundred feet. It was verdant. It was damp and cool. It was an experience I couldn't tell you about, biking through it all at speed.
Not long after the last two photos were taken and about 30 total minutes of solid biking, we came through a tunnel of foliage created by the collapse of a large tree. There was enough space to bike through a small sliver of pavement where the branches didn't hang so damn low, and a large muddy puddle to the left. Really not a big deal. Totally.
Jason biked through with slight caution, and come my turn I did the same.
Except I didn't and instead my rear tire hit a muddy patch on this sliver-of-path. The rear tire slid into the muddy puddle. Since the back of the bike--with tent, clothes, supplies--was around 30 lbs, it did damn well what it pleased and kept sliding. I tried to steer the bike back but the rear had gone too far and I slammed into the ground, hands first, followed by hip.
It only really hurt because I put my hands down, which (thankfully?) took most of the hit. My left thumb lost a bit of skin, and the wrist and fat of the same palm was in a huge deal of pain. I heaved from the shock and sat on the path just past the tree for a second. Jason helped bandage it up, I took a Tylenol, and off we went.
No time to stop.
Except when Jason fell 10 minutes later.
We started to pick up some speed as I got over the pain in my wrist and we got confident. We biked through more leafy shaded path, over rolling grades and through foliage and fallen tree. I was riding in front for a slight downhill segment. As was par for the course, there was a combination of mud and leaves. My tire slid slightly so I feathered the brake to ease off. I guess Jason wouldn't say I feathered it, as he hit the brakes a little harder than I did, and in a fraction of a second I heard: CRASH. SLIDE. SLIDE. SLIDE.
I stopped and looked back and saw Jason strewn out like the leaves, with bike 20 feet behind him, and a long comical skid mark between the two. The long slide had taken out most of the bite out of the fall, so Jason walked off with little more than some small scratches.
We realized then that maybe we should give nature--or something...bike path?--a bit more respect. We avoided leaves and mud and took almost crawl-like pace on damp downhills.
Which didn't do wonders for our plans to make Fort Williams by nightfall.
1 comment:
Eek! I didn't know that you guys slid and fell >.< Well, at least it sounds like biking through there was a cool experience!
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