Each Christmas or shortly before is when I usually think of training as really starting. Before that, having had a break after the racing season, I normally just ride without much in the way of an objective other than turning the legs over and having some fun on the mountain bike. So Christmas is the start of proper work, laying the foundations for the coming season. That can be a little bit grim – it’s December, so the weather at its worst can offer low single digits and rain.
Broadway, Worcestershire
However, it’s not all bad. It’s riding a bike, after all – it’s always going to be better than being sat behind a desk. More than that, though, some of the places I ride can be a real treat. Mountain biking, and marathon mountain biking in particular, is often rightly touted as a great way of seeing some fantastic parts of the world. But you don’t have to be in the Alps, the Rockies or South Africa to see some amazing places.
One of my rides this Christmas was a video camera-toting Japanese tourist’s wet dream. It included:
- The sites of two major Civil War battles: Cropredy Bridge (1644) and Edgehill (1642)
- Stratford-upon-Avon, home of the Bard himself
- Hook Norton, home of one of the best-loved small breweries in this part of the country
- A number of imposing stately homes – the really grand piles like Chastleton or Charlecote Park, but right down to the manor house that you will find in each ancient village
- Some of the real gems of the Cotswolds, both in terms of rolling hills and some of the most absurdly picturesque villages you will ever see: Broadway, at the northern end of the Cotswolds; the poetically named Upper and Lower Swell and Upper and Lower Slaughter; Bourton-on-the Water, with the River Windrush running peacefully through it. One of the reasons the Cotswolds are so beloved of those international tourists, bussed in 50 at a time and watching the world through the view-finders of their Sonys or Samsungs, is the particular golden colour of Cotswold stone – so much mellower and warmer than the hard grey stone of the Peak District, or the slate of Wales, and more fitting to the countryside than the orange-red of Warwickshire brick.
- Parts of a number of the more attractive counties of central England: Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire
Charlecote Park, Warwickshire
All in all, I was definitely training. Hopefully that six hours will tell when we get to day six of the ABSA Cape Epic, for instance. But at the same time as fatigue gradually sets into the legs, an ache starts spreading between the shoulder blades, and the cold gently penetratesg through overshoes and socks into the toes, what a pleasure it was to spend time in one of my favourite parts of this green and pleasant land. And travelling at 20mph, rather than 60mph in a metal box, you really have the time to appreciate it.