BIK ES MAKE SENSE
Cycling is a pleasurable activity: it’s official. But in what sense? All five of them, notes Rob Ainsley...
“I cycle not because I want to save the planet or money or get fit. I cycle to feel alive, alert, plain bloody good”
Itook my trekker over Rudland Rigg the other day. It’s centuries old, lumpy and heavy going, but that’s enough about my trekker. The Rigg was great: an old drove road that, despite looking straight on the map, snakes its way north to south across the North York Moors. Nothing else snaked. It was a swirly, elemental winter’s day, and the moors’ adders were nowhere to be seen.
Also absent were off-roaders. They’re the people who drive (a) 4x4 vehicles along unpaved ‘green lanes’ and (b) some people mad, because they’re not such green lanes afterwards. More like brown, rutted, potholed rubbly lanes that would topple a Mars lander, never mind your gravel bike.
I didn’t miss them. Maybe they were put off by the off-roaders’ website, which says “many green-laners describe the lane as ‘boring’”.
Off-roaders take note: That’s right. The Rigg’s boring. Better stick to taking the SUV where it’s intended: supermarkets and school runs.
Cyclists take note: That’s wrong. The Rigg’s brilliant. It was a central part of a fabulous, lifeaffirming day out. I cycled up from York, on country lanes through foodie-town Malton, where the aroma of fresh bacon rolls encouraged me to stop. Through Kirkbymoorside, overhearing stoutly-overcoated locals nattering outside the post office. And then the Rigg with ridgetop miles to myself and dramatic dales on either side; standing stones like outliers from Stonehenge. Burbling birdcalls, shifting luminosity, moors flickering green and purple like over-enthusiastically colourised, old, silent film. A disused mining railway, black ash with a smooth, breakfast-cereal crunch, following dale-head contours as if tracing a starfish on Strava; the fresh breeze felt like an oscillating fan. A heroic descent down an empty lane that was hijacked by a stream, tyres splishing like a chip shop. The cosy, friendly cycle-cafe at Fryup. Yes, I had a fry-up: delicious, flavours sharpened by the ride. (One day I’ll do similar at Sandwich, Cheddar, Chard, Leek...) An ale then the train home. Perfect.
So why did off-roaders think it uninteresting? I once did Wharfedale by car. It was boring. I motored Scotland’s west coast. Dull. I drove the Cotswolds. Tedious. I chauffeured Three-Peakers through grand mountainscapes. Dreary.
It was from being insulated in the car’s cockpit, of course. I saw the scenery but didn’t experience it; views passed fuzzy and superficial as an Instagram video on a mobile. I smelt only the upholstery, felt only the aircon, heard only familiar playlists. I may as well have holidayed in a lift.
I’ve done all those trips on a bike too, and of course they were wonderful, memorable and uplifting. I felt I was actually there, experiencing it not spectating it, living it not just marking time between traffic jams.
Now, government documentation recognises this officially. The 2020 update of CycleInfrastructure Design – forget the Booker Prize, this is bedtime reading for us cycle campaigners – states, in section 4.2.17: “Cycling and walking provide a more sensory experience than driving. People are more directly exposed to the environment they are moving through and value attractive routes...”
I cycle not because I want to save the planet or money or get fit. I cycle because I feel alive, alert, plain bloody good. It’s a pleasurable activity, as my day trip proved, sating all five senses.
Okay, there are more than five: touch, sight, hearing, smell, taste – but also detectors for balance, pain, temperature and proprioception (body awareness). They all get a workout on a bike.
So, loss of taste and smell? Maybe it’s nothing to worry about. Maybe you just need to spend more time on the bike.
Enjoy the spring. In all senses.