Here Comes the Rain Again

This morning the skies have everything, the sun is showing through stretches of blue with big fluffy cumulus nimbus minding their own business and dark clouds full of angry rain looking for a fight, it's a good day for a bike ride.

I head out through the local forest, the past weeks rain combined with the weekend pony club have turned the bridleway to quagmire. There is something deeply satisfying about riding through the mud, like jumping in puddles in your wellies when you were a kid. I'm covered head to toe and I'm loving it.

Cross country heading for Woburn the bridleway is blocked, those bastard fly tippers have dumped piles of junk and building rubble right across the path and the farmers gate, this makes my blood boil, I hate it and I hate them. They're not stopping me, bike on shoulders I clamber over and get on my way again.

Into Woburn park and my luck is in, 3000 acres for the hundreds of deer to roam in and the big Red Deer are right by the road, they let cars drive within a few feet of them but will scatter if they see a human. Me on a bike confuses them, I'm within a few feet of them. The look on their faces is pure comedy, they look at me, they look at each other, they look at me again with quizzical expressions (I get this a lot from humans as well), they decide I'm safe and don't make a run for it. I guess they decided I wasn't human!

Out through Woburn village and cross country to Aspley Guise, I startle a Chinese Water Deer, fully wild so it doesn't hang around. It bounds into the fields, I watch it springing in and out of the long grass and then it's gone. Rabbits are everywhere, chickens and geese are loose in the farm yards I cycle through and the squirrels dive for cover when they hear me coming.

For entertainment value though you just can't beat the pheasants, they set off at a run along the path ahead of me, this always makes me pick up the pace to see if a can catch up, and I am more than a match for a running pheasant, I always catch up. It is at this point the birdbrains make their choice, the dumb ones with a crash of feather and brambles dive left or right into the bushes. The more astute remember they are birds and can fly, raise the landing gear, up up and away.

Dropping down through Marsten Thrift into Marsten Vale, is biker fun. Long bumpy downhill runs with great views (as long as I ignore the land fill dump right in front of me) I bash out the last 5 or so miles heading for home. It's a race with those angry clouds, somehow I have avoided them and been in the sun for the last 20 miles but now they are chasing me down. I just get the bike home and undercover and the rain starts. cuttsy; 1 - Zeus; 0

and finally a tip (i'm not gonna give you money)...

In muddy conditions or poor weather I cycle in lycra gear. It's bright yellow, Bananaman would be embarrassed to stand next to me. Somehow though ignorant drivers still manage 'not' to see me, probably rushing to tip the contents of their cars in some bridleway somewhere! Anyway back to the lycra tip, covered in mud and cack head to toe jump in shower fully clothed, wash yourself and your clothes in one go. bish bash wallop!