Thursday 31 October - the halloween ride.
Checking the weather forecast every few hours since Saturday, obsessed by it. Thursday is the only day it will be dry. I have been watching the rain all week, the wind pulling the trees over, filling the lawn with leaves, pacing up and down the house and irritating Madame Crow who is trying to work. She is sat on the sofa, papers spread across it and the floor, laptop in her lap but then where else would it be, watching me pace disapprovingly. She sends me to the gym, spin classes, HIIT. I am still bored. Retirement is not suiting me.
Thursday morning is dull, drizzle. My legs hurt from yesterdays spin. I consider whether this should be a rest day. I am an older cyclist and I need rest days. Madame pushes me out of the house 'Just go ...and try not to fall off again'.
There are leaves in the road and I am cautious going down the steep hill from Truro's eastern edge, Madame's words ringing in my ears. The road is full of traffic; work vans, cars, people going to work. I do feel guilty that I am not at work anymore, the habit of work is hard to break. The sun appears briefly as I spin through Tresillian, following the river and then up Truck Hill to Probus. So far, so good. I am new to cycling and have lost a third of my lungs to lung cancer. Cycling is how I try to get over the breathlessness but it's hard work. From Probus there are some flatter roads towards Grampound and then more uphill as I turn right towards the Roseand, rolling along between low hedges. The views from the top of the ridge are extensive reaching across the Roseland peninsula, hidden Cornwall, and back towards Truro. Another fast downhill and again I am cautious, moving from front brake to back brake to both brakes to none, trying to control my speed, still learning to handle the bike, especially through the last section where the road has been cut through rock, so I am hidden in the depths of a fifty foot high Cheddar Gorge, gripping the handlebars hard as the road kicks left then right then lands me next to the River Fal in Tregony. The entrance sign to the village says 'Gateway to The Roseland'. I hurtle through the gateway, slightly out of control.
I am back near sea level again and now comes a flat road, following the infant River Fal. The Fal is just a big stream here, only eight feet across but flowing fast after all the rain, dyed brown from the soil washed out from the newly bare, cattle hacked, harvested and empty fields. This was once a port up to Tudor times and Tregony was one of the major towns of Cornwall. Now its just a village with an unfeasibly large central street that would have had a daily market. The river silted from the waste from mine workings upstream, a story familiar to every Cornish estuary. Today it's just a flat, damp plain used for seasonal grazing as it will still flood in the winter, with patches of wild woodland, bramble and thicket.
Just a mile of flat road is all I allowed and it's the last flat road for the next fifteen miles. The road spins upwards climbing 250 feet in a damp tunnel of dripping oaks, ash and hazel. The leaves on the road make my wheel spin once or twice, heart racing, twisting my foot out of the clips as I have learned the hard way that falling off happens to me very fast. I stand up on the pedals, sit down, my lungs wheezing, fighting for breath. I won't give up. I won't stop. I can feel my heart pumping, battering my ribs.
At the top a brief view across fields and hedgerows, a glint of sun on the sea off to the left. Then down again all the way back to near sea level. Another hill follows, I can see an old guy walking up the hill. I think he is doing well, moving easily at a good pace. I try not to pant as I go past but have no breath to reply to his cheery greeting. Once round the bend and out of sight I slow down again, legs trembling. I feel a fraud in my lycra and race bike, gasping up the hill, front wheel wobbling.
Down again, into Ruan Lanihorne, a lovely hamlet set on what was once open water but now empties on every tide to acres of tree lined mud. I stop by the ancient church to check the map. There is a sign inviting me to visit the church and if Madame was here, we would but I feel compelled to keep going. I fear I will lose my resolve if I stop.
A steep hill awaits. I get fifty feet up and stop. Wheezing, nauseous, breathing out of control. I wait for a minute then push on again as the top looks near- but it isn't, just a bend and more uphill pointing towards the sky. Then another downhill, back to sea level again. I wouldn't mind the uphill if I ever got anywhere but it's snakes and ladders and I keep ending up back at the same level.
Eventually the downhills are becoming smaller than the ups and I am feel I am gaining height as I approach the village of Philleigh. I used to be the headteacher of the secondary school that served this unknown, complex, secretive peninsula. One of the largest catchment areas of any secondary school in Cornwall and yet one of the smallest schools. The houses are hidden in dips, down muddy tracks, in tiny hamlets that appear suddenly at road junctions. Mostly its fields and lanes, dips and valleys, woods and thickets, the sea always close but rarely in reach. So far since passing Tregony I have seen little traffic, just two tractors. One appearing suddenly on a bend that forced me to brake and skid to a quivering stop as its huge wheels stretched from hedge to hedge leaving no room for me. The driver waved from his airy cab and carefully squeezed past me. I need to concentrate but I keep thinking about the things that happened here, the people I knew, the stories from when I was still working at the school.
The hills are less steep now and I am out of bottom gear. The friendly blue NCN signs have appeared, a seal of approval for cyclists going this way. Less steep...I thought that too soon but its OK, its downhill. Just very steeply downhill. I pass a cyclist walking his bike up the hill, watching me moodily as I whizz by with a wave, leaning the bike around the bends as if I knew what I was doing. The road runs down to the Fal, now a proper river, deep enough to moor commercial vessels. The number of laid up coasters and cargo ships here is a barometer of world trade and the river is filling again. The sides of the Fal are wood lined, oaks mainly, giving it the appearance of Brittany. The King Harry Ferry takes me across the river. I suck on a gel as I have a steep hill on the other side but its the last horrible hill of the day.
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The cars and vans leave the ferry first before a cheerful wave from the ferry guy allows me to go. He wishes me luck with the hill and I recognise him as a former pupil. I can't decide if he remembers me but he turns away before I can speak.
The hill, steadily spinning, trying to control my breathing, searching in vain for a lower gear. I was sure I had one more. Up past the National Trust property at Trelissick, busy today as it is half term still. Then some blessed rolling road, just fifty feet up or down before yet another leaf strewn, greasy steep descent to sea level again at Feock. I cycle along the estuary edge looking to my left at the moored yachts, all out now for the winter, bare masts against the leaden sky, the tide a long way out, mud banks covered in wading birds. Glancing forwards I see at the last minute the panic stricken face of the driver of a silver Porsche. I skid to a stop, front wheel a few inches from her bumper. She says nothing, white faced, eyes wide. I say nothing either moving to the verge to let her past. I am no more able to speak than she is, my breath ragged, heart out of control.
Blessed flatness. Marvellous flatness, spinning along in top gear, flowing happily along the estuary edge, through Devoran and onto the Bissoe Trail. The trail is too stony for my narrow tyres and after a mile I switch to the road, following it gently uphill, now this is the kind of hill I like, along the blasted former mining valley, slopes still bare from lead poisoning, the streams stained red from the acid mine waste that will forever pour out of the old mines after rain. The skyline is punctuated by granite chimneys, the remnants of a time when this was the richest valley in Britain. This is real, not Poldark.
After Chacewater, once rich from mining and now neglected, is just one more hill, an easier one but here there is more traffic, enough t make me nervous but everyone passes with care. Cornwall is like rural France in that nearly all drivers will keep a distance from cyclists. It's our Cornish 'dreckly' culture; like mañana but with less sense of urgency. No one is in much of a hurry. Traffic will wait until it's safe to pass, although I hate the feeling of holding people up and will often pull into the verge where I can.
Down through Threemilestone, and onto the bus lane and I am In Truro again. Just one more hill to go, an easier gradient I think now but just a few months ago it was all I could do to get up this hill. I can feel the improvement in my fitness. Last year I could only cycle the railway trails or we would drive to Norfolk and Suffolk in search of flatter roads. Today I have managed 2700 uphill feet over 34 miles in three hours. Its a marker, an improvement, I hope it will continue.
Madame Crow greets me at the door. 'The immersion heater has melted its wiring'. The boiler broke at the weekend and we are waiting for the repair guy. No hot shower then. Just the Strava moment, the revealing of speed and height and records broken. I can sit still now, quiet, sated.
The next dry day is in five days time, time to plan the next route.
Lovely write-up of what sounds like a stonking ride. 
and sausage roll went down a treat.
