Thursday 5 December. Lost lanes in mining country
When the Clash wrote 'Should I stay or should I go' as an angst filled paen to the indecisive girlfriend, how did they know it would become an anthem for indecision? It is cold and grey when I peer beyond the curtains but light enough to irritate Madame Crow who pulls the duvet over her head. Having foolishly declared an intention of cycling 500km this month, my version of the Festive 500, I need to do two 63k rides a week or three 42k ones. In between weather and events this may be a tough target. Events keep occurring. Mainly unexpected ones. Should I stay or should I go?
Go. It is very cold today despite the optimism of the forecast. I can feel the freeze deep into my lungs. Taking it easy at first as the road still has ice in places, cautiously heading downhill past the quiet bungalows of backwater Truro. My fingers freeze in too thin gloves. A careful right turn, the memory of my spin and crash three days ago still fresh in the mind and in the pain from my hip. The yellow electricians tape holding the battered remains of my bar tape together are also a good reminder. Out of Truro now, fields still frosty, frozen leaves in the road, the edges of the lane scarred by tractor wheels, mud and puddles glistening coldly in the winter light. Familiar territory so far but I have mapped a ride that takes me along lanes I have never been down before - easy enough in this part of Cornwall where the lanes twist and follow secret paths, where roads I have travelled before seem to vanish or just play hard to find and turnings take me somewhere I have never seen. Or back to where I started without ever getting to where I wanted to be.
The first wrong turning of the day takes me down a destroyed road, the concrete roadway turned into a facsimile of cobbles and ending up at a farm where a sign tells me that the road is private and that they charge £500 to re- open gates once they close behind you. A pointless diversion along a bone vibrating road, the mudguards shaking with fury until they choke with mud. Return and take the next left instead.
I can remember much of the way from poring over the map last night and continue confidently without checking. A left, a right, views across fields, a sudden glimpse of Truro hidden in its bowl of hills, the three spires of the cathedral above the mist. I am still cold. A new junction appears, unfamiliar territory suddenly, left or right here? "Should I stay or should I go" stuck in my head, an ear worm that beats in time with my legs turning. Time for the map. Where is the map? It was there when I left the morning but it has gone, fallen off unnoticed somewhere in the last ten miles. I don't want to go back. The only thing to do is 'Go'. I do wish this ear worm would leave me now.
I can use the phone to navigate but it isn't easy. The lanes form a dense and illogical pattern following the edges of Bronze Age fields that have long gone along with the reasons for making the lanes run in this way, complicated by the trackways built to wherever the tin and copper lodes were. I memorise the way from the tiny picture on the phone: go left, count three turnings and then right. But three turning later I have forgotten to count. My route quickly turns into a mystery tour, where I grab information from sign posts, avoiding the directions towards Redruth where I definitely don't want to go, or Falmouth or Penryn. I want to go to Stithians Lake but there are no signs to it. Crofthandy, Cusgarne, St Day, Vogue?? I try to recall a mental map of mid Cornwall's old mining villages.
The hills roll on. Cycling in hope rather than expectation of getting anywhere. Working on the assumption that where there is a choice between a steeper hill or a flatter one, the right way will always be the most difficult. Generally it seems to work and none of the hills today are as steep as the deep lanes of the Roseland or the incised valleys of the north coast. I make progress, vaguely anxious about where I am and the fact that I promised to be home in two hours. The sky is filmed with high grey stratus, the light levels low. Hedges confine my views apart from sudden glimpses across heather and bracken moors. I am still not sure where I am or how I got here but to my left is a blue streak of a lake. Keep turning left, rolling up and down small hills with the lake always somewhere on my left, occasionally glimpsed, my route hooking back towards Truro now. I am still cold, fingers numb, chest hurting with the frigid air, irritating the scar tissue where my left lung used to be.
Turn the pedals, watch the hedges pass, careful on the bends. Once a fast left hand bend deposits me into the path of a quarry lorry, the driver as frightened as me as I scrape past his right wheel. A second bend and an emerging tractor, the driver looking the other way, convinces me to slow but it is hard on these downhill bends where you want to get enough momentum for the hill beyond. The road is slippery too, my back wheel is locking up but not stopping my headlong rush to get home within the curfew time. It is already too late.
I start to recognise the villages. Frogpool, go left and past the Cornish Arms deep in the gloom of dripping trees and a sunken lane. Another turn and I am into the Bissoe Valley looking across to the arsenic ravaged slopes, brown and bare among the scrubby blackthorn clumps and wind pruned saplings.
Chacewater again. The nexus of all of my routes recently. An old mining village with a scruffy Spar and a fish and chip shop. On, on now up the hill. I manage 11mph where the Strava record is 26mph. I can't go that fast on the flat. Back into Truro, racing the traffic and gingerly passing the scene of my mishap, my hip aching to remind me and up Mitchell Hill, the last uphill to home. I am finally warm. Warm-ish. When is the Spring? Dropping down the final steep farm lane that leads to my house, brakes on hard, skidding on the moss and slime on the road all the way to the cattle grid, gingerly crossing the slippery tubes. I glance at my phone and am surprised to see how far I have come - and how late it is.
'Should I stay or should I go?'. Go every time, go.
I have been very sedentary in the last few months so my legs are really feeling the 121 miles I've ridden this week 
