“Sorry, I don’t remember …”
Saddle Baggage - Reflections from the Road
To mark my recent milestone birthday, I gifted myself an adventure. I pedalled 2000 kilometres from my birthplace in Scotland to our home in France, via Bilbao, the Basque Country and the Pyrenees. Twenty-two days on a bike is plenty of time to wrestle some thoughts and ideas into shape; to gather and to let go. This is the second of a series, ‘Saddle Baggage’, reflections from an epic road trip.
Why do we set out on a journey; is there a reason we make plans to coincide with important milestones? Surely some part of it is about remembrance, a need within us to make new memories and to trigger old ones? And if this is true, how do we remember … what do we recall when the dust has settled and the trip is done?
Looking back it is easy to sense that the route I designed for my cycle ride was, sub-consciously, perhaps, created to brush up against memories. The stages are woven together in a way that offers room to create fresh remembrances to take forward into a new stage of life. The journey started in Forres, the town where my story started. I have no memories of it, but I now know my mum remembers a ‘very happy time’. I count myself lucky that I can still ask her how life felt for her then, what made it a happy place.
Ignoring the route blinking out from my navigation device, I pedalled up to Leanchoil Hospital to see … to see what? I don’t know why I went there other than it is the scene of family memories. It is a beautiful building, sadly out of commission; on a less sunny day, the boarded up windows would have lent it a maudlin sadness. But on this day, an old lady sat in bright sunlight basking in the warmth reflecting off the stone building. She introduced herself as Helen Smith while I explained my sudden appearance up the long-neglected driveway. We chatted for a while, wondering aloud if a relative of hers was perhaps the midwife who delivered me sixty years before. As I got back onto my route I recorded a voice memo to trigger my thoughts, to make a memory, I suppose.
A few days later, at the end of a tough 80 kilometres, I approached the small Lanarkshire town of Biggar in howling winds and heavy rain. Purely by chance, as I crested a sharp little rise and wondered how much further, I glanced to my right, noticing the sign that said ‘Persilands’. My tired eyes took in the land my grandparents farmed, a place I lived for nine months when my dad was deployed to the Middle East with the RAF; I have no actual memories - perhaps I do remember being chased by geese and the taste of peas straight from the pod. The rest feels like the ‘corporate memory’, stories that set out the family history, reassuring points of reference retold at infrequent gatherings to mark the passing of someone in that timeline. Later that evening, in the town where my mum and dad were born, I wrote:
And Biggar, why Biggar, Barrie … my grandparents farmed here. It feels like the right time to pass through. I have memories - maybe family recollections more than mine … perhaps, but they are reference points. A cut head when very young me pedalled off the granite steps, a bead up my nose removed by the local doctor who smoked his pipe with the bowl in his mouth to distract me (I know, smoking in the surgery … ‘twas in the olden days, kids) … and I fell in the midden (uh huh, where all the cow muck goes) in my best velvet suit just before church. Needless to say, despite the hosing down, I didn’t go to church, the disgrace of it!
Memories? Perhaps. Later in the trip I was having dinner with my sister; I note they are her memories too. Almost word for word.
But I do remember Bill who pulled up alongside me on his old school racing bike, gear levers on the down tube. We got to chatting, one cyclist to another; I told him what I was up to, special birthday and all. He looked wistful; “aye, when I was 75”, he muttered, “I pedalled from Calais to Carcassonne, those were the days”. He mentioned his grandkids, the great grandkids in their teens. He was out for a ‘short one’ today, twenty miles or so. I have a memory of Bill, slim and active in his mid eighties, still moving, sharp as a tack.
The more I think of it, the more I see that my memories of this trip are about the folk I met along the way. I treasure the craic. Fleeting human moments that stuck.
John Summerton bought me breakfast when he had enough to do with moving house; Iain and Lynda Childs welcomed me into their home on the strength of some Instagram chat and a ride I did with Iain a few years back … you know you’re with friends when the Ardbeg Smoketrails appears magically after supper (Lynda is the aficionado); there was Rob Austen - tall, barrel chested, shirtless in the early Summer warmth - walking two Labrador Retrievers along a Wiltshire lane near his home; he regaled me with tales of his cycling days in Dubai; Ron, 88 years young, offered me directions on the outskirts of Ludlow … his first cycle club had been in Arizona and he’d only given up two wheels three years ago. I sort of knew where I was going but the gesture was kind and the conversation was priceless. Steve and I boarded the Bilbao ferry together but missed one another on the crossing; our paths merged briefly over lunch in San Sebastián.
Then there are the folk with no names; the ‘village elders’ in the salles-des-fêtes of Nabas who let me interrupt their card games to fill a water bottle; the couple in a remote village where their country home came with seven hectares to tend, a life made harder by the heart surgery the old gentleman had recently endured … but my appeal for water turned into half an hour in the shade with a cold lemonade and a gentle conversation in French; the following day, made so slow by mechanical problems with my bike, was a scorcher and even my spare water bottle was drained when I stopped to ask a man for a top up … he explained there was a communal fontaine about 3 kilometres up the road, but he still came out with a jug of iced water to fill my bottles. The classic kindnesses of strangers, imprinted on my heart, remembered forever, I am certain. And right up to the last day, on familiar ground in the Vienne, cutting across a route I had used for a training ride before setting off … impulsively I stopped in Saint-Germain, picking the certainty of a shaded picnic spot over the planned stop in Pressac; what a delight to meet Nancy and Derek, both in their mid-70s, just roaming. Heavily loaded, starting earlier and earlier to avoid the intense heat, they were inching towards Availles-Limouzine to coincide with check-in timings for their accommodation. A wonderful series of coincidences that led to a lovely conversation with two inspiring kindred spirits determined to keep moving.
Forget-Me-Not
Lunch was a massive brunch baguette; half an hour ago it had seemed like a good idea. The idea of it was etched into my consciousness from the moment I plotted my route from Gretna to Kendal, as I planned to refuel before taking on my biggest climb to date. I mean, what’s not to love about the idea of a sourdough baguette packed with Cumberland sausage, bacon, hash brown and - get this masterstroke - cheese. I accept that the ramekin of beans on the side was problematic1 but in essence, this was a mighty dish. I could feel the power surging through my limbs. So I slide out of Glenridding, winding gently through Patterdale, shaking off the café stop from my legs. Nerves sat as heavily as the Cumberland sausage. Hartsop next; the name is familiar from my pre-adventure reading, the start of the run in to the climb I can see unfolding before me. I can look again at the details of the ride recorded for me on my GPS device. I can look at the pictures and plot the time it took me to pedal 5 kilometres to the lay-by where a sign announces that the road to the right is The Struggle … and yet the route I followed felt like a flippin’ struggle to me.
What do I actually remember though? What do I bring to mind without checking the numbers? It felt slow; incredibly slow. I stopped a handful of times, just before and just after the 20% ramps. Sweat poured off me. The weather gods chuckled as they released the sun for an afternoon spent boiling the blood of an auld fella labouring up slopes that ‘flattened’ to 13% in the nick of time. I have a photo prompt for that memory. Maybe I also heard running water as a babbling stream tumbled across the fells on its circuitous quest to reach the Solway Firth. I was thirsty, parched, so perhaps the brook was imagined. I know my legs ached; they must have done. It was Day 6, a big hill, too much weight in my panniers. It must have hurt. But … is it a remembrance? So much has happened since. I pedalled up some monstrously big hills. I cycled through some baking hot days. I conquered a hill that was three times as long and four times the elevation I gained that day in the Lake District. What do I truly remember of that day, the day I ‘conquered’ the Kirkstone Pass? There was the moment of looking back, reflecting on where I’d come from; cycling past Brothers Water and recalling a magical swim there with JoJo and our friend Jen. Now that’s a memory. I can remember pulling into the lay-by at the top of the climb to grab a breath and a shot of the sign declaring something else to be the actual ‘Struggle’. I remember the downhill on the other side, sweeping and swooping, grinning from ear-to-ear, ignoring the brakes until Troutbeck where I turned off, heading to meet my friend Iain. I can picture all that. The climb? Etched in my consciousness as a ‘thing’ I’ve done, a mountain I climbed. Perhaps, though, my history with the Kirkstone Pass will be inextricably interwoven with a heavenly combination of sausage, bacon, hash brown and cheese. Now that I will never forget!
What do I make of all this?
There is so much more to tell, more human tales to tell … Sam cycling John O’Groats to Lands End … Mark and Sonya living their best lives in Armadale … Derek and Yvonne planning their best life, pausing on a cycle ride at a café in Dalwhinnie … a weekend of birthday celebrations with grandchildren at its heart (and in my heart, special memories made for me … for them?) … lunch with Matt and the most touching gift of a book, picked as an encouragement … staying in the hills with Rich and Yvett before meeting a day later on the Mediterranean coast for lunch … the gentle kindness and understanding of Mike and Andre when I changed route and cancelled plans to hang out with them … Jane (and Ian’s spirit) at Northroad Cycles - tears, hugs and memories, precious memories - oh, that we all should be remembered with so much love.
I wonder then if that is why we travel, why we live vibrantly, adventurously, with curiosity to the fore … so the memories we make become the stories we tell and the ways we will be remembered. Is this what memory is for?
In my mind, the container is superfluous, though advocates make their argument based on the potential sogginess of toast in a ‘free-range bean’ scenarios. I’m having none of that nonsense; pick up your toast and move it, if you must, but the British cooked breakfast tradition is - in my humble opinion - blighted by ramekins of baked beans.
I was with you every inch of the way over Kirkstone Pass, how I wish I had the strength and energy to cycle it, walking up the fells is enough to test me! I love the whole idea of this though Barrie - such an amazing adventure and the perfect way to mark a special birthday making new memories and maybe some friends along the way.
The struggle was definitely worth it - gorgeous views!