New paintings and regular art updates.
Does anyone know a cycling magazine I could advertise my hubbies two trikes for sale in. I can’t ride them and I don’t want them to rust away. This one has a conversion kit as the back wheels bolt on to a frame. It’s been for sale on ebay but there were no takers sadly. I spent a lot of money on it a couple of years ago to have it restored. The second one was hand built by George Longstaff, but it’s stuck in my bike shed so I can’t get a good photo of it.
Last year I watched the tour de France with my hubby. This year, for the first time in about 20 years I’m watching it on my own. It feels strange, no point in cheering on our favourites, no discussion about how Mark Cavendish will do. Just muttering ‘you would have loved this’ to his memory. I could switch it off, but I don’t want to. Tears will fall. I only got into cycling because of hubby. I miss him so much. He would be out cycling after this, a short ride to keep his legs going. He was over 70 and still enthusiastic. 70 isn’t old, he was young at heart. Disease not age took him from me. 😢😢
My bike…. dont have a picture of our tandem….
We were out one day, and Hubby saw an old tandem across the floor of a garage. He went over to look at it and fell into an inspection pit. Luckily, he was OK!
We bought the tandem (which was two bikes welded together) and my hubby even took the local MP round Penkhull on it!
One day we rode 100 miles in a reliability trial with the local cycling club. It was fun and we got back in seven and a half hours, despite one of my pedals falling off and having to borrow a spanner to fasten it back in place. One chain wheel was on the opposite side of the tandem, so it had unscrewed….
All this happened about thirty years ago when I was a lot fitter.
We would take the tandem or our bikes out and explore the local countryside or cycle from Stoke up to Rochdale, or down to Walsall.
We decided to cycle up through Leek one day, then up to the Roaches. We saw a signpost for Flash so decided to take it (the highest village in England apparently). We were tired but swooped up and down the hills. But I was nervous, two of us going downhill on winding roads was nerve wracking! I was a bit scared and kept houting at my hubby to SLOW DOWN!
Eventually we came down and round a corner and……
We almost ran into a five pony, pony trek that was spread across the road. Hubby turned the handlebars and dropped us into a shallow ditch at the side of the road!
I admit cursing him for being so reckless. But we gathered ourselves back together and set off again uphill, then swiftly down again. I kept telling him to go slower. But he was enjoying himself and we had averted one disaster, what else could happen?
This time we came round a corner and just managed to stop, in front of a scout Jamboree. How many scouts and cubs? Goodness only knows. HUNDREDS of them! Hubby and I had been lucky not to hit one of them, like a skittle, probably knocking others over too!
Again, we got ourselves sorted out. By then I was ready to go home. We saw a TV mast somewhere up on the hills as we headed Westwards and soon, we were looking across the beautiful Cheshire plain, looking at peaceful and hopefully flat farmland to cycle home over. We stopped off at a place selling ice-cream before pedalling downhill towards Macclesfield or Congleton, to be honest I can’t remember because I was more bothered about the danger of going downhill too fast! I think I was probably very grateful that we got home in one piece!
What’s the most fun way to exercise?
I’ve cycled for exercise when I was younger and I loved the freedom of it. You could travel for miles, with the ability to see places you could never get to on foot and if you travel in a car or a train the world goes by almost too fast so that you don’t get the connection with the land that you do on a bike.
We cycled for many years and I went from pushing my bike up hills, to slowly slogging up in bottom gear to being able to make good progress up to a summit. I could tell my fitness was improving, my breathing improved and my physical strength improved too. My hubby and I could cycle up to a hundred miles in under eight hours!
The worst thing that happened to me was a bike accident that eventually persuaded me to get a car. I should have continued to cycle.
I just watched a video of a cow walking up to a tent, the camper had left his trainers outside. As the cow walked past the trainers got stuck on a front then rear hoof. Very funny, but who decided to film the cow. Could it be a faked video?
It bought back memories though. We once went camping once on a farm near Ludlow on the English /Welsh border. A dog there was pregnant and while we were out for the day cycling down into Ludlow to explore the castle, it got in our tent and stole the cheese and other stuff we were going to have for tea! The farmer was very apologetic. I think he gave us some sausages and eggs to replace the lost provisions. We made sure the tent was zipped up and tied shut the next time we went out!
By the way our tent was just a tiny two man canvas tent that served us well for many years. I do remember waking up on one occasion with a cow snuffling round the guide ropes of it, but the cow did no harm.
On another occasion we were camping above St Ives in Cornwall. It was a stormy night. My hubby put his foot against the tent zip and broke it. I’d got a sewing kit with us? Why? I don’t know, but I remember roughly sewing up the tent opening to keep it shut in the gale while having to hold the torch in my teeth (hubby having fallen asleep).
Sleeping is a issue yet again. I’m either too cold or too hot. Lost without my hubby who passed away three weeks ago. I really have a heavy heart. I just spent the last hour or so remembering things we did in the past. Going for bike or tandem rides when we were younger. The feeling of almost flying along, racing each other down hills (I was always more cautious). How he took in a stray cat a few years ago that had come limping into our garden, it turned out to have been abandoned by it’s owner. That cat is now sleeping on hubbys bodywarmer. I think it misses him as much as I do. It’s almost 5am. Going to make a cocoa.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?
We were cycling home on our tandem one summer evening, when suddenly we turned round in the road. I had no idea what was going on, it was a narrow country road and it surprised me.
We pulled up and my hubby started looking on the grass verge. There was a camera just lying there! We didn’t know what to do, so we took it home (we were in the middle of the countryside), with the idea of seeing if there was a film inside and getting it developed if there was. We would try and get it back to its owners somehow? This was about 30 or so years ago before we had the Internet, so there wasn’t much hope of finding its owners.
We sent the film off, but it came back blank, it must have been lost when someone put a new film in, maybe put it on top of a car and forgot to move it when they drove off.
I have to say I had forgotten all about it until I saw this prompt, and now I feel guilty for not reuniting it with it’s owners.
What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?
I used to love cycling downhill, leaning forward and down over the handlebars. I was quite good especially on twisting roads.
I never went on ski trips when I was a child, but I think given a chance I would have been able to do well. But that is the kind of risk I think I would have taken when I was younger. I can imagine slaloming down a beautful snow covered hill. Zooming properly not on a computer screen, but I’ve never had the chance. X
Another image drawn on holiday, this one is from 1994 whan we were on holiday near Settle. We cycled around the area and I did this sketch in biro when we stopped to have lunch and look at the view I think. But this was 29 years ago so I may have misremembered. By looking at the notes it looks like I revisited in the October of the same year.
How often do you walk or run?
When I was young I used to run in races, I didn’t have any training but I would get quiet good places in school sports day races. I was fit, I used to jump over my dad’s saw bench, using it as a hurdle in our back garden. I also used to love climbing up the swing and hanging off the top.
As I got older we would walk to places and I got good at cycling. I was able to cycle 40 miles up to my boyfriends house north of Manchester and down to my mom’s home near Birmingham.
Then I had an accident, my bike was damaged and we got a car. The car was useful for commuting to work. The repair shop which was fixing my bike lost it for a year! But I still walked around my patch at work, so I stayed fit. I eventually got my bike back, but never felt the same way.
I still walked a bit, but my health wasn’t good. I put on weight and my job changed so I was more sedentary. I didn’t realise how big I was getting until a health scare.
I lost about a third of my body weight and met a good friend. We started walking together and I started to get fit again. I was also going on walks with hubby.
Then the pandemic happened. I still walked but didn’t see friends as much. My health was not good and although I was trying, when my friend got a new job I stopped walking as much. At the time I pulled my calf muscle and ended up off my feet for several weeks. I slowly started to gain strength, but I wasn’t able to do as much. Other sad things happened and I got in a rut.
Now I’m slowly recovering from another injury. I must start walking again as soon as I can. Being stuck at home is very frustrating.
Mallaband-Brown