Iron Donkey Bicycle Tour of Wessex

I can't think of anything Iron Donkey could have done to make my 1 week bike tour of Wessex more enjoyable. My rental bike was sturdy and well set up, the maps were probably as precise as one can get in rural England and the B&Bs were truly first rate. I enjoyed a carefree week in a beautiful--and fascinating--part of the world. The cycling routes were well thought out with optional side trips every day. Traffic was generally light. What more can you ask from a one week bike tour?

Iron Donkey offers tours to many European destinations, a few of which have already caught my eye. Why, you ask does one need a guided tour? You don't, if you're willing to haul your own food, bedding and tent and/or negotiate in each village for available space at the end of a long day on the road. It could be pouring rain...

When the sun is shining (most of my tour) you can't do better than rural England. Somebody said that Wordsworth and the other romantic poets wouldn't have romanticized nature quite so much if they had seen places like California's Death Valley and Alaska's Glacier Bay. Of course it works both ways. I grew up in the American west around volcanos, deserts, tidal waves, glaciers and earthquakes——beautiful places all, but if you don't watch your step while sightseeing you will end up dead as a beet. In England nobody dies from the scenery. Yes, it can rain a bit too much but the English have certainly demonstrated that one can write great poetry in the rain. Here in Northern California, I survived 3 (THREE) 7.0 magnitude earthquakes in one night. Poetry was definitely not on the menu.


Say what you will about the typical Wessex roadside attraction above, nobody is going to drop dead because they lingered here too long.

Why, you ask, was a huge chalk horse carved into the hill above several thousand years ago? Good question.

Once upon a time, Slapton Sands was an idyllic hamlet on the English Channel. "Aha!" said the Unified Allied Command back in 1944, "what a perfect place to practice secretly for the Normandy invasion using live ammunition. We'll just aim away from the towm..." If you think D Day was an unprecedented mess, you obviously missed the Slapton Sands rehearsal.

This, Shakespeare fans, is the river Avon. Thanks to the English pastoral poets, so many lovely places look exactly the way you imagined they would.

Wessex views like this were typical of most of my week in the saddle.

Urban freedom?

Here's the link.

Canadian politician charged in road rage death of cyclist

OTTAWA — As the high-profile attorney general for Ontario, Michael Bryant had championed severe and controversial traffic safety laws.On Tuesday, he was charged with criminal negligence causing death and with dangerous driving causing death in an unusually violent episode of road rage involving a bicyclist.

I don't know where this road rage was coming from but Bryant obviously felt so justified that he yelled at the poor cyclist who was clinging to life on the side of his car. I'm thinking it starts with self-righeous rage. I do wish I wasn't hearing so much self-righteous rage from cyclists directed at motorists. And since so many of us are wearing both hats--cycling and driving--the rage is self-directed and hypocritical.

We need to back this thing down. I'm done ranting at cars. We need change, but we need to get there rationally. This was a tragic, stupid, unnecessary death. Those of us who aren't cycling in Amsterdam or Copenhagen are out there in serious traffic every day. We simply can't afford any more road rage casualties.

Scotland, The Highlands

Everyone in Edinburgh insisted I wasn't experiencing the "real Scotland," so after a few days I got on a bus and headed west. A few hours later I stood among the famous "lochs."

The fantastic landscapes and colorations in Lord of the Rings didn't come from Tolkien's imagination.

The landscape above was used in the film HARRY POTTER. LORD OF THE RINGS was shot in New Zealand, but they could have saved money and simply used the source material in The Highlands.

To the west of mainland Scotland lie the Hebrides. I stayed two days in Portree, Isle of Skye. The Scots are not given to hyperbole: when they say SKYE...

The photos above and below were taken well past 10 pm.

Scotland

This 275 foot monument to Walter Scott, on the river in central Edinburgh is the largest...thing...I've ever seen erected for a writer.

"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim. One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name."

Monumental, don't you agree?

However, Scott also said: "If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors."

So even if Scott hadn't written Ivanhoe and the other classics, he really did deserve a tower on the river.

Argentina's Jose Luis Borges loved to sip coffee at a certain coffee house in Buenos Aires. After his death he was sculpted sitting at his table with a book--inside the coffee house itself. Then somebody tore down the coffee house to make way for a mall. But the tribute to Argentina's greatest writer lived on. I found Borges still sitting at the same table-- in the Mall basement near "personal electronics." He looked a bit forlorn. Say what you will about the Scott monument, this is one author who will never be upstaged by a wall of iPods.

You see a lot of bikes tooling around Edinburgh and at least some of the main streets have bike lanes. However, the weather can be...challenging. The British mutter about the rain, then always manage to press on through it. The Scotts actually seem to enjoy being in the thick of a violent storm--on or off a bike. I stayed on foot and focused on remaining upright even when the rain came at me sideways.

Performance

A tip of the helmet to Rich Lesnick for this giggle.

London is actively encouraging its citizens to ride bikes

Wessex Tour Highlights (2)

You're never far from a lush garden in England. This one is in Laycock, home of William Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor of photography. The French Daguerrotpe Process managed to preserve an image on a plate, but had no way to duplicate it. To see the image, you needed access to the only existing copy. Fox not only came up with a better way to capture images, he managed to reproduce them on paper, thus trumping a Frenchman and earning himself a kinghthood. Photography was born in Fox's studio, just behind this garden. Give me a greenhouse like this in my backyard and I could invent photography.

I returned to Bath on the Bath to Bristol Canal bike path.

For 400 years Bath was a Roman city.

A hundred years ago road crews fixing a sewer in the center of town got a surprise...Just below, was the center of the great Roman Bath. People had forgotten it was there and built a town on top of it. 2,000 years ago it was used daily. You took your business contacts to the bath, your date and your ailing mother. Everyone hung at the Bath.

You never know what you're going to find under a city street.

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These guys rode up from Bristol through the rain using the canal path. Build it and they will come. I joined them for a beer. Generally, I don't drink when biking, but at the end of a rainy day in Bath it would be truly sinful to walk away from one of those great English draft beers. The Pubs are a great ice-breaker in England. After a few minutes of pleasant conversation we headed our separate ways.

Speaking of fashion...

Move over spandex fans...A Girl's Bike

What would make bikes more fashionable?

American cycling fashions can be truly hard on the eyes. Yes, bright clothes have an obvious safety advantage. But if cycling becomes more popular we're going to have even MORE middle aged men in tights and dayglo spandex exposing themselves to the public. Wise mothers will learn to shield their children's eyes.

In Holland where more than half the population bikes to work, people wear normal clothes. Americans tend to have special uniforms for every activity: you don't just go fishing, you put on fishing gear. You have customized shoes for walking, running, cycling and relaxing. And the Gods of consumerism smile.

I realize you've got a lot invested in your 15 pound carbon fiber racing bike. But look, you're not Lance Armstrong.* Put aside your dreams of efficiency and speed for a moment and think of how you appear to others. Would you wear day glo tights to a business meeting...a date...a wedding? Consider the bike as a fashion accessory. It might be a bit slower in crosstown traffic but every head will turn.

Fashionable cycling clothes could change the image of our sport overnight and make cycling immensely more popular. The two fashion-driven designs that follow are promising steps in the right direction.



Here's a helmet that looks like (is?) a hat, not a ray gun.

Tip of the helmet to Kevin Hoover and Susanna Linqvist for these links.

* unless you actually are, in which case, Hi

Generally, England isn't that well set up for bikes. So you have to improvise...

Tip of the helmet to Steve Fox for this one.

Aliens, crop circles and other dimensions by bike

Apologies for the chaotic formatting. I'll have to wait a week for the fix, but in the meantime I'll trust you to match the text with the appropriate photo. The photos will expand when clicked.

"The ditch and stone circles of Avebury were constructed between 2600 and 2400 BC, which is around the same time as the first phase of Stonehenge. Experts think it would have taken as much as 1.5 million man-hours to construct the bank and ditch and place the sarsen stones."

For starters, let's rule out a sheep pen. Nobody spends 1.5 million hours building a sheep pen. Archaeologists dug diligently and found—dirt. No bones, no treasure, not much of anything. Therefore, Avebury Circle was built by Aliens.

Avebury is the heart of crop circle country. And despite the fact that various pranksters have confessed, detailing exactly how they made these gorgeous creations, the faithful gather daily in the circle to reach across to another dimension or at the very least make contact with a few Aliens. Indeed, a meditating group was ommming loudly, palms raised, eyes shut (photo) as I walked by. And it worked!

On the hillside across the street were the remains of the latest crop circle, created the night before (see photo--behind the sheep). Alas, the farmer who owned the land mowed it to the ground at daybreak. When will the damn Aliens learn to respect private property?


An Avebury tour guide observed dryly that: "During the mad cow scare we had no new crop circles. People were avoiding cows." Nevertheless, crop circles and Aliens have been a gold mine for the merchants in nearby towns. My B&B proprietor in nearby Devizies insisted that "We have the best Aliens and we're going to keep it that way."


Avebury also has a traditional Church which is combined with a gift shop to the rear, a first for me. I wondered what happens to shoplifters?

A mile away across grassy fields is Silbury Hill. Whoever put it there 5,000 years ago did it without a shovel. That's a man at the bottom right. Any idea why somebody would have wanted to build a 135 foot earthen pyramid in the middle of a grassy field--by hand?

The Mystery

I rode out on my bike at sunset, expecting to be disappointed. It was two miles up a hill in a light rain and the darkness was gathering. I remember thinking: most famous places don't come up to brag. Moments later, Stonehenge seemed to materialize out of the night sky, imposing, even in the distance and impossibly exotic. Thunder rumbled through the nearby hills.

Please click on the "night" photo to expand it.


Built 5,000 years ago by neolithic people who left no written records, Stonehenge would have sent an unambiguous message to everyone. It stands alone on a treeless plateau where it dominates the landscape and even the sky above. "If we could go back in time and ask them just one question, said one thoughtful local, it would be: WHY was it built? Every single person alive then would have known the answer--and now nobody knows. It's as though our highway system was discovered thousands of years from now. Why was it built, people might ask. What could it possibly have MEANT?

I'm told that Stonehenge can be a disappointment. At mid day, the tour busses abound and the visitor center across the road buzzes with activity. Happily, all that was gone and I was left with the gathering storm, the rain and the roll of distant thunder. The builders of Stonehenge would have known such moments well. The answer to the eternal question seemed to be right there in front of me...

Wessex tour, highlights (1)

Religion is no longer terribly popular in England, or for that matter, throughout most of Northern Europe. Let's face it: it didn't work out that well. Nevertheless, fans of choral music will find it well worth their while to do whatever it takes to hear a choir sing in Wells Cathedral. Never, never have I heard acoustics like this; I was simply riveted to my seat. And I'm a jazz fan.

English roads

Iron Donkey chose well; for the most part I traveled on roads like this one.

However, once I got to a city it was hit or miss. Some have bike path networks that take you right to the center. But generally you're on your own with fast moving commuters on both sides. I took it slowly in places like Wells (outgoing) and Bath (incoming) and it wasn't too bad.

Cycling isn't really popular in the U.K. but it wouldn't take much to change that. On the Bath to Bristol Canal bike path I suddenly saw bikes everywhere; I thought I was in Holland. Build it and they will come.

Generally, the rural roads are fine as is. All they need, really, is some work on the rural/city interfaces.

Bath Tour

I pushed off from Bath on the Bath to Bristol canal trail. The weather looked threatening but I had rain gear--and enough personal stuff for a week.

Before long I forgot about the weather.

South Coast and English Channel

It's hard to imagine a more inviting landscape for walkers (weather permitting). I began on foot.

You can walk all over England on trails that cross private property well away from homes. And you're never far from the sea.

Rare strands of barbed wire

The English have been building towers like this for thousands of years. This one was a beacon, used for signaling.

UK signs

I spent a week touring Wessex, in the west of England. After picking up a bike, maps and an itinerary from IRON DONKEY (more on them later) in Bath, I was off, hauling about 30 pounds of my own stuff.

Moment of truth: I had climbed a very steep hill--to find this sign. Wells was my final destination but the map seemed to indicate a right turn here. Was it a scenic route or...? Happily,"CH" and "W" appeared in the name of the next town, which was indeed to the right. I pressed forward for a half mile and turned right again. That took me to the bottom of the original hill.

These red beauties are becoming rare. Email?

Could THIS possibly be the route? Best to ask the next tank...

The government is making us better drivers.

How many American hotels would invite the public to "extend your walk through our gardens?"