Bridleway Bashing and Mud Plugging (sort of).

I'm sat here now, while outside it is a bit manky - all grey and drizzly giving way to occasional periods of... grey and rainy. Plus in the night someone came in the front garden and gave the tree a good shaking judging by the fact nearly all the remaining leaves fell off and are now lying strewn across the grass. Or maybe it was the wind. Whatever, as days go today is a bit crap, so I'm glad I went out yesterday, apart from the fact my back is now raging as a result, but still, I picked the right day, obviously.

Heading along the lanes towards Ladock. It was a bright, but cloudy day tricky for getting exposures right then, leading to much tickling of the RAW files to get a half way decent looking photo.

I love Bridleways. If the country lanes can whisk one away to peaceful tranquility across the countryside, bridleways take you and drop you right in it. Or drag you right through it, whichever seems more appropriate at the time. You still get to ride your bike (some of the time) but you lose tarmac and instead gain knobbly gnarly bits often with a dose of bushwhacking, and maybe even a bit of bull running thrown in for good measure.

The only drawback for me, is my aversion to generous levels of mud, and the local bridleways all become off limits over the winter for me, so yesterday I grabbed the chance to go wild one last time this year probably and made for a bridleway I've 'done' a couple of times before.

This partcular bridleway starts about five miles from my door, near the village of Ladock, and delivers one, only a little muddied hopefully, to the hamlet of Trendeal, a distance of perhaps two miles.

I do like this particular path a lot because it has a bit of everything, from semi wild scraggy woodland traversed by the path sunk between earth banks full of critter and hairy beasty holes and ancient dry stone walls, to crossing open farmland (and a Bull's field, but thankfully, once again, he wasn't home or was attending to matters elsewhere in his field, I don't know which).

Plenty of this sort of going to be found on this bridleway.

It also just nicks one corner of a local wood, a wood I frequent on a... frequent basis and so know is open to the public for the purposes of mooching about. I had a dip into the wood where the path passes once before, and thought it would be an ideal spot for a bit of lurking with a mug of coffee. Splendid.

The bridleway passes along the edge of some fields, and the farmer leaves a generously wide section for it. Some would've ploughed to within a few feet of the hedge, being less accommodating.

The downside to this particular bridleway though is the amount of pushing I have to do. One of those sunken parts climbs a rocky, stoney hill up to open fields, but it's too much for me to ride up so I bail out and get walking.

The corner of the wood where I planned to brew up a coffee. Taking this, I admired how clean the bike still was...

No worries.

Having done all that, then ridden along the edge of a field, I was ready for a brew, so imagine my dismay to find the previously open entrance to the wood now closed off with barbed wire. Bums! I was really looking forward to that. Carrying gamely on I got to the Bull's field, only to meet a farmer type walking his dogs coming the other way. He assured me the bull was free (it doesn't charge... groan...) and that the path beyond was a little muddy. So, regardless of the bull's apparent lackadaisical attitude I made like Bernard Hinault across his field, only mildy crapping myself as I went, and made it to safety on the other side. Bulls eh? Pfft! They don't scare me. Ahem.

Aw... bums. Bang goes the clean bike.

It was just after my feat of derring do that disaster struck. The 'little muddy' that the farmer described turned out to be a bit of a mud bog and far too squelchy and gooeysome for my liking. But the worst bit was my otherwise pretty clean bike was now going to get thoroughly defiled, as were my boots probably, but I don't care about them. There was no way I could ride through that murky mire, so I took to the edge of the hedge and pushed the bike through the gloop (this time from the right and that just feels so wrong, I always push from the left). I'm glad I did too as the wheels sunk right into the mud and would've made riding across nigh on impossible what with me not having a fat bike (see how I dropped a hint there? I'm slowly making a case for one to myself you see...).

The final stretch of bridleway has had some recent TLC.

Hitting tarmac once again saw the inevitable flailing Catherine Wheel effect as mud got flung everywhere by the Centifrugle... by the Sentryfrugal... by the wheels turning faster and the knobbles flexing, and despite having a crud guard thingy on the front, I collected a lump of mud on my forehead as I rode into it. That's not meant to happen now is it. Still without the guard I suspect I would've been wearing a lot more so I shouldn't complain too much.

Anyway, all that pushing knackered my back, it stiffened up steadily as I winced and grimaced my way home, and now the bike is sat behind me in the living room, blathered in mud, as is the mat beneath it as chunks fall off now and again like snow falling off your roof when the sun comes out, only a bit smellier. I say that, because there is a bit of a smell in the house, the bouquet of the countryside, the aroma of agricultural air. The smell of pee and poo that's what it is. Either I ran through some horse doings, or that mud contained cow emissions, which given the field next to the mud bog was full of mooeys, and thinking back they were giving me a knowing look, (“yeah, crack on mate... heh heh heh...”), I think the latter are to blame. Burgers it is for dinner tonight then.

Heading home. Taking this, I heard something grunty growling its way up the hill beyond and got to the bike just in time as a flipping huge John Deere appeared going like the clappers. 

Despite the lack of coffee, and the souvenirs of aches, a dirty bike and the house now smelling like a farmer's welly, it was a good excursion, as bridleway bashes usually are. Tomorrow I have to go into the big city (well Truro actually, but it is a city, if not exactly huge or busy – you could lob a pasty down the main street and not hit a single thing) and I know where I'd rather be, smelly gloop included.