A bike ride in the British countryside

Set during golden hour, I love the British countryside for these moments. For this photo to mean something, we’ve got to back up around two or three hours before.

With my dad and brother, we just started cycling along the south coast of England and were following one of the old disused train lines, now turned into biking and running trails. Surprisingly over time, a fair amount of the tracks remain and you can go for hundreds of miles across the country. I’d hadn’t been on this ride but my dad had been on this ride five years prior. The ‘cuckoo trail’ had a nice ring to it. What I didn’t quite know about it was how the 60 km bike ride would be split into two opposing halves. I knew that it was 30 km one way and the same on the way back. Part of what I didn’t yet know was that one way was all uphill. Of course, I wasn’t expecting it to be flat at all on the way there, being from the Surrey hills and growing up around its steep and curvy terrain. Normally, when we climb up during a ride, the journey is fairly balanced. There’s dips and straight parts. Well, it certainly was a shock.

I haven’t been cycling for a year, instead running and playing sports while at university. So, I have found coming back and cycling around 100km a week has been a challenge. I reckon every time I go out it still feels as if I’m the same as a month ago, but I know I’m slowly improving - I don’t give myself enough recovery to feel it. Something I can work on.

The ride was going well. I personally found other routes much more picturesque and fun, but I was giving this ride a fair chance to be another favourite. Something felt off though. And after an hour, I have to admit that on the way there, I almost completely ran out of energy. It just happened like that. One minute I’m doing okay, the next I feel a sudden vacuum of energy and my muscles begin to tighten. I just want to stop and turn back. Home feels really good now, I think. At this point, I was focused on covering the 30km getting a break then, that I didn’t notice the slight incline of the path. And now it was catching up to me.

The necessity that I had overlooked was food, basically. And to feel stronger, I ate a lot of food, like another 2 or 3 lunches, mid afternoon. That seemed to fix it, although it doesn’t seem to be the norm but hey it worked for that occasion.

As I trudged up the hill, at this point a fairly gentle incine, I would be overtaken by a runner. An out-of-breath, slow runner. And I could hear him behind me, his shoes crunching the shingle on the trail. It was a humiliating feeling. My excuse to myself was that I didn’t want to tear anything, but I was barely moving so I just told my head to shut up.

I had to make it back, but I did make it to the halfway point first. When I did, I felt relief. However, my dad said that while I did make it and (it was now he told me that it was downhill now!) I didn’t look around me and take in the journey. I missed out on the environment, as I had my head stuck down focused on the next meter rather than the beauty around me. I wanted to fix that and I know that I’m lucky to have this opportunity.

On the way back, I almost never looked down and took view and sight in. I see farmers’ fields, cute dogs and flocks of birds and herds of sheep all around. It’s good to be connected to nature around and I’m very happy that I began to.

And we come back to the photo. I saw this view and immediately jumped out of my bike and cherished it. I knew that I probably wouldn’t return anytime soon as the journey today hadn’t been one I particularly enjoyed but it definitely has its good moments. And this was the best snapshot of the afternoon. I have always been engaged by photos and their ability to capture more than one sense and emotion in their memory. I don’t edit my photos, because I want to challenge myself to use natural lighting as best as I can. Lighting is very important and golden hour, when the sun casts a golden light before sunset can highlight many beauties in front of your eyes. My dad saw me gaze across the field and after being puzzled I think he was proud that I looked around me and he knew that I found value in it.

While the ride has come and gone, I take my experience of it ahead with me. We wait all year for a moment to harvest the crop, when the journey of the hay is its defining part. That’s where the time passes and the lessons paint over the mistakes. Growth happens. Similar to the hay in the field, we all have our flaws and it’s up to us to discover and make them smaller as we move forward. The journey is the place to be to find wonders and we’ve got to keep our heads up and find them. Let these small realisations carry us on.