Take any moment in any race. Take a snapshot at random; perhaps of a group splintering on a wet descent in the Vosges, a lone attacker passing through a Flemish village and angling their bike as they sweep past a couple of spectators. Or take the moment a rider glances to their left to admire the view of a chateau as they race by. Freeze the frame and then dive into it, harvesting every pixel for meaning, extracting all you can about the human, social, historical and political context in which that an isolated moment is sited. Go beyond the obvious, ever deeper, and ever wider, until from that singular kernel, you have created a world; half imagined, half real, but complete.
For the best part of a year, during the worst of the limitations that the Covid pandemic placed on our ability to meet and move, this is what I did. I don't believe in providence, but I do believe in salvation; and this was mine. Here's how it happened.
This story is from the Summer 2023 edition of Cycling Plus UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Summer 2023 edition of Cycling Plus UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Objectives of desire
Ned ponders his affection for cycling on a ride from London to Minehead
ONE OF A KIND
Project One combines premium-quality customised bikes with an endless palette of colours and designs from the creative experts at Trek. It's a winning formula. Here's why...
Trek Checkpoint ALR 5 Driftless
£2,700 Aluminium bike-packing-friendly gravel bike
Gower Peninsula, Wales
A rider powers up the Cefn Bryn ridge on south Wales' Gower Peninsula.
Slow commotion
Downing Street targeting 20mph zones is attacking popular policy
Black Series Multistrada
£5,629 British designed, all-road speedster
Helmetcam militia
Hey, bad drivers! Want to be in the movies? Then smile as you close-pass us while on the phone
Rolling horizons
2018 Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas tells us about the joy of discovering new routes
ENTER THE DRAGON
It's one of the toughest sportives in the UK, but did climb-loving cycling author Simon Warren have the legs to slay the beast of a sportive route in 2023?
LOFTY GOALS
Higher, harder, longer... the road-sportive calendar gets ever more extreme. Here are 10 of the toughest single day rides to enter for 2024