BICYCLE OILS

The Painters' Trail in Suffolk promises picturesque views, following in the oily footsteps of Constable and Gainsborough. Is British landscape's soul easelly found?

-  Rob Ainsley

The Venn diagram of cycling and painting has little overlap. Famous biking artists? Not many. There's France's Maurice de Vlaminck, briefly a racing pro before finding fame with his wildly-coloured fauvist canvasses. There's 1980s British TV presenter Timmy Mallett, now a serious cycle-touring landscaper. He biked the coast of Britain in 2022, painting scenery encountered every day. Little else.

Yet cycling and art are both intensely visual things, linking what we see to how we feel. The Painters' Trail in Suffolk celebrates both, as it runs seventy-ish miles along the Stour Valley, from Manningtree to Sudbury and back. It's mainly a chance to experience the seen world of John Constable, England's great 18th-century landscape pioneer. Grey, rainy Britain hasn't produced many world-class outdoors artists, but he - along with Turner - would make any all-time world Top 30.

Riding the Painters', you can stand where he stood as he sketched his masterpieces, in rural idylls such as Flatford Mill and Dedham and East Bergholt, and enjoy views unchanged for two centuries. Well, except for electricity pylons, the A12, and 4x4s parked right in your shot.

Cynicism aside, in a part of England as postcard-pretty as this, it's no surprise that the Painters' also involves many other artists - some little-known, some well-known but for the wrong reasons. The route also has some excellent galleries, notably of grand portraitist Thomas Gainsborough.

Best of all, it's lovely long-day, or easy-two-day, ride in its own right. The gently rolling, quiet back lanes through half-timbered villages and hamlets have you constantly reaching for the camera, if not brushes. I cycled it in the spring, and enjoyed it enormously. Did I find the spirit of Britain's artistic soul? Here's what happened...