Dover's Hill

Ryknild Street, or Icknield Street, is an old Roman road running from Gloucestershire to South Yorkshire. What image does its name create? A grassy lane long since surpassed as a main thoroughfare? A cow-parsley-lined corridor come summertime? A second articulated lorry thunders past. Like many Roman routes, the modern road network sits atop it. Not Watling Street-A5 busy but relatively so for being a minor road on the edge of the Cotswolds.

St James the Great, near Long Marston

I cheated and clipped a few miles off today's ride by driving to Milcote Greenway car park. Time, fitness, age - choose one (or more). The greenway follows a discontinued railway south-west from Stratford-Upon-Avon. I've picked it up at Milcote, a train carriage converted to a cafe a nod to its former use. Flat riding to begin with, but I can see pain in the distance. Long Marston, Pebworth, and on to Honeybourne. It's here I meet Ryknild Street, an industrial estate accounting for the articulateds. Crossing the B4305 frees me, quite lanes now.  

    Ah, the challenge for the day - Dover's Hill. A venue for previous National Hill Climb Championships. Steep then. Through Weston-sub-Edge - a gentle gradient, no problem. A bit more up now as the chicane is negotiated. Seriously, this is used for hill climbs? I'm Frank Vandenbroucke at Liege-Bastogne-Liege in '99 - imperious. Then the straight ramp. God, I hate straight ramps. Those sections of roads with nothing left to the imagination. The imminent suffering spelt out in a ribbon of tarmac. It's not Ffordd-Pen-Llech up, but up nonetheless, and I'm not VDB in his prime, rather a fifth-decade-bloke of decreasing muscle density and increasing subcutaneous adipose tissue, who rides, from time to time, on a bike with a bag.

A bike with a bag, that went up Dover's Hill

I'm reading Andy McGrath's 'God is Dead: The Rise and Fall of Frank Vandenbroucke, Cycling's Great Wasted Talent'. A sad, but not uncommon, tale of an immense talent catapulted to and ultimately crushed by superstardom. I'm reminded of Jorge Valdano's comment on his team mate Diego Maradona: "Poor Diego. For so many years we have told him, 'You're a god', 'You're a saviour', but we forgot to tell him the most important thing, 'You're a man'."  Two addictive personalities who struggled with all that apotheosis brings. As a young person it's hard enough finding your place in the world without the adulation and expectation fame brings. I see it in my job as a school teacher. It can be a difficult journey from adolescence to adulthood (and continue to be so). One boy in my form group never made it. Did I see it coming? A reference request to volunteer at a Buddhist retreat indicated a young man trying to figure it out. He never did. Do we ever? Are we ultimately blindsided by life?

    Andy McGrath's use of 'God is Dead' is an obvious nod to Vandenbroucke's autobiography 'I am not a God' but I can't help think of Nietzsche's assertion in response to the scientific reasoning born within the Enlightenment removing a need to turn to religion for explanation. Am I looking for something that isn't there? Or did Vandenbroucke, and his contemporary Marco Pantani, shatter our belief in the superhuman efforts of cyclists? Do we no longer turn to them as ideals? We're jaded aren't we - we'll never look upon a cyclist as we once did Coppi, surely?

    I reach the car park at the top of Dover's Hill gasping, and wheel my bike to the toposcope. It's cloudy but there's still a decent view of the Vale of Evesham. The hill is named after Robert Dover, founder of the Cotswold Olimpick Games. Much like the Wenlock Olympian Games, further north in Shropshire, it served to inspire the modern Olympics. 

Dover's Hill toposcope

I'm light headed, I haven't been that out of breath for a while. It's Easter time, a hot-cross bun eaten and I ride on. Still climbing but gentle now. The high-point of the ride reached, Broadway Tower, a folly built for a former Countess of Coventry. There's a cafe to help address the light-headedness with a fix of caffeine.

Broadway Tower

It's down now, quick too. I descend rapidly into Chipping Campden, Cotswolds in excelsis: yellow stone, tightly-clipped hedges, and massive cars. A bit of roughstuff as I leave tarmac and follow the Monarch's Way on a battered gravelly lane. I wish there was more of this around here. Then it's on past Hidcote, Lawrence Johnstons' horticultural haven. Do you like gardening? I do. something else besides riding bikes I can bore you with. Through Lower Quinton and back up the Stratford Greenway. A decent morning's ride.