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.
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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 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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Air Apparent - Pollution hasn't gone away. It's still there in every lungful, even if we can't see it in the air or on the news. But there are reasons to breathe easier, thanks to pioneering projects using cycling 'citizen scientists'. Rob Ainsley took part in one...
The toxic effects of pollution have been known about for years. 'Just two things of which you must beware: Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!' sang 1960s satirist Tom Lehrer.Over recent decades, though, pollution has dropped down our list of things to worry about, thanks to ominously capitalised concerns such as Climate Change, AI, Global Conflict, Species Collapse, etc. That doesn't, unfortunately, mean the problem has expired. Air quality often exceeds safe limits, with far-reaching and crippling effects on our health.
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