Not Every Ride/Walk/Whatever is Going to be #Amazing

Every Sunday throughout November and the first half of December, I've been going out on 25-40 mile bike rides. There have been several reasons for this but, in general, these rides need to happen once a week.

It's been an enjoyable challenge from a route-planning perspective as, for the entire of November, we couldn't really drive anywhere because 2nd lockdown didn't exactly encourage non-essential travel. So every ride I plotted mostly began in Exeter.

After planning innumerable day hikes over the summer, I had a pretty good idea that as long as the map looked rural, everything would turn out okay. Living in the middle of Devon does have the benefit of being broadly pretty without you having to put much effort in.

For the first time, last Sunday I plotted and cycled a Not Super Lovely ride. In fact, it was kind of frustrating. Which got me thinking, when did everything have to be so beautiful?

The Aesthetic of the Great Outdoors

Fitness is a by-product of being outdoors, for me. I think. Probably.

Yes, I push myself out of the door three times a week to run, regardless of the weather. Why? Because I can. I can run. And I'm painfully aware that if I stop running, I might lose that ability. I thought it was wizardry for many years until I actually tried it, with intention, regularly.

I've been shored up with running injuries twice and both times it took great mental effort get back into it. So I run because I can and I want to always be able to.

With cycling, I just love doing it. The more I do it, the stronger I'll get, so I can do it more and for longer, see? With both running and cycling, fitness is a by-product.

Equally, I don't run and cycle just to do those activities in and of themselves. If I did, I would get on the treadmill or the spinning bike (actually, I do love virtual spinning, particularly The Trip from Les Mills because it's...well... trippy AF). Instead, I run and ride outside because that's the point, for me. I'm out there for the things I can see and smell and touch and admire.

The great outdoors here in Devon is generally stunning. It's also near-endless. It's one of the largest counties in England and yet feels surprisingly empty of people once you step out of the towns. Much of Devon is rolling fields interspersed with woodlands, rivers and a massive amount of open moorland. This is down to Dartmoor and much of Exmoor; both with their own endemic pony varieties (yeah, that's right, I said varieties. These are of the exceptionally fluffy variety).

Devon also has two coastlines, the only English county to have such. Sure, Cornwall has a north and south coastline, but it's the end of the peninsula so it's really just one continuous one.

What I'm saying is this: it's really difficult to plan an ugly expedition in this preposterously pleasant county and it's the beauty that really gets me out the door.

It Can't Always be Beaut

My route-planning mostly includes me pretending that elevation isn't a consideration, which has the benefits of taking us to exquisite views after sweaty ascents. After a good view rollercoaster Sundays, I thought I'd have a bash at planning a 40-mile ride that wasn't quite so dramatic.

This isn't an easy feat when you live in a valley. Mostly, you're gonna have to get out of said valley. This ride took us out to the Clyst Valley and beyond and, on paper, it looks nice. Lovely, even. Lots of little villages with nothing but fields in between.

In truth, the whole route wasn't bad. But it was topped and tailed with frustration and noise. And when something starts and ends badly, it's really hard to remember that the middle had this bastion of pure joy:

This ride required first getting from one side of the city to the other. Now, Exeter is small but JHC, it has a serious traffic problem. Bear in mind that this is also a Sunday.

There are cycle paths through much of the city but they're the kind that you either share with outraged/oblivious pedestrians or outraged/oblivious cars. Which makes for stressful cycling. This route also required us to cycle alongside some of the city's most major roads, through a business park and over a motorway. It was loud and constantly stop-start for traffic lights.

What I find particularly difficult about these kinds of cycle paths is that I don't have much in the way of left-side peripheral vision. I mean, my right-side vision isn't going to win any awards either, but if straight ahead is 12 o'clock, you'd have to hold something out to me at 10:30 if I'm going to see it. This makes navigating absurdly narrow shared paths an effing nightmare. Suffice to say, I'm thrilled we ride/drive on the left in this country.

Once out of the city, we still had to ride several miles alongside a busy road and through Cranbrook, a new town of which this as its town centre:

Mmmmm.

By the time we turned off to The Countryside, we'd already pedalled 11 miles.

Obviously, this was of my own doing. I'd plotted the route on Komoot:

So I could've foreseen this significant patch of crappy riding. Also, we'd obviously have to get back into the city as well, which would mean a further 9-odd miles of crappy riding at the end. I did not think about this.

Frustration loomed.

Let Go of Expectations

My problem is one of expectations. Realistically, I only have one day a week in which I can go for a Long Expedition; a day-long bike ride or walk. This is especially true now that the sun is only working part time hours in this hemisphere.

With only one day available, the pressure I put on myself to #haveagreattime can be a little much. Not to mention ironic in the extreme.

And we all know how it feels to put effort into something and not have it go to plan. The feeling of dropping dinner on the floor after having spent two hours on it.

Except, you've gotta remember this: is it really worth getting frustrated over something that you cannot change?

When I turned into The Countryside proper, I realised that I needed to let go of the last ten miles. Sure, it had been irritatingly loud and polluted and ugly but hell, I'm still lucky. I'm lucky that I can ride out into the countryside within 10 minutes if I'm heading south or west, I'm lucky that there are cycle paths to the north east and, even if there weren't, the roads are still perfectly rideable.

The ride from there was lanes with high hedges. Never reaching an elevation that resulted in particularly interesting views, the next 20 miles was bare winter bushes.

And sunlight. Staggering sunlight glancing through spindly trees and tired oaks. Ricocheting off puddle remnants and blinding me with its lazy glare. Silhouetting brash songbirds and lighting up the departing clouds.

Without grand expectations, even the simplest things are glorious. Warm hands due to an unusually-sensible glove choice, an affable donkey, a perfectly straight, perfectly empty road. This is the power of the great outdoors I suppose; you might disappoint yourself, but it will never disappoint you. If it looks like it might, you're probably just looking at it in the wrong way.