On Tuesday afternoon we set off from Bristol to Castle Combe circuit to participate in the Midsummer Bike Ride. A challenge was set for cyclists of all ages and interests to complete as many miles as possible in the three hours. 5,000 collective miles was the target target. £3 was charged for entry onto the circuit and monies raised went Life Cycle’s Two’s Company, ‘gives visually impaired, disabled people and people with early stage dementia opportunities to come cycling on the back of a tandem’.

I made a map of our journey to Castle Combe. We cycled there and caught the train back to Bristol from Chippenham (though it seems I did not turn off the GPS : ).

EveryTrail – Find the

One of my interviewees lives out in Yatton and I took the opportunity to cycle to them rather than meet in town. It was about 15miles each way (though a little longer on the way back I did an accidental tour of Nailsea). My route took me through the city, Long Ashton, Backwell, Lower Claverham and onto Yatton. It featured busy roads, quiet narrow lanes and off-road cycle paths.

On Wednesday Kat and I were very kindly given a bike tour of the city by Andy from the City Council. Like the tour of Hull provided by Allan last year, this was a great way to quickly get a sense of the different areas and how they are connected. While Bristol suffers from severance and blight due to major roads mostly built in the 1960s and 70s (such as the M32 which cuts into the heart of the city) it also benefits from being compact for a large city with some wonderful green spaces like Oldbury Court and Ashton Court. Many of these can be cycled through.

Coming soon: a link to view the map and some pictures that I took en route.

The route – and many thanks to Andy for so skilfully planning it – allowed us to ride fairly slowly around the city for 40km, taking in around 10 (I think!) parks or green spaces of varying sizes and types.

A number of our interviewees refer to the importance of being able to ride in a leisurely or sociable fashion in or near urban areas (a theme discussed in our ‘Rides’ paper currently under peer review). For example, several people in Bristol have already described to us how a commute route becomes a very different experience ridden with friends rather than alone; heading out slowly to a park or pub rather than to your office or factory. Being able to have diverse cycling experiences in the same area can both be a low-impact form of leisure or tourism, and a way that people continue to experience cycling as more than ‘just transport’, however important it is to them also as a form of transport.

At the crack of dawn tomorrow morning I’ll be on my bike on my way to Bristol from London. It’s about 126miles by my calculations and as I’ll be carrying everything I’ll be needing for a month of fieldwork, I’ll be doing it over two days. I am trying to pack light, but digital tech (in the form of cameras, laptops, GPS devices and all their accoutrements) remains stubbornly heavy. Tomorrow night, all things going to plan, will be spent near Marlborough in accommodation generously provided by a couple of cycle tourers via the Warm Showers network.

I’m looking forward to it. I like to cycle to my fieldsites to experience first hand cycle-oriented points of departure and points of entry to cities. I find that making connections in this way between places reveals the dynamic multi-modal character of urban landscapes. It also renders visible (and physical) how cycling fits in larger mobile ecologies.

I also just like riding.

I had a terrific day yesterday cycling 58.2 miles with over 20 Bristol Thursday Old Time cyclists for 7 hours. The ride featured a pretty substantial hill called ‘The Wrangle’, lunch and cider in the garden of The Hunters Lodge (which included for me a piece of cheese almost the size of my head), lots of lovely conversations with riders and a flying downhill tour of the Cheddar Gorge. Plus it was a gorgeous sunny day. I am looking forward to joining the group again in June (but will next time remember to wear sunscreen!)

And again with pics:

This looks better BIG.

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* The Bristol Thursday Old Time Cyclists have a lovely write up of the ride and more pictures here.

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Tomorrow I am going riding with the Bristol Thursday Old Time Cyclists. I am even going to be met at my door and escorted to the start of the ride which is very considerate (and much appreciated given I have been so lost today my GPS track resembles macramé). I have been told that ‘the ride will be a bit hilly with lunch in a very rustic pub in the middle of nowhere on the top of the Mendip hills. Traditional Somerset cider will be available.’ (And yes, this is my job : )

There has been a noticeable lack of hills in our fieldsites to date. A respondent in Hull once talked about a hill and when I asked for more detail I discovered she meant an overpass. Similarly, there were few inclines in Hackney. I was of course aware that Bristol presents a unique topographical contrast but I wasn’t entirely prepared for such unexpected verticality today* (with full backpack and stomach). My planned routes certainly didn’t look hilly on the map. Maps lie.

No doubt I’ll work my way through the list of Bristol’s killer hills during my stay or if a ridiculous mood takes me I’ll attempt The Bastard Hills of Bristol in one fierce go.

I’ll be interested to learn about how locals navigate the city and beyond; what bikes they use, how they carry stuff, when they travel, how they worked out the best routes and what kinds of rude words they say when they near the top.

*Happy I brought the geared bike and not the fixed.