Words Jem McPartlin

The cranks rotated, the once steady turn of the pedals was now a thing of the past. “The easy miles are long behind you now mate”. The thought was expressed as the grunt through gritted teeth, a dry throat wouldn’t allow for speech. Words were an unnecessary luxury at this point, and there was no-one around to listen anyway.

Bulbous beads of warm sweat swelled in their pores and forced themselves downward into the eyes of the rider. The ride was meant to be a fun one, an escape from reality, from the relentless monotony of clacking keyboards and the ringing of cash registers. It was not going to plan. The weather had set in early, a low bank of cloud had crept up from behind and consumed the colour of the countryside with an unstoppable appetite, leaving nothing but a palette of washed-out gray mixed with green. A curse slipped from between the parched lips as the rear wheel lost traction and stepped out beneath the rider; hill climbing was not his forte. It felt like he had been climbing all day, and it wasn’t far from the truth.

The valleys of mid-Wales would be better approached with a winch than a loaded bicycle, and yet the pedals kept turning. Slick wet slate gradually started giving way to a broken doubletrack. Small rivulets of water trickled their way down through the crushed rock, flowing toward a drainage ditch gurgling and bubbling with reddish-brown water. Soon to be whisked away by gravity’s unrelenting pull downward toward the still reservoir that sat silently on the valley floor. As the climb continued on upward through the circling clouds the loose gravel track began to wind back and forth on itself, slowly and torturously gaining height. The open fields had long since given way to the tall stands of forestry, deep piles of needles and branches sat around the base of the trees, waiting to be slowly turned to soil.

A sharp pain in the rider’s left leg caused a falter in the monotonous grinding of the pedals. It was time to stop, to give in and sit down under a tree and contemplate defeat over a sticky foil fresh energy bar. The pedals continued to turn, the thought of the sickly sweet flavours didn’t much appeal to the rider. The track had begun to widen once more, opening up the hillside like a fresh purple scar cuts its way across tender flesh. A distant hum began to fill the air, distant at first, but it grew until it was inside the rider’s head and could not be dislodged. Suddenly a blade broke through the thick fog, cutting cruelly through the air around the rider as if they were trying to reach out and snatch him away from his roots on the ground. Surrounded on all sides by the towering monsters with their long blades they stood tall against the bleakness. The bright white paint gave their edges a strange glow. At last, the climb had levelled out, depositing him on the western edge of a remote wind farm, it was here the rider gave in. The sound of shoes unclipping from pedals was greedily swallowed up by the giants that stood guarding every hill.