“Most people would complete this in 2-3 days”

I was thinking of writing a rant today. There’s something I want to get off my chest. Overnight it was going round in my head, the way you rehearse those difficult conversations (which of course never come out the way you planned them). But I’ve got more important things to do today. Be assured when it comes it will be worth the wait.

Btw, I need to offer a clarification. The encounter with Phil, the fiddler traffic warden in Callington a day or two ago was, I assure you, the friendliest meeting. The ticket was being waved in jest. I wouldn’t like you to think he was anything other than the nicest person I met that day. I’d be very happy to meet him again.

On with today, which I’m worrying about already. There’s no performance, but Truro is so bloody far from anywhere, I’ve got to ride 60 miles, and climb 5000ft – and do the same again tomorrow.

I’ve asked the app to suggest a route, and it makes a different suggestion: “Want to do this over multiple days? Most people would complete this in 2-3 days.”

After I’ve climbed 300ft, and the GPS kindly tells me that was summit number 1 out of 22, I wonder if it was perhaps a sensible suggestion.

The rant is forgotten. I’m working on something else. These hills, I’ve decided, are not enemy. They may sometimes be challenge, that’s true; but in the spirit of pilgrimage they should be embraced as friends, as companions on the way. They are the “road rising to meet me” of the old Celtic blessing. And the slower and steeper and longer they are, the more time I have to enjoy their friendship.

Like some friends, their company can be tiring after a while, but that doesn’t make them any less friendly.

There’s a lovely smell of coffee in St. Columb Major, but I haven’t come far enough. There’s a beautiful and magnificent church, but it’s “normally” open from 10am. I’m not going to wait.

The blue Cornish sky is utterly cloudless. The hedgerows gleam and sparkle and buzz with life and loveliness. On the narrower routes, where grit and grass occupy the centre of the road, making it best avoided, the nettles and brambles reach out to caress me. Often they leave their loving marks.

I’m stopped on a hill when an approaching tractor acknowledges my merging into the hedge to let it pass. But it’s immediately followed by another, a much wider harvester, which necessitates a run for a driveway a bit further up the hill. The sun’s shining, and they’re making hay. They’re in convoy, five of them altogether, pulling four trailers.

There are beautiful Cornish gardens, and the Camel River calls for a dip. But I must on.

It’s lunchtime. But there’s no lunch. Sustrans and the cycle app have excelled themselves today, and the route is quiet, calm, and without traffic. It’s also therefore without lunch. Instead I lie down in a grassy field, after Davidstow’s high and abandoned airfield. Suddenly, from hovering around 200ft, I’m traversing granite at 1,000ft. That’s what happens, I suppose, when the hills are your friends. The walls are granite; there’s a proper torr across the field.

And then, at last, and when I’ve given up hope, here at Whitstone there’s a Post Office with hot pasties. There’s clotted cream fudge, too, and coffee. The Cornish ice-cream only comes in units of 1 litre though, so I reluctantly pass on that.

Two miles after that and I’m back in Devon. I got my Cornish pastie just in time. Some leisurely cows are crossing the road, which is a welcome excuse to stop. At the Bickford Arms I drink two glasses of water before I can even speak to the receptionist. Then two cups of tea. Then a pint of non-alcoholic cider. I’ve ridden 61 miles; I’ve climbed 5,060ft. The hills are my companions along the pilgrim way. Of course I can do it all again tomorrow, when the forecast is for more sunshine, and 6 degrees C warmer. And the rant? Never mind that; it’s history.