I found my way barred on the Donkey Line this morning by horses. Well, I suppose it was only to be expected. The Donkey lIne is, after all, a designated bridle path. One horse was being ridden and the other being led by the rider of the first. They were plodding along at a gentle pace and it was clear that even at my fairly slow rate of cycling I was soon going to catch up with them. Even had I been going faster there was no room to speed past them. Besides, I did not want to spook the horses. For the same reason I did not want to ring my bell. I must have mentioned many times that my bell is particularly loud and clangy. So I resorted to calling out politely, “Can I come past you, please?”
Etiquette of the bridleways.
The dog walkers were out in force, most sensibly calling their dogs to one side on hearing my loud and clangy bell. I do like to be heard. Two cyclists, much speedier than I am, were coming in the opposite direction. I warned them that there were horses ahead. Otherwise my ride was largely uneventful.
I rode first to the smallish Tesco in Greenfield to buy a few things not available in the shops closer to home or on the market. On my way from Tesco to the market, as I approached the playing field (part of my avoid-the-busy-roads route) I was overtaken by something that sounded like a large angry bee. It was a trail bike or stunt bike with an engine, rather like the sort of engine a small moped might have. Definitely more powerful than the sort of e-bike motors to help folk get up hills. He zoomed noisily along at a good 30+ miles and hour, whizzed round the track at the edge of the playing field, did some swoops and dives on the skateboarding ramps and circled round on the football pitches, no doubt churning up grooves in his skidding turns. Altogether the kind of person who gets cyclists a bad name! Dog exercisers and elderly strollers tut-tutted!
Sticking to a cycling theme, yesterday I read that the first Spanish cyclist to win the Tour de France, in 1959, had just died at the age of 95. Federico Bahamontes was known as “The Eagle of Toledo” - Eagle because he won so many mountain stages and Toledo because that’s where he was born. He won 11 Grand Tour stages from 1954 to 1965 and was named the best Tour de France climber of all time in 2013 by the French newspaper L’Equipe.
He was also famous for calmly eating an ice-cream at the top of the Col de Romeyere while waiting with broken spokes for is team car to arrive.
“It is with deep sorrow that we mourn the loss of Federico Martin Bahamontes, the Eagle of Toledo, a benchmark in sport who has taken the name of our city to the very top,” the mayor of Toledo, Carlos Velázquez, said in a statement on social media.
“Adopted son of the city of Toledo, admired and loved, Fede has thrilled us with his extraordinary climbs. His bicycle shop, in our Plaza de la Magdalena, has been a place of pilgrimage for all fans,” Velázquez said.
“We will honour his memory with two days of official mourning, as a sign of pain and recognition of all the people of Toledo. Thanks to him we all won the Tour. Our deepest condolences to his loved ones. May he rest in peace.”
There you go! Credit where it’s due!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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