The Cycle Path
Cycle Log
Day 4 - Tuesday 22 June 2004
Temple Grafton to Penkridge
Blue skies and sunshine with cementstone buildings giving in to black & white thatch...lumpy little hills giving way to red soils and pebbles. Dotted orchards gone to untidy hedgerow stragglers and isolated perry rear trees. Hoo Mill lost in the willows but a nice bridleway bridge to cross. The owner of Hoo Mill used to crush his own cider apples on a cam shaft and make local varietal cider but we met sadly just the once before he died and now the mill will be sold...but I had to pay it homage Then a ford over the river Arrow and on to Redditch...superb cycling provision on off road tracks in the town and then out past the Needle Mill museum to the Icknield Way...which runs like a slightly wiggly arrow all the way to Birmingham down splendid holloways sprinkled with massive oaks and spindly foxgloves. Virtually traffic free too because of its narrowness and unswerving devotion to going straight up and down hills. Exhausting cycle-pushing up steep tight hills but very rewarding sense of direct travel. Reaching the crest was met with the remains of the first burnt out car and the buildings of Birmingham. Suddenly its a city scene with big traffic and I'm trying to find the Sustrans path that will take me to the heart of Birmingham city centre without touching a road...the canal towpath network. On it travel is flat, easy and interesting for industrial archaeology. Make good time past the corporate coloured Cadbury chocolate canalside railway station at Bournville...then University before searching for the Countryside Agency Integrated Access Conference at the Botanical Gardens. Travelling now into a steamy world of bananas, limes, oranges and tree ferns I wiggled my bike through the hothouses to the conference. Had a lunch of local produce from areas about to introduce the new rights of access to the countryside and celebrated the joys and recent tribulations of my trip with delegates. Thence to Brindley Place and the hub of the canal network via the Countryside Agency regional office where I managed to wash off my wedding ring in the sink trying to extract the grime of travel from my hands. I didn't even notice but thankfully it was found and is safe. My fingers are shrinking even though I am drinking two litres of water a day to keep the cramps at bay. I'm glad my children invested in a camel backpack for my 50th birthday it has been a perfect solution and safer than a cage bottle. Met Professor Stuart Blackburn at the canal roundabout who is a regular cycle commuter into the city from my day's target destination of Penkridge (a place that was once the capital of England in the days of King Edgar). The canal towpath soon gives way from paviours to rough brick to glass strewn cinders to battered concrete and ridges of worn metal. The bike shudders and heaves about as we thrash through the heart of once industrial Birmingham trying to set a heavy pace for Penkridge. Too heavy for the split tyre wound on the bike which finally chucks a puncture in the middle of Wolverhampton. Patch a repair but clearly this tyre is not going to make it to Scotland. Great towpath north of Wolverhampton hewn, like the canal, through the New Red Sandstone rocks with current bedding of ancient dune systems striating both sides of the cut. See a barge called Pendragon. Rain started to fall as we hit the cycleway alongside the A449 and on arrival at Penkridge a drenched cyclist was greeted by an equally weathered Penkridge Town Crier, Bevan Craddock, in his robes, top hat and finery to Oyez me officially into the town. Penkridge society is enriched hugely by Bevan and others who all turned out in ghastly weather to welcome me to their community...even two girls from the local school turned up on bikes in the rain because their headmaster had mentioned the trip in the school assembly. A fine place and fine people. Tomorrow, however, I need to find an urban bike shop and replace this shattered tyre, perversely a victim of rural vandalism.
The realisation that the bottle glass slash in my rear wheel is not going to hold up all the way to Scotland has put a spanner in the works. I need a replacement tyre fast so that I can continue the journey. Still in Penkridge enjoying Bevan and Di Craddock's wonderful hospitality but phoning local bike shops is not succeeding in putting the Birdy on the road. The nearest sure source is Bike Doctor in Manchester so a cunning plan would have been to jump on a train to Manchester, achieve a quick fix, and get back to start the day a little later somewhere up the route. However, Bike Doctor can only squeeze me in to their busy practice at 3pm and by then most of the day will be done. A hard lesson in reality but there's more time to talk to Bevan about the local distinctive qualities of Penkridge and the future potential of the route should it be developed further for green tourism. There's so much going on here that Bevan has created www.penkridge.org.uk to explore in detail the many layers of the community, its wildlife (especially that of nearby Cannock Chase AONB with nightjars, goshawks and woodlarks) and its history. The role of Town Crier is an additional level of engagement with the community and, like the internet, opens new doors to connections around the world. Penkridge has had bellmen since the late 1500's starting with Edmund Wolley dispensing prayers to absolve the villagers' sins as well as official proclamations...one of the original forms of media managing spin doctor! Now I need to get to my Bike Doctors, hope for success and get back on the trail. All the images of dragons being pierced in their most vulnerable parts certainly seems to have transferred itself!
