LIFESTYLE

Julian Owen mounts his trusty two-wheeled steed for a crack at Ashton Court’s bike trails.

No two ways about it: I’m daunted. Daunted like Sunday morning, groggily facing a barrel-chested fast bowler after “Oh yeah, I can bat a bit” drunken braggadocio the night before, when the local cricket captain was looking for a last-minute stand-in. Until now I’d have told you *dismissive laugh* I know how to cycle. I mean, blimey, I face down Bristol traffic on a daily basis and head off along the National Cycle Network for me holidays. So when Days Out asked whether I fancied trying out the new mountain bike trails at Ashton Court I was, like, “Oh yeah, I can ride a bit.”

Hang on... mountain bike trails? That’s where the big boys hang out, shaving piston-strength legs for aerodynamic effect and nonchalantly leaping bikes priced like small family cars over fallen oak trees. Right..? So it’s just as well that I don’t know now – standing beside Ashton Court’s golf/cycle centre on a weekday afternoon – what I’ll learn later. Namely, that the track has been laid out by Phil Saxena, Architrail MD, once chief racetrack designer on the world cup circuit. “We worked in 26 countries. Nearly 100 tracks.” Beijing Olympics included. Indeed, Ashton Court is listed as one of the official mountain bike training venues for the 2012 Olympics. Gulp...

I head down the gravel path and turn left. Calm blue ocean calm blue ocean cal... woooah! And furthermore, whooosh and weeee! Boy, but this is fun, a series of thrillsome undulations and tightly twisting banked corners. It all feels rather ‘Junior Kickstart’, to the point where I fear that, if I fall off, a fleet of doddery St John Ambulance men will fall down behind me. A flying-at-full-speed cyclist on an expensive machine speeds by in the opposite direction and sniffs disdainfully. I assume this is because I’m on my tame-looking hybrid, pannier and all. Cuh. 50 yards later, at a crossroads, I see I assumed wrong. ‘No entry’ says the path ahead. I’ve been going the wrong way. Shamefaced I turn around and then, at the apex of a tight right-hander, promptly fall off. Sitting on the ground, marginally shaken and checking my legs are still attached, I repentantly realise I’d give my kingdom for the sight of a doddery St John Ambulance man. Back at the gravel path, I see a sign – discreet, but a sign nonetheless – that I should have turned right.

By the time I’ve completed the 6.5km course, I also realise why I fell. As it details in belatedly read trail tips, “Look where you want to go, rather than at what you want to miss.” In short, lead the bike with your eyes. And consider me an absolute convert. For someone used to cycling and simultaneously appreciating disparate flora and fauna, this was an eye-opening contrast of full-on, adrenaline-pumped concentration. “If you’ve had that experience, hopefully lots of other people will as well,” enthuses Phil. No fear on that score.

“I’d be flabbergasted if there’s another trail that gets as much use,” says Paul Hawkins of 1SW, an organisation coordinating tourist-attracting cycling ‘hubs’ in the region. “In six weeks it clocked up 30,146 passes, an average of 412 per day, up from 160 [on the estate’s original trail].” Phil has anecdotal evidence, too. “Any evening you’ll see people on £50 bikes right up to £6,000. And luckily, most of them look to be having lots of fun! Even though it’s got lots of lumps and bumps, the shape means it’s quite safe to ride. And it’s weatherproof, so you’ll be able to ride it in the depths of winter. Good fun for everyone. The oldest rider I’ve seen was 74. He came three times a week while we were working, just wishes they’d happened when he was younger.”

Back to the aims of 1SW. “A lot of tourism in the South West is coastal-centric and very seasonal,” says Phil. “This is year round, not on the coast, so you alleviate pressure. We took a feasibility study and turned it into a funding bid working with people like Bristol City Council, National Trust, the Rural Development Programme for England and the Forestry Commission.” In November a trail will open in Leigh Woods, with Architrail also working on miniature BMX tracks in Cumberland Basin, Stockwood and Fishponds.

Another benefit, says Phil, is that “it helps you to learn how to ride better. If you start commuting to work in the morning you’re a safer rider because you’re used to throwing the bike around twists and turns.” He doesn’t sniff at my bike choice. “We’ve had people up there on road bikes, even. We love all kinds of cycling, and want other people to do it. If you get kids used to riding their bikes all the time, and loving it, it means when they get to school age they’ll start riding there and hopefully continue when they get to working age. They’ll be healthier, happier people. Trying to persuade someone who drives a BMW to work each morning to commute by bike in the rain is probably more difficult than catching them young.”

Important note. I rode the ‘moderate’ blue trail. What did I miss on the red one, Paul? “You’d have encountered steeper drops, bigger corners. Fundamentally with the blue trail you should be able to pedal around it sitting in your saddle and not fall off. That sounds a bit derogatory...” Not at all, I protest, without elaboration. “On the red trail, unless you start working the bike – standing up, pushing it around – you’re gonna really struggle.” Bit much for me at the moment, but after a little more practice? That’s the point, says Paul. “If we’d only built an extreme trail for the same old people to ride, we’d keep them happy but not really achieve a lot. But all the informal feedback says we’ve got a lot of genuinely new people. Once you’ve ridden it a few times, look at the 1SW website and see what else is there: ‘OK, I’m going on holiday to Cornwall next month, I’ll take my bike’.” Come springtime, the current hut will be replaced with a golf/cycle centre, in 30-minute riding range of 300,000 people. I’ll be the one with hybrid, pannier and broad grin.

FFI ON 1SW AND A MAP OF THE NEW TRAILS: WWW.1SW.ORG.UK FFI ARCHITRAIL: WWW.ARCHITRAIL.CO.UK

The economic cycle

Increasingly, in many people’s eyes, cycling is seen as a political act. And generally – Bullingdon alumni Boris and Dave notwithstanding – it’s regarded as a vehicle of the left. Erroneously so, in your correspondent’s view, but not surprising. After all, by its road de-clogging, non-polluting nature, to travel by bike is an intrinsically communitarian gesture. Now, that’s a dainty fact to set before the choir, but not much good if you’re looking to impress the merits of cycling upon “No such thing as society” subscribers. So let’s shift the grounds of debate. Ideally, into the front garden of the boss Venue learned of who ordered an employee to drive half a mile to a meeting because arriving by bike “doesn’t project the right image”. Tell him this: at the end of August the London School of Economics released a report stating that regular cyclists take 7.4 sick days per year, compared with 8.7 sick days for non-cyclists. That equates to an annual saving of around £128m through reduced absenteeism, rising to a projected £2bn over the next 10 years. Good for our efficiency drive, eh, boss? Oh, and while I’m here, they also suggest that a 20% increase in cycling levels by 2015 could save further millions by way of reduced congestion, pollution levels and NHS costs. Now, that’s almost certain to come to pass, because cycling is not only good for economic growth at large, but a rapidly growing industry in itself, currently valued at some £2.9bn a year and rising sharply: 2010 saw 3.7 million bikes sold – a rise of 28% - and more than a million people take up cycling. Including your ever-slimmer secretary. Why not offer her and other cycling employees the same mileage expense rate as company car drivers? Purely for the efficiency drive, of course...

Copyright Julian Owen 2011