Last night the barman said, We’re expecting a thousand cyclists through here tomorrow but I am not sure what it’s all about.
Landscapes we moved through:
Fields so vast they are no longer fields but the landscape itself.
The only thing moving for flat open field miles is a caterpillar-tracked tractor followed by dust. How come these fields don’t just blow away?
Do RAF fast jets not practice low-level anymore? Not a single plane, just a high slow helicopter.
Pesticide in the air/mouth like spits of rain.
Fields again. Hedges. Corners. Trees.
Unconvincing hawks hanging from sticks surrounded by crows.
Scarecrows: not suits stuffed with straw, but sticks in modern dress, breakdancing in the wind.
French tree lined road.
Almost the whole of this stage, power generation keeps moving along the horizon, power stations and their smoke, wind turbines with their sexy/menacing curved blades.
Waterways:
All grass and shining mud banks (we race cows on the opposite bank)
The Dutch River flowing upstream
Goole: a marina then docks, loading plant, industrial bits and pieces lying around waiting, cranes and silos in Dutch shapes, The Vermuyden Hotel. Shane says: I like this, it smells like Hull. A little later he says, I have strength left in my legs but not in my arse.
Power and farming give way to warehouses and ‘units': mysteries: Croda International, Jablite, Image Data Group and what it says on the tin: New Holland Agriculture, BuyOnline dot com. Paradise Hot Tubs.
The wide Humber with added Trent it’s usual chocolate colour.
Grass path, sheep, driftwood with added car, boat, driftboat, driftcar. A signpost for ships (or sheep).
The mud marina.
The sea path ends, eroded away where a rubbish tip meets a strip of mud and stones. We are forced inland.
For a short time we cycle along the path beside the A63. After miles and miles without seeing a vehicle we stand in the Shell station stunned by the violence of cars and lorries shooting past, their shockwaves whipping the garage canopy uprights.
There was a point where the Humber Bridge tower on the south bank seemed closer than the one this side. As you get closer to the bridge, the harder it is to see. Only the road overhead, the towers lost in the trees of posh gardens. Like the locals are covering it up, slightly ashamed of their landmark.
The landscape has become Shane’s childhood. Broomfleet where his signalman grandfather lived and is buried. The Humber Bridge from which his uncle jumped. The Hessle road where he was brought up and where his Dad lives now, the flat where Shane first lived with Claire.
We first see the thousand cyclists gathered outside a pub in North Ferriby. Then as we hit Hull and the Hessle Road they swarm all around us in their blue and white striped charity shirts, we forget our tired legs and pick up our pace to match theirs and because we know where we are going often forge ahead, they catch us again, and before we know it Shane and I arrive in the centre of Hull the odd balls amidst someone else’s peloton, then we peel off, just the two of us again, riding side by side up Beverley Road, Hull’s Champs Elysees.
