Flying with flies

The average speed of a fly - which variety, I can’t begin to tell you - is apparently somewhere around 16mph. I know this because I was overtaking them on my ride yesterday, and boy did it feel good.

On my ride last Saturday (the first since I’d gotten back in the country) I had my first encounter with the flies of late summer. While I’d love to tell you the entomological reason for their sudden and proliferous apperance, all I know is they were all intent on flying into me like little kamikaze pilots. Maybe it had something to do with the white t-shirt I had on, maybe I was biking upstream through some seaside fly convention; all I know is I was slapping them away, shooing them off my person and at least once, spitting them out as I rode. Pfooie.

Yesterday though, I was burning past them like a drag racer with his eyes on the finish line.

I’d skipped Thursday and Friday’s morning rides, as you might have seen,so I was determined I was going to make up for it on Saturday. Having negotiated a later start for our outing to the Duke of York’s Picturehouse, I saddled up around 12 and headed out. Fantastic day for it. Regardless of the subject matter of that afternoon’s movie, you can’t deny we’re getting fine weather these days… let’s just enjoy it before we all end up cooked to a crisp.

Last week, as I totally failed to tell you, I rode the entire length of the Undercliff Walk, going from Madeira Drive down past the Marina, on to Rottingdean and then beyond. It’s a few miles (nope, I don’t watch the mileometer from point to point, generally) and it’s a great ride. Pretty much entirely flat, with wide open paths. It’s quickly become my new favourite place to ride in Brighton, so I headed for it again yesterday.

Uneventful enough ride on the way out, although as luck would have it I was generally heading into the wind, which meant I knew I was in for an easy return journey. I finally remembered to take my camera with me, so took some shots on the way out that I’ll present in another post.

When the walk finally gave out I paused, took a few swigs of squash, took a few photos and then headed back. The weird thing I noticed was that with the wind at my back, it really didn’t even feel like there was a wind there. But I could sure see it on my speedo. With a little effort I clicked up through the gears and actually cracked 20mph at one point - a record for me on flat.

That was when I noticed the flies. At first it felt like I had an escort, as these things were buzzing along right beside me; but then as I passed through 16mph and beyond they fell away, one after the other. It was sort of surreal keeping pace with the same things that had been randomly colliding with me last week, but it made me feel a bit ‘one with nature’ all the same.

I ended up behind two female bikers back along the walk, one of whom could really have done with investing in mudguards, judging by the chalky mud all over her back. I had plenty on the bike too, but thankfully pretty much none on me.

With the wind behind me I was home soon, and happy I went out.