Of wheels and water

Thos. Beeching and James Brindley - the lazy cyclist’s friends. Beeching created nice flat disused railway cuttings: Brindley constructed nice flat canals. Thanks to them, I can travel goodish distances through beautiful countryside with hardly a gear change.

Which is as well, because my handlebars become clammy with fear once I hit the towpath. I’m frightened of falling in the canal. Again.

I’d got the idea from somewhere than anyone falling into a canal is immediately sucked under lock gates, and drowns. It doesn’t help that bridges over canals are so very low. They have to be, of course; bargees would lie on their backs and ‘walk’ their craft through the tunnels. So for me, there’s always the debate – get off and push, or cycle under the bridge, horribly close to the water’s edge, wobbling with nerves. When alone, I push. When anyone’s watching, I cycle. That’s how I fell in.

The bike, remarkably, managed to pitch me head first into the water whilst itself remaining safe and dry on the path, sniggering. The stranger whose presence had caused me to brave the tunnel in the first place was not young, but strong-ish. He had to be, as, whilst I wasn’t sucked anywhere (I wasn’t even out of my depth) I couldn’t climb out - canal walls are wedge-shaped, narrowing at the top, and unscaleable. The poor man had to haul me out and land me like a salmon. So undignified.

I had no option but to remount and cycle, my white shirt and jeans dripping blood and slime, several miles home. It says much for the British character that not a soul, on that busy, sunny day, raised an eyebrow as, filthy, wet and bleeding, I pedalled past.

So the other week I faced my fears. It was an icy day and the canal was frozen, which felt safer, until an icebreaking barge ground slowly through, exposing its wintry depths. I cycled the frozen, rutted towpath, my rear wheel slewing beneath me occasionally, terrifying but never quite jettisoning me. At each tunnel, I dismounted, remounting shakily on the other side.

I made it to the railway cutting, and home, without falling off once. I think I have beaten my fears; the canal system is my oyster once more.