Revelation on The Cinder Path

In the life of every father there comes a day of realisation that their son is just better at something than you are.

In my particular case that moment was marked by overwhelming pride.

The circumstances of this revelation?

We were cycling along the Cinder Path, the course of the long discontinued railway line, this time from Whitby southwards to the high ground at the town that never was, Ravenscar.

In the last two to three weeks I have been recovering from an injury sustained from a stupid stumble on a road camber which has kept me, reluctantly, off my bike.

For the first time this avoidable accident had made me feel very much my 51 years.
My son regarded this as being of no consequence to his own cycling ambitions and I was in agreement.

He has been ranging out far and wide on his own and over the last 7 to 8 rides he has covered a distance in excess of 260 miles over very mixed terrain from smooth city roads to the steeply sided hillsides of the Yorkshire Wolds.

The routes themselves are tough and testing enough but William has pushed himself hard on the ascents of the wooded valleys and equally so on the flatter and fast stretches through open countryside.

There has been a noticeable change in his attitude and physique and indeed he has adopted the virtual life of a professional rider in terms of his diet, rest patterns and warm up routines.
Eat, Ride, Sleep.

We have not ridden out together since my old man incident and I was a little nervous on lifting down our mountain bikes from the car roof rack in readiness for the grand depart from the car park on the clifftop at Whitby Abbey.

We paced ourselves across the swing bridge across the Esk, the single carriageway already thronged with holidaymakers even at the early hour of 9am. It was a short sharp incline over a traffic island to the old stone arch of the bridge at the beginning of the rail trail and I was breathing deep and hard but trying not to show my loss of fitness from being laid up.

William waltzed up the slope and was first onto the loose laid cinder track. I fought to keep up on his back wheel to take advantage of partly the slipstream effect but mainly for the comfort of not being left behind.

That was the pattern for the first few of the 11 miles of the outward journey which was a mix of climbing, descending and just plain level.

The heat of the day was rising from the relative coolness of the early hour but under a canopy of trees and with a gentle accompanying breeze it was not overbearing. The way took on a dreamlike appearance of mottled shadows pierced by sunlight. Ridges and potholes in the track became blurred into a softness of surface making our reckoning of the best passage a matter of increased concentration.

We kept pace until sensing the downhill run into Robin Hood's Bay when my additional bulk only gave me greater momentum and braving the potholes and lack of consideration from other cyclists and unattentive pedestrians I found myself just edging ahead.

It was a complete reversal as soon as the track rose again and William was once again in his element.
Every bit of pressure on his pedals took him a further wheel length away from me but the increase in cadence and velocity was smooth and controlled.

I struggled to match the pedalling rythym but my legs were heavy and lacked power.

I marvelled at the surge of William up that hill to Ravenscar and accepting my own limitations  I found myself offering up a prayer of thanks for all that has gone before and felt reassured and confident in all that is to come with my son because of his determination and strength of character to cope with all that life throws up in his path.