One of the things I was looking forward to about coming to Cirencester was just down the road on Bird lip hill, do birds have lips ? was a bike park, a playground for me to go off and play on my bike, giving Nikki some peace and quiet. But Boris said no Mike the bike park has to close. Thanks Boris. I argued the case pointing out that when on the trails you don’t see anyone and if you do keeping two metres apart is easy. But the answer was still no.

So I was forced to go out in my bike on the road. I love being out in my bike but not on the road. For me it’s boring and don’t get me started on the traffic. I think everyone who takes driving lessons now should ride a bike for a day or two around towns etc and then they would realise just how much room they should give peaple on bikes etc.

Luckily when I go out from the site I can avoid most traffic and try and use all the small back roads, that way I rarely see cars just the odd tractor. That was until the other day when out in my bike just making a route up as I went along I came across a main road the A429. When I say main road it’s not like a major busy road but bigger than a rural lane. We drive along it when leaving here heading for the M4. No I never ended up on the M4 on my bike.

I knew where I was when I came onto this road and knew just down the road was a place called Kemble which has an airfield now called Cotswold Airport. When we have driven down this road last year you can see over the other side of the airfield old planes, some complete others in parts. But now parked up right next to the road are a line of 747’s. You can almost touch them.

It’s not everyday you see these big planes up so close especially when your out for a bike ride. Plenty of room for me to park the bike up and take some pictures. There is a company that use the airport called ASI Air salvage international. Basically a scrapyard for planes but a posh one. This company strip parts and store them, they do refits where they will strip a part off and transport it anywhere in the world and refit to another plane. Refits on the interior for training etc, film shoots and they will store your old planes here for you. A scrapyard on a grand scale, not like your old car scrapyard you used to see years ago. So if you need a part for your 747 etc these guys just might have what your looking for.

After taking some photos I got back on my bike and headed for Cirencester to complete my 22 mile bike ride. And I didn’t see one tractor that day just a load of 747 jumbo jets. You try making people believe that when you tell them.

Another photo opportunity I wanted to try was to put some lights on my bike and take photos of it in the dark. No not Xmas lights just normal bike lights. Well not quite normal but very good bike lights. Bike lights have come a long way since my childhood days on my paper round. Replacing the battery’s every couple of weeks and even then it was just like having a candle in front of you. Then you left them off for the summer and when you went to put them back on next winter they were all corroded and had to be thrown out so you had to spend your paper round money on new lights. Vicious circle really.

My bike lights now are led lights and you recharge them through a USB port and they are very bright with main beam, low beam, flashing, strobing etc. Yes they are expensive for good ones. These were £100 but you can get better ones. I will rarely use these but I do quite fancy doing a night ride down the trails at the bike park in Wales.

As you can see they are very bright and peaple should be able to see me if I go out at night. Probably not a good idea around here though as the planes coming into the cotswold airfield might mistake my lights for the runway lights being so bright.

Tonight we are treating ourselves to a Chinese takeaway, it may contain nuts but no Covid. Stay safe everybody.