My good friend and our fellow Steemian @mrprofessor, with help from the wonderfully funny and cycling enthusist @twowheeled monkey, and their buddy @robmolecule have created a fantastic initiative here on Steemit called @cyclefeed, backed by the already well established @travelfeed and the amazing work they do there.

Check out the project here - if you're a cycling enthusiast or a travel enthusiast they curate some fabulous stuff. My favourite so far was a very well produced post by @guchtere about his cycling mini adventure around his home of Zeeland in the Netherlands. They're a nice bunch of folk and I reckon a nice bunch of folk always need supporting and celebrating, don't you think?

Not a journey through South America, but still saw some cool stuff on our cycles. Not our photo. And we didn't see it at night. But still... cool huh?

I would love to contribute a story about some epic bike ride I took across South America, or how I can pedal up a mountain without stopping or go super fast downhill, but none of these things are true. Instead, I present to you three very sad stories about the last three times we went out on two wheels. I advise you to move on now, and check out what the real cyclists are doing over at @cyclefeed.

Story 1 - Lost in Wales - The Wye Valley and the Forest of Dean

The Forest of Dean and the Wye Valley are great places to cycle - there's a range of routes through forests and dirt tracks, roads and forests, and it's a really pretty area. We loved going over that way when we lived there, enjoying a cider at the pub watching the river go by. the whole area covers about 300 square kilometres and you'll also find Tintern Abbey there amongst other important archaelogical ruins, gorge scenery and native woodlands.

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As we lived in Somerset, it wasn't too far to drive over across the Severn Bridge for a few days and explore the area. On this particular weekend, we stayed in a caravan with my son, who was seven years old at the time. Going for a cycle right sounded like a great idea, so into the forest we went. Why look at a weather forecast or a map, right? We had chocolate and water - what else did one need to go cycling?

To this day, I have absolutely no idea about the trail we took, and which way we went. Normally, we'd have a map with us, but we didn't plan to go far.

Of course, once you start moving, it's tempting to keep exploring. Never one for following markers, we ended up quite lost, and it had started raining and getting quite late in the afternoon. 'No problem' said Jamie, as Jarrah and I started to wonder where the fuck we were. Well, I wondered where the fuck - Jarrah was probably thinking about why he had the bad luck to end up with parents like us, but who knows what was going on in his head.

The great thing about Jarrah as a kid was when the going got tough, he too got going. How a kid that can cry if a nettle looked at him can end up carrying his bike up a muddy hill in the rain is beyond me. He had a little BMX but it was big for him, and when Jamie decided to take a short cut, hearing the road beyond, there was nothing for it but to literally CARRY our bikes up the slope. The path had entirely disappeared, it was pouring with rain, getting darker and darker, and actual cycling had given way to bicycle carrying, which I think is now an olympic sport in honour of that day.

Bless our little family - there were no recriminations and a great deal of humour. Although we were utterly lost, we knew we'd figure it out and we all got down to doing that insteas of crying and screaming at Jamie for getting us lost.

Three hours later, in the pitch darkness, we tumbled from the forest onto a road in the middle of nowhere. We didn't know which way to ride - we didn't even know which way was north or south, we had a 7 year old kid with us starving and drenched to the bone and covered with mud, and were feeling decidedly irresponsible.

There was nothing for it but to knock on the door of a farmhoue and explain to the farmer we were lost. Oh, that's okay, she says - the mental patients often escape and end up lost in that forest for days. Oh great, so not only were we lost, wet, cold and hungry, we may have narrowly avoided stumbling upon an escaped psycho.

The woman was kind enough to drive me back to the caravan park whilst Jamie and Jarrah waited with the bicycles. It was such a relief to get the car and get back to a dry caravan. The rest of the weekend was spent in a damp caravan trying to dry our clothes, playing Uno and vowing never to take a short cut ever again.

Story 2 Cornwall

This time it was just Jamie and I in Cornwall, in a tent in a field. We'd come to explore the standing stones or quoits in the area and have a bit of a romantic cycle ride through the countryside, having recovered from our ordeal in Wales.

It was a beautiful, unusually sunny day and it felt great to be burning off energy and cycling. We visited many amazing monuments, including old wishing wells and trees hung with rags and trinkets to appease the spirits, a graveyard or two and some beautiful views down to the sea. We had a lovely picnic of bread, cheese and cider and felt like kings and queens of the land. We must have ridden about thirty kilometres by mid afternoon and were dying for a hot cornish pastie and a pint at the pub across from the caravan park.

'You know,' Jamie says 'if we just took a short cut across this field..'.

Lanyon Quoit, Cornwall

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Two hours later, after training for the bicycle carrying Olympics, we finally made it back to the road, legs scratched from gorse and heather and decidedly exhausted.

It was the best pastie and pint I'd ever had, I'll say that much.

Story 3 Do Not Drink Elderberry Wine & Ride Bicycles Down Dark Country Lanes

This is the one where we visit the neighbours a miles up the road to have tea and drink a few quiet glasses of elderbery and blackberry wine we'd made. We decided that we'd cycle rather than drive, in a very sensible manner. Supposedly. By the end of the night, two glasses had turned into two demijohns between four of us. We were so gone our legs refused to obey us, and neither did our cycles.

We had a hilarious ride home, a two minute ride taking us two hours, involving constantly falling into hedgerows and laughing so hard we couldn't stand up at all. Trying to get back onto the bikes was ridiculous - I seriously could not figure out how to keep the bike upright and get my foot on the pedal at the same time. Ten metres from the house, I come a cropper, landing hard on my wrist. One does not feel pain at 2 am after a demijohn of country wine, but one does feel pain in the morning realised they have sprained one's wrist so badly that one would not get back on a bike for six months, and even then, only sporadically.

Briantspuddle To Throop is .9 miles and takes two hours by cycle. Apparently

I'm not sure whether three was the evil charm or not, but I've not a bicycle adventure since, and though we did transport the bikes to Australia, they are gathering dust in the shed.

I'll leave cycling, therefore, to the good folk over at @cyclefeed - there's some far better stories than mine to be perused. Both @twowheeledmonkey in India and @mrprofessor in Brazil have some fabulous stories to tell and some great adventures to come, all told with good humour. I do hope the #cyclefeed tag takes off as it's created with such heart and enthusiasm.

Do share your cycle stories with this tag. I'm sure your cycling stories are far more interesting and successful than mine!!

All photos not already accredited are from Pixabay. All photos from this journey have been burnt in disgust. Nah, just kidding. In those days we didn't have camera photos to record every minute of our disasters

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