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Michael Hutchinson<\/p>\n
Columnist<\/p>\n
Multiple national champion on the bike and award-winning author Michael Hutchinson writes for CW every week<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n There are other members of my family who have proved slower to learn. Anytime I’m back at the family home and return from a ride, my father will ask if I’ve had a nice time.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n “It was fine, thank you.”<\/p>\n He will press on. “Where did you go?”<\/p>\n “Well, out to the lighthouse, back up through the middle of the peninsula… you know, nowhere really.”<\/p>\n “Did you see anyone?”<\/p>\n “No,” I’ll lie; it’s a thinly populated rural area and if I say yes, he’ll ask me exactly who, and I won’t know.<\/p>\n “Were there any tourists at the lighthouse?”<\/p>\n “No.” Unlike my father, I can’t identify tourists by sight.<\/p>\n This can go on for a long time. He wants something I can’t give him. The whole interview has hanging over it the unspoken question, “Why are you doing this, if you don’t go anywhere, you didn’t see anyone you know and you didn’t see anyone to scoff at either?<\/p>\n Surely something interesting happened? And I’m going to get it out of you.” He can’t believe a child of his is so simple-minded that I just ride around the countryside aimlessly.<\/p>\n He could ask me a more open-ended question: “I’m glad you had a good ride. What did you enjoy about it?”<\/p>\n That would be worse, because it would confirm his worst fears: “Well, there’s a bit of road that was really rough last time I rode it, and they’ve resurfaced it over the winter. They’ve filled in the big pothole<\/a> at the bottom of the hill near the harbour. They’ve cut some of the hedges and cleared up the clippings for the first time in the history of County Down. And I drafted a tractor for two miles and the guy driving it said he liked my helmet… I think that’s what he shouted.”<\/p>\n