Hitting the Trails

Photograph © Russell Cobb

As well as being an artist, I’m also an enthusiastic bike racer. I try and get out on my bike every day, usually riding into the woods close to where we live. It’s a sport that I love, and my off-road training time can often inform the work that I do when I get back to the studio.

As autumn turns to winter, the colour and shape of the trees transforms Epping Forest. My GoPro camera is pointed upwards to capture it all as I chase through the trails, and selected stills from these ‘canopy’ films are projected onto my studio walls, forming the basis of many new paintings.

This is also my busiest time as a racer. September to January is cyclocross season, which means I’m competing most weekends and training or preparing my bikes during the week. I used to write about these adventures for the bike brand Kona. You can find one of my stories here.

This year, though, my time-consuming cycling endeavours have been curtailed. I crashed into one of those spectacular trees a few weeks ago, and the resulting injury is taking a long while to heal. It’s not a major injury, but the fact that I can’t really ride my bike at the moment means that I am spending much more time in my studio or, as I am now, sitting in a hospital waiting room writing this long-overdue blog post.

In fact, I haven’t felt this connected to my studio and to my work for a very long while, so perhaps this was one of those happy accidents, although it certainly didn’t feel like it at the time.

I’ll be back on my bike soon, I’m sure, but I’m hoping that I can try and strike a better balance and avoid striking any more of those big, beautiful trees.

Thanks for reading.