The neck I want

"His cry went on through the final image: the spots of raw bright blood on the earth. Blood on excrement. The supreme moment, high above the desert, when the two elements, blood and excrement, long kept apart, merge. A black star appears, a point of darkness in the night sky's clarity. Point of darkness and gateway to repose. Reach out, pierce the fine fabric of the sheltering sky, take repose."

Any ass with access to the interweb can use google, or similar to find where this passage comes from, but harder is to give context and meaning. As a quick test, as I know some of you will have read this novel, who can tell me what this passage is actually about, and what happened next. First correct answer will get a pleasant and interesting surprise. Use the email link and do your worst.

Enough of education, onto this cycling caper. This week has been surprising as to who bore witness to our grubby escapades last week. The week before I'd slipped through unnoticed and unidentified, second time around not so. Based on the enthusiastic response I will be running another roll in new territory in the near future and will extend the invitation a little wider. That particular route ridden on Sunday is a great introduction to the pleasures of riding metal roads on road bikes, with no traffic, no hazardous descents and several kilometres of flat fun. I need to get my thinking cap on.

I am planning on tackling my Northern Hell sometime soon, and I'm facing up to that with a fair degree of trepidation. I'm not sure whether it's the fact that there are 40 kilometres of metal roads in the loop, or that there are some very steep and nasty hills, or that there are a couple of sections I haven't ridden, or that it's perverse, but either way there will be a sense of satisfaction in getting around it.

One thing will be to try and get slightly better weather, although there is something of a perverse pleasure in getting filthy.

I will report back in due course