Can your children be too competitive? I've carefully avoided looking it up, but as I pedal dementedly after them, with delicious Sussex countryside a blur in my peripheral vision, I'm pretty sure I already know the answer.
We are on the Cuckoo trail, a cycle route that lies in the heart of East Sussex, leading from the edges of the Pevensey Levels through Cuckmere valley and up into the lovely High Weald. This corner of Britain is where William the Conqueror mustered his troops in preparation for invasion, and the landscape of the High Weald, the fourth largest area of outstanding natural beauty in the country, retains a secretive, ancient character, the crooked, sloping fields surrounded by trees and hedgerows that have probably outlived a few royal dynasties.
I have my own sibling rivalries to worry about, however. Spending the day out cycling is something we have often talked about. Our three boys, Sam, Ben and Joe (in descending order), have always been mad about their bikes (Joe was on a two-wheeler aged three, and often seems happier on a bike than walking). But, lazy, fat-bummed parents that we are, it has taken the goading of an editor to get us all off our sofa and 30 minutes down the road to the Cuckoo trail.
But now that we are here, I am torn between thinking this is the worst idea an editor has ever had and loving it. The boys roar off out of Polegate like Formula One drivers. Ah. It turns out that they are in fact pretending to be Formula One drivers. After watching Joe force one mother and buggy off the path, my visions of a peaceful couple of hours are hurled aside as we bolt after them and take them aside for stern lectures on cycle-path manners, etc, etc. The problem is that here is all this lovely open space, here are their bikes and legs and here are their brothers; what better moment for some high-level testosterone-fuelled jousting?
They compete to be the fastest (Sam, usually – his legs are twice the length of Joe's), they compete to do the best skids (Joe, quite often) and they compete to be the noisiest (the three of them beat everyone else by a landslide, except when a school group of male teenagers comes past and our boys fall briefly, respectfully, silent). My husband, Mike, the photographer, Zak, and I bring up the rear, taking it in turns to yell at them when someone else is coming. And slowly, slowly, everyone settles down a little and the landscape around us begins to come into focus.
This used to be the Polegate to Eridge railway, built in 1880 by the London, Brighton and South Coast railway. The name, the Cuckoo line, came from the tradition that the first cuckoo of spring was always released at the Heathfield fair and the line was used mostly to carry farmers and their goods between villages. In the 1960s, however, the infamous Dr Beeching swung his axe and the line was shut down.
For years it was abandoned until, in 1990, Sustrans partnered with the local district councils to reopen the line as a cycle trail. The result is a smoothly paved track that runs, to start with, between back gardens, and is now used, even on a fairly chilly spring morning, by walkers, runners, cyclists and several mobility scooters.
We are going from Polegate to Heathfield; I'd had a slight misgiving when I'd looked more closely at the route and noticed the words "gentle incline", but I'd decided to ignore this. I know the landscape up on the High Weald will be beautiful and it seems better to go downhill on the way back.
This means that, to begin with, we are pedalling along between the back gardens of Polegate, Hailsham and Hellingly; after faint surprise that we are seeing less countryside than I had expected, we begin to enjoy peering at people hanging out their washing or just sitting, their faces turned up into the delicate spring sunshine. About halfway along, the Cuckoo's Rest appears on the left and we ditch our bikes and tumble, gratefully, on to benches.
The boys do not take this opportunity to rest, however, but instead colonise the trampoline and experiment with bouncing on each other's heads until I tell them we're about to be thrown out. They pause briefly to wolf down the food (£27 for lunch for five; no one has lovingly drizzled or wilted anything here, but it does the job) and then tear off up the trail again. We catch up five minutes later to find them plummeting off a steep bank down on to the path. "My brakes aren't even working, Mum," says Joe delightedly. I adopt the tactic that has kept me sane at many such moments, cycling on ahead so that I can't see, and hoping that they will follow me rather than break their necks.
We are now out in the countryside, cycling between woods bursting with budding trees, with flowering bluebells, primroses and daffodils or along ridges above freshly ploughed fields; the landscape is fairly vibrating with spring. But the ferocious competition has taken its toll; Joe is complaining that his legs are hurting. And I remember now (we often forget this) that Joe is only six and that an 11-mile uphill cycle may be too much for even the gamest of six-year-olds. My husband heads back to the car; he will meet us at Heathfield. The photographer heads off too, so the boys and I take on the last four miles. Unfortunately the "gentle incline" is just too much for Joe, who has completely worn himself out keeping up with his big brothers; for the first time I can remember he admits defeat and bursts into tears of exhaustion.
After that it's a bit of a blur. The older boys take off ahead, occasionally coming back to check on us, while Joe and I wheel our bikes slowly up the hill, him sometimes coming to a complete halt, me coaxing, pleading and urging (sadly all chocolate bribes have long been eaten). The competition has, by common consent, been abandoned; in fact the big ones are quite sweetly worried about Joe and take it in turns to offer a fraternal type of encouragement. "Don't worry, Joe, we're much bigger than you; that's why we're stronger," says Ben, helpfully.
By Heathfield we are all completely exhausted. We pile the bikes back on to the car, slump into our seats and head home, where, after a brief interlude, we all fall on the most enormous dinner I have ever served with appetites that would impress Obelix. But did they enjoy the cycle ride? So much that the two older boys beg to go again immediately. "Can we do that a lot, please?" says Sam earnestly; Ben backs him up with his best pleading face. We all look over at Joe who has eaten three helpings of pie for the final word. He considers his verdict and decides: "Only if we go downhill this time."
