UP WITH the blackbird. Singing his little heart out whilst I put on my shoes. Roll down to the harbour on the bike that’s carried me for three decades, through thin and thicker.

The promenade in Ardrossan has the best cycling tarmac on the planet — take that one to the bank. My theory is that it’s because they used sand from the beach. Someone will know, but I don’t.

What I do know is that this silky surface that used to burn my feet as a lost child now hums in the cold, just loud enough to drown out the headwind that grows with the rising sun. A few flags flutter.

I did my duty a few weeks back, but this feels slightly naughty on polling day. Leaving the scene of the crime.

On the roads I’ve known all my life, I still manage a wrong turning somewhere on the outskirts of Irvine. Contact. An elderly gentlemen somewhat the worse for wear asks where I’m going.

“Kirkby Lonsdale.”

“Whit?”

He’s got a point. The first few miles were like pedalling in the porridge I hadn’t had for breakfast. By the time the wheels spun up the Mennock Pass it was five degrees, howling a gale and pouring with rain. 120 miles to go.

I met my regional secretary in Dumfries. He didn’t disappoint. All I could eat and a car to defrost in for a few minutes, before he swearily chucked me out. An alarmed dog walker was assured:

“Don’t worry, I’m his coach.”

Soon I was laughing my way to Gretna, the sheer unadulterated boredom of the seventh Holyrood election left for dead and off into the unknown. The rain stopped and the hills I live for began in earnest. Flipping back and forth over the M6 until I emerge in that strange patch of land prising the carriageways apart somewhere near Tebay.

In all my years going up and down that motorway I’d never seen a soul on this road — a thought interrupted by a lorry driver hooting to give a thumbs up. Presumably he hadn’t either.

On the final proper climb, the motorway fell silent miles below and the whistling broke out once more. It was time to turn in. Eat, sleep and start all over.

I’d managed to avoid any news during the course of the day, and in a final effort to extract anything resembling excitement from the electoral process the count doesn’t start in Scotland until Friday anyway.

Naturally, the next day I couldn’t walk, but no matter, I could still ride. The blackbird was back to send me on my way, but louder. On every hill, perched on every hedge, every tree, every telegraph pole, for miles. “The same one, clearly,” I tell myself.

In time the green gives way to grey, punctuated by red lights snarling up the cars trafficking people to school and work, and of course an endless parade of flags. Not one of them red.

I was in the city centre before I realised it was Preston, the proving ground of community wealth-building. The bike had been there a lifetime ago, but would not be diverted.

Crossing the Mersey and onto the Cheshire plain the flag-count only fluctuated by population density. Bowed from windowsill after windowsill, in honour of saints, of the union, of sheer desperation, and of the abject failure to build class politics.

In the more ostentatiously wealthy villages and towns, they are relegated to the odd flagpole at the end of the garden. It’s a strange kind of unity. The millionaire and the worker may be embracing for this danse macabre, but rest assured that only one will have the coin for the ferryman.

Well, if they can mix their myths up, why can’t I?

As Kidderminster approaches, the whistling returns to remind me it’s time I was finished.

The bike caught the attention of the guy on the check-in desk.

“If you jack it in, I’ll take the bike.”

I fall asleep in the bath. Can’t get out. The walking is getting worse.

When the last day starts, I have to be virtually winched onto the bike. The saddle may be falling apart, but in it I can’t feel a thing.

It’s not long before I hit a 24 per cent climb. These are never easy, but this is the closest I’ve ever come to getting off the bike. The muscle pull from the first day that’s stopping me from walking is wrecking what was always my ace in the hole: getting on top of hills before they get on top of you.

The encouragement of a man on an electric bike helps a bit, but only because he provoked an overwhelming urge for violence. The blackbird darted out from a hedge to overtake me. It wasn’t flying.

Not to worry, the lunch of champions awaited in Cirencester. A sausage roll.

The phrase “it’s all downhill” had clung on the whole journey in much the same way as “well, it keeps you off the streets” dogged me as a postie, but soon it would be true. One more 20-odd per cent climb and it would be a canter. I saw it looming in the distance and kicked myself for dreading it.

If you’re on the road long enough, these thoughts, lumps, and bumps will pass. 
Steel yourself. Commit.

Whether it was adrenaline, or the sausage roll, who can tell, but I sailed up. The whistler watched me crest it from the security of a fencepost. He didn’t dare race me this time.

The land unfurled in the sunshine, and before long I was back on single-track roads wending through the villages of New Forest. The ponies rule the roost around there. Bringing traffic to a standstill as they wander the bucolic byways to the kind of village greens that I’ve only read about in books.

Miss Marple was lurking around somewhere.

Who did it? The ponies. All of them — this is their manor.

The last few miles into Bournemouth were one, long, hungry, drag — not helped by the smell of food from every corner of the globe — until the ground gave way to the sea and the takeaways had made way for swanky seafront apartments and a smattering of hotels.

The CWU Humanitarian Aid crew were all there at the pier.

500 miles in three days? Time for a paddle.

I had finally run out of road… nearly.

The following day I was to ride into the opening session of CWU conference. If disappearing a few days earlier felt naughty, then weaving through the aisles onto the platform was irresistibly so.

Presumably on a promise never to have to see me in lycra again, the donations came in — £12,700 so far.

There were even more “I”s in this column than usual — what was seen and heard and felt — but we never stand alone in a union. In the end, I knew that in a pinch, Craig, Lenny, or Julia would be at the end of a phone, that they would be somewhere along the road with a water bottle.

They bothered because we live in an imperfect world, where children are routinely denied the full fruits of this earth — food, medical treatment, education and love — by those who would kill to have a few lousy bucks more than the next billionaire.

It’s not charity. It’s solidarity.

A child in Preston may have the NHS and rights to education not enjoyed elsewhere, but these were won in a fight that never ends; not here, not anywhere on Earth.

Medieval flags that divide on myths of race and nation are little more than comfort blankets, but no-one can hide from the material world forever.

Steel yourself. Commit.

Up with the red flag, our struggle is class.