God Speed You! Black Emperor

Club Run, Saturday 28^th November, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 98 km/61 miles with 952 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 7 minutes

Group size: 16 riders, no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Challenging and changeable

Main topic of conversation at the start: OGL rolled up in his car to tell us he wouldn’t be riding today as he was travelling to Glasgow as a guest of honour at the Revolution Series track meet. Crazy Legs, lost in some internal song sequence, had largely tuned the conversation out, so only the words “revolution” and “guest of honour” actually registered. He took these quite literally and was left pondering if OGL’s Napoleon complex was rising to the fore, and if we’d soon be made to line up either side of the road and greet him with cries of “Vive l’Empereur!”

He then pondered aloud the folly of invading Russia, but I was able to convince him that although OGL might have a Russian wife, she hadn’t been claimed as the spoils of war and he was confusing our leader with some other megalomaniac despot, or despots.

OGL then went on to complain that he’d turned up at 9.31 last Sunday and everyone had already left. He’d even gone so far as to record his disgruntlement on the club forum, where his comments no doubt languish, largely unread amongst the dust, cobwebs and tumbleweed.

Far be it for me to claim any great skills of prescience, but I recall a slight degree of concern about the confusion likely to arise when he first announced that Sunday runs would now meet at 9.30 for a 9.30 start.

It’s ironic that OGL was “hoist by his own petard” – but I’m fairly certain he hasn’t been the first and is unlikely to be the last to miss out in this way. Oh hell, I might as well go for a full-house of clichés and offer some less than sage advice – “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Elsewhere, Richard of Flanders rode up, immediately dismounted, lifted his bike, spun the rear wheel and pressed his ear to the frame. He started muttering under his breath, leaving us suitably impressed that we were in the presence of a “Bike Whisperer”, but thoroughly bemused by what words of encouragement he might have been impressing on his machine.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Having ridden fast and arrived earlier than usual, we had to dawdle through our café visit so that the G-Dawg collective wouldn’t arrive home too early and be confronted by one of those “Well, if you can get back at this time today, you can get back at this time every week” arguments. As it was they had a contingency plan that involved loitering around outside the house for twenty-minutes or so and hoping the neighbours weren’t in a curtain-twitching mode.

So, more time than usual this week for the unending, ceaseless cascade of drivel, banter and waffle that is hugely entertaining, but only to us…

Taffy Steve dropped his home-made purse/pouch onto the table, a formless lump of thick, much worn, creased and crumpled, pachyderm hide of uncertain age and origin. When Son of G-Dawg asked what the hell it was I guessed elephant foreskin, G-Dawg demurred though and suggested, given its age and general condition that mammoth foreskin was more likely.

Although no one seemed to have been tempted by Black Friday excesses there were several tales of acquiring TV sets bigger than rooms. Son of G-Dawg recollected buying one before he moved out that filled his bedroom and took up one entire wall. He could only take in the whole picture by sitting pressed up hard against the opposite wall and found it badly affected his Call of Duty game-play as he kept getting fragged by people creeping up on him outside his peripheral vision.

This was accompanied by reminiscing about the “good old days” when TV’s were deeper than they were wide and even the portable ones weighed about as much as an industrial washing machine.

Talk of Christmas meals prompted the Red Max to reveal that he’s the only source of culinary competence in the house as Mrs. Max manages to regularly burn even beans. If there’s any doubt about the provenance of a meal the kids won’t eat it before conducting a thorough parental interrogation to re-assure themselves that Max has actually prepared it.

Completely independent of Laura Trott’s Twitter posting of sweet potato cremation by microwave, the Red Max recounted how Mrs. Max had so completely incinerated a potato in the microwave that it looked like slag from a blast furnace and took 6 hours to cool down enough to be safely handled. She had then indignantly declared that she didn’t know what could possibly have gone wrong as she’d “pricked it beforehand!”

An imaginary chapeau was doffed to local legend, the septuagenarian veteran Ray Wetherall, still riding every week in all weathers, despite being regularly blasted with chemotherapy.

Ride Profile

The Waffle: Following last week’s sub-zero excursion, today felt positively balmy with the temperatures around 5-6° and no danger of ice. The wind was high and gusting however and everything was predicted to deteriorate as the day wore on with gales, lashing rain and sleet all forecast for later. It was more a case of when exactly the bad weather was due to arrive rather than if, and whether we would make it home before then.

potato — Laura Trott – following in the august footsteps of Mrs. Max

There was a decent turnout of 16 lads and lasses pushing off, clipping in and rolling out, bolstered by a couple of late arrivals who just caught the back of us disappearing up the road and managed tag on before we took a couple of less traveled routes out into the countryside.

I drifted around the back of the group as we set a fairly hard pace into the wind, catching up with the Red Max who had risen from his sick bed to ride, but seemed to be feeling pretty damn chipper. In between gasping for breath as we pounded up several hills at near maximum warp, we spent some time discussing super-skinny pros and how small and weedy they looked in real life.

Seen “in the flesh” even those we think of as big, hulking brutes like “The Gorilla” Andre Greipel probably wouldn’t give you pause if you encountered him alone in a dark alley (apart from the fact Herr Griepel seems like a perfect gentleman and all-round nice guy anyway).

I mentioned the photos of a Garmin-Slipstream Wiggins looking dangerously unhealthy and frighteningly malnourished during his 2009 Tour de France break-out ride, as if he’d just been rescued from the Burma Railroad. We decided such radical weight loss simply wasn’t healthy and how extremely unnatural it is to be a cyclist and deny yourself pizza and cake. We also pondered why none of the women pros looked quite so unattractively gaunt.

The conversation reminded me just how weak and puny we cyclists actually are, with no discernible upper body strength to speak of. Hell, I even have to get Mrs. SLJ or one of the kids to help open bags of crisps for me these days.

I remember watching one of those ageing, menopausal motorcycle gangs congregating opposite our meeting point last year, all brand new, shiny Harley’s in the hands of middle-aged, balding, white-collar professionals, strapped into identical black leather to support their low slung paunches. I wondered aloud if it might lead to a bit of a cyclist vs. biker turf war, or what the American’s rather strangely refer to as gang-banging (or at least they do in a world informed only by The Wire and NYPD Blue.)

Crazy Legs snorted in derision at my idle musings, suggesting it wouldn’t be much of a competition, a dozen or so “160 pound skinny guys in lycra-underwear” against eight or nine burly bikers dressed like extras from Mad Max. Sometimes the truth is harsh.

On recounting this discussion and its rather sobering conclusions to someone, the “ageing motorcycle gang” was misheard and morphed into an “Asian motorcycle gang” which somehow sounded much more exotic and threatening. Maybe I should stick to that version for future re-telling? I’m not sure who the bikers opposite us were, but they were most definitely not the Black Emperors.

e594468b05b9da03c7a2174d1442dda0 — Sometimes my mind makes connections I don’t quite understand. I wonder if I should be worried…

Meanwhile, back on the ride we eventually hit the Quarry climb at top speed and we split on the fly, most turning left at the top, but G-Dawg swinging right and declaring “an experiment” to see which route to the café was the quickest. The left-hand route is longer but has a long-straight downhill run to the Snake Bends, while momentum on the right-hand route is interrupted by several leg-sapping inclines, dodgy corners and blind road junctions.

e62de4f0e5e40f385835283455cfe02d — We enjoyed an extended cafe break – no doubt to the great delight of the other patrons.

I took the right-hand option with Son of G-Dawg and we were joined by the Red Max with, I think, a couple of others trailing in his wake. I tried to tell him what was going on, but all Max heard was “experiment” and “race” – this was enough for the red mist (appropriately) to descend and the competitive juices to kick in.

Max immediately engaged the turbo and hit the front, dragging us all along on his madcap venture to beat the other group. There then followed about 7km of balls to the wall, on the rivet, crazy-assed, pedal-pounding as everyone else tried to just hang on.

Throwing caution to the wind, Max barely slowed for junctions and was swinging wide, right across and onto the opposite side of the road to find the best line through the corners. As Taffy Steve remarked we would still have heard him giggling madly as he slammed into a car coming the opposite way, but luckily the roads were clear and he pulled out a sizeable gap on those with a more, shall we say “sober” approach.

max — Somehow, some way, Max survived some vertiginous cornering

I passed G-Dawg on the last downhill section as his legs reached terminal velocity on his fixie, slowed for the junction then tried to pull as hard as I could up the last drag. Son of G-Dawg jumped away to ultimately hunt down and overhaul Max, while I heard the metronomic, swish-swish-swish as G-Dawg ground past me, turning his massive gear in slow motion and with apparent ease. I ducked onto his rear wheel and just managed to cling there, on the limit with burning legs and lungs that felt short-changed of oxygen.

Behind us the other group, playing fox to our hare, could now see us and were in full-on pursuit with two of our young prodigies, Josher and beZ spearheading the chase. We were able to quickly re-gather the momentum lost at the last junction though and held on to prove the right hand route is quicker (but there’s not that much in it.)

The return from the café was a rather civilised, somewhat sedate affair, but the sky was growing increasingly dark as we pressed on. After a not-so-mad Mad Mile, I turned for home and straight into the teeth of a punishing headwind. The long drag up past the golf course saw me drop down to the inner ring and run quickly through the gears, searching in vain for something I could turn with ease.

I pressed on, with no company except the irregular, desultory rasping of my front mudguard, as an icy, wind started peppering me with stinging, frozen rain and the sky darkened further until it looked like late evening and all the cars were driving with full headlights.

As I made my long and somewhat torturous way up Heinous Hill I think I could have been overtaken by grannies pushing wheeled shopping bags, or mothers with pushchairs. Luckily though the wintry rain had driven everyone indoors and there were no witnesses to my embarrassingly slow, dragging crawl homeward.

aea20c8728b3f00cfb890cfd53c137b0 — Climbing slow enough to hinder pedestrians is never a good sign…

Another fun ride, but for the third week in a row I felt utterly drained, heavy-legged and exhausted by the end. I can’t decide if this is a result of the cold weather, the wind, the pace we’re riding at, lack of recovery time, the winter bike, some lingering, indiscernible ailment or just creeping age and decrepitude. Maybe it’s all of these combined?

Oh well, I’m obviously going to have to keep trying until things improve.

YTD Totals: 5,873 km/ 3,649 miles with 65,767 metres of climbing.

Winter’s Blast

Club Run, Saturday 21^st November, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 100 km/62 miles with 1,004 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 12 minutes

Group size: 12 riders, no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Wintry

Main topic of conversation at the start: The Prof was bemoaning the breakdown of the padding and insulation in his aged lobster-mitts. He thought they still made him look like a large, benign, marine crustacean, but I suggested the resemblance was more Danny De Vito’s Penguin than something cute and cuddly from Spongebob Squarepants.

He then spotted the Cow Rangers gloves, massive unwieldy mittens that were secured with elastic bungee cords wrapped multiple times and tourniquet-tight around wrists and forearms, and queried what particular sport they were made for. I helpfully suggested boxing, cage fighting or Mixed Martial Arts. The Cow Ranger himself couldn’t clarify, but admitted that, although fantastically warm, they made braking and gear changes a bit of a lottery.

OGL declared we should all be sectioned for turning out on a day like this and for once no one disagreed. One of the guys then rolled up and instantly made everyone feel warmer as he was wearing just a short-sleeved jersey, arm warmers and shorts. Shorts! Now that’s true madness. It’s as if he helpfully wanted to prove that we weren’t the crazy ones, but that they are most definitely alive, riding bikes and living amongst us.

OGL then mused about how a Belgian-style lock-down here would impact on the Metro Centre and Eldon Square shopping. Personally I’m all for anything that shakes the excessive, mass feeding frenzy and orgy of shopping that now seems de rigueur at Christmas.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: OGL recommended the soup, which he suggested was delicious and warming and just right for a day like this. “Yeah,” Son of G-Dawg countered, “But it isn’t pie is it?” tucking into a massive slice of hot bacon and egg flan.

Meanwhile, at another table, a rival club were served up ridiculously healthy platefuls of grilled bananas on wholemeal toast, with green tea and super-skinny lattes all round. We quietly sniggered at these poor, deluded amateurs – don’t they know real cyclists are fuelled by cake?

We dissected one of last winter’s crashes on the lane just past the Snake Bends, where one of the girls started a domino effect sliding on the ice and bringing just about everyone around her down. G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg were the only ones to survive, sailing carefully on while repeating the mantra – “Don’t stop, don’t look back, don’t brake, don’t even try to steer…”

We then discussed post-ride showers, how long it was possible to stay in the them before the family complained, the pain of blood returning to your extremities and at what point you felt warm enough to actually take some clothes off. The bad days are ones where this is only happens after huddling under the hot water for 15 minutes or so.

G-Dawg has had to give up Sunday rides because he’s committed to looking after two new additions to the family – a pair of young dogs that need constant exercise. Somewhere in the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind a thin candle of hope still flickers with the improbable idea that they are called G-Dog and Son of G-Dog.

Ride Profile

The Waffle: A storm passed through overnight with howling, gale-force winds, accompanied by driving snow and rapidly plunging temperatures. The morning was grey and bitterly cold with strong, capricious and freezing winds still whip-lashing around at irregular intervals.

Temperatures were bumping along just above freezing, but the polar gusts meant a wind-chill of around -2°C or -3°C and it felt like it. Perfect weather … for penguins. Speaking of which:

penguin — Lobster mitts – super-villain style

I dressed accordingly, long-sleeved summer base layer under a long-sleeved winter one, windproof jacket with a gilet over it, buff, headband to keep my ears warm but not overheat my noggin, bib tights, thermal socks and overshoes. On my hands I went for silk glove liners beneath winter weight gloves. I thought I might have overdone it, but just stepping out the door was enough to convince me I’d judged things about right.

The cars parked up around me still had a thick band of snow rimming the bottom of their windshields, like mini barchand dunes, suggesting at least the possibility of ice on the roads. I pushed off and began a very tentative descent of Heinous Hill, a little more confident once a car went past and I heard the reassuring tinny rattle of grit and rock salt bouncing off its undersides. At least the council had been out and treated the roads.

I battled my way across the river, mainly into a strong headwind, occasionally being buffeted from the sides and rear as the wind swirled around me. Any exposed flesh was instantly chilled and I became acutely conscious and a bit pre-occupied with a hairline gap between glove and cuff. Meanwhile, the tops of my thighs, lips, toes and thumbs burned with the cold as an unpleasant prelude to turning numb.

The last mile to the meeting point brought a sudden flurry of stinging, driving snow to slap me directly in the face and I was grateful to roll into the car park head down and find some shelter. A few were waiting already and more slowly trickled through in dribs and drabs.

snaey — Winter riding – a bit challenging

Impelled by a seeming need for symmetry, Crazy Legs was hoping we’d get an even dozen, but after waiting as long as we felt practical and watching the snow shower pass over, we were an odd eleven who pushed off, clipped in and set out.

At the last moment though, Richard of Flanders saved us, sailing through the traffic to join us and perfectly timing his arrival to minimise waiting time and exposure to the harsh elements. Now a Dirty Dozen formed up to ride.

We’ve reached an uneasy compromise with the Great North Road Cyclemaze and Death Trap, with the inside line of our pairs peeling off to carefully thread their way through the tank-trap like orcas and Rommelspargel, while the others only have to negotiate the much less hazardous surging traffic. Well, at least we use the Cyclemaze until the route throws you up onto the pavement to slalom around a bus stop and then drop back onto the road. It tends to get abandoned at this point.

We rotated the front pair more regularly than usual as the wind continued to batter away at us, finding the road conditions variable with many major roads strangely untreated while some of the minor ones had been gritted. There were occasional patches of ice and some thick deposits of melting snow in the gutters and along the verges, but nothing causing too much concern.

11d21267fdc0796cada331240bdb3fe5 — Perhaps we’re missing a trick when it comes to riding on ice?

Somewhere down the line a merciful Crazy Legs departed for a shorter route to the café, taking our under-dressed colleague with him in an attempt to beat the onset of hypothermia. I did my stint on the front with Richard of Flanders, finding the wind finally starting to drop and the going not quite so hard.

OGL complained of freezing feet and declared an urgent need to pee – I couldn’t tell if the two were somehow related and whether he wanted to stop to pee on his feet to try and warm things up a little. We prudently left him to his own devices, continuing on to the end of the road and the junction to sit and wait for him to re-join.

On re-grouping OGL and a couple of others turned directly for the café, sticking to the largely ice-free main road, but a half a dozen or so of us decided to risk pressing on for a slightly longer ride as the wind seemed to be dropping away, the clouds were breaking apart and a very low, very bright sun started to bounce blindingly and uncomfortably off the wet road.

We encountered a couple of dangerous patches of ice, and endured a couple of sketchy descents with the sun striking glaringly off the surface of the road so you were never quite sure if it was icy or just wet under the tyres. We pressed on fairly carefully and cautiously and there were no mishaps.

As we turned for the café, Son of G-Dawg suggested a sober, restrained run in to the finish with no sprinting heroics. I was more than happy to agree to a temporary cessation of hostilities, but noted the Cow Ranger was still with us and he would surely want to flex his muscles, so I doubted the truce would be binding.

We dragged ourselves up a steep climb and started to pick up the pace a little around the lake, only to pull up short. Ice hadn’t stopped us, the wind hadn’t stopped us, the cold hadn’t stopped us, the snow hadn’t stopped us. The massive uprooted tree lying across the road though, that was an entirely different matter.

Weaving our way through the blockade of seemingly abandoned service vehicles, we found the local version of Leatherface standing, mute chainsaw dangling uselessly in his gloves as he surveyed the fallen behemoth he had been sent to clear by hand.

Asking for his assessment of the situation and recommendations for how we should proceed were met with an incomprehensible grunt – I think he was struck dumb by the enormity of his task and close to tears.

Taking the initiative ourselves, we hauled our bikes over the fence and battled through thick, entangling undergrowth skirting the massive crater caused when the trees roots were ripped from the earth. Fighting, pushing, slipping and sliding, hauling, tugging and carrying our bikes, we circumvented the fallen giant, clambered over another fence and finally re-joined the road, mounted up and pressed on.

ebc08f70598ea593e4e1f3ed24ab57ce — Bikes and fences – never a good combination.

The pace picked up as we swept down through Milestone Woods and over the rollers. As we hit the final climb the Cow Ranger surprised everyone (no, honestly) with a completely predictable attack, the G-Dawgs bit hard and set off in pursuit, while I just eased back, relaxed and watched the chase unfold.

At the café we picked up young phenom Josher for the return ride. He was showing off his new cyclo-cross bike in a fetching shade of green which perfectly matched his phone case. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d bought the bike to match his phone or vice-versa. Either way it’s an impressive show of dedication to colour co-ordination.

Once again as the pace wound for the Mad Mile before everyone split, I sat back and let them go, content to ride at my own speed as I picked my way carefully homeward.

A good ride, but like last week I felt somewhat heavy-legged toward the end and had an aching back and shoulders. I can’t decide if this was a consequence of some inner huddling to try and stay warm, or tensing up when encountering ice and slippery conditions. I think I’ll have to learn to relax more.

YTD Totals: 5,735 km/ 3,424 miles with 64,345 metres of climbing.

Van Impudence!

An ode to grace …

So, there I was, awkwardly adrift in the cultural hellhole that was the early ‘70’s on Tyneside and entranced by an exotic sport held mainly in distant countries and with no media support to fuel a burgeoning fascination. In a time long before even World of Sport began their token showing of less than 1% of the world’s greatest, most gruelling, sporting extravaganza, the Tour de France, options for following races were as limited as your chances of buying a white Model T Ford.

The only Tour updates in those days were an occasional list of stage winners and, if we were very lucky, an updated top 10 GC, all hidden within the dreaded “Other Results” buried in the back pages of the Sports section of daily newspapers and usually secreted under all the football stuff that had already been reported elsewhere.

The cycling results were so small and so barely legible that they would have given actual small-print a bad name, and corporate lawyers a hard-on that could last for weeks.

Beyond these barest, most perfunctory of details, we restlessly devoured stage reports in Cycling (this was so long ago that it was even before the profound and dynamic name change to “Cycling Weekly”) to try and get a feel for the drama and the ebb and flow of the ongoing battle, but what came through was a generally disjointed and less than the sum of its parts.

For the young cycling neophyte the biggest treasures were a series of books published by the Kennedy Brothers following the narrative of each Grand Tour, imaginatively titled “Tour ’77” or “Giro ‘73” (you get the picture).

Although published weeks after the publicity caravans had packed away their tat and as the gladiatorial names garishly graffiti’d on the roads slowly began to fade, these books told a compelling narrative of the race, from the first to last pedal stroke, replete with some stunning high quality photos.

Opening the crackling white pages you could inhale deeply and almost catch a faint whiff of the sunflowers, Orangina and embrocation, as you were instantly transported to the side of the road to watch the peloton whirring by.

kennedy bros

It’s in one of these Tour books that I first stumbled across a full-page photo of a boyish, fresh-faced young man, posed with some faceless fat functionary to receive a completely bizarre gazelle-head plaque. This may have been a prize for winning a stage, or the mountains classification, having the most doe –like eyes in the peloton, successfully passing through puberty, or something like that.

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What struck me most though was that this hardened, elite, professional athlete didn’t look all that different from me – he wasn’t all that tall, very slight of build and looked so young – creating the impression of an instant underdog.

I would also later learned that under the jauntily perched cap was a head that would be subjected to some criminally bad hair moments too – instant empathy, although I never sank quite as low as having a perm.

It was hard to believe this rider was capable of comfortably mixing it up with the big, surly men of the peloton, with their hulking frames, chiselled legs, granite faces and full effusions of facial hair. Not only that, but when the road bent upwards he would fly and leave everyone grovelling helplessly in his wake.

The young man is Lucien Van Impe and the accompanying chapter of the book is titled Van Impudence, and relates in detail how he defied the hulking brutes of the peloton and their supreme leader King Ted, to wreak his own brand of cycling havoc in the mountains.

It was here that began my long-standing love affair with the grimpeurs, the pure climbers of the cycling world, those who want to defy gravity and try to prove Newton was a dunce.

Cyclisme : Tour de France - Alpe D Huez - 1976 — An Astaire-like glide

Watch any YouTube videos of the time and you’ll see the big men of the Tour grinding horribly uphill, their whole bodies contorted as they attempt to turn over massive gears and physically wrestle the slopes into submission.

Merckx, indisputably the greatest cyclist of all time is probably the worst offender, and looks like he’s trying to re-align his top tube by brute strength alone, while simultaneously starring in a slow-motion film of someone enduring a course of severe electro-shock therapy.

Then look at Van Impe, at the cadence he’s riding at, the effortless style and how he flows up the gradients. Woah.

His one-time Directeur Sportif, and by no means his greatest fan, Cyrille Guimard would say, “You had to see him on a bike when the road started to rise. It was marvellous to see, he was royally efficient. He had everything: the physique, fluidity, an easy and powerful pedalling style.”

Lucien_Van_Impe_-_Tour_1976 — A decent time trialist on his day, this is Van Impe during the 1976 Tour ITT – in yellow and on his way to overall victory

In his book, Alpe d’Huez: The Story of Pro Cycling’s Greatest Climb, Peter Cossins writes that, “Van Impe’s style is effortless and majestic. Watching him, one can’t help but think that riding up mountains is the easiest thing in the world. His is no heavy-footed stomp, but an Astaire-like glide.”

Many cycling fans prefer the rouleurs and barradeurs, the big framed, hard-men, the grinders who churn massive gears with their endless, merciless attacks, dare-devil descending and never-say-die attitudes.

13c2e23ee9e4f4a3e794ddb7d5d8cad1 — Van Impe wears the green jersey of the Giro’s best climber with much more aplomb than the highly suspect perm

Others seem to like the controllers who grind their way to victory, eating up and spitting out mile after mile of road at a relentless, contained pace, regardless of whether they’re riding a time-trial, a mountain stage or across a pan flat parcours.

For me though pure poetry lies in those slight, mercurial riders, who would suddenly be transformed – given wings and the ability to dance away from the opposition when the road tilts unremittingly skyward.

Even more appealing, they’re all just a little skewed and a bit flaky, wired a little bit differently to everyone else or, as one of my friends would say, “as daft as a ship’s cat”. The best can even be a little bit useless and almost a liability when the roads are flat, or heaven forbid dip down through long, technical descents.

The power of the Internet and YouTube in particular has even let me rediscover some of the great climbers from before my time, the idols who inspired Van Impe, such as Charly Gaul and Federico Bahamontes.

This pair, the “Angel of the Mountains” and “Eagle of Toldeo” respectively, both had that little bit of extra “climber flakiness” to set them apart. Bahamontes was terrified of descending on his own and was known to sit and eat ice-cream at the top of mountains while waiting for other riders so he had company on the way down.

Gaul’s demons were a little darker, once threatening to knife Bobet for a perceived slight and for a long period in his later life he became a recluse, living in a shack in the woods and wearing the same clothes day after day.

As Jacques Goddet, the Tour de France director observed, Van Impe also had “a touch of devilry that contained a strong dose of tactical intelligence” and was referred to as “l’ouistiti des cimes” – the oddball of the summits in certain sections of the French press.

Goddet went on to describe the climber as possessing “angelic features, always smiling, always amiable,” and yet Van Impe was known to be notoriously stubborn and difficult to manage, requiring careful handling, constant reassurance and a close coterie of attendants who would cater to his every whim away from the bike.

Cyrille Guimard, who coached, cajoled, goaded and drove Van Impe to his greatest achievement, Tour de France victory in 1976, described him as “every directeur sportif’s nightmare.”

9dffdfaa764277adcca44449fc717410 — Van Impe doing what he does best

While I’ve enjoyed watching and following many good and some great riders, it’s always the climbers who’ve captivated me the most, although just being a good climber doesn’t seem to be enough. In fact it’s quite difficult to define the exact qualities that I appreciate – Marco Pantani and Claudio Chiapucci never “had it” and nor does current fan favourite and, ahem, “world’s best climber” the stone-faced Nairo Quintana.

There has to be a little something else, some quirk or spark of humanity that I can identify with and that sets the rider apart and makes them a joy to watch and follow. Of today’s climbers I’m most hopeful for Romain Bardet – he seems to have character, style and a rare intelligence, but only time will tell if he blossoms into a truly great grimpeur.

cbd6dc651672d698559e2f1099d211ce — “Always smiling, always amiable”

From the past, our very own Robert Millar of course was up there with the best (although my esteem may be coloured by intense nationalism). Andy Hampsten, on a good day, was another I liked to watch and, for a time the young Contador, when he seemed fresh and different and believable.

Still, none have come close to supplanting Van Impe in my estimation and esteem. He would go on to win the Tour in 1976 and perhaps “coulda/shoulda” won the following year, if not for being knocked off his bike by a car while attacking alone on L’Alpe D’Huez. See, that sort of shit happened even back in the “good, old days.”

By the time Van Impe’s career was finally over (including a retirement and comeback) he’d claimed the Tour de France King of the Mountains jersey on a record 6 separate occasions (matching his hero Bahamontes) and a feat that has never been bettered. (Fuck you Richard Virenque and your performance enhanced KoM sniping, I refuse to acknowledge your drug enabled “achievements”).

1975%20Tour — On the attack, in the jersey he became synonymous with

In contrast, both during and after his professional career, Van Impe never tested positive, never refused a doping test and has never been implicated in any form of doping controversy – he’s either incredibly, astonishingly lucky, clever and cunning, or the closest thing you’ll ever get to the definition of a clean rider.

So, if you follow the Kitty Kelley premise that “a hero is someone we can admire without apology,” then Van Impe resolutely ticks all the boxes for me.

During his career he also managed to pick up awards for the most likeable person in the peloton and the Internet is replete with video and images of him as a good-natured and willing participant in some weirdly bizarre stunts, such as his spoof hour record attempt – proof he was an all-round good guy who never seemed to take himself too seriously.

hour — In this bizarre and apparently hilarious (if you speak Flemish) YouTube clip, Van Impe is seen challenging Moser’s Hour record

In all Van Impe completed an incredible 15 Tour’s, never abandoning and was an active participant and presence in all of them.

He won the race in 1976 and was 2^nd once and 3^rdon three separate occasions, finishing in the Top 5 eight times. Along the way he won 9 individual stages and achieved all this while riding for a succession of chronically weak teams and competing when two dominant giants of the sport, Merckx and Hinault, were in their pomp.

Van Impe was also 2^nd overall in the Giro, winning one stage and two mountains classifications on a couple of rare forays into Italy.

Not just a one-trick pony though, he could ride a decent time-trial and won a 40km ITT in the 1975 Tour, when he handily beat the likes of Merckx, Thévenet, Poulidor and Zoetemelk.

Even more surprisingly for a pure climber he even somehow managed to win the Belgian National Road Race Championship in 1983 after coming out of retirement.

I’m not sure if this represents Van Impe’s skills and talent, a particularly favourable parcours, or simply the nadir of Belgian cycling. Maybe all three?

In October this year Van Impe turned 70 and until recently was still actively engaged in cycling through the Wanty-Groupe Gobert Pro-Continental Team. He lives with his wife, Rita in a house named Alpe D’Huez, a reminder of the mountain where he set the foundations for his greatest triumph and perhaps suffered his most heartbreaking defeat.

lucien — An elder Van Impe – still active in cycling

Not bad for the one time newspaper delivery boy and apprentice coffin-maker from the flatlands of Belgium.

Vive Van Impe!

Banjaxed!

Club Run, Saturday 14^th November, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 119 km/72 miles with 1,270 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 5 hours 06 minutes

Group size: 22 riders, no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Chilly. Gusty.

Main topic of conversation at the start: We discussed the paradox of how – despite spending hours together and the almost endless stream of incessant chatter – we actually know so little about our fellow riders. Sometimes this knowledge consists of nothing more than a name, approximate age and a thoroughly murky and probably incorrect brief bio, which will include only the most rudimentary understanding of job and family circumstances.

To be honest even this is a best-case scenario and there are people I been riding with almost every weekend for years whose name I’m still uncertain of. Having said that, I can probably tell you in infinite detail about what sort of bike they ride and recognise them in a crowd with their back to me while wearing a helmet and dark glasses, even, or perhaps especially if they’re dressed from head to toe in lycra.

This naturally led to musings about what it is we do actually talk about, along with the realisation (no doubt highlighted by the meanderings of this blog) that while we always find it massively entertaining, it never rises much above pure escapism: the ephemera of life and bikes and popular culture. So it was that the incomprehensible, barbaric and despicable atrocities in Paris overnight barely got a mention, other than to note that we didn’t really talk about them much.

Ever reliable, the Prof roused us from any dark, philosophical musings by turning up and asking around to see if anyone could lend him, “Ein 8mm kranken handle.” Or at least we thought that’s what he was asking for. I’ve no idea if such a thing as a kranken handle actually exists, or what it could possibly be used for, but I’m fairly certain that if I ever write a novel about an evil Nazi he’ll bear the moniker of Dr. Kranken Handel…

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Crazy Legs took one look at my glazed eyes, corpse-like pallor and general state of complete and utter exhaustion and told me I looked like his granddad … who’d been dead several years.

We then discussed and tried to formalise plans to thwart one of our more annoying, inveterate wheel-suckers from ever winning the café sprint.

G-Dawg is doing some volunteering work for the National Trust that seems to involve chopping down and then up (into smaller pieces) very large trees. This brought us to the universal truth that no matter what saw you choose, at some point in the process it’s going to get stuck, the blade is going to bend spectacularly and your wavy cuts are going to look like something a skater would be proud to carve into the ice while performing the perfect double-salchow.

Ride Profile

The Waffle

The weather has taken on a decidedly chilly note, so thicker gloves, a skull cap and winter base layer were all added to the arsenal for the day. Things were however generally dry, a decidedly pleasant change from last week, with only an adversarial gusting wind to contend with.

While battling through the wind to the meeting point my ears were assaulted by the “thump-thumpa-thumpa-thump-thump” of a boy-racer, disco-car. Odd, I like to think I have a fairly wide taste in music, but have you noticed that whenever one of these cars passes you – and it’s by no means an uncommon event – you can never, ever identify the actual music they’re intent on mangling?

For this ride we were without OGL who was away representing the club at some British Cycling function, so it was left to some of the heads of state, G-Dawg, Crazy Legs, Red Max and Taffy Steve put their heads together and come up with a ride that wasn’t just one of our usual 4 iterations of the same old route.

Looking forward to a few new roads, another good turnout of around 22 lads and lasses gathered, before pushing off and clipping in. We followed the dark cabal of around a dozen or so of our Grogs onto the road, as they swept past intent on their own privately organised and exclusive ride.

I fell in with Sneaky Pete as we set out, sheltering at the back, catching up and learning all about his past misdemeanours and misadventures scaling mountain peaks, just for the hell of it.

This week it was Taffy Steve’s turn to test the sturdiness of one of his lights, gently releasing it from its handlebar clamp to see just how far it would bounce along the road before coming to a stop, at the same time checking it for impact resistance and durability.

We dropped the pace to await the successful conclusion of his retrieval mission, reformed and pressed on, carving a new, wide orbit around the Murder Path in order to avoid the Mur de Mitford climb.

As we dropped into and then climbed up out of the Trench, the bunch started to fracture and once we regrouped we decided to split, with maybe eight or nine of us convening for a longer ride, while the rest headed for a slightly shorter, but equally hilly alternate route to the café.

The Prof and G-Dawg briefly discussed possible routes, the Prof seemingly determined to circumnavigate the café to try and find a point where we’d have a full on tail-wind to push us home. Unfortunately this involved describing a massively wide, hilly circle all the way around the café to try and locate the precise vector where we would have the wind directly at our backs for the final run in.

Like some clichéd horror film, every time I turned around another rider seemed to have been picked off, disappearing one by one as they gave up on our ever widening gyre and turned inward to seek a more direct route to the café.

Finally I looked back to find the road behind was empty – it was just me and the Prof. I led up the hills, the Prof drilled it on the flat and we made decent time, but I failed to notice the needle of my internal fuel tank was ticking inexorably down toward empty.

glycol — Copped one in the old glycogen tank …

With maybe 15 miles and umpteen hills still to go I was struck by la fringale; the bonk, the hunger knock – in runner parlance I, “hit the wall” – a sad state of hypoglycaemia – where my legs were trying to draw down funds my body couldn’t cover. Call it what you will, the results are always the same – leaden, empty legs, total lack of power and a struggle just to turn the cranks.

The worst thing is I’ve no idea why this happened; it’s just one of those utterly unpredictable, inexplicable things we all love about cycling. I’d done nothing difficult during the week, my morning routine hadn’t varied and I’d had my usual breakfast. Once the groups had split I’d spent a little time on the front in the wind, but far less than many others, yet I was running on fumes.

Suffering mightily I gulped down the emergency gel I always carry and spent the last ten mile or so trying to stay glued to the improbably small rear wheel of the Prof’s eccentric cycling contraption.

A homemade mudflap of the less organic variety.

At least in this position I got to admire his hand-crafted, super-long mudflap which I believe he grew in his secret laboratory from a single, solitary cell. I only mention this because he was upset that it hadn’t merited at least a paragraph (his words, not mine) in last week’s blog.

Eventually drifting off the Prof’s wheel I reached the café last, utterly spent and only able to muster the most desultory salute to the shorter ride group who were already replete, rested and lining up to head home.

Utterly, completely and totally banjaxed!

I went for a double hit of cake (feeling crap has to have some benefits) and even went so far as to load my coffee with a couple of sugar lumps, hoping this would be enough fuel to get me back. After a brief rest I set out for home with the Double G-Dawgs, Crazy Legs and the Prof, sitting firmly at the back of this small group and trying to get as much shelter as possible.

Already running late for a trip away for the evening I modified my return route and split from the group early, jousting with some heavy traffic and testing the new tyres with a series of demanding detours along tow paths, pavements, cycle ways, car parks and woodland trails.

The new Schwalbes seemed to cope rather admirably with this rather unorthodox, often off-road journey and I dragged myself up the final climb to home, arriving only 5 minutes behind schedule and just about managing to escape the collective ire of the family.

Tiredness and familial expedience saw the Peugeot “ridden hard and put away wet” without its usual post-ride grooming. I hate to think what I might find when I finally pluck up the courage to open the shed door for our next adventure…

YTD Totals: 5,593 km/ 3,362 miles with 62,799 metres of climbing.

Hell and High Water

Club Run, Saturday 7^th November, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 87 km/54 miles with 558 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 3 hours 35 minutes

Group size: 20 riders including 6 kids, no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: A deluge.

Main topic of conversation at the start: I stood in the sheltered but dank and gloomy bowels of the multi-storey car park trying to identify the other riders as they surfed their way into the meeting point through the gloom and heavy rain. “Ah, and here come the Dawson twins,” I announced to no one in particular, as G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg rolled up. “They aren’t twins are they?” one of the befuddled youngsters tentatively suggested, “One looks so much older than the other.” Oh dear.

OGL castigated us for fielding and replying to queries about club run start times on Faecesbook, as apparently his revised timings from last week were perfectly clear and understandable and caused no confusion whatsoever (although I understand several people did miss the start last Sunday). Apparently our use of social media shouldn’t be so … well … social.

He even suggested that the Faecesbook stuff wasn’t necessary as all our start times are clearly listed on the club website. (The club website sees even less traffic than this benighted blog and I personally don’t visit it much – the wide empty spaces bring on my monophobia and besides, I’m allergic to tumbleweed.)

We were then treated to the Prof’s execrable Geordie accent as he tried to chivvy us along, in the process doing for the Geordie nation what Dick van Dyke managed to do for Cockneys the world over. Encore!

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

I had a chat with Tri-Boy’s Dad and commiserated with his struggles to keep the youngster in check. Apparently the boy likes to dangle in front of his Pa, wait for the catch to almost be made, then accelerate away again. Ah, good to see the much beloved and traditional Szell game is still alive and appreciated by the younger generation. Across the table I could see the Monkey Butler Boy listening avidly, taking it all in and eyeing up his Pa, already looking forward to trying this.

Looking out at the rain still hammering down outside, we talked about whether on days like this we would be better off not stopping at all, even if it meant (Shock! Horror!) abstinence from cake and coffee. (Ok, I realise this is a radical step too far.)

We also couldn’t help but reminisce about the Damn Yankee who used to come out with us, and who just about collapsed from mild to moderate hyperthermia on arriving at the café during one of our harsher winter rides.

I think everyone was surprised he succumbed to the cold as he was a big, big unit, built like a gridiron fullback and, as Taffy Steve appropriately suggested, with massive calves the size of American footballs.

We’ve no idea where this once club run regular disappeared to – originally from San Franscisco, he apparently went to college in the Deep South, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas or some such. He was quite happy to confirm all our worst prejudices about such places being awash with Antebellum grand dames, in-bred, jug-eared and twanging banjo-duellists, sheet wearing Grand Wizards with burning crosses and constant demands to squeal like a pig.

I often think we sometimes miss that rational, reasoned international perspective

A sign that perhaps my Garmin didn’t like the weather too much – perhaps the weirdest ride profile ever.

The Waffle:

If last week was all about generating a Gallic vibe to encourage the Peugeot, this week was all about the rain, so perhaps I should have been watching Eddie Vedders “Water on the Road” and listening to Talk Talk, “After the Flood” and Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall”.

A list of the Strava titles my companions used to label their rides may gave you some indication of what we faced; “Biblical Rainfall,” “Ou Est Mon Bateau?” “The Life Aquatic” and “Yo, Noah, Where Art Thou?” being just a few selections.

Yes it rained, and rained heavily, and no it didn’t let up, although it did ease slightly once I was on the last climb for home. Still, we couldn’t say we hadn’t been warned, for once all the forecasts got it right and were spot on with their predictions of unremitting bleakness.

Between a slight cold and family commitments I’d only managed a single, solitary ride into work on the bike all week, so I was going out on Saturday, come hell or high water – and someone certainly didn’t stint on the latter.

Lesson#1 - Repeat after me ... — Lesson#1 – Repeat after me …

Actually I awoke Saturday morning to find very little rain in the air, despite a prolonged deluge that had lasted all night. I now realise we were just passing through the eye of the storm and that the rain was holding back only until I actually got outside.

Oh well, at least I got to field-test the new jacket in the most extreme conditions – and learn a lot about its limitations in the process.

With rain starting to bounce violently off the tarmac, I swung a leg over the Peugeot and struck out, noting the distinctive tang of wet leaves and damp ash mixed with the burned smell of spent fireworks. Remember, remember the 6^th of November?

Tipping down the bank the combination of heavy rain and road spray almost instantly soaked through my shorts, leg warmers and gloves, and I could feel cold tendrils of water creeping through my overshoes into my socks by the time I hit the bottom. Still my upper half initially remained warm and dry as I hit the valley floor and started to work my way westward while becoming increasingly frustrated with the traffic.

What is it about the rain that so completely befuddles drivers – I’ve noticed when driving in and out of work that even a slight, innocuous shower will add at least 10 minutes to the journey. It’s as if they their brains get tied-up trying to process more than one hazard at a time and it retards their thinking so they no longer act and drive instinctively. I wonder if there’s a little inner monologue that goes something like, “Oh, rain, uh-uh…better be careful” and then, “Oh, rain, AND A BIKE! Aargh! Panic! What do I do?”

I was subject to more iffy, too close passes that morning than I’ve had in three months of commuting by bike and (my own personal bugbear) several drivers who overtook, before immediately braking and cutting sharp left just in front of me.

Extra special appreciation this morning though was reserved for a van driver who gave me a long fusillade on his horn because I did something he obviously thought was wrong. Well, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here and assuming he genuinely thought I’d done something wrong and he wasn’t just being a RIM.

This worries me more than the thoughtless close passes, because it not only suggests a self-righteous ignorance of the law and a distinct lack of empathy and consideration, but also the inability to anticipate and safely react to the behaviour of other road users.

I was riding uphill, heading towards a set of traffic lights and needing to turn right, across the lane of oncoming traffic. As I approached the lights I looked behind and noticed the van, safely some distance behind. 2 or 3 more pedal strokes and I looked behind again and saw that the van wasn’t gaining on me, and had in fact dropped further back as it slowed for a number of speed bumps (this is a 20mph, School Zone.) I stuck my hand out, looked back once more and then rode into the centre of the lane as I reached the lights.

I slowed at this point to pass behind an oncoming black Range Rover, before making the turn, accompanied by the loud wail from van man leaning aggressively on his horn as he swept past. I naturally took a leaf out of Mr. Cavendish’s book and kindly reminded him of Agincourt, 1415 and all that, but this one really did rankle and I’m still trying to fathom what I did wrong or what else he expected me to do.

Half an hour later and continuing through the unrelenting rain, I could begin to feel the cold, damp creep of water slowly leeching through the arms of my jacket and into my base-layer. The material had, I assume, became so saturated that the rain was no longer beading and rolling off the surface, but started to slowly worm its way inward. By the time I’d reached the meeting point everything was pretty much soaked through, cold, damp and heavy.

Surprisingly there was a sizeable turn out, including a handful of the kids who, as it was the first Saturday of the month, were going to ride out with us before heading off on a different route. 20 brave lads, lasses and kids then, pushed off, clipped in and went to collectively see just how much cold water we could sponge up, a latter day band of brothers, united by our battle with the elements.

I started drifting through the group trying to find a wheel to follow that had at least some semblance of a mudguard, but even these were throwing off an arc of spray, so I slotted into the gap between the two riders in front.

We’d just made it out of the ‘burbs when one of OGL’s lights shook loose and went bouncing down the road. As he turned to retrieve it I pulled over to field a phone call from home. My eCrumb had stopped in the rain and they were wondering what was going on.

I couldn’t work the phone through my gloves, so stripped them off and then found they were so wet I couldn’t pull them back on again. I had a dry pair in my pocket (a trick learned from the Red Max) but decided to keep them until after the café, so I wrung as much water as I could out of the original pair and stowed them away.

A spare pair of gloves - a real boon when the first get soaked through. — A spare pair of gloves – a real boon when the first get soaked through.

Not only was my eCrumb struggling with the conditions, but Red Max declared his Garmin was waterlogged and fritzed, and at the end of the ride my Strava threw up the weirdest of ride profiles. I’ve no idea what it was recording in the middle of my ride.

Phone and gloves safely tucked away, I got moving again and found Crazy Legs waiting a bit further up the road as OGL hadn’t made it back to the group yet. We hung back until he cruised up and then set the pace to escort him back to where everyone else was waiting.

At the next roundabout all the kids split off, apart from Tri-Boy and the Monkey Butler Boy. A little further on and all well soaked, the majority of us decided to cut the ride short and head directly for the café. We still had time to engender some truly apoplectic rage from OGL for pushing the pace too high, before we were storming toward the Snake Bends and the café sprint.

OGL might as well have tried to stop the rain falling as to halt our momentum at this point, but while his efforts were fruitless a little bit of air managed to do for me. Not any old air in general of course, just the minuscule portion of it I had borrowed and cruelly entrapped in my inner tube. The tunnel was completed, the gates swinging wide, the sirens wailing and an all or nothing break-out was most definitely on the cards for this poor repressed portion of the atmosphere. Another week, another puncture.

With heavy steering, a slowly sinking feeling and the road vibrating increasingly through a rattling and no longer cushioned rim, I slipped silently backward and out of the group to fix things without the attendant critical audience.

I still haven’t found the source for this rash of punctures, but the Gatorskins have been consigned to the bin, they’ve either ran out of durability, or ran out of luck and neither is acceptable. Time to see if the Schwalbe Durano’s perform any better.

Sadly I missed the final “dive” to the café, which ripped through a massive, edge-to-verge, road-spanning lake of dirty collected rain water at full tilt, our speeding bunch producing a bow wave reminiscent of a newly launched super-tanker crashing down the slipway.

This in turn gave birth to a minor inland tsunami so high that it washed over the top of The Red Max’s waterproof winter boots and once inside and with no way for the water to drain out, he was left sloshing his wiggling toes around and hoping to avoid developing a bad case of trenchfoot.

Somewhat behind everyone else I limped into the café, sur la jante, to find Max comfortably perched on a black bin bag, feet up and boots off. Every so often the Monkey Butler Boy would be tasked with stepping out into the rain and emptying the water from the boots, but no matter how many times he did this the insides were obviously super-saturated and more water inevitably collected and pooled in the dark confines of the boot.

We managed to prise ourselves out of the café and into heavy, wet clothes, gloves, helmets et al and I took to the front with Taffy Steve, intent on setting a brisk pace to try and warm up a little. Approaching the penultimate climb we were so engaged in a deep philosophical discussion of the Lego Movie that I failed to notice we were riding into a flooded section of the road. While everyone did their best to edge around the perimeter of this lake where the water was the shallowest, I plunged straight through the middle and quickly found myself up to the wheel hubs in water.

I was considering freewheeling through the rest, but the water only deepened further and sucked away my momentum. In real danger of toppling spectacularly I recovered and thrashed my way through, with the water lapping up to my knees.

Somehow, despite guffawing uproariously at my antics the BFG still had enough puff left to attack the hill, and as Laurelan jumped to give chase I swung onto to her wheel and followed. Over the top the BFG, Cow Ranger, and Tri-Boy kept pushing the pace, while I switched from wheel to wheel, occasionally drifting back to clear my eyes from the constant pressure hose wash of road spray being flung off the tyres.

We made good time and I was soon turning off for home, leaving the BFG chuckling to himself, this time as much amused by the Cow Ranger’s mad thrashing to try and drop everyone as my aborted attempt at water skiing.

I arrived home in good time, stopping on my way to a hot shower only long enough to deposit a sodden heap of slowly leaking clothing in a big puddle on the kitchen floor. Bizarrely, masochistically a good run out.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

I did discover one bad consequence of riding in a group in weather like this as, for a couple of days afterwards, my eyeballs felt like they’d been taken out, lightly sand-papered, rolled in salt and then squeezed back in.

I also realised my Galibier jacket, while perfectly adequate for showers and occasional rain, isn’t going to keep me dry through exposure to a heavy and sustained downpour like we endured today.

And one final thought – to be fully compliant, I really do need to paint a Plimsoll line on the winter bike…

YTD Totals: 5,429 km/ 3,260 miles with 60,918 metres of climbing.

The Gastone Nencini Chapeau Awards

More coveted than the “coveted Pointless Trophy”, more glorious than receiving kudos on Strava, occasionally a bigger slap in the face than the Carbuncle awards and more opprobrious than a Razzie, it’s time for another (drum roll, trumpet fanfare) Chapeau Award.

Highlighting the brave, the absurd, the whole-hearted, the mad, the bad, the glorious in the cycling world – from the famous to the futile, international hero to the unheralded local, the omnipresent giants of the sport and those gad flies that occasionally flicker across our consciousness before disappearing forever.

This week we salute pro-rider Kris Boekmans.

Boeckmans was put into a medically-induced coma following a horrific crash on stage 8 of the Vuelta a España that left him with a concussion, a torn lung, and severe facial fractures. His team spokesperson, Arne Houtekier reported, “Everything is broken in his face, his nose, his jawbone, teeth… Everything.”

The good news is Boekmans is now out of danger and recovering from reconstructive surgery, but he faces a long, hard and very uncertain road back to the pro peloton. We wish him luck.

Karl Boekmans – Gastone Nencini salutes you – Chapeau!

The Texas Chainring Massacre and the Road to Cheesecake.

Club Run, Saturday 31^st October, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 107 km/66 miles with 884 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 07 minutes

Group size: 30 riders with no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Astonishingly mild.

Main topic of conversation at the start: As I rolled up to the meeting place the BFG told me I looked like Fausto Coppi. Normally I would have been insufferably pleased at such a compliment as surely no rider has ever looked as elegant as the languid and composed Il Campionissimo. In this instance however it just made me question the BFG’s suspect eyesight.

My suspicion’s regarding his lack of ocular acuity were further confirmed when he told me he spent most of last Sunday’s club run admiring another riders leg warmers, which he thought were the acme of form-fitting apparel and style, perfectly moulded to the riders physique and showing every bulging muscle and sinew. He was just about to ask where he could buy a pair of leg warmers just like them, when the Prof pointed out he was actually looking at the legs of one of the black guys who was only wearing shorts.

The BFG then went on to tell me that in his world torque wrenches and washers were all redundant, information the Offshore Safety Directive Regulator may be interested in.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

The Red Max kept us royally entertained, first with the tales of last Sunday’s club run when an encounter with a local Tri-Club led to a bit of competitive drag racing that blew the two groups apart and caused chaos down Berwick Hill, or as Zippy commented near the road to the Cheese Cake. He did correct himself and obviously meant the Cheese Farm, but I like the thought of a road to Cheese Cake so much that I’ve pinched it.

Red Max then moved on to his ultra-competitive, turbo-training sessions with the Monkey Butler Boy (aka Red Max Junior) which have seemingly become a source of marital discord. These used to be played out across dual turbo’s set up in front of the TV, with the protagonists vying to see who can pedal fastest while simultaneously trying to frag each other online in Call of Duty. Unfortunately a liberal coating of oil to a new chain led to the last contest spraying an arc of oil from chainset to ceiling, like the spray of blood in a bad slasher movie.

To compound the issue, Mrs. Max returned home one night to find Max and the Monkey Butler Boy sitting in the middle of the living room floor with Max’s dirty bike spread out in pieces all around them. Max couldn’t quite understand what the furore was all about, as he phlegmatically suggested, “It wasn’t as if we were watching hardcore porn while she was out.” Needless to say bikes and bikers are now banned from the living room.

With OGL being absent we looked to Grover for oberleutnant and enforcer duties. He was late appearing in the café queue, perhaps as he was outside inspecting bikes and taking down the names of all those without mudguards.

We idly wondered if other cycling clubs were run like the Cosa Nostra, with an all-powerful Capo, but didn’t talk about it too loudly in case we woke up to find a sawn-off set of handlebars sharing the bed with us.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

And so it’s time put away bright shiny carbon things and coax the reluctant and recalcitrant Peugeot winter bike out of “le sulk”. I feel that half the battle with continuing to ride throughout the winter is not to have a bike that you hate so much you can’t bring yourself to swing a leg over it, that’s just putting one more barrier in the way of riding – as if the rain, wind, freezing cold, ice, dark, pot-holed and filthy, crappy roads aren’t disincentive enough. (Remind me again why I do this?)

So we’ve entered a period of entente cordiale where I’m trying to make the Peugeot feel loved and wanted, after all it’s going to be a long few months where I rely on it. On Saturday for example we celebrated the birthday of Philippe de Vitry, French composer, poet, and theorist and breakfasted on pain au raisin and warm brioche. Meanwhile Alizée, Mylene Farmer, The Dø, and Yelle have all been on heavy rotation on the iPod.

(In keeping with the Gallic theme, on Friday night I watched The Returned – it’s started a bit slow and it’s not quite up to the standards of the first series yet, but it does still feature super-creepy kid Victor, who bears a striking resemblance to Alberto Contador.)

victor contador — Alberto Contador as creepy revenant Victor in The Returned and Swann Nambotin (yes, really) as Alberto Contador in the new Steak Out movie. (Sorry).

I’ve even tried to curry favour with the Peugeot through lavish, hopeful gifts– gone are the no-name brakes for something with a bit more stopping power and I’ve recently bought a new pair of shiny Cinelli bar end plugs and some Schwalbe Durano tyres. I haven’t fitted the tyres yet but hope will prove as puncture resistant as the Gatorskin Ultra’s are have been, while providing a little more grip.

Le Peugeot, Waiting for the Winter – as the (rather fabulous) Popguns once sang.

So that’s it – we’re all geared up for winter and good to go. Now let’s see what the weather’s going to throw at us…

If today is an example though, I think we’ll be all right. Heavy rain throughout Friday left the roads wet and with lots of surface water everywhere, but the day was mild, generally still and pleasant.

Fausto Coppi not only epitomised grace and elegance on the bike, but could keep the peloton in stitches with his famous preying mantis impersonation. — Fausto Coppi not only epitomised grace and elegance on the bike, but kept the peloton in stitches with his famous preying mantis impersonation.

The kit was pretty much the same as last week, long sleeve jersey, base layer, shorts leg warmers and long-fingered gloves. The only difference was I swapped the Belgian booties for waterproof shoe covers. Yet again I was surprised to see a number still out in their shorts. Brave, foolish, or just considerably younger than I am, I guess.

OGL, G-Dawg and a few others were up in Jockland for the Braveheart Dinner and with Crazy Legs suffering from sustained, serious jet lag it was left to Red Max and Taffy Steve to lead us out into the unknown. A good group of 30 lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and took the road out west.

Our regular lane out into the countryside was awash with debris; gravel, leaves, hedge trimmings and who knows what else, and sure enough we had only left it a couple of mile behind when Shoeless pulled over with a puncture. We rolled past as he stopped to make repairs, and turned off the main route, ironically on the road to Cheese Cake.

I was sitting comfortably perched on the crossbar, chatting with Taffy Steve while we waited and just happened to mention that I was surprised we only had the one puncture as I idly stabbed a thumb into my front tyre. This turned out to be a big mistake as the tyre was suspiciously squishy and would have given a ride I could only describe as plush.

Whipping out a new tube I set to work, and I was still wrestling to replace a particularly recalcitrant tyre by the time Shoeless rejoined. Zardoz then took pity on my effete weakness (damn, I broke a nail as well) and utilised his “pincers of steel” fingers to neatly and effortlessly pop the tyre back onto the rim for me.

I declined Crazy Legs’s kind offer of a lend of his molto piccolo, Blackburn Airstick and used Taffy Steves mighty frame pump to give my upper body an intense workout, harder than any of the pedalling I done up to that point. (Following the Crazy Legs tradition, I popped my track pump onto the tyre when I got home to discover my considerable and most strenuous efforts had driven a massive, awe inspiring 50 psi into the tyre.)

Under way again we passed the landed gentry, striding out intent on slaughtering the local wildlife. Usually this takes the form of a hunt – all horse faced people on, well, horse-faced horses (what did you expect?). This week however it was a shooting party, all goofy tweed jackets, baggy, three quarter-length “trizers”, flat caps and shiny Purdey’s, strolling down the middle of the road and out to “bag a grice or two.” They seemed unconscionably cheerful about what they were doing.

What, what, Old Boy - I can't shoot grice in these trizers. (With apologies to Steve Bell) — “What, what, Old Boy – I can’t shoot grice in these trizers.” (With apologies to Steve Bell)

We split at the junction to the Quarry, with a few of the racing snakes heading for a long, fast descent and then a corresponding long haul back uphill. I noticed the FNG from last week got sucked in by the Siren Song of the Racing Snakes and went with them. I silently wished him luck.

Split made, the pace was pushed higher and higher and I sat on Zardoz’s wheel as he dragged us up toward the front. With the group heading for the “Snake Bends” route to the café (not favourable terrain for me) I decided to blast the Quarry Climb instead, and hit the front on the last steep ramp, managing to pull clear and hang on with my nose in front as we crested and swung right. I even managed to net a Strava PR of 4:41 for the climb.

As we hit a long drag, followed by a few fast descents I again found myself on the front negotiating a particularly hazardous, gravel-strewn corner. I drove on through a couple of junctions and more slight rises that all felt like major cols and hung out front until the road levelled and Red Max led the charge past me and down to the Snake Bends. Great fun.

Another puny weakling from the waist up struggles to force more than 50 psi into a tyre.

On the ride home Shoeless and I commiserated together about having to repair punctures in front of everyone and amidst all the sharp intakes of breath, head-shaking, tutting and “You don’t do it like that” comments. Still, it’s character forming … isn’t it?

So far, so good…

YTD Totals: 5,322 km/ 3,260 miles with 60,139 metres of climbing.

Sur La Jante

The Chronicles, Confessions and Idle Musings of a Club Cyclist

Month: November 2015

God Speed You! Black Emperor

Winter’s Blast

Van Impudence!

Banjaxed!

Hell and High Water

The Gastone Nencini Chapeau Awards

The Texas Chainring Massacre and the Road to Cheesecake.