Audi-ophobia and an Ab-Fab Ride

Club Run, Saturday 23^rd July, 2016

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 114 km/71 miles with 1,075 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 23 minutes

Average Speed: 26.0 km/h

Group size: 22 riders, No FNG’s

Temperature: 23°C

Weather in a word or two: Overcast, humid

Ride Profile

The Ride:

Overnight rain had washed some of the mugginess out of the air and it was appreciably cooler compared to the stifling and oppressive stuffiness we’d endured in the past few days.

It didn’t look like it would be long before things warmed up though, with the sky capped by an insulating layer of thick, grey cloud and the wind light enough to leave the grass unstirred.

One consequence of the morning freshness following a week of warm humidity was that all the gardens, hedgerows and fields were growing with lush, unchecked abandon and the air was thick with a noticeable scent of blossom and pollen – which I found appealing, but is probably hell for anyone with allergies.

A few minor incidents with motorists kept me distracted on the run in and got me thinking about certain makes of car and my expectations of their drivers.

The first happened shortly after I’d left home and was dropping over the brow of the Heinous Hill, letting gravity pull me down and picking up speed rapidly. Around half way down I became aware of a car surging up on my right and moving to overtake – despite the fact I was already travelling at 38 mph, there was a traffic island slap bang in the middle of the road and we were fast approaching a sharp, blind bend.

I glanced behind to see a low-slung, black car hovering menacingly on my shoulder, so swung further out into the lane to dispel any notion that this was a suitable or safe place to try and overtake a solitary cyclist. Luckily sense prevailed, the car pulled back and I managed to open up a fairly sizeable gap as I skimmed down to the foot of the hill.

Turning left at the bottom I set out along the valley floor and it wasn’t long before the black car went blatting past at a quite ridiculous speed. I wasn’t even remotely surprised to register that it was an Audi TT, although they did catch me out by not remonstrating more forcefully about the 20 second delay I’d caused them.

Crossing the river and then doubling-back on myself, I then swooped around one bend to find a double-decker bus pulling out in front of me, so slowed to allow him space. Once again I sensed a car travelling too fast and too close, surge up close behind me before braking sharply and falling back.

This time it was blue Audi saloon, with a hugely pressing need to be somewhere else in a hurry and the righteous entitlement to all of the road. Oh, plus that unique capabilities that only a big German car can bestow, the capacity to see around corners and completely through large opaque objects, coupled with a magic shield of invulnerability.

Then, clambering up the other side of the valley, I was swinging left at a junction when a car followed me around, sweeping by much too close. This turned out to be a red Audi estate, driven (badly) by a man steering only with his left hand, because his right was much too hot and sticky, so he felt the need to dangle it out of his open window.

Now, I’m not suggesting that every Audi driver is a brainless RIM, or psychotic, self-entitled and dangerous arse-hat, but it does strike me that in my experience, these types of car have a higher chance of being piloted by just this type of driver. Vorsprung durch entrüsten, if you will.

It’s interesting, because a few years ago I would have classed BMW drivers as the ones to be wary around – perhaps our economic woes have caused them all to downshift? I also get the feeling that every cyclist has different experiences and their own personal bête noire when it comes to motor vehicles. Perhaps we need a national survey to identify the worst offenders – but for the time being, in lieu of more definitive evidence I’ll stick to my Audi-ophobia.

Main topic of conversation at the start:

I arrived to find Rab Dee discussing the latest progress (or perhaps lack of progress would be more accurate) on his new bike-build project, which seems to be struggling through a long, drawn-out and slightly troublesome gestation.

In fact, such are some of the complexities of his new BMC Time Machine that he has had to hand it over to OGL for help with some of the ultra-technical bits.

When I queried what the delay was, he reported that OGL is, “Waiting for a bit.”

My brain rattled and shook and clunked while I tried to process this, and when it failed I had to ask for clarification: “When you say he’s waiting for a bit, do you mean he’s waiting for a while … or that he’s waiting for a part?”

For some reason I had this rather churlish and totally unjustified suspicion that OGL might be punishing Rab for giving him such a thankless task, so had decided to agonisingly prolong the wait before he could ride his new toy. But no, apparently he is actually awaiting the arrival of a necessary component.

Crazy Legs arrived suffering a self-inflicted ear-worm as a consequence of spending Friday night at an amateur production of West Side Story, so we were treated to a fine rendition of “Gee, Officer Krupke.”

Golly Moses, natcherly we’re punks?

This was, somewhat startlingly a lot more highbrow than his usual endless repository of slightly off-kilter, occasionally tacky, pre-Millennial pop songs.

G-Dawg revealed his deepest, darkest shame – his close encounter with the Monkey Butler Boy last week had resulted in a slightly damaged spoke that he’d felt honour-bound to replace. The only problem was he couldn’t find any 3mm spokes and had to substitute in a 2mm one, which deeply offended his sense of order and tidiness.

He pointed out the exact spoke with an accusatory finger, it’s precise location seared into his memory by sheer mortification. We looked and looked. And then we looked some more, but none of us could actually see which one was the offending spoke, or notice even the slightest variation among any of the spokes in the immediate area.

At the meeting point I was somewhat surprised that only around 22 lads and lasses had gathered before we set out, given the weather I was expecting a much bigger turn out.

Son of G-Dawg joined the party late after, well partying late, enshrouded in a fugue of alcoholic fumes. It was good to see our plan of keeping him hopelessly hungover on Saturday mornings is working so well. Even better when you realise it’s all self-inflicted and we haven’t yet had to have a whip-round to secure him vast quantities of debilitating alcohol.

The first indication that OGL had something different in mind was when we swung left at the first roundabout. Although quite unusual, this was not unheard of … but this was just the precursor, the appetiser, the hor d’oeuvres for a distinctly different club run.

I slotted in beside the Cow Ranger who informed me he was out for a gentle recovery ride ahead of a block of intense training for some upcoming triathlons. As we passed in front of the airport an all too familiar tinkling noise informed me that I’d jettisoned something else off the bike and I pulled over to let everyone else pass and see what I’d lost now.

Backtracking, I eventually found the bolt that held my camera to its mount had somehow worked loose and fallen away, but luckily the camera had remained in place. I tightened everything up again and gave chase.

NOVATEK CAMERA — Now what’s dropped off?

There was no sign of our fast-travelling pack at the first junction, where I was faced with a 50/50 choice – left and up the hill or straight on and through the village. I guessed straight on and swept over the roundabout, trying to peer around the cars ahead and catch even the slightest glimpse of a brightly coloured peloton to let me know I was on the right road, but they were nowhere in sight.

Further delayed by traffic lights, I crossed the bridge in Ponteland and took our usual route heading straight over the next roundabout. Just as I exited, the Cow Ranger popped up with a very welcome “they went that-a-way” – pointing in the completely opposite direction, a direction in fact that I don’t recall us ever taking before and one I would never have guessed at without his timely intervention.

I did a quick U-turn, caught up with the Cow Ranger and we combined to give chase. Not only had I made him hang back and provide directions, I was now about to utterly ruin his gentle recovery ride as we started a madcap pursuit that lasted perhaps 3 or 4 miles.

Other than the moment when a car pulled abruptly out of a drive in front of us, our speed never dropped below 20 mph as we hammered along rolling roads, hoping to make the catch before the inevitable junction or split that left us with an insoluble choice, or before my legs burned down to ash and crumbled away.

We finally tagged onto the back two or three cars that were trailing our mob like a convoy of team service vehicles. Sadly, there were no sticky bottles to be had and drafting through the cars didn’t seem like the wisest thing to do, so we waited until they overtook our group and then we were finally able to latch onto the wheels.

I thanked the Cow Ranger for his directions and inestimable help chasing back-on, in-between gasping for breath and trying to recover. “Yes, it’s surprising how fast we actually travel when we seem to be just pootling along in a group,” he replied laconically.

We had caught on just in time as OGL’s intended route unfolded and proved to be quite novel, encompassing many roads untraveled and some semi-familiar ones we took in the opposite direction to our normal rides. These felt eerily recognisable, but subtly different and I soon had to admit I was completely lost.

We called a pee-stop, but in the absence of the Prof and the Plank and the continuing saga of their duelling bladders, there were no takers.

The group split and the faster, longer, harder mob did a big loop around Middleton Bank, substituting one big climb for several smaller ones that proved possibly even more leg-sapping.

We regrouped after crossing one major road, where we waited for Son of G-Dawg to determine if he was going down the marginal gains route of reducing weight by losing his stomach contents. Hangover induced nausea (barely) contained we pressed on, slowly closing on the café and ratcheting the speed up accordingly.

As we clattered down toward the Snake Bends I found myself comfortably tucked into the wheels as Son of G-Dawg defied his hangover to sprint off the front and away. I swung out and started to move past a few riders. I wasn’t attacking as such, but the momentum I’d gained surfing the wheels had me travelling faster than everyone else I was slipstreaming. Unsurprisingly this brought a reaction, everyone kicked and I slotted neatly back in to place and rode the wheels to the café without really needing to exert myself.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

Captain Black suffered a senior moment when ordering an additional glass of iced-water to go with his coffee and scone. He looked at the numbers on the till display in some confusion and saw them blinking £5.80 at him –considerably more than the £4.20 he expected to spend.

“How much is the water?” He asked in a strangled voice.

“It’s free.”

“But, but, how much are you charging for the coffee and scone now?” He asked, pointing accusingly at the LCD numbers still blinking furiously on the till and starting to get a little exasperated.

“£2.40 for the coffee, £1.80 for the scone.”

“Huh?” He responded, now gesturing vaguely at the till display in confusion.

“You gave me a £10 note…” the waitress patiently prompted, waiting for the penny to drop.

You could hear the cogs whirring and catch the faint smell of burning as Captain Black ran through a series of not too exacting mental calculations: £2.40 for coffee plus £1.80 for the scone plus £0.00 for the water, that makes, oh let me see … £4.20! And I gave her £10.00, so £10.00 minus £4.20 …

“Oh!”

Outside in the garden we tried to calculate just how much money the café made from our patronage, with OGL airily suggesting a figure in excess of £50,000 a year. My own version of whirring cogs and faint burning suggested less than £20,000 is probably a more accurate, but still not inconsiderable sum – perhaps adequate compensation for our unceasing chatter, occasional smothering of the fireplace in kit that smells as bad as a wet dog and the odd random waterlogged seat cushion.

And of course we’re not the only group of cyclists that regularly visit the café.

(Assumes an average of 25 cyclists per visit on every Saturday and Sunday throughout the year – it may be higher in summer, but will definitely be less in winter –spending £7.50 per head. Or 25 cyclist’s x 2 days’ x 52 weeks’ x £7.50 spend = £19,500).

Someone suggested a loyalty card, but Crazy Legs dismissed the idea as he could foresee it involving the collection of at least 50 stamps. So then – one single free cup a year or perhaps even less frequently? Nah.

Thoughts then turned to how we could ever trust a figure like the proven liar and epitome of boorish, public-schoolboy buffoonery, Boris Johnson with the post of Foreign Secretary and expect him to forge relations with the rest of the world given his unerring propensity to casually insult other people and insert his size 11 shoes into his always uselessly-flapping maw.

Discussion turned to our American cousins’ desperate Hobson’s Choice – Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton and how the world appeared to be sleep-walking toward disaster. Crazy Legs however was quick to remind us that we all thought the world was going to end when Ronald Reagan was elected and somehow we managed to survive, so perhaps there’s hope yet.

The ride home found Crazy Legs pondering if the recently announced Undertones 4oth Anniversary Tour would feature Feargal Sharkey (sadly not) – which in turn led to an impromptu “Jimmy, Jimmy” duet as we climbed Berwick Hill.

Perhaps spurred on by the ragged rhythms of our punkish nostalgia, or more possibly in an attempt to deprive us of the oxygen required to keep singing, the pace picked up until OGL was complaining that he’d “raced up here at a slower speed” than we were churning out. Not that he ever, ever, in a billion-gazillion years, ever exaggerates.

Crazy Legs declared it another great ride and who am I to disagree, as we split for home and I cruised through the Mad Mile and away. I passed one of those stick-thin, hard-as-teak, old cyclists cruising along on a vintage steel bike and exchanged the obligatory, UCI approved universal greeting: “How do?”

Spotting my Viner jersey, he started to quiz me about its provenance, obviously mistaking me for one of those Johnny-come-lately, young whipper-snappers who doesn’t appreciate the heritage of great cycling brands and needs forcibly re-educating, like the youngster who saw my Holdsworth Stelvio and asked what kind of name that was for a bike. I think I managed to convince him I wasn’t just an effete poseur and thankfully he let me go without further admonishment.

For the second time in the past fortnight I was passed climbing the Heinous Hill by someone on an e-bike (see: Electraglide in Beige – although this time it was more a case of Electraglide in Hi-Viz.)

I told the old feller atop it that now I knew I was doing something wrong and he suggested I might be looking at my own future. Not yet though and not today. Today I couldn’t see any of the four horsemen astride the e-bike and I wasn’t on my ratbag mountain bike either, or carrying a heavy backpack.

So, despite having 70 miles in the legs already, I dug in and increased the tempo. Then, trying to keep a perfectly expressionless face and breathe easily, I caught up to, passed and dropped the damn e-bike. Ouch, it hurt, but I got there.

YTD Totals: 4,293 km / 2,668 miles with 42,402 metres of climbing

Crosswind Chaos

Club Run, Saturday 16^th July, 2016

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 113 km/70 miles with 1,001 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 18 minutes

Average Speed: 26.2 km/h

Group size: 27 riders, 1 FNG

Temperature: 22°C

Weather in a word or two: Bright ‘n’ blowy

Ride Profile

The Ride:

For some peculiar reason I was awake and up 25 minutes before my alarm sounded. Perhaps it was the anticipation brought about by the bright blue vault of sky, promising a seemingly ultra-rare break with recent tradition – a Saturday free of rain.

Despite being up early I was actually late leaving the house as I bumbled about aimlessly. My usual timing checkpoint is at 8.42 mile into the ride, which I typically pass at around 8:42. Today however it was pushing 8:48 when I passed this mark, perhaps a consequence of the strong blustery wind that was already proving troublesome, with stretches of debilitating headwind interspersed with occasional sneaky crosswind-ambushes that kept blowing me off line.

I picked the pace up a little and all the traffic lights were kind, so I made the meeting point only a couple of minutes later than usual.

Main topic of conversation at the start:

A couple of riders started bonding, cooing and billing over their perfectly matched, exquisitely expensive and identical Storck Scenaro’s, even going as far as lining them up side by side to compare length and girth. “Great, just what we need,” Taffy Steve proclaimed, “A couple of Storckers!”

The Red Max had eschewed his favourite colours to pair a green, orange and white jersey with red and black shorts in an all-out, kaleidoscopic assault on unprotected retinas. Taffy Steve suggested if he tried wearing that sort of thing in Italy he would be run off the streets.

He then turned his critical attention to a contradictory Crazy Legs who was wearing a smart Bianchi celeste jersey … but riding his pampered and cossetted Ribble. The Bianchi itself had been confined to the garage for this week – the sure sign that ancient soothsayers and weather-watchers everywhere eagerly awaited, so they could declare with the utmost conviction that there was absolutely, positively zero chance of any rain today.

Taffy Steve then had one of those: “You say Bian-shee, I say Bian-kee” moments, before decrying the idiosyncrasies of modern languages and wondering why they didn’t just name themselves Biankee to save us all confusion.

“That’s rich, coming from someone who hails from a place where Llandudno, Pontypridd or even Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch are deemed acceptable names.” The Red Max countered.

(And yes, of course I had to Google Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch)

Taffy Steve argued that, just like Polish(?) at least Welsh was completely logical and consistent in its formation and application of letters – even if it did result in unpronounceable names – unlike English with its “kneed” and “need” and “knead” or words like “set” and “run” with hundreds upon hundreds of different meanings.

Around 27 lads and lasses were clustered around at the meeting point enjoying the promise of a day in the sun and more importantly staying dry as well. At exactly 9:15 Garmin time, Crazy legs and Taffy Steve decreed it was time to go and started to very deliberately clip in.

This was the cue for OGL to confront Crazy Legs and insist he didn’t immediately jump onto the front and ramp the pace up above 15 mph. This admonishment seemed to set a fire burning in Red Max, who was so keen to get on the front he raked his pedal through my spokes as he spun around, before enthusiastically bounding off to head the peloton. Luckily there was no damage done, but it was perhaps a precursor to the rest of the ride.

After the first roundabout a rider I didn’t recognise drifted to the side of the road and stopped. Apparently there’d been a clash with another rider and he had snapped a spoke. One guy dropped back to see what the problem was, while the rest of us chased on to let everyone know what was happening behind.

We turned off the main road, slowed and started again, then slowed and stopped. And started again and then stopped and then there was a lot of shouting and angry gesticulating between the Red Max and OGL, the perfect accompaniment to our staccato, stop-start dance.

We finally determined that the loss of a spoke had been terminal and the rider had turned for home, so we pushed on and tried to regain some sort of order.

A few miles further on and G-Dawg was swooping over to the other side of the road to stop and check his wheel after another inadvertent clash of riders. This had seen his spokes completely chop the end off the Monkey Butler Boy’s quick release skewer, an aero-spoke sheering effortlessly through the hard plastic nut at the opposite end to the lever. Somewhat amazingly there was no damage to G-Dawgs wheel and more importantly and somewhat miraculously, neither rider had come to grief.

A brief stop to quickly check everything and everyone was actually okay and off we went again. I was drifting near the back, riding along with Crazy Legs as we admired the light whistling noise Moscas’s carbon rims made every time he applied the brakes.

Another stop to regroup gave Mad Max and OGL an unedifying chance to exhume and resume their earlier fiery exchange, which seemed to be about stopping and starting and hand signals and (somewhat ironically) clear communication.

As we reached the split point, OGL then rode off on his own without waiting to form an amblers group, perhaps in a fit of pique, or perhaps just wanting to enjoy some splendid isolation and the good weather.

An impromptu amblers group did finally get itself formed up and rolled away, while the longer, harder, faster group started to make their way toward the Quarry Climb and the final dash for the café.

The route was lumpy, the pace was high and the wind was still providing a little extra encumbrance. I found myself slowly drifting back through the group on the climbs with strangely hollow legs and no great desire to push too hard.

I started the approach to the Quarry Climb at the back and soon found myself having to circumnavigate the not inconsiderable impediment of a flailing and failing BFG, who had seemingly reached his limit. As someone later mentioned at the café he only seems to have two modes of operation, full-on or flaccid, and he was definitely in the latter mode now.

Crazy Legs had dropped back to escort the ailing leviathan, who was emitting weird warbling distress signals, like a mournful whale song and was slumping in the saddle as if he’d been holed below the waterline.

Crazy Legs declared they had now formed the “gruppetto” and we should just press on without them, but a gap had opened up to the front group and was quickly growing.

Someone volunteered to relieve Crazy Legs of his pilot fish role and he eagerly skipped across to the leading group, bridging the gap with ease. I didn’t have the heart or the legs to follow, so just settled into my own rhythm with Taffy Steve, Captain Black tagging along behind and suffering through his own man-flu induced hell.

The main group reached the top of the Quarry climb as I hit the bottom and they turned left to loop around and start the long run down to the café with the wind at their backs. I slowed as I reached the top, checked Taffy Steve saw where I was going and swung right instead of left.

The right hand route to the cafe seems to be harder, with more climbing and more stop-start junctions, but it’s undoubtedly shorter and quicker and the road surface is much better.

The two of us worked together to keep the pace going through a series of leg-sapping rises, junctions and sharp corners. Nevertheless, I was surprised when we were spat out onto the front groups route, to find we were not only ahead of them, but they were nowhere in sight.

Taffy Steve led us through the Snake Bends and then tried to give me a lead out for the last burst to the café, but when he pulled over I could barely find the speed to get past him. We still managed to roll into the café well before the rest arrived, a fabulous piece of queue-gazumping.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

The welcome change of commentary team on the ITV4 Tour de France coverage has finally rid us of the tired, tiresome and increasingly error-prone Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen and seemed to meet with universal approval.

The only real drawback now is the frequency of the ad breaks, exacerbated by the same ads being shown over and over on a limited and very heavy rotation.

Particularly irksome were the trashy Škoda ads bookending each break, especially one that shows a guy riding past a mountain backdrop – his helmet strap is twisted and it really offends me. (Apologies in advance if you hadn’t noticed this and the ad now becomes even more annoying.)

As Taffy Steve pronounced, “Bloody hell, Škoda – I’ve already bought the car, can’t I be excused the ads?”

Crazy Legs admired G-Dawgs new, fluffy yellow mitts and suggested that as he looked back to fully catch and appreciate the subtle whistling of brake pads engaging with Moscas’s carbon wheels, he liked to imagine the mitts were two small chicks, chirping loudly and dancing happily across the top of G-Dawg’s handlebars.

Someone suggested yellow gloves were more suited to my worst foppish excesses. Son of G-Dawg meanwhile decided that the best way of ensuring ensure each rider was fully-coordinated was to swap clothes around at the start of a ride, so we could match kit to bike. Anyone left looking … well like the Red Max today, would then be sent home in disgrace, or made to ride on their own.

Talk of Tour de France crashes led to enquiries about how our own injured phenom, zeB was recovering following his attempt to trace a racing-line through a tree – apparently with the sole intent of seeing just how easy it would be to destroy a scapula.

It was suggested he’d had to wait several hours for an ambulance and Andeven (who knows about this sort of thing) suggested it was the consequence of over-stretched emergency services being abused by people using up valuable resources when they only have a headache, a spelk in their finger or are just too lazy to get off their fat asses and make their own way to an accident and emergency centre.

Taffy Steve’s simple and elegant solution was to give all the idiotic malingerers and time-wasters Chinese burns and then send them to wait for a couple of hours in the entirely fictional Chinese Burns Department. Works for me.

There was of course lots of discussion about a certain ungainly Mr. Froome and the rather unedifying happenings on Mont Ventoux.

We agreed that the only suitable accompaniment for Froome, pedalling furiously on an undersized Mavic bike would be the March of the Clowns. Meanwhile someone wondered why the neutral service bikes weren’t fitted with mountain bike dropper seatposts, so you could have some control of sizing on the fly.

This brought up the potential of a small rider clipping in and then inadvertently hitting the button to release the hydraulic seatpost, only to give himself a hefty kick up the backside and be flipped over the handlebars. Well, it all adds to the spectacle.

The Monkey Butler Boy swung past and showed us how he’d managed to get into that ridiculous descending tuck a la Chris Froome, crouched precariously over the top tube and how he’d subsequently become stuck with his ass caught under his saddle and really had a struggle to free himself. So – an ever so slightly more aerodynamic and maybe faster, but a stupidly uncomfortable descending style, that looks utterly ridiculous and is frighteningly unsafe. Hmm, think I’ll pass.

Meanwhile, Crazy Legs suggested he actually felt sorry for Ritchie Porte … Well, there had to be one, I guess.

The trip back passed without incident, but I swung off the Mad Mile for my solo ride home directly into a headwind that dogged me all the way down to the river. Here and for the last 3 or 4 miles I now had a tailwind and it pushed me along at a decent pace to the foot of Heinous Hill for one last, big climb.

I arrived home to find I’d actually caught the sun and had tan-lines that didn’t disappear under the liberal application of soap and water. Now that’s more like it, British summer-time.

YTD Totals: 4,127 km / 2,564 miles with 40,732 metres of climbing

Electraglide in Beige

Dragging my tired and sorry ass up the Heinous Hill on my commute home yesterday, I was effortlessly overtaken by a middle-aged woman on an e-bike – a sort of electraglide in beige.

“Hey!” I shouted, “That’s cheating.”

“You still have to pedal.” She laughed. I would have joined in, but I was much too short of breath.

It transpired she had asthma and couldn’t ride a normal bike, but the e-bike was ideal for her and allowed her to zip up the worst climbs without even breaking sweat.

I have to say being passed by an e-bike is a lot more pleasant and a lot less stressful than jockeying for road space with any other kind of motorised vehicle. If an e-bike is suitable for an asthmatic, middle-aged woman on a fairly arduous climb, then it seems like just about anyone could use one, just about anywhere.

Wouldn’t the world be a much better place if even just a tiny fraction of car journeys were made by e-bike instead?

I’ve seen the future and it looks electric – even if it means being shamed by grannies who can climb like a super-charged Lance.

Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey and the Ovine Menace

Club Run, Saturday 9^th July, 2016

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 100 km/62 miles with 914 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 3 hours 54 minutes

Average Speed: 25.5 km/h

Group size: 26 riders, 2 FNG’s

Temperature: 20°C

Weather in a word or two: Overcast, humid

Main topic of conversation at the start:

Arriving bedecked in vintage CSC team kit, I caused Taffy Steve to enquire if I’d been wasting yet more money on cycling frippery and finery. For once I could plead not guilty as the kit had just been recently excavated from the depths of the Old Lycra mountain. I explained it wasn’t new, but very, very old, to which he replied, “Ah! Very old. I should have guessed that, coming from you!” Ouch. I think that might have been payback for last week’s suggestion that he resembled a hulking, grumpy, shockingly profane and disturbingly hirsute Tinkerbell.

The kit was actually a gift from the team to the Pacific Vice President of CSC, who had no interest in cycling, so gave it to his brother, who had no interest in cycling, so he gave it to me. It always makes me smile when I pick it up because it’s clearly marked as being an XL size.

After a much too long absence, Grover emerged to a round of incredulous looks, double-takes and even one or two exploratory prods to see if he was indeed a corporeal entity.

“Is it a miradjee?” Taffy Steve enquired in his best Bugs Bunny/Mel Blanc voice.

“Don’t be an ultra-maroon.” I retorted, before we started arguing, while the FNG’s looked on genuinely perplexed and bewildered:

“It’s duck season!”

“No, it’s rabbit season!”

“Duck season.”

“Rabbit season”

Oh well, it made us chuckle.

Meanwhile Crazy Legs rolled up sur la Bianchi, a sure sign that the much-cosseted Ribble has somehow re-gained its protected status and is being held back because there is a chance (no matter how slim) that we might encounter some precipitation on the ride.

Crazy Legs confided that he was actually hoping for rain as his shoes were still “too clean and too white” and he hated them. This was an argument I’d only ever encountered once before, from a deeply fashion-conscious, overly-sensitive, pre-teen daughter when I’d asked her why she wouldn’t wear the very new, very expensive Converse Hi-Tops she insisted we buy her.

Taffy Steve pondered whether Bianchi had ever tried to copyright their signature “celeste” blue-green colour, pretty much like Cadbury had tried with the colour purple and Lindt had apparently attempted with rabbits.

Rabbits? Whatever next, trying to copyright the letter “e?” Wh*r* would that l*av* us?”

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

Crazy Legs had to travel all the way from Newcastle to Worcester for his new job, a long and arduous journey, but necessary because the client said they only had one other operating base in the UK he could work from.

“Oh, where’s that then?” Crazy Legs politely enquired on finally arriving in Worcester.

“Cobalt.”

“Err … as in Cobalt Park?”

“Yes.”

Cobalt Park … North Shields?”

“Yeah, wherever that is…”

Oh, dear.

With the execrable, Euro 2016 football somnambulating toward some sort of long-overdue denouement, the only noteworthy revelation seems to be the scrotum stroking, bum crack teasing, finger sniffing antics of German Coach Joachim Löw. Yeugh! It thoroughly delighted Crazy Legs, though.

I was thinking you wouldn’t find a cyclist doing anything like that, when someone mentioned Contador having to change shoes on the fly following his crash and bravely holding his sweaty insoles in his teeth as he plummeted downhill. Yeugh#2! Was this the knock-out blow that finally put paid to El Pistolero’s Tour de France challenge?

For some reason I lost the thread of the conversation and when I returned the group were discussing a female rider who used to train with us, had incredible leg-strength, but couldn’t actually ride in a straight line. She was attributed with prodigious thighs and what I politely suggested we could perhaps describe as “child bearing calves.” Crazy Legs reflected that the enormous thighs might actually be an impediment to childbirth and I couldn’t help think of some imaginary poor baby being extruded between massive quad muscles, like a lump of Play-Doh. Yeugh#3.

The Waffle:

Awaking from too little sleep and feeling quite fuzzy around the edges, Saturday morning found me running on vodka vapours following a too-late Friday night out with work colleagues. This was definitely going to be a kill or cure experience.

I was only moving at half-speed, or perhaps I’m being overly-generous and quarter-speed would be more accurate. I left the house slightly late, taking my occasional alternate route and trading quiet roads for a 5-mile short-cut, managing to arrive with plenty of time to spare.

I was greeted at the meeting point by one FNG enquiring if he was in the right place and I explained he was, but he was at least 15 minutes too early and while our official start-time is listed as 9.00 there’d be no movement until at least 9.15. He just seemed relieved someone else had turned up as he confided he’d actually been hanging around since 8.45.

Picking up a couple more FNG’s, a fairly large group of 26 lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and rode out, many threading the needle between two rumbling double-decker buses that suddenly decided to try and blockade our exit with a bit of unnecessary bumper-kissing.

The weather seems to have settled into an all too familiar pattern, grey and overcast, with a feeling that rain could sweep in at any moment – the wind strong enough to be noticeable when not sheltered by fellow cyclists.

We’d just escaped into more rural areas when Son of G-Dawg punctured and we all huddled into a small lay-by while repairs were effected. One of the FNG’s took the opportunity to ask around for a hex key so he could adjust the release tension on his pedals.

“You should be tightening them, not loosening them.” The Prof, err, proffered.

“I don’t think so,” the FNG countered, “At the moment it’s easier and quicker to actually take my shoe off when I need to stop!”

He then crouched down by his bike, muttering the strange mantra, “righty-tighty, lefty-loosey” as he worked to loosen his pedal binding. The Prof looked on rather befuddled, wondering in his little scientific, engineers-heart what was wrong with plain-old clockwise and anti-clockwise.

Seemingly shaken by this radical, free-form way of thinking, he repeated the mantra aloud to himself, “righty-tighty, lefty-loosey” paused and then asked in a rather plaintive voice, “So what’s okie-dokie then?”

“Ah,” someone explained “That’s when you’ve done righty-tighty or lefty-loosey just enough.”

As we waited, OGL said that he’d had a clear out and had a load of useless and worn old tools he was going to throw away if anyone wanted them, while looking rather pointedly at the Prof as he made the announcement. Somewhat surprisingly the Prof wasn’t interested, explaining he already had a cache of useless and worn out tools (not that that has ever stopped him picking up other people’s junk before.)

He wasn’t even tempted when OGL offered up a set of files so useless and worn “they couldn’t file paper.”

I suggested there really wasn’t much call to file paper and the Prof quipped, “Especially these days with e-mail.” Ba-boom.

After we’d all finished groaning, Taffy Steve shook his head as he admonished us, “Bring together a bunch of dad’s and sure enough, all you’ll get are dad jokes.”

Someone pointed out that, never mind dads, there were grandads amongst us, but all chatter was silenced when Shoeless revealed he knew a 45-year-old great-grandmother.

Thankfully, Son of G-Dawg had finished his repairs and we were able to mount up and push on again.

I drifted to the back in the company of Taffy Steve discussing university congregations and the strange (in my mind, unforgiveable) fashion for wearing tan brogues with blue suits.

We dropped onto some narrow, rural lanes. I heard the shout of “car up!” and spotted a Porsche Cayenne – distant, but seemingly hurtling toward us. Surprisingly, it then pulled to the side of the road and stopped to allow us to safely pick our way past.

A little further on and a shiny black Mercedes did the same and then a massive BMW 4×4. I swear on the ride home I even saw an Audi driver pull to the side of the road, stop and wave us through, although Carlton assures me this was actually a Toyota. History and personal experience does tend to suggest he was right and I was mistaken.

Of course not all drivers were quite so accommodating and at one junction we found ourselves being charged by a monstrous black pick-up truck, in a manner that was purposefully meant to be intimidating. Arse hat.

Even greater peril was still yet to strike and I rounded one sharp bend to find everyone stopped and stationary around a supine Princess Fiona, who’d come off and was lying amongst the roadside nettles.

From what I can gather she’d been surprised by the sudden appearance of a panicked sheep on the road, braked too sharply and lost her back wheel. At least I think that’s what happened, but there was no sign of the offending ninja-sheep.

Princess Fiona was slowly helped back to her feet, a bit bloodied, bruised and scraped, but seemingly intact. Meanwhile Shoeless undertook some percussive maintenance on her twisted saddle and slapped her chain back into place.

Suddenly I saw the sheep for the first time, now charging fearlessly down the road between the slalom course of skinny cyclists and plastic bikes. So, not a miradjee then.

Our bleating, woolly friend had obviously wriggled through a hedge and overgrown ditch to escape, collecting a fair bit of greenery along the way. This was entangled, wound and woven throughout its fleece like some organic, ovine ghillie suit. By using this improvised camouflage, it had been able to lie in wait to ambush unsuspecting cyclists, leaping out with a mighty Boo!

Or maybe Baa!

Now it had either overcome its innate fear of cyclists, or something even more terrifying was driving it back through us.

The ground shook as a low rumble became a thunderous roar, and the sheep’s new nemesis appeared; a massive, shiny-yellow, Caterpillar tractor bedecked with white ribbon and driven by a wedding party in pale grey morning suits and pink cravats. I couldn’t see far enough into the cab to confirm it, but suspect there was a plethora of tan brogues on display too.

We all shuffled to the very margins of the road to allow the behemoth to squeeze past, filling most of the lane and bending back branches on either side, while its occupants smiling benignly down on us from their lofty perch.

We then had to push even further back to allow a second and then a third identical tractor to rumble past. Landed gentry wedding, Northumberland-style.

At our split only OGL and Grover left us for the shortest route to the café. Meanwhile the rest waited before embarking on a longer, harder, faster route. And waited. And waited.

Finally, Crazy Legs demanded some action and called, “Ride ‘em out!” prompting the two of us to belt out a ragged, off-kilter, off-key, call-and-response rendition of Rawhide –unhindered by the fact neither one of us actually know the words. Or should be allowed to sing in public.

We dragged our way up to Dyke Neuk and swung off to head even further North, splitting the group and waving off the even longer, faster, harder group before we started to loop back.

Our group now included Shoeless, Son of G-Dawg, Crazy Legs, Taffy Steve a couple of others and tagging on the back Red Max, the Monkey Butler boy and Szell, as we set course for Szell’s nemesis, Middleton Bank.

I rolled to the front as we approached the hill and started up, climbing out of the saddle and accelerating as we hit the steepest ramp. Sitting down again, I tried to keep the pace at a reasonable level as I sensed someone climbing up on my inside.

I did a quick double-take, but my eyes weren’t lying – it was Taffy Steve, pulling everyone else up the climb with him as if he’d suddenly found some climbing legs. Well, he has been seen lurking around a darkened crossroad bargaining with a shady character.

We drove over the top and sat up to wait for everyone to regroup and because Crazy Legs was feeling particularly benevolent to Szell that day, I do mean everyone. All reformed and back together, Taffy Steve gave me the old UCI timekeeper countdown on his right hand, waved me down an imaginary start-ramp and we started to build up speed.

The pair of us did around 5km on the front trying to drive the pace ever higher, until we rattled down through Milestone Woods and Shoeless, Son of G-Dawg, Crazy Legs and Szell burned off the front. Being overtaken by Szell was unthinkable, so as he died on the first slope I drove us past him, up and over the rollers. Onto the final drag I sat up and watched Taffy Steve nip around me while I did a basking shark impersonation and tried to find a little more air for my screeching lungs.

On the return home we were stopped at some temporary traffic lights, when a small kid on a fat-tyred, nondescript, MTB swooped out of a junction and pulled up in the middle of the bunch. As the light turned amber, he sprinted away, through us and the roadworks in an attack so audacious he earned a massive cheer and huge encouragement.

We caught him faltering on the sharp climb up to Dinnington, where Taffy Steve planted a huge hand on his back and drove him, rocket-propelled up the slope and over the top. He might never climb that hill faster in his entire life – and I’ve never seen a grin so wide.

A good run, the perfect hangover antidote and we finally managed a summer ride without getting soaked. Upwards and onwards.

YTD Totals: 3,975 km / 2,470 miles with 39,203 metres of climbing

Cresta Run (It’s frothy, man)

Club Run, Saturday 2^nd July, 2016

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 115 km / 71 miles with 1,058 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 32 minutes

Average Speed: 25.3 km/h

Group size: 29 riders, 2 FNG’s

Temperature: 16°C

Weather in a word or two: Rain, wind, sun

Main topic of conversation at the start:

At the meeting point I found Son of G-Dawg, sitting on the wall, alone and palely loitering, badly hungover and recently returned from a shamelessly inactive week’s holiday. He also complained of a suspected broken finger as a consequence of wrestling with North Atlantic waves. And losing.

Given this backdrop he wasn’t particularly looking forward to the ride, but concluded cheerfully that since “it only hurts when braking, changing gear or trying to grip the handlebars” he’d probably be all right.

To make matters worse, it was now G-Dawgs turn to be away on holiday, so Son of G-Dawg would have to pay his own way in the café. He’d brought along some money, but confessed he wasn’t quite sure how you made it to work and what you did with it.

I was quite surprised that G-Dawg actually took holidays, but suspect it’s more likely he’s just being stripped down to the bare components for a thorough cleaning before being assembled again.

Taffy Steve appeared, glinting and sparkling in the sharp sunlight and I queried if he’d had a recent close encounter with greeting cards, thinking he’d perhaps tried to sneak “yet another” birthday in under the radar. Apparently though he was simply suffering from a prank attack, when a “family friend” tipped a large tub of glitter over his head.

Several days later and he still trailed a glittering tail of dandruff in his wake, like Haley’s Comet skimming across the Earth’s atmosphere, or perhaps a hulking, grumpy, shockingly profane and disturbingly hirsute Tinkerbell.

Anyone with young children who have a passion for crafts and card making will know the insidious and truly evil nature of glitter, it’s almost impossible to eradicate once it’s got a foothold in your home, where it suddenly acquires the adhesive qualities of mutant barnacles in a sea of superglue. Taffy Steve is already plotting revenge, which perhaps involves the pranksters dog. I recommend selective shaving.

As it was the first day of the month our youngsters were allowed out on parole for a spin on the open roads. Taffy Steve looked across to where they were all gathering and wondered if they knew something we didn’t. They’d all gone way beyond simple rain jackets and were wearing clothing he thought Noah himself would have approved of. He then started chuckling to himself as he recalled how his young son had flummoxed theologians everywhere by demanding to know how the Ark had managed to carry all the freshwater fish.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

Goose was found bemoaning the fact that despite being a fine figure of a man and logging hundreds of bike miles, his ceiling of 200 watts of energy output is barely enough to power a light bulb. This sobering thought lead to a general discussion about just how physically unremarkable the human species actually is and how we ever came to rule the roost.

Theories about our superiority seemed to come down to the blind luck of being born with opposable thumbs and big heads, but there were of course alternative claims for the top seat at the table. Naturally dolphins headed the list – as smart as humans and thoroughly hedonistic and carefree – clever enough to spend all their time playing around and enjoying themselves rather than angst-ridden worrying about the meaning of life.

Taffy Steve put in a surprisingly strong claim for octopuses (not octopi as already discussed: Italian Mobster Shoots a Lobster) – the most intelligent of all the cephalopods, with unparalleled tactile dexterity, but apparently held back by a lack of depth perception (and no great desire to build machines to kill fellow cephalopods.)

We then had a good chuckle about Oleg Tinkov suggesting his team have the “Number One and Number Two cyclists in the world today” and that they were going to “kick Team Sky’s ass at the Tour de France”. Oh Oleg, you’re such a clown and I’m not going to remotely miss you. I think Mark Twain might actually have been referring to Mr. Tinkov when he wrote, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt”

(I’m pretty certain I’m not alone in thinking Alberto Contador is a spent force in the Tour de France – even before his self-destruction through crashes on Stage 1 and 2. If our clubs fantasy TdF league serves as a quick straw poll amongst cyclists, we have 14 entrants, 9 riders per team and not one single person has bothered selecting Contador. Mind you, none of us picked Cav either and look how that’s turning out.)

I’ll give Tinkov this much respect though, he does actually seem to have made his money legitimately. I have deeply unsettling concerns about billionaire’s who screw over their country and their countrymen and then fritter away millions on vanity sports projects while poverty reigns supreme at home. It’s one of the reason’s I’m hoping such a seemingly class act as Nibali is not going to be tempted by Bahrain blood money.

Goose seems to have taken a liking to green tea which I found surprising, as I was there when he’d first tried it and declared it all “a bit peely-wally”. He deflected our scorn by stating that it had become de rigueur in his household, where his wife drinks it, his daughters drink it, his dog drinks it and even his teenage son drinks it.

We had to tell him to stop and listen to himself. A moments self-reflection and he realised where he was going wrong, both as a father and a human being in general. He vowed to go home, slap some sense into his son, make him drink a double-espresso in double-quick time and tell him to MTFU!

Sneaky Pete sneaked in just to wave goodbye, before slipping quietly away and sneaking off on his own. His departure seemingly summoned a swathe of dark pewter clouds that roiled across the sky, releasing a sudden and stinging burst of rain. As if in sympathy all the lights in the café flickered and died.

The toilets, devoid of any windows and natural light now became like the Black Hole of Calcutta and we ended up having to cart mobiles in there with us to light our way – albeit with a very strict ban on selfies.

I was just about to volunteer Goose to step up to the dynamo and give up all of his 200 watts of usable power when the lights came back to life. The rain eased for a moment and in that brief, already closing window of semi-dryness, we scrambled out and away to see how far we could get before the heavens opened again.

The Waffle:

Rain was to provide the bookend weather conditions for this ride, the morning version being a light, all-pervasive drizzle that seemed to sift endlessly from a grey and overcast sky. It didn’t feel particularly cold though, so shorts, jersey, arm warmers and a rain jacket looked like being everything that was required.

I had a remarkably uneventful and unmemorable ride to the meeting place, where we began to congregate, joined by 2 or 3 FNG’s but no Crazy Legs or G-Dawg and a very conspicuously absent OGL. I was frankly amazed, not simply because of OGL’s no-show, but rather by the fact he hadn’t broadcast it in advance to all and sundry (and anyone else in between).

Without or usual leaders and planners, the Prof took control and barked out the intended route. Around 30 lads and lasses then pushed off, clipped in and rode out.

The Red Max was riding without the Monkey Butler Boy who had suddenly realised his mocks were almost upon him and had stayed home to revise, although rumour has it that the start of the Tour de France may have stalled academic progress. (Allegedly).

Off the leash, Max immediately stuck his nose on the front and started pushing the pace, burning off a succession of riding partners as he battered away into a relatively strong wind. We were achieving an average speed of around 30 kph before the first whimpering gasps of dissent were heard and Max finally eased, swung out and dropped back down the line, job done.

The group split just past the reservoir and I sat at the back over the series of sharp climbs that followed. As we approached the Quarry Climb, Mad Colin whipped the front half of us into a loose paceline and the speed began to build.

Up the Quarry Climb we went, splintering the group to pieces. The front group swung left, while a few of the back-markers took the slightly shorter route and turned right at the top of the climb.

Our shaky, improvised paceline had fallen apart on the hill where it quickly became every man (or woman) for themselves. With no sign of being able to get it working again, Mad Colin simply rode to the front and began to slowly wind up the pace. I dived across onto his rear wheel and tried to cling on for the ride, watching, strangely mesmerised as his chain began to rise like a breaking wave and then roll down his cassette in a series of agonisingly slow gear changes, each one bringing a corresponding increase in raw power and speed. Bloody hell! Just how many gears did his bike have?

And what the hell was I thinking, anyway? This was Mad Colin, who almost set a record time in the RAAM – Race Across America, the man who pushes FNG’s up hills faster than I can climb them, who used to be a sparring partner of Russ and Dean Downing and whose idea of a good breakfast is porridge mixed with energy gels! I was only ceding something like a 20 year and 20-pound advantage to him.

On the horribly rough surface down to the Snake Bends he had all the advantages of Roger de Vlaeminck’s prototypical Paris-Roubaix rider, being “built like a small horse” and managing to power over the uneven surface. Meanwhile, I was already at maximum revs and being jostled and bounced around like a golf ball in a tumble drier, holding the bars in a death grip and reluctant to risk moving my hands even fractionally in order to change gear.

I don’t know how long I held onto the tiger’s tail, it was probably no longer than a mile, but felt like five, as my leg bones slowly turned to heating elements that scorched into my muscles and ragged breathing gave way to agonised gasping.

One more click of the gear lever, one more clunk of a chain shifting down, one more turn of the screw and the gap between our wheels slowly and silently opened out like a flower blooming to greet the sun.

And then I was gone, jettisoned like the ballast from a balloon which saw Mad Colin soaring away.

Rab Dee jumped around me to try and get on terms, while I simply tried to hold the speed I’d stolen and keep going. The Prof, one of our young tyro’s and an FNG were the next to pass me in a futile chase of the front-runners, but while they initially opened up a gap it soon settled at around 10 metres and then refused to go either up or down.

Ahead the side road spat out Taffy Steve and Goose from their short-cut. I swooped around the latter and gave mad chase to the former, finally getting just about on terms with him and the FNG just before we swept around the Snake Bends and hit the main drag up to the café.

We’d not left the café long when the rain returned, washing over us in a reprise of last week’s awful conditions. Riding alongside Red Max he pointed out the Prof’s backside was beginning to foam like a rabid dog, as his shorts soaked through and the wet pad squelched horribly up and down on the saddle. Hey! It’s frothy, man!

Max complained he was getting too much, err… salty spume in his face and pulled out for a quick overtake. I hung back chuckling to myself that perhaps the Prof was the only one of us who could foam incoherently at both the mouth and posterior.

In no time at all the group split and we hit the Mad Mile, I chased down the front-runners and enjoyed a slingshot around the roundabout as I set off for home alone.

The return ride was interrupted by intermittent heavy rain showers and several stops to haul on or off my rain jacket. I also tried tracing a new route on the cycle paths along the river, but it was all a bit too Strada Bianca for my liking, so I’ll stick to the roads in future.

I returned home to once again find my socks had turned a decidedly unpleasant shade of grey and the super-sharp road grime tan-lines were once again prominent. My socks from the previous week still haven’t recovered and I’m not sure they ever will. This pair could well be going the same way.

I’m slowly beginning to understand why some cyclists wear black socks, but it’s just not an option for an old, dyed in the wool, traditionalist curmudgeon. I’ve tried and they just make me feel louche and dirty. I even tried yellow, black and red socks to match the rest of my kit a few weeks back, but even then I knew that subconsciously it was all wrong.

Perhaps I just need some of that super-foaming detergent the Prof uses so I can restore my socks to their whiter-then-white condition?

YTD Totals: 3,797 km / 2,359 miles with 37,309 metres of climbing

Sur La Jante

The Chronicles, Confessions and Idle Musings of a Club Cyclist

Month: July 2016

Audi-ophobia and an Ab-Fab Ride

Crosswind Chaos

Electraglide in Beige

Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey and the Ovine Menace

Cresta Run (It’s frothy, man)