Club Run, Saturday 15th April, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance:                                 114 km / 71 miles with 1,106 metres of climbing

Ride Time:                                        4 hours 27 minutes

Average Speed:                                25.6 km/h

Group size:                                       28 riders, 1 FNG

Temperature:                                   14°C

Weather in a word or two:          Cold but dry

---

 

---

The Ride:

Well, the good news was it wasn’t raining. The bad news? It was still just as cold as it had been the day before and the wind was much stronger and more noticeable. It would be a thankless task at the head of our group today.

Stopped at some traffic lights, I did find one character displeased that it wasn’t raining – a large grey gull stood drumming its feet frantically along the grass verge like a demented toddler having a tantrum, trying to fool whatever critters that lurked in the soil that it was raining heavily and they needed to surface immediately to enjoy the shower. Sadly, I had to leave before finding out if his efforts were worthwhile.

Crossing the bridge and riding back along the other side of the river, I caught movement on the opposite bank, which my brain instantly translated into a fellow cyclist in a white helmet, keeping perfect pace with me. Then, his helmeted head suddenly came right off and seemed to fly into the air! My WTF moment passed as I realised what I’d actually been watching were two gulls flying in tight formation and it was only my febrile brain that had inexpertly filled in the blanks to translate them into a cyclist. Should have gone to Specsavers.

I managed to make it safely to the meeting point without further random hallucinations, but I was wholly unprepared for the horrors that awaited me there…

---

Main topics of conversation at the start:

I had a chat about graphene in tyres, World Championship cycling, yesterdays ride and the upcoming Amstel Gold Race, but to be honest the only thing I really remember were the Garrulous Kids most remarkable socks.

They were long, they were thick, they were horrible and they were baggy – pooling round his ankles like used elephant condoms. They were also much, much hairier than the legs they encased and I wondered if they weren’t meant to be worn expressly with shin pads.

They were perhaps something you might, just about, get away with on the rough and tumble of a rugby pitch, but were a quite excruciating faux pas on a bike. A strange shade of not quite-khaki and not quite grey, they were, apparently, the only clean pair of socks he could find.

As I say, they were so distracting that I can’t remember any other conversations at the start and, as an alumnus of the old-school, where cycling socks should always be white, they were terrifying to behold. I still feel I’m suffering from PTSD – or post-traumatic sock disorder and I may never recover.

---

Under Red Max’s direction, we split into two groups on the road, following the same route, but with a decent gap between each group. This seemed to work well and, from my perspective anyway, seemed more conducive to drivers being able to overtake us safely.

I joined the second group on the road, with G-Dawg as nominal leader and tucked myself into the back, as far from the front and the troubling headwind as I could get. G-Dawg, Son of G-Dawg, Crazy Legs, Ovis and Captain Black were amongst those who battled resolutely with the conditions as we pushed out into the countryside, doing sterling and much appreciated hard work.

I rolled on, sheltered amongst the wheels, alternately riding and chatting with Sneaky Pete and Buster and the only time the relaxed serenity of the ride was interrupted was when we almost caught the first group on the climb out from Matfen. Crazy Legs surmised they must have stopped to plant a flag and conduct a long-winded naming ceremony. We pulled over to let them get away again and then a mile or two further on called an impromptu pee stop to let them pad the lead some more.

Somewhere a little further down the line and Sneaky Pete sneaked away, having to cut short his ride or face immediate excommunication from the family. I found myself riding with the Garrulous Kid and explaining my strange mistrust of any pro cyclist who wore black socks.

Our route then took us down Middleton Bank for a change, a descent that was over in seconds and left me wondering what all the fuss was about when we were climbing in the other direction. Tipping down, it didn’t seem either particularly long, particularly steep or all that difficult.

OGL and then Zardoz and his daughter were the next to slip away, finding shorter and easier routes to the café, while the rest of us pressed on.

Passing through Kirkhale and looping right around Capheaton, we were soon heading east toward Belsay, with the wind finally at our backs. The run in was fast and it was frantic and we were soon splintered apart and scattered all over the road.

---

---

On the final dash I found myself behind Jimmy Mac and Crazy Legs and sensing Son of G-Dawg on my wheel, I tried to lead him out for the sprint, pulling out, accelerating down the outside to the front of the line and going as hard as I could for as long as I could.

Pulling to the side, Son of G-Dawg then swooped past with Jimmy Mac and others in pursuit and job done, I eased back for the Snake Bends and I was overtaken by the Garrulous Kid, socks flapping and snapping like a loose spinnaker, apparently still racing and sweeping majestically wide around all the corners.

He earned himself a sharp rebuke from a motorist who didn’t appreciate random cyclists hurtling toward him on the wrong side of the road. The motorist then carried his ire over to also salute Crazy Legs with a sustained horn blast, even though he was innocently rolling round the corners behind me, in total control, firmly planted on his own side of the road and wondering what he’d done wrong.

---

Main topics of conversation at the coffee

With the café mobbed we found ourselves outside, and were soon packed two to a bench around one of the tables. With no room to squeeze anymore in, Captain Black took to the next table and Rab Dee, decided it would be rude and antisocial to leave him all on his lonesome and got up to join him. Crazy Legs immediately called out, indicating Rab Dee’s recently vacated space and suggesting we now had room at the table for the Captain.

Talk turned to facial hair with Crazy Legs comparing Zardoz’s luxurious whiskers with G-Dawgs more-bandito-style Zapata moustache – reminiscent he felt of one of the characters from the Good, The Bad and the Ugly. When pressed to identify which character, Crazy Legs plumped for Eli Wallach.

“Ah, so you’re saying the Ugly then?” Jimmy Mac queried innocently.

“Well, it could be worse, I could have picked Lee van Cleef.” Crazy Legs responded, “Everybody hates Lee van Cleef.”

Before the Garrulous Kid could intervene to ask who Lee van Cleef was, Crazy Legs quickly cut him off at the pass, declaring Lee van Cleef was a famous Dutch cyclist, a runner up at last years Paris-Roubaix.

For some unfathomable reason talk turned to Captain Scott and The Garrulous Kid professed ignorance of the world famous arctic explorer and dismissed our suggestions that he should know who he was with the flat statement, “Well, I’ve never met the man!”

Unfortunately, while we sat stunned and trying to process this announcement, he sensed a gap in the conversation, which he started to fill with a long litany of insane and inane pronouncements.

In this way we learned that … Batchelor Party 2 is, without doubt, the greatest comedy film, ever, bar none … Focus bikes are designed and engineered to the most exacting standards in the world, because they’re German … one of the Garrulous Kids classmates is an obese Bulgarian … the Garrulous Kid only wears Autograph underpants from M&S … he also has the wrong shaped face for a beard … his dad drives a BMW … Jimmy Mac is the double of James Cracknell … his favourite cyclist is Greg van Anorak … or was it Avenmart … or maybe Peter Sagan … or maybe Phil Gil … Son of G-Dawg is a dead ringer for some random Chinese man from the greatest comedy film, ever, bar none … the Garrulous Kid sometimes mispronounces words, but its not his fault as he was born in Norf Carolina … he’s good at science, just not very good at maffs … his parents watch the TV show Narcos, but it’s a load of rubbish … and he can pronounce Pablo Escobar properly, because he studies Spanish at school…

Whaaaat?

In the face of such a prolonged and sustained aural battering we watched as Jimmy Macs eyes slowly glazed over, his head dropped in despair and he visibly slumped, collapsing into himself like a punch-drunk boxer whose taken one too many body blows. We knew then he’d been ground down to such an extent that he had finally cracked.

He sat there quietly, avoiding eye-contact, playing with his water bottle and I wondered if he was going to try and make the Garrulous Kid forcibly ingest it to stop the flow at source, or perhaps plunge the top through his own eye to try and make the pain go away.

Luckily the Garrulous Kid spotted the Red Max at the next table and wandered away to talk at him and we had a moment of calm and blissful silence to collect ourselves for the ride home.

---

A fast spin back, a burst up the Mad Mile tucked behind the G-Dawg locomotive and I was cut free, turning off for home and battling the headwind on my own terms. A slight detour found me trapped in a housing estate cul-de-sac before I gave up on finding a new route home and got back on track, I was soon crossing the river, putting the wind behind me and cruising home.

I felt ok climbing the Heinous Hill and looked forward to a day of rest, watching the Amstel Gold Race before trying it all again on Monday.

---

YTD Totals: 2,063 km / 1,282 miles with 21,980 metres of climbing