Jimmy Mac Cracks

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

The Driller

Club Run, Good Friday 14^th April, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 66 km / 41 miles with 314 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 2 hours 21 minutes

Average Speed: 27.9 km/h

Group size: 19 no FNG’s

Temperature: 12°C

Weather in a word or two: Miserable

The Ride:

With family commitments restricting cycling time, I negotiated a compromise, loaded the bike into the car and drove to the meeting point. This meant I could ride on day 1 of 4 possible club runs without being AWOL too long and make it home without being branded completely unreasonable and anti-social.

Day-release clutched tightly in hand, I joined 19 other hardy souls for an otherwise pleasant ride through a horrible and chilling, constant drizzle.

Main topics of conversation at the start:

Szell continued his return from hibernation with another surprise appearance, but suggested he was out only because he’d seen OGL yesterday and been rather forcibly coerced into riding. Crazy Legs’ deductive reasoning, combined knowledge of OGL’s new bike with the fact that Szell had been the patsy of choice to buy OGL’s hand-me-downs on the past 2 or 3 occasions … and concluded we might be overhearing a bit of a hard sell and some haggling and horse-trading going on at the back of the group today.

While we waited for Our Glorious Leader to put in an appearance we amused ourselves remembering the period when he seemed to fall off with both startling regularity and for no apparent reason. Crazy Legs’s favourite moment was when OGL brought down another rider of, shall we say, generous proportions, who thumped down heavily right on top of him. Ooph!

OGL finally appeared (2 minutes past the deadline, not that anyone was counting). Apparently, he’s trying to take steps to reclaim the club forum from the hackers and is also intent on clearing up the whole club membership debacle. Small steps.

Off we set, out into the miserable sifting, drifting rain and eager for some work to try and warm up I took to the front with Crazy Legs for the first 15km or so. Dropping back, we slotted in behind Szell, who I found now had a small mirror attached to the end of his handlebars, alongside his watch, bike computer and heart rate monitor. I’m surprised he’s got anywhere left to put his hands.

I wondered if the the mirror was focussed solely on his own visage so he could strike heroic poses as he rode along, while Crazy Legs enquired if it also took selfies.

Szell said that he liked to periodically check in the mirror to see if there were other riders behind him and confessed every time he did this and saw he wasn’t last, he counted it as a small moral victory.

The weather continued to be cold, damp and miserable as we carefully negotiated our way around a series of horses and riders. I noticed one of them, a young girl, seemed to be wearing Kevlar body armour or a stab-vest. Perhaps ride-by shootings are becoming a problem out here in the Northumberland Badlands?

We also seemed to be beset at every turn by small, yapping dogs that would get hugely excited by our passage and would strain at the leash, yelping and snarling to try and get at us, until we whirred past and away.

So frequent and so universal was this reaction that I began to suspect one of our number was carrying sausages for a mid-ride snack. I checked back pockets, but the only strange thing I saw was Captain Black’s neatly folded rain jacket – and that was only strange because he seemed to have forgotten about it while he rode along getting slowly soaked to the skin.

We had a relatively sedate ride out to Stamfordham, where OGL and Szell split early for the café, perhaps deeply engrossed in a haggling over second-hand bike prices. The Red Max took to the front and ramped the speed up from around 16mph to 19mph. Once happy with the pace he ceded the front to the Monkey Butler Boy and Jimmy Cornfeed and we pressed on for a loop around the Quarry.

NOVATEK CAMERA — Top of the Quarry in the miserable conditions

Cresting the Quarry climb, I swung wide and slowed, checking everyone was back on before we started to wind it up for the café. With Mrs. Crazy Legs being away for the weekend, Crazy Legs was intending to ride every day out of the four, so professed to wanting a “fairly steady ride” to save himself for the next few days. As the pace ramped up on the run through to the café though, he was soon caught up in the moment and bouncing and jostling along with everyone else.

We hit the long, final straight down to the Snake Bends at high speed and I was quite happy to ease, sit up and spare myself the pounding over the horrible pitted and rough surface.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

Captain Black revealed he was looking at some remedial dental work involving root canal that was likely to set him back over £600. Somewhat astonished at the cost, the Red Max offered a do-it-yourself option for just a crate of beer and suggested he had all the kit necessary for major endodontic interventions.

On further questioning this turned out to be: a 2mm diamond tipped drill bit, an 800w Black and Decker Percussion Hammer Drill, a couple of spare Co-codamol for pain management and – most importantly – two serviceable bike stands – one to clamp around the head to immobilise it, the other to hold the jaw open. Surprisingly the Captain didn’t seem all that interested in this unique money-saving idea.

We were interrupted by Max’s phone emitting that strange, honking ringtone that he uses – a sound I always associate with the horn on a clown car and always (and I do mean always) use as a cue to tell him it means that the Ringling Brothers are on the phone wanting their massive clown shoes back.

The Monkey Butler Boy explained that being a technophobe when it came to mobile phones and not knowing how to find and download things, this ringtone was the closest Max could get to the horn sound made by the Tour de France support cars; “le son du dindon” (according to the venerable Toshi-san).

He then went on to explain that whenever someone Facetimes Max, they end up getting a horrible, close up view inside his ear – hair, earwax and all as he hasn’t quite come to terms with how to answer video calls.

Crazy Legs gleefully brought our attention to the bull shark, found washed up in the middle of road in Queensland following Cyclone Debbie – proof, as he saw it, that one of his favourite movies, “Sharknado” is firmly rooted in fact and could actually happen at any time. Keep watching the skies!

As we filed out of the café, Captain Black shook out his jacket and slipped it on and, as if on cue, the rain magically stopped. Now all we had to do was persuade him to keep the jacket on all the way home and we’d get back without getting rained on again.

As we pressed on the distress from the Red Max’s and the Monkey Butler Boys’ chains became audibly discernible as the last vestiges of the dry lube they’d applied had now been fully washed away.

Perhaps this distress had actually started much earlier in the ride, but at a frequency only audible to dogs. This would explain the wild reactions from the yapping and yelping pooches we’d passed and, with luck and the liberal application of chain oil, tomorrow’s ride would prove far more peaceable.

With no solo ride home, I stayed with the group as the miles ticked quickly away and was soon at the car and heading home with plenty of time to spare.

YTD Totals: 1,949 km / 1,211 miles with 20,874 metres of climbing

Wall to Wall Sunshine

Club Run, Saturday 8^th April, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 88 km / 55 miles with 910 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 3 hours 37 minutes

Average Speed: 24.2 km/h

Group size: Mainly me, myself and I

Temperature: 16°C

Weather in a word or two: Bright but chill

The Ride:

Late Friday evening and the directive came down from on high (well, G-Dawg actually, but pretty much the same thing) – in the face of the “wall-to-wall sunshine” forecast for Saturday, the call was for best bikes, shorts and track mitts only. With Aether posting up another pre-planned route for those who wanted to travel just that little bit faster and occasionally find a new road or novel vista, everything sounded promising. What could possibly go wrong?

As forecast, Saturday morning was a bright, bright day, the sky cloudless, but not quite the deep blue of true summer. Instead it was a rather pale, cold imposter that looked far more benign than it actually was and the wind had a raw, Arctic edge that drove the temperature south and easily razored through my thin layers.

As I tipped down the hill, I could actually feel the chilling rush of cold air whistling through the vents on my shoes and helmet and, where arm warmers petered out just under my sleeves, I became acutely aware of two bands of uncomfortable sensation that were either freezing, or burning. I honestly couldn’t tell which.

Along the valley floor and the bright sun cast a long shadow out, directly in front of me, seeming to urge me on and lead the way. I increased the pace in an attempt to warm up, while I looked forward backtracking along the opposite side of the river and putting both my shadow and the rather niggling and speed-sapping, cold wind behind me.

I hadn’t gone more than 3 miles when, like a persistent and intrusive busybody, my front wheel had some bad news: Psst….Psst …Psst. Every time the wheel rolled around it would demand attention.

Puncture alert. I stopped. The hissing stopped. Perhaps the strangest puncture I’d ever had, but I knew it wasn’t going to go away, so climbed off, set the rest of the air in the tyre out on parole, and started to change the tube.

The valve on the replacement tube was desperate to malfunction, but considerately didn’t let me know this until after I’d seated the tyre back on the wheel and then to compound my troubles, my pump decided it would be fun to disintegrate in my hands.

There was no alternative but to turn for home, occasionally walking, occasionally riding on a barely inflated tyre that rumbled and rattled and shook, while all the while the spent inner tubes I’d hastily jammed into my back pockets threatened to spill out like the necrotic intestines of a gut-shot zombie.

At the bottom of the Heinous Hill I found climbing was actually the easiest part of riding, sitting back on the saddle and taking most of my weight off the front wheel. I took a more direct route than usual, straight up through the housing estate, which involved a little unaccustomed kerb hopping and pavement surfing.

I would later find I’d not only discovered a somewhat hidden Strava segment, but recorded the 6th fastest ascent of all time, all the while riding suitably sur la jante. Not that I’m bragging about my athletic prowess, it only looked like a dozen or so people had ever been foolish enough to attempt the route.

Back home then, I changed both my front tube and tyre, replaced my pump, stocked up on more spare inner tubes from my cache and swapped long fingered gloves for track mitts. Off I set again, only two hours behind schedule, but calculating if I could make it to the café by 11.30, I could hopefully meet up with the gang there.

Main topics of conversation at the start:

I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure it was the same scintillating, erudite and illuminating chatter as usual. It certainly would have seemed that way in comparison to my own creative assemblage of swear words while I battled with pumps, punctures and providence.

Back on the road, I was feeling quite sprightly, or maybe I was just taking my frustrations out on the pedals. Turning down toward the river I chased and passed a lone cyclist from the Blaydon club and in doing so bettered the time I’d achieved only last week hanging onto the back of the SSVCC train.

Across the bridge and with no pressing need to be anywhere soon, I found an alternate route out of the valley, up what Strava has classified as a 4th category climb, the rather quiet and unexpectedly pleasant ascent of Hospital Lane.

Dropping down through Callerton, I was then pretty much climbing most of the way, through Stamfordham, Fenwick and, Matfen, where I saluted a splinter group of grogs off our main run, as they swished past – headed for the same destination, but in the opposite direction!

I was tempted to drop down the Ryals and climb back out toward Hallington, since its been an age since I’ve ridden that route, but it was already quarter past eleven and I was running out of time. Instead, I topped out my ride over the Quarry Climb and, as tradition demands and even though I was riding solo, I then started to drive on the café.

Churning a big gear as fast as I could, I was bounced and jolted over the horrible, lumpy surface, darting past a lone female in an ultra-smart, woollen Italian national champion’s jersey, before sitting up and coasting through the Snake Bends.

I dived across the A696 and along the lane that spat me out just behind Sneaky Pete, running as the rear-guard to our main group as they completed the last drag up to the café. Near perfect timing.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

The “wall-to-wall” sunshine had enticed out many familiar faces, including Szell, who had returned intact from cryogenic stasis and the Bearded Collie, out for his one annual club ride somewhat earlier in the year than usual. He admitted that in part he’d been drawn out because he sensed slight undercurrents of change and rebellion bubbling under at the club and wanted to see what was happening for himself.

Following last weeks blog, the Garrulous Kid wanted to know who Dick van Dyke was. I asked him if he’d ever seen Mary Poppins and, even though I shouldn’t have been, I was taken aback by the fact he had no idea about the film, its characters, or what it was about. No idea. None. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Oh, dear.

I explained it was a World War 2 action-movie in which the Nazi’s planned to build an aircraft carrier from a giant ice-berg and use it as a base to fly off jets in order to attack London, with Mary Poppins being parachuted in to sabotage the operation.

“A bit like James Bond?” he asked.

“Yes, exactly, but with a female protagonist.”

“Wasn’t Marilyn Monroe in Mary Poppins?” he next asked.

There’s only so far I can roll my eyes.

Sneaky Pete suggested the Garrulous Kid needed to download the lyrics to the Billy Joel song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and Google each name for a crash course in modern culture, but I don’t think he was getting through.

I later learned that Crazy Legs had mischievously muddied the waters still further, by suggesting that Dick van Dyke was actually a Belgian pro cyclist, a hard man and a rouleur of some note, who’d been tremendously successful in the Spring Classics in the late 70’s.

In my absence the club had adopted a song dedicated to the Garrulous Kid, Chas ‘n’ Dave’s “Rabbit” – although I was somewhat disturbed to find Captain Black knew all the words … yap-yap rabbit-yap yap-yap rabbit-rabbit bunny jabber rabbit-yap rabbit-rabbit bunny rabbit jabber jabber rabbit rabbit yap-yap rabbit rabbit bunny bunny yap jabber rabbit.

There then followed a revelation that the Garrulous Kid seemed incapable of taking a left turn, dropping the speed back, losing the wheel in front and then carving massive arcs around the bend as the bike somehow conspired to remain perfectly upright while he hung over the frame.

“Like Derek Zoolander,” Taffy Steve chuckled with undisguised glee, “he’s not an ambi-turner!”

I thought the Garrulous Kids reputation had reached a nadir, but events were to prove we’d only just scratched the surface and I’d seriously underestimated his predilection for shooting himself in the foot. I don’t think he’s quite come to grips with the sage advice of one of my favourite quotes – it’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Setting out for coffee refills, I missed the fact that Sneaky Pete was sneaking a last sip of his cup, swung my leg over the bench, smashed my knee into his elbow and his cup into his teeth. Youch. Sorry bro’. Took me awhile to remember where that bruise on my knee came from when I got home.

The next table then queried if Son of G-Dawg hadn’t earned the right to have his own blog name and how much longer he’d have to live under his pa’s mighty shadow. A difficult question and one that needs some consideration.

Meanwhile, Crazy Legs revealed he’d released the much-cossetted Ribble from its preservative, hyperbaric chamber in preparation for today’s ride, only to find that every link in the chain had seized solid. If he’d managed to remove the chain intact, he felt it would still describe a perfect, rounded rhomboid shape as he lifted it out.

Now he was faced with either sitting down to work each individual link free, or simply abandoning the chain on G-Dawg’s doorstep like a foundling baby, in the hope the whispering demons in G-Dawg’s head would compel him to take it in and provide succour.

We left the cafe in several small groups and I tagged onto the back of the last group alongside Captain Black. We’d no sooner turned off the main road and onto the quieter lanes, when we found one of the other groups pulled up with a mechanical. The Garrulous Kid had punctured.

What unfolded next was perhaps the longest, most exhausting and most frustrating puncture stop in the history of our club – and that’s saying something.

The Garrulous Kid stood there looking confused and completely nonplussed.

“What do I do?” he asked and we quickly learned he’d never repaired a puncture before and didn’t even seem to have the faintest idea of how to set about it.

Under instruction, he started unpacking his supplies. Out came the tyre levers. Out came a spare tube. Out came patches.

“Where’s your pump?”

“I don’t have a pump.”

Aargh!

With no OGL around to sneer about the purist and “proper” way of doing things, Crazy Legs took the simple route of telling him to turn his bike upside to get the wheel out. The Garrulous Kid dithered, worried about damaging his saddle or brake hoods or who knows what, but finally after much urging, finally upended the bike on the grass verge.

He pulled the quick release lever and spun it half a dozen times, before grasping that you actually have to hold the other side as well to loosen it off. With Crazy Legs help and instruction, the wheel was finally wrangled out of the frame.

The Garrulous Kid then started to poke ineffectually at the tyre with the tyre levers, until a clearly frustrated Crazy Legs took over, stripped out the old tube and started to insert the new one

We were then subjected to a full-on bout of explosive logorrhoea in the form of a running, never ending commentary of nonsensical questions and useless pronouncements.

We learned his bike wheels were precisely engineered by the nice German people at Focus Bikes, specifically to ensure the Garrulous Kids safety, even though I pointed out the wheels are Fulcrum’s and more Italian than German in origin and, as Taffy Steve commented, probably built in Taiwan along with the frame itself.

The inner tube was far too big for the tyre and wouldn’t fit!

Naturally it wasn’t, and did.

Had we lost the little silver dinger? We needed the little silver dinger!

The inner tube wasn’t a Focus(?) inner tube, but a Specialized one, would it still work?

With the new tube in place the wheel looked much bigger than it should!

We then had to wait while the rear wheel was minutely compared to the (oh, look, identical) front wheel.

Taffy Steve had to help replace the wheel back in the bike and then unclipped and handed over his might frame pump. A minute or so of ineffectual, desultory pumping and a clearly frustrated Taffy Steve took up the task, over-riding the indignant squeals of the Garrulous Kid who was convinced his tyre was going to catastrophically rupture if any more air was forced into its still squishy carcase.

It took a while, much longer than it should have and I’m not sure the Garrulous Kid learned what to do next time and yet no cyclist is immune from punctures.

So, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends and compadres, for the sake of my sanity and strained patience, if you know someone who rides, please make sure they follow these very simple rules:

Buy a fucking pump!

Carry said fucking pump at all times along with the means to fix a simple puncture: tyre levers and at least one spare tube.

None of this is of any use if you don’t have a clue how to use them. In a world of Google and YouTube ignorance is inexcusable.

If you’ve never replaced an inner tube before, practice in the warmth and comfort of your own home – far better here than on a windy, rain-swept road in the middle of nowhere with darkness fast encroaching.

Relying on the goodwill of your fellow cyclists in 99 times out of 100 will work, but will wear thin if you make no effort to help yourself and then, what happens that one time when you’re riding on your own, or you’re dropped off the back and there’s no one to lend a hand?

Remember, even the most expensive bike isn’t very fast, or very comfortable without any air in its tyres (that’s something my own travails that morning had reinforced.)

Rant over. ‘Scuse my French.

We were finally back underway and soon pounding our way up Berwick Hill and dropping down the other side. Riding alongside Son of G-Dawg we noticed several of the more prominent potholes had been crudely patched and others had been bracketed with yellow paint, suggesting they were next on the list.

We agreed that even the paint was a massive improvement, at least making the hazards easier to spot, although Son of G-Dawg was disappointed his own personal bête noire, a deep, steep-sided, triangular shaped divot just before the main junction appeared to have (so far) escaped attention.

I hung onto the wheels through the Mad Mile before slipping off and away for home. By the time I was scaling the Heinous Hill for the second time that day I felt suitably tired and heavy-legged, despite a much shorter than usual run.

On reflection and despite my morning frustrations, I’d quite enjoyed my solo ride. It doesn’t quite compete with the entertaining banter and easy camaraderie of a club run, but as a substitute when there’s no group ride organised its still a damn fine alternative.

I actually think its something I need to do more of – especially as my favourite routes are all in the darkly veiled, dangerous and uncivilised badlands south of the river, a place where all my club mates seemingly fearful to tread!

YTD Totals: 1,825 km / 1,134 miles with 19,516 metres of climbing

The Man with the Van

As threatened, my work colleague Mr. T has kindly agreed to chronicle his pursuit of something estimable, novel and worthwhile – the restoration of Citroën H van back from a wreck to full working glory.

The ultimate plan is to not only enjoy this unique piece of motoring and cycling history, but to have it grace cycling events, or serve as a support vehicle for riders and racers. In this role it will bring a note of the exotic – unique and redolent with associations to the Tour de France of the 1970’s and legends such as Eddy Merckx, Bernard Thévenet, Freddy Maertens and Bernard Hinault.

Photo from: tousfoudelacaravane.xooit.fr

Seemingly inspired by the inane ramblings of Sur La Jante, or possibly just to show how easy good blogging actually is, Mr. T has agreed to file episodic, irregular reports outlining the pursuit of his dreams and his experiences wrestling with his own inner demons, dwindling bank balance, better judgement and the vicissitudes of dealing with the Great British Craftsman™.

So, without further adieu (as an old boss of mine is fond of misquoting) here is his tale.

[PS: I can’t decide yet if this is a salutary warning to those with grand ambitions, or a tale of heroic fortitude, perseverance and inspiration. Perhaps, once we know the (still unwritten) ending, it will all become much clearer.] SLJ 09/04/2017.

The Man with the Van and the Plan (well … sort of)

A Guest Blog presented by Mr. T

My ride: (according to my fallible memory and rather poorly kept diary)

Total distance: Not sure, but I know we’re not there yet

Ride time: 1 year, 9 months, 4 days and 8 hours and counting

Average Speed: 0 km/h. Unless you count how quick my bank balance has shrunk

Group size: 7

Temperature: Temperate. So far.

Weather in a word or two: Turbulent – but with a bright outlook?

The Ride:

It started as most stories do on this sorry excuse for a blog, on a random morning one weekend. It wasn’t planned. It was completely spontaneous. You know, David Hockney once suggested you have to plan to be spontaneous. Well, sorry David, but your wrong … and you’ve never been more wrong.

So anyway, there I was, a Saturday or Sunday morning, relaxed, sipping a fine coffee and fully enrapt in Cycling Weekly and only very occasionally wondering where my club run was heading today and what I might be missing.

MGL (My Glorious Leader or My Good Lady – she who must be obeyed, or Mrs. T if you like) was quietly passing the time in companionable silence, flicking through fleaBay, apparently just for want of something better to do.

“There’s a van here, the type you like. It’s in Newcastle.”

Fully engrossed in an article about the rolling resistance associated with different tyre widths, I gave a Mr Delaney-type, distracted response, “Huh?”

MGL continued: “It says here it was used in the Tour de France”.

And that’s how this ride started…

fleaBay did indeed show a Citroën H van dating from 1973 and the copy did claim links to the Tour de France. After discussion with MGL about the benefits (I know … seriously?) owning such a van might bestow and what we might do with it, I was given permission to contact the vendor and organise a viewing.

The vendor, the BMX Bandit, gave the all clear and so I arranged to pop round one day after work. It was a cycle commute day, so it not only added a few welcome miles to my (paltry, by all accounts: SLJ) Strava totals, but seemed appropriate too.

Somewhat fittingly, given its poor overall state of health, the van was parked up in the BMX Bandits front garden within sight of the local hospital. It looked strangely alien and out of place next to the neighbours fine collection of eclectic garden ornaments, but the BMX Bandit had an almost identical H van that showed what could be achieved.

Look, I say the vans were almost identical, but only in the same way those before and after pictures in women’s magazines claim to show the same person. One was beautifully and painstakingly restored, taxed and tested, white and gleaming and in full working order.

The other … well, the other, the van I’d come to see, looked like it needed a heart op or maybe even a full transplant. So, noting the need for what I euphemistically deemed some “engine work” I had a look around, not that I knew what I was looking for, but I took plenty of photos anyway to share with MGL on my return to base.

This van definitely need some TLC and I’m useless at mechanicals as anyone in the bike club will tell you. So if we were going to take this on then it wouldn’t be me. Aha! What about Enzo? Our friend Enzo had rebuilt an historic Italian small car for us. He might fancy a challenge.

Before any excitement with fleaBay, a quick call to Enzo was required. The response was a little disappointing, “Merde!”said Enzo, “I don’t do French …”

“But … I know a man who might.”

It transpired that Enzo, the man who did Italian, but didn’t do French, knew a man, Herman Vee-Dubs, who did German and might do French. This maybe has to be one of the great unwritten benefits of closer European integration!

I left it with Enzo to put a call into Herman, who “normally did German but might do French” – if only for the novelty of attempting something different. Enzo knew we had a time limit and the clock was ticking.

Good news came through while I was out for an evening leg spin with Toposan. Herman, it seemed was was up for the challenge.

But, later that week we were outbid on fleaBay.

By an American.

Damn Yankees!

To be continued...

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Twenty’s Plenty

Club Run, Saturday 1^st April, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 113 km / 70 miles with 1,068 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 23 minutes

Average Speed: 25.8 km/h

Group size: 32 riders, 1 FNG

Temperature: 15°C

Weather in a word or two: Chilly

The Ride:

As I made my way along the valley floor I was passed by a smoothly-whirring, four-man train from the South Shields Velo. Cheekily jumping (wholly uninvited) onto the back, they towed me down to the river in super-fast time, netting me a couple of new Strava PR’s for the section.

While we paused for the lights to change at the bridge, I had a brief chat with this crew, almost causing one of them to choke when he had to break off scarfing down a very dry cereal bar to answer.

Through the spluttering, I learned they were heading for Rothbury and once he recovered I was able to ask if they knew my work colleague Mr. T who is one of their club luminaries (or maybe functionaries would be a more fitting description). Only one of their number would openly admit to knowing “the feller” and, like me, none of them knew how to persuade him to do get out more frequently or do some longer, harder rides.

This blog isn’t quite done with Mr.T (who is also known to me as the Man with the Van and the Plan) and his singular misadventures with what he refers to as fleaBay. You have been warned.

As we exited the bridge, I waved the SSVCC riders off as they swung to the left, while I turned off to the right. I hadn’t gone half a mile before I was held up by a set of temporary traffic lights and some roadworks and whatever time advantage I’d gained tagging along with the group soon evaporated in the long delay that followed.

As I waited, a bloke in civvies on a mountain-bike jumped the kerb onto the footpath, Flanders-style and skipped around the hold up. The lights changed and I wound up the gear as I slowly started to chase the MTB’er down.

With white trainers flashing, baggy tracksuit bottoms tucked into socks and flapping in the wind, he was powering along and I hit 22mph before I slowly started to reel him in. I slipped past, just as we approached more traffic lights and we both braked and came to a stop.

We had a quick chat while we waited and I learned he’d only had the bike – something smart and metallic from Merida – for a couple of months and was loving it, but reckoned he needed “all the kit” to go faster. I suggested he was doing all right without it, then he was off again pushing along the valley floor, while I started the clamber up the other side.

Tows and delays seemed to even out and I arrived at the meeting point at just about the normal time, to find Taffy Steve already waiting as he’d volunteered for the role of group leader for the day.

Main topics of conversation at the start:

Today marked the return of the Garrulous Kid, who was also waiting at the meeting point, finally released to ride after putting in enough work to successfully secure a GCSE in Maffs. (Not as much fun, but far more important than a club run). He’d also picked up a new bike, although he was slightly worried he would soon outgrow it and possibly all standard sized frames too!

Careful questioning revealed that a lot his relatives are around 6’3” and he was already heading towards these heights, which he seemed to regard as an outlandish and freaky thing. To reassure him I asked the BFG how tall he was?

“Six foot-three.”

“There you go,” I told him, “Six foot three and he can still find a bike that fits.” What I didn’t tell him of course was that the BFG actually is an outlandish and freaky thing – but, I guess he’ll discover that for himself sooner or later anyway.

Unfortunately, The Garrulous Kid has also discovered this humble blog, so I’m expecting to be accused of corrupting minors any day now. He told me he didn’t like the name the Garrulous Kid … just before asking what garrulous meant. On being told it was somehow who talked a lot he couldn’t quite see how that trait could in any possible way be related to him.

“Ok,” The Red Max suggested, “Prove you can stay silent, from now until we leave. Right?”

“Yes, but …”

“No. You’ve just failed the simplest of tests at the very first hurdle.” Red Max informed him.

“Can I not have a different name, though?”

“How about Gob Shite, or maybe Crap Gob?” I asked innocently.

“Hmph!”

The obscure and eclectic naming conventions of this poor blog and its simple author were then taken to task, simply because they’re … well eclectic and obscure. I will admit they do sometimes reference things many of my contemporaneous club-mates may only have the vaguest, haziest recollection of, while the youngsters have no chance – but then again, surely everyone (with the possible exception of Grover) has access to Google nowadays, even if they aren’t intimately familiar with, say, the legend of Crazy Legs Hirsch?

I did learn that apparently, the “yoof” of today (to me anyone not yet over the 50 threshold) are far more likely to associate Carlton with the dancing side-kick of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, rather than Carlton the Doorman from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, but hey, I can’t help it if they’re all callow and unsophisticated. Bet they don’t remember the Andy Williams bear that always wanted milk and cookies either. Their loss.

Anyway, Grover (a weird amalgamation and bit of word association attributed to Washington DC and Grover Washington Junior, if you must know) then turned up for his third ride in a week. Good, stalwart man that he is, he probably remembers the bear on the Andy Williams Show.

True to his word and following his vow to never visit the hacked club forum ever again, he’s taking the unprecedented step of signing up to Facebook – or, to be more precise, of asking his workmates to sign him up to Facebook. He now feels able to announce that he’s finally moved into the 21st Century, even if just tentatively and he’s promising a few fireworks once he’s comfortable using social media.

He’s maybe opened the floodgates a little too wide though, as his workmates have now targeted his ancient and (to them) uproariously funny mobile brick for the next upgrade and are trying to get him to get one of those new-fangled “Android thingies.” This is a move he’s seriously resisting as he feels emotionally attached to his old phone which, according to him, has “a bevelled screen, lights and everything!”

I must admit what happened next was perhaps entirely predictable, but it made me laugh out loud anyway. Just like last week, we announced an intent to split into a faster group and a slightly slower, social group, with the latter holding back slightly until the first group had gone clear. I got to the first set of traffic lights, turned around and saw OGL standing alone, in splendid isolation on a completely empty pavement, devoid of other bikes and riders, while everyone streamed out to join the faster group.

OGL gave a shrug and tagged onto the back as well, so when the lights changed a 30-strong pack of us then pushed off, clipped in and filtered out into the traffic to form a potential rolling road-block of epic proportions. Well that didn’t work as intended, but a valuable lesson learned – don’t dare suggest, or even remotely infer to any club cyclist that they belong in a slow group, no matter how well intentioned the inference is.

A mile or so further up the road and Taffy Steve had us pull into a bus stop, where, amidst some grumbling from the grognards and usual suspects, he held us until a front group of around 15 or so had established a decent lead and disappeared around the next corner. In this way he was able to split us into more manageable groups, even if we’d all be more or less travelling the same route at potentially the same pace.

The only real problem with this was that Carlton’s young progeny slipped away with the front group, while Carlton was held back in the second. This caused a natural degree of paternal consternation, but father and son were safely reunited at the café and no lasting harm appears to have been done. Well, as long as Mrs Carlton doesn’t find out about it.

Now second group on the road, we set off to follow the proposed route, which would include the always fun, wild dip into the Tyne Valley. Once we were up and rolling, Taffy Steve dropped off the front and began patrolling the lines, checking everyone was happy, while I pushed on at the front with Goose, chatting about his plans to develop an app to measure chain stretch.

I tried to keep everything together while we climbed steadily up Stamfordham Road, occasionally swinging wide to check on everyone’s progress behind. At one point I swung over into the far lane to look back and Carlton and Cowin’ Bovril took this as a sign to pull through and onto the front. I’d been quite happy there, but then again I am a natural born wheel-sucker, so I certainly wasn’t going to complain and quickly slotted in behind the new leaders as we rolled on.

A quick desultory shower briefly pecked at us as we dropped down into the Tyne Valley and the temperature seemed to drop a couple of degrees as well, but the rain blew past and it wasn’t too long before we were faced with some serious, prolonged climbing and nobody was complaining about the cold anymore.

Halfway up the last climb, heading towards more familiar and travelled roads, the entire bunch shied in unison across the road, like a school of fish darting out the way of a large predatory shark. The cause of our concern was hulking Range Rover, that had been parked up on the grass verge (obviously testing its off-road capabilities to their fullest extent) but looked like it was going to pull out straight in front of us. We were all too breathless from the climbing to voice much protest and luckily, the driver seemed to see us at the last moment and stepped on the brakes.

A little further on we stopped at a junction to regroup, shuffling out of the way as the Range Rover reappeared and squeezed past. Here we saw the passenger was quite literally riding shotgun, a large bore double-barrelled gun resting casually on his shoulder as he peered out the splattered window at the strange and, perhaps in these parts, exotic sight of a bunch of crazed lads and lasses in a motley of tight, bright clothing with a fine collection of plastic bikes. Maybe it was just as well we didn’t protest too loudly at the Range Rover’s erratic driving.

But crazy and inattentive motorists weren’t done with us yet. We hit a long straight road and in the distance, a bright, intermittent flashing light announced an approaching lone cyclist. He got close enough to make out his rather fetching, celeste green rain jacket, when impatience got the better of a motorist who’d been trailing us for a completely unreasonable 10 or 15 seconds. The car pulled out to overtake, directly into the path of the fast approaching lone cyclist and trundled toward him.

He braked sharply. We braked sharply. The car, seemingly completely oblivious of everyone else on the road, kept trundling on. Somehow, it just managed to swerve into the space where we would have been if we hadn’t slowed, seconds before the lone rider would have felt the need to bail into a hedge or risk a collision.

An unnecessary, much too close call – we could only apologise on behalf of the RIM for the driver’s act of utter stupidity, while the lone rider waved us past with a “seen it all before” expression of weary resignation. I have to say, despite the impressive strobing of his 100 plus Lumen front light, it didn’t seem to make him any more visible to traffic.

We seemed to be elongated and in danger of losing riders as we swept through Matfen and as we turned off for the Quarry Climb I drifted to the back to find Brink had become detached. I hung round long enough to see him make the turn safely and then I gave chase, tagging onto the back of the group as we crested the climb and paused to collect everyone again.

Brink dragged himself up after us and thanked everyone for waiting.

“We didn’t stop for you!” was the laconic reply and then, in a move everyone agreed was straight out of the Prof’s handbook of cycling etiquette, Brink rode straight past us and away.

We all gave chase and then there was a bit of jockeying for position and reforming. Lacking a Red Max to shake things up with a long-range, suicidal, forlorn hope attack, the BFG complained about all the testosterone swilling around in the group, but no one actually going for it. He tried insulting everyone to get a reaction, but we still remained in a fairly compact and well-ordered group as we closed on the café.

The pace started to build, only to dissipate as a massively wide farm vehicle pulled onto the road and headed toward us. As everyone slowed and singled out to pass, Taffy Steve judged the right moment to kick, accelerating past the tractor and away and the sprint began.

As the group splintered Captain Black surged to close on the front group and I followed him across, before easing back and coasting down to the Snake Bends alongside Taffy Steve and Son of G-Dawg.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

We arrived at the café before the first group following our split out on the road, suggesting we had taken a slightly shorter route somewhere along the way. Happily reunited with his son, Carlton wanted to know where we had deviated from the published plan and Taffy Steve explained we’d turned left just before we should have and then turned right a little earlier than expected.

No. I was none the wiser either.

We then discussed the shambolic start and how prudent it had been to stop and forcibly split the group once it became obvious it wasn’t going to happen naturally. Taffy Steve concluded that “twenty’s plenty” which seemed a decent guideline for determining group size and might even catch on as a club meme.

I sneaked behind the counter to serve up my own coffee refill and couldn’t help but be struck when I returned by the loud buzz 30 or so happy chattering cyclists generate when we were all crammed together in one room. I even began to feel somewhat sorry for the few civilians jammed in there with us. They seemed totally taken aback by the hooting, hollering and all round guffawing, which reminded me of a Larson cartoon and could yet see me referring to non-cycling civilians as the Hansen’s.

Jimmy Mac seemed quite intrigued to hear about the old feller who’d confronted Crazy Legs in the café after one recent winter ride and actually taken him to task for laughing too loudly and daring to enjoy himself far too much.

Just when things were coasting toward a placid and ordinary café stop, the Garrulous Kid appeared to give the conversation a surreal and absurdist slant.

He first wanted to know why Taffy Steve, was called Taffy Steve. On learning this was because of his Welsh roots, he then unwittingly trampled all over this heritage by declaring he thought Taffy Steve was from “London … or something.” I personally can’t think of worse insult to level at a proud Welshman – or anyone else who’s not from “doon sooth.”

“’Ere mate, yer ‘avin a giraffe, ain’t ya?” Taffy Steve responded, in his best Dick Van Dyke cockney argot.

We then learned that the Garrulous Kid’s mother had instructed him not to squeeze his spots in case it left a scar. I foolishly tried to convince him that women like scars.

“Have you got any scars?” he next asked and then, fumbling with his waistband declared, “I’ve got one, do you want to see …”

“No!” Taffy Steve instantly interjected, recoiling back in horror, hands upraised in surrender.

The Garrulous Kid then suggested he’d been seriously over-heating, having ridden all day in a thick winter and waterproof jacket, before demanding to know how the second group had beaten him and the first group to the cafe. We tried to convince him we’d passed on the road and even waved, wondering why he hadn’t seen us, but I don’t think he was buying.

The café’s steel-haired matron then appeared to give all the cyclists the evil eye as the place was getting even busier and people were starting to queue for tables. Suitably intimidated, we cut short the banter and headed out.

As we stacked up to leave, the BFG nodded at the Garrulous Kid and confessed, “I want a pet one of those for my home, they’re very entertaining.”

Shivering with the cold, despite his winter jacket, the Garrulous Kid then asked through chattering teeth, “You know PSHE?”

I looked baffled enough for ex-teacher, G-Dawg to come to my rescue and explain he was referring to a school lesson: personal, social and health education, or as G-Dawg alternatively described it, a complete and utter waste of time.

Apparently the Garrulous Kid had been learning all about STD’s recently and was keen to tell me one of his classmates had “acne of the groin.”

I know I’m evil and shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t resist, as we swung out of the car park, I pulled the pin on a verbal grenade and rolled it backwards, by suggesting to the Garrulous Kid that his classmate probably had “a mild fungal infection caused by a bad case of Betty Swollocks.”

Then, leaving Taffy Steve to pick up the pieces, I accelerated away to ride alongside Big Dunc for a civilised chat about the Belgian Classics and the upcoming Ronde van Vlaanderen.

Nevertheless, I kept half an ear on the conversation behind as Taffy Steve was forced to explain Betty Swollocks and other stealth puns which allow you to swear at people without earning a detention, like busy ditch, shaft of wit and sick duck. The conversation then moved on to talk about chlymidia and other STD’s when, I couldn’t help but interject to suggest I preferred Shimano STD’s.

As we climbed Berwick Hill, I found myself riding beside Crazy Legs as G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg set a brisk pace on the front . Dropping down the other side, Crazy Legs nudged me, pointed to the direction I’d soon be taking and chuckled at the thick and threatening, black clouds that were boiling up and massing over the Heinous Hill.

“Bloody hell,” I muttered, “I really do live in Mordor.”

The G-Dawg’s pulled aside as we left Dinnington and I moved to the front alongside Crazy Legs. “Is this the bit that’s straight into a headwind?” I asked.

“I just think they’re preparing for the homeward dash.” he replied.

Sure enough our erstwhile front-runners hadn’t gone far and were now slotted in on our wheels, from where they catapulted themselves toward home and a race for the shower as soon as the rest of the group turned off. I didn’t even try to hang on, but kept to my own pace with the BFG in tow.

He was soon swinging away for home too and it then became just a race between me and the weather to see if I could make it home before the rain washed over me. This mission was successfully accomplished, although I was somewhat surprised to discover I appear to have climbed the Heinous Hill “sur la plaque.” Huh?

YTD Totals: 1,699 km / 1,056 miles with 17,941 metres of climbing

Perfect Day

Club Run, Saturday 25^th March, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 116 km / 72 miles with 1,119 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 31 minutes

Average Speed: 25.5 km/h

Group size: 29 riders, 2 FNG’s

Temperature: 16°C

Weather in a word or two: Perfect

The Ride:

All the forecasts were pointing to a fine, fine day and didn’t disappoint, although clear skies overnight meant a very chilly start to the early morning. The grass down the sides of the hill was pale and stiff with lingering frost and it didn’t take long for the cold to gnaw through my light gloves to chill and numb my thumbs. Nonetheless, I was certain it was going to warm up quickly, so guessed the choice of shorts, short-sleeved jersey and base layer, arm and knee warmers, would prove wise. Eventually. Wouldn’t it?

Overhead the sky was a washed out blue, mottled with high, gauzy clouds, while a jet plane seemed intent on carving a lazy, chalky contrail from horizon to horizon. As I approached the river a handwritten sign caught my eye, “No Litter! No Rats!” That, I thought is a rather outlandish take on a much-loved, Bob Marley classic.

When I looked over the bridge, bright sunlight splintered and bounced back glaringly from the broken surface of the river below, temporarily dazzling me, so I didn’t even see the deep chasm I smashed through. It felt like someone had created a hole by lifting an entire tombstone-sized slab of the road out of the surface and I hit it so hard I felt the shock right down through my toes. Ouch!

Amazed I didn’t blow out at least one tyre, I spent the next few miles checking everything was intact and in working order, before picking up the pace to hit the meeting point well on time.

Main topics of conversation at the start:

I found the G-Dawg Collective sitting on the wall, enjoying the sun, which was such a contrast to last weekend. I naturally enquired how their MTB trip to Kielder had gone and how much they enjoyed slogging around in the mud and freezing rain, while getting hacky-mucky, filthy-dirty. To be honest conditions out on the roads hadn’t been much better, so the smug quotient was non-existent.

They reported that, all in all it had been great fun and an enjoyable off-road, adventure that’s bound to be repeated sooner or later. The only slight blemish on the day was the BFG, with near perfect timing, managing to snap his chain right before one of the day’s heaviest, most prolonged downpours. Ooph!

This week we learned that the club has (allegedly) 259 members registered with British Cycling, of which a grand total of 48 actually pay their membership fees. Since he’s a stalwart of the club and much longer serving member than me, I was interested to find out if G-Dawg had ever met these mysterious 211 “Others”– all of who, incidentally may well have voted illegally for Hilary Clinton in the recent US elections too.

We then wondered what problems it would cause in the highly improbable event that they all decided to turn up for a club run on the same day, although we would of course be rolling in it if they also coughed up for their membership fees at the same time. I did like the idea of getting them to turn up en masse and all hand over their subs in £1 coins to OGL, just before we set out for a ride. At the same time I realised this would be almost impossible to co-ordinate, as we can’t even organise the club members who do show up regularly.

The reasonably warm, bright and dry weather brought out lots of long absent faces, including both Andeven and Richard of Flanders, back from various assorted broken bones. Richard felt he was just about fully healed, but didn’t want to be falling on his fractured elbow again, so if any problems occurred he made it known he would be hurling himself bodily to the left, curled into a foetal ball and whimpering ever so slightly.

He said he didn’t think there would be any long-term side-effects from his injury, although I couldn’t resist suggesting his left arm was now two inches longer than the right.

“You’ll probably find you’ll only be able to ride in a circle now.” G-Dawg warned.

The Red Max rolled up wearing some brand new, super-shiny, carbon-soled road shoes from Planet-X, bagged half price, along with other swag totalling a couple of hundred pounds. He revealed he’d tried to pre-empt and mitigate censure from Mrs. Max, by including some pink bar tape in his order, solely for for her, but sadly she’s too wise to his ways and had seen right through this sop and purely token gesture.

Goose arrived somewhat flustered and seriously over-dressed in a waterproof and windproof winter jacket, having failed to plan ahead and swap out at least some of his winter kit for warm weather gear. Running late, he’d panicked and just grabbed whatever was to hand, hence the jacket. I was somewhat reassured by his explanation, which confirmed he hadn’t acquired secret knowledge of a freak, radical change in the weather heading our way and we could look forward to a pleasant ride. Meanwhile Goose tried to determine if he could ship the jacket in favour of just the short-sleeved jersey he wore under it, but decided it was still too chilly.

With OGL mysteriously absent, we still stuck to the plan, G-Dawg outlining a proposed route and then leading off the first group, while Red Max volunteered to take a second group off a few minutes behind on a slightly shorter run.

So, around two-thirds pushed off, clipped in and rode out, while the second group waited to allow us to get clear, before following on.

I slotted in alongside Rab Dee as the Prof and De Uitheems Bloem led us out, frequently checking that the pace was ok for everyone. At one point, the Prof called back and asked what speed he should set, but typically half a dozen people suggested half a dozen different answers, none of which were particularly helpful, or remotely sensible.

Because I’m a smart arse, I wanted precisely 16.37mph, while Rab Dee wanted us to try and achieve constant angular acceleration. Not getting a reasonable response, the pair just decided to stick to their own pace, which worked for a while, although as the ride progressed their enthusiasm began to get the better of them and they ultimately slipped the leash.

With the bridge leading up to the Cheese Farm temporarily closed, we looped east instead of west and I found myself riding next to Kermit, who’s not from around these parts, so obviously knew far more about local history and the countryside’s assorted attractions than I did. He even engaged his best tourism guide persona to point out the Cale Cross monument as we rode past, transported stone by stone from its original site on the Quayside. It’s now a feature of the Blagdon Hall Estate along with an interesting, if eclectic mix of local art and history that, according to Kermit is open to the great unwashed public “about one day every other year.”

I caught up with Taffy Steve, who confessed to being as giddy as a kid at Christmas at the thought of a ride where numbers were manageable and speed and distance weren’t dictated solely by the weakest. He even admitted to being up extra-early, so brim-full of anticipation to get started that he couldn’t sleep any longer. And so far? So far, it had all gone perfectly well and he was in acute danger of actually enjoying the ride.

We were soon dropping down to the River Wansbeck, but again our route nudged a little east instead of west, to miss the dubious pleasure of the Mur De Mitford climb, skirting around the edge of Morpeth before climbing inland again.

Here the enthusiasm of the Prof and De Uitheems Bloem would get the better of them and they started riding off the front, before taking the wrong turn, or looping back to find us again. I wondered if we weren’t witnessing a movement for Dutch independence, or a “Hexit” if you will, while G-Dawg suggested it was just like taking a couple of loopy young Labradors out for a walk; they’d enthusiastically bound on ahead, only to panic when you were out of sight and come lolloping back briefly, before haring off yet again.

(Their habit of riding up the inside of cars stopped by traffic lights and then holding up the traffic when the lights changed was much less endearing though, and probably not a great way of fostering mutual respect and understanding with other road users.)

After all the shouted warnings of pots, ice, water, mud and gravel that had become such a staple of our winter rides, it was refreshing for a change to hear the warning cry of “squirrel” – what better indication could there be that the weather is at last improving.

We stopped to regroup and outline route options for the rest of the ride, G-Dawg in particular looking to check that Sneaky Pete was ok and knew what was coming up. He then spent a good two minutes scanning all the assembled faces looking for Sneaky Pete, who just happened to be camped two feet in front of G-Dawg, hiding in plain sight directly under his nose. That kind of stealthy anonymity and ability to blend in must be an absolute boon to someone of Sneaky Pete’s sneaky proclivities.

The stop also revealed that the Goose was well and truly cooked and he took the opportunity to finally pack and stow his jacket as, all across the group, zips were inched down and gloves and arm warmers abandoned.

Route options aired and outlined and splinter groups agreed, we set off, climbing the Trench and then began the long, hard and hated haul up Rothley Crossroads. A pause to regroup again and then we set off – all fractured and strung out at high speed, as if the scent of coffee was already hanging in the air.

At one point, I cut a corner, picking up a few quick bike lengths, but finding a car approaching head on, if still some distance off. A quick twitch and I was back into the right lane and slipped easily past.

I can honestly say that the incident didn’t even register as noteworthy, there was no panic, no sudden surge of adrenaline and I never felt even remotely endangered. Everyone around me thought it had been a “close call” though, which I found a bit more disturbing than the actual incident.

We approached Middleton Bank at high speed and, as the climb began, I just had time to acknowledge a flash of black and green as the Monkey Butler Boy whipped past downhill with his new training compadres.

I hit the steepest ramp of the climb and, in an instant, all the strength just drained from my legs, like one of those jointed toys held up by elastic that collapse when you push a button on the base. Someone had just cut my elastic and I was going nowhere fast.

I ground on upwards, managing to just about hold onto Taffy Steve’s wheel over the top – and then we started to chase down the front group.

A mile or so further and Son of G-Dawg cruised past, with Zardoz in tow and we jumped across to this train. Then, as Son of G-Dawg pressed to re-join the front group, Zardoz slowly lost his wheel and declared himself all done. By the time I’d rounded him, Son of G-Dawg was gone and had successfully hooked up with the front group, but we were still adrift.

With what little energy I had left I tried to narrow the gap for Taffy Steve to jump across, pounding away until my efforts became ragged and there was nothing left. At this point, he dropped out of my slipstream and was on his own as he tried to close down the group up front.

I dropped the pace back and sat up until the next train churned past, this time driven by Aether and with a recovered Zardoz sitting on his wheel. Zardoz tapped me on the backside as he passed, a move that, had it occurred in Catalunya would probably have seen us both docked a minute for pushing, as it was I took it as a cue to slot in behind him.

As we hit the rollers, I pushed to the front and dragged the group up and over, then down the final descent and back up toward the café, which we found rammed full of both cyclists and civilians, lured out by the fine weather. Luckily, this was good enough to let us sit comfortably outside, so we decamped to the garden for hopefully just the first of many visits this year.

Before this, I had the fun of watching Zardoz place an order with one of the staff and then attempt to pay a completely different one, who wondered why a strange man was offering her money for no apparent reason. Apparently, “they all look the same.”

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

Squeezing onto one of the seriously crowded tables, I learned Buster had nearly-almost joined the club Velogames Fantasy Cycling League for the Spring Classics, but had missed the deadline. I had to admit that three races in we were all doing so badly that there was still a chance he could still sign up and win. I guess the unpredictability of the Classics is part of their appeal and perhaps why the bookies love them.

I mentioned how cold it was starting out this morning, especially on the long chilly drop down to the valley. The Red Max was unsympathetic, suggesting it was a natural consequence of living “across the river” in a land he suggested was always shrouded in black clouds.

“You think I live in Mordor?” I asked.

Apparently so, and not only that the Red Max believes the Tyne Bridge is the Black Gate, which … which means my path home leads through Cirith Ungol! No, man, not spiders, I mean, like I don`t dig spiders…

The Red Max revealed the Monkey Butler Boy is now taller than he is … and still growing. He has also proven surprisingly feral and an adept forager, so even refusing to feed him hasn’t helped.

Max was lamenting that he used to be able to punch, jab or slap the Monkey Butler Boy (one of the abiding, constitutionally encouraged requirements of fatherhood) and elicit the odd, offended yelp, such as: “Aye-ah!” or “Ow!” or “Hoo-man!” Now he says the Monkey Butler Boy just brushes off such rough and tumble horseplay, glares at him stonily and mutters “Soon, Dad. Very soon.”

To cheer himself up he’s off to a fancy dress party tonight as a 70’s porn star. Captain Black wondered aloud if he wasn’t actually going as his barber, which amused half the table and left the other half suitably perplexed.

Meanwhile Zardoz tried to convince the table that we’d deliberately not contested the café sprint because the front group have such fragile ego’s that they would have been crushed if we’d caught and dropped them. It was a good effort, but no one was buying.

Zardoz declared he was going to wait for the arrival of local legend, the indomitable Ray Wetherall – three quarters of a century in and still riding, so we left him behind, sitting out and enjoying the sun while we gathered for the return trip with everyone in high spirits.

The Red Max led from the café at a furiously fast pace, trying to burn up the surfeit of energy that remained after leading the shorter ride. I mentioned to Son of G-Dawg that had been just about the perfect ride, a good route, good group and bright, dry, not too windy and not overwhelmingly hot either. We had to wonder if this was our allotted, one and only perfect ride for the year.

When the Red Max finally faltered, G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg picked up the lead and drove us at high speed home. I held on as long as I could, until they hit the Mad Mile and started the race for first use of the shower in earnest, at which point I tailed off and started to pick my own way home.

The roads were surprisingly quiet, the weather remained good and the trip back was supremely pleasant and incident free. I even discovered the chasm in the bridge wasn’t quite as big a hole as I’d assumed, but still deep and steep-sided. I’ve committed its exact location to my fallible memory – hopefully I can avoid it from now on – I’m pretty sure I’ll notice if I don’t.

That was fun. Small steps taken and more to come. Roll-on next weekend.

YTD Totals: 1,520 km / 944 miles with 15,948 metres of climbing

Losing Control

Club Run, Saturday 18^th March, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 100 km / 62 miles with 602 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 00 minutes

Average Speed: 25.1 km/h

Group size: 26 riders, 1 (vaping) FNG

Temperature: 12°C

Weather in a word or two: Chill and wet

The Ride:

Well, I have to admit, I got that very badly wrong. Expecting and dressed for a relatively brisk, but mainly dry day, what we actually got was prolonged showers that seemed drive the temperatures down whenever they swept over us, so it felt noticeably chillier than the recorded and forecast 12°C. Part way into the ride I pulled on my rain jacket in the face of one hard shower and kept it on until I was about 5 miles from home on the way back.

Had I been less trusting of the weather forecast, I may have reverted to the Peugeot and enjoyed full mudguard protection, but I didn’t, so I got a soggy bottom and a black bin bag to sit on in the café. I finished the ride as mud be-splattered as if I’d just finished Paris-Roubaix in foul weather and the bike got a liberal coating of mud and crud. Not to worry, the mount scrubbed up quite nicely afterwards, even if I can’t say the same for the rider.

I should have noticed this wasn’t going to be the still, calm and mostly dry day promised, when the first thing I noticed was the smoke from a factory chimney in the valley floor being blown out almost at right-angles, a dirty-white, ragged banner, flapping against a sky of unrelenting grey.

The first rain shower hit as I was crossing the river, audibly ticking off my helmet and there was enough surface water to keep my overshoes gleaming wetly black, before they became, like everything else, daubed and dulled by mud and general road filth.

I passed a few other cyclists as I rode in, universally looking under-prepared and under-dressed and even including one brave soul in shorts. In March? In Northern England? Madness.

The rowing club seemed to have grasped the niceties of the weather much better than us cyclists, there was no mass of rowers out on the water, or even preparing to go out, only a hard core, two or three small sculls, way upstream and far enough away to look like insects, skittering over the rippled surface like startled water-boatmen.

Main topics of conversation at the start:

Grover was out for the second week in a row, but this time had swapped his posh Pinarello for a sturdy, steel-framed Raleigh, complete with ancient, 3-speed, Sturmey Archer hub gears. He challenged OGL to feel the weight of his bike, which he suggested belonged alone in a super-heavyweight division.

OGL wrapped two hands around the top tube, flexed sinewy muscles, gave a grunt of exertion and pulled. The bike didn’t budge. He refocussed and tried again and slowly, waveringly, the bike rose up and was held long enough for its weight to be fully assessed, before being dropped heavily back down to the ground with an explosive, “Ooph!” If he spends time off at a chiropractor in the next few days, we’ll know why.

If Grover found last week on his posh, featherweight, plastic bike hard going, he wasn’t doing himself any favours this time out.

My slowly decaying MTB with its ever more restricted gears came in for discussion, with the Red Max asserting: “You only ever need 1 gear.”

“That,” I agreed, “Is perfectly true, you do only need one gear, but it has to be the right one.”

The Prof had apparently been discussing one of his bike reclamation projects with Caracol, suggesting he could resurrect something rideable from a trashed blue frame with a 58cm top tube. (I didn’t dare ask the provenance of the frame.)

The Prof pressed Caracol to decide if he was interested, while Caracol pressed the Prof back for more details about what exactly it was he was agreeing to. After a lengthy back and forth, it became apparent that the frame was the same, not-quite-right size as Caracol’s current winter hack, so it probably wasn’t worth pursuing.

“Anyway,” The Prof concluded, “I don’t think this blue frame is particularly aesthetically pleasing.”

I have to admit at this point Red Max and I looked at each other, looked at the Prof’s eccentric, small-wheeled velocipede and both shook our heads, wondering what exactly constituted aesthetically pleasing bike design in his book … and just how much this digressed from the more established view.

“I wish I had a pair of magic specs like yours.” Max summed up, looking pointedly and quizzically at the Prof’s bike.

The Red Max himself is having bike sourcing problems of his own, having become embroiled in what is turning into a bike-buying odyssey of Homeric proportions. Mrs. Max surprised him by suggesting a budget over twice what he expected, which has opened up a massive range of possibilities – in fact, far too many possibilities, along with the added pressure of making sure that if he’s spending that much he gets the decision spot-on.

He now appears paralysed by indecision, which has left him wondering if this wasn’t Mrs. Max’s intent all along and if her motives were an act of deep, deep cunning, rather than great and sweeping benevolence. The longer he prevaricates and second-guesses himself, the more he seems to be leaning toward the former.

There was then only time then for the Prof to draw my attention to our FNG, vaping away contentedly pre-ride, emitting vast clouds of smoke like an enthusiastic, am-dram production of “The Rocky Horror Show.” Rather unusual preparation for a bike ride, I thought, but each to their own.

I rode out with Red Max and learned the Monkey Butler Boy was off riding with his new club mates, following a carefully structured training programme from his two personal coaches and happily and unsurprisingly shunning the opportunity to ride with a bunch of wrinkly, old blokes. The Red Max suggested he was yet have an awkward, but unavoidable conversation with OGL about the change in club allegiances and the fact another of our youngsters was leaving in order to find proper support.

This is one of a number of fundamental issues that currently plague us, but for me is not quite as pressing, or as contentious as the unnecessary friction of trying to ride in one mass group and at a pace largely dictated by our slowest rider.

As well as proving a sizeable obstacle for any traffic trying to get around us, this practice is particularly chafing for anyone who has maintained any degree of activity throughout the winter and now find their rides curbed and constrained by those newly arisen from hibernation and still trying to find their legs.

We’ve suggested numerous times that we split into several, different-paced groups before we set out, but OGL seems fearful of losing control, or influence, or prestige … or who knows what. He then spends a good amount of the ride bellowing instructions to try and knock the pace back, as we inevitably become strung out and splintered. This I assume he finds as tiresome as everyone else, but who knows?

Today, it seems there was to be a tipping point and if we weren’t allowed to organise a sensible, pre-ride split, we could manufacture one on the road. Things started to kick-off when we pulled over for a Prof Pee and Pit Stop and an unknown, lone rider, completely unaffiliated with our club rode past and off down the road.

As we set off again, De Uitheems Bloem hit the front and, assuming the lone cyclist up ahead was the Red Max, upped the pace to try and reel him back in. I would later explain to our Dutch friend that he should have known it wasn’t Max as, although dressed in signature red, this rider wasn’t giggling hysterically. Meanwhile the real Red Max was lurking at a few wheels back, out of sight, uncharacteristically quiet and watching with interest.

The pace went up as we closed in on the lone rider and as we hit a few inclines the shouts behind began in earnest. Most of these were riddled with the kind of expletives that would make a sailor blush, but at least these bits were intelligible, the rest just sounded like a disturbed troupe of howler monkeys sounding off.

We caught and passed the lone rider, De Uitheems Bloem realising his mistake too late and more shouting and incoherent screaming followed us up a sharp rise. There was no collective decision, no predetermined plan, no verbal acknowledgment, but cold and wet and sick of being shouted at I think everyone simply decided they’d had enough.

“Ease up!” one last shout sounded out.

“What was that?” someone asked.

“Speed up?” someone suggested, so we did.

A group of maybe a dozen of us now broke clear. It had been a difficult gestation and birth, with much shouting and swearing, but a decisive split had been forced. Those behind now had the opportunity to regroup and continue at a pace they found comfortable, while those looking for something a little more strenuous could push on without further shrill, ear-piercing censure.

I had a brief chat with Taffy Steve about how our club needs reforming and mentioned the website and forum as a singular case in point. This is supposedly the one, sacrosanct, universal source of communication for all members to use. I asked Taffy Steve if he’d been on it recently – obviously not – so he hadn’t seen the state of the forum. Every page here has seemingly been hacked by someone spamming messages about running shoes, which the site admin have done nothing to remove. This suggests to me that the club website is unequivocally dead.

I nonetheless suggested it was worth checking out, as half way down the list of spam emails offering Nike Air Max shoes at unbelievable prices, Grover had started a new topic simply and succinctly titled “Crap” containing just the one heartfelt message:

“Came on the forum tonight to see if there was any info about the upcoming Sloane Trophy road race – can’t believe what utter balls is on every thread or subject, am I old and grumpy? I’ll have to speak to someone about the Sloane as I’m not coming on the forum again. See you all soon.”

This got Taffy Steve pondering if our in-house tech-fiend, Crazy Legs was behind the hack, sort of the Fancy Bear equivalent for amateur cycling clubs. I felt it unlikely, but couldn’t completely rule out the possibility.

We climbed up to Dyke Neuk, swooped down and then up through Mitford and, after a bit of prevarication and dithering, set sail for Middleton Bank.

I joined De Uitheems Bloem on the front, where we talked about population displacement caused by climate change and extreme weather, how this led to over-crowding, civil unrest and ultimately conflict and how everything was minutely and mutually interconnected. See, it’s not always just errant nonsense that dominates our conversation, although I admit that it does form the overwhelming bulk of what we talk about.

Biden Fecht, De Uitheems Bloem and Captain Black attacked up Middleton Bank and opened a sizeable lead. I pulled into the gap, before easing and dropping back to where Taffy Steve and Goose followed as we approached the top.

Once again, there was to be no regrouping after the climb and the chase to the café began. Taffy Steve was in unstoppable form and powered up the pursuit, while I hung onto his back wheel as long as I could, until the speed, combined with the uncomfortable bouncing and bumping across the rough road surface shook me loose.

Goose overtook me too and I let him go, suspecting I could close the gap, if not overhaul him completely on the last climb to the café.

Taffy Steve gloriously failed (just) to close down the front group, Goose and I swept past a detached and solitary OGL on the final climb and then we all bundled into the café, breathless, exhilarated and well deserving of cake and coffee.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

Taffy Steve declared he has new work boots that make him feel like Miranda Hart whenever he pulls them on and almost compel him to re-enact Miranda-esque pratfalls. I never quite did discover what it was about the boots that impelled this strange behaviour.

This reminded Goose of the sheer horror of having to accompany his daughters to see Miranda live, as a fill-in after his wife had pulled a sickie. Here he found himself a lone, largely unamused and completely nonplussed male, in a room full of uproariously cackling women.

Nevertheless, I felt my horror story of having to endure a Jonas Brothers concert at the concrete toilet bowl that is the Metro Arena was much worse, especially as I was surrounded by thousands of pre-pubescent girls and also had to endure the dreadful, lip-synching support act of Little Mix.

“It doesn’t sound that bad.” Mini Miss ventured, obviously with far greater affinity for this kind of popular-music type thing than I could muster.

“What, two solid hours of solid screaming?” I asked.

“And that was just you.” Taffy Steve concluded, before suggesting I must have spent the night looking like the incarnation of Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

My tale reminded Goose of an unfortunate TV interview when the members of Little Mix had been asked what it was they most regretted about the past year. Not realising they were fully miked up, one had turned to another and muttered, far too clearly, “anal” for all the world and their adoring public to hear. Oops.

This led to a discussion about Dragon voice-to-text transcription software, which Taffy Steve suggested was too sensitive, as a colleague found out when his dictated board report included extracts from the two women behind his desk, who’d been actively discussing a severe case of chlamydia while he, well, beavered away shall we say?

To counter this, Goose was impressed by some worthy, pioneering research work at one university, which had taught a computer to lip-read. This I contrasted sharply with some profound research at my university that has … err … determined which dance moves men find the most sexually appealing …

Mini Miss was having problems with her Garmin, which kept losing its charge, although she said she kept it plugged in by the side of her bed at all times. I have to admit I was a bit confused about why she needed it in the bedroom, but had determined it was probably best not to look at her Strava profile.

She bravely surrendered the device to a couple of our tech-monkeys so they could vaguely prod and poke the screen to see if they could make it behave. I don’t think they made it any better, but they probably didn’t make it any worse either – and it did keep them quiet and occupied until it was time to leave.

I rode back chatting with Goose, while half-listening to a slightly uncomfortable conversation behind, where Red Max was explaining to OGL why the Monkey Butler Boy felt the need to join a club with kids his own age, structured and comprehensive training advice, involved coaching and (not to be underestimated) decent looking, modern kit.

I caught up with a thoroughly disgruntled OGL a little further on, complaining, “I think everyone must be on bloody EPO today!” I tried diplomatically to suggest he had to let it go, both actually and figuratively and that the club would not only survive, but could actually flourish if he was prepared to loosen control just a bit.

Then everyone was turning off and I entered the Mad Mile, with one of the young kids reprising the BFG role of escort for a short way, before I turned south for my solo ride home.

Footnote:

Apparently, the general disgruntlement carried over to Sunday’s ride and then resulted in the formation of a shadowy and covert cabal, the “Faster Rides Group”. There then followed a lot of behind the scenes manoeuvring, collusion, horse trading, secret negotiation, intense talking, pointed persuasion and maybe, who knows, hacking, extortion, sexting, bribery, wire-tapping, arm-twisting, fake news, air-guitars and Chinese burns. I’m ruling nothing out.

The result though, and it is a result, is that we now have faster ride groups officially sanctioned and organised for the next 4 Saturdays, with appointed group leaders and a plan to see how this works out for all involved.

Small steps.

YTD Totals: 1,228 km / 763 miles with 13,060 metres of climbing

Can’t Bring Me Down

Club Run, Saturday 11^th March, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 103 km / 64 miles with 986 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 12 minutes

Average Speed: 24.5 km/h

Group size: 28 riders, 2 FNG’s

Temperature: 12°C

Weather in a word or two: Pleasantly cool with late showers

Ride Profile

The Ride:

An extended period of warmer, dry weather saw a shuffling of the hierarchy in the Sur La Jante stable … or to be more accurate and less prosaic … the dingy, old bike shed. As a result, the ratbag mountain bike was relegated to the very darkest recesses, where it will sit and moulder until I can work up some enthusiasm for spending time and money on its sorry old carcase, or until the return of winter weather sees it dragged once more, limping and disabled into reluctant use.

To be honest it needs some real TLC as its slowly disintegrating round me. It’s already lost 70% of its functionality now, with only 8 of the original 27 gears in working order. The headset rattles like a bag of drop-forged spanners, while the 1½ functioning brakes have been possessed by a shrill and malevolent banshee. This evil spirit emits occasional and erratic blood-curdling screeches, like a rabid, feral cat being slowly dipped in boiling water.

Tucked in beside the MTB, the Pug got a good clean, wax and oil, before being prescribed bed-rest and set on reserve for emergency purposes only. Hopefully I won’t have to think about it again until at least October, when I have plans to upgrade most of the groupset from an awkward blend of Tiagra and Sora, to a more refined Shimano 105.

Out from its hiding place, the single-speed Trek has been shod with a new set of (Vittoria, naturally) tyres and last week it once again became the commuting bike of choice. And … from the other side of the shed … from its specially reserved space of splendid isolation, rising like lions after slumber, the Holdsworth has once again been unchained and unleashed.

The decision has been made and will not be retracted, best bikes are being broken out up and down the country and there is to be no turning back. Even the threat of rain showers later on Saturday wasn’t going to change anything.

Friday night saw me then, prepping my old friend Reg for Saturday’s ride, his first outing of the year. I’ve some new tyres (with added graphene!) to slap on at some point, but to be honest last years Corsa’s still looked to have plenty of life left in them, so that particular change can wait a while.

Saturday morning saw me dropping down the Heinous Hill faster and more assured than I had at any other time this year, revelling in pure speed, how the bike felt solidly planted and the turbo-charged tick-tick-ticking of the freewheel. I’d forgotten just how much fun this cycling lark could be.

Everything just seemed tighter and more refined, the brakes bit immediately and effectively, while gear changes were crisp and flowed smoothly. The transition was relatively smooth too, as I only once found myself reaching for a non-existent thumb-shifter.

Pushing out onto along the valley floor, the verges were scattered with the bright orange,yellow, purple and white studs of budding young tulips. It certainly feels like spring is just around the corner and it was beginning to look that way too.

A brief halt at the traffic lights on the bridge gave me the chance to watch the rowing club warming up with a serious of half-hearted shuttle-runs. There were at least 40 of them, several crews were already out on the water and there’s yet another club on the far bank. When did rowing get so popular?

Back underway, I found myself once again negotiating a serious of roadworks and temporary traffic lights, but seeming to catch my urgent need to maintain forward motion, this time I seemed to hit every one at just the right time and blew through them without delay, arriving at our meeting point in good time and in good order.

Main topics of conversation at the start:

As I pulled up in a bright blaze of vile red, poisonous black and bilious yellow, G-Dawg solemnly informed us that OGL had already issued a doom-laden proclamation. Apparently we would be engulfed by rain of biblical proportions should we dare to spurn the will of the weather gods and try riding anything but winter bikes today.

We all naturally assumed the worst and that Horner’s Theorem™ would apply anyway. This rule irrefutably proves a direct relationship between the number of shiny, posh and clean carbon bikes out on a spring or autumn morning and the number of crap-covered farm tracks, pothole and gravel strewn roads, gates and cattle grids OGL will “accidently” try to include in our route.

Jimmy Mac looked to be the only one still out on his winter bike – apparently, his good wheels had been mysteriously detained in OGL’s workshop where they’d only gone for a quick service and tune up. I suspected this was just a ruse to ensure OGL wasn’t the only one out on his winter bike. Of course he announced they were now ready to pick up, but … oops … not in time for today’s ride.

We had an FNG in the shape of a new arrival to the North East, recently transplanted from his native Devon and looking for a good club to join. I’m not sure how he wound up with us…

An ex-racer, he would later find a kindred spirit in beZ and the pair would eventually leave us tootling, old guys and gals, to go try and rip each other’s legs off. In the meantime, he took the time to introduce himself to everyone, complete with a firm, manly handshake. A good first impression, though I’ll be hugely impressed if he can attach more than a handful of names to an array of too similar, anonymous looking, helmet encased, sunglasses wearing bike jockey’s.

Grover wheeled up for his first ride of the year, much like the budding tulips, a truly profound indication that spring is just around the corner. Recovering from our mild surprise and rubbing our eyes to make sure it wasn’t just a miradjee, someone wondered if Szell might be next up, although it was quickly agreed we’d have to wait another month or two before the emergence of this particularly exotic butterfly from its winter chrysalis.

There was a long and involved discussion about Jess Varnish and the state of our national cycling federation, apparently beleaguered amidst a sea of troubles. An expectedly myopic OGL wouldn’t have a word said against British Cycling, while Taffy Steve reasoned that if you employed a straight-talking, foul-mouthed, Australian bully for a coach, you should know exactly what you’re going to get. Meanwhile, Tom-Tom suggested bullying and sexism had no place within any professional institution, least of all the highly public, elite end of sport.

I didn’t have anything sensible to add to the discussion, but felt compelled to mention Jess Varnish was an obvious talent and she had a real good finish on her.

“Yes, satin semi-gloss.” Taffy Steve agreed, while the Prof just looked on befuddled and wondered what the hell we could possibly be talking about.

Our 9:15 Garmin Time start was somewhat delayed by OGL collecting club membership fees, which prompted the Prof to ponder what actually happened to the princely payments our president procured.

“You might as well take a big stick and go and stir up a hornets nest.” G-Dawg suggested in the shocked silence that followed the question.

A bumper pack of 28 lads and lasses were soon pushing off, clipping in and riding out in two long snaking lines.

I spent time sitting toward the back of the pack with Sneaky Pete as we rolled out, Taffy Steve and Crazy Legs shouldering the burden of the work on the front as we clambered out into the countryside via Berwick Hill.

Rotations off the front and a brief stop for a mechanical and then for the Prof to pee, saw the order change and I spent some time chatting with Grover (who was definitely not enjoying his first ride since November) and then the BFG.

At some point OGL led us out briefly out onto the A696, two lanes of screaming death metal, notorious for speeding and dodgy over-taking manouvres. We all got stacked up at a junction waiting to cross against the fast moving, high volume traffic heading north on what is, after all a major route up to Scotland. We stood there far too long, all crowded together and feeling vulnerable to anything travelling south with too much pace or not enough attention, before managing to effect an exit.

“Great,” Taffy Steve quipped, “Looks like Punishment Ride Number 8.”

That’s what you get for riding your best bike without permission, but the weather had been so fine for the past week that we failed to find any dodgy, dirty roads. Still, you can’t say we/he didn’t try.

At one point, I caught up with Keel, who is enduring life in a call-centre while he waits for his chosen industry to pick itself out of a slump to get his career back on track. He’s still plumbing the depths to try and find the lowest base level of human benevolence, empathy, compassion and understanding. This week’s candidate for Caller of the Year had excused their ignorance and rudeness by suggesting, “I can’t help it that I’m upper class and you’re working class.”

Next up was Cowin’ Bovril who revealed he’s planning a trip to the Alps with Carlton in June. Funny he should say that …

The road finally spat us out at the bottom of Middleton Bank, with Crazy Legs turning left, away from the climb for a slightly longer run to the café, simply because it’s a direction he’d never taken before. Just as he swung away, Sneaky Pete sneaked off after him, while I hesitated, before deciding not to follow.

Hitting the steepest ramps of the climb, I then found myself at the back and boxed in as the BFG drove a small group off the front. In giving chase, Tom-Tom opened up a small gap which I nipped through and I dropped onto his wheel as he passed a struggling Taffy Steve, caught in an unequal fight with both the slope and a rubbing tyre.

As the road straightened, I swung past Tom-Tom and dragged him across the gap to the front runners. Over the top, there was to be no regrouping after the climb this week, both the BFG and Keel working hard to push the pace up on the front as we closed on the café. I drifted to the back of the group and followed the wheels as we swooped down through Milestone Woods and up the first and steepest of the rollers.

Here the BFG popped, swung over and was swept away. Half-way up the final climb, Keel also blew, G-Dawg, Jimmy Mac and Biden Fecht romped away to contest the sprint, while I tusselled wheel to wheel with the Prof for the minor places.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

G-Dawg and Crazy Legs have organised an off-road , mountain bike excursion around Kielder next Saturday. Sounds like fun, but I suspect any kind of route more challenging than a riverside path is likely to shake my mountain bike to destruction. Besides this, it’s much too soon after re-discovering the joy of riding the Holdsworth again, so I had to pass.

Completely independent of Carlton and Cowin’ Bovril, Crazy Legs has also arranged a trip to France, where he’ll re-enact Hannibal’s epic journey across the Alps. Captain Black, Goose and me have all volunteered for the role of the elephants, reasoning we probably climb like enormous, lumpen pachyderms anyway.

We fly to Geneva on the weekend of the Cyclone, with the idea of driving to France and setting up a base camp within striking distance of Alpe d’Huez, the Galibier, Col de la Bonette, Col d’Izoard and all those other legendary climbs that cyclists can usually only dream of. That should keep us well occupied for 3 or 4 days.

We represent then … drum roll please … “The 4 Riders of the Alps Bucket-List” – although my carefully pre-prepared blerg title, has been somewhat ruined as Crazy Legs’ brother-in-law, or aunties, uncles, nephew’s son, or some such distant relative will also join us.

The BFG too, might venture out, if the timings coincide with his human phases of the moon and even the elusive, semi-legendary recluse, Hammer has threatened to join us, although I understand he’ll be flying out by private jet and will probably take up residence on his super-yacht in Monaco for the duration.

While there’s no contest in a choice between the Alps and the Cyclone, the trip does mean I’ll miss the annual slug fest around Northumberland for the first time since 2010. This not only breaks a 6 year tradition, but means there’s a sportive-sized hole in my annual schedule, which the talk at Saturday suggested could be filled by a return to the Wooler Wheel. There seems to be a lot of club interest in the ride, which I haven’t done for a couple of years, so it’s definitely-maybe a possibility.

Captain Black also helpfully reminded me of the post-ride grub the organisers provide, which is, I have to admit a real incentive and could yet sway my decision.

Crazy Legs wandered up in his role of Hannibal to discuss trip arrangements, picked up Princess Fiona’s Oakley’s by mistake and made to wander away. Called to account, he did have the excuse that her prize, expensive Oakley’s were identical in absolutely every way to his knock-off, uber-cheap Fauxley’s. He placed both pairs side by side to prove his point, but luckily didn’t shuffle them around and ask us to pick out the genuine article.

The Prof exulted in his original Ray Ban X-Rays, which he felt were old enough to be seen as not only a true classic, but apparently wholly original and positively vintage.

“And you’ve only ever had to replace the lenses 13 times and the frames 6 times.” Captain Black quipped.

With OGL dithering over another coffee, most of us were done and dusted and so we split the group and left.

On the way back I was chatting to Taffy Steve about local sports “heroes” – inevitably ours are cerebrally-challenged ex-footballers of dubious abilities, who manage to get continuous media work despite relying on the most mundane prognostications, unedifying insight and some truly banal cliché’s.

I told him how one famous son of Tyneside had rang the University demanding a place for his daughter and, on being told her qualifications simply weren’t good enough, had actually resorted to the cheesy old, “Do you not know who I am?”

(Of course, I always enjoyed the (probably) apocryphal story of the outraged airline passenger who used the same, “Do you have any idea who I am?” line, only for the ticket agent to fire up the public address and loudly announce, “We have a passenger here who can’t remember who he is. If anyone can help him, please come to gate 17.”)

I also had a laugh at Chris Waddle who it seems has singularly failed to master the word “penalty.”

“That’s a stone-wall pelanty!” he’ll shout excitedly down the radio, while I shake my head and sigh. No Chris, it’s not.

“That is good though,” Taffy Steve mused, “He can’t pronounce penalties and he can’t take them either.” Ooph!

As we made our way down Berwick Hill, the driver of a large white panel van we’d obviously delayed on his massively important journey for the briefest of nano-seconds, decided we didn’t have any right to be on the road. To make his point he decided it would be a good idea to overtake, pull sharply in front of us and then execute an exemplary emergency stop, in the hope that we would all pile into the back of his van and die in a horrible, mangled heap.

Sadly for him, our brakes and reflexes were more than adequate to cope with this utterly ridiculous and dangerous stunt and we all stopped admirably and without incident, albeit there was a fair bit of shouting.

Taffy Steve pulled up alongside the open window of the still rocking van to calmly inform the moronic driver that he’d been a very naughty man indeed and suggested we had 20 witnesses to a very clear case of dangerous driving, before riding nonchalantly away. These pronouncements seemed to leave the loon gibbering, spluttering and chittering incoherently in outraged apoplexy, while we all filed past and continued our ride. Complete and utter arse hat.

Exiting the Mad Mile, I latched onto the BFG’s wheel as his new lair lies a little way along my route home and so I enjoyed a bit of company for the first quarter of a mile or so. Then I was off, riding solo and still thoroughly enjoying myself.

Crossing the river, I was approaching a supermarket entrance, and noticed a car with Probationary driver plates waiting to pull out onto the road, piloted by a young, female. Feeling sure she’d noticed the vulnerable cyclist, or at least the line of cars stacked closely on my rear wheel, I gave it no further thought, until she pulled out directly in front of me.

I had no choice but to swerve into the opposite lane, which was thankfully empty, while wildly gesticulating with a universal “WTF” waving of my arms, which she studiously ignored. I passed down the left-hand side of the car as she slowed to turn immediately right, banging on the side-panel to try and get her attention and at least have her acknowledge I existed. Eyes fixed very firmly straight-ahead, there wasn’t even a flicker that she’d done something irrefutably stupid and wrong, before she turned the wheel and drove blithely away.

Y’gads, they’re everywhere! But, despite it all, malicious, ignorant or simply inattentive, asinine drivers failed to puncture my good mood. I can’t wait for next weekend and the chance to do it all again.

YTD Totals: 1,228 km / 763 miles with 13,060 metres of climbing

Wave Rider

Club Run, Saturday 4^th March, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 101 km / 63 miles with 1,015 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 21 minutes

Average Speed: 23.2 km/h

Group size: 18 riders, 0 FNG’s

Temperature: 10°C

Weather in a word or two: Wet and dry

Ride Profile

The Ride:

The weather forecast on Friday night was predicting heavy rain throughout Saturday, which was due to last at least until late in the afternoon. Someone must have given the weather systems the bums rush though, as I awoke to find all the rain had seemingly swept right over us during the night.

Consequently, things were looking much, much better than expected, first thing Saturday morning. The problem was though that the rain due to fall in the eight or so hours of daylight had been compressed into a tiny window of a just a few pre-dawn hours. While the sky remained flat, grey and dull and we would escape all but the briefest of showers, the concentrated rainfall seemed to have swollen every watercourse, universally overwhelmed drainage and left the ground thoroughly sodden and saturated.

Our day then was to be punctuated by several notable, unpredictably placed encounters with huge lakes and lagoons of standing water that barred our course from verge to verge and left us no choice but to ford our way carefully through them, slowly, in single-file while hoping their murky, watery depths hid no potholes.

My ride across to the meeting place had proven unremarkable, except for a cluster of un-manned roadworks and temporary traffic lights that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere. There were enough of these to delay me by a good five minutes, while every red light gave me yet another opportunity to wonder just where the accompanying workmen were.

Main topics of conversation at the start:

Queries about my debilitating malady last week led to discussions about the best way to slack off work, with the main conundrum being how you could periodically simulate some kind of activity and tap a computer key to stop a screen-saver kicking in and the network connection timing out. Someone suggested perhaps one of those dippy, drinking bird novelties, poised carefully over your keyboard might work …

A group from the club have signed up for the Tour of Ayrshire Gran Fondo in April, a qualifying event for the UCI Gran Fondo World Championships. Sadly, their hopes of competing as a team have been dashed by the realisation that while they have managed one entrant in each of the age categories, they actually only have one entrant in each of the age categories – so, about as useful as a Venn diagram where none of the quadrants overlap then.

Jimmy Mac suggested the Prof was old enough to be his dad and wondered just how tired he got filling in insurance forms online. In fact, he wondered if, by the time the Prof had managed to scroll all the way down to his birth year, whether he would be suffering from some form of devastating repetitive strain injury to his aged, mouse-working fingers and would perhaps have even forgotten what he was scrolling down to find in the first place.

Spiralling out from this conversation, we learned that G-Dawg had just managed to squeeze his creation date into the 1950’s – something I was amazed to discover as I was unaware cybernetic engineering had been quite so advanced, even late into that decade. “You’re the same age as Sputnik.” Taffy Steve gleefully informed him.

beZ arrived on a newly acquired old Trek that he’d adopted as his winter bike and took some grief from OGL who suggested the stack height above the stem was a potential hazard to his testicles. “Story number#6, please.” I muttered sotto voce to G-Dawg, expecting OGL to dial up the hoary old tale of how he ripped his scrotum open on a stem bolt when he crashed at a track meet. Surprisingly though, memory synapses failed to fire correctly and we were spared the full horror of hearing this particularly gruesome tale. Again.

Meanwhile, Taffy Steve tried to decide if beZ’s Trek was the same model as Szell had been riding, before he upgraded to his “fat lad’s bike.” He tried turning his back on beZ and occasionally glancing briefly over his shoulder, reasoning that this was how he most often saw Szell’s bike, something he said he hadn’t really had a chance to study before, because you got such a pain in the neck from constantly looking back at it!

“Is it time yet?” Crazy Legs enquired enthusiastically

“It’s only 9:14, official Garmin Time.” I assured him.

“But, you could at least start making a move toward your bike.” Taffy Steve encouraged.

“Gentlemen, start your motors.” G-Dawg intoned and as we prepped for the off, we tried to work out the purpose of that mad scramble to the cars at the start of Le Mans, as it obviously had no bearing on the outcome of the race.

We decided its sole purpose was to create the maximum amount of danger, mayhem and confusion possible and perhaps it’s something that Formula 1 should adopt to spice things up a bit. Along with Son of G-Dawg, I wanted to take this further and have all the pit lane berths unassigned, so cars had to turn into the first space available and the crews had to leg it down the pit lane carrying all their kit and spares. Perhaps we could actually make Formula 1 interesting and exciting again.

No?

Thought not.

With the late addition of a rapidly vectoring in Ovis, 18 of us pushed off, clipped in and rode out for our advanced lessons in water dowsing.

All was progressing smoothly, until we turned off for the Cheese Farm, rounded a corner and were confronted by a mighty puddle, a road spanning lake, an inland lagoon. This mere of muddy brown waters, of indeterminate length and depth – stretched up around the next corner and out of sight.

We picked our way slowly and carefully through this unforeseen obstacle, slowly and in single file, watching as the water began to lap up over bottom brackets and wheel hubs, hoping it would rise no further and we’d avoid any unforeseen potholes or hidden debris luring in the murky depths.

Behind there was loud chorus of disgusted groans as cold water quickly washed through overshoes, shoes and socks, while those of us up ahead, smug and still dry in our winter boots enjoyed just a little bit of schadenfreude. Taffy Steve decided that while he might be riding a thrice-cursed winter bike he could at least enjoy his thrice-praised GoreTex boots and their stout protection from cold wet feet.

At the same time, we also decided that in tribute to many of our rides traversing the outer reaches of Northumberland, we should re-name this blog a blerg, in favour of a local idiom, particularly hoard around Eshington (aka Ashington):

Alert of ferk there know a beut a bared derg that jumped up at a deft kerb, making him furl into a hurl where he boast his fierce. (Rough translation: “A great number of people are aware of a story regarding a misbehaving pet canine that jumped up at a silly young boy scout, causing him to stumble into a cavity and injure his countenance.”)

For more of this delightful nonsense, try here.

Clear of the flooding, we were painfully, slowly and very, very cautiously overtaken by large silver 4 x 4, even as we singled-out and waved it through with the road ahead completely clear and empty. As it passed, someone mentioned how unusual it was to find cars on this stretch of road and wondered where they might be heading.

We caught up with the car perched in the middle of the road and halfway across the next junction, where its occupants, two woolly haired, perplexed looking grannies, took time off from myopically turning their map book this way and that to favour us with a sheepish grin. We didn’t know where they were going and I guess they didn’t either.

If anything, the roads appeared to be even more scarred, pot-holed and woe-begotten than we were used to, eliciting a strange, Tourette’s style conversation between OGL and his riding companion: “I use Ultegra wheels … Pots! … during winter, they’ve got … Pots! … cup and cone bearings in … Pots! … the hubs, so you can … Pots! … service them easily.”

A clamber up a hill and then sudden slowing suggested the front of our group had encountered yet another obstacle on the road ahead. This time it wasn’t a flood, but an enormous swan, that slowly unfurled itself, shook out its majestic wings to their full extent and clambered slowly upwards into the air. For several seconds it hung impressively above us, white and bright and magnificent against the grey sky, before tipping over to wheel away from the road.

We pressed on, sometimes slaloming around puddles and occasionally, when there was no way to avoid them, slowing to pick our way carefully through the middle. Several of the unbooted riders started unclipping, lifting their feet off the pedals and out of the water while they freewheeled across, saving their feet from another dousing. Luckily, everyone made it through safely and carrying enough momentum to reach dry road at the other side.

As we started the climb up to Dyke Neuk, the Big Yin punctured and with nowhere for us to stop safely nearby, he dropped off the back while we pushed on over the crest of the hill before pulling to the side of the road to wait. From this vantage point, we had a grandstand view of the next road-spanning puddle and could watch the way various drivers tackled it. A hot hatch blatted past at ridiculously high speed and we jeered as brake lights flared and he slowed to a mincing crawl to pick his way carefully through the water.

Then a large Transit van serving as a taxi ripped through at high speed, flinging a massive bow wave over the hedgerows and for a brief instant leaving a thin isthmus of dry road through the middle of the puddle, before the water came surging back in again.

Crazy Legs felt that if you got the timing right, you could have followed the taxi through the puddle, “like Mose’s parting the Red Sea” and kept yourself perfectly dry. Luckily, he didn’t try to attempt this, but was intrigued enough to ride down to have a closer look at this latest flood while we waited.

OGL decided he was getting too cold hanging around and set off for the café with a few amblers. The Big Yin finally re-joined and Crazy Legs skipped ahead to line up some action shots of the remaining stalwarts fording the latest flood.

We then took a route through Hartburn and toward Angerton, reasoning this would be the most likely flood- free run in we could find. As we pushed past Bolam, Taffy Steve made up for the Red Max’s absence with an attack of the front. Jimmy Mac responded and all hell broke loose. I hung on as long as I could, wheezing like a pair of punctured bellows, before dropping down to a more sustainable pace and grinding up the last climb to the café.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

Taffy Steve resumed his campaign to get Marmite on the café menu, something he feels is indispensable to his enjoyment of toasted teacake. I think he’s ploughing a lone furrow, but you have to give him kudos for persistence.

Removing his helmet and cap the Prof revealed a precisely drawn line circumscribing his forehead, the gleaming pale skin above the line contrasting sharply with the grey and begrimed features below it. I suggested it looked like he’d had a lobotomy, but he was able to assure me this wasn’t the case, otherwise he’d be a much nicer person!

He recalled an ex-military acquaintance with terrible depression and anger issues, who’d pressed the muzzle of his service revolver to his head and blown a hole right through his skull. Waking up afterwards (with what I rather cavalierly suggested must have been “the mother of all hangovers”) the guy had not only survived, but had undergone a complete personality makeover and became kind, generous, patient and considerate overnight. If only we could guarantee the results, I’d willingly buy the bullets and load the gun.

This in turn led to a brief discussion about trepanning, replete with gory tales of people drilling holes in their own heads, both intentionally and accidentally. I can’t help but think the whine of a Black and Decker biting into my skull, replete with the smell of burning bone would probably be enough to dissuade me from such practices. Still, you can’t say we don’t have wide ranging and, well … different conversations when we’re out on these rides.

I don’t know what set if off, but Crazy Legs then embarked on a rant against all things Charlie Brown and Peanuts and he conducted a quick straw poll around the table to find that no one actually liked this turgid, sentimental tosh (IMHO). Crazy Legs then revealed a disturbing, overwhelming desire to rip Linus’s security blanket out of his pathetic, puny hands and set fire to it. Taffy Steve reasoned that if Charlie Brown was a Geordie (Chaz Broon, if you like) he’d probably smash Lucy’s teeth down her throat the first time she pulled that stupid trick with the football and he most certainly wouldn’t fall for it twice.

This led to recollections of another horror inflicted on British kids by our American cousins: Sherry Lewis and Lambchop. Utterly, totally, dreadful and unforgivable – especially at a time when you only had the choice of two TV channels.

Taffy Steve then revealed the deep emotional scarring he suffered when the family switched from a black and white TV to a colour one and he discovered for the first time that Bagpuss was actually pink!

In a discussion about American vs. British humour Crazy Legs revealed how much he’s enjoying “Parks and Recreation,” while I had to admit I was perhaps the only person who failed to see the comic genius of Ricky Gervais and “The Office.”

This reminds me of my reaction to “The Rider” the book by Tim Krabbe, which as a cyclist I think I’m supposed to like, but found hugely disappointing, disjointed, superficial and all a bit, well … meh. Maybe it’s because the book couldn’t possibly live up to the expectation generated by all the glowing and fulsome praise heaped on it. Then again, maybe the Emperor isn’t actually wearing any clothes…

At the café we were reunited with Princess Fiona, Mini-Miss, Brink, Kipper and a few others who had set out late to doubly-ensure they missed any lingering rain. They had apparently tried the road up to the Cheese Farm too, but being eminently more sensible had turned back at the first flooded section and found an alternative, drier route. They would now bolster our numbers for the return journey.

This return leg passed without incident and we found the roads largely dry and free from flooding, even in the one or two trouble spots where we were expecting the worst. It looked like the excess water was finally starting to drain away and Sunday looked like being a perfect riding day.

As I turned off for the solo part of my ride home, I even noticed the sky had brightened enough to throw a shadow down alongside me for some unexpected company.

The river, which had been high, full and racing as I crossed in the morning had now withdrawn to the middle of its course and acquired two wide shorelines of gleaming black mud, like giant basking seals. The traffic on the other side was relatively light and I was soon hauling ass up the Heinous Hill, suitably leg weary, but altogether content. That was fun, floods and all, but perhaps my enthusiasm is directly proportional to just how waterproof my winter boots are proving to be.

YTD Totals: 1,086 km / 674 miles with 11,447 metres of climbing

Domestic Duties

Club Run, Saturday 18^th February, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 107 km / 67 miles with 1,061 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 25 minutes

Average Speed: 24.2 km/h

Group size: 22 riders, 1 FNG

Temperature: 13°C

Weather in a word or two: Föhntastic!

The Ride:

Catching the end of the BBC weather, I learned the weekend was going to see the whole of the North East of England exposed to what they were labelling the Föhn effect. That sounded serious, in a Scandinavian sort of way and they’re not a region renowned for fine weather. After last week’s dreadful conditions, it was not what I was hoping for.

In actual fact the Föhn effect is relatively benevolent as, to the best of my limited understanding, it meant that we were going to be sheltered in the lee side of a plume of tropical air that got hung up in the process of dumping a heavy, hearty rainfall all over the Pennines. This in turn would generate strong and gusty downslope winds accompanied by abrupt warming and drying over our entire region. Sorry, Manchester, but lucky us.

What this actually meant in practice was an unseasonably mild, dry but windy Saturday. .

In fact, the forecast was so mild and so dry for Saturday, that Facebook chatter started early about the rare possibility for breaking out the best, summer bikes, if only on a day release basis. It was an opportunity many decided could not be missed, but Reg was clearly unprepared for such a rude and abrupt early awakening, so I stuck to the Pug.

Down by the riverside (Catchy. Someone should use that line in a song) I found lots of fit looking young people in muddy wellies milling around. The car parks in both boat clubs were clogged with trailers piled high with white hulls, while cars spilled out onto either side of the road. It looked like being a big day of competition out on the river for our local rowing clubs and they’d struck lucky with the weather too.

It was mild enough outside for a single base-layer and light, windproof jersey and by the time I reached the meeting point, both the weather and my efforts had warmed me up enough that I was able to discard the buff, headband and inner gloves.

Main topics of conversation at the start:

G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg were the first to arrive on their “best bikes” the latter adorned with a gleaming new chain. And not just any chain, but a gleaming, new and glistening golden chain. We suggested other bits of gold bling Son of G-Dawg could add to the bike, although there was a sharp intake of breath when he proposed, “Maybe gold shoes, too.”

You see, he just had to push it too far (although, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’d wear gold shoes, even if it was just as ultimate mark of my style over substance approach to cycling.)

It wasn’t quite mild enough for Crazy Legs to risk the cossetted Ribble, but he’d traded in the fixie for the Bianchi. Jimmy Mac tried to interest Crazy Legs in a celeste coloured chain for the Bianchi, but the option had already been contemplated and rejected because:

a. It would mean keeping the chain even more scrupulously clean.

b. How much!!? £80 for a consumable chain seems a little excessive.

Taffy Steve had abandoned the thrice-cursed winter-bike for his titanium love-child, but cited on-going mechanical issues with the winter hack as the principle reason for the change, including jockey wheels that had assumed the same rough shape and dimensions as a shark’s teeth. Likewise, the Red Max had no choice but to go with his best bike after the terminal disintegration of his drive train last week.

Keel, also out on his best bike, had invested in some scarily, glaringly white, plush, Lizard Skins bar tape, but was uncertain how long it would keep its pristine loveliness. He suggested he might be riding the entire way with his hands clasped precariously around the front of his brake levers.

White bar tape had finally defeated even G-Dawg, who usually relishes even the most taxing bike-cleaning challenge, but had eventually recognised the futility of a battle he couldn’t hope to win. We’ll see, maybe the Lizard Skins stuff is easy to clean – it has a good reputation to go with its hefty price.

Meanwhile the Garrulous Kid was talking at Taffy Steve, explaining he would be missing a few club runs as he needed some extra weekend tuition for his Maffs A-Level.

“Maffs?” I enquired.

“Yes, Maffs.”

“Not English?”

“No, my English is really good, just Maffs.”

“Really?”

Meanwhile, Sneaky Pete had sneaked in amongst the group, presenting us with a unique photo-opportunity, as the bus shelter nearby was currently adorned with a poster for the eponymous TV Series of Sneaky Pete’s life.

Acting as both press officer and official photographer, Crazy Legs was soon lining up Sneaky Pete alongside the poster, to record the moment for posterity.

He looks grumpy because he’s entirely disowned the production as (allegedly) the series takes far too many liberties with his real life story: turning the mild-mannered, retired-physics teacher, Oxford Blue and occasional mountaineering-cyclist, into a con man on the run from a vicious gangster, while transplanting the whole story from the gritty north of the UK, to a ritzy New York City. Hollywood, eh?

After a slight delay, while the Red Max swapped his cleats around – 24 or so cyclists pushed off, clipped in and rode out, an odd mix of posh plastic bikes and battered and benighted winter-hacks.

Those on their good bikes were especially giddy, none more so that the Red Max, who swooped delightedly from the head of the line, completely around one roundabout and back onto the rear of our group – the world’s first Immelmann Turn performed by bicycle.

I was riding with the Monkey Butler Boy when we had our first RIM encounter of the day, a white-van man who took exception to us, even though he was driving in completely the opposite direction. Face twisted in malevolent outrage, he considerately took time away from the conversation he was having on his mobile, to lean heavily on his horn and gesticulate that we were all violent self-abusers. How pleasant.

Moments later a driver tried to pass us, only to find the outside lane already occupied by an approaching car, forcing him to dither disconcertedly, obviously tempted to turn back into our group.

If he was a short-sighted, impatient lunatic, I didn’t know what to make of the driver who blindly followed the overtaking manoeuvre, glued to his rear bumper and with even less idea if the road ahead was clear.

Luckily the approaching driver braked to a halt, allowing the two morons the opportunity to accelerate away and pull across in front of us. I was going to say safely in front of us, but there was wasn’t a scintilla of safety or consideration in anything this pair were doing.

Looking for less trafficked lanes, we turned right at the top of Berwick Hill and lined out for a fairly rapid descent. Half way down Sneaky Pete’s bottle bounced out and down the road and, after a short delay he finally seemed to notice and decided to turn about and retrieve it.

I found a place to pull in, stop and wait, while the rest of the group flashed past and away, just in case he needed any help chasing on. After a short delay, Sneaky Pete appeared over the brow of the hill, led by Rab Dee who’d also waited to help out. As Rab is younger, faster than fitter than me, my services weren’t really required, so I simply tagged onto the back, while he pulled us up to where our group was being trailed by a couple of cars, like a loyal domestique drafting through the caravan of team cars and service vehicles to deliver his leader back to the front.

Further on and passing Kirkley Cycles, G-Dawg pulled over as his STI lever had worked loose on his handlebars. As this was the same STI lever OGL’s shop had recently spent some time fixing, he was instantly on hand to help sort the problem, while we naturally all suggested G-Dawg should have used a more reputable mechanic.

None of the proffered multi-tools were long enough to get the job done, so OGL and G-Dawg disappeared up the lane to the cycle workshop to seek technical assistance and pro tools. Unbeknown to anyone, Zardoz also trailed after them, looking for the toilet.

While we waited, Crazy Legs’s Bianchi and my Peugeot decided to re-ignite the long dormant Franco-Italian War, with a bit of tyre-butting, like two rutting stags going head to head. Meanwhile, Jimmy Mac’s German Storck tried to maintain neutrality with an air of imperious disdain.

Thankfully easily distracted, Crazy Legs tilted his head to one side to read the name emblazoned down the side of the Storcks fork. “Stiletto, that’s a good name for a bike,” he declared.

“Just not very Germanic.” I added, before suggesting maybe Stuka or Panzerkampfwagen would have been more appropriate.

Elsewhere, the Monkey Butler Boy was extolling the virtues of Morgan Blue Cleaning Brushes, which I interpreted as booshes and Crazy Legs as Morgan Freeman. In an instant we were left wondering what Morgan Freeman Booshes were … and whether we needed any.

Luckily Taffy Steve wasn’t around to advise us that you shouldn’t really be calling bike cleaning products anything that could be confused with a stripper, or porn stars’ stage name.

Repairs safely effected, OGL and G-Dawg returned and we set off, inadvertently abandoning Zardoz in the toilet and forcing him to chase on for a good few miles. As I reiterated later, no one is knowingly left behind, but we’re just not very knowing.

Despite the beneficial, drying Föhn effect, through sheer persistence, cunning local knowledge and a degree of malevolent serendipity, OGL finally managed to lead us onto a section of road that was wet, rutted, filthy-muddy and horribly exposed – seemingly on no more than a whim to ensure all the posh bikes got clarty.

Rounding one bend on a narrow road, we forced a lane-hogging Qashqai to slow and reluctantly pull over. As we squeezed past the driver wound down her window to gesticulate angrily to the side of the road.

“There’s a parsing ployce,” she cried, “Yoos should use the parsing ployce!”

A great idea in principle, but I’m not sure how we could have crowded 2 dozen bikes and riders into the narrow strip that barely deserved to be called a lay-by, or how long that would have delayed her while we all huddled up and squeezed in tight together.

As we stopped to split the group, Son of G-Dawg bemoaned his spattered and muddy bike. An unsympathetic OGL told him smugly he needed mudguards. Smug guards?

“Got him,” Son of G-Dawg muttered, “Hook, line and sinker.”

“Yep,” I agreed, “He’s done, gaff him and pull him on-board.”

OGL then took the amblers group off to the left, while we pushed past Dyke Neuk, before splitting the group. A small selection of longer, harder, faster riders headed away for a loop around Long Whitton, while we set off for a rendezvous with Middleton Bank.

Jimmy Mac rode off the front on the approaches to the climb and everyone was strung out in a long line as we hit the lower slopes. I found myself at the bottom of the steepest ramp and some way off a rapidly coalescing front group and knew immediately it just wasn’t going to happen today, I didn’t have the legs to close them down. Still, I tried to keep the gap manageable, pulling clear of the rest with Zardoz in tow.

Over the top, I pushed on with the lone chase, now battling a fairly stiff headwind along with horrendous oxygen deprivation. It was hard, hard work, even as the distance to the front slowly dwindled. I suspect at some point they then looked back, saw me and took pity on my ineffectual thrashing, easing slightly so I was finally able to drag myself and Zardoz up to the wheels.

There we joined, G-Dawg, Son of G-Dawg, Taffy Steve and Captain Black as they set off again, in mad pursuit of Jimmy Mac. Slowly, inexorably, the screw was turned and the pace increased as we slipped from riding in pairs, to one long, drawn out line, hammering over a series of short rises and sweeping through the bends.

I was at my limit on Captain Black’s wheel as he became slowly detached and I had nothing to give to help him bridge back across, so just hung there uselessly. He dug in to stop the gap expanding further, but couldn’t close up again.

We yowled through Milestone Woods towards the rollers and I felt there was a chance if I buried myself I might be able to pull our small group across the leaders on the climb. Carrying as much speed as I could around the final corner, I attacked from the bottom of the first ramp, managed to maintain momentum up the second and then attacked the third and final rise in a ragged, out of the saddle, leg pounding, snaking effort.

Pushing on and pedalling furiously on the descent to the final climb, I got within a few metres of Taffy Steve’s back wheel, before the slope bit, the legs went and I sat up. Zardoz swept past with a quizzical look, but I was cooked and there was nothing more I could do. He at least managed to bridge up to Taffy Steve to contest the minor placings, while I plugged along behind.

We regrouped at a temporary set of traffic lights, before rolling into the café en masse.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

A quick scrutiny of £5 notes revealed that no one had the last £50,000 engraved version. Maybe next week.

Max Stöckl’s world record downhill speed of 167 kph (over 100 mph!) was rightfully appreciated, while we wondered just how good his brakes were, if there was a wall at the end of his run, maybe speed bumps, or perhaps even train lines.

This inevitably led to further discussion of Biden Fecht’s escapades sans braking, with G-Dawg revealing that now, whenever he drives past the Metro station, he always looks for the escape lane/service road that our hapless riding companion took to avoid slamming into the level crossing barriers or the train. He wondered if Biden Fecht knew the lane was there, or whether he was just got very, very lucky. I strongly suspect the latter.

Son of G-Dawg said he realised how bad the situation was when Biden Fecht took the first corner out of Stamfordham like a speedway rider, foot down and trailing a plume of smoke, bike leaning over impossibly and at a right angle to its direction of travel. G-Dawg wondered if he’s had to buy new cleats as well as brake blocks and maybe even new shoes, perhaps with a better braking surface – just in case.

There’d been a cyclo-cross race at Kirkley Cycles when we’d stopped there earlier, but none of us could quite see the attraction of wallowing through all that mud and crud and getting your bike, in the immortal words of Daughter#2, “all bogey’d up.” In fact, given the group response to the mild mud speckling we’d encountered today, I sensed no one in our group would deliberately subject their bikes to prolonged dirt grubbing.

G-Dawg said he’d once tried a cyclo-cross event on his mountain bike, but felt parts of the course were so technical he would have been better off running the whole way. We then idly speculated on the chances of an Olympic-class middle distance runner just shouldering a bike and running an entire cyclo-cross race, potentially doable if the course is technical enough and the bike you carry doesn’t actually need all those superfluous heavy bits cyclo-cross riders use, you know like a chains, pedals, group sets and … oh … err … hidden motors.

With the café busy and new arrivals stacking up and waiting for free tables, G-Dawg declared to a waiting civilian that we’d be done in five minutes, while Son of G-Dawg snorted in disdain. Apparently, G-Dawg’s “just five minutes” are notoriously elastic in a “I told you half an hour ago I’d be 5 minutes” type of way.

We left the café to find the Red Max had been divulging copious advice on how to deal with the fairer sex to a suitably scandalised Garrulous Kid, while the Monkey Butler Boy rolled his eyes in a “I’ve heard it all before” kind of way and tried to ignore his embarrassing Dad. The Garrulous Kid wanted to know whether the information was sound and sensible. I could only suggest he think of it as a modified game of Simon Says, in which he the aim is to ignore anything and everything that Simon Says.

Heading back, we were overtaken by a lone cyclist in a Ride London jersey and both Captain Black and I noted the lack of response from Red Max, who would usually fire off and hunt down any visible cyclists like a heat-seeking missile in lycra. We concluded creeping age and the responsibility of being a grandparent must have tempered his hunter-killer instincts.

As it was, we caught the lone rider the first time the road swung uphill. Then beZ and Jimmy Cornfeed hammered past and this time the seeker head engaged and locked on. The Red Max was launched from the pack in pursuit and half a dozen others followed as all order was shattered. I guess he was just waiting for a more challenging target.

The rest of us continued at a more restrained pace, which gave Zardoz the opportunity to demonstrate the peculiar grinding, grating warble his rear wheel had developed. This sounded like some kind of baa-ing electronic sheep whose batteries were running dangerously low – a weird bleating, droning whine. He rode up to OGL, let the bike emit it’s wail of distress and asked archly, “Do you think this sounds expensive, then?”

We started to haul in our errant attackers as we climbed to the top of Berwick Hill and began the long straight descent, at one point OGL hunkering down onto the drops and ratcheting the pace up. I know not why.

In no time at all most of the group had swung off and the small remainder hit the Mad Mile. I hung onto G-Dawg’s wheel as long as I could, until his drag race for the shower with Son of G-Dawg became too heated and then I was on my own battering into a suddenly brisk and debilitating headwind.

The grind uphill into the wind and out past the golf course was a real struggle, but before too long I was able to tip over into the valley and head for the river. Skipping across the bridge, the water below was still aswarm with narrow boats, while the crew of an 8 slowly carried their upside down hull toward the water, from above looking like nothing so much as an over-sized, gleaming white centipede.

At home, I found the bike was surprisingly muddy after the ride, despite a relatively dry day. Still, a pleasant interlude before the return to true winter riding, which I suspect is just around the corner and will be with us for a few weeks yet.

YTD Totals: 949 km / 590 miles with 8,937 metres of climbing

Sur La Jante

The Chronicles, Confessions and Idle Musings of a Club Cyclist

Category: Road Cycling

Jimmy Mac Cracks

The Driller

Wall to Wall Sunshine

The Man with the Van

Twenty’s Plenty

Perfect Day

Losing Control

Can’t Bring Me Down

Wave Rider

Domestic Duties