Hell and High Water

Club Run, Saturday 7^th November, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

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

Ride Time: 3 hours 35 minutes

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

Weather in a word or two: A deluge.

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

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

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

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

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Waffle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Texas Chainring Massacre and the Road to Cheesecake.

Club Run, Saturday 31^st October, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

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

Ride Time: 4 hours 07 minutes

Group size: 30 riders with no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Astonishingly mild.

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

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

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

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

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

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

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

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

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

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So far, so good…

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

Random Rambles and Esoteric Observations # 4 – Planet X vs. Rapha – The Throwdown

A very personal viewpoint…

Trying to find some clever way of segmenting buying behaviour within the cycling market for a colleague developing a new business concept, I half-jokingly suggested we could measure attitudes to spending on a scale where one end was represented by Rapha and the other end Planet X.

Then the more I thought about it, the more I realised that perhaps my mad idea held more than a grain of truth, and the two brands do in fact occupy completely opposite ends of the price spectrum.

Rapha is a brand that so desperately wants to be seen as niche and elitist that it almost hurts, and I suspect the overblown prices are very much part of its appeal to a certain type of customer. While I don’t doubt its products are high quality, well-designed and built to last, I do have trouble believing they are 7 or 8 times better than the competition, which is what some of the pricing implies.

Planet X on the other hand trumpets no nonsense prices and its website and stores are replete with some astonishing deals. In fact they first came to my attention through one of their clearance sales, when I picked up a pair of my favourite Vittoria Corsa tyres for £9.99 each instead of the rrp of £49.99. Everyone loves a bargain, right?

But it’s not just the product and price positioning that sets Rapha and Planet X apart, they also seem fundamentally different on many other levels.

Take the brand names for a start: Rapha sounds like a somewhat louche, semi-successful, minor British film star. One of those slightly posh, thespian gentlemen with limited acting ability, who carefully manage to just about play themselves for most roles and manage to retain celebrity B-list status only by dint of constant tabloid headlines earned for all the wrong reasons.

On the other hand, where do you begin with Planet X? It’s a corny, half-baked, creaky, black and white Sci-Fi movie that wants to achieve “so bad it’s good” cult status and cool, but is just ultimately cheesy and unremittingly nerdy.

Whenever I see the Planet X logo I automatically make this unfortunate association…

Rapha borrows heavily (some would say steals cynically and unashamedly) from the iconic heritage of vintage, continental cycling, the epic pain and suffering of cycling’s classic races and hardmen racers, all shot in black and white: straining bodies, serious faces and nary a smile to be seen. It’s such an overly-serious, po-faced approach – where’s the fun and the joy that’s so inherent to cycling?

This is a mythological version of cycling as it never was, all suffering and gladiatorial combat – and to me it’s so obviously a parody and fake in its own right that I’m surprised it’s still being parodied by others – and all without even the slightest whiff of irony.

Planet X on the other hand is all gruff, straight talking, down to earth stuff. A spade will always be a spade, never a lovingly hand-crafted, ergonomically designed earth shearing, turning and excavation tool, forged from high impact, low carbon tensile steel with a close-grained, oiled and carefully pollarded English yew shaft that’s been lovingly nurtured to maturity in the ancient and Royal Forest of Dean. Phew! And breathe. Planet X is the Ronseal of the cycling world – doing exactly what it says on the tin.

Rapha colours are unremittingly flat and dull, relying heavily on over liberal and much imitated use of black (as the new white, brown, grey, orange, black etc. – just delete as appropriate). They are minimalist to the point of bland. Their signature; the single, contrasting coloured band on the sleeve, leg or whatever, no longer looks clever to me (was it ever?) – just strangely unimaginative and rather tired looking. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Planet X designs on the other hand have none of the studied cool of Rapha and tend toward the garish and over-the-top – check out their Carnac team kit and bikes as a prime example.

Once stalwarts of the British pro scene via the RaphaCondor outfit, Rapha have moved up to the big time and are now the kit providers of choice to the elite of the elite pro teams, the one with allegedly the biggest budget in the peloton, and a team that is perhaps as divisive as the Rapha brand itself.

You don’t have to stray too far into the troll infested backwoods of the Internet to find that Sky are unremittingly seen as the bad guys, sucking the soul out of cycling through (shock! horror!) meticulous planning, innovative methods, spending as much budget as they can prise out of sponsors hands, employing the most talented riders, structured training, organisation, attention to detail and riding to their strengths, (all ladled with lashings of dark, innuendo about cheating and drug-taking.)

Rapha themselves have managed to take one of the duller team kits in the pro ranks and somehow make it even more boring and bland, (or understated, cool and minimalist, depending on your own point of view.) Oh, and then they’ve added those shudderingly hideous national flags to the sleeve cuffs for good measure … well, only one sleeve cuff, obviously.

There may be people out there who like this - but I'm not one of them. — There may be people out there who like this – but I’m not one of them.

Planet X on the other hand are unheralded sponsors of a host of domestic, young, up-and-coming, teams and individuals, kids, men and women, all flying pretty much under the radar, all in real need of support. They appear to do this with the sole intent of nurturing the grass-roots of the sport, although, if they’re really clever, perhaps they might be able to squeeze some small marketing return out of their investment.

Rapha are the perfect, text book example of how to build a premium, niche brand and as a marketing man I should be much, much more appreciative of their tight control over product and image and how they’ve created a brand with a real and enduring cachet. Their heritage may be at best overstated and at worst manufactured – but it’s obviously working for them and their target market.

There’s a lot to admire about Rapha – they are a relatively young, dynamically growing, internationally recognised and highly successful British brand that is seen as world leading and is much loved and valued by the only people who actually matter – their customers. I’m sure on many levels their devotees (Raphalites in my jargon) enjoy the scorn of their detractors as much as the product and brand image they are actually buying into.

From the outside Planet X sometimes appear a bit disorganised and all over the shop, willing to jump at any opportunity and conveying the wiles and opportunism of a wheeler-dealer market trader, a Del Boy made good? They appear content to be seen as bumbling along with no particular destination in mind and without any kind of blueprint for world domination.

It’s difficult to imagine anyone actually coveting a Planet X product, and if they do the value for money pricing means it’s an itch that’s fairly easily scratched. Many, many people however will be more than happy to buy and use and endorse their products wholeheartedly.

Both companies have owners who profess a love of cycling, but for Simon Mottram of Rapha it’s the pure and unalloyed love of road racing. His avowed aim is to promote the sport he loves, and he wants it to be as big as football. It’s an interesting point of view, but I’m not sure it’s remotely attainable, or more importantly, even the least bit desirable.

“I think road cycling is the most beautiful sport in the world, and the toughest sport in the world, and I think it should be the biggest sport in the world. I think more people should do cycling than watch football.” **(Photo from Cycling Weekly)**

I also struggle to forgive him his man-crush on Marco Pantani, who Mottram sees as a tragic icon of style(!) and the epitome of cool, while I just think of him as a fragile, ungainly, rocket-fuelled cheat, deserving as much approbation as a certain gentleman from Texas.

On the other side of the coin, Planet X is owned and run by Dave Loughran. A bit of a mongrel in terms of cycling background, first and foremost a triathlete, and then a mountain biker who has dabbled in dirt bikes, mountain bikes, fixies, or anything else that’ll turn a profit. By all accounts Loughran is an abrasive, hard-nosed, salesman and a bit of a wheeler-dealer who admires Mike Ashley of all people.

This is a man with (judging purely from what I’ve read, you understand) so many traits I don’t admire that I can’t say I have an interest in meeting him and I certainly can’t imagine myself ever working for him. Despite this he’s made a good impression on me (ironically in an excellent article written by Jack Thurston in Rapha’s “corporate” magazine Rouleur) and I’m really interested in seeing what he does next. It was while being interviewed for this article that, almost in an aside about business growth really stuck and resonated with me.

I can remember way back in my university days trying to write a Marketing Communications assignment and weave into it the universal truths of Nietzche’s writings and the startling insight of W B Yeats poetry, wrapped around a lengthy discourse on the largely unreported hijacking, total control and manipulation of the free press by the military during the American invasion of Grenada. (Pretentious. Moi? Look there’s only so much you can write about J.K. Galbraith, Drucker or Kotler without becoming deathly boring to yourself and, surely your tutors too…)

Around this time I unerringly stumbled across a lecture by E.P. Thompson which either coloured my thinking, or simply gave life to already ingrained beliefs. Thompson argued that the establishment controls the frame of reference in which all the political discourse takes place and stifles true debate so that, for example, it becomes a very narrow argument about which political party can best deliver economic growth and never an exploration of whether the blind pursuit of growth is actually necessary, or in the best interests of the country and its populace.

He likened this to a car, “bumming down the motorway with an accelerator pedal, but no steering … we rush on, faster or slower, but can’t take exits, go somewhere else, or even stop and turnaround.”

In 30 years of working for and on behalf of dozens, if not hundreds of businesses, both massive and micro, corporate conglomerates to Mom & Pop family-run affairs, I’ve seen the same single-minded, determined obsession with growth and never yet encountered an organisation that strayed far from the strategy of making as much money and profit as humanly (and occasionally inhumanely) possible.

Every business and many other types of organisation too, seem to have a default setting that says they have to measure themselves purely on financial performance. Year on year they set themselves bigger and bigger growth targets, regardless of whether this is necessary or actually in their best interests, regardless of the mental and physical well-being of the workers and the management and ignoring if this will actually improve what they deliver to their customers.

Now, many, many years later I’ve actually found a successful business man with a different view and judging from the articles, growth for growth’s sake also seems to be a bit of a bugbear for Loughran too.

He’s quoted talking about the plans to sell off his company, “All I’ve had for the last three years is ‘what’s our growth plan’: growth, growth, growth, how are we striving for growth? Growth became a number. We grew phenomenally in the last year and it became a pressure cooker of: ‘How do we build 300 bikes a week, how do we build 350, how do we build 400?’ It was all because my management team was driving for a buy-out and they had to show to all the vulture capitalists a £10, £15, £20, £25 million success story”.

And then he capped it all with this piece of what sounded like very heartfelt, hard-won wisdom. “We can build 300 bikes a week now and everyone can have a great life and the mechanics don’t have any pressure and we can have good availability. If we strove for 500 bikes a week we wouldn’t have the supply chain, everybody would hate each other, it wouldn’t be a nice company.” (My emphasis).

He then went on to talk about setting up an employee share ownership system that will eventually mean the company is co-owned by staff and an independent trust set up to safeguard the workforce. Sounds great – I’ll be watching.

And there you have it, a very rambling discourse on why I’m more interested in what Mr. Loughran does next, rather than Mr. Mottram’s next step toward world-domination. It’s also one reason why I’m more X-traterrestrial than a Raphalite – you see it isn’t just because I’m as tight as a wallaby’s sphincter.

Slip Slidin’ Away

Club Run, Saturday 24^th October, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 113 km/70 miles with 1,021 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 19 minutes

Group size: 26 riders with 1 FNG

Weather in a word or two: Chilly and blustery.

Main topic of conversation at the start: The Prof turned up on one of his vintage, small-wheeled convert-a-bikes, a pre-war, iron model that had somehow survived the cull of frying pans and railings in the drive for scrap metal to build more Spitfires.

This model came replete with a chainring the size of a Frisbee and after being repeatedly asked what size it was the Prof had to resort to counting its teeth. This kept him (and all his fingers and toes) occupied for a good 5 minutes.

He then took to covetously stroking his very worn, super-smooth saddle, and then the saddle of the bike next to him to compare the two. Unfortunately this bikes rider, our FNG, was sitting on his saddle at the time and I had to explain this wasn’t some weird, North East cycle club hazing, or initiation routine involving the fondling of each new guy’s posterior.

Taffy Steve, having wrapped his titanium love-child up in cotton wool and settled it down for a long hibernation, used some of the ire generated by having to ride his thrice-cursed winter bike to curse me in turn for gambling with the weather and having the audacity to turn up on Reg.

In my defence I explained my Peugeot winter bike had just given a very Gallic shrug and said, “Non.” He reminded me what happened last year when I pushed riding the good bike too long, and trashed it sliding out on a corner and taking him down with me.

Good point? Yes.

Prescient? Hmm, maybe.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Taffy Steve was extolling the virtues of the Rolo and Toblerone tray bake. I was expecting something that looked like a 3D Playstation controller, with little pyramids and spheres emerging like an exotic countline Venus out of a sea of chocolate, (□Δ○Δ○□), but it was flat and kind of dull, so I passed.

Discussing the case of a couple of local Sport and Psychology students who’d become seriously ill after OD’ing on massive quantities of self-administered caffeine, Ether suggested some very simple rules for experiments that even a Sport and Psychology student might be able to comprehend:

Step 1. Test on small furry critter. If adverse effects occur, stop.

Step 2. Test on a friend. If adverse effects occur, stop.

Step 3. If all previous indicators are positive, perhaps there may be a case for self-administered testing. If a positive outcome is indicated, make sure you understand how to calculate and measure out the right quantities, or have someone on hand (your Mum, maybe or another responsible adult) to help. Taking a small dose of caffeine to sharpen the mind enough to measure out the correct quantities is perhaps not recommended.

OGL stopped by to tell us that as the clocks were going back one hour to account for the rather strangely titled “UK Daylight Saving Time,” then club run times would also change. Sunday Club Runs will now meet up at 09.30 for a 09.30 start, although the time for Saturday runs will continue to be 09.00, obviously for a 09.15 start. Huh?

I await with great interest the miraculous change in cyclist behaviour that’s going to see our Sunday runs’ meet up at 09.30 and be anywhere near ready to roll out any time before 09.44.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

I managed to commute by bike on four out of five days in a vain attempt to try and make up for missing the club run last week. With my ratbag MTB in the LBS for a desperately needed service, this was mainly achieved astride the Peugeot winter bike, although it did include a novel, but ultimately unsuccessful experiment with a single-speed hack that turned into an uphill duathlon when the chain kept slipping off under pressure.

My self-imposed duathlon had nothing to recommend it.

Having eagerly watched the weather forecasts change on a daily basis, Saturday dawned, cold, blustery and grey, with the threat of a few chilly showers, but without the likelihood of any prolonged rain. A gamble then, but having had enough of the Peugeot for one week I felt I was owed one last blast on the carbon steed.

Perhaps more by luck than good judgement I got the clothing right for once; long sleeved base layer and jersey, shorts, leg warmers, thick socks, Belgian booties and long-fingered gloves. I even defied the weather gods and decided against packing a waterproof for that “just in case” scenario.

This week in the People’s Republic of Yorkshire, what the locals like to refer to as “Gods Own Country” –along with, oh at least a dozen other places that I know of dotted around the globe – (they may be the “chosen” of God, but they get no prizes for originality) – the venerable Toshi San is busy looking for a new club after bitter internecine fighting and a bloody coup of senior members ripped his old one apart.

One group he trialled uses its Faecesbook page to not only update ride information, but provide weather forecasts and recommendations about what to wear! Toshi San was somewhat bemused by this, declaring that he’s been able to dress himself since his schooldays and grown lads and lasses shouldn’t need to be told what to wear.

If he’d turned up at our meeting point he might well have reconsidered, there were at least 3 or 4 riders still in shorts, with legs marbled like corned beef, several more with bare hands tucked firmly into armpits, while the Prof wore a rain-jacket which he later admitted kept him constantly on the threshold of over-heating.

It was then a fairly decent turnout of 24 lads and lasses, several blatantly defying the elements, who pushed off, clipped in and headed out, with a couple of late comers tagging onto the back of our line as we rolled away.

These included the luckless Dabman, still less than sanguine about riding in a group after suffering a broken collar bone when he was brought off by another rider during our last “Man Down” incident. This had closely followed his recovery from a broken wrist when he went over on the ice on a winter run out. He later admitted he’d just come out for a confidence-building, solo ride, but saw us leaving and decided he might as well tag along anyway.

I slotted in alongside one of the university students who I didn’t recognise as a Saturday club run regular and got chatting to him about Amsterdam, Copenhagen, postgraduate law degrees (as you do) and (inevitably) the weather. Somewhere along the line he mentioned he was a little concerned about a mismatched rear tyre that didn’t seem to be affording him much grip.

The ride was visited by a few short lived light rain showers, that didn’t really dampen our enjoyment, but did just enough to make the road surfaces slimy and slippery. Rounding a fairly innocuous corner my companion was just telling me he could feel his rear wheel stepping-out on the bend when there was a clatter, a thud and a thump as three or four riders in a line behind us all went down.

I turned around to find several bikes strewn across the road and Ovis curled up around his wrist which had taken the brunt of his fall. I did a quick double-check – but thankfully there was no stray farmyard livestock around him needing to be cornered and corralled. I recovered his bike for him, to find both brake levers now pointing sharply inward like the converging guns on a fighter, giving him point harmonisation at about 30 metres from his front wheel, or an enemy bogie.

I was also somewhat concerned to see Dab Man had assumed an all too familiar position, sitting to one side of the road with his bike abandoned on the other and sporting a much muddied and streaked shoulder on an otherwise clean white jersey. He assured me he was ok and was at pains to explain that (again) it wasn’t his fault.

Luckily all of the damage seemed fairly superficial, although I suspect there may be a few sore bodies later on as a consequence of all the unbridled man-meets-road action. We managed to bang Ovis’s brake levers back around to give his bike some semblance of normality, and he wiped the blood from his brow, pocketed his smashed specs and pressed bravely on.

Not surprisingly at the split all those who had hit the deck opted for the shorter, more direct route to the café, along with the unlikely accompaniment of the Red Max. This had me wondering if the once irrepressible Red Max is starting to feel threatened by the improving strength and form of the Monkey Butler Boy, a.k.a. Red Max Junior. Dare I suggest he cut short his ride because he wanted to keep a little extra something back for their planned jaunt out together on Sunday?

As if relieved and reprieved from escaping the crash, the remainder of the group pressed on at some pace, occasionally splintering and reforming across a number of climbs and descents. At one point beZ skipped lightly past me on a hill and wondered aloud if I’d started a slightly worrying trend for wearing Belgian national colours.

belgians — Watch out, here come the Belgians!

Enough people then rode up to ask me if I’d gone down in the crash that I began to feel equal parts paranoia and survivors guilt. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on their part?

As I crested the Quarry Climb I could feel the rear wheel losing traction as I rocked out of the saddle, so eased off and decided instead to save a little for the last climb up to the Snake Bends. I tucked in behind the leaders as we swept down to the T-junction, then on the first rise after the turn I jumped over Keel, and left him behind as I pounded onwards, trying to to keep the momentum going on the long drag up to the next junction.

As I closed on the junction however Taffy Steve cruised effortlessly up alongside on the thrice-cursed winter bike, with a, “Is that it?” quizzical look and I realised I hadn’t dropped anyone and it wasn’t going to be my day.

Together with Taffy Steve we fruitlessly tried chasing G-Dawg down through the side lanes, while others took the more direct route to the café, the pressing need for cake outweighing the unpleasantness of battling with the high-speed traffic along the main road.

On leaving the café I dropped to the back of the first group on the road home, occasionally chatting with a still chipper, if slightly begrimed Dabman and Cushty. We were wondering where the rest of the group were, how much of a handicap they’d given us and just where exactly they would catch and overtake us.

It was actually later than we thought when an express driven by Shoeless and G-Dawg steamed past. I swung onto the back of this train and rode it through to my turn off, where I was dumped ungraciously into a stiff headwind for the lone grind home.

Hmm, winter bikes only next week? (Maybe.)

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

From Pillow to Post and Riding with Marley’s Ghost

Club Run, Saturday 10^th October, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 109 km/68 miles with 941 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 15 minutes

Group size: 34 riders, 2 or 3 FNG’s, 3 guests.

Weather in a word or two: Grey. Cool

Main topic of conversation at the start: Trying to determine how a discussion on the club Faecesbook page about the discrepancies between Strava and official hill climb times somehow mutated into a debate about the theory of relativity, time dilation and relativistic speeds. Perhaps this could be used to explain the general tardiness associated with the start of our club runs?

Cruelly derided for being a “wee sassenach twiddler” by a group of burly, be-kilted, braveheart, Scottish rugby fans last week, OGL was keen to avoid further disparaging comments about his national allegiances and so rolled up wearing a Scottish cycling jersey, proudly declaring that he is not in fact a wee sassenach twiddler, just a wee twiddler.

In a discussion with Crazy Legs we determined that, although it’s ailing, summer isn’t quite dead as we haven’t yet been forced to reach into the darkest, deepest recesses of our wardrobes in search of bib tights, hats, long-sleeve base layers and assorted thermal clothing that has been in aestivation since Spring.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Sneaky Pete sneaked (snuck? snucked?) onto our table only long enough to insult Red Max’s portable workshop and then inform us that it was the 50^th anniversary of maverick maestro, Bob Dylan’s seminal “Like a Rolling Stone”.

A music-related, round-robin of reminiscing took in favourite local venues and revealed a busy itinerary of concert going planned for the next few months, including the likes of Paul Weller, Chvrches and The Stranglers. Then someone had to go and spoil it all by mentioning Rush.

As a final act of sabotage, Sneaky Pete then dropped us into that perennial, hoary-favourite, the Campagnolo vs. Shimano debate, before sneaking away in classic agent provocateur fashion…

Carlton, already paranoidly protective of his bikes, has a new steed and, like an opportunistic suffragette, has taken to carrying a security chain with him everywhere and seeking out suitably sturdy railings. And this is not just any chain, but one allegedly forged of carbon-tempered steel, recycled from the hulks of old Panzerkampwagen’s in the depths of the Vulcan electric-arc furnace of the Thyssen-Krupp steelworks. It’s of sufficient length to fully encase both frame and wheels in its mighty links which are as thick as a wrist, and it’s strong enough to serve as an anchor chain for the new Ark Royal. As Red Max brilliantly quipped, “He carries around more chains than Jacob Marley.”

The Rugby World Cup seeding which allowed the RFU to take deliberate and very careful aim before boldly shooting itself in the foot – great for all the Anglophobes everywhere, perhaps not so good for the long-term development of the game (and almost succeeding in making the UCI look sensible.)

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

Saturday morning dawned clear and cold and reassuringly dry, postponing the need to break the winter-bike out of mothballs for at least one more week. (Every week is an unlooked for bonus). It was however chilly enough for me to go with full-fingered gloves, a long-sleeved jersey, leg warmers and Belgian booties.

Things looked quite pleasant until halfway down the Heinous Hill when I unexpectedly rolled into a bank of seriously thick, grey fog, which almost had me turning around to head back up the hill for a rear light. It was just the fact that I couldn’t see any approaching cars, rather than thoughts of the steep incline back up to the house that dissuaded me from backtracking. Honest. Luckily the fog was squeezed around the middle of the hill like an over-sized gastric band and I was soon spat out into the clear air below.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness? Well, certainly plenty of the former. — Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness? Well, we’re certainly seeing plenty of the former.

I found other patches of mist on my trek across to the meeting point, especially lurking around the bottom of the river valley, but thankfully it had all burned away by the time I reached the magical Transport Interchange Centre.

Today seemed to be a day for bringing along guests, one of our riders, who originally hailed from South Africa, returned after a long absence from the club runs and brought two friends with him from the homelands. Surprisingly they weren’t here for the rugby, but were a Dad accompanying his daughter to a work internship in the lands of the mythical Pant Cudd – via a complex and oddly circuitous route which managed to take in the Masters World Track cycling at Manchester velodrome and then a club run out through the wilds of Northumbria.

Our South African guests seemed very disappointed at the low turn-out, and we had to explain that the 9.00 meet scheduled on the website actually meant no sooner than 9.15 in the strangely elastic (relativistic?) concept of time held by North East cyclists.

Sure enough, 15 minutes after the scheduled departure time there was a mass of riders and bikes spilling across the pavement as huge numbers returned from The Wooler Wheel, Kielder Run-Bike-Run, or wherever it was they had hidden to avoid the hill climb last week.

Punctually, bang on 20 minutes late, 34 lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and set out into the cool grey morning.

It was at this point that the Prof drew my attention to another guest, up from York, visiting a club member and joining us for a run out. He was notable because he was riding completely without a saddle and careful questioning revealed he did this out of choice, and had even taken part in a 48 hour Edinburgh to King’s Cross marathon with the same set up.

Unless your saddle looks like this ... — Unless your saddle looks like this …

He related how he first got started after someone nicked his saddle and he got used to doing without, had a period when he reverted back to having a saddle, but developed bad sores so had given up for good. He felt his new riding style was great for developing a super-strong core, but was admittedly horribly inefficient and un-aerodynamic. In fact when he tucked into a “sprinting position,” hovering inches above the empty seat tube he looked like someone uncomfortably squatting while trying to defecate on a campfire without singeing their ass hairs.

While I usually admire individualism, I couldn’t help feeling his choice had no real benefit and was just bloody-minded and wilfully odd. G-Dawg suggested there was a fine line between eccentric and insane and this fella was so far over the line it was probably as easy for him to press on and hope to return to sanity the long way round, rather than trying to turn back now.

Surely there's no need for this. — … surely there’s no need for this.

Still, the guy must never be short of chat while riding – at the café around half a dozen of us admitted quizzing him and I’m pretty certain we all asked the same questions, principle among them being, “Why?” – and he managed to easily stay with us as we rolled round to our usual stopping point.

Here the amblers split off for the café, then the ride split again as the Racing Snakes took off for the hills and I followed the middle group. Crazy Legs led from the front with G-Dawg, manfully battling a viciously strong headwind that existed solely in his head.

Regrouping after a short, sharp climb, we pressed on for the café and started to build up speed. Sweeping through Milestone Wood we hit the rollers and I decided to stretch things out and inject a bit of pace, narrowly skirting the crumbling edge of a long trench that wouldn’t have looked out of place at Passchendaele and had suddenly appeared gouged into the road surface.

“The pothole was so deep, ah had to change gear te climb oot!” Geordie cycling folklore.

Over on the left Cowin’ Bovril must have had the same idea and jumped as well, but I swiftly overhauled him and he fell away as I kicked over the first hump and hit the bottom slopes of the second ramp. I poured on the pace over the top and down the hill to the last climb up to the café.

Just before a turn in the road the Red Max attacked and seven or eight riders slipped off my wheel and whistled past in pursuit. Breathless I tried to maintain some semblance of speed and managed to overhaul a couple as they flagged and their legs died on the uphill grind. Then we were through to the café and much deserved cake and coffee, followed by a spirited dash home.

This ride marked a little bit of a milestone, as I’ve now topped over 5,000 kilometres for the year and hopefully there’s plenty more to come, although not next weekend when I’m cruelly being dragged away to a wedding. I mean, what kind of inconsiderate, low-life arranges weddings for the weekend where they inevitably clash with the club run?

YTD Totals: 5,134 km/ 3,190 miles with 58,002 metres of climbing.

Ghostface Killah

Club Run and Hill Climb, Saturday 3^rd October, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 89 km/55 miles with 924 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 3 hours 46 minutes

Group size: No more than 20 –2 FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Extremely chilly

Main topic of conversation at the start: Crazy Legs gives voice to what I suspect all the regulars are thinking – how much we hate this day. No matter how good you’re feeling, I’m not sure anyone actually looks forward to the hill climb and its attendant hurt.

He then suggested we have a whip around to hire a Portaloo for the start of the hill climb. I countered by saying what we really need is a patio heater. The general consensus was we were both wrong and what we actually need is both a Portaloo and a patio heater.

A couple of FNG’s, or more accurately an FNG couple, exiled from Sarf Larnden, spotted Reg and we had a good chat about the original Holdsworth shop in Putney, which was their LBS and they remember as being loaded with a cornucopia of memorabilia from the mighty Holdsworth-Campagnolo pro team.

The store closed in October 2013 after 86 years, according to my interlocutor’s because it was located in some prime real estate that the owner’s family sadly wanted to cash in on. Although Reg’s carbon frame was probably mass produced by a faceless squad of minions in an ultra-high-tech, utterly sterile, Far East factory, I like to think it has some spiritual connection and shares just a little bit of heritage with this illustrious and successful British bike brand.

Fallout from last week’s plethora of punctures saw Crazy Legs check the pressure in his repaired tyre on returning home – to reveal a massive 20psi. This was despite his and Red Max’s efforts with both the molto piccolo and Max’s uber-pump. Some discussion was had about Szell’s spectacular blowout and whether it was caused by the inner tube trying to squeeze out between tyre casing and dangerously worn rims.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Hill Climb day is the only time we use this particular café, and then we all turn up coughing and spluttering with climbers cough^1., like a consumptive poet dying of TB. We often wonder what the staff make of us and whether they think we’re the most unfit cycling club in existence, or are perhaps sponsored by Rothmans and contractually obliged to smoke 40 a day.

Zardoz told me he was out again on Wednesday with the Retired Gentleman’s Combative Cycling Club, when the conversation rolled around to Il Lombardia, and someone asked where the race was and received the very obvious and undoubtedly correct answer: Lombardy. Then there were blank stares and silence all around as everyone realised they didn’t quite know where Lombardy actually was.

Apparently the Cyclone Sportive and associated events which OGL organises may be without a headline sponsor this year, as negotiations with Virgin Money to renew seem to have reached something of an impasse. I must admit OGL seemed remarkably sanguine about the whole thing.

Coffee, and the supposition that Britain has the worst tasting coffee, with the highest caffeine content. Discuss.

Ride Profile (Hill Climb highlighted)

The Waffle:

Hope you’re sitting comfortably, this could be a long one …

We’re into October and all the portents are pointing assuredly toward this being the start of winter. Il Lombardia or to use this classics most poetic title, la classica delle foglie morte, closed out the pro season on Sunday^2., and as if on cue all the leaves at home are suddenly turning golden and starting to sift down.

Darkness is beginning to slowly steal away precious minutes of daylight at both ends of the day and the weather is developing a distinctive chilly bite to it. And if all this wasn’t enough, the final indicator that we’re at the back end of the cycling year is that the traditional British hill climb season is now in full swing.

Fabulous Lombardy poster from the Handmade Cyclist

Not to be outdone, this weekend was our turn to pander to our worst masochistic, self-harming instincts, with a tilt at the club hill climb. The chosen arena for our self-flagellation is Prospect Hill, near Corbridge in the Tyne Valley. The climb is about 1.5km long at a 7% incline, with a maximum of 15.5% and runs through 9 bends, several of which are almost tight enough to be classed as hairpins.

The forecast for the day was an early mist that would eventually burn off, but with temperatures subsequently depressed and unlikely to claw their way up into double figures. My breakfast and ride preparations are interrupted by about half a dozen trips to the toilet. Nerves? Possibly.

Knowing it’s going to be chilly out, compounded by the lengthy wait hanging around for a start slot, I choose a base layer, club jersey, arm and knee warmers, long gloves and a windproof jacket over the top of everything. I’m attempting to walk the razor-fine line between not overheating on the ride to the hill and trying to stay reasonably warm once I get there. I’m somewhat shocked to find how surprisingly capacious my club jersey has become.

After last week’s mega turn out, the numbers at the meeting point are disappointingly low, even though they’re bolstered by a few of the racing snakes, who don’t usually deign to ride with us mere mortals, but have been lured out by the thrill of competition.

Several notable absentees can be explained by conflicting events, G-Dawg and the Prof are doing the Kielder Run-Bike-Run, while Red Max and the Monkey Butler Boy are tackling the Autumn Wooler Wheel Sportive, but where’s everyone else?

Even with the juniors making their own way to the climb, numbers are significantly down on previous years, and several of those at the meeting point are just out for a normal ride and have no interest in seeing if they can cough out their own lungs by riding as fast as possible up a hill, just to turn around and come back down again. Oh well, at least it should help get things over with fairly quickly.

The temperature dropped even further as we swept down into the bottom of the Tyne Valley to follow the road upstream, and as we approached the start we could see the hillside above us shrouded in a dense grey blanket of wetly-dripping mist.

A rival club was holding their own “chrono escalada” up the other side of the hill, but thankfully they’re early starters (and probably punctual too!) They were just about done and dusted by the time we rolled up, avoiding the potentially catastrophic (if comic) opportunity for two, charging, heads-down and rapidly converging riders lunging for the same line and colliding in an explosion of flailing limbs and carbon fragments.

As we milled around, horribly messing up the signing on process and allocation of numbers in the disorganised chaos that only cyclists seem capable of achieving, the cold really started to bite. We stood around shivering, with fumbling fingers occasionally bypassing jersey material to pin numbers directly through benumbed, frozen flesh, but at least they were well secured and not likely to flap in the wind.

Rab Dee offered me some of his home made energy bar, which is reportedly so dense it absorbs light. It didn’t seem to be the sort of extra weight I should be taking on board before hauling ass up a steep hill, so I politely declined.

Then, in a break with tradition, instead of being snooty and snotty and whingeing at us for having the temerity to use the public road outside their homes, one of the local households decided to embrace the annual invasion of slightly mad cyclists, and sent out a sacrificial daughter with a tray of freshly baked brownies. Not only did they taste great, they were actually still hot, and several groups of cyclists formed a huddle around them trying to warm their hands.

I discussed tactics for the climb with a horrendously hung over Son of G-Dawg, who blasphemously suggested starting on the inner ring. Luckily his Pa wasn’t around to hear, but it seemed the sensible decision anyway, as there’s less to go wrong if you’re not dropping from the big to smaller chainring under pressure.

A bit of riding around to … I was going to say warm up, but I think “not feel quite so cold” is closer to reality, and then it’s time to strip both myself and bike as I jettisoned water bottle and tool tub, sunglasses, gloves and finally, and with great reluctance, my jacket.

It was good to see one of our semi-FNG’s, Avatar: The Last Air Bender lining up directly in front of me, ready to hurl himself recklessly at the hill in his first ever club competition. I’m not sure he realised when he rocked up this morning that we would be doing the hill climb, so he gets extra kudos for not backing out. Chapeau!

I only have time to note that one of the young kids is set to follow me, then I’m on the line ready to start, not really concentrating and feeling quite disassociated from the entire process. The timekeeper tells me 30 seconds, and I lift my foot, clip in and settle. 15 seconds. Breathe deep. The 10 second countdown starts, I tense, the hand comes down and I’m off.

I quickly roll up a decent cadence, reach a bend and sweep around it to attack the first ramp, cresting it and pushing on toward the second bend and probably the steepest part of the course. The first slopes however have sapped just a little too much speed, the gear is too big and I’m now losing momentum and dying dismally.

The next section is a real struggle as impetus drops sharply and I’m forced out of the saddle to grind away to the accompaniment of my cleat creaking horribly on the pedal. Or at least I think it’s my cleat, it could just as easily be one of my ancient, fragile knees humming discordantly as it vibrates under the pressure in an audible warning that it’s about to explode.

An awful moment appears to attenuate into long, torturous minutes, and I can’t help gratefully thinking that unless the kid behind me is one of our outrageously talented youngsters, I should at least manage not to be caught by him. Gradually the slope eases, and I’m able to flop down heavily in the saddle and roll the chain up a couple of gears.

I try to find a rhythm now, and maintain the pace, but can’t go any faster without jumping out of the saddle and stamping hard on the pedals, and this burns up oxygen quicker than I can suck it down.

As if still influenced by last week’s blood moon, I’m in full Laurens Ten Dam “werewolf” mode now, mouth agape and thrashing like a basking shark stranded on a beach and with great strings of snot and slobber, spit and drool pouring from my mouth and nose and eyes. My chest is heaving like over-worked, over-extended bellows, sucking in huge lungful’s of the freezing, burning, damp and clammy air. And it’s not enough.

Full Ten Dam mode — Full Ten Dam werewolf mode

I round another bend. All I can hear now is my rasping, too-quick panting that seems to be in wild syncopation with my thudding, banging heart. Is it natural to try and breathe so damn fast? As the bend straightens I almost plough into the back of a couple of ramblers walking blithely up the middle of the road, studiously and very deliberately ignoring each one of the gasping, labouring cyclists who have had to haul themselves around this unexpected impediment.

I swerve wide to the right to pass them, and almost immediately have to dive to the left as a huge 4 x 4 sweeps past, heading downhill with headlights blazing in the gloom. Everything is hurting now and I can’t distinguish individual areas of pain as I try to raise my speed.

Ahead of me in the mist and murk, almost always just disappearing around the next bend, I keep catching the occasional glimpse of another rider, my minute man, who’s craftily chosen a fog coloured jersey to blend in and not give me a distinct target to chase. Not fair.

I recognise I’m approaching the final section, and against all reason and the silent screaming of my body I click down one, then two gears and just push and hope. I think I’m still accelerating as I shoot over the line, then freewheel and finally remember I have to brake. Some 100 yards past the finish line I finally stop, but the pain doesn’t, and I slump over the crossbar, trying to control what feels like supernaturally fast panting.

To be read in your most hysterical Phil Liggett voice: “Just who is that rider coming up behind in the mist – because that looks like La Jante! That looks like Sur La Jante… it is, it’s Sur La Jante!”

After a few minutes I manage to get turned around and slouch my way to the finish, where Zardoz cheerfully informs me I look like a ghost and wonders aloud how I managed to so successfully drain all the blood from my face. I might have laughed, but was instantly consumed with my first bout of climbers cough.

Another year, another hill climb. So how did I do? I was 17^th out of 33 riders and 4^th out of the vets. Much more importantly, I posted a personal best time of 6 minutes and 16 seconds, 11 seconds better than the previous year.

In fact it’s pleasing to see the steady, if unspectacular progression I’ve made year on year. At 53 however I’m not looking forward to the inevitable day when age conspires to erode any improvements I can make through increased training, better equipment or smarter preparation, but at least for today I can feel I’m still winning the battle with time.

In the café I hang back to stand guard on the wallets, phones and helmets that get abandoned as a few go off to pay, and the first of our group splits and disappears up the road. I decide to take the more direct route home along the valley floor, rather than climbing out to the north and then dropping down again and strike out on my own.

I make good time on the flat, but every little incline hurts. At the bottom of the Heinous Hill I decide to postpone the inevitable a little longer and drop into the Pedalling Squares café to arrange a much overdue service for my ratbag mountain bike. Suitably fortified with one of their excellent espresso’s, the clamber up the hill and home turns out to be not quite as bad as I imagined it would be.

Footnote ^1.

During a hill climb, cyclists are breathing as hard as their lungs will allow, so hard in fact, that their airway gets eroded from the air passing through it. This erosion causes irritation in the airway which leads to the dreaded climbers cough (or in running parlance, “track hack”).

This irritation can cause the membranes to produce mucous for protection and lubrication, which can lead to phlegm in the cough, and may even break little capillaries in the airways causing the taste of blood, or a metallic taste in the mouth. Hmm, nice.

Footnote ^2.

The inaugural Abu Dhabi Tour doesn’t count – I’m willing to be proven wrong, but this just looks like a shameful, money-grubbing exercise by RCS and/or the UCI, and likely to be as dull, tedious and anodyne as all the other interminable Gulf Tours. I think a certain Mr. Cavendish is the only person who feels mass sprint finishes are the acme of cycle racing.

YTD Totals: 4,975 km/ 3,091 miles with 56,247 metres of climbing.

So, size does matter after all.

Club Run, Saturday 27^th September, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 109 km/68 miles with 941 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 15 minutes

Group size: 30 plus – no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Grey. Cool.

Main topic of conversation at the start: OGL turned up to solemnly inform us that one or more of the FNG’s had been in touch to tell him they’d joined a rival club because the pace of our rides was too high right from the start. While OGL’s tone was one of mild censure, surely I wasn’t alone in thinking this was a positive result all round. The FNG’s now get to ride with a group maybe more suited to their current level, while we don’t have to constantly nursemaid riders who need to honestly assess their own capabilities before signing up to a club run.

Although that might sound harsh I’m not actually convinced the speed on the first parts of our ride are any faster now than they were when I was the struggling FNG, and plenty of others since have started, found it ok and still continue to come out with us. In fact I worked hard riding on my own to make sure when I rocked up the first time I wasn’t going to embarrass myself too much. Despite my preparations I still remember the hammer blow of that first climb, or being tailed off and constantly chasing while trying to keep the last rider in sight, along with all the encouragement and aid of others.

While there is a great deal of goodwill and help doled out to new starters there has to come a point where slowing the pace too much is simply going to ruin the ride for everyone else. At what point do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? A certain, smart, but entirely fictional, pointy-eared alien would have a very clear answer to that.

This does suggests that a “once size fits all approach” doesn’t always work and we should consider splitting the group much earlier (goodness knows it’s big enough) and have different groups to match different abilities and desires. This suggestion isn’t universally popular though and has led to schisms and rancour in the past. Answers on a postcard, please – I haven’t got any.

On a different note, apparently the Prof fears that he’s being dealt a duff hand by Father Time and is increasingly worried by a loss of elasticity in the skin on his legs. He’s been going round inspecting and comparing the calves of anyone in the same approximate age bracket who’ll allow him to get up close and personal.

According to Red Max the Prof has so much loose skin he’s pulling it up from his ankles and over his knees a bit like a pair of baggy socks with perished elastic. For whatever reason, my twisted mind immediately conjured up an image of two legs like flaccid, wrinkled, elephant foreskins, though I wasn’t even marginally tempted to look for a suitable photo to illustrate it.

Anyway, if you’re ever accosted by a fella on a small-wheeled bike of curious design asking to feel your calves, try to let him down gently. He’ll probably tilt his head back to peer myopically at you from under his dark glasses, then just shrug and pedal off. Don’t be alarmed, he’s mostly harmless.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: The Red Max demonstrated his hard won, encyclopaedic knowledge of cake, by correctly identifying a Viennese Whirl, despite it being incorrectly labelled as a Malteser Tray Bake.

He gambled on this new confection being to his tastes, and it duly transported him to unforeseen heavenly delights. I’ve never seen him eat anything quite so slowly, as he delicately nibbled away like a bulimic teenager, savouring every morsel and pausing for long periods of deep contemplation. On finishing he promptly declared it was much too good for his son, the Monkey Butler Boy who he would now have to ban from ever seeing, let alone tasting such forbidden fruit.

The wasps had again disappeared – but someone obviously mentioned their absence 5 times, and like Clive Barker’s Candyman this seemed to be sufficient invocation for them to suddenly swarm our table and remind us that summer wasn’t quite over.

The pair of punctures led to a discussion of pumps, shot through with dubious double entendre’s which concluded it was all about the length, girth and hand-action as well as course of how hard it would get (your tyre , obviously.) Oh. Dear.

Crazy Legs then fished in his back pocket and delicately pulled out the smallest, frailest looking micro pump known to man, holding it carefully aloft between a thumb and forefinger. It looked like it could barely deliver sufficient volume to give CPR to a sparrow, let alone inflate a tyre. G-Dawg raised an eyebrow and asked how big it was when extended, “It is extended,” was the flat response.

Then Szell started talking about his sweaty helmet and we knew it was time to make a swift exit.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

Saturday brought a dry, but chilly day with the sun barred and barricaded behind a flat, iron-grey blanket of cloud. Another day ticked off where shorts still remained a viable, comfortable option. Everyone feels like a bonus now.

I reached the rendezvous point early, so did a quick spin around the car park, coming back to the start from a slightly unusual direction and converging with 4 other riders, all arriving from different angles like a highly choreographed Red Arrows manoeuvre.

Thankfully we narrowly missed an embarrassing mass pile-up and as our well-published start-time rolled past we hunkered down for the inevitable wait for everyone else to show – which they did in increasing numbers, until the concourse was awash with brightly coloured, skinny limbs, shiny plastic bikes and the hum of unrepressed badinage.

Eventually over 30 guys and gals pushed off, clipped in and set out, in a long snake and I chuckled as an unsuspecting lone rider appeared at the back and had to surge over pavements, jump kerb’s and hammer down side-roads to try and get past our extended train.

We’d just left the urban sprawl behind when Son of G-Dawg punctured, and we all huddled in a lay-by as repairs were effected. Half a dozen strokes from Taffy Steve’s mighty frame pump had us rolling again, although Son of G-Dawg would later complain his tyre felt squishy as we hadn’t quite managed to inflate it to his usual 140 psi!

"A real pump? You couldn't handle a real pump!" — “A real pump? You couldn’t handle a real pump!”

We rolled along merrily for a while, until the puncture curse struck again, this time it was Crazy Leg’s turn to get that sinking feeling as his rear tyre sighed one last gasp and expired. Repairs took slightly longer this time as the sidewall was gashed and needed a bit of emergency patching. Again we regrouped and pressed on until we reached a suitable splitting point.

Here a large contingent looked set to head straight to the café, until OGL revealed the route travelled down a farm track, through closed gates and over cattle-grids, before delicately picking a route between extensive, steaming piles of cow ordure. A few changed their mind at this point, figuring it was just an evil ploy for OGL to rack up sales of inner tubes, and concluding the pain of the longer ride was preferable to off-road adventure’s and the need to deep-clean and sterilise the bike on returning home.

An audience just adds to the pressure of a slick tube change. Whenever I puncture I try to slip slowly out the back to fumble around on my own. — An audience just adds to the pressure of a slick tube change. Whenever I puncture I try to slip quietly out the back so my inept fumbling remains hidden.

It was a large, unusually disciplined group then that hit Middleton Bank, and for once we churned up it in tight formation, at a fairly respectable, but not blazing speed, losing only one or two out the back. I was alongside Red Max, who seemed at ease with climb, although he later admitted just hanging on had been fast enough to blunt his enthusiasm for a Forlorn Hope long attack. We regrouped over the top and no one was really pressing hard as we swept through Milestone Wood, over the rollers and down toward the final climb to the café.

Rounding the last corner, Shoeless and Son of G-Dawg kicked away, and I dug in to follow on G-Dawg’s wheel, but he didn’t respond. Somewhat surprised I slowed, waiting for a surge that didn’t come and trying to recover from the shock. I then somewhat apologetically did the unthinkable and passed him on the inside, trying to build some lost momentum back up.

Goose, Ovis and maybe a couple of others swept over me at this point, and I gave chase with my front wheel skipping and skeetering on the broken surface near the gutter, managing to hold them without actually closing the gap as we ground up and over the final rise.

Luckily we got into the café and served before it was mobbed by a twitchy herd of arriving pensioners, who managed to mill around aimlessly and glare at anyone they thought might have been queue jumping.

I went into the car park looking for the coach which had disgorged this ominous horde, but they had either all air-dropped into the café, or travelled there independently – perhaps part of a pensioner flash mob co-ordinated months in advance through the pages of their radical ‘zine, The People’s Friend.

Fearing a Sanatogen-fuelled riot we sent G-Dawg in for re-fills, reasoning he’d be the most likely to intimidate them into silence, and somehow he managed to pull it off.

Don't mention Mr. Wasp... — Don’t mention Mr. Wasp…

It was at this point that attention was drawn to Szell’s bike which he’d dropped and abandoned in the middle of a flower bed, before staggering away weak-limbed, shaking and utterly spent from his efforts to hang on in the sprint. Red Max tutted disgustedly however , arguing you were never truly spent, until it’s you found lying on your back in the flower bed with the bike in the air, still cleated into slowly turning pedals and occasionally twitching and buzzing like a freshly swatted blue-bottle.

We left the café before the pensioners kicked off, and I found myself riding on the front with Taffy Steve. We were just debating if anyone was going to surge past and push the pace on Berwick Hill, when Szell suffered either a puncture or an assassination attempt, his tyre exploding with a retort like a rifle-shot.

Once again we stopped, and sprawled across the road while repairs were undertaken. This was somewhat delayed as Crazy Legs first paraded the offending inner tube which had ruptured as badly as the Kalamazoo Pipeline.

“Molto piccolo!” The peloton’s verdict on Crazy Legs’s pump was suitably disparaging.

Back up and running, I resumed the vanguard position with Taffy Steve and we crested Berwick Hill and dropped down again in a fairly close ordered, compact bunch, managing to keep our discipline and everyone together until we all split up for home.

YTD Totals: 4,848 km/ 3,012 miles with 54,961 metres of climbing.

The Last Hurrah?

Club Run, Saturday 19^th September, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 118 km/73 miles with 1,083 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 26 minutes

Group size: 28 cyclists at the start. 3 FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Practically perfect.

Main topic of conversation at the start: Whether wearing clothing emblazoned with the Campagnolo logo should only technically be allowed if accompanied by a complete change of groupset to match.

The shocking, eye-wateringly and prohibitively expensive cost of tickets for the Rugby World Cup, even just to see the minor nations where you’re unlikely to recognise a single player. A stark contrast to the Tour of Britain where you could see, meet and mingle with some of the World’s top cyclists for free. To be fair to the RFU, their concession policy does allow kids to get in for only £15 … once the accompanying adult has forked over £150 for a ticket.

The Great North Road Cycle Maze and Death Trap™ continues to prove fantastically divisive. A photo of our Sunday morning club run studiously avoiding its perils was one of several snapped by ever vigilant, eternally law-abiding RIMs, no doubt using completely legal, dashboard and hands-free mounts on their mobile phones. The “incriminating” photos quickly found their way onto a Faecesbook page, where they started an all too predictable flame war, which rapidly grew in vitriol. The whole argument was neatly summed up in one of the most mature, astute, devastatingly logical and proportionate responses I’ve ever had the pleasure to read: “Well, if they’re going to ride in the road, I’m going to drive on the pavement.” Sigh.

Elsewhere, a local motorcyclist group also condemned the GNRCM&DT™ to the local press and the story was picked up by the RCUK website, where the comments section found even cyclists bitching amongst themselves, though without the same degree of creative swearing, searing insight and deep reflection the more general public had brought to the debate. I’ve got the feeling this one’s going to run and run…

The 6½ minutes of sheer hell, commonly known as our club hill climb (chrono-escalade if you want to be suitably pretentious) is looming large. Is it too late to file excuses? I noticed a handful of regulars have already reported conflicts with hastily arranged events elsewhere.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: As expected, the wasps were out in force and anyone having jam with their mid-ride scones or tea-cakes was universally shunned like a leper and exiled to a remote table in the corner. They should be grateful we didn’t take it as far as Son of G-Dawg’s suggestion of smearing them with jam and setting them loose as some sort of wasp decoy.

The fallout (seepage?) from last week’s rain-sodden, “godless ride” continues: Crazy Legs and I both agreed there had to be a better way of staying dry on both the inside and out. His solution was a new 2½ layer, foul weather jacket, though none of us could quite comprehend what half a layer might look like. I had to go one better of course, and went for the triple-layer Galibier Mistral jacket. I’m guessing both are indisputably and impressively waterproof, the acid test is how breathable they are. I’ll report back when I know more.

We were also chastised because some of the more incontinent “godless” amongst us had soaked through the seats at the café last week. It seems the pads of their shorts acted like giant sponges throughout the ride, sucking up a veritable flood of rainwater and road spray, which was duly squeezed out when they slumped their tired bodies down to enjoy hard-earned coffee and cakes.

Now on rainy days black bin bags to sit on will be issued to one and all, not just those who request them. There was some wild speculation that if things didn’t then improve there would be no choice but call for Bottom Inspectors a la the fantastically juvenile, but intermittently hilarious Viz comic. Heaven help the waitress who draws the short straw and gets such a truly thankless task.

Halfway through our stay one of the potential Bottom Inspectors came outside to look for used mugs to take away and wash as they were running short. Our table couldn’t provide any, but Carlton and Richard of Flanders conspired to helpfully load her tray down with a teetering, super-Jenga construct of used plates, dirty cutlery, glasses, saucers, milk jugs, teapots and empty cans – everything in fact except a single one of the needed and requested mugs.

Great, now they probably think we’re incredibly obtuse, as well as hell bent on sabotaging all their seating.

Ride Profile – [Now in glorious technicolour]

The Waffle:

The contrast with last week’s deluge couldn’t have been more marked, as Saturday morning dawned with faultless, clear and pure blue skies vaulting from horizon to horizon. This was the kind of day one of my friends would typically refer to as having a “Battle of Britain sky”, lacking only the contrails of a lone Spitfire or Hurricane to complete the suitably cinematic image.

Nevertheless, the air still had a real bite to it as I rode out early for the meeting point, and the long descent down the Heinous Hill had the cold wind dragging tears from my eyes and chilling my fingers. Thankfully things soon warmed up and before too long the arm warmers were dispensed with.

Why, oh why, oh why do we have to put up with such reckless, selfish and criminal behaviour, potentially holding up traffic, and enjoying themselves at the same time. What is this country coming to? — “Why, oh why, oh why do we have to put up with such reckless, selfish and criminal behaviour, potentially holding up traffic, and enjoying themselves at the same time. OMG what is this country coming to?”

At the meeting point a competent looking and enthusiastic Irish FNG turned up, bang on 9 o’clock. We had to explain that the 9 o’clock start time listed on the website was technically accurate, but actually represented a fantastically fluid and elastic concept of time that meant we would, of course, be leaving at around 9:15. He looked at us as if we were all ever so slightly mad, but seemed to accept our general tardiness with good grace, if a slightly furrowed brow. He’ll probably try and find a more punctual group to ride with next week.

Not surprisingly the perfect weather brought out a good sized bunch of lads and lasses to supplement the ranks of last week’s hard-core Rain Dogs, and despite missing a few students, it was a large complement of 28 that pushed off, clipped in and rode out en masse.

The first distraction of note came somewhere out in the wilds, where we swept past a big directional sign pointing to a wedding, but all we could see was a big tractor rolling round and round in circles in a somewhat overgrown and otherwise empty meadow. I guess that’s a rural wedding Northumbrian style?

The Prof spent a great deal of time and energy playing mother-hen to a couple of the FNG’s, who he recognised as exiled flatlanders of some ilk, which might explain his affinity for their struggles. They just couldn’t seem to get the hang of even the gentlest of slopes and slipped inexorably backwards whenever the road rose up. I’m guessing his efforts weren’t all in vain, as I’m fairly certain they at least made it as far as the coffee stop, although they may still yet be struggling to get home.

The usual stop and group split saw Taffy Steve sidling shamelessly away with the amblers on a direct heading straight to the café. Although he proclaimed some excuse about family commitments and having to be home early, he didn’t have the requisite signed note in triplicate. The consensus was that after winning the sprint last week he had decided to retire while still at the peak of his game, a little like Alberto Contador, but obviously far more successful and with much greater kudos.

A big bunch of us pressed on, before our middle group split away from the Racing Snakes. At the bottom of Middleton Bank I drifted to the back until the slope began to bite and the initial surge died. As a gap developed I pushed up the outside to latch onto the small leading group and let it pull me upwards and away.

Over the top we regrouped as Szell wasn’t around, so the strict Szell Game rules weren’t in play. Shoeless then hit the front and started piling on the pressure, and the pace was so fast that even the Red Max’s Forlorn Hope attack never materialised. He stayed firmly planted three back on G-Dawg’s wheel as we were all strung out while I tucked in behind him.

As we swept up the final hill G-Dawg kicked past Shoeless and Max slid back. On the limit, I held on for as long as possible before pulling over and watching Son of G-Dawg surge across the gap. He went straight over the top, sweeping past G-Dawg on one side, as Shoeless dived down the other to snatch second.

With the sprint done and dusted, there was only time for Ovis to briefly flirt with death and destruction show some sublime traffic filtering skills that scared the crap out of me, before we were rolling to a stop and some well earned cake.

Potentially on their way to a cafe near you!

As we were packing up to leave the café Crazy Legs floated the idea of an extended, longer and shockingly novel, alternative route home to Red Max, rightly reasoning that if anyone was daft enough to agree it would be Max, and his participation might “encourager les autres.”

With this being perhaps the last hurrah of summer and much too fine a day to waste, around eight daring and extreme radicals swept left on leaving the café, while everyone else turned to the right. The first few miles were into a hard headwind and everyone took a turn pulling as we slowly built up to a cracking, leg-burning pace and rode with remarkable (well, for us) discipline and organisation.

It was interesting to travel the roads back to the Quarry in the opposite direction to the way we usually do, and realise just how much it actually climbs. This isn’t really noticeable charging the other way down to the café, where the favourable incline no doubt fuels our mad capering and pushes us toward dangerously terminal velocities.

Despite the extended ride we quickly ticked off the miles until reaching a point where I had the chance of taking a slightly shorter way back. As the group thundered around a sharp left turn I got slingshot out of the back, like some forlorn probe on a deep-space mission to parts unknown, and set fair for home. Yet another great ride. Thanks fellas.

YTD Totals: 4,679 km/ 2,907 miles with 53,134 metres of climbing.

The Godless Ride Out

Club Run, Saturday 13^th September, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 98.5 km/61 miles with 968 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 1 minute

Group size: 14 cyclists at the start. No FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Stottin’ doon.

Main topic of conversation at the start: I rolled up to the start point, which had temporarily shifted 10 metres north into the dim bowels of a multi-storey car-park, where I found the usual, grinning suspects sheltering from the rain, but ready and waiting for a business-as-usual club run. Weather be damned!

As a dripping OGL rode up we were expecting an immediate club sermon about inappropriate choice of gear, last week’s poor riding display or some such, but he was distracted by new cleats that held his feet to the pedals in a death grip. Narrowly avoiding an embarrassing pratfall and almost dislocating an ankle trying to dismount, we were given a brief reprise while he loosened the tension on his pedals.

It wasn’t until these critical adjustments were completed that he roundly cursed us all for having godless bikes! Oh, sorry, no – “guard-less” bikes – bikes without guards – mudguards, fenders, crud catchers, now I get it.

Charlie Bird got a “Chapeau!” for setting a Strava record for a lap on Saltwell Park Boating Lake, although I’m a little concerned anyone would think to take a Garmin on a pedalo. Sadly, but perhaps unsurprisingly there was no corresponding KOM prize to claim.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: That awkward moment when you’re diligently cleaning your bike chain and your partner asks where their toothbrush has disappeared to …

Crazy Legs then gave us a vivid description and demonstration, replete with Mr. Bean facial contortions and appropriate gurning, of how he had futilely struggled to pull a sodden glove onto a wet hand with his teeth while riding at the back of the group.

This reminded me of the time Dave “Le Taxi” tried to doff a rain jacket with a ¾ length zip only to get it caught on his helmet halfway over his head. Having finally extricated himself he castigated me for being of no useful assistance as he wobbled all over the road and teetered blindly on the brink of disaster, but to be fair I was too paralysed with laughter to be of help to anyone.

We then asked Charlie Bird why he’d disappeared on the shorter, amblers ride and he muttered about his front derailleur not working so he couldn’t select the inner ring. G Dawg’s utterly baffled, uncomprehending expression was priceless.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

For once the BBC weather forecast was spot on, predicting heavy rain all morning and uncharacteristically obliging, Mother Nature duly delivered. I was already resigned to the winter bike and had selected appropriate clothing the night before, including overshoes and my most waterproof rain jacket. I’d even given the winter bike a once over with an oily rag last weekend, so had nothing to do except check the tyre pressure before rolling out into the morning’s deluge and watery grey light.

G Dwag — G-Dawg not only eschews all use of the inner ring, but largely denies its very existence

Despite all the careful planning and preparations, leaving the best bike behind for a club run in September somehow felt all wrong, a little like sneaking off from your partner for a quiet date with an ex-girlfriend (or boyfriend, depending on your own personal preferences.)

At the RV point I found the usual suspects taking brief respite from the rain in the bottom of the multi-storey car park, and we might have been persuaded to stay there all day if the Strava KOM between the ground floor and top wasn’t so challenging.

Despite the weather Taffy Steve eschewed the thrice-cursed winter bike and bravely brought out his titanium love-child, while elsewhere there was a mix of the new and old, a few fixies and a smattering of mudguards, ass-savers and the like.

14 brave lads, no lasses (apparently rain plus helmet is murder on the hair) pushed off, clipped in and set out for a drenching. OGL’s plans were instantly washed away as the first mishap of misdirection saw us sailing blithely past the very first turn he wanted us to make.

Aboard a shipwreck train ... — Aboard a shipwreck train …

We sped onwards nonetheless, tyres cutting through the surface water with a hiss like tearing silk, and everyone settling as comfortably as they could into the ride and conditions.

The second mishap of misdirection saw us reach a big, wide-open roundabout that RIMS like to orbit at maximum warp without slowing. With no clear instructions we hit the roundabout and Ether shouted left on the spur of the moment. Twenty seconds later and while the front group were leaning well into the turn, OGL bellowed straight-on and our organisation exploded like a water-filled balloon dropping 20 feet onto concrete.

more raine — Gave my umbrella to a Rain Dog …

Taffy Steve pulled around 7g circumnavigating the entire roundabout at speed, while a half dozen of us had to cut a sharp U-turn on a major feeder road which is notorious for kamikaze traffic. By the time we re-joined the right route I could barely make out the winking red lights of the back of the pack as it disappeared into the rain and so began a long, long chase into a headwind to catch back on.

Typically, I’d just bridged across when BFG punctured and we were forced to stop anyway Milling idly around, shooting the breeze, getting rained on and obliviously sprawled across about ⅔ of a narrow country lane, we waited for repairs to be made.

It was at this point that for some reason the Prof decided to flag down an approaching car. As the driver pulled up alongside us and wound down his window quizzically, we all looked nonplussed at him, and then at the Prof, then back at the driver. The Prof mumbled something, we apologised and the guy finally realising we weren’t in need of emergency assistance and we had stopped him for no apparent reason, drove away. I’m just guessing here, but suspect that isn’t the best way of befriending your average motorist.

Repairs made we were back up to speed again when we heard a loud clunk, rattle and bang, which Crazy Legs surmised was either a serious mechanical, or an ultra-smooth Campagnolo gear shift.

The sound repeated itself a short while later, but no shout drifted up, so we mentally shrugged and pressed on, shedding riders like a comet’s tail. First beZ shot off for a lone, long, self-flagellation ride, then OGL, Ether, Cowin’ Bovril and Carlton decided they’d had enough rain and took off on the direct route to the café.

Charlie Bird seemed to hesitate, then turned to follow, as Crazy Legs squealed after him, “Come back Chuck, come back!” like the erstwhile heroine of an 80’s Chewits ad – but to no avail, as like Chuck in the advert he pressed on to join up with the amblers.

By this point the BFG had disappeared who knows where, having perhaps succumbed to that all too audible mechanical failure and slipped away unseen from the herd with a quiet dignity – (or perhaps acute embarrassment?) – to seek out his very own elephant’s graveyard.

Now our somewhat depleted group wound ourselves up the Quarry climb and struck out for the café, traversing decidedly sketchy road surfaces into a tearing headwind and lashing rain.

Moose Bumps jumped away and Red Max and Taffy started to wind it up for the usual Forlorn Hope. I tried hanging onto their wheels, but the legs were leaden and unresponsive and they slowly slipped away, with everyone else piling past in earnest, but futile pursuit. There it was, proof if ever I doubted, that last week’s burst of almost human strength was but a flitting mirage.

In one unexpected turn however, the Forlorn Hope was spectacularly successful, as with a last burst Red Max bridged up to Moose’s back-wheel and Taffy Steve clinically delivered the coup de grace.

We regrouped at the café, earlier than usual following a somewhat shortened ride, to find much to G-Dawg’s disgust that his customary ham and egg pie was still in the oven. Sitting round the table with the Prof’s untenanted jacket presiding over us like Banquo’s ghost, we slurped coffee, talked nonsense, laughed a lot and no doubt annoyed everyone else in the café while we waited for G-Dawg’s pie.

The amblers left long before our vigil was complete, exiting the café to find the rain pelting down with a renewed vigour. When our turn came to leave Crazy Legs half-jokingly suggested a longer route home, but with the rain still unrelenting there was no great enthusiasm for a detour. The first few minutes were uncomfortable, but we soon warmed up and quickly clipped off the miles back to base.

I turned off for home accompanied only by a recurring Tom Waits song and arrived at the river crossing to find the skies, if not clearing, then at least no longer weeping. I was thankfully able to shuck the boil-in-the-bag jacket before my assault of the Heinous Hill and I stuffed it into my jersey pocket. It may have sat like a cold wet sponge in the middle of my back, but it was good to be free of it, no matter how briefly.

All in all an enjoyable run despite, or just maybe, perhaps because of the foul weather.

YTD Totals: 4,679 km/ 2,907 miles with 53,134 metres of climbing.

The Curious Incident of the Cog on the Right

Club Run, 5^th September, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 108km/67 miles with 929 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 06 minutes

Group size: 26 riders, 2 FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Chilly

Main topic of conversation at the start: Crazy Legs recounted a nasty, high speed, front wheel blow out that had him sitting around for 20 minutes considering his own mortality and the fragility of both life and worn Gatorskins. He then spent 10 minutes giving his upper body a total workout, pushing over 200 strokes through a Blackburn Airstick to inflate a new inner tube so the tyre was hard enough to get him home. This served however only to deflate his ego further when he got back, clipped on his track pump, and the dial barely flickered on its short, staccato hop to show that with all his efforts he’d forced a mighty 20 psi into the tyre.

The Tour of Britain is visiting these here parts and there was much discussion about how best to catch some of the action, as well as a hope that Greggs might sponsor the stage into Blyth and award the winner a bouquet of pasties.

It seems we could have both the Vuelta and Tour of Britain on terrestrial TV at the same time, surely a first for British broadcasting.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: G-Dawg and Zardoz have been running with the Wednesday Club an irregular group of older guys who batter each other incessantly over immense distances and ultra-hilly routes. If G-Dawg and Zardoz are complaining, it must be hard.

Dab Man rolled up all on his lonesome, not quite fixed enough to brake fully effectively or ride in a group, although I think he’s just waiting for the return of icy roads to add a little frisson of excitement and uncertainty to each ride.

[I feel duty bound to mention him because he says he only reads the blog if he’s likely to feature, so it’s a good way of doubling my readership. Oh, and while I’m at it, thanks Mom as well, I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense to a non-cyclist, and yes I will try to moderate my language in future …]

While relaxing with my second cup of coffee, Crazy Legs appeared from the Faster! Harder! Longer! group with a blank, thousand yard stare, muttering darkly about the Demon Cult of the Racing Snakes.

Finally, in one of the most bizarre conspiracy theories since the ice bucket challenge was recently proclaimed a satanic baptism ritual (yes, really), Red Max claimed the unseasonable cold weather was closely linked to the unveiling of Google’s new logo. Scarily I wasn’t altogether certain he was joking and the evidence seems to back him up, so just in case, can we petition them to change it back?

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

Sadly the brief emergence of wasps last weekend did not presage an Indian summer and it was a decidedly chill morning with a constant, bitter-edged wind. Having learned a lesson from my early commute on Friday, I started out wearing long-fingered gloves which served me well and I didn’t feel the slightest urge to swap them out for the rest of the ride.

Although too cold for the wasps, there was a surprising turnout of that other pest, the common or garden club cyclist, and 24 regulars and 2 FNG lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and rode out to systematically brighten and disrupt the day of many an impatient motorist. Our ranks were further bolstered by the juniors, who always take to the roads on the first Saturday in every month, and I started at the back chatting happily to one of the dad’s as we rolled out.

When the group split at a junction I was left behind with the kids and had a hard chase uphill to rejoin the main group, which at least got me warmed up a little.

I found myself having one of those days when the pedals seem to effortlessly float around on their own accord: un jour avec perhaps, rather than a day without? These ultra rare days are definitely to be savoured as there’s no rhyme or reason for them, no possible way they can be replicated – even if you follow the exact same routine, and absolutely no way of telling when you’re likely to have another.

I put my good fortune to maximum effect, standing on the pedals to stomp and sprint up a few sharp hills in double quick time. On cresting one of these I tried to change down into a bigger gear to push on, only to find nothing was happening. I did the “dumb bad-guy in a cliché-ridden action movie” shtick; pulling on the trigger of an empty gun several times in disbelief, but no matter how often or how hard I clicked the STI lever, nothing was happening.

I then did a quick double-take to find my chain was as far over to the right as it could possibly go, and I’d just shimmied up a hill in my highest gear.

As we turned for the café the Red Max surprised us all with a sneaky, completely unexpected, un-telegraphed, long range attack which faded quickly in the headwind. Taffy Steve followed on his thrice-cursed winter-bike, the choice of which he admitted was a mistake. Despite his protestations it didn’t seem to hold him back any when it came to the pointy-end of the sprint.

I followed G-Dawg through to the front, but could sense his reluctance to take on the lead too early, so I pushed through on the inside and lined everyone out as we tipped downhill over a sketchy, corrugated surface that felt like it had been recently ploughed.

Just as I hit terminal velocity a woman in a large green 4 x 4 started to pull out into our path from a T-junction, but luckily realised at the last moment just how fast we were travelling and she lurched to a halt halfway across the road, scant seconds before I considered bailing out.

I briefly caught the surprised look of the kid in the passenger seat, her eyes wide and mouth forming a perfect “O” as we hammered past, and then the road levelled out and everyone swept around me and down to the Snake bends.

On the way home I couldn’t help chuckling when I overheard a conversation between Son of G-Dawg and Shouty when she finally realised there was a paternal connection between G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg. I think she was secretly relieved to learn that the bacon and egg pie, bacon butties, tea cakes and cans of Coca-Cola lavished by father on son at the café weren’t part of some bizarre North East grooming ritual.

Shoeless then set a blazing pace up Berwick Hill, and I tagged on as he dragged a small group with him that managed to shed or pass everyone else and splinter the group. He continued piling on the pressure all the way to my turn-off, where I struck out for home, having netted six Strava PR’s in just over 10km. Even a RIM in a BMW who cut me up and then flipped me off at the last roundabout couldn’t blunt my good mood and the warm glow of a great ride.

YTD Totals: 4,513km / 2,804 miles with 51,163 metres of climbing.

Sur La Jante

The Chronicles, Confessions and Idle Musings of a Club Cyclist

Category: Road Cycling

Hell and High Water

The Texas Chainring Massacre and the Road to Cheesecake.

Random Rambles and Esoteric Observations # 4 – Planet X vs. Rapha – The Throwdown

Slip Slidin’ Away

From Pillow to Post and Riding with Marley’s Ghost

Ghostface Killah

So, size does matter after all.

The Last Hurrah?

The Godless Ride Out

The Curious Incident of the Cog on the Right