[With special bonus feature, incorporating the Plague Diaries – Week#18!]
Grupo Compacto
Avid and astute SLJ readers (is there actually such a thing, I wonder?) may have noted no reporting from the front-lines last week. This was ostensibly because I was on holiday, but in reality it has more to do with me being plain lazy.
It wasn’t quite the holiday I was looking forward to, either. Instead of swanning off to some small, Mediterranean island, I had an enforced staycation and got up to such exciting things as deep-cleaning an oven and moving Thing#1 from her old student flat to a new student flat ahead of her final year at university, should it actually start as planned in September.
I did manage one ride of note, meeting up with 5 other club members on the Thursday, just so they could skip away from me on a series of hills out west and watch me flail and grovel my way up behind them. I stacked up 128 kms and over 1,300 metres of climbing, including several sections taken at a quite blistering pace. The weather was kind and good fun was had by all – well, me anyway, despite the grovelling.
Numbers, Thursday 16th July
Two days later and still not sure I’d fully recovered, I was up in time to make the rendezvous for a return to the “new normal” that our Saturday club run’s have morphed into.
So, 7:15 found me sitting at the table having breakfast, catching up on the news, while occasionally casting unhappy glances at the sky outside. The news was all dreadful and thoroughly depressing and it was perfectly matched by the weather. Dense black clouds were roiling overhead and a gusting wind pelted the glass with a constant tattoo of hard rain.I knew the weather was meant to clear in an hour or two, but reasoned I’d be soaked through by that point. I also knew the weather was forecast to be much better tomorrow.
“Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow” is an old family adage and seemed like the perfect advice for this time and place, so I slunk back to bed to try again on Sunday.
Seven of us were out the following morning, in much improved weather and it was actually pleasant, although chilly despite long periods of bright sunshine. We decided to (rather daringly) flout government guidelines and travel in one, ever so slightly too large group. In case we were stopped, I began rehearsing a plausible defence around needing to test my eyes for group riding by … err, indulging in some group riding.
We set the cafe at Capheaton as our ultimate goal, so it was just a case of feeling our way there through some suitably democratic decision-making-on-the-fly.
I fell in with Plumose Pappus as we pushed out, getting my excuses in early and telling him how I’d been royally smashed on the climbs on Thursday and didn’t think I’d recovered yet. Even though he himself is one of those nauseatingly flyweight, climbing mavens, he seemed even more keen than me to disparage and dish the dirt his own kind.
We determined they all had unresolved Mummy issues and suffered from a sibling-driven inferiority complex. Hills then became emblematic of the mother’s breast and the crest they all raced to was the symbolic location of the nipple. As a hotchpotch, utterly nonsensical, made-up and barking-mad theory, Plumose Pappus concluded, it was no more outlandish and absurd than some of Freud’s wilder suppositions and there was maybe, perhaps, just the teeny-tiniest grain of truth in there too.
We made Capheaton without too much splintering of the group and paused for well-deserved coffee and cake. They’d opened up the entire hall as a large communal space now and, although impressively busy with cyclists from near and far, there was enough room to maintain the prerequisite 1 metre plus distance.
As the most responsible, mature and sober-looking among us, the staff latched onto Jimmy Mac as our presumptive leader and he was asked to provide contact details for Covid tracing should the need arise. He somehow resisted the urge to give them OGL’s name and completed the formalities, while I got on with the serious business of devouring a chocolate brownie. This proved every bit as good, if not better, than the carrot cake I’d had the last time I stopped here.
We had a quick catch-up with the Prof, out once again with his Backstreet Boys tribute act, then it was back on the bikes and heading home.
This jaunt added another 115 km and 1,000 plus metres of climbing to Thursday’s efforts. I still haven’t recovered yet.
Seven of Clubs – Sunday July 19th
So finally, onto Week#19 and, approaching the Saturday, all early versions of the weather had darkly forecast thunderstorms, although that threat seemed to be diminishing as the weekend approached. Still, I was prepared for the worst and shipped out with a rain jacket stuffed in my rear pocket.
Riding through Denton toward the rather poetically named Silver Lonnen, (but still nowhere near as good a place-name as neighbouring, Two Ball Lonnen) – I was somewhat surprised to find a queue, 20 or 30 people long, waiting outside a new shop. I was even more surprised when I found out it was actually a butcher’s and wondered what strange and exotic meats they were offering to draw such a crowd.
At the meeting point it was as close to a normal club-run as I could imagine, reminding me of a time before all this Covid malarkey grimly manifested. It wasn’t long before the pavement was crowded with bikes and biklists, around 23 strong, with the typical outpouring of our usual prattling blather and bolleaux.
G-Dawg bemoaned the weather the past few weeks that had been generally all-round-awful, but never bad enough to stop him riding. In fact it neveris and he revealed Mrs. G-Dawg has given up asking if he’s “actually going to go out in that” because now she knows the answer. Yes. He is.
In direct contrast, Another Engine suggested his wife likes to have some “me-time” in the morning’s and really enjoys it when he’s out on the bike and not getting underfoot, to such an extent that she’ll excoriate him if his determination looks remotely like wavering. He described occasions when, peeking timidly around the bedroom curtains at angry, blackened skies, lashing rain and the treetops shaking in a raging gale, wondering if he should actually risk going out, only to be soundly berated from the warm confines of the bed he’d just abandoned: “Don’t be a pansy, go on, get yourself out, you wuss!”
Bless British Cycling, the’re doing their best in these unprecedented times, but the latest “easing of restrictions” that allow a small degree of road racing just seem nonsensical – “bunch racing is limited to 24 riders … and a maximum of 15 minutes per race.” That resembles no form of racing I’ve ever come across and everyone else seemed equally as bemused.
According to all accounts however, the local time-trialing scene appears to be flourishing and having to turn riders away, despite the new regulations that made Toshi San chuckle: the need for riders to bring their own pen to sign on.
The current restrictions mean there’s very little chance the local, elite level Beaumont Trophy and Curlew Cup races will go ahead this year, while hopes for the mass-participation, Cyclone sportive seems to be dangling by a thread.
For our ride, G-Dawg had devised a potential route and posted it up as a guide for whoever wanted to follow it. We split into groups of six, with a potential rendezvous at the Kirkley cafe arranged for 11.30. I pushed off and joined Jimmy Mac in leading the front group out … and away we went.
We were joined by G-Dawg, Crazy Legs, the Dormanator (aka Jake the Snake) and Kermit, to form a neat sextet, as we followed G-Dawg’s route down into the Tyne Valley.
Before we got there though we had to negotiate the suburbs, where we seemed to hit every red traffic light possible. I was only mildly disappointed that I couldn’t get a good chorus of Roxanne going, before we were out into the countryside, I was swinging over and someone else was pushing up to ride alongside Jimmy Mac.
This then pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the day. One of us would join Jimmy Mac on the front for a spell and peel off to rest and recover, while he just kept station, ploughing along with the pace high, through headwind, or tailwind, uphill or down and in and out the dusty bluebells to boot.
Into the valley and along the river, in the narrow lanes just past Ovingham a car somehow overtook us, squeezing past when there was no room to do so, a stupidly, dangerous manoeuvre that had the wing mirror millimetres from Jimmy Mac’s bars.
He had just about recovered his equilibrium and started checking behind, “to see if anyone else wants their car buffed,” when, moments later and with an explosive clatter and whir of furiously beating wings, a female pheasant launched itself from the hedgerow and swept past just under his nose. Close, but apparently not quite as close as the car had come.
We clawed our way out of the valley and dodged across the A69, regrouping before climbing the rest of the way clear and then dropping down to Whittle Dene Reservoir, running a section of an established club run in reverse.
Then it was straight through to Stamfordham, Callerton and a zig-zag route through the posh streets of Darras Hall, around numerous road works and lane closures to Ponteland. From there it was a fast burn along the winding, draggy road through to a grand finale, a frenetic uphill burst to the cafe, arriving, with incredible precision, spot on 11.30.
It wasn’t long until the rest of the mob arrived in their separate pods and one or two others joined from various solo or small group rides. By the time we’d been served and were sitting around the field, the sun had decided to join the party and it was blazing hot. Perfect for kicking back, relaxing and talking more balls than even Mitre manage.
Crazy Legs had been tickled by a video showing tourist boats at Niagara Falls, one American and one Candian, which seemed to perfectly encapsulate each countries contrasting approach to the Covid-19 threat. The US boat was rammed to the gunwales, with maybe sixty or seventy sweaty tourists, crammed cheek-by-jowl on its decks, while the similar sized Canadian boat had about a dozen passengers with plenty of space for social distancing and moving around.
We discussed our most likely national reaction to someone not wearing a facemask, or failing to maintain social distancing, which we decided was most likely be manifest not in a blazing argument, shanking with shiv, or capping of an ass, but that most censorious of British reactions, an almighty tut. (Isn’t the Almighty Tut one of Batman’s arch enemies?)
G-Dawg revealed he used to play football with a bloke who had the loudest tut known to man, perfectly audible anywhere on the pitch. Annoyingly, he wasn’t afraid to employ it either, in the face of any poor pass or mistimed tackle.
“He would tut so often, we called him Skippy,” G-Dawg revealed.
“Ah, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo,” a chuckling Crazy Legs reminisced, going rather misty eyed and finding a slight catch in his throat as he recalled the Australian TV version of Lassie, but one where the role of faithful and selfless animal-companion was changed from loyal, smart and intelligent dog, to a cantankerous, belligerent marsupial.
“‘Cept he wasn’t a kangaroo, but a wallaby,” I interjected in a smart-arse way, in part because I’d read this red-hot exposé in a gutter press Sunday tabloid, or similar, but mainly because I am indeed a smart-arse.
Further research suggests Skippy, or the numerous Skippy’s used in the filming this creaky, cheesy kids programme, were in fact Eastern Grey Kangaroos – at least one of which, as Crazy Legs reminded us, was probably maimed to provide the disembodied kangaroo arm with which “Skippy” would pick up or manipulate important plot items.
“I remember nearly being run over by a kangaroo when I went out for a jog once,” Jimmy Mac interjected. I assume he meant somewhere in the Outback and not more recently in the wilds of Northumberland.
Hmm, Jimmy Mac having a close shave at the hands of a dumb, thoughtless, unobservant animal. I sense a pattern here.
Meanwhile we watched Goose closely inspecting an e-bike parked next to the cafe. Crazy Legs recalled a patented Goose lecture about e-bikes at the top of a pass on one of our European Tours. His informed diatribe had lasted for a good 20 minutes, before he finally shrugged and blithely admitted that actually, he knew nothing about e-bikes whatsoever.
The Garrulous Kid is itching to get back to university and already looking forward to hitting the bars, parties and clubs – Covid be damned. G-Dawg mused that perhaps students should be made to wear something like a 2 metre diameter hula hoop to maintain correct social distancing at all times.
Crazy Legs had a much better idea and thought they should all be made to wear a plastic cone of shame, or Elizabethan collar, similar to those that vets use on dogs to stop them licking or scratching irritations. Obviously, we’d still want them to drink (we’re not that cruel) but I reasoned if the seal around the neck was watertight, they could just pour their drinks directly into the cone and then all they had to do would be to dip their heads and lap.
We think it’s a simple and elegant solution to a whole host of issues and can’t see any drawbacks. Patent pending.
Contemporaneously baked and chilled, we reluctantly decided it was time to leave and set out for home in our various groups, bringing to a close a club run that felt suspiciously normal.
Let’s hope there’s more to come.
Kangaroos, Cones and Close Shaves – Saturday July 25th
So, in their infinite wisdom, the British Government is intent on relaxing lock-down rules, perhaps not based on any grand plan, but simply trying to create the illusion that things are moving forward.
Personally, I’m not convinced it’s the right thing to do, or that we’re embarking on a safe and measured approach. Quite simply, I don’t trust them.
Leaving aside (if you can, and I’ll understand perfectly if you cannot) their appalling double-standards and hypocrisy, succinctly embodied in one particularly arrogant, rule-violating SpAd – after all, double-standards and hypocrisy seem to be the lingua franca of all governments, regardless of political persuasion. Instead, let’s look at the simple, irrefutable and objective facts. The statistics clearly show that under this governments watch, the UK has suffered the second-highest rate of deaths from the coronavirus in the world.
So while BoJo witters on about British exceptionalism and promulgates the illusion we’re a world-beating country, lets just recall that the thing we actually seem best at is killing our own citizens. With such a fumbled response so far, too many excuses and a host of broken promises, how confident are you that they’ve got it right this time?
Anyway, from Monday, the relaxed rules mean that, amongst other things, people in England will be allowed to meet in groups of up to six, outside, while maintaining a two-metre distance.
Entirely the best thing to come out of this announcement was the outpouring of social media sympathy for S-Club 7, although one commentator cruelly declared that they were probably better off dropping the dopey looking bloke at the back anyway.
Amongst our club socialmediaites, it meant quickly fomenting plans to meet up and run out in groups of six, perhaps starting as early as Wednesday evening.
Personally, I’ll be following British Cycling advice which has all club and group activity suspended until the 4th July, subject to fortnightly review and two weeks’ notice of any change. So, in other words, no group riding yet.
While references to a disappointed S-Club 7 made me chuckle, the biggest laugh of the week had to be the news that someone had developed a mod to sync your home-trainer, Zwift-style, with the Grand Theft Auto video game. Now you can ride around a gorgeously rendered L.A. game-world, while porting a high-powered, personal arsenal in your jersey pockets so you can, should you wish, indulge in the odd pedal-by ass-capping (P-Bac.)
Who hasn’t dreamed of using Molotov’s to thin out the traffic?
With the promise of glorious sunshine throughout the weekend, for my strictly solo, non-virtual ride, I decided to indulge in a little grand theft larceny myself, pinching bits of bike-touring company, Saddle Skedaddle’s “Giro di Castelnuovo.” route. They billed this as “a challenging guided road ride taking in some of the finest climbs in County Durham, including the infamous Passo di Crawleyside” – and promised around 130 kms (80miles) including 1,500 to 2,000 metres of climbing.
I would be modifying the route somewhat, mainly as I didn’t fancy riding into Newcastle to their start point, the Cycle Hub on the north side of the Tyne, just to ride straight back out again. I also planned a different route out of the Tyne valley to get onto the Whittonstall road, while adding an extra descent, so I could climb Burnmill Bank from the bottom, instead of joining it halfway up.
The bit of the route I wasn’t familiar with led from Blanchland to Stanhope, so, on my phone, I noted the 6 hamlets I’d need to pass through en route to Crawleyside and trusted the road signs would be good enough to see me through.
As promised, Saturday was a clear, cloudless day and already starting to warm up as I set off. I tucked a pair of arm warmers into a back pocket, just in case. I shouldn’t have bothered.
Down the hill, I pushed west through Blaydon, Ryton and Bywell to Crawcrook, where I swung north to cross the river at Wylam. Here I was caught once again behind the level crossing as the (tortuously) slow train to Newcastle rumbled past. I must have been on the road later than last time, or the train was actually running early, as I joined at the back of a small queue of cars and didn’t have to wait too long for the barriers to jerkily raise themselves and clear the way.
I pushed along the north bank of the river, pausing at Ovingham to admire the sudden appearance of a half-dozen or so scarecrows just outside the care home. Apparently, what I saw was only a small portion of the 58 fantastic scarecrows built for the village scarecrow competition. By far my favourite was a Trump figure, complete with MAGA cap and intent on wassailing, with a bottle of bleach to liberally imbibe from.
Back over the river at Stocksfield, I took the Broomley climb up through Shilford Woods. From there it was on to Whittonstall, perhaps the most hateful climb of the day – 2.5km up a slope that appears to get consistently steeper the closer you get to the top. It doesn’t help that, like the Ryals, it’s a straight road and you can see what’s coming from miles away as you approach.
By the time I dragged myself over the top I had all the evidence I needed that I’d left my climbing legs at home today and I began to wonder just how sensible my plan was.
I dropped down the other side into the Derwent valley, pausing just above Shotley Bridge for belated breakfast and quick rest to see if I could recover any.
Then it was back to the climbing, up through Snod’s Edge, noticing that traffic was much busier than I’d seen for a long time and being abused by a car passenger for … well for just being on a bike, I think. “Get off the road” was (I believe) the generally incoherent, but obviously wholly reasonable admonition.
Well, there’s something I haven’t really missed in the past few weeks of quieter, seemingly calmer and saner road usage, let’s welcome back all the arse-hat drivers and their super-witty passengers. Sadly, I didn’t have a pocket-full of Molotov’s to share with them.
I descended to skirt the reservoir, now seemingly open for business, with all the road blocks removed and stay away signs taken down. The Muggleswick silver Toyota pick-up is still there though and remains unsold (if you’re interested.)
The bikers were out in force, nosily running the lanes between Edmundbyers and Blanchland, as well as numerous picnicking older couples, oddly pulled just off the side of the road and reclining on camp chairs and rugs, I guess to watch the traffic pass by – maybe they’ve been missing the smell of exhaust fumes?
There were one or two cyclists out as well, but not as many as I would expect on such a glorious day.
Passing through Blanchland, I picked up signs for my first target, Baybridge and then in quick succession, Hunstanworth and Townfield. At this point I should have followed the signs to Rookhope, but a post knowingly pointed it’s stiff finger toward Stanhope, I knew that was my ultimate destination, so I followed it.
All seemed well for a short-time, before the road doubled-back on itself and I realised I was heading toward Blanchland again and guessed I’d then be climbing Meadow’s Edge in the opposite direction to the way I usually do. From there it made the most sense to head directly back through Edmunbuyers, by-passing Stanhope and the testing Passo de Crawleyside. Oh well, I’ve ridden it a few times before anyway. Maybe next time.
My wrong turn came with two notable features. The first was a long sloping field that, somewhat strikingly, seemed to have been overrun by purple wildflowers that the camera on my phone couldn’t do justice.
The second was being escorted out of the area by a large, white-bodied, black-winged bird that flew 20 metres in front of me for about a kilometre, screeching and jabbering back in disgust. Later investigation suggested I’d been dissed by an angry lapwing, who was apparently telling me in avian terms to “get off the road.”
My intuition proved correct and I was soon climbing up Meadow’s Edge, the first part of which seems much harder than the climb up the other side from Edmunbuyers. It’s also noticeably more barren and empty looking when you’re struggling upwards, rather then zipping down the road. Being relatively high up and endlessly exposed, I now had a stiff wind to contend with too and it was, naturally blowing head-on.
At the last junction and the highest point of the ride, I passed another cyclist I’m sure I seen around 2 hours ago approaching Whittonstall, apparently pondering which way to go next. Then I began my long, long descent toward Edmundbuyers, rattled over the cattle-grid and started to pick my way home.
I hadn’t covered the 80-miles promised by Saddle Skedaddle, but by the time I’d clambered up through Burnopfield, I’d topped 1.500 meters mark and found a few viable options for extending one of my favourite rides south of the river.
A quick hit before I disappear for a well-deserved (well, in my opinion) holiday on the Costa Blanca…
Saturday was sticky, hot and humid, even under granite coloured skies that promised to live up to the forecast of frequent heavy showers. The air was strangely still and breathless, mirroring the river which was dull, flat and as still as a millpond as I rolled over the bridge.
Last night I’d resorted to some creative bike wrangling to ensure Reg was ready, fully restored and, most importantly back home. I’d ridden into work on the single-speed as usual, but returned via the Brassworks bike workshop at Pedalling Squares, at the bottom of the Heinous Hill. There, I swapped bikes, picking up and paying for the work on the Holdsworth, before riding it home.
I’d then pulled on a pair of trainers, packed my cycling shoes in a rucksack and ran back down the hill to retrieve the single-speed. This was enough to reinforce my long-held belief that biathlon’s and triathlons are the creation of the devil.
Still, it was worth it, the Holdsworth was running true and smooth and as good as new. There’s something reassuring in finding a bike mechanic who’s a perfectionist. Now the potential for rain was about the only thing likely to ruin a good ride.
Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:
The sadomasochistic Buster had volunteered for his maiden role of ride leader, devising a route that was replete with just about all of our signature climbs in one neat package; Bell’s Hill, the Mur de Mitford, the Trench, Rothley Crossroads, Berwick Hill and Middleton Bank. I definitely needed any advantage a good bike could bestow.
The Garrulous Kid was just hoping to get to the cafe as fast as possible, so he could retrieve his sun specs, which he’d managed to leave behind the week before. G-Dawg told me they made the Garrulous Kid look like a bad Roy Orbison impersonator and he had visions of some old feller finding them, slapping them on his head and then walking blindly into all the tables and chairs as he tried to locate the exit.
I reassured the Garrulous Kid that I was certain they’d still be there as, from G-Dawg’s description, it didn’t sound like anyone else would actually want them. He then wondered if his water bottle would still be there too, as that was something else he’d forgotten.
I’m trying to see if we can develop an unofficial club jersey that more than two or three people are happy to wear, so had a chat with a few people about this, including Princess Fiona … which was when I realised I hadn’t considered a female option as (apparently) they’re built a bit different. I think this is going to be one of those projects that sounds easy, but the deeper you dig, the more issues you unearth.
A bunch of our riders had submitted themselves to a British Cycling ride leader course last Sunday, to allow them to officially take groups of youngsters out onto the open roads and introduce them to the mystical, mythical, ever-enduring club ride.
The course was an astonishing 8 hours long and preceded by a 3 hour computer test on general road safety and regulations – a hell of a commitment, that still didn’t get us to where we want to be. Apparently, ride leaders also require an up to date, First Aid certificate too – an additional course and between £15-£25 per person and then it’s only valid for 3-years.
Once we have all this in place, we would still only be allowed 8 junior riders for every fully qualified and certified ride leader and to cap it all, British Cycling charged the club £1,000 to run the course, plus the cost of the venue hire.
From talking to the group, many of the principles, guidelines and requirements they learned sounded rather Byzantine and restrictive and, well, a bit of a ball ache to be fair. I’m in no position to judge if the course teaches the best and safest way to lead a group of youngsters onto our undoubtedly dangerous roads, but the cost and time commitments alone seem to actively discourage clubs from doing this. I’m not sure how well this chimes with the mission statement of British Cycling to grow cyclesport?
With such a large group, we split into two and I dropped into the second group. Talk of enacting course leader principles were quickly shelved and we pressed on in our usual ramshackle manner.
I found myself riding alongside Sneaky Pete as we got underway chatting about Canadian singer-songwriters, the TV adaption of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and the right balance between practical colours for a cycling jersey and rider visibility.
I climbed the Mur de Mitford at a fairly relaxed pace and found myself alongside Taffy Steve as we pressed on.
“Ah, the Pigdon Prowler, ” I announced, referring to the Strava segment we now found ourselves traversing. “I wonder where that name came from?”
Taffy Steve agreed it was bizarre, but admitted to being far more interested in the etymology behind a different Strava segment: “Jonny’s Polish Shagfest” – having spend months trying to identify if we had any Jonny’s in the club he could interrogate to try and understand the origin of the Central European Shagfest and what relation it had to cycling.
Next on our list of came the Trench which again we seemed to run at a reasonable pace, before pausing to regroup. Just as we were determining shorter and longer options, our first group clambered up to join us, having been delayed when Caracol inexplicably tried to mate his rampant bike with Rainman’s. The only issue from this most unholy of unions had been a smashed derailleur, which had forced Rainman to abandon and call for the voiture balai to get him safely home.
Crazy Legs urged the front group to keep going at their usual, brisk pace, while the rest of us would trail along behind in our own time. Several defectors though took the opportunity to drop back into the second group, notably Goose and the Big Yin. Good for them, bad for everyone else as it prompted me to unleash my finest nasal, Dylanesque wail; “What’s the point of changing … horses in midstream.”
Having somehow survived my intemperate wailing, we pressed on toward Rothley crossroads, taking the much maligned and hated traditional route, rather than the equally, or even more maligned and hated novel approach that Taffy Steve had recently inflicted on us.
As the gradient bit and the speed dropped, I pushed onto the front alongside Goose to help pace us up and over the cross-roads. We repeated the exercise on Middleton Bank and then started building up the speed for our long run toward the cafe.
Into the final few mile and I attacked on the rollers, just to surprise everyone, figuring they certainly wouldn’t be expecting the move. I then dragged a quite remarkably unstartled, unmoved and unflustered group, who were firmly lodged on my back wheel, up and around the final corner, before swinging aside for the sprinters to burn past.
Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:
Although earlier arrivals had all chose to sit inside the cafe, it was so hot and sticky we decide to sit outside in the garden. Zardoz had heard rumblings about a new, alternative jersey.
“Oh, can I have one with my name on it?” he wondered.
“We can all have your name on it,” I assured him.
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t know who I was then,” he deadpanned.
I heard from G-Dawg and Crazy Legs that The Silence had been one of those attending the Ride leaders programme, where, by all accounts he’d remained characteristically tight-lipped and taciturn throughout. I’m not wholly convinced keeping mum is great attribute for a ride leader.
We also learned that he has a near fatal attraction for edging toward the kerb, particularly alarming for anyone caught on his inside. He’d make a deadly sprinter in a bunch finish.
Our brief sojourn in the garden was otherwise uneventful and we left in two or three disparate groups to make our way home. By great good fortune we saw no actual rain, but would periodically encounter soaking wet roads, suggesting we’d only just missed being caught in a fearsome shower or two.
This good fortune held all the way home, completing an unexpectedly dry club run and it wasn’t until I parked up the bike and stepped into the house that the heavens opened up and the rain came stottin’ down.
For once, good timing.
YTD Totals: 4,825 km / 2,998 miles with 64,345 metres of climbing
The freakishly mild weather has added a new and unwelcome dimension to my personal prevarications, I now not only have to wrestle with critical clothing choices, but even the most basic, fundamental issue of which bike to ride.
I can’t remember ever riding the summer bike in February, but I did last week and once the genie is out of the bottle, it becomes much harder to entice it back in again. Friday night then saw me prepping both the Holdsworth and Peugeot for potential deployment on Saturday, depending on what the morning brought.
10 minutes before leaving I still hadn’t settled on a bike, which was bad news as I didn’t know which shoes to pull on. The ground looked dry and the sky was clear, but it may have rained elsewhere along our route and the forecast highlighted the potential for infrequent light showers.
Aagh! The Master of Prevarication strikes again.
Eenie-meenie-miny-mo?
No, come on, you’re a grown man, make a decision and live with the consequences. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen, Reg might get a bid muddy and wet, but he’s not some effete, cossetted Ribble. Beside, if you’re going to flaunt Flandrian colours, you should expect to enjoy a bit of mud and rain occasionally. So two weeks in a row I get an early Easter present and the chance to ride “the good bike.”
While it still seems too early for good bikes, perhaps it really is that time of year already. Alternatively, maybe the flowers too are confused by the freakishly mild weather. Whatever the reason, the verges are already studded with bright yellow, purple and white crocuses and, here and there, a few premature daffodils have raised their frilly periscopes to check out the conditions.
I swooped down toward the river just as the barriers of the level crossing raised their arms in salute, catching and passing a fellow cyclist who somehow seemed offended by my cheery good morning as I slipped past.
He accelerated to sit huffing and puffing away on my rear wheel all the way to the bridge. I stopped as the lights turned red, but he simply accelerated down the span. Each to his own, but I couldn’t help feeling it was more luck than good judgement that he didn’t meet an impatient driver coming the other way, though.
From there it was all plain sailing and it wasn’t long before I was rolling up to the meeting point.
Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:
Taffy Steve immediately took me to task for not describing in minute detail the magical epiphany that accompanies the change from winter bike to summer bike – even if I had to repeat everything I said the year before … and the year before that (and potentially even the year before that.)
Even though he knows it’s coming, like me he’s still amazed by the difference in feel and heft when he swaps his thrice-cursed winter bike of pig iron (pig aluminium?) for the lightweight titanium love-child. Such an important stage in the natural, evolution of the cyclists year, he argues, requires the ritual description of the clouds parting, pillars of golden light blazing down and the angelic singing of the heavenly hosts.
Almost as good as swapping winter bike for summer version, the Garrulous Kid has finally had his Focus Cayo serviced and new cassette, chain, bottom bracket, cables and brake blocks fitted. He insisted everyone admire his newly restored bike and, to be fair, given his past record we might as well imprint it on our memories now, because it won’t look this good until after its next service.
G-Dawg wondered why he hadn’t gone for a black chain with red highlights, like Jimmy Mac’s, but why pay for it, in a week or two his chain will be suitably black, once it had the chance to build up that sticky, oily, coating of protective black grunge again.
By way of contrast, the similarly aged Monkey Butler Boy and Archie Miedes spent the first 5 minutes cleaning and polishing off the mud and crud that had accumulated on their bikes just on their way across to the meeting point.
Szell was out (for the first time this year?) prompting Crazy Legs to enquire if the chrysalis had broken and then checking to ensure that Middleton Bank was definitely planned on our itinerary, with instructions to put it in if it wasn’t there already.
Jimmy Mac outlined the route for the day and had us split into two groups, somehow conspiring to get G-Dawg to take the second group so he could have fun at the front.
As this first group rode out, I tagged onto the back and was joined by Benedict. After the first couple of miles he declared it was a much more civilised and relaxing way to start the ride, rather than giving them a head-start and then hammering away, trying to catch up as we’d done last week.
The boys were feisty today though and we set off at such an infernal pace, I’m not sure we’d have managed bridge across if we had delayed. I netted 14 Strava PR’s in the first 30km alone, as Jimmy Mac, Kermit, Andeven, Rainman and others conspired to propel the group along at breakneck speed.
At one point, as we started to lose riders out the back on a climb, I told Jimmy Mac I didn’t think the pace was sustainable … but we sustained it anyway. In this way the first handful of miles passed under our wheels in a blur, without pause or let-up and no lack of pain.
Just past Mitford, the Garrulous Kid engineered a solo break and, as we started to close in on our traditional stop point at Dyke Neuk, Biden Fecht decided to close him down and piled more speed on top of speed. All this over a road that most definitely resides amongst my least favourites
Still, the catch was made and then we hammered up to the Dyke Neuk Inn to stop, catch our breath and patch our splintered group back together. There we settled in to wait for our second group to join us – given our pace, I suspected it would take much longer than usual.
We were disappointed to find the banana plantations we were secretly cultivating in the area had failed to take root. Still, there’s time yet.
As we waited, we were entertained by the Monkey Butler Boy describing being chased by “the Bizzies.”
“The Bizzies?” we wondered.
“Bizzies?”
The obvious question wasn’t why the Monkey Butler Boy and his associates might find themselves attracting the interest of the boys in blue, but when and how Wallsend had been transported from Tyneside to Merseyside?
The first false alarm in our wait was the appearance of a group of cyclists, who turned out to be an NTR splinter cell. They reported no sign of our second group, despite travelling up the same roads we expected them to use on their approach.
The second false-alarm was the appearance of Big Dunc, who we thought might be the vanguard of the second group, until he admitted he’d left them for a sneaky short-cut.
Finally the second group arrived and I learned I’d missed a round of Leo Sayer ear-worms that Crazy Legs, the Ticker and Taffy Steve had inflicted on each other – You Make me Feel Like Dancing, One Man Band and The Show Must Go On.
Crazy Legs had only managed to banish this insane indignity by recalling the Breakaway song – apparently not the Art Garfunkel/Gallagher and Lyle number, but the advertising jingle for Breakaway Biscuits.
I couldn’t remember that particular ad and my Sutherland’s Spread recollection (Sutherland’s, Sutherland’s scrumptious Sutherland’s, spread on sumptuous Sutherland’s spread …) fell on deaf ears, so I pulled the pin on a “When I Need You” labelled, Leo Sayer grenade, rolled it into the middle of the group and rode off.
Away we went again, almost instinctively falling into the original two groups, causing Crazy Legs to bark with laughter and wonder why the first group had even bothered to wait. Can’t say he didn’t have a point, although we did manage to steal G-Dawg away from the second group.
Around the next corner though, we ran into a surprisingly strong headwind and Carlton, on the front of the second group, put in a huge effort dragging everyone across the gap so they could find a bit of shelter.
We stayed together through the swoop and clamber through Hartburn, before some took a left, while the rest pushed on to Scots Gap and coalesced into two distinct groups.
Archie Miedes then hit the front and seemed intent on shredding the legs of all us old blokes, driving us on towards Scots Gap. “It’s been this mad all morning,” I managed to gasp at G-Dawg as we ripped along.
Archie Miedes ceded the front as we pushed through Scot’s Gap, but as we took the wide, right turn toward Middleton Bank, the speed obviously wasn’t fast enough for his liking, so he pushed onto the front and ramped up the pace again.
Everyone seemed to be going at full gas on the descent to the climb and I tucked in and hunkered down, trying to surf the slipstreams and freewheel enough to recover a little. As we approached the climb itself, I couldn’t help thinking that this was going to hurt and I’d struggle to hang on. Then Archie Miedes pulled up lame … or with a puncture anyway … and suddenly the pace and urgency evaporated.
With enough people back-tracking to help out the puncture victim, I decided to push on to the top of the hill at a more leisurely pace, thinking I’d get it over with before stopping to regroup.
I picked up Biden Fecht on the way and he decided it was a reasonable plan, kicking away up the hill while I took it at a much more considered and relaxed pootle.
Rainman obviously had the same idea and passed me on the way up. “That’s the most pleasant ride I’ve ever had up here,” I declared as I joined the pair now waiting at the entrance to the farm at the top of the hill.
Without the blood-pounding, tunnel-vision and screaming legs of a full on assault of the slope, it was quite a gentle, easy ascent and a completely different experience.
“I could actually hear birds singing all the way up,” Biden Fecht revealed cheerfully.
“And I didn’t even know there was a farm here,” Rainman added.
As we waited, chatting, Kermit clambered past, intent on pushing straight onto the cafe. With repairs well in hand at the bottom of the hill and nothing we could add to proceedings, we decided to follow and joined him.
We pushed on with a slightly ragged through-and-off, building up our speed until once again my legs were screaming, my lungs burning and I was just about hanging on. I was, in the Ticker’s profound words, proper paggered as we hit the bottom of the Rollers …
… so I attacked.
Tradition. It’s not to be taken lightly, so I felt I had no choice in the matter.
I almost had a gap, but couldn’t sustain it over the third and fourth humps, succeeding only in distancing Kermit, battling bravely, but severely handicapped riding his winter bike.
Rainman shot past and away and I tagged onto Biden Fecht’s wheel as he set off in pursuit, hanging there until the final climb, when he put in a big dig to bring back Rainman. It fell just short of its target, but left me trailing.
Main topics of conversation at the coffee shop:
Once again we determined that we could probably get away with sitting outside, proof if ever it’s needed that you can’t accurately judge ambient temperature following a mile long uphill sprint.
It was a bit chilly, but after some prevarication we stuck it out. Following our example we were joined by most of the later arrivals until we had two bench tables filled on either side. It was a comradely, misery loves company type of collective suffering and I’m not convinced there was any benefit from shared body heat.
Crazy Legs arrived sat down and then shot up again with cramp in his foot. He kicked off a boot and clambered onto the bench, bouncing on his toes to try and ease the pain. As he towered over me I was waiting for a “O Captain, my Captain” moment, but he wasn’t in the mood for channelling Walt Whitman and all I got was a minuscule, cramp-inspired whimper instead of a mighty, barbaric yawp.
The last group to arrive escorted Archie Miedes home and we learned his tyres belonged amongst the ranks of those that seem almost impossibly hard to remove and replace.
We also learned that Archie Miedes had earned himself an everlasting place in the Hall of Shame, reserved for those who go out for a ride without the means and wherewithal to repair a simple puncture. It’s not a good place to be, but he’s in there with some surprisingly illustrious and esteemed company.
To prove his new found maturity, the Garrulous Kid proudly announced he, at least, was now carrying both a spare tube and tyre levers. No pump though, or CO2 canister, so I’m not exactly sure if that actually makes him more, or less foolhardy.
Crazy Legs recalled the day one of our former riders, Arnold, became inducted into the Hall of Shame. He’d punctured the week before and broken his pump, which was fortuitous timing as it was coming up to his birthday and he was struggling to think of anything he wanted as a present.
The following Saturday he punctured again and, shamefacedly had to admit he didn’t have the means and wherewithal to repair a simple puncture, flagging down Crazy Legs to ask for a pump to borrow.
“I thought you were getting a new pump for your birthday?” a perplexed Crazy Legs had asked.
“I am. My wife’s already bought it, but I’m not allowed to use it because my actual birthday’s not until tomorrow,” Arnold had ruefully replied.
This reminded me of (surely an urban myth) the story of a new season-ticket holder at Newcastle, who’d been surprised the seat beside him remained empty, game, after game, after game. With a reportedly long waiting list for tickets he’d enquired if perhaps the seat was available to purchase only to be told it definitely had an owner.
When said owner finally turned up, he’d informed his new neighbour not to enquire why he’d missed so many games, but finally relented to reveal he’d his wife had bought the season ticket for a Christmas present …
Just about everything we discussed then paled into insignificance by the highlight of the day, or maybe month, or perhaps even the year. This was the rather startling declaration from the Garrulous Kid – and I quote him exactly here so there’s no misunderstanding –
“I share a bath with my sister.”
Yes, well, hmmm. Moving swiftly on …
After such a blockbuster revelation, everyone was ready to go, with some riders turning left from the cafe for a slightly longer return ride. I took the usual right, keen to get home and catch the start of the Classics and the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Proper bike racing has finally started again.
I dropped in alongside Jimmy Mac as we turned off the main road onto the lanes.
My Garmin has just told me it’s battery is low,” he started, “and suggested I switch it to Power-Saving Mode. So I did and it just turned itself off completely!”
Well, we had to admit, that was the ultimate power-saving mode and his Garmin would probably retain its limited charge for days now, if not weeks.
“Let’s keep it together up the climb,” OGL called as we approached the bottom of Berwick Hill. As if on cue, G-Dawg and the Garrulous Kid immediately surged off the front and chased each other up the hill.
I accelerated to track them, pulling those with the legs left to follow upwards. As I caught up with a grinning G-Dawg on the reverse slope, he predicted a Facebook rant about group riding etiquette sometime that night.
He wasn’t to be disappointed.
We pushed on into the Mad Mile side by side, both commenting on the sudden, stiff headwind that appeared to have been lying in wait until just that very moment. So, it’s back to that is it? Great.
Let’s see what next week brings.
YTD Totals: 1,353 km / 841 miles with 18,447 metres of climbing
The weather continues to confound, swinging from a frigid -4°C on Wednesday’s early morning commute, to disturbingly mild, double-figures for the weekend.
With no ice to worry about and the morning’s starting to get lighter too, the big concern first thing Saturday was perfecting the balancing act and getting the layering just right – we were looking for the Goldilocks ideal – not too hot and not too cold.
So, a single base layer, Galibier jacket (in case the threatened rain or sleet materialised early than forecast), thin gloves with liners, no buff, no hat or headband. It was a reasonably, solid effort, a self-scoring 7, or an 8 out of 10 and I only feeling chilly the few times we were forced to stopped.
The roads were strangely quiet of fellow cyclists as I made my way across to the meeting place, but it seemed to be a day for solitary runners, who were out in force, in all sizes, shapes and styles.
There were so many, I wondered if there was an upcoming event they were all training for, or perhaps we now had a National Running Day to go along with National Hugging Day, National Pie Eating Day, National Rubik’s Cube Day, or whatever new nonsense they’ve come up with. (Apparently National Running Day does actually exist, but it’s in June.)
On the final approach to the meeting point I was caught behind a vaping driver, billowing plumes of sickly, sweet-smelling smoke out of his car window. It took me a while, but I finally recognised that he seemed to be indulging in a blackcurrant vape, possibly Ribena, or perhaps Vimto? A new one to add to Taffy Steve’s list of improbable and nauseating vape flavours.
Main Topics of Conversation at the Meeting Point:
G-Dawg pointed to the cheap, emergency, strap-on LED light on my handlebars and recounted how he’d attached one to his dog, after its purpose built LED collar failed. He said it worked as a great substitute, until the dog went plunging headlong into the river, at which point he mentally wrote it off.
He was then hugely surprised when the dog had emerged, with the light still blinking away furiously. At this point he decided that for a cheap light, he’d found something that was surprisingly sturdy, waterproof and wholly reliable … until he tried to turn it off to save the batteries for another day and found he couldn’t.
I imagined the disgruntled dog sitting at home, still blinking away like a stray satellite and unable to sleep for the disturbing bursts of light searing through its eyelids every time it tried.
Crazy Legs revealed he’d finished last weeks ride, taken off his gilet and hung it over the handlebars of his bike in the garage. It had still been there waiting for him this morning, but he’d only managed to half pull it on before its rank stink had dissuaded him and he’d been forced to consign it directly to the washing basket.
OGL commented on someone suggesting that he could wear a base layer ten times in a row between washes – or was it ten years in a row? Anyway, this is entirely possible because it was made with miraculous non-stink, Merino wool. I think it’s probably fine – but only if you can pedal fast enough to outpace your own odour …
Still, G-Dawg thought you could get at least 4 “good” wears out of a pair of Y-fronts, worn normally, back to front and then repeating the process but inside out. He was joking. (Right?) The disturbing level of detail he added, such as saving the right side out and the right way around “for best” did make me wonder …
OGL then mentioned some all-day British Cycling, regional meeting in February and wondered if anyone wanted to accompany him to represent the club, a sort of sharing of the pain. He didn’t seem to find any irony in the fact that nobody else has any kind of official status in the club (other than being a paid-up, or even non-paying member.)
In other news, he suggested that the city’s £11 million development plan for two sporting hubs could see a cycling track and possibly clubhouse, built at the Bullocksteads site near the rugby stadium. This, he offered, could be a better meeting point for club rides. This vision was enthusiastically embraced by G-Dawg who lives right on the doorstep of the proposed development. I’ve no doubt he could see his future-self rolling out of bed at 8:55 and still being the first one to arrive at the meeting point.
Taffy Steve nodded over to where Princess Fiona and Mini Miss had gathered and were chatting away.
“The red car and the blue car had a race…” he intoned, drawing attention to the fact that they were dressed almost identically, except one was wearing a red jacket and the other a blue one.
“Do you remember that Milky Way advert?” he asked, “I hated it.”
I wondered what it was provoked such hatred, could it have been the art style and direction? The patent absurdity of it’s storyboard? The jaunty, jangling soundtrack? The ear-worm effectiveness of its jingle? Perhaps it was the product itself, the rather effete, light-weight Milky Way that made him curl his lip in disdain?
“It’s the lyric’s he explained, starting to sing away, “The red car and the blue car had a race, but all Red wants to do is stuff his face, he eats everything he see’s, from trucks to prickly trees, but smart old Blue he took the Milky Way.” He paused, but not for long …
“So, what’s wrong with that? Prickly trees? Prickly trees! Pah! They obviously meant cactuses, but were too lazy to find anything that would rhyme with cactuses, cacti or whatever. Even as a kid I knew it was just a lazy cop-out. Grrr!”
It’s amazing what superficial ephemera we carry from our yoof and how much it can still trouble and annoy us …
Our route architect for the day, Crazy Legs asked if anyone was interested in the full details of his grand plan. Apparently not, so without further ado, he invited G-Dawg to lead out those who wanted a faster ride, adding that there’d be no waiting to regroup.
The first group started to coalesce around G-Dawg, with the majority of riders joining. I hung back to try and even out the numbers, but it was still a two-thirds to one-third split – apparently no one wants any kind of association with a “slow” group.
Crazy Legs did have a little rueful chuckle to himself, as the (always game) Goose bumped his steel behemoth down off the kerb and went to join the fast group.
We agreed he’d be fine, he likes a challenge and the route wasn’t too hilly.
The second group followed, but we hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred yards before the Red Max’s front tyre gave out with a sound like a sputtering Catherine Wheel – fzzzzit-fzzzzit-fzzzzit-fzzzzit.
We all pulled to a stop and clustered around and I moved up in unison with Crazy Legs to see how we could help.
“Don’t worry,” he declared, “We’ll soon have it fixed, the Dream Team’s here!” as he referred to the time we’d fruitlessly spent half an hour struggling with Big Dunc’s unholy alliance of Continental Grand Prix tyres and Shimano rims (Trial of Tyre’s.)
We’d failed in that instance, only to later learn that Big Dunc had saved himself through the simple expedience of flipping the wheel around and inserting the inner tube into the other side. Why that made a difference, I really don’t know, but it obviously did and it might be worth trying if you’re ever stuck with seriously recalcitrant tyres.
Despite the close attention and best ministrations of the Dream Team, the tyre change went pretty smoothly and we were soon back on the road again.
I was on the front with the Ticker, (Ticker-less, now he’s on his winter bike) and we spent much of the time calling back, trying to determine what the route was – I really should have paid attention, or at least encouraged Crazy Legs to give us an actual and foolproof briefing.
Occasional incoherent shouting punctured our ride, apparently caused by a RIM in a Volvo taking exception to our right of way, but I was well insulated from any altercations as we plugged away on the front, up through High Callerton and toward Medburn.
Here, we were drawn to a halt when the Red Max’s tyre gave out again. While he cursed his shoddy and useless Continental summer tyres, that seemed shot after “a mere 5,000 miles” of extraordinary wear and tear, I double-checked the rim and carcass for offending objects – glass, thorns, shards of metal, flints, rough edges, caltrops, thumb tacks, whatever. There was nothing.
Meanwhile, the Red Max realised he’d used a Vittoria inner tube, so he had a little rant about “Italian crap” while he was on. Even as a proud Vittorian I wasn’t going to stand in front of that particular runaway express.
“Badd-bing-badda-fzzzzit,” Taffy Steve added helpfully.
Meanwhile, Crazy Legs took the flaccid, holed tube off the Red Max, ostensibly to locate where the puncture was, but really just to hold it up to his nose and inhale deeply.
“Ah, I love the smell of rubber,” he declared, evidently quite content with the world. Apparently it smelled considerably better than his gilet.
There then followed a very deep, lengthy and philosophical discussion about how inner tubes can smell so good, when the air inside them is so rank.
“Like stale kippers,” I suggested and nobody disagreed.
We got going again and pressed on to the crossroads at Heugh, where a bronchitis-suffering OGL made a bee-line for the cafe. The Red Max decided to cut his ride short too, hoping to lessen the chances for further punctures and departed to provide escort duties.
Somewhere along the way I found myself directly behind Taffy Steve and Crazy Legs as they rode along, for some reason arguing about similarities between OGL and, somewhat randomly, football manager Neil Warnock.
Things turned a shade darker when Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe and Saddam Hussein were somehow added to the equation Still, the only conclusion they could agree on was that, if Idi Amin was a club member, they were pretty sure he hadn’t paid his subs in a good long while. Bizarre.
Having been delayed by recurrent punctures, we took a slight short cut toward the Quarry and, as the road started to climb, I nudged onto the front alongside Crazy Legs.
As we pulled the group along I complained about how I seemed to have become a dirt magnet for the day, liberally spotted and besplattered with mud from head to toe. My boots had turned a deeply unpleasant shade of brown and I was peering out at the world through seriously spotted glasses.
It was bad enough to start me singing “Teenage Dirtbag” – a selection that was at least tolerated by Crazy Legs as a “not-too-bad” earworm.
“Left, or right?” Crazy Legs pondered as we dragged the group toward the top of the Quarry.
“Left,” I declared, “We haven’t been that way for a long time.” So long in fact that I’d forgotten bits of the road had actually been patched and was (in places) almost decent.
So, left we went, slowing to allow everyone to regroup after the climb. As we rolled on, Crazy Legs bent right over to point, his finger hovering scant inches from the road surface as he bellowed out a lung-shredding “POT!” – a warning that was probably heard in the Scottish Borders.
“Sometimes, I really think I need to become a little more mature,” Crazy Legs considered.
“No, don’t go changin’ – we love you just the way you are.” I assured him.
He rode on in silence for a good dozen or so pedal strokes while he digested this …
“You bastard! You utter, utter bastard!” he complained, “First you give me Wheatus and then snatch it away for … for bloody Billy Joel!”
“Oh, is that a Billy Joel song?” I enquired innocently.
He then swore me to silence as he had a huge confession to make, needed advice, but demanded the ultimate in discretion. (This blerg doesn’t count, as no one reads it.) He looked around cautiously to make sure no one could eavesdrop. The group was still reforming behind us after the climb and we had a brief exclusion zone.
“I’ve been thinking about my set-up for the mountains and … Well… I don’t think I can get what I want with Campag.”
I was deeply shocked, almost speechless, as he hurriedly and in hushed tones, talked about Shimano, or even SRAM groupset options. Oh and the sky is falling down and meanwhile, in deepest, darkest hell, the thermostat’s been nudged up just a little …
Further discrete discussions around this bombshell were abandoned as we started a slow burn for the cafe, gradually picking up the pace.
“Do you want to go for this sprint?” Crazy legs wondered.
“Nah, I’m happy to just roll through.”
We built up the speed until all the talking behind stopped and we were lined out, clipping along, bouncing and juddering across the rough road surface.
I nodded up ahead where the road rose, before starting to drop down toward the Snake Bends.
“Take it to the top and then unleash the hounds?” I suggested.
So we did, peeling off neatly to either side and ushering the rest through for the final charge.
Cowin’ Bovril was the first to try his hand, surging off the front as we drifted toward the back.
He briefly had a good gap, but was slowly reeled in. Then, just before the road started to level, Taffy Steve attacked from the back, an astute masterclass in timing.
The gap quickly yawned upon, Cowin’ Bovril was washed away and only Carlton seemed able to give chase. I nudged onto his wheel and followed, but the move proved decisive. Carlton closed, but couldn’t come to terms with a flying Taffy Steve.
Main Topics of Conversation at the Coffee Stop:
In the cafe, Carlton apologised for our slightly ramshackle and disorganised riding at the start of our grand adventure, but explained that, when you’re on the front with your nose in the wind, it’s really difficult to hear what’s being shouted up from behind.
We agreed we needed a better system and Crazy Legs’ idea of passing messages forward always seemed to stall half way up the line.
“Perhaps we need a dog whistle?” Crazy Legs pondered.
Visions of One Man and His Dog sprang to mind. Cum ba Shep, cum ba. No, don’t think that’s going to work.
Changing tack, Carlton wondered what was going on with the weather. “It’s at least three degrees warmer today,” he remarked.
“Did you say three degrees?” I queried.
We paused…
I looked at Crazy Legs, Crazy Legs looked at me and we both shook our heads. Luckily, neither of us could remember any Three Degrees songs. A narrow escape.
We reminisced about our old representative from the Hollow Lands, De Uitheems Bloem, who we have traded in for a younger, newer model in Rainman. (It’s my understanding that Dutch riders are held in in such high regard, that UCI rules limit them to one per club. As such I can’t recall if our two ever actually rode together, but I do know we weren’t allowed to keep both.)
Crazy Legs remembered planning a winter break to Amsterdam and asking De Uitheems Bloem for some recommendations. He later received a 5-page email, detailing a full itinerary of all the things to see and do on his trip. This was appended with a long range weather forecast for the weekend; sunrise and sunset times, temperature, wind speed and direction, chance of precipitation, air pressure, cloud cover and pollen count. It concluded that it looked like being a particularly mild weekend, “so don’t bother taking your skates.”
On returning, Crazy Legs had sought out De Uitheems Bloem, “Thanks for all the recommendations, that was brilliant. By the way, English people don’t own skates.”
“They don’t?”
We shared tales of riding in the Alps with Carlton, who seemed surprised that the Col de la Croix de Fer was Crazy Legs’ favourite climb. He couldn’t recall seeing the (admittedly modest) iron cross, perhaps because his overriding memory of the climb was being paced up it by a wild horse. This beast, rather worryingly, refused to leave the road and didn’t seem all that bothered by the gaggle of cyclists lined out behind it.
“It was obviously a draught horse,” I offered. I thought it was funny, Crazy Legs was simply dismayed. Secretly, I just think he was upset because the only wildlife we saw on the climb was a sun-blasted, completely flattened, giant toad-in-the-road. (The Circle of Death).
Talk of climbing mountains led Carlton to talk about Jimmy Mac’s 900 gram, special climbing wheelset. First, Crazy Legs thanked Carlton profusely for introducing the subject of wheels into the conversation, something he felt we hadn’t discussed for … oh, at least 3 or 4 weeks. Then things got serious as we fired off a range of questions to try and frame the fearful symmetry of Jimmy Mac’s climbing wheelset …
“What type of spokes, how many and how are they laced?” Crazy Legs demanded.
“When you say 900 grams, is that with, or without rim tape?” I pondered.
“Quick release skewers?” Crazy Legs added.
“The cassette?”
“The freehub?”
A rather overwhelmed Carlton could provide none of the answers and was now probably regretting mentioning wheels in the first place.
Now Crazy Legs wanted Jimmy Mac to ride out on his fabled wheels and then strip them down completely, so he could fully weigh them and see if their claimed mass could be independently verified.
Luckily, Carlton spotted Jimmy Mac entering the cafe at just that moment and was able to deflect Crazy Legs onto the actual wheel owner. Crazy Legs immediately got up to pursue the issue, before coming back and reporting it was a dead-end, as Jimmy Mac had trashed the wheels during his International Grand Fondo horror smash.
I thought this would deflate Crazy Legs somewhat, but it actually cheered him up. He now felt fully vindicated in his view that such wheels aren’t robust enough to stand up to the wear and tear of actually riding on them.
All good things come to an end and were soon lining up to head for home. Here I noticed the Monkey Butler Boy visibly shivering.
“Feeling the cold?” I asked him, proving yet again just how startlingly perceptive I am.
“Yes,” he replied tightly, “And it’s all his fault” he pointed at the Red Max.
“But that’s unfair, surely your dad didn’t tell you what to wear this morning?”
“No, but I inherited a stupid gene from him.”
Ha!
As we set off I found myself chatting to the Red Max as we trailed the Monkey Butler Boy. He despaired at his progeny’s lack of common sense and choice of attire, short sleeve jersey and arm warmers, shorts and knee warmers, already despoiled white socks and once pristine (now poisonous ivory) shoes. Looking at Max bundled up in a winter jacket, gloves, boots, and hat, I determined that genetics isn’t always the answer.
I also noticed that of the four teens out today, at least three of them were riding bikes without mudguards, whereas just about all the older set had at least some semblance of protection for themselves, their bikes and most importantly, their fellow riders.
I wondered if that says something about generational differences – perhaps the youngsters are more concerned with style, or maybe they’re more willing to put up with discomfort? More daring? More stoical? Harder? Less cossetted?
Then again, perhaps I’m over-thinking it and they are what they seem to be when I’m at my grumpiest – at best thoughtless, or just plain inconsiderate.
The Red Max told me he’d taken the Monkey Butler Boy along to see a professional coach, who told all the youngsters that they were training too hard and in the wrong way. He’d described the ideal training programme as a pyramid, a base of solid, core, low intensity miles, capped with fewer, high intensity efforts only once this base had been established.
The concept resonated with the Red Max:
“That was interesting wasn’t it?” he’d asked.
“Yes, it was good.”
Something to think about?”
“Nah, it obviously doesn’t apply to me.”
A “3-2-1-Go” countdown signalled an impromptu sprint up the final few metres to the crest of Berwick Hill, fiercely contested by G-Dawg and the Garrulous Kid.
What can I say, the Garrulous Kid, in the full prime of youth and with all the advantages of modern technology, astride his ultra-light, uber-Teutonic, precision engineered, carbon Focus, was up against the grizzled veteran, three times his age and hauling an all steel fixie. It seemed a very unequal contest …
And so it proved. The Garrulous Kid was chewed up, worked over and unceremoniously spat out the back. Score one for the wrinklies.
I slotted in alongside Jimmy Mac as we started down the other side of Berwick Hill, where we were passed by a lone Derwent C.C. cyclist, all elbows and a busy style.
“He’s a bit far from home. I wonder what he’s doing on the boring roads over here, when he has the choice of all those good hilly routes south of the river?” Jimmy Mac mused.
This prompted a discussion about possible rides and the challenging terrain “over there” in the south of the Tyne badlands, (or Mordor, as my clubmates will refer to it.)
We hit the climb up to Dinnington and, in just a few metres, the gap between us and the Derwent C.C. rider almost entirely evaporated.
“Ah,” I suggested, “He doesn’t like hills.”
“Which is why he’s riding over here!” we both decided in unison.
As we entered the Mad Mile, I was completely and wholly unsurprised when a sudden headwind seemed to rise up out of nowhere. I’m getting used to this now.
I sheltered behind Caracol and G-Dawg for as long as I could, then I was on my own and plugging my way home. I got back suitably tired – I might not have been running with the “fast group” but I felt I’d had a good workout nonetheless.
YTD Totals: 648 km / 403 miles with 8,825 metres of climbing.
Total Distance: 110 km / 68 miles with 1,174 metres of climbing
Ride Time: 4 hours 40 minutes
Average Speed: 23.6 km/h
Group size: 26
Temperature: 12°C
Weather in a word or two: Not bad at all
Ride Profile
First off, my apologies if, in my incessant babbling last week, I wrote off your cycling club and it’s still going strong. This was prompted by a blerg comment I received, suggesting the members of the Tyne Road Club would be very surprised to learn of their apparent demise.
In my own paltry defence, I will say that they must be operating in a particularly clandestine manner, or at least one that easily thwarted my (admittedly amateurish) research capabilities: the club no longer appear to be registered with British Cycling and their web domain registration has expired.
I did subsequently find a Strava group for the club, but this had the same link to the lapsed website and was only showing a single, solitary member. Still, I’m very happy to be proven wrong and do hope the club continues.
The one benefit of my research activities was stumbling across this film of the 1960 Dunston C.C. road race. (I think I’m safe in asserting that this club, is no more.)
Meanwhile discussions between Toshi San and OGL revealed that VC Electric were composed of electricians from the Swan-Hunter shipyards. Since the once mighty Swan-Hunter closed a long time ago, I think VC Electric are another club we can safely consign to the past.
Anyway, back to the present … A lone seagull, circling high over the house marked the start of my ride with a series of plaintive, mournful cries. I’ve no idea why it was so sad, it was a bright, breezy, not too cold day. A large band of heavy rain had passed over us through the night, but now the skies were clearing and it would be a dry throughout. Not bad. Not bad at all.
My trip across the river to the meeting point was wholly unremarkable and I arrived to find G-Dawg, the Hammer and the Colossus already there and waiting.
Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:
That film of that 1960’s road race did spark some lively debate about the two front pockets that used to adorn all cycling jersey’s and just what purpose they could possibly serve. Too shallow for spares, or tools, too precarious for money, or valuables, I felt they were perhaps ideally sized to carry a pack of fags, or maybe they were designed for more refined times and specifically for a gentleman’s, freshly pressed, linen handkerchief or pocket square.
OGL was the only one of us who could remember owning a jersey with front pockets, which he suggested were simply there to catch the wind, like twin drogue parachutes. Like us, he had no earthly idea of their actual purpose and could recall getting his mum to sew a couple of press-studs on, to try and keep them from gaping, like a slack-jawed village idiot.
The Garrulous Kid started telling us about his “posse” of “friends” and their university choices and I wondered where he ranked in the group pecking order, was he the Alpha Male or Beta? Perhaps he was even his own man and a newly-minted Zeta?
Talk of his peer group prompted Plumose Pappus to muse what collective noun we might best apply. A “chatter” I suggested. He countered with a “chaos” which seemed altogether more appropriate.
It was time for route announcements, with Richard of Flanders bounding up onto the wall and, somewhat astonishingly, priming the crowd with his opening declaration, “Hello! For those that don’t know me, I’m Richard and this … is your route for the day …”
With numbers requiring a split into two groups, he then broke standard etiquette, by declaring he would be leading the front group and hustled off before anyone could object.
In the second group, OGL wanted a more organised rotation, with no one doing more than 3 miles on the front, before ceding their position and dropping all the way to the back. No one had any real objections, so off we set, with this rather novel restriction in mind.
I found myself riding along beside Ovis, out on his fixie because he’s not happy with the cantilever brakes on his winter bike. He’s dropped it in to his LBS for a service and to see if they could find a way of increasing braking power. I suggested better brake blocks could be helpful.
“Oh, I have to admit the last pair I bought were cheap as chips,” he conceded ruefully, “and for all the effect they were having, I might as well have been using chips.”
After three miles, Taffy Steve and Crazy Legs dutifully swung off the front, accompanied with loud cries of “get thee behind me!” and “go on, all the way to the back now.”
Spoons and Goose took over and we pressed onward. Out through Ponteland and up Limestone Lane, until it was our turn and I moved onto the front with Ovis, as, with perfect timing, my Garmin ticked over to 23 miles.
“That must be three miles done already, ” Ovis suggested hopefully a few moments later.
“Close, but that’s actually only about 0.2 of a mile. But don’t worry, we’re about to a hit a nice, smooth patch of tarmac.”
And we did, to a noticeable, collective, dare I say, almost orgasmic sigh from those behind.
Ovis considered calling for a pee stop, but wavered as he couldn’t remember the right gate and he recalled the Gategate incident, when all sorts of trouble accrued to those who dared to worship and … ahem, “spend their tribute” at the wrong gate. Much better to ride with the discomfort of a full bladder and treat it as a sort of humble debasement, a sign of true dedication.
A little further on a cluster of cyclists could be seen at the side of the road. “Perhaps,” I mused, “they’re at the right gate and they’re pilgrims paying homage to that most holy of cyclist sites?”
But no, it was just our front group, stopped and pulled up at the side of the road with what looked like another front wheel puncture for G-Dawg.
I doffed an imaginary cap and we pressed on. After exactly three miles, I had us swing over and the next pair took to the front as we drifted all the way to the back. In this way the ride progressed, sensibly, orderly, organised, equitable, overly fussy and, according to Crazy Legs, ultimately boring.
A bit further on and we had to stop for our own puncture, as Spoons rear tyre was slowly softening. He set to work changing the tube and then starting to re-seat the tyre, lining up three tyre levers to help him. Even without Crazy Legs’s magic thumb, I thought it was worth trying to push the tyre on manually and with a bit of grunting, gurning and groaning I managed to roll it back onto the rim. It was only at this point that I realised I’d been wrestling with a Schwalbe Marathon, tyres that are notoriously difficult to fit. I have to admit I was quite smugly pleased with myself.
As Spoons began inflating his tyre, Goose fished a snack-sized Malt Loaf out and devoured it in three bites. Ovis snorted in derision, then drawled, “That’s not a malt loaf, this is a malt loaf,” reaching back and pulling out his usual, family-sized, malt loaf brick out of a jersey pocket.
In between bites, he explained how he’d completed the Fred Whitton Challenge fuelled purely on malt loaf, with two stashed in his jersey pockets and a third, for emergencies, strapped to his top tube.
“Only trouble was, I was a bit sick of it by the time I got to the last feed-station. You know what they were serving there? Bleedin’ malt loaf!”
I was fully expecting our front group to catch us while we were tyre wrangling and talking nonsense, but there was no sign of them. I later learned we’d deviated slightly from the planned route. (Shh! Don’t tell Richard.)
Underway again, Biden Fecht was struggling to hold the wheels and obviously in the throes of a major jour sans. We nursed him along to the Quarry, where he joined those making a quick strike for the café, while the rest of us went plummeting down the Ryals.
It must have been on the cusp of the 11th hour, of the … wait, what? 10th day? … when we shot past a small group observing a (surely premature) minutes silence at the war memorial at the bottom of the hill. Hopefully we didn’t disturb them too much.
The planned route was for us to climb back up through Hallington, but we took the longer, less hilly loop around the reservoir instead – Taffy Steve’s preferred option, even on his svelte summer bike and given even greater appeal now he was astride the thrice-cursed winter bike.
Half way around and Spoons was calling a stop to sort out his leaky, rapidly softening tyre, going for a few blasts of his pump rather than a full tube change. He set out for the café, pushing well ahead of everyone in a desperate race against time, hoping to make it before having to stop and force more air into the troublesome tube.
We followed, accelerating toward coffee and losing Ovis on the short, but savage Brandy Well Bank, that could legitimately bear a warning sign declaring “death to all fixies.”
Speed was up and we were humming along now, with Taffy Steve pulling on the front and rapidly closing in on Spoons, as we hit the stretch down to the Snake Bends. I pushed through, as we caught and dropped our front runner, rattling along on what I suspect was an uncomfortably flaccid tyre. Then Taffy Steve went blasting past with Crazy Legs on his wheel and the pair opened up a gap as they duked it out for the final sprint.
Punctures and stops had us arriving at the cafe way behind our usual time and, while the other groups were already indulging in refills and thinking about leaving, we were just sitting down.
Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:
Enthusiasm for the rugby international was somewhat dampened by realisation that the game would only be live on Sky, a company and service all right-thinking people should morally object to giving money to, regardless of your thoughts on their cycling team.
Crazy Legs questioned just how smart Sky were though, as he knew of at least one family sharing their Multiroom package between a house in Tyneside and a flat in East Finchley.
“You could always argue you’ve just got a very big house,” I decided.
“And the Multiroom subscription was just for the west wing,” the Colossus added.
Talk of big houses reminded OGL he’d once been asked to deliver a boatload of expensive Pinarello gear to a certain chubby, charmless, money-grubbing, shifty-grifter, Sir Alan Sugar. Mrs. OGL had been suspicious of the order, so OGL had Googled the address to reveal a palatial, sprawling monstrosity of a house, that convinced him this was no scam.
This reminded Crazy Legs of a tale he’d heard about a fellow cyclist who’d hauled himself to the top of an Alpine climb to find Sir Alan Sugar, complete with personalised Pinarello, camped outside a cafe, sipping an espresso.
“I know you!” the cyclist had declared, seemingly much to Lord Sugar’s initial delight, until the cyclist pointed a finger and declared, “You’re fired!”
“Oh, fuck off!” Lord Sugar had allegedly replied, with remarkable wit and sagacity, before throwing a leg over his bike and quickly riding off.
The Garrulous Kid dropped by wondering if he’d done enough to deserve a prize at the club’s annual dinner and awards ceremony.
“What would you like a prize for,” G-Dawg queried, “The shortest club ride, ever?”
“How about finishing a ride without falling over?” I suggested, “Oh, wait …”
But the Garrulous Kid had already flitted to the next topic, declaring he had a great idea for improving the club run: free rides. I’m not sure what he was getting at, we don’t pay anyway.
As everyone seemed to be packing up to leave, Big Dunc finally arrived at the cafe, having been riding with our group, but suffering an unremarked puncture on the run in. I persuaded Crazy Legs to join me in a coffee refill (to be honest, it wasn’t difficult) and we stayed behind to keep Big Dunc company, as everyone else left for the run home.
The three of us finally left the cafe and started to head back. I was riding on the front chatting with Crazy Legs, until he turned round and we finally noticed our trio had become a duo.
We back-tracked to find Big Dunc stopped by another puncture. We hustled into the entrance to a farm track and started to replace the tube. The tyre proved to be a complete and utter bastard to get off the rim, with tyre levers pinging everywhere, skinned knuckles, a lot of polite swearing and everyone trying and failing horribly.
Finally, we managed to drag the tyre off, pulled the tube out and replaced it. If we thought getting the tyre off was difficult, getting it back on was to be even more of an ordeal. Rolling it didn’t work, levering it didn’t work and in this instance, even the Crazy Legs magic thumb failed us.
All the while we were entertained by a postman driving his van in and out of farm entrances as if he was auditioning for the Fast & Furious 10 (Ogle Burn Up) and Crazy Legs started judging the steady stream of passing cyclists by how sincerely they enquired if they could assist us in any way.
Meanwhile, I wondered how Big Dunc had managed on his own, when he’d punctured on the run into the café? Truth be told he didn’t know – I suspect a supernatural burst of adrenaline, similar to the phenomena that lets desperate mothers lift cars off their run-over children.
My new found confidence in being able to handle difficult tyres following success with the Schwalbe Marathon’s, quickly evaporated, defeated by an unholy alliance of Continental Grand Prix tyres and Shimano rims.
Finally, with all hands to the pump and injudicious application of tyre levers, gloved hands, grunting, straining and swearing, the tyre grudgingly snapped over the rim. Unfortunately we could see numerous places where it had trapped the tube under the bead and it would be impossible to inflate.
Working the tyre vigorously from side to side for five minutes, we thought we’d finally released the tube, screwed a pump onto the valve and I gave it a dozen or so good blows.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Either my pump was refusing to work, or, much more likely we’d damaged the tube with all our industrial manhandling.
Unable to face another round of tyre wrangling, Crazy Legs volunteered to ride home, get his car and come and pick Big Dunc up. We agreed the plan and I handed over a spare tube in case Big Dunc’s superhuman strength and mystical tyre changing abilities suddenly reasserted themselves. Then we left him, vowing to replace his tyres with something that was a little more forgiving and easier to fit.
Pushing along with Crazy Legs and discussing year end distance totals, he recalled last year being stuck on 3,973 miles at Christmas and having to spend an hour or so on the turbo, just to round things up to an even 4,000.
This compulsion was something he’d previously tried to explain to an uncomprehending Taffy Steve and me, when he was horrified to learn we track our Garmin numbers in both miles and kilometres and therefore would have the impossibility of two numbers to round-up.
“I’ve probably topped 4,000 miles sometime this week,” I told him.
“Bloody hell, 4,000 miles in a week? That’s impressive.”
Funny man.
As we approached Kirkley Hall, about 45 minutes behind our usual schedule, Crazy Legs proved we’ve been riding together too long, by rightly guessing I was planning to turn right to shave a mile or two off my route home. Or, maybe he was trying to prompt me to go that way, because as soon as I confirmed it, he started grinning.
“Good,” he said, “Then I can ride the rest of the way at a more comfortable pace.”
“But, I’m only riding at this speed to keep up with you!” I insisted.
We fell into an uneasy silence, until we approached the junction.
“Right. Bye.”
“Bye. I’ll see you next week.”
“Next week.”
Next week, when we’ll probably continue to ride together at a pace just a little too fast for either of us to be truly comfortable, but we’ll both be to stubborn and conceited to admit it, or back down …
YTD Totals: 6,584 km / 4,091 miles with 80,581 metres of climbing
Club Run, Saturday 10th November, 2018
My Ride (according to Strava)
Total Distance: 110 km / 68 miles with 1,174 metres of climbing
Ride Time: 4 hours 40 minutes
Average Speed: 23.6 km/h
Group size: 26
Temperature: 12°C
Weather in a word or two: Not bad at all
Ride Profile
First off, my apologies if, in my incessant babbling last week, I wrote off your cycling club and it’s still going strong. This was prompted by a blerg comment I received, suggesting the members of the Tyne Road Club would be very surprised to learn of their apparent demise.
In my own paltry defence, I will say that they must be operating in a particularly clandestine manner, or at least one that easily thwarted my (admittedly amateurish) research capabilities: the club no longer appear to be registered with British Cycling and their web domain registration has expired.
I did subsequently find a Strava group for the club, but this had the same link to the lapsed website and was only showing a single, solitary member. Still, I’m very happy to be proven wrong and do hope the club continues.
The one benefit of my research activities was stumbling across this film of the 1960 Dunston C.C. road race. (I think I’m safe in asserting that this club, is no more.)
Meanwhile discussions between Toshi San and OGL revealed that VC Electric were composed of electricians from the Swan-Hunter shipyards. Since the once mighty Swan-Hunter closed a long time ago, I think VC Electric are another club we can safely consign to the past.
Anyway, back to the present … A lone seagull, circling high over the house marked the start of my ride with a series of plaintive, mournful cries. I’ve no idea why it was so sad, it was a bright, breezy, not too cold day. A large band of heavy rain had passed over us through the night, but now the skies were clearing and it would be a dry throughout. Not bad. Not bad at all.
My trip across the river to the meeting point was wholly unremarkable and I arrived to find G-Dawg, the Hammer and the Colossus already there and waiting.
Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:
That film of that 1960’s road race did spark some lively debate about the two front pockets that used to adorn all cycling jersey’s and just what purpose they could possibly serve. Too shallow for spares, or tools, too precarious for money, or valuables, I felt they were perhaps ideally sized to carry a pack of fags, or maybe they were designed for more refined times and specifically for a gentleman’s, freshly pressed, linen handkerchief or pocket square.
OGL was the only one of us who could remember owning a jersey with front pockets, which he suggested were simply there to catch the wind, like twin drogue parachutes. Like us, he had no earthly idea of their actual purpose and could recall getting his mum to sew a couple of press-studs on, to try and keep them from gaping, like a slack-jawed village idiot.
The Garrulous Kid started telling us about his “posse” of “friends” and their university choices and I wondered where he ranked in the group pecking order, was he the Alpha Male or Beta? Perhaps he was even his own man and a newly-minted Zeta?
Talk of his peer group prompted Plumose Pappus to muse what collective noun we might best apply. A “chatter” I suggested. He countered with a “chaos” which seemed altogether more appropriate.
It was time for route announcements, with Richard of Flanders bounding up onto the wall and, somewhat astonishingly, priming the crowd with his opening declaration, “Hello! For those that don’t know me, I’m Richard and this … is your route for the day …”
With numbers requiring a split into two groups, he then broke standard etiquette, by declaring he would be leading the front group and hustled off before anyone could object.
In the second group, OGL wanted a more organised rotation, with no one doing more than 3 miles on the front, before ceding their position and dropping all the way to the back. No one had any real objections, so off we set, with this rather novel restriction in mind.
I found myself riding along beside Ovis, out on his fixie because he’s not happy with the cantilever brakes on his winter bike. He’s dropped it in to his LBS for a service and to see if they could find a way of increasing braking power. I suggested better brake blocks could be helpful.
“Oh, I have to admit the last pair I bought were cheap as chips,” he conceded ruefully, “and for all the effect they were having, I might as well have been using chips.”
After three miles, Taffy Steve and Crazy Legs dutifully swung off the front, accompanied with loud cries of “get thee behind me!” and “go on, all the way to the back now.”
Spoons and Goose took over and we pressed onward. Out through Ponteland and up Limestone Lane, until it was our turn and I moved onto the front with Ovis, as, with perfect timing, my Garmin ticked over to 23 miles.
“That must be three miles done already, ” Ovis suggested hopefully a few moments later.
“Close, but that’s actually only about 0.2 of a mile. But don’t worry, we’re about to a hit a nice, smooth patch of tarmac.”
And we did, to a noticeable, collective, dare I say, almost orgasmic sigh from those behind.
Ovis considered calling for a pee stop, but wavered as he couldn’t remember the right gate and he recalled the Gategate incident, when all sorts of trouble accrued to those who dared to worship and … ahem, “spend their tribute” at the wrong gate. Much better to ride with the discomfort of a full bladder and treat it as a sort of humble debasement, a sign of true dedication.
A little further on a cluster of cyclists could be seen at the side of the road. “Perhaps,” I mused, “they’re at the right gate and they’re pilgrims paying homage to that most holy of cyclist sites?”
But no, it was just our front group, stopped and pulled up at the side of the road with what looked like another front wheel puncture for G-Dawg.
I doffed an imaginary cap and we pressed on. After exactly three miles, I had us swing over and the next pair took to the front as we drifted all the way to the back. In this way the ride progressed, sensibly, orderly, organised, equitable, overly fussy and, according to Crazy Legs, ultimately boring.
A bit further on and we had to stop for our own puncture, as Spoons rear tyre was slowly softening. He set to work changing the tube and then starting to re-seat the tyre, lining up three tyre levers to help him. Even without Crazy Legs’s magic thumb, I thought it was worth trying to push the tyre on manually and with a bit of grunting, gurning and groaning I managed to roll it back onto the rim. It was only at this point that I realised I’d been wrestling with a Schwalbe Marathon, tyres that are notoriously difficult to fit. I have to admit I was quite smugly pleased with myself.
As Spoons began inflating his tyre, Goose fished a snack-sized Malt Loaf out and devoured it in three bites. Ovis snorted in derision, then drawled, “That’s not a malt loaf, this is a malt loaf,” reaching back and pulling out his usual, family-sized, malt loaf brick out of a jersey pocket.
In between bites, he explained how he’d completed the Fred Whitton Challenge fuelled purely on malt loaf, with two stashed in his jersey pockets and a third, for emergencies, strapped to his top tube.
“Only trouble was, I was a bit sick of it by the time I got to the last feed-station. You know what they were serving there? Bleedin’ malt loaf!”
I was fully expecting our front group to catch us while we were tyre wrangling and talking nonsense, but there was no sign of them. I later learned we’d deviated slightly from the planned route. (Shh! Don’t tell Richard.)
Underway again, Biden Fecht was struggling to hold the wheels and obviously in the throes of a major jour sans. We nursed him along to the Quarry, where he joined those making a quick strike for the café, while the rest of us went plummeting down the Ryals.
It must have been on the cusp of the 11th hour, of the … wait, what? 10th day? … when we shot past a small group observing a (surely premature) minutes silence at the war memorial at the bottom of the hill. Hopefully we didn’t disturb them too much.
The planned route was for us to climb back up through Hallington, but we took the longer, less hilly loop around the reservoir instead – Taffy Steve’s preferred option, even on his svelte summer bike and given even greater appeal now he was astride the thrice-cursed winter bike.
Half way around and Spoons was calling a stop to sort out his leaky, rapidly softening tyre, going for a few blasts of his pump rather than a full tube change. He set out for the café, pushing well ahead of everyone in a desperate race against time, hoping to make it before having to stop and force more air into the troublesome tube.
We followed, accelerating toward coffee and losing Ovis on the short, but savage Brandy Well Bank, that could legitimately bear a warning sign declaring “death to all fixies.”
Speed was up and we were humming along now, with Taffy Steve pulling on the front and rapidly closing in on Spoons, as we hit the stretch down to the Snake Bends. I pushed through, as we caught and dropped our front runner, rattling along on what I suspect was an uncomfortably flaccid tyre. Then Taffy Steve went blasting past with Crazy Legs on his wheel and the pair opened up a gap as they duked it out for the final sprint.
Punctures and stops had us arriving at the cafe way behind our usual time and, while the other groups were already indulging in refills and thinking about leaving, we were just sitting down.
Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:
Enthusiasm for the rugby international was somewhat dampened by realisation that the game would only be live on Sky, a company and service all right-thinking people should morally object to giving money to, regardless of your thoughts on their cycling team.
Crazy Legs questioned just how smart Sky were though, as he knew of at least one family sharing their Multiroom package between a house in Tyneside and a flat in East Finchley.
“You could always argue you’ve just got a very big house,” I decided.
“And the Multiroom subscription was just for the west wing,” the Colossus added.
Talk of big houses reminded OGL he’d once been asked to deliver a boatload of expensive Pinarello gear to a certain chubby, charmless, money-grubbing, shifty-grifter, Sir Alan Sugar. Mrs. OGL had been suspicious of the order, so OGL had Googled the address to reveal a palatial, sprawling monstrosity of a house, that convinced him this was no scam.
This reminded Crazy Legs of a tale he’d heard about a fellow cyclist who’d hauled himself to the top of an Alpine climb to find Sir Alan Sugar, complete with personalised Pinarello, camped outside a cafe, sipping an espresso.
“I know you!” the cyclist had declared, seemingly much to Lord Sugar’s initial delight, until the cyclist pointed a finger and declared, “You’re fired!”
“Oh, fuck off!” Lord Sugar had allegedly replied, with remarkable wit and sagacity, before throwing a leg over his bike and quickly riding off.
The Garrulous Kid dropped by wondering if he’d done enough to deserve a prize at the club’s annual dinner and awards ceremony.
“What would you like a prize for,” G-Dawg queried, “The shortest club ride, ever?”
“How about finishing a ride without falling over?” I suggested, “Oh, wait …”
But the Garrulous Kid had already flitted to the next topic, declaring he had a great idea for improving the club run: free rides. I’m not sure what he was getting at, we don’t pay anyway.
As everyone seemed to be packing up to leave, Big Dunc finally arrived at the cafe, having been riding with our group, but suffering an unremarked puncture on the run in. I persuaded Crazy Legs to join me in a coffee refill (to be honest, it wasn’t difficult) and we stayed behind to keep Big Dunc company, as everyone else left for the run home.
The three of us finally left the cafe and started to head back. I was riding on the front chatting with Crazy Legs, until he turned round and we finally noticed our trio had become a duo.
We back-tracked to find Big Dunc stopped by another puncture. We hustled into the entrance to a farm track and started to replace the tube. The tyre proved to be a complete and utter bastard to get off the rim, with tyre levers pinging everywhere, skinned knuckles, a lot of polite swearing and everyone trying and failing horribly.
Finally, we managed to drag the tyre off, pulled the tube out and replaced it. If we thought getting the tyre off was difficult, getting it back on was to be even more of an ordeal. Rolling it didn’t work, levering it didn’t work and in this instance, even the Crazy Legs magic thumb failed us.
All the while we were entertained by a postman driving his van in and out of farm entrances as if he was auditioning for the Fast & Furious 10 (Ogle Burn Up) and Crazy Legs started judging the steady stream of passing cyclists by how sincerely they enquired if they could assist us in any way.
Meanwhile, I wondered how Big Dunc had managed on his own, when he’d punctured on the run into the café? Truth be told he didn’t know – I suspect a supernatural burst of adrenaline, similar to the phenomena that lets desperate mothers lift cars off their run-over children.
My new found confidence in being able to handle difficult tyres following success with the Schwalbe Marathon’s, quickly evaporated, defeated by an unholy alliance of Continental Grand Prix tyres and Shimano rims.
Finally, with all hands to the pump and injudicious application of tyre levers, gloved hands, grunting, straining and swearing, the tyre grudgingly snapped over the rim. Unfortunately we could see numerous places where it had trapped the tube under the bead and it would be impossible to inflate.
Working the tyre vigorously from side to side for five minutes, we thought we’d finally released the tube, screwed a pump onto the valve and I gave it a dozen or so good blows.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Either my pump was refusing to work, or, much more likely we’d damaged the tube with all our industrial manhandling.
Unable to face another round of tyre wrangling, Crazy Legs volunteered to ride home, get his car and come and pick Big Dunc up. We agreed the plan and I handed over a spare tube in case Big Dunc’s superhuman strength and mystical tyre changing abilities suddenly reasserted themselves. Then we left him, vowing to replace his tyres with something that was a little more forgiving and easier to fit.
Pushing along with Crazy Legs and discussing year end distance totals, he recalled last year being stuck on 3,973 miles at Christmas and having to spend an hour or so on the turbo, just to round things up to an even 4,000.
This compulsion was something he’d previously tried to explain to an uncomprehending Taffy Steve and me, when he was horrified to learn we track our Garmin numbers in both miles and kilometres and therefore would have the impossibility of two numbers to round-up.
“I’ve probably topped 4,000 miles sometime this week,” I told him.
“Bloody hell, 4,000 miles in a week? That’s impressive.”
Funny man.
As we approached Kirkley Hall, about 45 minutes behind our usual schedule, Crazy Legs proved we’ve been riding together too long, by rightly guessing I was planning to turn right to shave a mile or two off my route home. Or, maybe he was trying to prompt me to go that way, because as soon as I confirmed it, he started grinning.
“Good,” he said, “Then I can ride the rest of the way at a more comfortable pace.”
“But, I’m only riding at this speed to keep up with you!” I insisted.
We fell into an uneasy silence, until we approached the junction.
“Right. Bye.”
“Bye. I’ll see you next week.”
“Next week.”
Next week, when we’ll probably continue to ride together at a pace just a little too fast for either of us to be truly comfortable, but we’ll both be to stubborn and conceited to admit it, or back down …
YTD Totals: 6,584 km / 4,091 miles with 80,581 metres of climbing
Club Run, Saturday 10th November, 2018
My Ride (according to Strava)
Total Distance: 110 km / 68 miles with 1,174 metres of climbing
Ride Time: 4 hours 40 minutes
Average Speed: 23.6 km/h
Group size: 26
Temperature: 12°C
Weather in a word or two: Not bad at all
Ride Profile
First off, my apologies if, in my incessant babbling last week, I wrote off your cycling club and it’s still going strong. This was prompted by a blerg comment I received, suggesting the members of the Tyne Road Club would be very surprised to learn of their apparent demise.
In my own paltry defence, I will say that they must be operating in a particularly clandestine manner, or at least one that easily thwarted my (admittedly amateurish) research capabilities: the club no longer appear to be registered with British Cycling and their web domain registration has expired.
I did subsequently find a Strava group for the club, but this had the same link to the lapsed website and was only showing a single, solitary member. Still, I’m very happy to be proven wrong and do hope the club continues.
The one benefit of my research activities was stumbling across this film of the 1960 Dunston C.C. road race. (I think I’m safe in asserting that this club, is no more.)
Meanwhile discussions between Toshi San and OGL revealed that VC Electric were composed of electricians from the Swan-Hunter shipyards. Since the once mighty Swan-Hunter closed a long time ago, I think VC Electric are another club we can safely consign to the past.
Anyway, back to the present … A lone seagull, circling high over the house marked the start of my ride with a series of plaintive, mournful cries. I’ve no idea why it was so sad, it was a bright, breezy, not too cold day. A large band of heavy rain had passed over us through the night, but now the skies were clearing and it would be a dry throughout. Not bad. Not bad at all.
My trip across the river to the meeting point was wholly unremarkable and I arrived to find G-Dawg, the Hammer and the Colossus already there and waiting.
Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:
That film of that 1960’s road race did spark some lively debate about the two front pockets that used to adorn all cycling jersey’s and just what purpose they could possibly serve. Too shallow for spares, or tools, too precarious for money, or valuables, I felt they were perhaps ideally sized to carry a pack of fags, or maybe they were designed for more refined times and specifically for a gentleman’s, freshly pressed, linen handkerchief or pocket square.
OGL was the only one of us who could remember owning a jersey with front pockets, which he suggested were simply there to catch the wind, like twin drogue parachutes. Like us, he had no earthly idea of their actual purpose and could recall getting his mum to sew a couple of press-studs on, to try and keep them from gaping, like a slack-jawed village idiot.
The Garrulous Kid started telling us about his “posse” of “friends” and their university choices and I wondered where he ranked in the group pecking order, was he the Alpha Male or Beta? Perhaps he was even his own man and a newly-minted Zeta?
Talk of his peer group prompted Plumose Pappus to muse what collective noun we might best apply. A “chatter” I suggested. He countered with a “chaos” which seemed altogether more appropriate.
It was time for route announcements, with Richard of Flanders bounding up onto the wall and, somewhat astonishingly, priming the crowd with his opening declaration, “Hello! For those that don’t know me, I’m Richard and this … is your route for the day …”
With numbers requiring a split into two groups, he then broke standard etiquette, by declaring he would be leading the front group and hustled off before anyone could object.
In the second group, OGL wanted a more organised rotation, with no one doing more than 3 miles on the front, before ceding their position and dropping all the way to the back. No one had any real objections, so off we set, with this rather novel restriction in mind.
I found myself riding along beside Ovis, out on his fixie because he’s not happy with the cantilever brakes on his winter bike. He’s dropped it in to his LBS for a service and to see if they could find a way of increasing braking power. I suggested better brake blocks could be helpful.
“Oh, I have to admit the last pair I bought were cheap as chips,” he conceded ruefully, “and for all the effect they were having, I might as well have been using chips.”
After three miles, Taffy Steve and Crazy Legs dutifully swung off the front, accompanied with loud cries of “get thee behind me!” and “go on, all the way to the back now.”
Spoons and Goose took over and we pressed onward. Out through Ponteland and up Limestone Lane, until it was our turn and I moved onto the front with Ovis, as, with perfect timing, my Garmin ticked over to 23 miles.
“That must be three miles done already, ” Ovis suggested hopefully a few moments later.
“Close, but that’s actually only about 0.2 of a mile. But don’t worry, we’re about to a hit a nice, smooth patch of tarmac.”
And we did, to a noticeable, collective, dare I say, almost orgasmic sigh from those behind.
Ovis considered calling for a pee stop, but wavered as he couldn’t remember the right gate and he recalled the Gategate incident, when all sorts of trouble accrued to those who dared to worship and … ahem, “spend their tribute” at the wrong gate. Much better to ride with the discomfort of a full bladder and treat it as a sort of humble debasement, a sign of true dedication.
A little further on a cluster of cyclists could be seen at the side of the road. “Perhaps,” I mused, “they’re at the right gate and they’re pilgrims paying homage to that most holy of cyclist sites?”
But no, it was just our front group, stopped and pulled up at the side of the road with what looked like another front wheel puncture for G-Dawg.
I doffed an imaginary cap and we pressed on. After exactly three miles, I had us swing over and the next pair took to the front as we drifted all the way to the back. In this way the ride progressed, sensibly, orderly, organised, equitable, overly fussy and, according to Crazy Legs, ultimately boring.
A bit further on and we had to stop for our own puncture, as Spoons rear tyre was slowly softening. He set to work changing the tube and then starting to re-seat the tyre, lining up three tyre levers to help him. Even without Crazy Legs’s magic thumb, I thought it was worth trying to push the tyre on manually and with a bit of grunting, gurning and groaning I managed to roll it back onto the rim. It was only at this point that I realised I’d been wrestling with a Schwalbe Marathon, tyres that are notoriously difficult to fit. I have to admit I was quite smugly pleased with myself.
As Spoons began inflating his tyre, Goose fished a snack-sized Malt Loaf out and devoured it in three bites. Ovis snorted in derision, then drawled, “That’s not a malt loaf, this is a malt loaf,” reaching back and pulling out his usual, family-sized, malt loaf brick out of a jersey pocket.
In between bites, he explained how he’d completed the Fred Whitton Challenge fuelled purely on malt loaf, with two stashed in his jersey pockets and a third, for emergencies, strapped to his top tube.
“Only trouble was, I was a bit sick of it by the time I got to the last feed-station. You know what they were serving there? Bleedin’ malt loaf!”
I was fully expecting our front group to catch us while we were tyre wrangling and talking nonsense, but there was no sign of them. I later learned we’d deviated slightly from the planned route. (Shh! Don’t tell Richard.)
Underway again, Biden Fecht was struggling to hold the wheels and obviously in the throes of a major jour sans. We nursed him along to the Quarry, where he joined those making a quick strike for the café, while the rest of us went plummeting down the Ryals.
It must have been on the cusp of the 11th hour, of the … wait, what? 10th day? … when we shot past a small group observing a (surely premature) minutes silence at the war memorial at the bottom of the hill. Hopefully we didn’t disturb them too much.
The planned route was for us to climb back up through Hallington, but we took the longer, less hilly loop around the reservoir instead – Taffy Steve’s preferred option, even on his svelte summer bike and given even greater appeal now he was astride the thrice-cursed winter bike.
Half way around and Spoons was calling a stop to sort out his leaky, rapidly softening tyre, going for a few blasts of his pump rather than a full tube change. He set out for the café, pushing well ahead of everyone in a desperate race against time, hoping to make it before having to stop and force more air into the troublesome tube.
We followed, accelerating toward coffee and losing Ovis on the short, but savage Brandy Well Bank, that could legitimately bear a warning sign declaring “death to all fixies.”
Speed was up and we were humming along now, with Taffy Steve pulling on the front and rapidly closing in on Spoons, as we hit the stretch down to the Snake Bends. I pushed through, as we caught and dropped our front runner, rattling along on what I suspect was an uncomfortably flaccid tyre. Then Taffy Steve went blasting past with Crazy Legs on his wheel and the pair opened up a gap as they duked it out for the final sprint.
Punctures and stops had us arriving at the cafe way behind our usual time and, while the other groups were already indulging in refills and thinking about leaving, we were just sitting down.
Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:
Enthusiasm for the rugby international was somewhat dampened by realisation that the game would only be live on Sky, a company and service all right-thinking people should morally object to giving money to, regardless of your thoughts on their cycling team.
Crazy Legs questioned just how smart Sky were though, as he knew of at least one family sharing their Multiroom package between a house in Tyneside and a flat in East Finchley.
“You could always argue you’ve just got a very big house,” I decided.
“And the Multiroom subscription was just for the west wing,” the Colossus added.
Talk of big houses reminded OGL he’d once been asked to deliver a boatload of expensive Pinarello gear to a certain chubby, charmless, money-grubbing, shifty-grifter, Sir Alan Sugar. Mrs. OGL had been suspicious of the order, so OGL had Googled the address to reveal a palatial, sprawling monstrosity of a house, that convinced him this was no scam.
This reminded Crazy Legs of a tale he’d heard about a fellow cyclist who’d hauled himself to the top of an Alpine climb to find Sir Alan Sugar, complete with personalised Pinarello, camped outside a cafe, sipping an espresso.
“I know you!” the cyclist had declared, seemingly much to Lord Sugar’s initial delight, until the cyclist pointed a finger and declared, “You’re fired!”
“Oh, fuck off!” Lord Sugar had allegedly replied, with remarkable wit and sagacity, before throwing a leg over his bike and quickly riding off.
The Garrulous Kid dropped by wondering if he’d done enough to deserve a prize at the club’s annual dinner and awards ceremony.
“What would you like a prize for,” G-Dawg queried, “The shortest club ride, ever?”
“How about finishing a ride without falling over?” I suggested, “Oh, wait …”
But the Garrulous Kid had already flitted to the next topic, declaring he had a great idea for improving the club run: free rides. I’m not sure what he was getting at, we don’t pay anyway.
As everyone seemed to be packing up to leave, Big Dunc finally arrived at the cafe, having been riding with our group, but suffering an unremarked puncture on the run in. I persuaded Crazy Legs to join me in a coffee refill (to be honest, it wasn’t difficult) and we stayed behind to keep Big Dunc company, as everyone else left for the run home.
The three of us finally left the cafe and started to head back. I was riding on the front chatting with Crazy Legs, until he turned round and we finally noticed our trio had become a duo.
We back-tracked to find Big Dunc stopped by another puncture. We hustled into the entrance to a farm track and started to replace the tube. The tyre proved to be a complete and utter bastard to get off the rim, with tyre levers pinging everywhere, skinned knuckles, a lot of polite swearing and everyone trying and failing horribly.
Finally, we managed to drag the tyre off, pulled the tube out and replaced it. If we thought getting the tyre off was difficult, getting it back on was to be even more of an ordeal. Rolling it didn’t work, levering it didn’t work and in this instance, even the Crazy Legs magic thumb failed us.
All the while we were entertained by a postman driving his van in and out of farm entrances as if he was auditioning for the Fast & Furious 10 (Ogle Burn Up) and Crazy Legs started judging the steady stream of passing cyclists by how sincerely they enquired if they could assist us in any way.
Meanwhile, I wondered how Big Dunc had managed on his own, when he’d punctured on the run into the café? Truth be told he didn’t know – I suspect a supernatural burst of adrenaline, similar to the phenomena that lets desperate mothers lift cars off their run-over children.
My new found confidence in being able to handle difficult tyres following success with the Schwalbe Marathon’s, quickly evaporated, defeated by an unholy alliance of Continental Grand Prix tyres and Shimano rims.
Finally, with all hands to the pump and injudicious application of tyre levers, gloved hands, grunting, straining and swearing, the tyre grudgingly snapped over the rim. Unfortunately we could see numerous places where it had trapped the tube under the bead and it would be impossible to inflate.
Working the tyre vigorously from side to side for five minutes, we thought we’d finally released the tube, screwed a pump onto the valve and I gave it a dozen or so good blows.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Either my pump was refusing to work, or, much more likely we’d damaged the tube with all our industrial manhandling.
Unable to face another round of tyre wrangling, Crazy Legs volunteered to ride home, get his car and come and pick Big Dunc up. We agreed the plan and I handed over a spare tube in case Big Dunc’s superhuman strength and mystical tyre changing abilities suddenly reasserted themselves. Then we left him, vowing to replace his tyres with something that was a little more forgiving and easier to fit.
Pushing along with Crazy Legs and discussing year end distance totals, he recalled last year being stuck on 3,973 miles at Christmas and having to spend an hour or so on the turbo, just to round things up to an even 4,000.
This compulsion was something he’d previously tried to explain to an uncomprehending Taffy Steve and me, when he was horrified to learn we track our Garmin numbers in both miles and kilometres and therefore would have the impossibility of two numbers to round-up.
“I’ve probably topped 4,000 miles sometime this week,” I told him.
“Bloody hell, 4,000 miles in a week? That’s impressive.”
Funny man.
As we approached Kirkley Hall, about 45 minutes behind our usual schedule, Crazy Legs proved we’ve been riding together too long, by rightly guessing I was planning to turn right to shave a mile or two off my route home. Or, maybe he was trying to prompt me to go that way, because as soon as I confirmed it, he started grinning.
“Good,” he said, “Then I can ride the rest of the way at a more comfortable pace.”
“But, I’m only riding at this speed to keep up with you!” I insisted.
We fell into an uneasy silence, until we approached the junction.
“Right. Bye.”
“Bye. I’ll see you next week.”
“Next week.”
Next week, when we’ll probably continue to ride together at a pace just a little too fast for either of us to be truly comfortable, but we’ll both be to stubborn and conceited to admit it, or back down …
YTD Totals: 6,584 km / 4,091 miles with 80,581 metres of climbing
Club Run, Saturday 10th November, 2018
My Ride (according to Strava)
Total Distance: 110 km / 68 miles with 1,174 metres of climbing
Ride Time: 4 hours 40 minutes
Average Speed: 23.6 km/h
Group size: 26
Temperature: 12°C
Weather in a word or two: Not bad at all
Ride Profile
First off, my apologies if, in my incessant babbling last week, I wrote off your cycling club and it’s still going strong. This was prompted by a blerg comment I received, suggesting the members of the Tyne Road Club would be very surprised to learn of their apparent demise.
In my own paltry defence, I will say that they must be operating in a particularly clandestine manner, or at least one that easily thwarted my (admittedly amateurish) research capabilities: the club no longer appear to be registered with British Cycling and their web domain registration has expired.
I did subsequently find a Strava group for the club, but this had the same link to the lapsed website and was only showing a single, solitary member. Still, I’m very happy to be proven wrong and do hope the club continues.
The one benefit of my research activities was stumbling across this film of the 1960 Dunston C.C. road race. (I think I’m safe in asserting that this club, is no more.)
Meanwhile discussions between Toshi San and OGL revealed that VC Electric were composed of electricians from the Swan-Hunter shipyards. Since the once mighty Swan-Hunter closed a long time ago, I think VC Electric are another club we can safely consign to the past.
Anyway, back to the present … A lone seagull, circling high over the house marked the start of my ride with a series of plaintive, mournful cries. I’ve no idea why it was so sad, it was a bright, breezy, not too cold day. A large band of heavy rain had passed over us through the night, but now the skies were clearing and it would be a dry throughout. Not bad. Not bad at all.
My trip across the river to the meeting point was wholly unremarkable and I arrived to find G-Dawg, the Hammer and the Colossus already there and waiting.
Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:
That film of that 1960’s road race did spark some lively debate about the two front pockets that used to adorn all cycling jersey’s and just what purpose they could possibly serve. Too shallow for spares, or tools, too precarious for money, or valuables, I felt they were perhaps ideally sized to carry a pack of fags, or maybe they were designed for more refined times and specifically for a gentleman’s, freshly pressed, linen handkerchief or pocket square.
OGL was the only one of us who could remember owning a jersey with front pockets, which he suggested were simply there to catch the wind, like twin drogue parachutes. Like us, he had no earthly idea of their actual purpose and could recall getting his mum to sew a couple of press-studs on, to try and keep them from gaping, like a slack-jawed village idiot.
The Garrulous Kid started telling us about his “posse” of “friends” and their university choices and I wondered where he ranked in the group pecking order, was he the Alpha Male or Beta? Perhaps he was even his own man and a newly-minted Zeta?
Talk of his peer group prompted Plumose Pappus to muse what collective noun we might best apply. A “chatter” I suggested. He countered with a “chaos” which seemed altogether more appropriate.
It was time for route announcements, with Richard of Flanders bounding up onto the wall and, somewhat astonishingly, priming the crowd with his opening declaration, “Hello! For those that don’t know me, I’m Richard and this … is your route for the day …”
With numbers requiring a split into two groups, he then broke standard etiquette, by declaring he would be leading the front group and hustled off before anyone could object.
In the second group, OGL wanted a more organised rotation, with no one doing more than 3 miles on the front, before ceding their position and dropping all the way to the back. No one had any real objections, so off we set, with this rather novel restriction in mind.
I found myself riding along beside Ovis, out on his fixie because he’s not happy with the cantilever brakes on his winter bike. He’s dropped it in to his LBS for a service and to see if they could find a way of increasing braking power. I suggested better brake blocks could be helpful.
“Oh, I have to admit the last pair I bought were cheap as chips,” he conceded ruefully, “and for all the effect they were having, I might as well have been using chips.”
After three miles, Taffy Steve and Crazy Legs dutifully swung off the front, accompanied with loud cries of “get thee behind me!” and “go on, all the way to the back now.”
Spoons and Goose took over and we pressed onward. Out through Ponteland and up Limestone Lane, until it was our turn and I moved onto the front with Ovis, as, with perfect timing, my Garmin ticked over to 23 miles.
“That must be three miles done already, ” Ovis suggested hopefully a few moments later.
“Close, but that’s actually only about 0.2 of a mile. But don’t worry, we’re about to a hit a nice, smooth patch of tarmac.”
And we did, to a noticeable, collective, dare I say, almost orgasmic sigh from those behind.
Ovis considered calling for a pee stop, but wavered as he couldn’t remember the right gate and he recalled the Gategate incident, when all sorts of trouble accrued to those who dared to worship and … ahem, “spend their tribute” at the wrong gate. Much better to ride with the discomfort of a full bladder and treat it as a sort of humble debasement, a sign of true dedication.
A little further on a cluster of cyclists could be seen at the side of the road. “Perhaps,” I mused, “they’re at the right gate and they’re pilgrims paying homage to that most holy of cyclist sites?”
But no, it was just our front group, stopped and pulled up at the side of the road with what looked like another front wheel puncture for G-Dawg.
I doffed an imaginary cap and we pressed on. After exactly three miles, I had us swing over and the next pair took to the front as we drifted all the way to the back. In this way the ride progressed, sensibly, orderly, organised, equitable, overly fussy and, according to Crazy Legs, ultimately boring.
A bit further on and we had to stop for our own puncture, as Spoons rear tyre was slowly softening. He set to work changing the tube and then starting to re-seat the tyre, lining up three tyre levers to help him. Even without Crazy Legs’s magic thumb, I thought it was worth trying to push the tyre on manually and with a bit of grunting, gurning and groaning I managed to roll it back onto the rim. It was only at this point that I realised I’d been wrestling with a Schwalbe Marathon, tyres that are notoriously difficult to fit. I have to admit I was quite smugly pleased with myself.
As Spoons began inflating his tyre, Goose fished a snack-sized Malt Loaf out and devoured it in three bites. Ovis snorted in derision, then drawled, “That’s not a malt loaf, this is a malt loaf,” reaching back and pulling out his usual, family-sized, malt loaf brick out of a jersey pocket.
In between bites, he explained how he’d completed the Fred Whitton Challenge fuelled purely on malt loaf, with two stashed in his jersey pockets and a third, for emergencies, strapped to his top tube.
“Only trouble was, I was a bit sick of it by the time I got to the last feed-station. You know what they were serving there? Bleedin’ malt loaf!”
I was fully expecting our front group to catch us while we were tyre wrangling and talking nonsense, but there was no sign of them. I later learned we’d deviated slightly from the planned route. (Shh! Don’t tell Richard.)
Underway again, Biden Fecht was struggling to hold the wheels and obviously in the throes of a major jour sans. We nursed him along to the Quarry, where he joined those making a quick strike for the café, while the rest of us went plummeting down the Ryals.
It must have been on the cusp of the 11th hour, of the … wait, what? 10th day? … when we shot past a small group observing a (surely premature) minutes silence at the war memorial at the bottom of the hill. Hopefully we didn’t disturb them too much.
The planned route was for us to climb back up through Hallington, but we took the longer, less hilly loop around the reservoir instead – Taffy Steve’s preferred option, even on his svelte summer bike and given even greater appeal now he was astride the thrice-cursed winter bike.
Half way around and Spoons was calling a stop to sort out his leaky, rapidly softening tyre, going for a few blasts of his pump rather than a full tube change. He set out for the café, pushing well ahead of everyone in a desperate race against time, hoping to make it before having to stop and force more air into the troublesome tube.
We followed, accelerating toward coffee and losing Ovis on the short, but savage Brandy Well Bank, that could legitimately bear a warning sign declaring “death to all fixies.”
Speed was up and we were humming along now, with Taffy Steve pulling on the front and rapidly closing in on Spoons, as we hit the stretch down to the Snake Bends. I pushed through, as we caught and dropped our front runner, rattling along on what I suspect was an uncomfortably flaccid tyre. Then Taffy Steve went blasting past with Crazy Legs on his wheel and the pair opened up a gap as they duked it out for the final sprint.
Punctures and stops had us arriving at the cafe way behind our usual time and, while the other groups were already indulging in refills and thinking about leaving, we were just sitting down.
Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:
Enthusiasm for the rugby international was somewhat dampened by realisation that the game would only be live on Sky, a company and service all right-thinking people should morally object to giving money to, regardless of your thoughts on their cycling team.
Crazy Legs questioned just how smart Sky were though, as he knew of at least one family sharing their Multiroom package between a house in Tyneside and a flat in East Finchley.
“You could always argue you’ve just got a very big house,” I decided.
“And the Multiroom subscription was just for the west wing,” the Colossus added.
Talk of big houses reminded OGL he’d once been asked to deliver a boatload of expensive Pinarello gear to a certain chubby, charmless, money-grubbing, shifty-grifter, Sir Alan Sugar. Mrs. OGL had been suspicious of the order, so OGL had Googled the address to reveal a palatial, sprawling monstrosity of a house, that convinced him this was no scam.
This reminded Crazy Legs of a tale he’d heard about a fellow cyclist who’d hauled himself to the top of an Alpine climb to find Sir Alan Sugar, complete with personalised Pinarello, camped outside a cafe, sipping an espresso.
“I know you!” the cyclist had declared, seemingly much to Lord Sugar’s initial delight, until the cyclist pointed a finger and declared, “You’re fired!”
“Oh, fuck off!” Lord Sugar had allegedly replied, with remarkable wit and sagacity, before throwing a leg over his bike and quickly riding off.
The Garrulous Kid dropped by wondering if he’d done enough to deserve a prize at the club’s annual dinner and awards ceremony.
“What would you like a prize for,” G-Dawg queried, “The shortest club ride, ever?”
“How about finishing a ride without falling over?” I suggested, “Oh, wait …”
But the Garrulous Kid had already flitted to the next topic, declaring he had a great idea for improving the club run: free rides. I’m not sure what he was getting at, we don’t pay anyway.
As everyone seemed to be packing up to leave, Big Dunc finally arrived at the cafe, having been riding with our group, but suffering an unremarked puncture on the run in. I persuaded Crazy Legs to join me in a coffee refill (to be honest, it wasn’t difficult) and we stayed behind to keep Big Dunc company, as everyone else left for the run home.
The three of us finally left the cafe and started to head back. I was riding on the front chatting with Crazy Legs, until he turned round and we finally noticed our trio had become a duo.
We back-tracked to find Big Dunc stopped by another puncture. We hustled into the entrance to a farm track and started to replace the tube. The tyre proved to be a complete and utter bastard to get off the rim, with tyre levers pinging everywhere, skinned knuckles, a lot of polite swearing and everyone trying and failing horribly.
Finally, we managed to drag the tyre off, pulled the tube out and replaced it. If we thought getting the tyre off was difficult, getting it back on was to be even more of an ordeal. Rolling it didn’t work, levering it didn’t work and in this instance, even the Crazy Legs magic thumb failed us.
All the while we were entertained by a postman driving his van in and out of farm entrances as if he was auditioning for the Fast & Furious 10 (Ogle Burn Up) and Crazy Legs started judging the steady stream of passing cyclists by how sincerely they enquired if they could assist us in any way.
Meanwhile, I wondered how Big Dunc had managed on his own, when he’d punctured on the run into the café? Truth be told he didn’t know – I suspect a supernatural burst of adrenaline, similar to the phenomena that lets desperate mothers lift cars off their run-over children.
My new found confidence in being able to handle difficult tyres following success with the Schwalbe Marathon’s, quickly evaporated, defeated by an unholy alliance of Continental Grand Prix tyres and Shimano rims.
Finally, with all hands to the pump and injudicious application of tyre levers, gloved hands, grunting, straining and swearing, the tyre grudgingly snapped over the rim. Unfortunately we could see numerous places where it had trapped the tube under the bead and it would be impossible to inflate.
Working the tyre vigorously from side to side for five minutes, we thought we’d finally released the tube, screwed a pump onto the valve and I gave it a dozen or so good blows.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Either my pump was refusing to work, or, much more likely we’d damaged the tube with all our industrial manhandling.
Unable to face another round of tyre wrangling, Crazy Legs volunteered to ride home, get his car and come and pick Big Dunc up. We agreed the plan and I handed over a spare tube in case Big Dunc’s superhuman strength and mystical tyre changing abilities suddenly reasserted themselves. Then we left him, vowing to replace his tyres with something that was a little more forgiving and easier to fit.
Pushing along with Crazy Legs and discussing year end distance totals, he recalled last year being stuck on 3,973 miles at Christmas and having to spend an hour or so on the turbo, just to round things up to an even 4,000.
This compulsion was something he’d previously tried to explain to an uncomprehending Taffy Steve and me, when he was horrified to learn we track our Garmin numbers in both miles and kilometres and therefore would have the impossibility of two numbers to round-up.
“I’ve probably topped 4,000 miles sometime this week,” I told him.
“Bloody hell, 4,000 miles in a week? That’s impressive.”
Funny man.
As we approached Kirkley Hall, about 45 minutes behind our usual schedule, Crazy Legs proved we’ve been riding together too long, by rightly guessing I was planning to turn right to shave a mile or two off my route home. Or, maybe he was trying to prompt me to go that way, because as soon as I confirmed it, he started grinning.
“Good,” he said, “Then I can ride the rest of the way at a more comfortable pace.”
“But, I’m only riding at this speed to keep up with you!” I insisted.
We fell into an uneasy silence, until we approached the junction.
“Right. Bye.”
“Bye. I’ll see you next week.”
“Next week.”
Next week, when we’ll probably continue to ride together at a pace just a little too fast for either of us to be truly comfortable, but we’ll both be to stubborn and conceited to admit it, or back down …
YTD Totals: 6,584 km / 4,091 miles with 80,581 metres of climbing
Club Run, Saturday 10th November, 2018
My Ride (according to Strava)
Total Distance: 110 km / 68 miles with 1,174 metres of climbing
Ride Time: 4 hours 40 minutes
Average Speed: 23.6 km/h
Group size: 26
Temperature: 12°C
Weather in a word or two: Not bad at all
Ride Profile
First off, my apologies if, in my incessant babbling last week, I wrote off your cycling club and it’s still going strong. This was prompted by a blerg comment I received, suggesting the members of the Tyne Road Club would be very surprised to learn of their apparent demise.
In my own paltry defence, I will say that they must be operating in a particularly clandestine manner, or at least one that easily thwarted my (admittedly amateurish) research capabilities: the club no longer appear to be registered with British Cycling and their web domain registration has expired.
I did subsequently find a Strava group for the club, but this had the same link to the lapsed website and was only showing a single, solitary member. Still, I’m very happy to be proven wrong and do hope the club continues.
The one benefit of my research activities was stumbling across this film of the 1960 Dunston C.C. road race. (I think I’m safe in asserting that this club, is no more.)
Meanwhile discussions between Toshi San and OGL revealed that VC Electric were composed of electricians from the Swan-Hunter shipyards. Since the once mighty Swan-Hunter closed a long time ago, I think VC Electric are another club we can safely consign to the past.
Anyway, back to the present … A lone seagull, circling high over the house marked the start of my ride with a series of plaintive, mournful cries. I’ve no idea why it was so sad, it was a bright, breezy, not too cold day. A large band of heavy rain had passed over us through the night, but now the skies were clearing and it would be a dry throughout. Not bad. Not bad at all.
My trip across the river to the meeting point was wholly unremarkable and I arrived to find G-Dawg, the Hammer and the Colossus already there and waiting.
Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:
That film of that 1960’s road race did spark some lively debate about the two front pockets that used to adorn all cycling jersey’s and just what purpose they could possibly serve. Too shallow for spares, or tools, too precarious for money, or valuables, I felt they were perhaps ideally sized to carry a pack of fags, or maybe they were designed for more refined times and specifically for a gentleman’s, freshly pressed, linen handkerchief or pocket square.
OGL was the only one of us who could remember owning a jersey with front pockets, which he suggested were simply there to catch the wind, like twin drogue parachutes. Like us, he had no earthly idea of their actual purpose and could recall getting his mum to sew a couple of press-studs on, to try and keep them from gaping, like a slack-jawed village idiot.
The Garrulous Kid started telling us about his “posse” of “friends” and their university choices and I wondered where he ranked in the group pecking order, was he the Alpha Male or Beta? Perhaps he was even his own man and a newly-minted Zeta?
Talk of his peer group prompted Plumose Pappus to muse what collective noun we might best apply. A “chatter” I suggested. He countered with a “chaos” which seemed altogether more appropriate.
It was time for route announcements, with Richard of Flanders bounding up onto the wall and, somewhat astonishingly, priming the crowd with his opening declaration, “Hello! For those that don’t know me, I’m Richard and this … is your route for the day …”
With numbers requiring a split into two groups, he then broke standard etiquette, by declaring he would be leading the front group and hustled off before anyone could object.
In the second group, OGL wanted a more organised rotation, with no one doing more than 3 miles on the front, before ceding their position and dropping all the way to the back. No one had any real objections, so off we set, with this rather novel restriction in mind.
I found myself riding along beside Ovis, out on his fixie because he’s not happy with the cantilever brakes on his winter bike. He’s dropped it in to his LBS for a service and to see if they could find a way of increasing braking power. I suggested better brake blocks could be helpful.
“Oh, I have to admit the last pair I bought were cheap as chips,” he conceded ruefully, “and for all the effect they were having, I might as well have been using chips.”
After three miles, Taffy Steve and Crazy Legs dutifully swung off the front, accompanied with loud cries of “get thee behind me!” and “go on, all the way to the back now.”
Spoons and Goose took over and we pressed onward. Out through Ponteland and up Limestone Lane, until it was our turn and I moved onto the front with Ovis, as, with perfect timing, my Garmin ticked over to 23 miles.
“That must be three miles done already, ” Ovis suggested hopefully a few moments later.
“Close, but that’s actually only about 0.2 of a mile. But don’t worry, we’re about to a hit a nice, smooth patch of tarmac.”
And we did, to a noticeable, collective, dare I say, almost orgasmic sigh from those behind.
Ovis considered calling for a pee stop, but wavered as he couldn’t remember the right gate and he recalled the Gategate incident, when all sorts of trouble accrued to those who dared to worship and … ahem, “spend their tribute” at the wrong gate. Much better to ride with the discomfort of a full bladder and treat it as a sort of humble debasement, a sign of true dedication.
A little further on a cluster of cyclists could be seen at the side of the road. “Perhaps,” I mused, “they’re at the right gate and they’re pilgrims paying homage to that most holy of cyclist sites?”
But no, it was just our front group, stopped and pulled up at the side of the road with what looked like another front wheel puncture for G-Dawg.
I doffed an imaginary cap and we pressed on. After exactly three miles, I had us swing over and the next pair took to the front as we drifted all the way to the back. In this way the ride progressed, sensibly, orderly, organised, equitable, overly fussy and, according to Crazy Legs, ultimately boring.
A bit further on and we had to stop for our own puncture, as Spoons rear tyre was slowly softening. He set to work changing the tube and then starting to re-seat the tyre, lining up three tyre levers to help him. Even without Crazy Legs’s magic thumb, I thought it was worth trying to push the tyre on manually and with a bit of grunting, gurning and groaning I managed to roll it back onto the rim. It was only at this point that I realised I’d been wrestling with a Schwalbe Marathon, tyres that are notoriously difficult to fit. I have to admit I was quite smugly pleased with myself.
As Spoons began inflating his tyre, Goose fished a snack-sized Malt Loaf out and devoured it in three bites. Ovis snorted in derision, then drawled, “That’s not a malt loaf, this is a malt loaf,” reaching back and pulling out his usual, family-sized, malt loaf brick out of a jersey pocket.
In between bites, he explained how he’d completed the Fred Whitton Challenge fuelled purely on malt loaf, with two stashed in his jersey pockets and a third, for emergencies, strapped to his top tube.
“Only trouble was, I was a bit sick of it by the time I got to the last feed-station. You know what they were serving there? Bleedin’ malt loaf!”
I was fully expecting our front group to catch us while we were tyre wrangling and talking nonsense, but there was no sign of them. I later learned we’d deviated slightly from the planned route. (Shh! Don’t tell Richard.)
Underway again, Biden Fecht was struggling to hold the wheels and obviously in the throes of a major jour sans. We nursed him along to the Quarry, where he joined those making a quick strike for the café, while the rest of us went plummeting down the Ryals.
It must have been on the cusp of the 11th hour, of the … wait, what? 10th day? … when we shot past a small group observing a (surely premature) minutes silence at the war memorial at the bottom of the hill. Hopefully we didn’t disturb them too much.
The planned route was for us to climb back up through Hallington, but we took the longer, less hilly loop around the reservoir instead – Taffy Steve’s preferred option, even on his svelte summer bike and given even greater appeal now he was astride the thrice-cursed winter bike.
Half way around and Spoons was calling a stop to sort out his leaky, rapidly softening tyre, going for a few blasts of his pump rather than a full tube change. He set out for the café, pushing well ahead of everyone in a desperate race against time, hoping to make it before having to stop and force more air into the troublesome tube.
We followed, accelerating toward coffee and losing Ovis on the short, but savage Brandy Well Bank, that could legitimately bear a warning sign declaring “death to all fixies.”
Speed was up and we were humming along now, with Taffy Steve pulling on the front and rapidly closing in on Spoons, as we hit the stretch down to the Snake Bends. I pushed through, as we caught and dropped our front runner, rattling along on what I suspect was an uncomfortably flaccid tyre. Then Taffy Steve went blasting past with Crazy Legs on his wheel and the pair opened up a gap as they duked it out for the final sprint.
Punctures and stops had us arriving at the cafe way behind our usual time and, while the other groups were already indulging in refills and thinking about leaving, we were just sitting down.
Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:
Enthusiasm for the rugby international was somewhat dampened by realisation that the game would only be live on Sky, a company and service all right-thinking people should morally object to giving money to, regardless of your thoughts on their cycling team.
Crazy Legs questioned just how smart Sky were though, as he knew of at least one family sharing their Multiroom package between a house in Tyneside and a flat in East Finchley.
“You could always argue you’ve just got a very big house,” I decided.
“And the Multiroom subscription was just for the west wing,” the Colossus added.
Talk of big houses reminded OGL he’d once been asked to deliver a boatload of expensive Pinarello gear to a certain chubby, charmless, money-grubbing, shifty-grifter, Sir Alan Sugar. Mrs. OGL had been suspicious of the order, so OGL had Googled the address to reveal a palatial, sprawling monstrosity of a house, that convinced him this was no scam.
This reminded Crazy Legs of a tale he’d heard about a fellow cyclist who’d hauled himself to the top of an Alpine climb to find Sir Alan Sugar, complete with personalised Pinarello, camped outside a cafe, sipping an espresso.
“I know you!” the cyclist had declared, seemingly much to Lord Sugar’s initial delight, until the cyclist pointed a finger and declared, “You’re fired!”
“Oh, fuck off!” Lord Sugar had allegedly replied, with remarkable wit and sagacity, before throwing a leg over his bike and quickly riding off.
The Garrulous Kid dropped by wondering if he’d done enough to deserve a prize at the club’s annual dinner and awards ceremony.
“What would you like a prize for,” G-Dawg queried, “The shortest club ride, ever?”
“How about finishing a ride without falling over?” I suggested, “Oh, wait …”
But the Garrulous Kid had already flitted to the next topic, declaring he had a great idea for improving the club run: free rides. I’m not sure what he was getting at, we don’t pay anyway.
As everyone seemed to be packing up to leave, Big Dunc finally arrived at the cafe, having been riding with our group, but suffering an unremarked puncture on the run in. I persuaded Crazy Legs to join me in a coffee refill (to be honest, it wasn’t difficult) and we stayed behind to keep Big Dunc company, as everyone else left for the run home.
The three of us finally left the cafe and started to head back. I was riding on the front chatting with Crazy Legs, until he turned round and we finally noticed our trio had become a duo.
We back-tracked to find Big Dunc stopped by another puncture. We hustled into the entrance to a farm track and started to replace the tube. The tyre proved to be a complete and utter bastard to get off the rim, with tyre levers pinging everywhere, skinned knuckles, a lot of polite swearing and everyone trying and failing horribly.
Finally, we managed to drag the tyre off, pulled the tube out and replaced it. If we thought getting the tyre off was difficult, getting it back on was to be even more of an ordeal. Rolling it didn’t work, levering it didn’t work and in this instance, even the Crazy Legs magic thumb failed us.
All the while we were entertained by a postman driving his van in and out of farm entrances as if he was auditioning for the Fast & Furious 10 (Ogle Burn Up) and Crazy Legs started judging the steady stream of passing cyclists by how sincerely they enquired if they could assist us in any way.
Meanwhile, I wondered how Big Dunc had managed on his own, when he’d punctured on the run into the café? Truth be told he didn’t know – I suspect a supernatural burst of adrenaline, similar to the phenomena that lets desperate mothers lift cars off their run-over children.
My new found confidence in being able to handle difficult tyres following success with the Schwalbe Marathon’s, quickly evaporated, defeated by an unholy alliance of Continental Grand Prix tyres and Shimano rims.
Finally, with all hands to the pump and injudicious application of tyre levers, gloved hands, grunting, straining and swearing, the tyre grudgingly snapped over the rim. Unfortunately we could see numerous places where it had trapped the tube under the bead and it would be impossible to inflate.
Working the tyre vigorously from side to side for five minutes, we thought we’d finally released the tube, screwed a pump onto the valve and I gave it a dozen or so good blows.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Either my pump was refusing to work, or, much more likely we’d damaged the tube with all our industrial manhandling.
Unable to face another round of tyre wrangling, Crazy Legs volunteered to ride home, get his car and come and pick Big Dunc up. We agreed the plan and I handed over a spare tube in case Big Dunc’s superhuman strength and mystical tyre changing abilities suddenly reasserted themselves. Then we left him, vowing to replace his tyres with something that was a little more forgiving and easier to fit.
Pushing along with Crazy Legs and discussing year end distance totals, he recalled last year being stuck on 3,973 miles at Christmas and having to spend an hour or so on the turbo, just to round things up to an even 4,000.
This compulsion was something he’d previously tried to explain to an uncomprehending Taffy Steve and me, when he was horrified to learn we track our Garmin numbers in both miles and kilometres and therefore would have the impossibility of two numbers to round-up.
“I’ve probably topped 4,000 miles sometime this week,” I told him.
“Bloody hell, 4,000 miles in a week? That’s impressive.”
Funny man.
As we approached Kirkley Hall, about 45 minutes behind our usual schedule, Crazy Legs proved we’ve been riding together too long, by rightly guessing I was planning to turn right to shave a mile or two off my route home. Or, maybe he was trying to prompt me to go that way, because as soon as I confirmed it, he started grinning.
“Good,” he said, “Then I can ride the rest of the way at a more comfortable pace.”
“But, I’m only riding at this speed to keep up with you!” I insisted.
We fell into an uneasy silence, until we approached the junction.
“Right. Bye.”
“Bye. I’ll see you next week.”
“Next week.”
Next week, when we’ll probably continue to ride together at a pace just a little too fast for either of us to be truly comfortable, but we’ll both be to stubborn and conceited to admit it, or back down …
YTD Totals: 6,584 km / 4,091 miles with 80,581 metres of climbing
Total Distance: 116 km / 72 miles with 1,183 metres of climbing
Ride Time: 4 hours 20 minutes
Average Speed: 26.8 km/h
Group size: 34 riders, 0 FNG’s
Temperature: 23°C
Weather in a word or two: Muy agradable
Road Profile
Saturday again and everything was looking good. It had been so cold during a couple of early morning commutes that I’d been forced back into wearing gloves, but the temperatures were creeping up as we approached the weekend. The arm warmers were still a necessary accessory, but I felt safe in discarding the windproof jacket as I took to the roads.
A pipe had burst at the top of the Heinous Hill and water was bubbling up around a manhole cover in the middle of the road. I rode downstream, getting a somewhat uncomfortable early shower for my efforts. I would like to say that it was refreshing and woke me up, but all it did was make the descent a little chillier.
At the roundabout in Blaydon there was yet more water washing across the tarmac, although this time I couldn’t determine its source. Again, I was liberally and unpleasantly sprayed and chilled, but the road was soon climbing and fighting the slope warmed me up again.
The factory digital readout I passed said 24°C already and once again, I questioned how accurately it had been calibrated. It was however undeniably pleasant out, the traffic was relatively light and I passed numerous other cyclists as I made my way across to the meeting point. With the good weather and a certain over-blown event in Windsor to try and avoid, I suspected it was going to be a well-attended ride.
Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:
Caracol arrived on a new bike, a Parlee frame that he’d built up from scratch. The only problem was, something around the back end was constantly rattling and it was driving him too distraction.
“Too much oil on the chain,” Crazy Legs suggested knowingly, he thought a bit more, “Or, maybe too little oil on the chain.”
A few people had a good look and a poke around, but the source of the annoying rattle remained elusive.
OGL was looking for volunteers willing to ride the 106 mile Cyclone Route and generate a Strava file for him. Although he’s very much a Strava-denier, British Cycling have requested the files, so he doesn’t seem to have a choice. He seemed blissfully unaware that you can plot a route without actually having to ride it and, as a result, he’s intent on setting out early on Sunday morning for a 6-hour plus excursion to plot the 90-miler himself.
I suggested that if he did need to physically record the ride, he could do it a lot quicker and easier in a car, but he just looked at me blankly, so I left him to it.
I’m no Strava-superfan, but it definitely beats colouring-in the little 10-mile blocks on a mileage chart pulled from Cycling Weekly and pinned to the bumpy supaglypta in my bedroom in the “good old days” (i.e. when everything was … well, all a bit crap, really). I always started out with good intentions, but don’t think I ever fully completed one of those charts across a full year.
As suspected a combination of good weather and a desire to avoid a sadly unavoidable, turgid, bombastic and anachronistic event happening about 300 miles away, drew out a bumper group of over 30 cyclists, who, it just so happened, appeared to be exclusively male.
Jimmy Mac took to the pulpit-wall to outline the route for the day. As threatened, it included a rare ascent of the Ryals, perhaps as a sop to the Garrulous Kid (who has probably ridden up them more times in the past 4 months than I have in my lifetime) – or perhaps because Jimmy Mac was feeling underutilised and unappreciated at work and wanted to drum up a few more vascular surgeries. Then again, perhaps he’s just a sadist of the highest order.
(We have asked the Garrulous Kid why he has such an affinity to the Ryals, which are a short, violent and not especially enjoyable climb and learned that “they’re fun” and “good training.” Good training for what I’m not quite sure, other than riding up and down the Ryals. We expected him to show a high degree of expertise when we finally got there.)
Our group included Big Dunc in a new, riotously colourful, Bardiani CSF jersey, which we all felt would make a decent, exotic substitute for our own remarkably unloved club jersey. OGL studiously ignored it.
The good weather had even drawn out Famous Seans, a triathlete who, even by triathlete standards, is a bit different and resolutely marches to the beat of his own drum. As usual, he expressed his individuality by wearing very long, knee length socks and short-shorts – he was probably exposing as much flesh as everyone else, it was just framed a little higher.
The plan was to split into two groups and I hung back to try and assess just how well we managed this simple-sounding, but seldom successful task. Miracle of miracles, for once the front group actually looked slightly smaller than the one behind, so I tagged onto the back of it and away we went.
Heading out along Brunton Lane, we passed a high-speed Captain Black heading in the opposite direction, having forsaken his clubmates for a solo run and evidently intent on getting home in time to watch the Royal Wedding.
Through Ponteland, buzzed and flipped off by a motorist overtaking at high speed, Richard of Flanders fully embraced his, Grey Pilgrim/Gandalf persona, chasing down the car at some traffic lights before intoning, “You cannot pass!” to its clearly Balrog occupants.
He tried reasoning with them and even went as far as gesturing to the Garrulous Kid and explaining we were riding with youngsters and such driving was decidedly anti-social, if not downright dangerous. For his part, the Garrulous Kid tried to duck down and look younger than his years. It didn’t work, but I’m not sure it would have made any difference anyway.
Through the town and we picked up a waiting Cowin’ Bovril, who’d used the pre-published route to intercept us without having to ride to the meeting point. He rode with us for a while, before I confirmed his mates were riding in the second group and he dropped back to join them.
We set a fairly brisk pace, covering much of the route that will be used for the National Road Championship in July and noting just how bad the road surface is in places, gravel-strewn, potholed and broken up. So bad, in fact that on the downhill from Hallington and travelling just behind me, Famous Seans hit a pothole with a yelp and pulled over.
As we turned onto the main road leading to the Ryals, I told Jimmy Mac about the possible mechanical and the call went out for everyone to wait at the top of the hill to regroup and assess the damage.
I slowed as the slope loomed ahead and found Crazy Legs cruising along, suffering from a self-confessed jour sans. He gestured at the Ryals and told the Garrulous Kid that this is what he’d been waiting for and to go and get on with it. The Garrulous Kid raced away and I followed at a more considered pace, running my chain up the block as the first and steepest ramp started to bite.
Ahead of me, the Garrulous Kid began thrashing and flailing his way upwards, all jutting elbows and a too-busy style, like Fabio Aru trying to simultaneously shake off a cloud of flies while keeping both hands gripped firmly on the bars. He spearheaded a small knot including Keel and the Rainman as they clawed their way, slowly up into the sky.
Cresting the first ramp, I changed down, accelerated toward the second, slightly easier slope and started climbing out of the saddle. Then, in super-slow-motion, I started to winch back those ahead of me. I swung across into the opposite lane and eased past a flagging and weaving Keel, then passed the Rainman, before tracking back to the left to draw alongside the Garrulous Kid as the slope finally started to level out
Digging in, a re-invigorated Rainman found the impetus to latch onto my wheel as I passed and I pulled him over the crest. As the gradient lessened, he accelerated away and I dropped in behind for a fast tow up to the village.
Regrouping, we learned that Famous Seans had jarred his tri-bars loose, but was good to continue, so we pressed on toward the Quarry.
“I’m gonna put you in the shade!” Biden Fecht declared as he eased out in front of me, blocking the sun. I told him I’d always consider myself as riding in his shadow.
Away up the Quarry we went, swinging right at the top this time to avoid any chance of a repeat of last week’s double-puncture disaster. The pace increased and I took whatever opportunities I could to move up the outside, before slotting into fourth place with just Jimmy Mac, the Colossus and Caracol in front.
I wanted to put in a little dig on the rises up to the final junction, but approaching traffic kept me confined to the left hand lane. At the junction itself, a call of “bike left” made me hesitate and look twice and a small gap opened in front of me as we turned onto the road down toward the Snake Bends. I worked to close it, even as the Colossus and Caracol put clear air between themselves and Jimmy Mac as they fought out the final sprint.
Slowly, painfully, I closed on Jimmy Mac’s rear wheel, until I reached a point when I thought, you know, if I really shred my legs, burst my heart, trash my lungs and inflict horrible injury on myself, I might just be able to squeeze ahead of him … but, was it even worth trying?
Well, of course it was …
Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:
We arrived to find the café almost completely empty, but the garden already half full. It was good timing, as by the time everyone else had piled in, the café would still be empty, but the queue would extend out the door and the garden would be ringed in a perimeter of bikes, sometimes two or three machines deep. Much to the disgust of the Monkey Butler Boy he even found that someone had dared to carefully lean their bike up against his brand new machine. For one moment I thought he might cry.
Caracol was still perturbed by his mysterious rattle and had decided that when he got home he’d try swapping out different parts to try and locate the errant component. He started a litany of things he could consider changing over:
“Wheels … cassette … derailleur … pedals, even though I know it’s not the pedals … brakes …saddle …”
“The frame?” someone suggested helpfully.
A late arriving Red Max press-ganged the Monkey Butler Boy into getting him a Coke and a cake and a coffee, and Caracol offered up his mug for a refill too; “While you’re there.” It all seemed simple enough and reluctantly the Monkey Butler Boy dragged himself off to join the queue.
5 minutes later and he was back, Caracol’s still empty coffee mug swinging loosely in his hand.
“What did you want again?” he asked the Red Max.
“A Coke and a cake and a coffee.”
“Oh, yeah. Got it” Off he went to join the back of the queue again.
I took a few mugs in for a refill and found the Monkey Butler Boy about a third of the way through the queue. I relieved him of Caracol’s mug, thinking it would ease some of the pressure on the Red Max’s terribly complex order. If pressed, I would swear the Monkey Butler Boy was standing there mumbling too himself, “err … a Coke and cake and a coffee … a Coke a cake and a coffee …”
Sometime later, the Monkey Butler Boy returned triumphantly. With a Coke and a cake…
Meanwhile, the Garrulous Kid had appeared, pointed to a teeny-tiny graze on his elbow and informed us that he’d punctured and not only punctured, but fallen off too. I’m still not sure if the two actions were in any way related. Close questioning was no help in revealing how, or when, or where these events occurred, but we may just have been distracted by the concept of the Garrulous Kid successfully sorting out his own puncture.
Slow Drinker wandered past and Crazy Legs wished him a happy birthday for the day before. Crazy Legs then spotted that he too seemed to have been in the wars, as the Slow Drinkers legs were marred with grazes.
“Oh, have you come off?” Crazy Legs wondered.
“No, no, they’re just carpet burns,” Slow Drinker replied cryptically, before wandering away.
Must have been one hell of a birthday party…
The Monkey Butler Boy confessed he’d almost been late this morning as he’d been cornered in the bike shed by his arch nemesis a wasp. Luckily, he’d somehow managed to batter his way out of this dire predicament by using a spare pair of wheels as an improvised, giant fly-swatter. I thought such undaunted bravery deserved a mention.
He also revealed his dad had told him if he shaved off his incipient, bum-fluff moustache, it would grow back thicker, stronger and much manlier. Two months on and with a completely bare upper lip, he’s still waiting.
The Garrulous Kid had family commitments and had to leave early. This coincided with OGL’s departure for a ride back “at his own pace.” It looked like they’d have the opportunity to ride together…
“I don’t know which one to pity the most,” I confessed to the Colossus.
He reassured me not to worry, they’d probably ride the whole way back separated by about 10 yards and in stoic silence.
When it was out turn to leave, we got split into two groups by traffic and as we left the main road for quieter lanes, I decided to try and bridge across to the front group. I made good progress at first, but they weren’t hanging around and as I drew closer I found myself battering head-on into a stiff breeze that had blown up out of nowhere.
I was just deciding whether to sit up, or give it one last effort to avoid an embarrassing stint of chasse-patate, when the Monkey Butler Boy announced from behind that he’d decided to come across too. He took the lead, I dropped onto his wheel and with added impetus quickly closed the gap to the front group.
Here I had time to learn from the Red Max that last week, I had correctly identified the Monkey Butler Boy as a virulent, sock-length fascist, before the group started shedding riders as we each took our own route home.
Despite the nagging headwind, the sky was bright and clear and it was still uncommonly hot. For perhaps the first time this year, I noticed a clammy feeling of sweat forming behind my knees as I pushed the pedals round. The water, from who knows where, was still washing across the road in Blaydon, but this time I welcomed the cooling, impromptu shower thrown up by my tyres.
Sadly, the effect didn’t last long and I was soon heading uphill and hot and bothered.
Finally I stepped across the kitchen threshold, over-heated and gasping from climbing the Heinous Hill. Here, with impeccable timing Mrs. Sur la Jante pressed a Solero ice cream into my sweaty hand. Now that’s what I call service.
YTD Totals: 2,952 km / 1,834 miles with 34,562 metres of climbing
Total Distance: 104 km / 65 miles with 819 metres of climbing
Ride Time:4 hours 26 minutes
Average Speed:23.3 km/h
Group size:16 riders, 0 FNG’s
Temperature:7°C
Weather in a word or two:Rotten to start, decent to end
Ride Profile
The start on Saturday morning felt pretty much like a continuation of last week’s weather – temperatures hovering just above freezing and cold wind driven in on a blustery wind. Still, it wasn’t quite wet enough to resort to my rain jacket and was nowhere as bad as my commute into work on Wednesday morning, when it was so cold it had actually hurt, a stark -4°C.
And, while the Prof is still distant and riding with the Back Street Boys tribute band, he’d taken the time out between dance rehearsals to warn us on Facebook that it was going to be “flaky.” It wasn’t.
(Yes, I had to ask too. Apparently, he meant that we might encounter a few snowflakes en route.)
It was while riding across that my slow-witted mind finally understood the glaringly obvious reason why my right foot had been soaked and freezing last week, but my left foot had been relatively unscathed – helped in part by a car that flashed past and dumped a sheet of icy water down my right lower leg. Yeah, I know, a bit slow on the uptake.
This slight discomfort aside, I made decent time and was the first to arrive at the meeting point, where a light rain drove me to seek shelter in the bowels of the multi-storey car park.
Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:
The worst kept secret in the club is now out and OGL appeared bright and early to “officially” inform us the 2018 British National Road Championships will now be held in the North East, after the proposed host area backed out. These races will be incorporated into the Cyclone Festival of Cycling and will see the best of Britain’s pro road-racers and time-triallists battling it out on the roads of Northumberland.
To accommodate this, the Cyclone Challenge Rides have all been pushed back a week or two to the 30th June. There are rumours that these changes have been made solely to allow Crazy Legs to not only lead a group of club renegades in a raid across various French mountain ranges, but also fully participate in the bigliest, bestest, most beloved and wildly participated in sportive event known to man. These rumours are patently untrue, false, deceitful, scurrilous, fabricated. Fake news.
OGL reported some baffled looks and politically-correct hyperventilating when he’d used a Scottish colloquialism to refer to an opportunity “disappearing faster than snow off a dyke.” It didn’t appeal to our childish humour quite so much as Taffy Steve’s recounting of a chainsaw safety course, where he was told you didn’t have to wear chainsaw boots and could substitute a Kevlar strap-on instead.
Crazy Legs is lamenting the lack of Russian athletes at the Winter Olympics, not because he particularly supports them, or condones state-run doping programmes, but simply because he likes their rather martial national anthem, which makes him want to march in circles around his sofa. When I confessed to being unfamiliar with its precise strains, I was instructed to go away and watch the Hunt for Red October on repeat until I got the hang of it.
Biden Fecht pulled up and asked if anyone had any oil on them. Huh? He then decided whatever mechanical he was suffering from probably couldn’t be fettled with the simple application of lubricant salve and dashed back home to undertake some minor repairs, vowing to meet up later. He hasn’t been seen since.
Aether outlined the route for the day, mainly dictated by the freezing conditions and need to stick to main and treated roads, at least until things warmed up a little. As an alternative, Crazy Legs declared early for another multiple coffee-stop ride, he was naming the Flat White Club Run. He had a sizable number of takers, right from the outset.
Much to OGL’s disbelief, Slow Drinker arrived on Zipp deep section, carbon rims that are probably worth more than my entire bike collection combined. “They’re just his winter training wheels,” G-Dawg remarked dryly.
As we stood there a guy came round to check the bike lockers, mysteriously hidden at the bottom of the car park. Wrestling with a key, he opened the door of each to its widest extent, before sticking his head inside to carefully and thoroughly survey the interior. It was obvious from where we were standing a couple of metres away that the lockers were all empty, but each one was subjected to the same close scrutiny, just in case a teeny-tiney micro-bike, or perfectly camouflaged stealth machine had been left inside.
Aether led for the first few miles, until with a tacit, father and son agreement, G-Dawg and the Colossus surged forward to take up position on the front. And there they would stay, up hill and down dale, an epic turn, impressively and selflessly (or so I thought) leading the line for the next 30km or so.
As we pressed on we seemed to be heading toward random patches of blue sky that grew in size, until even Taffy Steve had to admit my optimism for improving conditions was actually in danger of becoming reality. It was till cold, the roads were still soaked and fields water-logged, but at least the rain had stopped falling on our heads.
A dragging (dragon?) climb had us strung out and then came a shouted warning that there was a wagon behind. A couple of seconds later and there was some almighty bellowing, that told us there was a wagon behind and then, just for good measure, shouting and screaming that there was in fact a wagon behind.
We’d actually taken note at the first warning, but the road was narrow and twisting and there was nothing we could do, short of pulling over and hurling ourselves deep into a hedge. At this point, the repeated shouting became more irritating than useful or informative and we responded with our usual childish humour.
“What was that?” someone shouted back, “There’s a dragon behind?”
“A flagon? There’s a flagon behind?”
“Is it a dragon with a flagon?”
“Ah, does it hold the brew that is true!”
Etc. etc. Well it keep us amused, at least until the dragon, sorry wagon, decided it would be quicker to take an alternate route and turned off at the next junction.
We pushed through to Stamfordham, where our usual layby was inconveniently occupied by a parked car. We were forced into using the wrong layby, although there was surprisingly (disappointingly?) no over the top ranting about the “wrong layby.” Here we split, with Crazy Legs luring a surprising number away with promises of an early hot beverage and some manly discourse in Matfen.
Five of us pushed onward to complete the planned route out to the Reservoir, with G-Dawg and the Colossus still powering away on the front, Ovis and Aether following in the wheels, while I tucked in behind. A bit later, we were caught by the Cow Ranger and Benedict and our numbers temporarily swelled.
I did a brief spell on the front and then, as the road swung north and we started to close in on Matfen, the Cow Ranger and Benedict took to the front and imposed an infernal pace, which they held all the way to the turn off for the Quarry. While our front pair continued on to sweep down the Ryals, the rest of us regrouped, recuperated as much as possible and started to winch our way up the Quarry climb.
We then hung a right at the top and pressed on to the café. Finding ourselves in amongst the local hunt, we had to thread our way between a series of parked up 4×4’s coupled to horse trailers and hunt supporters who lined the roads, hoping for a glimpse of who knows what.
I mentioned to G-Dawg that it seemed a particularly unrewarding and futile spectator sport, standing beside a muddy field in the cold, not knowing if you’re actually going to see anything remotely interesting. Then I realised I was talking to a bloke who travelled to the Stadium of Light last week, to stand in the cold beside a muddy field and watch the Sunderland team trying to win a game of football…
Up ahead, Ovis briefly challenged the Colossus in the sprint before falling back, while I was content to roll in alongside G-Dawg.
Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:
In the café queue, I noticed my bibtights were patterned with a silvery, ghostly patina of salt marks, like permafrost polygons. G-Dawg suggested there’d been so much salt on the roads you could taste it and, while we all agreed too much is infinitely preferable to too little, you had to wonder what damage it was doing to bikes and components.
The Colossus also revealed that the pairs epic turn on the front hadn’t been quite as selfless as I’d assumed and was largely designed to get out of the spray being kicked up by the wheels in front. It would appear that, despite the almost universal deployment of mudguards, not all guards are equal.
Hero of the week was determined to be Tongan taekwondo athlete Pita Taufatofua, who had appeared at the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics wearing little more than a shark tooth necklace and a thin sheen of coconut oil. We had naturally assumed he was on a bobsleigh team, where the trend seems to be for one skilled pilot and three make-weight, short-track sprinters who have to be big, fast and powerful, but perhaps not especially gifted – or, if you’re Jamaican, four big, fast and powerful short-track sprinters who are not especially gifted.
Taufatofua surprised us all though, by qualifying for the cross-country skiing. We couldn’t imagine how, where or when he managed to practice for this in his native, typically tropical Tonga. (He apparently didn’t see snow until he was into his fourth decade on the planet and started out in the sport by strapping planks of wood to his feet and running up and down sand dunes.)
The Matfen Flat White Mob finally materialised and Crazy Legs and Taffy Steve purloined a couple of spare chairs and drew them up to squeeze in around our small table. Then, spotting a group of civilians gathering to leave, they quickly jumped ship, moving to the new, more spacious table and leaving the two chairs tantalisingly and invitingly open.
And then, a double whammy, as the Garrulous Kid shambled across and flumped down on one chair to entertain us with his unique perspective on life, followed a few seconds later by OGL. The latter was already working through story # 32. (I can’t honestly remember which precise tale it was, I’d heard it before and switched off). Meanwhile, across the room I could see a benignly grinning Crazy Legs, comfortably removed and looking on with utter contentment. Bastard.
G-Dawg shared fond memories of the Matfen café the Flat White Mob had stopped at, recalling having turned up there late on a club run as business was winding down for the Christmas holidays. The group of ever-hungry cyclists had been approached by the staff with a massive cake, a handful of forks and what I can only assume was a purely rhetorical question, “Do you think you lot could help us finish this cake? Otherwise we’ll have to throw it away.”
Of the few things that club cyclists are actually good for, cake disposal must be quite high on the list.
The leg home was relatively uneventful until just after Berwick Hill, when we made the turn for Dinnington. There, to everyone’s complete and utter astonishment, the Garrulous Kid actually rode onto the front alongside Benedict, engendering a resounding cheer from our serried ranks behind.
Strangely, a blue moon shone brightly in a sky that remained completely clear of porcine UFO’s, hell refused to freeze over, time ticked on regardless and the Garrulous Kids head did not suddenly explode. Perhaps there’s hope for him (or us) yet.
He took us all the way to the turn-off, where the majority swung away and I took over to lead G-Dawg and Colossus into the Mad Mile. I kept the pace as high as I could manage, not relaxing until they’d jumped away to chase each other home and see who could win first use of the shower.
I dropped to a more sustainable pace and began slowly plotting my own course back.
YTD Totals: 858 km / 533 miles with 9,522 metres of climbing
Total Distance 89 km / 62 miles with 862 metres of climbing
Ride Time:3 hours 51 minutes
Average Speed:23.1 km/h
Group size:5-6-5 riders, 0 FNG’s
Temperature:3°C
Weather in a word or two:Turning Arctic
Ride Profile
A week of commuting into work through snow, hail, slush and ice, had prepared me for the worst on Saturday, when temperatures remained manically depressed and I found myself questioning the wisdom of my own actions, even as I layered up and prepared to head out to ride across to the meeting point in the still gloomy dawn.
But, as I told everyone at work throughout the week, the roads seemed a whole lot safer than the pavements, although I wondered if I’d miss the reassuringly fat and heavily-ridged mountain-bike tyres of the Rockhopper, as I pulled the Pug out of the shed in preparation for the ride.
Down the hill, cutting wide of the icy ribbons down the gutters, it was chill, but we’d already ridden in much worse conditions once this winter. My digital checkpoint informed me it was a flat 1°C. The low temperature hadn’t discouraged the rowers out on the river though, where half a dozen or more fragile-looking white hulls stood out stark against the cold, black waters.
As I’d found on my commutes, the roads were generally ok, as long as you didn’t stray off the beaten track and I had absolutely no issues as I passed through Swalwell, Blaydon, Newburn, Denton and Blakelaw on my north-east bound trajectory.
Then I got to what Wikipedia describes as the “affluent and well-established” area of Gosforth and things became increasingly sketchy. Side streets and pavements resembled ice-rinks, every speed bump was like a snow-boarders wet-dream of the perfect berm, and the cycle lane down the Great North Road appeared to have been commandeered to store all the excess snow that the ploughs had scraped off the road.
Rolling up to the meeting point, a dodgy road/pavement interface layered in ice, had me unclipping and trundling to a less than elegant stop.
Made it.
Main topics of conversation at the start.
Awaiting me were just two stalwarts of the club, G-Dawg and Taffy Steve. Referencing the high incidence of dodgy roads through Gosforth and lack of snow and ice clearance, I had to ask G-Dawg if its fine and upstanding citizens had stopped paying their council taxes, or perhaps it was just assumed that everyone here could afford a 4 x 4.
Taffy Steve had likewise been commuting by bike into work, where he’d had a grandstand view of his fellow workers trying and failing to negotiate their un-gritted car park. From his observations, he concluded that most modern 4 x 4’s were only good for appearing in rap video’s and not actually all that suited to tricky road conditions.
Even as we were talking a middle-aged woman swaddled in scarves and muffled in a massive parka emerged and went shuffling down the opposite pavement, shaking out a thin, meagre trail of road salt from a small Tupperware container.
“There you go,” remarked G-Dawg dryly, “The council’s emergency response team in action, that’s where all the money goes…”
As we stood around, hopping from foot to foot in a vain attempt to keep blood circulating, up rolled Aether and our plucky trio, expanded to a string quartet, the four riders of the all chapped lips. Aether had been suffering all week with a heavy dose of man-flu and, like me a few weeks ago, had pondered Crazy Legs’ recommendation to try riding through it.
Aether had even gone as far as consulting Dr. “Snake-Oil” Crazy Legs via social media:
A: “I’m feeling rough with the cold. Do you think a run out on Saturday will do me good?”
CL: “Yes…”
And a minute later,
CL: “No…”
And then,
CL: “… Not sure.”
To which Benedict had helpfully added, “CL is correct on this one.”
Oh well, I guessed we were going to find out.
G-Dawg informed us that OGL was suffering with his own version of man flu and wouldn’t be out today. Apparently, he was even too sick to drive past to tell us we were all insane, the roads would be lethal and we were all doomed. We discussed the possibility that his contact in the “Outer Hebrides” was just a massive wind-up merchant, who liked scaremongering with exaggerated tales of dire weather engulfing the region. The weight of evidence certainly seems to be leaning that way.
News had filtered through that Richard of Flanders would be out of action for a few weeks with his wrist wrapped in plaster following an accident. We had to clarify for Taffy Steve that this accident wasn’t of the bike-on-ice variety, but a seemingly far more common sporting injury, the kind all too familiar to middle-aged men who tried to defy time by haring around 5-a-side football pitches like a bunch of hoodlum teenagers. Now that’s what I call lethal.
Biden Fecht arrived as we waited, negotiating the icy road/pavement interface with far more aplomb than I had. He’d apparently been slightly delayed by layering on top of his layering, allegedly up to 5 different strata of insulating material on his feet alone, including a reflective, tin foil barrier.
We’ve all been there, all tried and all pretty much concluded it doesn’t work – although G-Dawg’s the only one to claim his sheets of tin foil were utterly destroyed and emerged from his shoes shredded into a million tiny flakes. (I’ve no idea what he does with his feet while pedalling and really don’t want to know.)
At Garmin Muppet Time + 3, we decided we’d waited as long as possible and that this was it in terms of numbers. With a verbal agreement on a basic route, including plenty of room for on the fly adjustments, the five of us pushed off, clipped in and rode out.
I dropped to the back and slotted in between the last pair on the road, in what I thought was the ideal, sheltered position. Later though, Taffy Steve rotated off the front and dropped back to chat. This left Aether sitting alone, right in the middle of the pack between the front and rear pair, and if anything this looked even more sheltered. I’m sure that, physically and temperature-wise, there was no discernible difference, but psychologically it just looked a whole lot cosier.
As we passed through Ponteland and onto lesser trafficked and less clear roads, we picked up the Big Yin who’d missed us at the start, but more by chance than good management, picked a route that neatly intersected with our ride. He swung round to give chase, dropped in amongst us and we reshuffled the pack and pressed on.
For the most part the roads G-Dawg chose were good, but you didn’t have to stray far to find yourself in all sorts of trouble and there was plenty of snow and ice to go around if you looked hard enough.
You didn’t have to stray far to find yourself in all sorts of trouble
Taffy Steve suggested we take a leaf out of his recent mountain bike excursion with Crazy Legs and call into the café at Kirkley Cycles for an early, warming and fortifying beverage. This sounded like an eminently sensible and civilised suggestion and was duly adopted.
Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop … Part One
Biden Fecht revealed that his multiple layering didn’t seem to be working all that well, his feet in particular were already frozen and he couldn’t add any more layers as his shoes couldn’t accommodate the bulk. The Big Yin was toting chemical hand-warmers and I wondered if they’d help if I shoved them down the front of my bib-tights. G-Dawg went one further and suggested you could buy a couple of dozen of them to gaffer-tape all over your body.
Taffy Steve thought we’d done well to sit away from the cycling merchandise displayed on the walls, avoiding the temptation to buy up their entire stock of clothing to wear on the go.
For some reason the conversation turned to Rolls-Royce cars, with Taffy Steve recounting that Crazy Legs had done some work at one of the Rolls-Royce plants. Apparently, they’d been thoroughly unimpressed with his devotion to his Renault Cactus, while Crazy Legs in turn had been thoroughly unimpressed by their offer of an obsidian coated “Spirit of Ecstasy” hood ornament, that just looked discoloured, black and gunky. Taffy Steve suggested this would only appeal to someone with an unhealthy Minecraft obsession, or far more money than sense.
The only thing I knew about a Rolls-Royce was the much over-quoted, Ogilvy ad-copy from marketing lectures in the dim and distant past, to paraphrase, “at 60 miles an hour, all you’ll hear is the clock ticking.” Biden Fecht recalled getting a lift in a Roller once, something he considered the very pinnacle of his hitch-hiking activities. He reported it had been the ultimate in comfort, but rather disquietingly smooth and silent.
Having enjoyed our brief, impromptu sojourn and a chance to thaw out a little, G-Dawg identified two more cafés en route to our usual stop and we considered whether we should call in to those as well.
As we were bundling ourselves up to leave a fellow cyclist burst through the door and loudly declared, “the roads are bloody shoite.” Nobody argued.
Out once again, onto the bloody shoite roads, I pushed on at the front alongside G-Dawg, refusing to look back or acknowledge Biden Fecht’s forlorn cry of disappointment as we rode straight past the next potential café without even a glance.
Much more frequently than usual, we now started encountering feral packs of cyclists with hungry looking eyes. Much like us, they travelled in small, buzzing, compact groups of half a dozen or so riders, roaming the roads as if searching for easy prey – the old, weak and infirm, the abandoned and those who had become dangerously separated from the herd.
We finally hit a T-Junction and had a choice to make, turn right and in 3 or 4-miles we would hit Morpeth. Turn left and we were just a few miles away from Whalton and on direct route to our usual coffee stop, where we’d be arriving just a tad too early. The only issue with the Morpeth route was we couldn’t think of a good return leg that wasn’t likely to be ice-bound and potentially dangerous.
After a lot of hemming and hawing, we decided to head straight to the café and from there work out a longer route home for the added miles.
As we turned onto the road for Whalton, our senses were assailed by the gagging, eye-watering stink of muck spreading in the surrounding fields and we pressed on quickly to escape.
A little further on, and G-Dawg’s phone started ringing insistently and incessantly and, assuming it was important, he rode off the front to buy himself the time to answer. Taffy Steve surmised it must be serious if someone would knowingly interrupt G-Dawg’s sacred, Saturday morning, club-run ritual.
As G-Dawg pulled out a gap ahead, a tractor and trailer sneaked out of field in-between us and we found ourselves not only on shoite roads, but closely following a farmers shoite-wagon – fresh from muck-spreading in the fields and trailing its own entirely fearsome smell behind it. Caustic! That certainly clears the nostrils. Perhaps it’s something Team Sky could investigate for beneficial marginal gains, although to be fair they’re doing a fair job of creating their own malodorous stink at the moment.
G-Dawg re-joined and we guessed his intrusive phone call hadn’t been a matter of life and death after all. From his grumpy face, I could only assume that during his essential phone call, he’d just learned he’d been miss-sold PPI, or realised he’d been involved in an imaginary traffic accident that wasn’t his fault.
He took his evident frustrations out on his pedals and he and Biden Fecht rode off the front to contest the café sprint. No one else seemed all that bothered and we all trailed in behind and at our own pace.
Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop … The Sequel
In the café, a Morpeth-based cyclist in civvies stood at the counter waiting to be served and declared he couldn’t decide if we were brave, or foolish to be out riding today. I didn’t actively disagree with the foolish moniker, but then again we weren’t the ones who’d driven out to a café, sans bike, to meet up with our cycling buds when we could have been lying-in at home, in a nice warm bed.
Amongst our many, many fond memories of Superstars; Kevin Keegan’s bike-handling abilities, Brian Jacks devouring oranges (seemingly whole), Mo Farah’s canoe-piloting …err… skills? and Brian Hooper’s all-round excellence, G-Dawgs recollection of 1980 Tour de France winner, Joop Zoetemelk’s performance in the gym tests stood out.
Asked to see how many push-ups he could master in one minute, G-Dawg reported Zoetemelk bravely and elegantly managed to lower his upper torso to the floor … and that was it. Apparently, he then needed assistance to get back up again.
Someone had spotted an Internet video of a group of cyclists in South Africa being impressively paced and then schooled for speed by an ostrich. Although judged irascible, dim-witted, unpredictable, fractious, powerful and dangerous, Taffy Steve vowed he’d rather take his chances riding alongside the ostrich than with the Garrulous Kid.
Further discussion about layering for the cold and the use of tin foil led to the thought that Biden Fecht might consider an insulating layer of goose fat, once the best-in-class, fat of choice for discerning Channel swimmers, well, after baby dolphin fat became somewhat frowned upon.
“Goose fat stinks, though,” Aether declared, knowledgeably. He seems to know a lot about such things, though I’ve never had him pegged as a Channel swimmer.
His assertion immediately set off alarm bells for me … we pass so many hunts that the lingering aroma of roasted game bird could easily trigger the prey-drive instinct in the dogs. Being chased by a pack of hounds could possibly be as dangerous as being stalked by a rabid ostrich … although it obviously pales into insignificance in comparison to the risks of riding with the Garrulous Kid.
We then overheard, or perhaps mis-overheard, the staff talking about an old boiler in the gent’s toilet. While Aether boldly went to investigate, the rest of us quickly started gathering up our things in anticipation of having to make a swift exit …
Our usual, longer, alternative route home through Stamfordham was mooted and then quickly agreed. Off we went. Once again, we were struck by how frequently we encountered other small groups of roaming cyclists. It wasn’t until G-Dawg explained the obvious that I finally caught on, the snow and ice had forced us all onto the few roads that were guaranteed to be more or less clear, safe and passable. Restricting road choice meant we were much more likely to pass other cyclists. Ah, now I get it.
As for the fact all of the groups were small, only 6, 7 or 8 strong? I seemed to recall it’s a little known British Cycling bye-law that each club has to nominate up to “half a dozen stout, cycling yeomen volunteers” who will be named “the Usual Suspects“ and deemed “foolish enough to turn up for the club run regardless of the prevailing weather conditions.” British Cycling, Club Rules: Section 12, Subsection 2.4, Sub clause 17b.
Channelling his inner-roving troubadour and making up for the absence of Crazy Legs to provide us with musical accompaniment, Biden Fecht took note of the branding on my bib-tights and invited me to join him in a rousing chorus of UB40’s, “I am the one in Tenn.” I politely declined.
Then, the road was dipping down, everyone was slowing for a sharp left, while I kept straight on, starting my solo ride back home.
At the lights before the bridge, I pulled up behind a large estate car, much to the excitement of two Jack Russel terriers travelling in the cargo well. Being too small to see directly out of the rear window, they kept springing up, one after the other like demented Whack-a-Moles, trying to catch a glimpse of the mad cyclist stupid enough to be out in the cold and ice.
Luckily, there was no need to call into Pedalling Squares this week to see how Thing#1 was getting along, she’d shipped herself off to Leeds to check out her University accommodation for next September.
Besides, although Pedalling Squares seemed to like her and had offered her more work, she’d declined and I think I understand why … too many bloody cyclists.
Anyway I’m not sure yet another coffee was such a good idea – I was likely to be buzzing until Wednesday as it was.
Year Totals: 360 km / 212 miles with 4,402 metres of climbing
Total Distance: 94 km / 58 miles with 980 metres of climbing
Ride Time:3 hours 51 minutes
Average Speed:24.5 km/h
Group size:22 riders, 1 FNG
Temperature:8°C
Weather in a word or two:Bright but raw
Ride Profile
The Ride:
A band of heavy rain passed over in the night, but by morning the skies were clear, it was bright, but cold and the wind had a raw edge to it. I’d misplaced my Galibier “disco-headband” and suspected my ears were going to suffer unless I found them some cover.
Rather handily, there were a couple of girly hairbands that either Thing#1, or Thing#2 had carelessly abandoned on the sideboard. The red, sparkly one was a bit garish, but the black one would just about do. I slid it up into my hairline, pulled it down low at the sides to cover my ears and plonked my helmet on top. Perfect – almost as if they’d been made for this very purpose…
I was a little late leaving, so went with the quicker route option and the closer bridge over the river, looping west to approach from the east and minimising the amount of dual-carriageway surfing I needed to do. Swinging left onto the span I was somewhat surprised to find an Ee-Em-Cee rider approaching directly from the south, a route I’ve never attempted, suspecting the traffic’s a bit too busy and wild. He’s a braver man than me, or maybe just more confident.
Anyway, I was glad of the company as he dropped in behind me on the bridge, figuring two riders were a little easier for motorists to spot than just the one. Unfortunately, we never got to chat as once across, he followed the river west, while I took a sharp right and started my climb out of the valley, arriving at the meeting point in good order.
Main topics of conversation at the start:
G-Dawg was once again out on his best bike, this time using the excuse of a new pair of shoes that he needed to road test, before packing them away for the summer. His new Sidi kicks, a very welcome birthday present, were super-classy, super-stiff, super-light and super-bling – I did however question their inherent thermal properties and suspected G-Dawg might have to suffer a little for his sartorial splendour – but he obviously couldn’t have desecrated the Sidi’s by hiding them under overshoes or Belgian booties. Just for the record, I was wearing winter boots and my trusty Prendas Thermolite socks and my toes were only just ok throughout the ride.
It turned out G-Dawg was not the only one with shiny new toys, the Colossus having acquired a new turbo trainer. Crazy Legs suggested it wasn’t the one voted “Best Buy” in Cycling Weekly, but the Colossus was unmoved as his turbo had red and blue light’s!
Crazy Legs persisted, this time with the suggestion you could tell how hardcore and pro a rider was by the fans they deployed with the turbo. He said there should be a minimum of two, slightly off-set at a 18° angle to maximise bodily surface exposure to the airflow and at least 60% of their construction had to be in carbon-fibre.
The Colossus countered that the only specialist equipment he felt needed was one of those triangular sweat nets. Someone suggested that a sweat net would be relatively easy to make from an old pair of tights, while I felt the answer was fisherman’s waders, with regular waddles to the bathroom to empty them out during the turbo-session.
An FNG rolled up and greeted us with what I took to be a pronounced Antipodean twang. “I’m guessing you’re not from around these parts?” I suggested.
“Aw, I’ve bean heer twinny yeehz,” he assured us. He turned out to be an Ironman triathlete, who’d seen us ride past his home on many a Saturday morning and he’d finally decided to come over to the dark side.
Crazy Legs tried to explain to the FNG an unseemly, on-going social-media spat between the absent Prof and OGL, by drawing parallels between Kin Jong Un and Donald Trump’s slightly less fraught and contentious relationship.
G-Dawg also explained Our Glorious Leader wouldn’t be riding today as he was off to a British Cycling meeting which, according to some rather self-serving Facebook posts, OGL claimed he was looking forward to, as a chance to relax without having to wear a stab-proof vest to protect his back. Huh?
Taffy Steve simply welcomed the opportunity for a good ride, as we were absent at least three potential sources of friction that he could think of. Ultimately, he had the right of it.
Aether was set to lead the ride and had picked a route that Crazy Legs had posted in the summer, emphasising we didn’t need a new and novel plan every week and there was no harm in repeating things. He hoped this would encourage others to set and lead future rides and briefed the opportunity in, along with outlining the planned route for the day.
Another decent turnout of 22 riders, all seemingly in a relaxed and rather amenable mood, pushed off, clipped in and rode out.
As we turned off toward towards Great Park and the filthy, muddy, potholed and often thorn-strewn Brunton Lane, G-Dawg took his regular detour, aimed at keeping his good bike and fancy new shoes in pristine condition at the expense of a slightly longer and busier route out of the city.
As we emerged from the end of the lane and scurried uphill, an injection of pace had us all spread out. Mini Miss eased alongside me and asked, “Is it just me, or is the speed really high this morning?”
I peered up to the front where the Colossus and Caracol were driving us on, with Rainman waiting in the wheels to take over if either faltered and let the speed drop.
“Nope,” I replied, “It’s fast,” before kicking to close a gap that was threatening to yaw open.
The pace was evidently too fast for G-Dawg, whose detour usually spits him out well ahead of the group, just before we hit Dinnington. This time he wasn’t there waiting for us and when I looked down the road he would emerge from, it was completely empty.
Having missed us and then waited at the junction thinking we may have been held up by a mechanical, G-Dawg spent the rest of the morning trying to find the right time and place to intersect with our ride.
We continued for some distance at a pace I felt was just the tiniest increment above comfortable and it would be some time before I was able to infiltrate the front alongside Crazy Legs and drop the speed by a good 2mph or more. No one seemed to be struggling particularly, but I needed a bit of a breather, even if everyone else was ok.
We then found that Aether’s cunning plan of using one of Crazy Legs’s summer routes was not without its flaws, the small lane we took before Meldon being wet, slippery and thick with mud kicked up by farm traffic. At this point the FNG punctured and, while we were stopped for repairs, the Colossus discovered G-Dawg was still missing and set off to find him.
As we waited, Taffy Steve and Crazy Legs kept me entertained with tales of the labyrinthine, convoluted and quite frankly bizarre local government rules and regulations relating to business expenses. I think my soul is still scarred from this nonsense.
We then pushed through to Dyke Neuk, where we unleashed the now twitchy racing snakes and shooed them away for a faster, longer, harder ride before they became too irritable. The rest of us pushed on, down the dip through Hartburn and toward Middleton Bank at a more considered pace. As we approached the hill, we met G-Dawg flying down the other way and he was able to swing round and rejoin us, reunited at last.
Reaching the steepest part of Middleton Bank and, just for the hell of it, I bounced off the front and opened up a gap before sitting back down and easing over the top. We slowed to regroup and Crazy Legs, who had no intention on mixing it in the café sprint on his fixie, offered to provide a lead out. I dropped onto his back wheel as he slowly began to wind up the pace and lined us out. Perfect it was like having my own personal derny moped.
Crazy Legs pulled us past Bolam Lake and then, with a professional flick of the elbow, peeled away and I took over at the front and tried to hold the pace he’d set, as we rattled through Milestone Woods. I attacked up the first of the Rollers and as my pace slackened G-Dawg rode off my wheel and away, the others only slowly coming around me in pursuit, as we tipped down the other side. As we began the last drag no one was committing to bringing back G-Dawg’s lead, so I dug in and accelerated to the front again.
I pulled everyone to within maybe 5 metres of G-Dawg’s back wheel, just before he nipped around the last corner, but that was it, I was done and cooked and sat up. The others zipped past, but I suspected it was too late and G-Dawg was long gone.
Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:
The main topic of conversation at the café was the dark, dangerous and twisted plotting within the Byzantine world of cycling club politics, but this is a family friendly blerg … so let’s move swiftly on…
Somehow the conversation eventually morphed into a discourse on political leaders, with Taffy Steve’s assertion that all you needed to succeed was a good haircut, sharp suit and a pithy slogan, “You know,” he outlined, “Make Uh-murica Great, or Strong and Stable Leadership, Things Can Only Get Better, that kind of thing”
“Ah, like Strength Through Joy?” I suggested helpfully.
We then had a chuckle that Bradley Wiggins felt he had in somehow been exonerated from the “living hell” of his “malicious witch hunt” by the conclusions of the UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) investigation into the contents of the now infamous Jiffy bag. Under the circumstances, UKAD appear to have done as good a job as possible and their conclusion of “no definitive evidence” was logical. As far as I can tell, this is a very neutral statement that exonerates no one.
It’s laughable that Wiggins and Team Sky claim there was no wrongdoing on their part and both think the verdict backs this up. The assertion by Shane Sutton that they would “game the system” and use TUE’s for marginal gains sounds much closer to the truth and more adequately explains the injections (injections, Bradley?) of triamcinolone Wiggins received before several races. As for what was actually in the Jiffy bag – the truth is, we’ll never know.
A group of cyclists from the University made their way, wide eyed and blinking into the café and Sneaky Pete and I rolled our eyes at the folly of youth and the fact they chose to ride out in weather like today only wearing shorts and short-sleeved jerseys. The fact there flesh looked raw and marbled like corned beef seemed to suggest we well-wrapped, old curmudgeons had the greater sense.
Outside and I had a quick look at the FNG’s Trek Madone Aero bike with fairings over the front brakes that opened and closed like aircraft ailerons whenever he turned the bars – it seemed like an awful lot of engineering for a very minimal gain.
The FNG himself said he’d enjoyed his first ride out with the club and it made a companiable change from all the solitary Ironman training on his TT bike.
A blast up Berwick Hill tracking Biden Fecht got the blood flowing and it wasn’t long after that I was swinging away for my ride back home, reflecting on what had been a perfectly amiable, amenable, run, with no objectionable shouting or swearing and no encounters with dangerously crazed motorists.
Things weren’t quite so peaceful at home though, where Thing#1 and Thing#2 were engaged in a spat over Thing#2’s missing black hairband. I ‘fessed up to being the guilty party, pulling the offending article out from under my helmet and proffering it back to Thing#2 on the end of my index finger, where it hung, limp, damp and shapelessly unappealing.
“Ugh! It’s all sweaty.”
Oh. Sorry.
YTD Totals: 6,819 km / 4,237 miles with 78,229 metres of climbing
