Deflationary Pressures and Tales of the Tape

Club Run, 22^nd August, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 110km/68 miles with 954 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 15 minutes

Group size: 27 riders, a smattering of FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Grey

Main topic of conversation at the start: Everyone did a swift double-take as OGL rolled up to the meeting point at precisely 9.01, only one minute behind the advertised start-time and, as regular readers know by now, fully 19 minutes ahead of our traditionally belated “grand depart”. He rather sheepishly admitted his premature arrival didn’t mark the start of some kind of personal, time-keeping epiphany, but was simply a consequence of Mrs. OGL being away on a family visit.

I was delighted to learn the Great North Road Cycle Maze has now sprouted a second “Cyclists Dismount” sign and continues to mutate in ever more convoluted, dangerous and unexpected ways.

I was called out for sporting a bottle in the exact red, yellow and black as my bike frame. Shucks, guilty as charged.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: The disastrous and neutralised Vuelta TTT, which apparently ran across seven different surfaces: marble, stone, wood, dirt/sand, asphalt, tile and plastic in its short 7km. We naturally wondered if anyone would stop to change to bikes more suited to each particular surface. Probably not, but might have added a frisson of excitement which the actual (non) event sorely lacked.

I caught Grover wandering around outside like a stereotypical NCO martinet, inspecting everyone’s bike, perhaps checking for chain wear or unacceptable levels of grime and taking notes to report back to OGL. He confided that his girlfriend had offered to buy him anything he wanted for his birthday, but all that he could think of was some new handlebar tape! I guess that’s the consequence of already owning a blinged to the hilt Pinarello.

Speaking of bar tape, I managed to catch up with Moose Bumps and ask if his bare handlebars were a clever way of saving weight. Apparently it’s more of a consequence of just being forgetful and lazy.

Someone complimented me on Reg, proving once and for all that beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

With the early forecasts all predicting heavy rain throughout the day there were heightened levels of pre-ride procrastination about not only what to wear, but what to ride. The morning brought no clarity with leaden skies pregnant with potential rain, but an uncomfortably warm, humid atmosphere. While this would eventually translate into heavy, air clearing thunderstorms later that night, the chances of avoiding rain on the ride remained distinctly uncertain. Taking a chance on good fortune for a change, I decided to keep the winter bike in mothballs, but made sure I packed a waterproof as a bit of insurance.

As if matching my indecision, there was a mixed collection of winter and best bikes on show at the RV point, and an even wider assortment of wardrobe choices , including as many in just shorts and jerseys as in waterproofs, overshoes, arm and leg warmers. Red Max compromised, turning up on his winter bike, but kitted out with summer wheelset. G-Dawg, obviously fearing the worst, came out on his winter bike and wearing a heavy Gore-Tex rain jacket that didn’t look as if it could be easily packed down and stowed away if things stayed dry.

After a brief “pep talk” when we all repented our sins for the previous week’s bad riding, 27 lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and set out.

I drifted until I was at the very back of the group as we hit the country lanes, and was riding along, quietly content in my own company when an intermittent hiss, like a damp and misfiring Catherine wheel, announced The Cow Ranger had a rear wheel flat. The cries of “Puncture!” didn’t reach the front group, who sailed blithely on, oblivious to the problems at the back.

With only me and a couple of friendly Grogs left for company The Cow Ranger was duly inducted the Club Hall of Shame, as a misfiring CO2 cylinder left him at the side of the road with a common, easily fixable mechanical, and no means of putting it right. I lent him my pump and we were soon underway again, chasing the main group, but with no idea which route they’d taken.

At each junction we’d slow looking for tyre tracks on the rapidly drying roads, and at one point I was tempted to press my ear to the tarmac Tonto- style to see if I could pick up the subtle whirr of carbon and soft clunk of shifting chains. The two Grogs gave up at this point and turned off for their own ride. I pushed on with The Cow Ranger, lining it out as we started a mad pursuit which netted a host of personal best times on a handful of Strava segments, but brought us no closer to catching the main group.

“Hmm, still no trace of them, Ke-mo sah-bee.”

Our crazed chase ended prematurely as The Cow Ranger punctured again. For fear of a disintegrating tyre and running out of both spare tubes and the benevolence and patience of fellow riders, he borrowed my pump one last time before calling it a day and heading homeward in shame. It was while fixing this latest puncture I noted that, rather bizarrely one side of his handlebars was covered in red tape, the other in white. Odd.

The Cow Ranger can't hide his disappointment at being inducted into the Club Hall of Shame. — The Cow Ranger can’t hide his disappointment at being inducted into the Club Hall of Shame.

Left to ride solo, I now began a complex guessing game of trying to decide where the main group was, where they might be going and how I could intercept them. I set off following some of our more common routes, and at one point passed the two Grogs who were now heading in completely the opposite direction! Although I passed other solo riders and groups there was no sign of the club run. It later transpired that today was the day for something a little different and they’d taken one of our much less travelled routes down the Ryals.

I'm pretty certain it wasn't me going the wrong way... — I’m pretty certain it wasn’t me going the wrong way…

I finally decided to turn for the café, winning the personal sprint with myself along the way, and arriving nicely timed between the amblers and the Faster! Harder! Longer! group.

I was able to catch up with a few fellers on the ride home and still have time to mock Taffy Steve for his worryingly, girly advocacy of fruit cider shandy (I always took him for a Stout or Bitter man). Even better, for once the widely predicted rain decided not to spoil the day, and I made it home long before the impending storms.

YTD Totals: 4,253km / 2,642 miles with 48,627 metres of climbing.

The Szell Game : What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?

Club Run, 8^th August, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 112km/69 miles with 1,041 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 21 minutes

Group size: 25 riders, 1 FNG.

Weather in a word or two: Contradictory: (breezy, sunny yet chilly)

Main topic of conversation at the start: The most efficient ways to consume calories on holiday and not waste them by making the journey to the pool unnecessarily arduous.

Crazy Legs survived a visit to a Cold War era nuclear fallout bunker in the deepest, darkest depths of – well I’m not allowed to tell you. He also made a brave decision not to buy the TT bike he was coveting, although he has acquired some aero bars.

The Red Max, having maxed out all his red bling; clothing, bikes, accessories, socks, shoes, bottles et al, has kitted out the Monkey Butler boy in similar vein – a Mini-Max!

What is it with all the migrants queuing up in Calais to come to the UK – isn’t France far more attractive anyway? At least they have better weather for cycling across there, and drivers don’t treat you like roadkill that needs to be scraped deeper into the tarmac.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: There was some discussion about whether the Sky wind tunnel testers were ever allowed to address the massive elephant in the room in their dedicated pursuit of even the most miniscule of marginal gains: “Err, Chris … you couldn’t, err, just, err, well, err tuck your elbows in a bit, could you?”

We had to explain to the FNG that it’s considered a point of honour to never, ever let Szell rejoin the front group once he’s been distanced on the Middleton Bank climb.

Conversation then seemed to deteriorate as Szell tried to deflect attention from a series of faux pas and outrageous assertions, namely:

– That Maggie Philbin was the thinking man’s crumpet back in the day!

– That Clare Grogan was not worthy of our undying adoration!!!

– That Clare Grogan married Nick Heyward???

– That “Where does it go from here? Is it down to the lake I fear?” isn’t one of the dumbest lyrics ever committed to song.

His attempted diversion was to suggest he had the unique ability to detect the size, type and use of a vibrator simply from the frequency of the sound-waves it made. Or perhaps (very hopefully) I completely misheard this?

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

The Transport Interchange Centre either has its own micro-climate, gently warmed by the collective, throbbing emissions of a dozen, idling diesels, or it’s a bit of suntrap, as quarter of an hour shooting the breeze here had me stripping off my arm warmers under a hot sun, only to find it a mite chilly out on the open road and in the cold wind.

25 lads and lasses pushed off and clipped in as we sallied forth into the unwelcoming traffic. Unbelievably in a life-is-stranger-than-fiction moment, a week after I suggested cyclists would be better getting off and pushing through the abortion that is the Great North Road Cycle Maze, it is now proudly adorned by a huge warning sign that proclaims: “Cyclists dismount before proceeding” What. The. Fuck?

Fellow riders who live in the area are also saying they are now subject to regular abuse from motorists because they’re refusing to use the GNRCM death-trap. To top it all a scurrilous rumour has started suggesting OGL is actually responsible for this abomination and the club paid for it! Madness.

Crazy Legs has some new Aero bars — Mmmm … Aero bars

In one bright spot, before carefully skirting the GNCRM, Dab Man sailed out to join us – only the second ride for him since the crash when his shoulder pinged, back in May.

Our route for the day was designed to intersect with a local road race where we had several club competitors to cheer on. This saw us running along very familiar roads, but in the opposite direction from the one we usually take. Everything looked familiar, but strangely different, and it was all slightly unsettling and discordant in a Twilight Zone/Parallel Universe sort of way.

The ride became a bit chaotic, as several thrusting young things, aided and abetted by some of the older, supposedly more level-headed guys, flexed their legs and pushed the pace up and up. An apoplectic OGL shouted to keep it steady, but truth be told it was steady – just unaccountably fast. He then complained we weren’t looking back to check on other riders and I couldn’t help snorting with laughter as Crazy Legs’s head popped up for a very exaggerated, pantomime look around, like a startled Meerkat on snake patrol.

Watching the race whirr past in a blur of colours reminded me that one of the fundamental problems of this sport is that spectating isn’t a particularly rewarding experience, as the racers come and go in blink of an eye and it’s impossible to grasp what’s actually happening in that split-second. I will say however, that hideous as they are, our guys orange socks were very visible in the bunch.

Though lacking somewhat in sartorial elegance, the orange socks did stand out.

Pressing on, our ride then endured a messy split, with no one quite sure which groups were which, where they were going and everyone all mixed up. A small bunch headed left, another right and I dithered a little before my naturally left-leaning tendencies took me after the smaller group.

We had distanced Red Max on the climb up Middleton Bank, but as we wound up the pace for the café he bridged the gap pulling Szell and a few others with him and dropping them off at the back of the group, before his even crazier than normal, but understandably short-lived attack over the top. I clung grimly to the wheel in front as we shed riders up the final climb until there were only three of us left. G-Dawg dug out a 10 metre gap that was too much for Crazy Legs to close while I hung on in third.

The ride for home was somewhat marred by one RIM who insisted on taking up ¾ of the road in his over-sized 4×4 and then refusing to slow while barrelling down a narrow country lane toward a bunch of squishy cyclists. What an onanist.

I complimented Shouty on having perhaps the loudest free-hub in the club. With a grin she told me how much she enjoyed coasting behind someone and letting the constant whirring mockingly tell them she was freewheeling happily, while they slogged away into the headwind. Pure evil genius.

A consequence of hard riding, the fast pace, challenging headwind on my solo ride home and the accumulated, dual effects of holiday inactivity and bingeing, left me utterly exhausted and empty as I finally made the bottom of Heinous Hill.

As I crawled slowly upwards at barely 5 mile an hour I would gladly have sold my soul to Eufemiano Fuentes for just a single sip of EPO, or even just one extra cog. The last speed bump with its consequent 1% increase in gradient for all of 1 metre was almost the end of me, but having conquered this very personal Kemmelberg I was gratefully home and hosed.

YTD Totals: 4,083km / 2,537 miles with 46,966 metres of climbing.

National Orgasm Day

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 114km/71 miles with 1,148 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 27 minutes

Group size: 28 riders, no FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Good in the end.

Main topic of conversation at the start: Comparing and catching up on holidays: walking in Cornwall, cycling in Wales, or walking, mountain-biking, drinking beer from huge steins and wiping-out in water-parks in Austria? Hmm, tough choice that one.

Our club road race is next week and sadly, through an accident of propitiously bad planning, I’m on holiday and will miss it. Damn. OGL informed us that there were some temporary road works and traffic lights part way around the course, but muttered darkly that we shouldn’t worry and it “should be ok.” Err, right…

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: When Taffy Steve placed his order and told the waitress where he’d be sitting, she simply wrote “Colin” on her pad. Sure enough his toasted teacakes duly arrived, exactly where he was sitting – evidently at the table widely known as Colin.

One of the guys was helping out at the British Transplant Games, but couldn’t enlighten us about the persistent and rather scurrilous rumours that OGL tried to blag himself a place in the bike race by dint of his hair transplant. (He assures me it’s 100% natural).

Talk of hair-transplants naturally led to the all-round ridiculing of Graham Gooch for his macho image, but Alvin and the Chipmunks-on-helium, squeaky voice. Surely far too easy a target for Aussie sledging – although, like the school bully, when has sledging ever rejected a target for being too easy?

This in turn led to discussions about the maddeningly inconsistent England cricket team and reminiscing about the time super-oily, supercilious, self-publicising, pompous oaf Piers Morgan faced an over from deadly Aussie fast bowler Brett “Binga” Lee.

This then (see, there is method in the madness, well sort of…) led to the idea for a new TV show where Piers Morgan (or other celebrity caricature of your choice) is drafted in to compete in a extreme sports – perhaps a round with Mike Tyson, kick-off returns in the NFL, sumo wrestling, or a bit of extreme cage-fighting. If only gladiatorial combat with lions hadn’t gone out of fashion…

On my way back to Chris from getting a coffee refill, another table (“Jonathan” perhaps – Chris’s younger, more awkward and slightly estranged brother?) declared that they’d already done all the hard work for me and decided on the title for this blog entry. Thanks fellers.

Although I admit I may have misunderstood the story slightly, apparently one of their group is only scheduled to get “lucky” with his missus on that very day, the 1^st of August, but had foolishly eschewed carnal pleasures to ride with us. Such are the dangerous lures of the club run.

There was some debate, but no resolution, about whether his schedule followed an annual or bi-annual programme, or simply mirrored the Olympics and World Cup at 4 year intervals.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

Well, there we all were, a whole host of lads and lasses in summer clothes and with shiny best bikes, gathered together for a pleasant ride in acceptable, if somewhat unremarkable, unremittingly dull and disappointing weather, or as its more typically known – the British summer. Still, grey and overcast though it was, at least it wasn’t raining and the forecast was for dry conditions throughout.

We pushed off, clipped in and as if on cue a squally burst of frozen rain swept over us like a communal ice bucket challenge. Instantly soaked through from head to toe from “stotting” rain and filthy road spray, it was enlightening to see how many of us had the foresight to pack a rain jacket, and the wherewithal to actually pull it on quickly enough to stop the rain getting in rather than simply trapping the dampness between clothing and skin.

Sadly I was one of those unprepared for the drenching, so black marks for me – actually rather neatly and fittingly visualised by the streaks of dirt that appeared on once pristine white socks.

The rain did ease and quickly pass, but left everyone uncomfortably damp and chilled for the first hour or so, until we warmed up through general activity and the occasional burst of sporadic sunshine.

I drifted through the group, catching up and chatting with Ovis, Plumose Papuss , Szell, Grover, Moose Bumps and a few others until I found myself generally loitering at the back and content in my own little world. On the way past Szell had suggested the paint job on my bike was gaudy enough for it to be made of aluminium. Ouch. Bitch.

For all the shiny, shiny carbon on display there seemed a lot of ill maintained bikes out, so we rode everywhere in a whirring, buzzing, rattling chiaroscuro of noise with the constant group chatter ladled on top. This was perhaps the reason why we spooked a passing horse that came crabbing sideways across the road toward us. We all had to stop and pull over to the side to let the dumb, helpless animal (and his mount) regain control and finally sidle warily past.

A stop for micturition relief gave us the chance to split the group, along with the opportunity to ponder the one-hit wonder that is (was?) Natalie Imbruglia, as Crazy Legs declared through the medium of song that he was “torn”.

By all appearances this chap came first in the inaugural National Orgasm Day Road Race

[Nat did have one supporter who felt she was much more than a one-hit wonder, but when challenged he couldn’t name one single other song . More tellingly his views are rather suspect as he has been known to plug-in earbuds and declare he’s off to ride on his own while listening to Alanis Morissette. Listening to Alanis Morissette seems like the worst kind of madness, until you consider actually telling other people that’s what you are doing.]

The split left us with an uncomfortably large pod of demon racing snakes, and could explain why shortly afterwards Crazy Legs took off on his lonesome at the first available junction. Then again, maybe he was just torn.

We rattled up the long, much-hated drag to the cross-roads and then as the racing snakes wound up the pace G-Dawg sneaked us, down a little known side road for a slightly shorter, longer ride. Five of us duly escaped, deftly avoiding the evil clutches of the Demon Cult of the Racing Snakes, although we couldn’t quite manage to avoid the regular sufferfest that is Middleton Bank.

We arrived at the café slightly behind the other groups, to find ourselves at the back of a very long queue for cake and coffee, and we were still there, blathering on when everyone else left, so had a very compact group for the ride back.

We had a grandstand view of G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg eye-balling each other for the final sprint home – there’s a lot on the line with this particular contest as first one home gets the shower, while the loser is left to clean the bikes. As they disappeared off into the distance Taffy Steve swept left at the roundabout while I swooshed right and we each set off for our own individual trek home.

bike suitcase — Well, I’m packed for my holidays. Just not sure I’ll get away with it…

I’ll be back in a week or two. In-between times, keep watching the skies…

YTD Totals: 3,932km/ 2,443 miles with 43,356 metres of climbing.

Vacillations and oscillations …

Club Run, Sunday 26^th July, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 99km/61 miles with 868 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 3 hours 47 minutes

Group size: 12 riders at the start. A few unfamiliar faces, but no FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Grand.

Main topic of conversation at the start: The TdF finale, and whether it had been a good race or not, including various reports of where (or, more accurately in which pub) people were watching the penultimate stage, perhaps explaining the low turnout on such a glorious morning…

OGL suggested one of our youngsters could put so much power through his downstroke that his frame was flexing and his pedal catching on the chainstay. Awesome. Alternatively, I think he could just be completely duck-toed and/or twisting his ankle when really putting the power down and it’s his shoes abrading the paintwork. Not so awesome.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: The vagaries of Italian sizing, and how buying Castelli is the only time I don’t feel like a wimpy-weakling and can get away with ordering an L or even XL. The Small and even Medium sizes are to be avoided at the risk of severe bruising, skin abrasions, internal bleeding and the unhealthy compression of vital organs. Not a good look, but perhaps suitably “aero?”

Bike porn – the number of shiny bikes on display provoked the usual degree of eye-roving wanderlust and new carbon-cravings.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

Having just returned from a largely inactive holiday I was in urgent need of some cycling therapy as quickly as possible, and having missed the usual Saturday club run decided to try a rare Sunday morning foray. This proved to be with a much smaller, quieter and somewhat polarised group of lads and lasses, almost equally split between thrusting young things and grizzled old codgers; the club’s very own grognards. I’m more than comfortable staking a claim in the latter camp, so felt right at home.

We set out, pushed off and clipped in, hoping that for once the forecasts would exhibit a modicum of accuracy and we would be home and hosed long before the predicted rain swept in.

In comfortably warm temperatures and with only a relatively benign wind to contend with, I rode on the front for the first 40km or so, swapping news and views with Moose Bumps, while keeping the pace manageable and all the hard-riding young things in check behind me. In fact we only gave up the front when an OGL vacillation mid-way through a left-hand turn directed everyone off to the right instead … and we slipped quickly and effortlessly from first to last in the blink of an eye.

A quick charge up the Quarry climb brought me briefly to the front again, until we began the drive for the café and the thrusting young things, deciding the pace wasn’t quite fast enough, swept past to form a new, supercharged vanguard.

Obviously in a tribute to Red Max’s Forlorn Hope attack, the Cow Ranger then had a dig and strung us all out as we burned down to the Snake Corners. I was still hanging at the back as we slowed to cross the main road and then rolled down the lane. A right-hand turn spat us out onto the last small rise before the café and, with some shamelessly dumb riding up the wrong side of the white lines (don’t try this at home kids), I just managed to accelerate past all but one of the group on the short ramp to the last junction.

At the café, I was called into unexpected action to rescue the sacred, communal milk jug after it had been kidnapped and held hostage by a table full of cyclists from a rival club. This selfless act of heroism and skillful negotiation will no doubt earn me the life-long respect and possibly a small discount from the café’s grateful staff. Or more probably not.

A celebratory drink from the sacred communal milk jug — A celebratory drink from the sacred (and once again safe) communal milk jug

Uncomfortable in the face of the anticipated, but strangely delayed adulation, and not wanting to hang around too long and risk getting rained on, a handful of us saddled up and struck out, leaving behind those wanting to wallow in caffeine and cake indolence.

As we closed on the last few miles from our start point the Cow Ranger and the Plank kept trading blows and pushing the pace up, so once Mini Miss turned off I let them ride away, before settling down to meander my own way home.

Another hugely enjoyable ride and some much needed exercise to blow away the holiday indulgences and clear the noggin.

Hopefully normal service will be resumed next week. Until then, keep watching the skies…

YTD Totals: 3,760km/ 2,336 miles with 41,412 metres of climbing.

Jabbering babble and babbling jabber …

Club Run, 18^th July, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 85km/53 miles with 709 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 3 hours 9 minutes

Group size: 27 riders at the start. 2 FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Blustery.

Main topic of conversation at the start: The BFG has given up on his wooden rims which can warp faster than a Constitution-class starship and no amount of araldite, solder or exotic spoke weaving-patterns seemed to help them stay true. They’ve now been consigned to the Cheryl Cole: “nice to look at but serving no functional purpose” bin.

Despite his wooden wheel setback, BGF himself however continues to press boldly onward and kept me royally entertained with his tale of taking his latest vintage frame to Boots and press-ganging a bevy of beauty clinicians into helping find just the right shade of pearlised-blue nail-varnish to touch up a small scratch in the paintwork.

JC Peraud’s jersey, shorts and skin shredding crash at the TdF got a mention, especially his X-rated exposed crotch, which thankfully the TV pictures managed to cover with a pixelated-blur. I thought comments that the blurred area was “very small” to be quite mean-spirited.

We then had to disabuse one of our newer members from suggesting our rendezvous point was a lowly bus station – everyone should realise it’s nothing less than a truly magnificent Transport Interchange Centre.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: There was some suggestions that this very blog should only be available via the Darknet. Come on… it’s not that bad!

One of our newer riders commented that he was unaware other rides existed outside of our normal routes, was quite surprised to find that the whole of Northumberland was actually open to us and that our collective Garmin’s didn’t spontaneously combust once we turned away from the OGL approved rides.

In a reprise of the “blowin’ in the wind” club run, an exceptional limbo act into the gusting wind narrowly preserved a tray precariously loaded with coffee, cake and other goodies – earning a heartfelt round of applause from all assembled.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

With OGL yet again in absentia, this time providing transport, DS, coaching, mechanic and soigneur services to a couple of our promising youngsters competing at the National Junior Road Race Championship, we were again given a little more freedom to pick our route and again seek out roads a little less travelled – and typically a bit hillier.

The weather was a mixed bag of sunny spells, showers, warm patches, icy cold blasts, overcast, then high broken clouds and blue skies, always changing from one corner to the next. The one constant throughout though was an ever present, strong and gusting wind that had us planning to frequently change lead riders from the off. Pre-planning? Surely a first for the club.

Pushing off and clipping in we instinctively avoided the Great North Road Cyclemaze, which has mutated yet again. It now appears to be designed to not only trap unwary cyclists, but also sacrifice befuddled pedestrians and unwitting, wide-eyed school children directly to the gods of the speeding motor vehicle. We await further developments of this sadistic urban planners wet dream, with very faint hope that it will eventually metamorphose into a sensible and safe means of negotiating the insatiable traffic.

The planned tribal cannibals have yet to be installed in the Great North Road Cyclemaze, but planners are confident they will be the final solution to ensuring that none who enters can escape.

I did my stint on the front pretty much from the start, and just for the benefit of those who have accused me of exaggerating my own efforts on these rides it’s worth noting that this was almost exclusively uphill, through a full-on, unrelenting headwind and at a pace that touched the terminal speeds of our typical late café sprint.

Meanwhile, in an alternative universe and much closer to reality, Crazy Legs drew my attention to the incessant chatter, guffaws of laughter and nonchalant whistling drifting continuously up from the bunch behind us – a sure-fire sign that despite my breathless toiling into the fierce headwind, no one else was having to work remotely hard enough behind me. Admitting defeat I swung over and let someone else have a go at a bit of ceaseless self-flagellation.

Well into the ride, we swooped down into the Tyne Valley like a pack of rampaging Huns, disrupting the genteel Saturday morning routines of the sleepy villages, only to disappear in a whirr of spinning freewheels and buzz of jabbering babble (or babbling jabber, depending on if we were approaching or passing) – escaping long before the watch beacons could be lit and church bells rung in warning.

Climbing back out of the valley brought us to the A69 dual carriageway, loaded with speeding cars and lorries, and giving us the opportunity to play real-life Frogger. (For those of us yet to reach pubescence, Frogger is a classic arcade game, a bit like Crossy Road but, way cooler, with better graphics, more engaging gameplay and not burdened by having an infantile name that a Nursery Class might discern as being a little too unsophisticated – even for them.)

frogger — Crossing the A69 – Frogger-style.

Having, eventually crossed the dual-carriageway safely we climbed, then climbed some more, on single-track roads with crumbling surfaces until finally escaping the valley. More miles rolled past, until we hit one of our usual routes and everyone got strung out on the Quarry climb.

At the top we turned right, straight into a fierce headwind, with no chance for recovery. The pace picked up as we burned for the café, then were whipped along by a tailwind at a pace so high it even precluded the Red Max’s traditional, Forlorn Hope attack.

In the final miles I pressed on somewhat distanced from the front group and unable to close the gap, pulling a string of other riders behind me. Easing and sitting up to take the twisting bends was a relief and a chance to catch my breath before rolling into the café.

A totally relaxed run from the café and shortened ride all around got me home in good time to head off on the family holiday. Mission accomplished.

YTD Totals: 3,661km/ 2,275 miles with 40,544 metres of climbing.

The pipes, the pipes were calling …

Club Run, 11^th July, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 113km/70 miles with 1,045 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 19 minutes

Group size: 29 riders at the start. 1 FNG.

Weather in a word or two: Good.

Main topic of conversation at the start: The BFG was out on his wooden rims again and gave us a brief description of his intensive wheel care regime which includes liberal applications of linseed oil using the fresh fleece of a newly slaughtered lamb, an act that can only be conducted after dancing naked around the shed counter-clockwise three times when Mars is in the ascendant. Lovely though they look, I can’t help thinking there’s a reason wooden rims haven’t really caught on.

BFG insisted the linseed oil burns off under braking, producing a lovely aromatic scent. Hmm, well I suppose it could explain the strange odour that wafts around in his wake.

OGL turned up in fabulously baggy shorts on a Mountain Bike that (according to him) wasn’t actually a Mountain Bike. We disowned him anyway, just out of principle. Apparently he was off to some club function so wouldn’t be joining us on the ride. Oh yes, we were off the leash…

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Apparently orange socks are now the de rigueur match with our club jerseys and have helped our racers gain something of an, ahem, “bad ass” reputation. As a dyed in the wool traditionalist and all-round curmudgeon I’m of course horrified that anyone would even consider wearing anything other than white socks, so yet another trend is (thankfully in this case) almost certain to pass me by.

The Prof, who had proudly managed to control in his insistent urinary urges for once, related how he felt ostracised from the club for having the audacity to turn up wearing white shoes, but unless he was talking about a period pre-1980 when white shoes were a rarity and the sign of a spiv, I think he must have simply misunderstood. Maybe it had more to do with his bike? Or him?

There then followed a seemingly endless litany of all the recent racing crashes, with consequences both painful and eye-wateringly expensive. The conclusion from this seemed to be if you’re going to race don’t use your best bike!

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

With a complete free rein we agreed to head off and tackle a somewhat longer, hillier ride across a route we hadn’t travelled for well over a year, enjoying the most of our temporary freedom and some surprisingly good weather. I shouldn’t be surprised, it is July after all, but I couldn’t help feeling profoundly lucky.

Route decided and under the joint leadership of Crazy Legs and G-Dawg we pushed off, clipped in and set out. Most of us even managed to avoid getting lured into the Great North Road Cyclemaze, which continues to mutate and become ever more dangerous and baffling to the unwary with each passing week.

The pace was good, the weather better and the ride very convivial as we pushed out into the countryside, whirring along in a surprisingly ordered bunch.

As we dropped down into the Wansbeck valley I was riding along chatting with Crazy Legs when our ears were assaulted by the unmistakable sound of bagpipes droning lustily from a house in the middle of nowhere. (Mind you, if you are going to play the bagpipes it probably makes sense to first find a house in the middle of nowhere.)

Once we were assured the Scottish Nationalist Party hadn’t resurrected the Border Reivers and had managed to calm the nationalistic proclivities and dancing hearts of our adopted Scottish brethren, we were able to push on. They’d caused enough excitement for the day anyway, simply by having one of their number unveil possibly the whitest legs that have ever existed this side of an over-worked albino wool fuller with vitiligo.

No, I don't understand it either. — No, I don’t understand it either.

The next, very abrupt right-hand turn robbed us of all momentum and dumped us at the bottom of what is colourfully (if rather fancifully) described on Strava as the Mur de Mitford, a short, brutal climb, that begins immediately after the turn and will always catch out the unwary. Remembering my own travails with the hill which include rounding the corner in the big ring and having to grind up in agonisingly slow-motion with my knees threatening to explode in a welter of blood and gristle, as well as one time pulling my cleats clean out of the pedals and collapsing in a whimpering heap at the side of the road, I dropped onto the inner ring in anticipation.

wile-e-coyote-e1330462601163 — The first law of cartoon physics: gravity doesn’t work until you look down.

As soon as we hit the climb the surprised, the less prepared and the usual gravity-hating pluggers began to lose momentum and wallow across the road in disorder. Crazy Legs darted up the outside and as I tried to follow I was pressed into the gutter by the wobblers and my rear wheel began to slip furiously on the dead leaves, collected gravel and other detritus there. Remembering the first law of cartoon physics (gravity doesn’t work until you look down) I refused to acknowledge there was a problem, and after what seemed an agonisingly drawn out moment of teetering on the brink, the tyre finally bit and I was catapulted unsteadily out of the pack to chase Crazy Legs and G-Dawg over the crest.

A long drive into the wind was followed by more climbing as we dragged ourselves through the Trench and then up and along to Rothley Crossroads. As the road tipped down on the run up to Middleton Bank I started to drift towards the back of the group to pace myself up the steeper bottom ramps of the climb. Clearing these I clicked down and started picking up the pace, passing other riders as the incline eased, I built momentum as I closed on G-Dawg toward the top.

A small group reformed after the climb and started the long chase to try and reel in a few flyers. I sat on the front and pulled until the inevitable Forlorn Hope attack from the Red Max whistled past and the pursuit strung everyone out.

I used the rolling climb out from Milestone Wood to close the gap and pull level with the leaders as the Red Max faded, but in a rare show of strength Bandana was up there, obviously feeling frisky and sensibly not giving up any wheels for me to slot in. For a while I rode along hanging out and exposed to the wind before easing up and drifting back to drop in behind Goose as we rounded the corner onto the last series of climbs to the café.

With Cowin’ Bovril dying horribly ahead of us I let Goose pull me around him, and then shamelessly mugged him on the last rise in time to see the distant final sprint with Crazy Legs claiming a rare victory over G-Dawg.

Tired, dripping with sweat and strangely euphoric we bundled breathlessly into the café en masse. Captain Black was then accosted by a grey-haired shrew who complained that we were far too happy, too loud, much too healthy and had rudely interrupted her exquisitely civilised little tea party. Seriously? What a miserable old harridan. Needless to say the Captain just shrugged and didn’t feel any great need to pass the message on, or do anything to dampen our high spirits. It’s probably just as well as we’d only have got louder.

Boisterous horseplay in the cafe. — Boisterous horseplay at the cafe.

Somehow we ended up with greater numbers coming back from the café than had set out, and as the front group forced the pace and split the group apart I hung back for a more restrained ride until my turn-off, when I struck out alone for home.

Until next week…

YTD Totals: 3,518km/ 2,186 miles with 39,024 metres of climbing.

TWOCing ‘copters and the consternation of choice …

Club Run, 4^th July, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 100km/62 miles with 831 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 3 hours 58 minutes

Group size: 22 including the kids. No FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Meh.

Main topic of conversation at the start: I was disappointed to learn that the Newcastle Chilli Festival wasn’t a chance for all the chilli growers in the North East to exhibit their prize winning peppers and compete against each other for “Best in Class”. Apparently it’s nowhere close to being quite as dull as a modern take on the traditional Leek Show.

With the Tour de France starting and already concerns about the Astana team, it wasn’t long before the conversation turned to le dopage in the peloton. I recounted Michel Pollentier’s legendary failed dope test at l’Alpe d’Huez – when he was told the good news was his sample was clean, but the bad news was that he was pregnant. Always worth a chuckle.

A quick discussion concluded that probably 99% of bike frames were made in Taiwan. A quick check of bikes found some are quite open about this, with “Made in Taiwan” proudly stencilled on the frame, others played with weasel-words, declaring things like; “designed in Germany,” but leaving the actual provenance of manufacture reassuringly vague.

“They’re all made in the same factory in Taiwan!” is the kind of argument OGL all too regularly screeches to disparage just about anything that doesn’t come from his own shop. Then again, where would you prefer your bike was manufactured – in an ultra-modern, high volume, hyper-controlled, computerised factory in the Far East, or in a back-street workshop in Rotherhide by some surly, anonymous, chain-smoking British bloke called Dave, with a CSE in Woodwork, home-made tattoos and an on-going battle with last night’s hangover? Just a thought.

“What kind of bike’s that anyway?” One of the youngsters then asked, with a vague nod of his head in the general direction of, well just about everyone. I did a quick double-take, looking all around in bewilderment as I tried to spot some stealthy, un-badged, über-bike. Finally it dawned on me he meant Reg. I’m not usually so slow on the uptake, but was rather puzzled by the question as my bike has “Holdsworth” emblazoned on it in big, bold, gaudy letters in at least a dozen places. We finally realised he simply hadn’t heard of Holdsworth, or their venerated and rich heritage within British Cycling. #Sigh# The youth of today.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: OGL gleefully recounted several methods for beating dope tests, the majority of which seemed to involve shoving something up your anal canal. Curiously he wasn’t forthcoming about his own personal history with doping control. He then recounted Michel Pollentier’s legendary failed dope test at l’Alpe d’Huez -when he was told the good news was his sample was clean, but the bad news was … yeah, ok, you’ve got it.

We discussed the potential for holding a race along the route of one of OGL’s magical mystery tours: down farm tracks, through gates and across cattle grids, while carefully negotiating flocks of sheep, herds of cows and their assorted effluvia. On paper the tactical nuances sounded compelling, with the breakaway hurrying to get through and close a gate before the peloton arrives. Much like fighting for position on the pavé, everyone would have to scramble to ensure they weren’t the last through and be held responsible for stopping and closing the gate behind them.

G-Dawg then recounted how he once bunny-hopped a cattle grid on his fixie, but foolishly forgot to pedal in mid-air, enduring a turbo-charged kick up the backside on landing.

The Waffle:

The forecasts all predicted heavy, thundery rain in the early morning, followed by increasing brightness that would finally morph into all-round fabulous summer weather. Yeah, right.

Sure enough I woke to a heavy downpour that sounded like an army of clog wearing ants vigorously enacting River Dance across our roof, and found myself almost paralysed by the consternation of choice: the decision between winter bike with mudguards or best bike was bad enough without having to consider all the clothing options for what promised to be a very changeable day. Having just “blinged up” Reg with new wheels and tyres however I was anxious to give them a whirl no matter what the conditions, so style won out over sense. (When was it ever a fair contest?)

I then eventually settled on arm warmers and waterproof jacket (bizarrely often referred to as a racing cape in cycling parlance, as if we’re all wannabe-super heroes), over my usual jersey and shorts, mistakenly leaving behind a pair of waterproof overshoes so by the time I’d reached the rendezvous point my once pristine, white socks were a very grimy shade of grey and I was in danger of developing a bad case of trench foot.

I arrived to find a smattering of winter bikes in amongst all the high gloss carbon, and a wide range of different clothing choices that reflected the same levels of indecision and uncertainty that I had felt.

The kids were out too for their monthly ride on the roads, including The Red Max and Monkey Butler, fresh from conquering the Cyclone. The Monkey Butler was complaining vigorously that his brake blocks were catching and to illustrate the point lifted up his front wheel and gave it a quick spin. It managed about a quarter of a slow-motion revolution before stuttering to a stop. Red Max tried to convince him such small impediments were character building and it would help him grow stronger, but finally relented to peer pressure and adjusted the brakes.

The Prof then declared he was ready to ride and already in need of a wee stop! With that as impetus 12 brave lads (no lasses) and a handful of kids pushed off, clipped in and set out into warm humid air and an all pervading drizzle.

With the choice of either shipping the jacket and getting soaked from the outside-in, or keeping it on, boiling and getting soaked from the inside-out, I went with the latter and stowed the waterproof.

Needless to say there was no right choice as the weather swung from utterly minging to barely passable and back again and we were constantly riding through an unrelenting, muggy and misty drizzle.

We once agian endured the dangers and depredations of the Great North Road Cyclemaze, emerging victorious (if bemused) like an all-conquering Theseus who’s a bit slow on the uptake. We split from the kids who went their own merry way shortly afterwards and we became a rather compact Dirty Dozen.

In between him calling for more wee stops than a dog with an irritable bladder in an ice-field full of lampposts, I fell into a rather bizarre philosophical conversation with the Prof about whether the Samurai Bushido code was actually a religion, if Catholicism was founded on guilt, all Protestants were unhappy and how you knew when you’d actually learned something. [???]. I’m still bewildered.

If The Prof. had his way there'd be a lot more of this. — If The Prof. had his way there’d be a lot more of this.

With such a small group we didn’t split as usual, although beZ flew off early to top-off his ride with another 100 miles or so. I was having one of those days where the pedals were floating round seemingly of their own volition and quickly romped to the top of the Quarry Climb.

As we pushed on toward the café though my rear cassette started to sound like a bag of ball-bearings in a tumble drier. At this point I vaguely recalled tightening the locking ring on the cassette by hand with the intention of taking the tool to it before slapping the new wheels onto the bike. I had then completely forgotten to do this and over the course of the ride the whole thing had worked itself loose. Oops. Idiot.

Medre! Some imbecile has forgotten to tighten the locking ring. — Merde! Some imbecile has forgotten to tighten the locking ring.

I dropped away from the lead group, more embarrassed by the awful jangling clatter than suffering any serious mechanical impediment, and so missed Taffy Steve claiming second place in the race to the café, only beaten by all-round Racing Snake and Pierre Rolland lookalike, Spry.

Finally, sometime in that jingle-jangle morning, I rolled into the café suitably sur la jante.

The guy who rode the Cyclone on a Raleigh Chopper pulled in as I was jury rigging my cassette with the edge of a multi-tool, hoping it would suffice to get me home with some semblance of quietude. I had a chat with him and he moaned that the rain had forced him to leave the Chopper in the garage, explaining that the stainless steel wheel rims make braking a bit of a lottery in the wet!

Once I split from the club on the way home I found I was being stalked by a Police helicopter that seemed to parallel my route. This always gives me a sense of trepidation as over-active imagination thinks they’re pursuing some TWOCing bastard in a stolen hot-hatch who isn’t going to see a skinny bloke on a plastic bike as much of an impediment to his escape.

Luckily our paths didn’t cross and they buzzed away as I turned for the climb up Heinous Hill and home. Finally, as I rounded the last hairpin the sun burst out in full, glorious splendour, the beautiful summer’s day the forecast had promised. Ah well, only 4 hours too late.

Until next week…

YTD Totals: 3,346km/ 2,079 miles with 37,158 metres of climbing.

[Footnote: as the superb* “Alpe d’Huez: The Story of Pro Cycling’s Greatest Climb” by Peter Cossins and many other sources make clear, the story of Pollentier’s failed dope test is completely apocryphal and totally untrue. He was actually caught trying to use some Byzantine apparatus to deliver a clean sample of urine from a bulb under his arm and was eventually left to produce his own, much tainted sample au naturel.]

[* Footnote to the footnote: I have to admit to total bias as the book’s centrepiece is the battle between Joop Zoetemelk and fabulous Lucien van Impe during the latter’s glorious Tour win in 1976.]

Stems, scrotums and the melancholy winking dog ride…

Club Run, 27^th June, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 104km/65 miles with 1,047 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 0 minutes

Group size: 33 including at least 4 FNG’s.

Weather in a word or two: Almost perfect.

Main topic of conversation at the start: Every rider who normally turns up early (i.e. on time) made a point of checking their watches in stunned disbelief as they rode in to find a sizeable crowd of fellow cyclists already gathered and waiting for the off. Before 9.00! Good weather does strange things to people. The majority were even willing to risk their ultra-posh, water-soluble good bikes on what promised to be an exceedingly pleasant day.

OGL spotted an old Cinelli stem on BFG’s new/vintage bike(?) and cheerfully recounted how he had ripped open his scrotum on one during a crash at a track meet. Needless to say that’s one set of scars no one wants to see during the next “show us yours” bragging contest.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: The continuing, philosophical elucidation of the circumstances in which a dog is prone to winking, or smiling, and its propensity to do so, often believed to occur in direct correlation to its need to conduct intensive self-ablutions of a most intimate nature.

The revelation that the world can be divided into those who’ve ever listened to Pink Floyd and those ageing, but still heroic, punk-inspired brethren who feel their soul would just shrivel up and die if they thought a copy of Dark Side of the Moon had ever crossed the threshold into the purest sanctity of their homes.

Remembering laughably bad Top Gear/Dad- rock as epitomised by Toto, REO Speedwagon, Boston, Europe, Foreigner, Journey, Styx, Heart, Berlin. (Shudder).

[The ensuing, Berlin inspired Top Gun verdict was a unanimous whitewash – the Grumman F14 Tomcat: 6, Miss Kelly McGilliss: Nil]

The awkwardness of being mercilessly pwned and ending up as an ultra-embarrassing impediment to your own children, while trying to co-op their favourite online FPS’s.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

33 brave lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and set out in perfect weather, warm temperatures, high broken clouds and plenty of sunshine, only occasionally marred by a sometimes challenging breeze. Once again we carefully negotiated the labyrinthine, Heath Robinson death-traps of the new, Great North Road Cycle Way, where Taffy Steve amused himself by twanging the “Rommelspargel” candy-striped poles, to see if he could get them to bang together like some immense Newton’s Cradle.

Having successfully emerged unscathed from our very own version of Yungas Road, I thought we were in the clear when directly in front of me one of Cowin’ Bovril’s tyres detonated with a sound like a Paveway bomb exploding. Luckily I don’t wear a heart monitor as I think the resulting spike might have frazzled it for good.

“Hmm, I suspect someone may have punctured.” Another Engine stated dryly, coasting nonchalantly past.

For some reason the rest of us then felt the need to ride another quarter of a mile to the overpass before stopping to wait for Cowin’ Bovril to repair the damage and catch up. Oh well, at least we got to watch the cars pile past as we languished in their therapeutic exhaust fumes.

Out into the country and more open roads we sped, with a regular rotation of riders at the front as the wind was proving somewhat more of an impediment than expected. I caught up with The Red Max who declared he was having un jour sans. The consensus then seemed to be his Forlorn Hope effort would likely be restricted to a 3 mile instead of 5 mile sprint.

We were well into the ride proper when warning shouts of “runner” floated up from the front, closely followed by “dog”. Sure enough, as we all moved to the left of the road a girl jogged lithely past on the right. I looked up, empty road. Looked again, still empty. Finally, and trailing her by about 200 yards, her dog (I assumed it was hers, and not just crazy bad at stalking) lolloped past, almost tripping over its own tongue and panting like the soundtrack to a bad 70’s porn film.

Crazy Legs seemed surprised the dog hadn’t attacked him on sight (I think he feels he’s irresistible to all mammals,) but I countered that the dog was happy and appeared to be smiling at him. This led to a rather long and convoluted discussion of whether dogs can actually smile. Or wink. A discussion we carried on throughout the café stop, much to the bafflement and bemusement of everyone else around us.

The group split, with the amblers being promised one of OGL’s magical mystery tours down farm tracks, through gates and across cattle grids, while carefully negotiating flocks of sheep, herds of cows and their assorted effluvia.

The longer ride hadn’t gone far when we were halted by another puncture, poised at the foot of Middleton Bank, and I found myself at the back as we finally got rolling again and began the climb. It was from this vantage point that I first noticed one of our FNG’s, a Dapper Dan in perfectly fitting, laurel green Café du Cyclist jersey, simple black shorts, retro looking shoes and the most outrageous long socks. He just utterly nailed the look as if he’d been born to it, oozing class and effortless style, and even managing to carry off the socks. The bastard. To cap it all he then capered effortlessly up the climb, and I watched the gap between us slowly widening, even as I was slipping past a long stream of grunting gutter pigs dragging themselves up the outer edge of the road.

One of Dapper Dan's spiritual forebears — One of Dapper Dan’s spiritual forebears

There was a general regrouping as we hammered our way on toward the café, then Crazy Legs kicked up the pace even more and strung everyone out with a massive pull on the front. We hurtled through a road junction, whipping past the amblers who were just emerging wide-eyed and shell-shocked, but otherwise unscathed from their journey into the darkest rural-wilds.

Our group carried its speed through a left and then right switchback before hitting a couple of short, sharp ramps. The Red Max roared up the first, but then sputtered and died as the second incline bit. Having been the first to jump onto his wheel, I swooped around him with a despairing “Noooooo!” and found myself out in front much too early for either my own self-preservation or carefully cultivated wheel-sucking tendencies. (Well, he did warn me he was having a bad day).

With nowhere to hide I kept going, surging over the crest to pelt full-gas down the descent onto the final climb. As we rounded the dog-leg onto the last series of dips and rises G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg zipped away engaged in their own private battle. A bit further on and Dapper Dan whirred past, and then … nothing … no one else was challenging. I think at this point Shouty was comfortably camped on my rear wheel, but for whatever reason she took pity on an old man and stayed there as we pushed on to the café.

With the amblers still trailing someway behind we had were able to nab first place in the queue and we were on to our refills before they eventually rolled in. An incident free run for home then capped a hugely enjoyable ride.

Until next week…

YTD Totals: 3,189km/ 1,981 miles with 35,422 metres of climbing.

Puttin’ on the Ritz…

Virgin Money Cyclone Challenge – Ride B, 20^th June, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 137km/85 miles with 1,590 metres of climbing

Cyclone Ride: 103km/64 miles with 1,217 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 5 hours 19 minutes

Cyclone Time: 3 hours 41 minutes

Group size: 7 of us enjoying ourselves amidst 1,600 happy cyclists.

Weather in a word or two: Cool. Light rain.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

The Cyclone Weekend (or to give it its full name the Virgin Money Cyclone Festival of Cycling) marks about the only time of the year when we take a break from our regular weekend club runs. Most of our riders participate in one or other of the Saturday rides, and the club organise and marshal the elite riders the following day when the women’s Curlew Cup and men’s Beaumont Trophy serve the pro teams as a warm up for next week’s National Championship.

This was my 6th Cyclone in succession; although slightly different as for the first time as I decided to ride to and from the event.

It was distinctly cool at the start where we hung around shooting the breeze and hoping everyone was going to show on time. Just as a matter of principle we managed to see and then lose around half a dozen club mates, including a few who disappeared into the darkened bowels of the rugby stadium to sign on, never to emerge.

By a minor miracle eight of us managed to stick together long enough to reach the start line as a group. I was surprised to see one of our up and coming, super-fast and immeasurably strong youngsters Bez hanging around at the start as only the 100 mile route could in any way be deemed remotely a challenge for him. He explained that he wasn’t allowed to ride the longer route as he wasn’t old enough. I assume this is either some stipulation in the event’s insurance, or a more plausible explanation is that it’s something his dad, The Prof, fabricated so he didn’t have to ride with his son and get his ass royally kicked. Again.

Bez did have the consolation of hearing one wide-eyed youngster declare that he had “the coolest bike ever seen” before we rolled over the start line and he roared off into the drizzle, presumably to complete the circuit twice over, lap everyone and prove a point.

We were then left as a compact group of G-Dawg, The Red Max and his Monkey Butler son, Sneaky Pete, Taffy Steve and Tri-Boy, another super strong, super-talented youngster.
At the first, completely innocuous corner we watched one rider in front skid out and slide helplessly across the road. He sat up immediately with seemingly nothing damaged except his pride, but it was a decent reminder we were amongst some fairly sketchy riders and road weavers, with all the reflexes and co-ordination of narcoleptic sloths on diazepam.

I'm constantly amazed by what you can find on the Internet, but who would have though "sloths on bikes" would return so many hits! — I’m constantly amazed by what you can find on the Internet, but who would have thought “sloths on bikes” would return so many hits. What’s wrong with you people?

Having started relatively late there was already a constant stream of amblers and gamblers to negotiate, of all ages, shapes and sizes and on all sorts of bikes; fantastically niche super-expensive, all singing, all dancing, all carbon stealth machines painstakingly crafted by blind Italian artisans, steel vintage road bikes, mountain bikes, city bikes, hybrid bikes, a Raleigh Chopper (a Raleigh Chopper!), tandems and everything in-between. Special mention has to go to the guy on the hand-bike, a truly impressive feat and an utterly brutal exercise to haul himself over all the hills.

The first ramps leading to the climb to the feed station at Nunnykirk saw the Monkey Butler Boy, pushing hard to try and hang onto the wheels. This was his first step up to the bigger league of the B Ride having graduated from the 33 mile ride with flying colours. Having completed the Coast-to-Coast I didn’t think the distance was going to be a problem but the pace was likely to see him blow. Sense prevailed (presumably a first for The Red Max?) and they dropped back to continue in what I assume was a slightly less frenetic manner.

It was on the climb proper up to the Nunnykirk feed-station that we saw the first of the Walking Dead, stumbling and sliding as the gradient got the better of them and clambered off to push their bike uphill. This is never a good sign as the route climbs rather unremittingly upwards from this point on. For G-Dawg this hill was also something of a personal epiphany as he remembered his bike did actually come supplied with an inner ring, and luckily it hadn’t atrophied, withered and dropped-off from lack of use. Truth be told I would have been amazed hadn’t worked as its pretty much still in newly-forged, factory fresh and pristine condition, having had little to no use.

G-Dawg demonstrating his gearing choices. — G-Dawg demonstrating his usual gearing choices.

We stopped for a while to re-fill bottles and catch up with a few familiar faces at the feed station, although Sneaky Pete took a flyer with an airy wave of his hand and a promise to “regroup” further down the road.

I quite enjoy the next section climbing up to Rothley Lakes and beyond, it’s a series of long, drags and sharp descents, but the gradient is never too challenging and if you can get the right rhythm you can pretty much sit and spin away. Feeling good I stalked G-Dawg all the way up the climbs, running just on the inside of the white line on the road as we slid past a long line of strugglers and stragglers.

We were down to two at this point, but finally caught up with Sneaky Pete ambling along and whistling nonchalantly, and we put in another good few miles as a group before I dropped off with a pressing need to irrigate the landscape. Greatly relieved and at least half a kilo lighter I set of in pursuit of the other two.

We hit the rollers before the signature climb of the Ryals, and like a raft bobbing along, lost on the ocean, every time the road reared up ahead of me I caught a tantalising glimpse G-Dawg and Sneaky Pete dropping over the next crest as I tried to close on them.

I took the opportunity add some fuel to the furnace and tried cramming down an energy bar – deviously composed of two parts cardboard to one part silica gel. This immediately sucked all the moisture out of my body and left me with a bad case of cotton wool mouth. I was still struggling to chew and swallow this miraculously expanding, jagged mass of chemically enhanced, artificial protein as I approached the climb.

The Ryals appear like a vertical wall rearing straight upward. Although they feature in Simon Warrens Another 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs, they look much harder than they actually are, and I suspect their fearsome reputation is built around elite races which hurtle up them multiple times to shred legs and cause the maximum amount of pain.

Despite this they will always hurt after the preceding miles of climbing have effectively softened you up and sapped your strength like a flurry of well-placed body blows. The road briefly hits around 20% before levelling and then climbing again, and while the first ramp is quite short, it’s undeniably steep.

I passed a guy with improbable orange-brown legs (##cough## fake tan) at the foot of the Ryals, and started the grind up. He passed inside me wheezing like a train with a broken boiler. As the road levelled I caught and passed Sneaky Pete and we exchanged a few perfunctory words about the dubious parentage of the climb. I then hit the second ramp and cranked it up. Out of the saddle with my front wheel skipping and snaking wildly like the death throes of a decapitated sidewinder, I zipped past Tan Legs and burst through a bunch of startled photographers carefully positioned to catch the agonising grind and toil and suffering of cyclists on the hill.

It will be interesting to see if any of them managed to catch my surprise at suddenly finding myself at the top, or the moment when the pain signals finally reached my brain and convinced it my shin bones had been swapped out for red-hot pokers.

[I so wanted to say I danced, or waltzed up the climb, and that was certainly the image in my mind. In reality it was probably more like the plodding, uncoordinated dance number of Young Frankenstein’s monster. “Burttin’ pondah Wrutzz!!!”]

Puttin' on the Ritz — Puttin’ on the Ritz

Pushing over the top I rolled it onto the big ring and clicked down until I could click no more. Hands on the drops, head down I set off in pursuit of G-Dawg, finally catching up a few miles beyond the climb. A few miles further Sneaky Pete sneaked up on us, sacrificing himself to ride on the front for a short while before finally dropping away.

On the final run in and as we skirted a roundabout alongside another bunch of riders we were almost ploughed into by a texting driver who received a full verbal and graphically suggestive broadside– how she managed to look indignant instead of sheepishly embarrassed I’ll never know. “Typical,” drawled G-Dawg laconically, “60 miles without incident, and we’re nearly killed a few mile from the finish” – before clicking up a gear and lighting the afterburners for home.

With a decent time tucked into my goody bag I set out for home, passing a fellow rider who was struggling with a modest incline, obviously heavily weighed down by his Cyclone swag. I remarked his legs looked tired but he just quipped he was on a pre-programmed warm down. I like it, and yes, I will be using it as an excuse in future.

By the time I past the slowly decaying hedgehog on Heinous Hill for the 4th time that week I knew I was almost home and hosed, and another ride ticked off.

I trust normal service may be resumed next week…

YTD Totals: 3,023km/ 1,878 miles with 33,599 metres of climbing.

Helmet-head and riding the thin line between the cycle paths and the psychopaths …

Club Run – Weekend of 13^th to 14^th of June, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 112.7km/70.0 miles with 1,015 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 14 minutes

Group size: 32 cyclists at the start. 1 (returning!) FNG.

Weather in a word or two: Surprising.

Main topic of conversation at the start: The emerging new sport of eBay style sniping Cyclone Sportive entries to see just how close to the deadline we can get – perhaps an evil, but seemingly uncoordinated plan to give OGL conniptions that no one from the club is going to ride? Queries, (and I’m not sure if these were related), about how long it takes to wear out East European wives and whatever happened to the Tuxedo Princess. The Tuxedo Princess was a seedy nightclub entombed in the rusting bowels of a ship that even the most heartless Libyan people-smuggler would think twice about using. Much like Mos Eisley spaceport, or even my old school you would be hard-pressed to “find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

Note: I was once roundly castigated for comparing my old school to Mos Eisley spaceport, and strangely enough not by those upstanding, fictional inter-stellar denizens. I will apologise in advance therefore for any offence caused.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Whether Sir Bradley Wiggins (OBE) will follow through on his threat promise to marshal one of the corners at the Beaumont Trophy road race next week. OGL’s continuing search for a pillion rider brave enough to serve as official timekeeper on the back of a motorbike. (If you want to apply you must provide your own helmet and chalkboard, we however should be able to find some chalk). We discussed if a pub blackboard would be an adequate substitute and possible consequences of inadvertently revealing this week’s dessert specials instead of the time back to the chasing bunch. This was followed by the horrible and shameful confession from The Red Max that he ordered the monkey-butler, slave-boy to “ease up” last week, and in the process destroyed many patient years of relentless parental programming. Finally, is helmet-head better or worse than helmet-hair?

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

When does a FNG become a full blood-brother of the club cycling fraternity? We obviously haven’t been making the new guys unwelcome enough, as one brave soul actually returned two weeks in a row. Our Ex-Ex-Pat, The Last Air Bender, reappeared having fully recovered from grinding in the wind, bonking and baptising himself in lukewarm coffee. If he keeps this up he may even earn a nickname. (Oh!)

Rather worryingly he was wearing a jersey from his previous club in New Yawk, sponsored by what I assume was their LBS, the “Montclair Bikery.” Bikery? Hmm, isn’t that where our Australian cousins buy their pastries? Begad sir! When will those uppity colonists stop mangling the Queen’s English, eh what?

Helmet-head or helmet hair – you decide which is worse

33 brave lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and set out into the maw of the brand, spanking-new Great North Road cycle path. This is a very narrow ribbon of tarmac designed solely to protect all the other rightful and righteous road-users from us pesky cyclists. To achieve this, the roadside edge is studded with a series of hefty rubberised tank traps the like of which haven’t been seen since Hitler’s panzers threatened these shores. Deviating even slightly from a straight line and clipping one of these protruberences is likely to catapult the unfortunate cyclist over the kerb and onto the pavement, where, lying dazed and bruised, he’ll be easy prey to packs of vengeful, marauding pedestrians. As if these obstacles weren’t enough, and in keeping with the WW2 theme, every so often along the perimeter someone has thoughtfully dotted some “Rommelspargel” cheerful, candy striped poles at just the right height to catch on your handlebars.

I’m all for providing sensible segregation for cyclists where it’s not substandard, but this narrow, fenced in canyon leaving no room for manoeuvre and nowhere to go if the path is blocked feels more dangerous than the open road.

Anyhow, out onto the actual open roads we sped, the weather proving to be much kinder than the forecast had suggested, with only the slightest hint of rain, sunny interludes between high broken cloud cover and the barest breath of wind. Absolutely perfect.

Things went smoothly until we split onto one of my least favourite routes, the draggy climb up to Rothley Crossroads, where I resolutely camped behind G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg’s wheels. I grimly hung there through the white-knuckle descent and scamper along to Middleton Bank, and was still there at the top of the climb. I’ve got no idea who else was with us at that point, I couldn’t hear because of the asthmatic death-rattle in my lungs and the blood pounding in my ears – and had absolutely zero interest in looking back to find out.

After a general regrouping I stayed on Son of G-Dawg’s wheel as The Red Max’s predictable “Forlorn Hope” attack went briefly clear, pulling a few other riders along. As the road climbed along with the pace, Son of G-Dawg started picking off the back-markers one by one. I refused to budge from his wheel, making sure any late attacks would have to come around us both, and if I’d had any breath to spare I might have been tempted to cackle maniacally in glee. Then Plumose Papuss put in a searing uphill attack, Son of G-Dawg accelerated in response and I was slowly disengaged and cast adrift to fall back to Earth like the spent, burned out stage of a Saturn V rocket. Still, I was far enough ahead of most of the group to roll in 6th (but who’s counting!)

Road rage (male) — Beware RIM encounters

The post-café run for home came replete with two Random Indignant Motorist (RIM) encounters. The first barrelling toward us down a narrow country lane in an over-sized pick-up truck, hogging fully two-thirds of the road and with absolutely no intention of stopping or even slowing. Given no time to single out I bumped up hard against the FNG and luckily we both stayed upright as the truck wing mirror whistled inches past my skull. Yikes! Incident number two came when a dozy bimbo overtook me, only to pull in sharply and then turn immediately left into a shopping centre car park causing me to haul hard on the brakes. Aargh! What was the point of that? I have to say, that although these are the incidents that stick in my mind there were many more motorists who pulled over and stopped, gave us plenty of room or waved us cheerfully through. One bad apple, and all that.

Until next week…

YTD Totals: 2,827km/ 1,757 miles with 31,088 metres of climbing.

Sur La Jante

The Chronicles, Confessions and Idle Musings of a Club Cyclist

Tag: club run

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