Expecting the Rain

Club Run, Saturday 21^st October, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 104 km / 65 miles with 1,114 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 19 minutes

Average Speed: 24.1 km/h

Group size: 20 riders

Temperature: 14°C

Weather in a word or two: Dry and windy

The Ride:

Early forecasts for this weekend promising wall-to-wall rain, encouraged a lively Facebook debate about mudguards, breaking winter bikes out of storage and making sure they’re fully prepped and ready for the club run and hard winter ahead. Someone even posted a very apposite illustration of fender zones, apparently the work of a Canadian designer and cyclists Jeff Werner:

fender zones — Especially for those of us with what I refer to as smug guards.

Yet again though, the weather was to play tricks on us, a band of rain sweeping across the country overnight, but disappearing with the dawn. We were left with wet roads, lots of mud and gravel and puddles to negotiate but, most importantly, a day when no more rain was going to fall on our heads. As I headed out I even noticed big gaps in the broken cloud cover, limned in light with the edges suffused in a rose-gold glow from the rising sun. This was a direct contrast to last week’s unremitting and suffocating blanket of grey and it actually promised to be a pleasant day.

The weather was also relatively mild, so after an initial shock and once I started to pedal with some intent, the windproof jersey, long sleeve base layer, gloves, tights and winter boots became only marginally appropriate.

Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:

I reached the meeting point to find the Garrulous Kid bounding between his brand-new (eh?) “winter-bike” and anyone who turned up, just so he could tell them he had a brand new winter bike.

In-between times he was fiddling around with the saddle, trying to get the position “just so” – or perhaps “just barely tolerable” – who knows?

“I’ve got a new bike,” he announced as Crazy Legs rolled up on his venerable winter fixie.

Crazy Legs looked across, semi-interested “It’s a Trek?”

“Yes.”

With sharp censorious exhalation, Crazy Legs shook his head in dismay, “Not much precision German engineering there, mind …”

As if to prove the point, the Garrulous Kid continued to wrestle with the saddle he seemed to be giving him all sorts of fits and conniptions.

Our group had a moment of silence to mark the demise of local bike shop, M. Steels Cycles after 120 years of operation, with OGL reporting that current owner and local cycling legend, Joe Waugh, has now lost not only his livelihood and pension nest-egg, but possibly the family home too. Grim times for bike shops he concluded, drawing parallels with the not-so-recent-now spate of pub closures and concluding that the entire business seemed to be struggling. I guess the moral of the story is to enjoy your LBS while you still can, I think they’re fighting a losing battle and can’t see how they possibly hope to compete with the convenience, vast choice and squeezed margins of the Internet.

G-Dawg started describing the route for today in fine detail, “So, Brunton Lane, through Dinnington, up past the Cheese Farm…” I saw Zardoz sidling closer with barely concealed intent.

“Tranwell … well, Tranwell Village not the Woods, up the Mur de Mitford for those with the legs and inclination … there’s a turn-off beforehand if you want to avoid the climb … “

Zardoz now had a mischievous glint in his eye and his moustache was twitching in anticipation.

“Pigdon, that climb that’s up the turn before the Trench, on to Dyke Neuk, then we’ll run a bit of the Cyclone route in reverse, Meldon, Whalton …”

Zardoz was now standing directly in front of G-Dawg, almost bursting with excitement.

“A right turn to Belsay and then a slightly different, uphill finish, into the village and on to the café,” G-Dawg concluded, drawing in a big breath.

Zardoz took just a second to compose himself and acquire a mask of guileless sincerity. “Oh, sorry, I wasn’t listening, could you repeat all that again?” he enquired innocently.

Meanwhile, someone finally took pity on the Garrulous Kid and helped him fix his saddle.

Off we went then, 20 lads and lasses, pushing off, clipping in and riding out in one big group.

I started out chatting with Crazy Legs, who was revelling in the ultra-smooth and silent ride delivered by his fixie. He was planning nothing more than a gentle roll around today, prior to jetting off to Spain avec velo for some winter warmth. He admitted to feeling run down and strangely listless, in need of a break and he’ll hopefully return more enthused – after all someone has to keep us entertained with off-kilter and off-key singing.

The sudden appearance of the Plank on the front of the group suggested we would need to be stopping for a pee soon – well to be fair to him, we had been riding for at least 15 minutes already. It was actually the Garrulous Kid though who called it, with an impeccable Blockbusters/Bob Holness impersonation, “Can I have a P please, Bob?” – even though he’s probably much too young to get the reference.

We pulled over at the top of Bell’s Hill, where the Garrulous Kid (“I’m always hungry!”) was soon seen devouring a pack of sports jelly beans which he declared, “has got electrolyte!”

I fell in beside him as we pushed on and was rather astounded to find out that not only do we have a club run in Kenya, but the Garrulous Kid is almost unique among cyclists because only he can do pull ups. Honestly, I don’t know where this stuff comes from.

Trying to steer the conversation onto slightly less fantastical and outlandish grounds, I enquired about his new Trek.

“When did you get your bike?”

“Tuesday night”

“What? Wait … so, you’ve had the bike for 3 days – say at least 84 hours and you didn’t think about making sure everything fits and is working, until 15 minutes before you’re due to use it on a club run.”

The range of lame excuses he then trotted out were astonishing … homework – (“You’re off school all of next week”) … a telephone call (“What, lasting 3 whole days?”) … I had to go to the gym (!!! speechless !!!) … “I needed an emergency pedicure.”

OK, he didn’t actually use that last one, but might as well have.

I told him he was a complete and utter pillock and I’d be laughing my socks off when his saddle collapsed half-way around the ride due to his hurried, gimcrack fixing and fiddling. The Garrulous Kid assured me it would never happen and besides, the Plank helped him secure the saddle the second time around – i.e. after the first time, when having finished and declared the job sorted, he merely brushed the top and it fell with the force and speed of a greased guillotine.

A bit further along and I caught up with Taffy Steve, who started telling me how the Garrulous Kid had got his new bike on Tuesday, but waited right up until Saturday morning to actually make sure it fitted and was road ready. When Taffy Steve called him out on it, the Garrulous Kid had then reportedly come up with all sorts of lame excuses as to why he didn’t have time to sort the bike out, leading Taffy Steve to conclude he was dealing with a complete and utter pillock.

Déjà vu all over again … or, groundhog day with bikes.

“I’ve just been having exactly the same conversation,” I told him.

Taffy Steve punched the air with delight, “Yeah! Grouches unite!”

“But still,” he warned, “I feel a great disturbance in the force …”

Crazy Legs and Brink slipped quietly away off the back as we pushed closer to the foot of the Mur de Mitford. Unlike G-Dawg, Crazy Legs had no intention of tackling this lump on his fixie today.

For some unknown reason I found myself pedalling along, whistling “Be kind to your web footed friends” – or if you want to be more formal (but much less fun) – The Stars and Stripes Forever.

“Have you taken over the mantle of unfailingly cheery, chirpy and chipper-chappie now Crazy Legs has left us?” Taffy Steve wondered.

Maybe …

We stopped again under the echoing, concrete viaduct that carried the thrumming, traffic laden, A1 Great North Road over our heads.

“Stopping!” G-Dawg called and I added a “Pping, ping, ing” for effect.

“Is everyone all right?”

“Right, ight ght…” I added.

“Ok, let’s go.”

“Go, go, oh!”

Sorry, childish I know, but I don’t get out much.

G-Dawg moved up to the front as we approached the Mur de Mitford, hoping to take the corner at speed and carry as much momentum onto the climb as possible. A lone cyclist had come down the hill and was stopped in the middle of the road at the bottom. He looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights as G-Dawg thundered toward him, wondering whether to stand his ground, push on, or just dive out of the way.

G-Dawg swooped inside the stationery cyclist and then jinked sharp left, as a descending car now appeared around the first bend. Robbed of speed he was now engaged in a battle royalé with his single massive gear, the gradient and gravity.

I spun up behind, following his slow-motion, measured flexing and making sure I left enough room in case he needed to zig and zag a little to keep the momentum going. He didn’t and with one final push he was over the summit of the hill and could relax. Well, as much as a fixie will allow you to relax.

As we pushed along the main road toward Netherwhitton a young buck came flailing past in the opposite direction.

“That’s one of the Monkey Butler Boy’s wrecking crew,” the Garrulous Kid informed me, “J.”

“What, first you want a P. and now you want a J? Do you think we’re playing hangman or something?”

“No, no. His name’s Jay – J-A-Y.”

I feigned incomprehension, which is probably at the point the Garrulous Kid decided he’d had enough of all the auld grouches for one day and declared he was taking his new bike off to test it on Middleton Bank.

Nobody thought to stop him and nobody thought to go with him, instead, the rest of us took the left before the Trench and started up the much more prosaically named, but we all agreed, seemingly tougher, Coldlaw Woods climb.

Working our way to Dyke Neuk we turned down the hill we usually scramble up, but any fun in the descent was lost when we had to slow for a horse and rider and allow another group of cyclists climbing upwards to ease past (the Tyneside Vagabonds club run, I think).

We then took a surprisingly sharp and leg-sapping climb up the “Meldon Massif” before Ovis (“oh, I’m going quite well at the moment, aren’t I?”) and Caracol ramped up the speed, encouraged by the faintest whiff of coffee and cake in the air. We arrived at the café via a road we seldom travel up, with no real sprint, just a general quickening of the pace that had everyone strung out and left us all overheated.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

G-Dawg wondered why it took so long for them to cut and serve a couple of slices of ham and egg pie and we decided they were probably using lasers, the like of which haven’t been seen since Goldfinger threatened to bisect James Bond with one. Like Goldfinger’s, we also assumed these lasers moved … i–n–c–r–e–d–b–l–y s–l–o–w–l–y … which is great in a film when you want to give the resourceful super-spy ample opportunity to escape, but not so good when you’re waiting for some ham and egg pie.

The Colossus was identified as the person with the most interest in odd, barely functional gadgets and most likely to have a laser pie cutter – an impression reinforced seconds later when he started to wax lyrical about pizza scissors – apparently a perfect, synergistic hybrid of cutter and server combined – and an absolute must for every middle-class home.

Reunited with us at the café, Crazy Legs complained it was actually too mild and wasn’t surprised we were all over-heating. It reminded him of the Christmas Jumper ride, where we’d suffered like fat Labradors left in a sun-blasted, parked car and we all learned that day that wool and synthetic yarns are no substitute for high-tech, high-performance sportswear.

Remembering last year’s elf costume, the Colossus promised something even better this year. Hopefully this isn’t going to be something that’s going to turn his saddle an unseemly shade of pink again. Even so, I’m a little bit worried that he’s already planning so far ahead.

Captain Black mentioned that Alfa Romeo had just released a new model called the Stelvio. My interest was momentarily piqued, until I learned that unlike the Holdsworth Stelvio, the car wasn’t available in an eye-wrenching combination of red, yellow and black. How disappointing.

And then the Garrulous Kid came in, having been picked up and escorted in by the early morning ride group. He shamelessly admitted he had, after all needed to stop, as his saddle had worked its way loose yet again.

So then, Auld Grouches 1, Garrulous Kid nil.

Talk of loose saddles reminded me of the I’d had to swerve around something lying supine in the middle of the road and been convinced I was going to hit some weird, hairless and defenceless mammal. This turned out to be the Prof’s saddle which he’d somehow managed to completely jettison while riding serenely along.

Someone asked casually if this was the same Prof who frequently build up his own bikes and whether such absent mindedness, or mechanical ineptness could ever be conducive to ride safety …

On the way back I noticed my chain started to grind and I found it was as dry as sticks. Looks like three days of commuting in the rain had washed out all the oil. Easily fixed, but it made for a truly unpleasant last few mile. The only sound from a bike I can imagine being worse is the grinding rasp of cruddy brake blocks eating through your wheel rims. Shudder.

I don’t know if it was the change to the heavier Peugeot, the pace and climbing of the ride, or accumulated fatigue from commuting, but I was utterly exhausted by the time I crawled up the Heinous Hill to home. Still, not bad for a first winter ride.

YTD Totals: 6,207 km / 3,857 miles with 70,748 metres of climbing

The House of Dying Flaggers

Club Run and Hill Climb, Saturday 14^th October, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 112 km / 70 miles with 703 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 42 minutes

Average Speed: 23.9 km/h

Group size: 28 riders

Temperature: 15°C

Weather in a word or two: Dank, damp, dark and diluvial

Anyone with any sort of connection to a British cycling club will realise we are in the midst of hill climb season, a peculiarly national, highly traditional affectation, that encourages even those of advanced years and who really, really should know better, to bodily hurl themselves at short, steep hills to see how fast they can be ridden up.

The fact that this hurts like hell, puts immense strain on your heart and lungs and leaves you jelly-legged and coughing, spluttering and wheezing like a 40-a-day-smoker for a week afterwards is, apparently, all part of the appeal. In fact, British hill climbs are such a fixed, established tradition that they have their own National Championship and this has even inspired a book, the truly excellent A Corinthian Endeavour by Paul Jones.

Jones suggests it is the brutal simplicity of the hill climb that makes it so compelling. In his words you “ride uphill until your eyeballs explode and the fastest time wins – the paradox is that such a savage and unkempt experience can be so life-affirming.” Hmm, life-affirming? I’m not so sure.

Still, despite Mr. Jones’ claims, I would suggest any of our Continental, Trans-Atlantic or Antipodean cousins stumbling across a hill climb, would probably back away quickly, shaking their heads at the eccentric, nay, certifiably insane excesses of the British cyclist.

This was to be my 7th participation in the futile endeavour that was our club confined Hill Climb and I’ve said I’ll stop as soon as I can no longer improve on the time I set the previous year. Each time I think that day is coming closer – I’m not getting any younger and I can’t think of anything equipment-wise I could buy that would make me demonstrably quicker (well, aside from the obvious PED’s, or hidden motors.)

Still, I cling to the fact that I’m a year older, a year nearer to retirement, a year nearer being fully licenced to wear Farah trousers and dress exclusively in beige. Something has to give, surely. So I was semi-hopeful this year would be the last, results would finally show a deterioration and I’d be free of the curse.

As the day started to loom I had a lot weighing on the plus side and had started to marshal a veritable cornucopia of excuses lined up in anticipation of failure (or, do I actually mean success?)

Preparation hadn’t been ideal – a lengthy knee injury has hampered me recently, although sadly it seems to have cleared, so I can’t use that as an excuse not participate. I’ve also been plagued with random, seemingly migratory abdominal pains and been extensively poked and prodded and pricked and sampled and trialled and tested by my GP – all to no avail. I’m a medical conundrum.

Along with seemingly most of the medical community, I’m still in the dark as to the cause and awaiting further scans. An ECG did however come back clean, robbing me of another potential excuse for not riding, but not to worry, I’ve plenty of others…

My fair-weather commuter bike of choice, my shingle-shpeed Trek (I’ve no idea why I need to pronounce it in my head like Schteve McClaren impersonating a Dutchman speaking English – perhaps I’ll just call it the Shrek from now on) has been out of action with a seized rear wheel, while my winter bike, the Pug (Peugeot) has also been laid up in the LBS with the rear mech and hanger inextricably fused together. This still worked after a fashion, but made removing and replacing the rear wheel a tricky, almost Herculean task, so needed fixing before the inevitable puncture on a cold and wet winter ride in the middle of nowhere.

All this meant I’d done far less commuting in the past fortnight than I would have liked, (or, to be more precise, exactly none) but as of last weekend both bikes have been restored to full working order.

I’ve been suffering with a heavy cold all week, but remembered the patented Crazy Legs cure, as he swears by trying to ride through them, so I’d managed to commute on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with this in mind. Halfway through and I was already imagining the ensuing conversation in my head:

Me: “I had a cold last week and remembered how you always try to ride through them, so thought I’d give it a go.”

Crazy Legs: “How did that work out for you, then?”

Me: “Just made me feel worse.”

Crazy Legs: “Yeah, it’s always the same for me…”

Oddly though, it does seem to have helped, or maybe the cold has just run its natural course regardless of what I was doing. Anyway, by the Saturday I was starting to feel on the mend, although still plagued by a head full of intractable, irradiated, green snot. On a positive note, it did stir up some nostalgia, reminding me of the thick, viscous Gloy gum we used to have at school.

I had planned to take it easy on the Friday, but encountered what may have been the vanguard to Hurricane Ophelia and couldn’t resist the strong, strangely warm tailwind that whipped me into a drag race, daring me to see just how fast I could actually ride in to work. The “easy” return in reverse, then became a solid grind into blustery, strong headwinds. (Not that gurning my way up the Heinous Hill on the shingle-shpeed Shrek can ever be considered especially easy.)

Still, the weather looked like being just about perfect for Saturday, warm and dry, so a lack of grip and traction wasn’t going to assist me to underachieve, the wind would be a non-factor and it wasn’t going to be cold enough stop my legs, muscles and lungs performing at their usual modest levels. With the forecast looking so benign and amenable, I planned to ride, instead of drive across to the meeting point and even allowed myself an extra quarter of an hour so I could arrive relatively fresh.

Saturday morning revealed the weather forecast had been nothing but a malicious fantasy, the sky was bleakly and uniformly grey beneath a low cloud base that leeched an intermittent, sifting, and drifting mist of cold rain. All the while the temperature just barely struggled into double figures.

On went a pair of arm warmers, on went the long fingered gloves and then I pulled on a rain jacket and, leaving it as late as possible, reluctantly left the warmth of the house.

The weather had cleared a little by the time I got to the meeting point about an hour later, but it still wasn’t warm enough to persuade me to shuck and stow the jacket.

Main topics of conversation at the start:

G-Dawg was waiting at the meeting point on his fixie, a deliberate choice to ensure that, no matter how tempted, he wouldn’t be able to participate in the hill climb for fear of blowing out his knees. Instead G-Dawg had volunteered to help out as holder and had co-opted Crazy Legs to help as official starter and timekeeper. With OGL handling timings at the finish at the top of the hill, we were all set.

The Monkey Butler Boy was obviously taking the whole thing very seriously and rolled up in his club skinsuit and brandishing magnetic number holders. I joked that they looked heavier than safety pins, but apparently not, as they are infinitesimally lighter and that’s before you even consider their more advanced aerodynamic properties. Allegedly.

The Red Max wandered behind the Monkey Butler Boys bike and returned smiling contentedly. The Monkey Butler Boy looked all around, fear and real concern in his eyes.

“What’s he done? What did he just do to my bike?” he demanded to know. Luckily his paranoia was quickly diverted when, to his everlasting shame and horror, he discovered a perfectly formed, chain-ring tattoo branded on his calf. Amateur.

He was then taken to task for seriously over-lubing his chain. In demonstration, like the pickiest ever contestant on 4-in-a-Bed, G-Dawg ran a finger along his own, gleaming, shining silver links and showed us the faintest trace of clean oil forming a slight snail-trail across the pad of his finger. Repeating the process with the Monkey Butler Boy’s chain his finger came back stained with a thick, grungy, greasy smear that he ostentatiously wiped off on the grass. And then returned to wipe some more, as the filthy black grunge proved surprisingly sticky and indelible.

The meeting place has sprouted a new bin that seems to have grown up organically, straight through the pavement. Being deeply conservative and suspicious of anything new, we kept a good distance and eyed it warily as we waited to leave – delaying until the last possible minute to ensure we captured a full contingent of hill climb victims participants.

I rode out with Biden Fecht, chatting about this and that, everything and nothing, as we picked our way up through Dinnington, before swinging left to head down into the Tyne Valley. This was to be the plucky fellers first hill climb and the usual gallows humour had already started to infect him. He confessed to thinking about staging an accident to avoid the hill climb, if only he could find a suitable grassy knoll. I made him promise to make sure he brought me down if he found the right opportunity.

We dropped down through Wylam and started skirting the river, all bundling into a parking area at the bottom of the climb to regroup and for everyone to pull on jackets as the intensity of the rain increased and started to bounce back off the tarmac.

We picked our way along the north bank of the river, while I had a chat with the Hammer about creeping paranoia and the fear of being a dissident. Or, at least I think that’s what we were discussing, he’ll probably deny it under oath.

We paused at Stocksfield to regroup again and I took the opportunity to ride out onto the bridge to look over the parapet at the river, flowing fast and high beneath us. We crossed into more rain and took to the wide, but fast and busy road up through Riding Mill toward Corbridge and our chosen scene of torture, Prospect Hill.

The group splintered on a couple of rises and I found myself chasing across the gap onto the Red Max’s wheel, sitting just off centre of his rear wheel and trying to find some shelter from the wind, while avoiding the arc of cold water his tyre was kicking up into my face.

A sharp left and we were there, joining a throng of happily babbling kids, our Go-Ride section, who all looked delighted to be riding up a steep hill in the cold and pouring rain.

“Have we started yet?” G-Dawg enquired, before remembering he was the actual starter and no one was going without his say-so.

I signed on and press-ganged Captain Black into slapping my number on my back, “any-which-way.” He was surprisingly adept at any-which-way and I was soon ready to start. Unfortunately, I think I was number 22 or so, with all the young kids setting off first so we could get them out of the cold and the rain as quickly as possible – although they seemed to be coping with the grim weather conditions much better than all us grumbling, auld gits – they were excited and happy and hyper and it was brilliant.

It could have been a lot worse, I think last year we probably had over 40 starters, but the weather had obviously put a damper on things and deterred a lot of participants. Still it meant I had 20 minutes or so to hang around and get progressively colder and damper.

We stood chatting aimlessly for a while, talking the usual nonsense. The Natty Gnat outlined his strategy, which included waiting until “he could see the line” before changing up and charging at it. I suggested if he could see the line, he was probably doing it all wrong and he amended his strategy to” sensing the line” through the red-haze of hypoxia and tunnel-vision of hurt.

I checked that Jimmy Mac our Consultant Vascular and Endovascular Surgeon was ahead of me in the start list and would be at the top and able to help the old feller in crisis who would come staggering up behind him. I then realised his services might be in high demand and in any triage situation I was unlikely to be a priority. I could feel his eyes already coldly appraising me, with a look that seemed to suggest, “this one’s too old, far too troublesome and not worth saving.”

Meanwhile firm-favourite to win, broad shouldered, Steven Kruijswijk look-alike, Eon discovered his Di2 had given up the ghost and he’d be essentially reduced to riding the hill in just a single gear. What to me would have been the perfect excuse to scrub the ride was just seen as an additional challenge to Eon, who considered and discarded the idea of borrowing someone else’s bike and decided he just needed to choose his one gear very, very carefully.

With ten minutes to go I went for a short spin to try and warm up a little. Then the bike and pockets were stripped of any extraneous weight and finally and very, very reluctantly I slipped out of my rain jacket and took my place in line behind a visibly shivering Colossus.

With just a long, last, blood-chilling glower at Crazy Legs, our official timekeeper for the day (as if this was all his fault!) the Colossus roared away and I was next up. I nudged up to the line and was clamped in place by G-Dawg on one side and another big bloke I didn’t recognise on the other. I was now locked in, rock-solid, unwavering and utterly motionless.

“Thirty seconds,” Crazy Legs informed me brightly.

I clipped in and paused.

“Hold on! I’ve changed my mind, I want to get off.”

I could feel the unknown bloke wavering, his grip loosened just a little. G-Dawg though was unmoveable, implacable and his hold unrelenting, there was no escape, I wasn’t going anywhere…

Crazy Legs then began a very fine impersonation of Ted Rodgers doing the 3-2-1 countdown, or maybe it was that Phones-4-U thing. Either way I’m not sure the UCI would have approved and his struggles would later find him practicing his manual dexterity in the café. In his defence, I have to say that both the double-digit and single-finger salute he greeted my gentle ribbing with were delivered with suitable aplomb and professionalism.

“5-4-3-2-1 – go, go, go!”

Shit! Shit! Shit! I was released, managed not to fall over and headed for the bottom of the first ramp, legs quickly whirring up to speed

I was determined not to bury myself too deeply on the first corner, despite the encouragement of a group of “cycling moms” who’d stayed behind to add their support to the senior riders with much shouting and the shaking of home-made rattles. Great stuff, thanks ladies.

I exited the first corner in good order, distractedly noting that at some point I’d actually managed to stop shivering. Unfortunately, I think I’d also been a little too relaxed and I wasn’t carrying enough momentum with me. The speed began to drop and I did what I usually do, leapt out of the saddle and tried to add a little oomph.

Nope, not happening, not today…

The rear wheel slipped and slid with no traction, the ground was much too wet and too greasy for a sudden application of power. Three times the wheel spun ineffectively as I teetered on the edge of disaster, before it finally bit and I was back in control and climbing upwards again.

Now I started to notice how bad the road actually was, the surface was rough, cracked and pitted with potholes, while the corners were strewn with dead leaves and gravel and, just outside a new construction site, liberally daubed with slippery mud.

I was now concentrating on trying to pick a clean line, while running my chain up the cassette, trying to find the right gear that would let me accelerate while staying rooted firmly to the saddle. I already knew this wasn’t going to be a good time but pressed on, legs burning, lungs strangely okay and breathing not quite as distressed as usual.

As the road dug eastwards, I glanced over the dry stone wall to my left and saw the murky, misty clouds in the valley slowly burning off, lifting and blowing away as the sun lanced through in bright columns. I think I might have appreciated the sight for at least a nano-second, before it was back to the task in hand and I was threading my way around a gravel moraine, skirting the edge of an elongated crevasse and pushing my way around one more corner.

I rose out of the saddle a few times, but far more circumspectly now, trying to gradually add power without losing grip, working constantly upward. The tyres were still slipping a little, but it was far more controlled and through it I was able to slowly pile on a little more speed.

I rounded the final bend, squinting toward where a hazy collection of people outlined in bright sunlight marked the finish. I crashed back down the cassette, willed my legs to maintain the same cadence and closed quickly, throwing the bike over the line.

I hung over the frame for a minute or two trying to control my ragged breathing, before turning and looking back down the road. Shattered riders and discarded bikes were scattered on the grass verges like a column of refugees after a strafing attack by dive bombers.

I slowly made my way back to the finish line, congratulating Biden Fecht on a good ride and in time to cheer on Buster, the Monkey Butler Boy and, last man up, the Garrulous Kid, all of whom did great rides.

Me? I came home in 6:24, that’s 23 seconds down on the previous year. I am officially no longer getting any faster.

Jimmy Cornfeed helped me unpin my number and I picked my way back down the hill now there were no more contestants racing up it. At the bottom I met up with G-Dawg, Crazy Legs and others, as we set out to find a café – hopefully in Corbridge, but definitely anywhere other than Brockbushes, where we have been made to feel especially unwelcome in the past few years.

We failed to locate a café rolling through Corbridge and set out in a wide loop around the town, before heading to a place the Red Max had pinpointed as a potential stop. As we pressed on into the wilderness and seemingly angling North toward the border, Biden Fecht cheered me up by suggesting that if all else failed he knew of a good café in Jedburgh. Then as we pressed on further with no relief in sight, he concluded there was always our usual stop at Belsay.

This slight detour turned into a bit of a grind, as the rain started falling again. Crazy Legs and G-Dawg had set off at a pace designed to restore some circulation and warmth to their much beleaguered bodies. They must have had it even worse than the participants, having stood around from start to finish of the event, without the benefit of even the most ineffectual warm up, or the opportunity to actually ride the hill.

So, while they pressed on, full of energy and desperate to warm up, I found my legs drained of any strength and on a long, dragging climb drifted slowly off the back of the group. On we pushed, seemingly with a final destination in mind, but finally regrouped so I could find a bit of shelter in the wheels and hang on grimly.

“A right turn, somewhere along here …” G-Dawg informed us.

“Or here?”

“Maybe here?”

“Ah, here.”

We turned in, Biden Fecht read the sign as Valium Farm, but that was only wishful thinking on his part – the great horde of unwashed cyclists had finally descended on the otherwise peaceful and sedentary Vallum Farm Tea Rooms.

Main conversations at the coffee shop:

The Garrulous Kid was found wandering around asking people the quickest way home as he had an appointment with his lah-di-dah hairdressers for another fresh trim. Earlier, G-Dawg had patiently explained how he could retrace his steps back, crossing the river at Stocksfield.

“You know where that is, don’t you?”

The Garrulous Kid just looked blank.

“Wylam? You know Wylam and how to get back from there?”

The Kid still looked blank.

He’d asked me the quickest way to get home and I unhelpfully suggested he cadge a lift back with someone who’d brought a car. In retrospect, perhaps it was the most sensible suggestion he’d got all day.

Now, the Red Max, who seemed to be the only one who actually knew where we were, told him to turn left out the farm, then first right and then right again and he’d be on the road to Stamfordham.

The Kid still looked blank, but left regardless. We still have no idea if he’s actually made it home yet, let alone in time for his salon appointment.

I got my time for the hill climb – significantly slower than last year. I said I would stop once my time started to regress, so “never again!” I vowed to anyone who cared to listen.

The possibility of transporting a set of rollers up to the start of the hill climb for a more considered warm up was discussed. Caracol was surprised the Red Max hadn’t pulled a set out of his “bag of tricks” while G-Dawg wanted to see someone riding with a set of rollers strapped to their back. In his absence, we all volunteered the Garrulous Kid to transport them to the bottom of the hill climb for us next year.

Crazy Legs pondered whether you couldn’t make some exceedingly narrow, portable rollers and wondered how narrow they could be made before they became unusable.

OGL left, returned to tell us he’d been harangued by an old harridan who objected to cyclists clogging up the country lanes (for once he didn’t seem keen to acknowledge any form of leadership over our ranks). He left again, then returned realising he hadn’t paid (important in case we wish to return to this venue next year, hopefully without circumnavigating the whole of the Tyne Valley to get there) and then, he finally left for good.

As we packed up and made to follow, Crazy Legs congratulated the Red Max on finding an even more expensive café than our usual haunt. The Colossus tried to wipe down his chair and I followed suit, finding a cold, damp and gritty film had permeated the seat.

“Yeuk!” I observed.

“Yep,” the Colossus agreed, I don’t like sitting in that, I certainly wouldn’t want someone else to.”

Hmm, perhaps we won’t be welcome back here next year after all, even if we all remembered to pay our bills.

We followed the Red Max out into the dank and dark day, as he followed the directions he’d given the Garrulous Kid, turning left, then right, then right again. True to his word (I know, I checked the map – but only after the event) we were now running just south of Stamfordham, but the road we were on was slick with mud and grit and who knows what else.

“Don’t ever let my Dad choose the route again,” the Monkey Butler Boy protested as he bounced and rattled along the smashed up surface and his bike, shoes and new skinsuit developed a thick coating of filth. I felt even worse for the Natty Gnat on his all-white bike and predominantly white University of Newcastle cycling kit. I must admit I don’t recall ever getting the bike this filthy and it took 3 full buckets of car shampoo to get it clean again.

White bike, white kit, white shoes … all a big mistake

A little further on and we slowed for three horses and riders, at the same time as a car approached from the opposite direction. One of the horses baulked, crabbing sideways, before turning a full 180° and trotting back past us, the rider wearing a rueful grin and trying to pretend that he was still the one in charge. As we rode past we were somewhat surprised to find the riders all dressed in tweeds and ties and formal shirts, despite the foul weather. Skinsuits be damned, we vowed we’d have to organise our own Gentleman’s club run in woollen plus fours, knitted ties, brogues and flat caps.

Aware that time was pressing on and I was already late getting back, I saw a sign for Stocksfield at the next junction, knew it was south of the river, so split with the group for (hopefully) a more direct route home. I soon found myself passing the familiar roads around Whittledene Reservoir and having to track west to find a place to cross the A69, before heading east again.

The usually buzzing A69 dual carriageway was eerily quiet and I rode quickly across without having to pause. It wasn’t long before I was dropping down into the Tyne Valley again, crossing the river and heading home.

That was a long day, over 70 miles and with lots of hills, despite the usual rain foreshortened climbing metres on my Garmin. This somehow recorded a total less than the previous year, when I’d driven across to the meeting point and hadn’t climbed in and out of the Tyne Valley five times, or tacked the Heinous Hill onto the end of my ride.

So another year and another hill climb ticked off. Now I’ve had time to reflect and recover, will I do it again? I’m not ruling it completely out, but won’t feel as compelled to keep the streak going. So if the weather isn’t filthy, rotten, dirty, cold and wet and I’m relatively fit I might line up. If not, I’ll hopefully be able to shrug, give the thing a miss and not feel any remorse.

YTD Totals: 6,053 km / 3,761 miles with 68.935 metres of climbing

Attention retention …

Club Run, Saturday 7^th October, 2017

The Planned Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 74 km / 46 miles with 550 metres of climbing

Group size: 16+ riders and 1 FNG

Temperature: 15°C

Weather in a word or two: Bright and breezy

The Ride …

… as it (maybe) happened and with invaluable input from Taffy Steve:

While the Gang of 4 were away, wallowing in pie at the hugely enjoyable Wooler Wheel, the typical Saturday morning club run naturally continued in our absence. And so it should – it is of course (and rightly so) – much, much bigger than one individual, or group of individuals.

The recently established, best-practice of actually pre-publishing a route beforehand, so everyone knew where we were heading, what to expect, how far and hard it would be and when and where they could join up if they were delayed, seemed to be working smoothly and the overwhelming majority appear bought into the concept.

The pre-ride planning has also ensured we are being more creative in our route plotting, trying out different things and establishing options to avoid a very stale, same-old, same-old routine that has noticeably plagued our rides in the past.

Being an equitable, egalitarian, sort of guy, I especially like rotating the ride leader, so we could share the burden around, publish routes beforehand and allow anyone to step up and have a go if they wanted to.

This Saturday’s volunteer was Taffy Steve and even though I was away, I knew the route planned and it looked like being a good one, with a descent down the Ryals and one of my favourite clambers, back up through Hallington.

Taffy Steve had even given consideration to where the group could split to allow a slightly shorter, slightly easier path to the café for those less inclined toward self-flagellation and it even seemed to have received the royal seal of approval from OGL.

What could possibly go wrong …

Shouldering the additional burden of not only being ride leader, but providing the highly essential, ultra-important, some would say indispensable role of blerg scribe (oh, ok, it’s none of those things then) Taffy Steve sent through notes from the front-lines, allowing me to piece together my own, highly romanticised and wholly fictional account of what actually took place … or, in other words, pretty much the same thing I do every week.

Still, too badly paraphrase Winston Churchill, the writer writes the history … so, this is what actually happened, taken directly from Taffy Steve’s notes …

Early signs were promising, with a route published and agreed and a shortcut for OGL. Astonishingly he even endorsed it with a favourable comment and the job seemed like a “good un.” How was Taffy Steve to know it was going to unravel faster than an obese bungee jumpers cord, as he stood outlining the intended plan for the day.

He’d just reached a point of explaining that, at the roundabout the group were heading right, up Broadway, when OGL, obviously not a George Benson fan, unexpectedly piped up with a “No. We’re not going that way.”

With the same remarkable obduracy shown by his forebears facing impossible odds at Rourke’s Drift, our plucky Welshman stood his ground, “It’s my ride this morning, we’re following the agreed route.”

OGL spat the dummy and stormed off with much fugging and rugging and rumba-rarring, suddenly finding himself riding away, alone and in (not so splendid) isolation.

The rest of the group hastily apologised to Arriva for the large dummy mark left in the side of the 508 bus to Blyth and the ride pressed on, OGL-less.

sastre_par2003071934744_600 — Carlos Sastre demonstrates the correct way to ride **and** retain the dummy

An outbound ride into the wind then followed without further incident, apart from those on the front noting that the Goose’s booming voice was so dominating you always knew exactly where he was in the group. G-Dawg suggested if Goose ever managed to even casually mention the word “stop” somewhere in his general discourse, everyone would likely interpret it as a shouted, emergency command and instinctively slam on the anchors.

At least one FNG was out with the group, a girl riding with flat pedals and she did remarkably well, holding her own all the way to the turn for the quarry. Here Sneaky Pete led a small group off toward the café, while the rest set sail for the Ryals – for the third week in a row.

This time though we were swooping down and not struggling upwards, topping out at 40 mph, even into a steady headwind. Great fun for all, but especially G-Dawg on his fixie. Who knew legs could spin that fast without spontaneously combusting?

The Garrulous Kid clamoured to turn around at the bottom and ride straight back up and started badgering and pestering all and sundry to go with him, but lips curled disdainfully and heads shook in negation – not again!

Seemingly undaunted, the Kid set out alone, up the Ryals for the third week in a row, which must be some kind of record even among the most masochistic of hair-shirted, flagellants.

There is a feeling the Garrulous Kid is turning into an OGL mini-me, complete with the incurable logorrhoea, highly embellished tales on infinite loop and an inclination to stomp off alone when the collective will diverges from his own.

Still, Taffy Steve reports his prep for the hill climb has reached a truly remarkable zenith – not that there’s any pressure on him to actually deliver …

For the rest, Hallington awaited and, after all the climbing, a pause to regroup. A remarkably ordered (for us, anyway) bit of through and off followed, everyone forming neat lines and rotating like pros on a team time trial, as the speed slowly built. Things were going smoothly until Jimmy Mac’s twitching nostrils picked up just the faintest whiff of coffee and, spurred on by the irresistible promise of cake, he shot down the outside of the line and powered away.

Rab Dee, riding in the livery of Mario Cipollini then put in a burst that Super Mario himself would have been proud of and latched onto the speeding Jimmy Mac, the pair using the tailwind to their advantage, quickly accelerating to warp speed and opening a telling gap.

Taffy Steve Captain Black, G-Dawg, Caracol and someone Taffy Steve enigmatically describes as “the Cockerney,” quickly organised the chase, but even combined, their efforts were too ragged and not enough to catch the speeding pair up front, who were able to hold the gap all the way to the café.

A brief respite from the effort of the chase was apparently spotting the Monkey Butler Boy, thrashing away in the opposite direction, all the while being royally castigated, impugned and bellowed at by a mad Italian coach driving close behind in a trail-car. Looks like he’s found the perfect father-surrogate as a coach.

Meanwhile, there was no sign of the Red Max himself who had apparently been laid low with a mystery illness. Taffy Steve reasoned this had to be the hardest man-flu ever, as we’ve all seen Max defying doctors (and Mrs. Max orders) to rise from his sick-bed and grind out the club run, reduced to a snail’s pace and all the while obviously suffering from the effects of some dire malady.

At the café, OGL apparently displayed selective amnesia and general bonhomie was the order of the day, with no apparent left-over rancour, or mention of his earlier hissy-fit. I doubt we’ve heard the last of it though.

Conversation briefly turned to the malingerers enjoying themselves up in Wooler and then to the more pressing demands of next week’s hill climb. Taffy Steve was relieved to learn that, the Red Max is already planning a fly-by that will allow anyone with a modicum of sense to avoid the actual timed ascent of Prospect Hill. Perfect he suggests “for those of us that don’t want to sound like a broken vacuum cleaner for 36 hours afterwards.”

Homeward bound, the accompanying south west wind made rolling back a real joy and another grand club run was ticked off in good order.

Wooler-Wooler-Huh, Tell Me More, Tell Me More…

The Wooler Wheel Classic, Saturday 7^th October, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 104 km / 65 miles with 1,451 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 10 minutes

Average Speed: 24.9 km/h

Group size: 4 riders and 521 others

Temperature: 15°C

Weather in a word or two: Bright and breezy

The Ride:

A Saturday morning with a difference found me up before the sun, wolfing down a quick breakfast and heading out into the still-dark for an hour long drive into north Northumberland to start the Wooler Wheel Classic sportive.

This was to be my third participation in the event, which this time around was confined to a 100km ride, rather than the early season Borderlands ride of over 170km or 107 miles. The Wooler Wheel events are usually low-key affairs, characterised by good routes and incredibly helpful, friendly and supremely well organised marshals. Combine this with what promised to be bright and dry, if chilly weather and the fantastic scenery of the Cheviots and it had all the promise of a great day out.

All of this, before I even mention the piece de resistance, the real kicker that makes the event almost unmissable – never mind the free T-shirt, but every rider is rewarded with a hot drink and lavish helping of pie and peas on completion. Pure, unalloyed genius.

A Gang of Four planned to meet up to tackle the ride together, Crazy Legs, Ovis, Richard of Flanders and me. As a consequence, the first order of the day was likely to prove the most onerous, locating my ride partners and getting everyone organised to set off at the same time.

As luck would have it, I joined up with a long stream of bike-carrying traffic on the way to the ride headquarters and was fairly certain I’d spotted a celeste Bianchi and a blue Orbea on a car upfront – Crazy Legs and Richard of Flanders travelling up together?

Instinct was correct and directed into a field to park, I found myself pulling up only one car removed from two-thirds of my group. Good start.

We went to sign on, trudging through the livestock pens of the cattle market, where numerous carbon steeds waited placidly to be auctioned for their riders to set them free. Crazy Legs looked around the bleak, basic shed, concrete ramps and gated pens. “It’s depressing, isn’t it?”

I agreed, it was far too easy to see them using it as a set from Sophie’s Choice or Schindler’s List (or Ark for the bibliophiles amongst us.)

We all signed on, collected our bikes, attached the event numbers and made our way toward the start, eagerly scanning the crowd for the distinctive blue and yellow of Ovis’s Rochdale Tri top as we went.

A quick stop at the port-a-potties and then we stationed Richard of Flanders outside the main hall, Crazy Legs ducked inside to search for Ovis, while I rode around toward the start gate to see if he was loitering there. Our searches proved fruitless, so Crazy Legs dialled up Ovis on his mobile and we learned he was currently deeply engaged … in the crapper.

“Ah,” Richard of Flanders said, “I thought I heard someone thrashing around in the stall next to mine.”

We all turned our attention to the long line of port-a-potties and watched and waited, as each one disgorged at least one relieved cyclist, all apart from the one slap bang in the middle. Finally, the door swung open and a fellow that looked like Ovis staggered out into the fresh air, breathed deeply, saw our welcome committee and ambled across.

He was difficult to miss in a new, very bright high-viz waterproof, but it wasn’t the electric blue and acid yellow kit we were expecting. Much to Crazy Legs’ relief, he did unzip his jacket to reveal the stalwart Rochdale Tri kit lurking safely beneath.

Bikes were recovered and we made our way through the pens toward the start gate. I swung my leg over the bike, put my left foot on the pedal and pushed off. My foot slipped instantly off the pedal, I stumbled, the crank whirred around and cracked me in the right shin. Ouch.

I tried again. Same result and then again. I now had a large dint and corresponding bruise in my shin. It still smarts and I’ve been wearing one sock at half mast all week now.

Taking note of the slippery state of my cleats, a hangover of the damp grass, mud and assorted animal effluvia, I concentrated hard and very carefully tried again. With a satisfyingly loud click, pedal embraced cleat and we were off, riding through the timing gate to a cacophony of beeps like a short-circuiting answerphone.

Richard of Flanders kicked the conversation off in style, by suggesting that for the Christmas Jumper ride this year we should all wear smoking jackets, or smirking jackets if we are to continue to pay homage to Ashingternean speak in this blog blerg.

Crazy Legs however is nothing if not bang-up-to-date and countered that the more modern, discerning smoker would demand we wear vaping jackets, not smoking jackets. I’ve no idea what a vaping jacket looks like, but it sounds intriguing.

The first hill bit and Richard of Flanders, naturally in full Belgian team kit, slipped slowly off the back to tackle its incline at his own pace. The rest of us waited to regroup at the top, where Crazy Legs waved through other cyclists, declaring we were “waiting for our classics rider” – not all that happy on the hills, but essential later on in the ride for when the echelons formed in the crosswinds.

Indeed, the wind was to be our constant, nagging and awkward companion for much of the ride, although we were anticipating the last few kilometres at least to gift us with a tailwind – the only issue was getting to this point. Luckily Ovis was on a 3-Shredded Wheat day, or in his own understated words, “going quite well at the moment.”

On we went and I started counting the roadkill, but soon ran out of fingers and toes. I wonder what the death toll is for small furry critters on the roads of Northumberland? At one point, passing the seemingly unmarked, unsullied corpse of a grey squirrel, we debated the relative appeal of a Dead Squirrel Club and whether it would sound more interesting than Chris Boardman’s Secret Squirrel Club.

Another, “ah, poor furry animal” quickly turned to a “yeach” moment as a potential, fluffy squirrel-corpse turned out to be a rather large and fearsome dead rat. Then the highlight of the day as Crazy Legs spotted a dead frog, although it wasn’t quite up to the standards of the splattered, flattened and sun-blasted toad we’d seen on the road up the Col du Glandon.

Richard of Flanders kept himself distracted and us entertained with a series of Viz jokes and recollections and suggested we’d know when he was struggling as the constant flow of verbiage would slowly dry up.

As he started singing “Howay the Lads” in a non-regulation Geordie accent, Crazy Legs mused on what a strange group he found himself riding with – a Lancastrian, a Yorkshireman and someone who lives so far south of the river he’s practically a Mackem…

Another hill and climbing past a group of girls, one of them looked across at Crazy Legs and squealed, “Eee! That’s my bike.” For one moment I thought there was going to be a bit of a tussle over the provenance of a certain celeste Bianchi, but it soon became apparent she merely meant she had the same make and model and an unseemly catfight was avoided. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and we pressed on – I’m not sure it was a fight we could have won.

Yet another hill and a marshal guided us down a left turn and told us not to miss the lady with the jelly babies. Sure enough a couple of hundred yards further on and we found the lady with the jelly babies, holding out a large bowl that she proffered to each passing cyclist.

Like a pro in a feedzone, Crazy Legs swept passed, extended a long arm and grabbed up a few treats without stopping. I pulled up long enough to grab an ample fistful and thanked the Jelly Baby Lady for providing “the best part of the ride” – even though I knew it was a lie – jelly babies are good but pie is better.

I set off in pursuit of my comrades, somewhat hindered as I chewed my way through mouthfuls of jellied sweetness that made breathing just a little bit awkward.

Another turn and up onto Branxton Moor and we were climbing up past Flodden Field, the scene of a bloody skirmish in 1513 when a band of belligerent Scots accused an Englishman of stealing one of their classic Italian velocipedes … or some other, equally as heinous transgression.

Ovis suggested a contingent of archers had travelled all the way up from Rochdale for the bash, but confessed he didn’t know how they’d got there. I naturally suggested the Trans-Pennine Express, which was all that was necessary to set Crazy Legs away on a Kraftwerk inspired song cycle.

Luckily I heard him singing “we are the robots” just before he became engaged in some exaggerated, robotic-style arm-waving, otherwise I would have been swerving across the road trying to avoid some imaginary potholes I thought he was trying to point out in a really eccentric style.

More climbing, just for a change and we stopped at a road junction to regroup once again. Here a couple of riders from the Berwick Wheelers swept past, giving Ovis a long appraising look. Crazy Legs suggesting they were just checking out his Rochdale Tri jersey which bore a remarkable resemblance to their own livery.

Back together again, we caught and passed the two Berwick Wheelers, who sat on for a while, before deciding we were going too slow. One of them pulled out, overtook us and suddenly realised just how strong the headwind was, as his pace immediately dropped down to match ours. We naturally had no intention of looking a gift horse in the mouth and piled onto the shelter of his back wheel, happy to have someone to share the workload with.

The other Berwick Wheeler then joined his compadre on the front for a long stint, before ceding the front to Crazy Legs and Ovis again, as we continued in a long arc that would draw us back toward Wooler.

The cohesiveness of our impromptu group was ruptured on the next climb and then lost for good as I punctured on the descent. An audible Phztt…Phztt…Phztt announced a rapidly deflating front tyre, while sounding like a cartoon bomb rolling over and over on its fuse. We stopped and pulled over to make repairs.

Underway again, a long descent deposited us onto the Milfield Plain, where scores of ominous black carrion crows circled us cawing loudly and watching eagerly for any faltering cyclist to provide a quick meal. The seemed to particularly gather around Richard of Flanders, who’d gone ominously silent and was looking perhaps the most likely to give them what they were waiting for.

We were starting to close rapidly on the finish now though and Ovis was happy to announce only two more climbs. I could only remember one of these, where our route took us up onto a narrow track the curved past a farm, a short sharp and very brutal ramp that formed a real, late sting in the tail of the route.

I remembered the climb from the 107 mile Borderlands run as it had almost brought me to a grinding halt. This time the approach seemed different as we swung left onto the climb, whereas I’m sure we approached from the other direction on the longer route.

While the approach was different, the severity of the climb was the same and I chased my chain up the cassette and hauled myself out of the saddle to follow Ovis. The pitted road surface was invisible under a thick blanket of mud, which at least evened out some of the bumps. Luckily it was bone-dry, or traction would have been a real issue.

Nevertheless, the slope claimed its sacrificial victims, one being the rider just in front of us who came grinding to a halt with cramp in both legs and lamenting the fact that this hill always seems to defeat him. As we eased over the first of two ramps another rider approached from behind muttering to himself and swearing like a trooper with Tourette’s – “rugga-fumba-rumba-bashta-gronk!”

“Does it help?” I enquired.

“Yes, I think so,” he politely replied.

He then swung round the corner to the bottom of the next rise and with a full-blooded roar of “Baaastard!” attacked the slope full on. As he winched his way around the corner and out of sight, his voice trailed faintly back down to us, “It definitely helps …”

Ovis was right and there was one more hill of note, but it wasn’t as bad as anything that had gone before and we were now pushing on and eager to finish. A few more miles saw us all through the “Welcome to Wooler” sign and then we were swinging right into the Cattle Market and back over the timing gate to finish.

T-shirt collected (and almost instantly snaffled by Daughter#1 when I got home) and more importantly with “pie vouchers” clasped in sweaty hands, we made our way to the event canteen for our much anticipated reward.

The steak pie was great, the paper plates and pliable plastic forks not so good – perhaps we’ll carry our own cutlery next time? Crazy Legs even went with the healthy option and had mushy peas with his (one of his five a day) and everyone seemed to agree the meal really hit the spot.

There was then just time for a Gang of Four, group picture and we were packing up to head home. As ever the event remains one of my favourites and I’ve no doubt we’ll be back next year for one, or both of the Wooler Wheel rides.

Oh, did I mention the pie?

YTD Totals: 5,888 km / 3,658 miles with 67,189 metres of climbing

Gategate

Club Run, Saturday 23^rd September, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 109 km / 68 miles with 1,133 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 22 minutes

Average Speed: 25.4 km/h

Group size: 21 riders, 1 FNG

Temperature: 18°C

Weather in a word or two: Bright and breezy

The Ride:

Following on from the original Watergate scandal we’ve all had to endure a ton of utterly dumb, lazy, banal and wholly unoriginal journalistic misappropriations of the -gate suffix, you know, Contragate, Deflategate, Pizzagate, Squidgygate, et al, etc. etc. ad nauseam. So, ladies and gentleman, proving I can be just as dumb, lazy, banal and as frighteningly unoriginal as a paid, professional journalist – (was there ever any doubt?) – I hereby give you the scandal that is … Gategate.

Who’d have thought we’d be heading for such controversy on an innocuous Saturday morning that was warmer than last week and by all accounts would be a lot drier too. As I dropped downhill, the sky over the valley was striated like a layer cake, dark landscape, a band of clear air and a high altitude cap of cloudy grey, seemingly providing a layer of insulation to keep the temperature high.

It was warm enough to make me think the combination of long-sleeved base layer and windproof jacket was overkill – and it wasn’t long before the gloves came off, literally and metaphorically.

Main topics of conversation at the start:

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve organised and promoted a faster, longer “training ride” which leaves the meeting point early to avoid confusion with the regular club run. This week’s run had been planned and was being led by Benedict and I was at the meeting point early enough to see the group gradually coalesce before they set off.

“Remember”, Benedict told me, tapping the side of his nose with a long digit “You didn’t see us and we weren’t here.”

“I am Spartacus,” the Prof offered, “You can be Spartacus too,” he told the Red Max, inviting him to join the training ride revolution.

“Err, no thanks,” Red Max explained, “It doesn’t end well for Spartacus. I’ve read the book …”

“Seen the film …” I added

“And got the T-shirt,” the Prof concluded.

Then, with the pistol shot report of cleats clicking into pedals, the whirr of high-speed wheels and a mighty, “Hi-ho, Silver!” (ok, I may have made that last bit up) they were gone. Almost as if they’d never been there…

As one group leader departed, another emerged: Crazy Legs sporting one of the sleekest, most luxurious and magnificent Van Dyke beards anyone could hope to grow in just seven days, ably fulfilling last week’s directive that the ride leader needed to be be-whiskered to signal his status to the rest of the group.

After studying Crazy Legs carefully for a minute or two, the ever-astute Garrulous Kid made a shock revelation. “That’s not a real beard,” he declared, somewhat hesitantly and we all stepped back in amazement, wondering how we’d been so easily duped.

Crazy Legs coughed up and spat out a fake hairball, before outlining our route for the day, which as a novelty and in preparation for the club hill climb, would see us reverse a familiar route in order to ride up the Ryals.

He got the tacit agreement that OGL would lead a shorter ride, avoiding the Ryals altogether, something OGL seemed more than keen to do as he appeared to be suffering from an immense hangover.

The Garrulous Kid himself keeps threatening to devise, post-up and lead a ride, if only he can overcome the twin barriers of growing facial hair and over-coming his disdain for Facebook, which “is rubbish” that “nobody ever uses.”

Knowing his aversion to cornering, G-Dawg wondered what sort of route the Garrulous Kid would devise, suggesting perhaps, “25 miles, straight up the A1 and then back again.”

I felt that he favoured right turns more than left, so perhaps just a big loop heading out east, then turning north, then swinging to the west before turning south and heading back to the start. We await actual further development with interest.

At the appointed time, Crazy Legs carefully peeled-off and pocketed his beard before he ingested anymore, or it became basted in sweat and spit, blew off his face and slapped some unfortunate rider behind like a wet kipper.

By removing his beard he at least earned the approval of ex old-school pro Walter Planckaert, the boss of professional cycling team Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise, who has taken the unusual step of banning beards – and not just in the men’s team.

He defended his decision in the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad by insisting the ban was in order to maintain “the elegance of cycling”. I have to admit, I’m kind of sympathetic to his views – must be an age thing.

Anyhoo, the Planckaert-approved, now clean-shaven Crazy Legs then clipped in, pushed off and led us all out. A quick wave to Richard of Flanders heading in the opposite direction to coach the Go-Ride youngsters and we were soon out and onto the open roads.

Things seemed to be going smoothly until we passed through Ponteland and took a left onto country lanes. It wasn’t long before a fusillade of censorious shouting erupted from the back of the pack, the upshot apparently being that we needed to ease up on the pace.

More over-the-top shouting, screaming and swearing followed, as apparently we were still going too fast. Hmm, someone wasn’t happy back there. One minute Ovis was commenting on what an unusually good road surface we were riding over, the next, instead of enjoying it, we were soft-pedalling, and freewheeling along while being aurally lambasted for who knows what.

Yet more totally incoherent and unnecessary shouting had Taffy Steve demanding to know “what the fuck all the shouting was about?” and could he please have a simple, understandable and legible instruction about what we were doing.

Calls from behind seemed to suggest there was a dire need to stop and not knowing what was happening, if we’d had a puncture, a mechanical or some other issue, I called for the halt. At a convenient entrance to a field, the front of the group pulled to the side of the road and tried to find out what was happening behind.

It transpired the frantic, over-the-top ear-bashing was because OGL wanted a pee stop, but now apparently we’d stopped at “the wrong fuggen’ gate” that wasn’t our “usual fuggen’ pee stop”. He rode past us and off down the lane in a fit of pique.

Those who needed to pee had a pee – at the wrong fuggen’ gate – and we then re-assembled the group and pressed on. A bit further on we passed the right fuggen’ gate that was our “usual” fuggen pee stop. Here all the die-hard traditionalists and ultra-conservatives amongst us had the opportunity to uphold the moral order and do things properly and with great dignity … despite the fact that a large white Range Rover was parked up in this field and they had an audience of perhaps less than delighted onlookers.

No matter what, Crazy Legs was determined to keep the whole group together, so he had us slow and soft-pedal until everyone was finally back on.

We pushed on and I found myself in conversation with Cowin’ Bovril, missing for the past month or so because he’d been off working in France. We were chatting unconcernedly away, slowing as we approached a junction, when with a loud bang I put my front wheel through a large pothole in the road that I didn’t notice until I’d ridden through it.

We pulled around the corner and Cowin’ Bovril cast a critical eye over my tyre and suggested a pinch puncture. We stopped and I prodded the offending rubber with a thumb, just to confirm it was definitely going squishy.

The tube was repaired in short order, with OGL lending his super-strong hands and pincer like grip to rolling the tyre back onto the rim. A quick workout with my pump soon had the tyre inflated enough to get me around (as usual a rather paltry 50 psi when I checked with the track pump at home) and then we were off again.

I drifted slowly toward the back of the group just to keep an eye on any strugglers or stragglers and had a grandstand view as a car sped toward us, the driver rather deliberately ignoring Zardoz’s frantic signals for it to slow down. As the car zipped past, much too fast and much too close, Zardoz reached out and deftly twanged his wing mirror in rebuke. A mixture of shock, disbelief and outrage warred for dominance on the drivers face, as he finally slowed to try and work out what had just happened and if his precious car had been damaged. Arse hat.

The group split with OGL leading a splinter cell of on a wander, I guess just about anywhere as long as it avoided the Ryals, while the rest of us took to roads which were familiar, but we were now doing in reverse order.

We picked our way up through Hallington on the narrow, tree-shaded lane, carefully slaloming around pots and gravel and tussocks of grass, ruts and leaves and twigs, rattling down the final incline to the junction. From here we swung left, straight onto the heavy, grippy and draggy rises that presage the Ryals proper, draining any speed you want to carry onto the climb and draining your legs of any zip.

I think part of the reason the Ryals are seen as such a difficult climb is how they look as you approach, seeming to rise up like a wall and lour over you from a distance. Still, they’re relatively short, about 1.5km with an average gradient of about 5%. Get over the first and hardest ramp, where the gradient maxes out at about 19% and then there’s a short, flattish respite before you tackle the longer, but easier second ramp.

I did my best to roll up to the base of the climb, starting to pass a few flaggers, before the slope bit and I eased out of the saddle and worked my way upwards. Not surprisingly the climb is a lot easier without the 70 odd miles or so that precede them on the Cyclone route. I managed a personal best that might be difficult to better the next time I tackle the climb, which will invariably be during the next Cyclone.

We partially regrouped over the top and rolled down toward the Quarry Climb, giving the back markers a chance to re-join. I stomped up the Quarry and swung right, everyone following except the Garrulous Kid who went left, probably so he could try and beat himself in the sprint.

I slowed to wait, but a group of Jimmy Mac, Ovis and the Red Max darted away and began the race to the café, G-Dawg accelerated to reel them in and I dropped onto his wheel. The Colussus shot past us onto the front group, while G-Dawg closed the gap in a more measured fashion.

Crazy Legs caught the group as we swept through junctions and around sweeping bends, slowly building the speed. On the approach to the Snake Bends, G-Dawg, The Colossus and Jimmy Mac burned off the front, while I sparred with Ovis for the minor placings.

We regrouped for the final run to the café and arrived with perfect timing that rewarded us with no queues.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

In a discussion of dogs and beaches, Taffy Steve said his vet felt they were a hazard to any good pet’s health, apparently as they’re a breeding ground for all sorts of canine nasties. The Red Max certainly knew about beach hazards and recounted how his daughter’s hybrid-pedigree was washed out to sea and appeared to be struggling. He’d flatly refused to even contemplate going in to try and rescue the pooch, but reassured her there was at least a 50-50 chance it would survive.

Luckily for him a large wave picked it up and flung it onto the sand and the dog lived to fight another day. I think he said it was a sprocker spaniel, but I don’t really do pedigree dogs, so may be mistaken. Taffy Steve though did suggest the double-dose of loopy you get from inter-breeding between two pedigrees, probably produced the perfect dog for Red Max’s household – a highly-strung, schizoid, hyperactive and excitable animal that will chase anything that moves.

Meanwhile, G-Dawg confided the problem with taking his dogs onto the beach was they seemed to delight in crapping in the sea, making recovery and bagging operations somewhat problematic.

OGL has suggested that despite club membership growing, ride numbers are falling. This isn’t the impression I have, so I offered to count back on the numbers I’ve recorded in this blerg for the past 3 years or so and see if this was actually the case.

Taffy Steve was disgusted when Crazy Legs and I enthusiastically conjured up as much management speak as possible in an ensuing discussion about the spreadsheets and interactive charts we could adopt to present back empirical evidence, that would give a holistic and overarching picture of performance thresholds and the intrinsic peripatetic synergies of ride numbers and allow us to drill-down to a much more granular level of detail. Or something …

Discussion of Crazy Legs’ universally appreciated route for the day led to a discussion about the route through Hallington, which is used by the pros during the Beaumont Trophy. We wondered how they coped with pots and gravel and tussocks of grass, ruts and leaves and twigs, while going at full bore – especially when G-Dawg confirmed he’d marshalled at that point before and the riders were often massed and charging, six deep across the road rather than picking their way carefully and in single-file. Scary stuff.

The Garrulous Kid showed he’s beginning to morph into a twisted OGL mini-me and has started to parrot some of Our Glorious Leaders more lurid tales. This is dispiriting not only because they’re second hand, but because we’ve all heard them countless times already and from the original source. Still, perhaps this is how tribal myths and legends develop and in 10,000 years our ancestors will be regaling themselves with tales of this bright OGL demi-god, his epic odyssey around the wildlands of Albion and his fearless feats of prowess. Perhaps not, though.

The Monkey Butler Boy turned up to ride back with us having been with his club for a photoshoot. What?

He engaged in rather desultory conversation with us while he waited, occasionally stroking and caressing his saddle. Luckily we left before things could develop any further.

The ride back was swift and largely uneventful, the most interesting thing that happened was being assaulted by a boom-box, disco-car – blacked out windows, fancy alloy wheels, bulbous body-kit and fat exhaust – the full works. Too loud man, it’s shrill … piercing!

I’m on record as stating that whenever you notice one of these monstrously loud, music-pounding cars you can never recognise what song they’re actually playing. Today however was the exception, blasting loud, proud and unafraid from this car was Rod Stewart’s Baby Jane. Now that’s what I call street cred.

YTD Totals: 5,633 km / 3,432 miles with 64,066 metres of climbing

Captain, My Captain

Club Run, Saturday 16^th September, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 111 km / 69 miles with 1,199 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 22 minutes

Average Speed: 25.4 km/h

Group size: 20 riders, 2 FNG’s

Temperature: 14°C

Weather in a word or two: Chilly with showers

Ride Profile

The Ride:

The weather has definitely taken what feels like a big and irreversible step toward the autumnal now, so I wasn’t feeling remotely overdressed in a long-sleeved jersey and knee warmers. I wore gloves, but carried a mitts to swap out in the forlorn hope that things might warm up. They never did and the mitts stayed firmly in my pocket throughout the ride.

The ground was soaked by recent rain, but above the sky was only lightly smeared with high clouds, hopefully it would at least be bright and dry, even if on the cold side.

Main topics of conversation at the start

There was a mixture of optimists and pessimists at the meeting point. G-Dawg was firmly invested in the former camp, in shorts and a short-sleeved jersey and insisting there was still time to work on his tan lines. I don’t know about tan lines, but today would eventually prove to be hugely effective for anyone wanting to work on grime-lines.

Others had joined me in wrapping up, even Taffy Steve who rolled up wearing a gilet and arm-warmers, but to be fair he was already sweating like a glass-blowers arse and would start stripping off layers as soon as he stopped. Meanwhile, a clearly undecided Colossus went with the catch-all of a short-sleeved jersey paired with a pair of bib knickers that were …well … I guess, err … interesting in their near translucence.

We saluted the arrival of Richard of Flanders, our route architect and designated ride leader for the week. Crazy Legs was even prompted to climb onto the wall for an inspiring, Dead Poet’s, “Captain! My Captain!” moment.

With Richard of Flanders sporting a cycling-hardman/rouleur beard and following on from the example of a similarly grizzle-jawed G-Dawg, we determined that all ride leaders should henceforth invest in facial hair to add gravitas and identify their authority to the rest of the group. Now next weeks designated leader, Crazy Legs faces a real challenge trying to grow a suitably impressive beard in time.

Fresh from a credible performance at the National Junior Time-trial Championship the Monkey Butler Boy was out with us again as, according to his own words, all his regular Wrecking Crew team-mates “are pussies, who won’t ride if the weather’s bad.”

He’d switched to a winter bike which he’d only had the morning to prep, having been lured out the previous night by the lure of women and wild wassailing. This could, perhaps in polite company, form an adequate excuse for his lamentable attempt at trying to strangle, wrangle and entangle his bars in a mess of new tape, but wasn’t going to wash with us.

On the plus side, the Colossus approved of the choice of tape, gleaming white, with deep perforations that showed a bright red background, but the less than precise winding had produced an irregular hotchpotch of pockets, knots, bulges, bubbles and blisters that made the bars look like they’d been organically grown from seriously malformed coral.

To add insult to injury, the lumpy, white bar tape was held in place by at least three thick and unequal bands of what looked like an entire roll of red electricians tape,strategically placed at various different points to try and hold everything in place.

It was almost impossible to believe, but Red Max confided that this was actually an improvement on the first attempt at bar wrapping that he had been summarily dismissed out of hand.

Route outlined and with two FNG’s to shepherd around, we decided on a single group and twenty lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and rode out.

Richard of Flanders, Red Leader for the day, took to the front alongside Crazy Legs as we set out, leaving the suntrap of the Transport Interchange Centre (aka: a bus station) to find it was actually quite chilly out on the roads. The wind had picked up and was carrying a cold edge, while grey cloud stole across the sky and quickly filled in all the blue bits. It started to look more and more like we were going to have to endure at least one shower, somewhere along the way.

Climbing up through Tranwell and honking away in a massive, knee destroying gear, OGL could only complain bitterly that he used to win races on this road, as he was slowly distanced with a few other strugglers.

Just outside of Mitford a quick stop was called – an opportunity for OGL to question the Colossus’s semi-risqué choice of leg wear.

“You love them, really,” the Colossus replied an opinion that seemed to comprehensively win the argument and, temporarily at least, reduce OGL to silence.

The group split a little further on, OGL leading a few off on a shorter route, while we pressed on to Dyke Neuk, sadly arriving much too early for the annual Leek Show.

We decided this was probably how middle-aged blokes spent their free time before the invention of the bicycle – just a different excuse to meet up and talk a load of old bolleaux, with the topic du jour perhaps being the best proportions of ingredients for a good mulch, rather than gear ratios.

Taffy Steve was pressed to take one of the display leeks and proudly wear his national emblem for the rest of the ride, but politely declined and we pushed on.

I was on the front with G-Dawg as we approached another cut-off point with the option to take a left for the shorter route through Hartburn, or head straight up to Rothley Crossroads.

“Straight on, or left?” I asked G-Dawg.

“Dunno. Straight on, or left?” G-Dawg called out to the group behind.

“Straight on!”

“Left!”

“Straight on!”

“Left!”

“Huh? What?”

Hmm, this wasn’t helping.

Luckily though the Red Leader was to hand. Richard of Flanders cruised up, emphatically declared we were going straight on and led from the front onto the first of the dragging climbs up to the crossroads.

I don’t think anyone likes this route which grinds upwards, never really a full bore, out of the saddle climb, more a long chugging drive that slowly saps your strength. Horrible. It’s perhaps why we use this route so infrequently.

The Red Leader caught up with me on the descent and started to draw parallels between the Colossus’s semi-risqué attire and Kim Kardasian trying much too hard to project a lovable, sexy and playful minx. Luckily none of the images were making it through my inappropriate material filter.

On to Middleton Bank and I was climbing in formation with G-Dawg and Crazy Legs. We got about halfway up the climb when Crazy Legs observed it had all gone quiet behind. He looked back and realised it had indeed gone quiet, simply because there was no one following in the wheels behind. We rolled over the top and slowed to let everyone regroup.

Pressing onto the cafe we ran directly into a sharp and intense shower that soon had the roads awash and wheels spraying out an arc of cold water. Taffy Steve swooped to the front and put in a big dig and the pace suddenly shot up.

I was riding behind one of the FNG’s and he let the wheel in front go, perhaps not appreciating just how quickly the speed would build, perhaps not realising the gravitas of the cafe sprint, perhaps because it’s madness riding 5cm’s behind a stranger in a downpour, or perhaps simply to escape the pressure jet of water kicked up by G-Dawgs wheels that kept slapping him in the eyes.

Whatever the reason, a gap yawned open between him and the front trio of Taffy Steve, G-Dawg and Crazy Legs. The Colussus recognised the danger and darted across, while I hesitated a bit too long, finally came around the FNG and tried to close the gap more slowly and steadily.

Big mistake. 5 metres soon became 15 metres … and then 50 metres … and then 50 metres rapidly became simply impossible.

I plugged away, chasse patate in no-mans-land, managing to close and almost get within striking distance as we went up and over the rollers … but then the road tilted down and the front group were gone, away and out of sight.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

Empowered by his status as Red Leader, Richard of Flanders mused about where all the club fees went and what they were being used for. The truth is, nobody knows.

G-Dawg revealed the club used to have a treasurer, apparently our expat who’s stuck out in Las Vegas. As G-Dawg dryly concluded, “A club treasurer, with access to all our funds, bored and stuck in Las Vegas, the gambling capitol of the world. What could possibly go wrong?”

Before an intriguing and highly colourful tale had a chance to unfold however, G-Dawg also recalled our erstwhile treasurer had been asked to hand over the club books to Mrs. OGL quite some time ago … and they’ve never been seen since.

Taffy Steve wanted any money the club might have sloshing around to be spent on developing the kids – coaching, equipment, facilities – whatever they need. This seemed reasonable and I suggested even increasing the fees beyond the paltry £10 per year and everyone seemed happy to do this, if it was being used effectively and transparently. Hey, if you’re gonna dream, dream big!

Then the Garrulous Kid wandered past, miming sealed lips after the table opposite had promised him £1 if he could keep silent for 10 minutes. Suddenly, we all realised there was something much more compelling we could spend the club fees on, and where any increase would be worth every penny.

Discussion turned to Szell’s disappearing act last week and the idea that I couldn’t conceive of him being in the front group after all the climbing. Taffy Steve however has a theory that its because Szell has decided he doesn’t need to ape and appease OGL and has dared change his bike set-up. He’s now switched from a “classic” 53-chain-ring to a compact, and is actually climbing much better and on a par with everyone else.

Changing fashions and technologies led to a discussion about e-bikes, with many looking forward to extending their club riding careers with a little motorised assistance. G-Dawg was the only one with first-hand experience of an e-bike and was all for them.

Somewhat predictably, OGL had declared if anyone ever saw him on an e-bike, they should just put a pellet in his ear. I assume he was inviting people to administer the coup de grace by capping him in the head, but perhaps it was also a veiled reference to Hamlet and he meant a pellet of poison? Well, if we can reference Walt Whitman, why not a bit of Shakespeare too?

Anyway, now all he has to do is determine if the pellet with the poison is in the flagon with the dragon, or the chalice from the palace, all the while remembering that the vessel with the pestle holds the brew that is true. Oops, hold on, that’s NOT Shakespeare is it?

We set off for home and had only just left the main road for the country lanes, when the Prof came bustling and barging past, declaring it was too cold for riding at a pace that everyone could manage. All hell broke loose as he shot off the front, the speed was kicked up and people tried to close him down. Everything was a bit frantic until the ascent of Berwick Hill restored some natural measure of order, although by then we could have lost a fair few, floundering off the back.

Up through Dinnington and on we went until, up ahead through the misting rain, we saw flashing lights and slowed to find a cluster of cyclists at the side of the road. There’d been a touch of wheels in one of the groups that had left the cafe early and Kipper and Laurelan had gone down hard. The flashing lights were from a paramedics car that had just happened to be passing and stopped to lend assistance.

Laurelan seemed mostly intact, but she’d taken a bad bang to the head, while Kipper had a deep gash on his knee that gaped horribly wide, leering insanely whenever he bent the limb. Both luckless riders were carted off to A&E, while Red Max made arrangements to take their bikes home.

X-rays would later reveal that Kipper had the worst of it, a broken kneecap that required surgery and will unfortunately keep him off the bike for a good while. Hope he recovers swiftly. The Red Max later confirmed that Kipper’s bike was safe, largely intact and behaving itself in his shed.

We pressed on as the rain finally began to ease and I was hopeful if it stopped I might be able to dry out before I reached home. We flew through the Mad Mile and then I was swinging off and away on my own.

On the final leg down toward the river, a small hatchback pulled away from the right-hand kerb and swung across in front of me. I braked, swerved out of its path and then slipped behind it, making sure I was right in the centre of the back bumper and hopefully looming large in the rear-view mirror, an attempt to give the obviously myopic driver at least an even chance to see my exaggerated, censorious headshake.

For once it even seemed to work, perhaps too well, as the car slowed and came to a halt several yards away from the next junction, forcing me to stop too. Oops. The driver’s door opened and a beefy leg was planted on the ground. This was then followed by another, equally as beefy leg, as a seriously large, bull-necked, shaven-headed bloke levered himself out of the driver’s seat. Oh-oh.

I was now expecting the worst – a foul-mouthed tirade? The threat of physical violence? One of those swivel-eyed, lunatic, “cyclists don’t pay road tax so deserve to be run off the road” pronouncements?

“Sorry mate, I didn’t see you there …” the bloke announced, almost meekly.

I was utterly shocked and just about managed to blurt out, “Oh! Ok, no harm done.”

Don’t get me wrong, I think SMIDSY (sorry mate, I didn’t see you) is horrible, far too common attempted mitigation for bad driving that excuses nothing and has probably been used as justification in some shocking circumstances. Even so, it was kind of refreshing to find a driver who’s willing to own up to his mistakes and apologise for them. I’ll take that any day as an alternative to ignoring mistakes and bad driving, or pretending it never happened, that someone else is in the wrong and sailing blithely on.

As I crossed the river, a rain squall settled overhead, but I was almost home so didn’t stop to pull on a jacket, arriving back at my front door again, somewhat damp around the edges.

The knee had more or less behaved itself all day, although I was hobbling a little on Sunday. I think its getting better – just in time for the club hill climb. Hmm, perhaps I need to injure it again…

YTD Totals: 5,523 km / 3,432 miles with 62,933 metres of climbing

Ghost in the Szell

Club Run, Saturday 9^th August, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 122 km / 76 miles with 1,142 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 47 minutes

Average Speed: 25.5 km/h

Group size: 24 riders, 2 FNG’s

Temperature: 18°C

Weather in a word or two: Tom Verlaine (Warm and Cool)

The Ride:

A dry looking Saturday, but grey and dull with light rain showers forecast, but not until around midday. I’d managed to survive a semi-debauched work leaving do involving “jalee-peeno” chilli peppers and “crotch mints” on Friday night (I couldn’t tell you, even if I knew…) and was looking forward to blowing the fuzz away with a bracing gentleman’s excursion by velocipede.

The dodgy knee was well-strapped up in an attempt to try and keep everything in place and I’d dug out some knee warmers to disguise the shocking pink bandage. I even remembered my long-fingered gloves, so was well wrapped up and warm dropping down the hill to start my ride.

The leaden, uniform cloud cover was fractured by only a single band of pale, glittering blue-sky, far away across the other side of the valley. It was exactly where I was heading and seemed like a good omen.

We were set for one of G-Dawg’s carefully prepared, somewhat alternative rides and he’d obviously been scouring ordnance survey maps, ancient parish records, local archives and the latest military-grade, topographical satellite imagery to find us a route somewhat less-travelled. The ride had been posted up on Facebook and looked like being not only novel, but slightly longer than usual. It was going to be a good one.

It seemed to be a day for fellow cyclists to be out on the roads in force – perhaps the forecast for rain later in the day had encouraged them to leave home early, or maybe they too needed to work off the previous night’s excesses.

I passed one group clustered just outside Pedalling Squares cycle café and hoped they didn’t need an espresso to kick-start their ride – the place was still an hour away from opening. I waved past another couple heading east and a third group tracked me along the valley floor for a while, but either turned off, or got caught behind some lights, so never caught up for a chat.

After last week’s flotilla of single sculls, there was only a solitary eight out on the river, leading me to idly speculate that rowing isn’t really as popular as it seems. Perhaps this eight was manned by the exact same rowers as last week’s sculls and they just changed boats occasionally to spice things up. If next week they’re back to 8-singles, or possibly 4-doubles, I think I might be onto something.

The knee got its first test as I climbed out the other side of the valley, but the strapping seemed to be doing its work, it wasn’t exactly 100% but I could live with a few small twinges. Interestingly it seemed less sore when climbing standing up and out of the saddle.

The first test passed, I was soon homing in on the meeting point, arriving in good time and in good order.

Main topics of conversation at the meeting place:

G-Dawg had bedecked himself in the brightest, most luminous, acid-orange socks I’d ever seen, perhaps so he was especially prominent as ride leader and to ensure no one got lost – the cycling equivalent of Rudolph’s red-nose? Taffy Steve later remarked he thought G-Dawg had installed a special two-tone gold chain with orange highlights, until he realised he was just seeing the glow of the glaringly orange socks reflected in the chains highly burnished plates.

The Garrulous Kid declared OGL had promised to show him the “secret way.” Yes, well … ahem … hmmm … moving swiftly on.

Crazy Legs was wearing a jersey I donated to him as it was too long in the body for me and I felt it was the perfect complement to his much cossetted Ribble. The colours were not only the exact shade of red, black and white to match the Ribble’s frame, but featured in almost identical proportions too. So, naturally he’d decided to wear it while riding his celeste Bianchi …

(He did actually explain that he fully intended to ride the much cossetted Ribble today, but it had refused, point-blank to leave the warm, dry sanctuary of its hyperbaric chamber, asserting there was just the faintest trace of moisture in the air and a more than 2.5% chance of rain.)

Jimmy Mac returned from participating in the UCI Gran Fondo event, where he’d lined up in Albi with 2,939 other riders from 56 different nations, including at least one Dutchman, our own de Uitheems Bloem. The latter has now left this royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, in order to return to his homeland of polders and dykes. Veel success, Thomas, we’ll miss you.

Jimmy Mac had survived the Gran Fondo which, in his estimation had not only been blisteringly fast, but blisteringly hot too. Once again and much like the Etape du Tour, the event organisation seemed to have thoroughly let the riders down though and he reported the en route feed stations had run out of water long before he got to them.

G-Dawg outlined the route, OGL emphasised there was only one cut-off point for anyone wanting a shorter ride and we split more or less (we’re learning) into two equal groups with Crazy Legs leading the first and G-Dawg the second.

We pushed off, clipped in and rode out…

On the road with the first group, I started chatting with Taffy Steve and was taken to task for not acknowledging his most invaluable contributions in the engine room of last week’s gimp express, as we tried unsuccessfully to rein in the rampaging Zardoz and the only slightly-less rampaging Big Dunc.

Suitably chastened, talk turned to the “classic” bloke-films that Taffy Steve is ensuring his son has an encyclopaedic and deep, empathic understanding of, before the boy is cast, adrift and defenceless, into a world full of rom-cons, chick-flicks, historical dramas, much-too earnest bio-pics, classical literature screen-adaptations and other such horrors.

Point Break, the original 1960’s Batman and the Matrix films had already been covered off, while we discussed the relative merits of Die Hard, Predator and the Lethal Weapon series, with a special nod to Clint Eastwood, a few spaghetti-westerns and of course Where Eagles Dare.

Never mind the implausibility, the occasionally ropey special effects, the scripts full of anachronisms and “more holes than a horse trader’s mule” – just sit back and enjoy the visceral excitement. How good must it be to discover these films for the first time?

Once Crazy Legs had rotated off the front we had a remarkably rare sighting of a couple of Grogs leading us and their efforts dragged us to the top of the valley before the plunge down into Wylam.

It was here that OGL would lead off a splinter group for those seeking a slightly shorter ride, seemingly taking most of the Grogs with him along with the Garrulous Kid, who continues to take the easy option and might need to be renamed the Wimpy Kid.

It was also at this point that OGL’s “secret route” was revealed … apparently a different, safer way we could take down into the Tyne Valley. The only trouble was it was only accessible if we travelled a mile or two in the wrong direction down the Military Road.

I must admit I don’t quite understand his concern – the descent into Wylam is fast, but the road’s wide, the bends are all gently sweeping and the traffic relatively light. We usually get strung out going down, but soon regroup at the bottom for the ride along the river side.

Anyway, as Crazy Legs reasoned, it would still be far better to deal with the descent, even if it was gnarly, rather than spend any more time than absolutely necessary dicing with the reckless, impatient, and frequently speeding drivers on the Military Road “race-track.”

So, down we went and I tucked up and dropped in behind Taffy Steve and Crazy Legs, letting gravity do the work as we hit over 40 mph. As always, great fun.

Along the valley floor and a black cat darted across the road in front of us, the bell on its collar jingling lightly, but clearly loud enough for Crazy Legs to suggest it was nearly as good as cow bells on an Alpine climb. Once safely on the pavement the cat stopped to eye us up suspiciously, making sure we kept right on going.

At the Bywell Bridge, now fully open to anyone brave enough to venture into the dark and brooding lands south of the river, we stopped to merge with the following group led by G-Dawg. All together we then swung away to the right and starting the long climb back out of the valley.

I topped the hill before the A69 dual carriageway just off the front group and with perfect timing, as a gap miraculously appeared in the rushing traffic. I picked my way across to the other side without stopping and pulled up to ensure everyone was across before continuing to climb upwards.

We were now traversing the side of the hill, travelling slightly eastwards, rather than heading straight up and as the road continued to climb I started working my way through the back markers. Szell, Sneaky Pete, Aether and Brink in particular didn’t seem to be enjoying the uphill segments and I slipped past them as the road continued upwards.

We stopped to regroup and pressed on through more climbing – and then hit the rinse and repeat button, more climbing and more regrouping. Somewhere along the way I lost track of Szell and was convinced he was tailed-off and riding behind the group.

I communicated my concern to Rab Dee, our backmarker, sweeper-up and self-appointed guardian of waifs and strays and we spent an age soft-pedalling and peering backwards, hoping to see a struggling Szell finally haul himself into view. There was nothing.

We stopped and waited, finally surmising Szell may have taken a different route, before reluctantly pushing on again. At the junction Aether and Radman had waited for us, but the rest of the group had kept going.

We then had a mile or so chasing into the wind, before catching up to the rest of the group who were waiting at the next junction and insisted Szell was in a group up ahead! They still had trouble convincing me he wasn’t lost, alone and palely loitering, though.

At this point it became apparent we’d now lost Rab Dee too and Aether back-tracked to find he was having problems with his front shifter. Rab finally re-joined, but only long enough to let us know he was stuck in the inner ring and cutting short his ride to head homeward.

We now took one of G-Dawg’s “paths less-travelled” – turning off the main roads onto a rutted and pitted farm track that narrowed to the point where I was becoming concerned it was going to peter out altogether and abandon us in the middle of a field.

There were a few pots to avoid, lumps to slalom round and gravel to surf through, but we kept going and G-Dawg’s plan didn’t fail us.

Petang-phwee!

With a noise like a Winchester ricochet in a cheesy Western, a wheel ahead spat up a small boulder which flew with unerring accuracy to rap Taffy Steve across the knuckles.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed, before quickly realising he had to translate his hurt into the local Geordie vernacular, or nobody would have a clue about what had happened…

“Ai-ya, that knaacks!” he quickly corrected himself.

Finally, we emerged from the wilderness onto more civilised roads, with everyone seeming to instantly recognise where they were. Well, everyone except me.

“This is part of the route the Cyclone takes,” Taffy Steve informed me.

“Maybe, but at this stage, after the Ryals, I’m usually reduced to an exhausted wreck with tunnel-vision and can only ride with my head bowed down. I don’t recognise anything.”

“How long have you lived in Newcastle?” Taffy Steve asked in disbelief.

“I don’t live in Newcastle,” I protested.

“Hmm, must just be because you work there that you’ve developed that thin veneer of civility.”

Thanks!

“Kee-argh!” Zardoz announced, at the sound of a motor-vehicle approaching from behind.

His exaggerated Scouse bleat still sounded like my cat retching up a fur-ball.

I tried to copy this most extraordinary noise, but succeeded only in sounding like a mildly startled crow. Embarrassingly, it was as pitiful as Ed Miliband’s death metal scream as he tried to imitate Napalm Death frontman, Barney Greenway.

The Guardian.com – Ed-Miliband learns how to scream like a death-metal singer

“You need lessons,” Zardoz declared phlegmatically.

He wasn’t wrong.

Radman and Crazy Legs took to the front for the last push through Stamfordham and I finally recognised where we were. They swung us left and up the hill, as we started a last push on to the café.

Above us massive wind-turbines whirred freely and we quickly came to understand just why they’d been placed where they were, as out of nowhere, the stretch of road suddenly became a perfect, natural wind-tunnel, funnelling a vicious headwind straight into our faces.

Radman and Crazy Legs drove us through this gale and onto the junction leading down to the Snake Bends where, as suddenly as the wind had sprang up, it died away again.

There was no full-blooded sprint, just a general quickening of the pace and I was able to stay comfortably in line despite discovering I’d been riding on the inner ring.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

I was somewhat relieved to discover Szell comfortably ensconced in the café when we arrived, supping his tea and devouring a warm scone. I guess he was in the group up the road after all, but I’m still confused as to when and where (and how?) he passed me on the climb.

We sat outside into the garden after being served, where the owner-proprietor of Azione bikes passed by and stopped for a brief chat. Azione must be the only people producing custom-made, bespoke carbon bikes in Newcastle (Azione.cc).

A couple of our crew are “Azionista’s” – one is very, very enthusiastic about the project, the other a little more circumspect. Very nice designs, but a bit too rich for my blood – which I guess is just another way of admitting I’m a cheapskate – or, as tight as a wallaby’s sphincter, as some of my more erudite friends might suggest.

I think Jimmy Mac got the full sales pitch, but refreshingly, unlike a similar encounter with the MD of the Storck UK, at least the Azione guy wasn’t trying to spin us a tale about his frames being anything other than high-end and unashamedly expensive, premium bikes.

The Garrulous Kid unwisely started guessing peoples ages, straddling the line between fawning sycophantism and uncomfortable, derogatory and disparaging disrespect. Luckily Taffy Steve cut him short before he really insulted someone.

Radman stated how much he’d enjoyed the ride and how it made a change from the shorter route he usually takes with the Grogs and we all agreed it had been a great one today. He wasn’t a fan of the coffee at the café though and we couldn’t persuade him to have a second cup, even after Crazy Legs had press-ganged the Garrulous Kid into collecting our refills – more for a moments respite than any laziness on our part.

Radman revealed the Grogs always met up early for a pre-ride espresso, which sounds very civilised and means they can time their arrival for after any OGL proselytizing – so not only civilised, but sensible too.

In the car park as we were leaving, I was approached by a couple enquiring which club we were from. Despite wondering if they were going to report us to the Police for unknown misdemeanours, I answered truthfully – the garish club jerseys were well represented anyway and they’re all emblazoned with the club name, so there wasn’t much wriggle-room.

Apparently though, the couple were cyclists from Lincoln (Lincoln Wheelers, I think) who were just returning from a walking event in Peebles and were admiring all the bikes. They seemed rather jealous that we had such a glorious day for a ride, while they still had a couple of hours drive ahead of them.

As we set off for home I dropped in behind Sneaky Pete and heard all about his potential 15 minutes of fame, as he’d been filmed for the new BBC One series, How to Stay Young, due to air on Wednesday, 13th September at 21.00.

Answering the call for retired gentlemen of a certain vintage, Sneaky Pete had to endure a battery of tests at the hands of no less than the fearsome Angela Ripon, before our mountain climbing and cycling superhero was declared an uber-healthy pensioner, with less than 6% body-fat and the physique of a 35-year-old Adonis.

We’ve yet to see if Sneaky Pete’s segment survives the cut, or is expunged for making the rest of us feel old, unworthy and inadequate.

Sneaky Pete, however is apparently not everyone’s flavour of the month. While I was away on holiday he’d found his picture appearing unsolicited on a social-media site, where he was accused, in terms that would make a sailor blush, of being a reckless cyclist who casually and disdainfully flouts the rules of the road.

Apparently Sneaky Pete and colleagues had been out on the usual Saturday club run and had somehow – and he has genuinely no idea how, or why – incurred the wrath of the driver of a black Mercedes. This woman had photographed him on her mobile and posted up the picture along with the derogatory remarks and had, apparently without the slightest hint of self-awareness or irony, accused him of breaking the law.

Just to be absolutely clear: The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) (Amendment) (No 4) Regulations 2003, prohibits a person from driving a motor vehicle on a road if the driver is using a held-hand mobile telephone or a hand-held device. Regulation 110 (6)(c) provides a non-exhaustive list of “interactive communication functions” which are subject to this restriction, including: sending or receiving oral or written messages, sending or receiving facsimile documents, sending or receiving still or moving images, and providing access to the internet.

Contrary to what many drivers seem to think, the law still applies even if you’re stopped, or queuing in traffic – as the RAC conclude, “if your engine is running, your phone should be nowhere near your hands or eye line.”

Still, it’s good to know so many drivers have such a vested interest in ensuring people strictly adhere to the rules of the road …

It wasn’t long before I was swinging off and heading for home, enduring the lightest and briefest of rain showers that did nothing to dampen the mood or ruin the day. The knee held up quite well and only really hurt a couple of miles from home, when I needed to sprint through a small gap in the traffic at a busy roundabout.

Hopefully all on the road to recovery then.

YTD Totals: 5,409 km / 3,360 miles with 61,650 metres of climbing

Ozzie Rules

Club Run, Saturday 2^nd September, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 108 km/67 miles with 1,105 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 30 minutes

Average Speed: 24.0 km/h

Group size: 31 riders, 0 FNG’s

Temperature: 19°C

Weather in a word or two: Pleasant

The Ride:

You can’t say I hadn’t been warned and I should have known what to expect, after all I’d already managed two bike commutes into work during the week. On both occasions the cold had made me grateful for the light, long fingered gloves (my favourite and highly recommended, Galibier Roubaix Vision 4’s) that I’d used both mornings, before switching to mitts for the considerably warmer return journey.

But, Saturday morning looked bright and breezy and I was setting off an hour later than I do when travelling into work – surely it wouldn’t be so cold that I’d need to supplement arm-warmers with gloves? It was though, and dropping down the Hill at high speed didn’t help. The cold attacked my hands, especially through the chilled metal of the brake levers I had covered throughout the descent.

Along the valley floor I tried to find some relief and to break the wind chill – hands positioned on the very tops of the bars, just before the warm tape gave way to icy metal, fingers curled up tight and bundled together like cold kittens, with only the runts of the litter, my two thumbs, still exposed to the air flow and slowly turning numb.

Despite the frigid, early morning conditions, it looked like being a great day once the air warmed up a little, the pale blue above only lightly smudged with milky ripples and whorls of cloud, like a giant had left his fingerprints across the sky. It was simply a case of surviving until the suns warming influence could be felt, perhaps one of the last, fine days before the dark, cold, winds and rain of late autumn descend and so, not to be missed.

The promise of decent weather was a real incentive to get out for the Saturday Club Run, overcoming the twin challenges of illness and a sore knee. I’d missed time at work on the Tuesday, feeling sick – high temperature, nausea, stomach cramps and a headache. I still wasn’t fully 100% but had determined to try and ride through it.

Then on Thursday I’d noticed my right knee was sore, especially when climbing. I’d shared the first half of my evening commute with Mr. T (aka The Man with the Van and the Plan) on Friday. He’s trying to reach his annual mileage target, so wanted a longer route home. During the ride he wondered if I’d done anything to actually injure the knee, but nothing came to mind.

It wasn’t until later, when climbing the Heinous Hill with little stabs of pain sparking in the offending joint, that I remembered slipping on the office stairs on Wednesday morning. Perhaps that was the source of the injury? I hope so, as it beats the alternative, that my aged and decrepit knee joints are just worn out, crumbling and terminally failing.

Still, as I crossed the river, admiring a small flotilla of single-sculls arrowing downstream, I felt fine, any knee pain was at least temporarily quiescent and the bike was whirring along smoothly and quietly. All seemed well with the world.

I reached the meeting point in good time and in good order and drew up to wait for everyone else alongside the early arrivals, Crazy Legs and the Garrulous Kid.

Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:

The Garrulous Kid reported great success with his GCSE exams, especially Chemistry, Physics and Maffs. Apparently he’d passed his English too and with flying colours, causing me to enquire if there was an oral element to his testing and how well he’d fared at that part. (There wasn’t).

Crazy Legs thanked Zardoz for his moral and very vocal support during last week’s 4-Up Team Time Trial. Apparently Zardoz’s bellowing of, “you’ve almost caught your minute-men!” halfway around the course had been invigorating and motivating, even as Crazy Legs immediately realised it was a complete and utter lie.

Aether rolled up and we awarded him a full ceremonial fanfare as this week ride leader. We all genuflected in his august presence and I’m sure, out of the corner of my eye I even saw the Garrulous Kid attempt an awkward curtsy.

With another good turnout spilling across the pavement, Aether recognised the need to split us into two, but we still haven’t quite got the hang of this and we ended up with a pair of very lopsided groups, one of about twenty-strong, the other of no more than a dozen. Sadly this was just an excuse for those who don’t agree with splitting into groups to complain that it doesn’t work. And they did. A lot.

A small few of us hung back to form the core of the second group, even rolling up to the lights on green and refusing to go through them in order to allow the bunch out front plenty of time to get clear.

The lights finally cycled round to green again and we pushed off, clipped in and rode out.

Crazy Legs and Taffy Steve took to the front for the first part, while I slotted in behind them, alongside the Garrulous Kid, with Big Dunc and Zardoz following in turn and in our wheels. On past Dinnington, the front two peeled off, I pushed through with the Garrulous Kid and Zardoz, realising he was getting perilously close to the front immediately called for a pee stop, so he could slip quietly back down the order. We naturally ignored him and pressed on.

We drove the pace on, up past the Cheese Farm, trying to see how many “ease up!” cries we could generate on the climb, but they were disappointingly scarce. Passing under the A1 just outside of Morpeth, we ceded the front to Zardoz and Big Dunc. A large contingent of Grogs slipped away off the back to head straight to the café and when Moscas turned early for home shortly afterwards, there was just the front group and OGL left – a Malignant Seven – average age about 50, or if you exclude the Garrulous Kid, about 56.

We swung round a sharp corner onto the bottom of the Mur de Mitford, I changed down and attacked the slope. Ouch, big mistake, as someone introduced my knee to a little needle of niggling, sharp pain. Ah! So that injuries still there, then …

I tried to spin up, putting as little force as possible through my right leg, which felt a bit odd. It wasn’t hugely painful, but uncomfortable and the joint felt weak and somewhat femmer – definitely not something I wanted to put too much strain through.

We regrouped and pressed on. The weather had started to warm up, the sun was high and bright and I was able to abandon the arm warmers. It was, finally, a glorious day. All around us the countryside was blooming richly and riotously. Glossy blackberries dotted all the hedgerows and while a few fields had already been shaved back to a dry stubble, in the Font valley the maize was already reaching over head-height.

We swung left, onto the Coldlaw Wood Climb running parallel to the Trench and took the opportunity for a pee stop, while OGL shipped and stowed his gilet. The Garrulous Kid complained there was nowhere to pee. Crazy Legs raised a quizzical eyebrow and looked around the shady, secluded country lane, lined with a wall and hedge to one side and tall trees to the other?

“What more do you want,” he asked, somewhat exasperated, “A Dyson air-blower to dry your hands?”

“We’ve got one of them.” I added nodding back down the lane, where OGL was shoving a gilet into his back pocket.

“Nah,” Crazy Legs concluded, “Dyson’s need to be able to produce at least 100 watts.” Oh, dear … average age of 50 and we’re still such shockingly childish, immature and caustic bitches.

As the climb levelled off we swung left, while OGL, looking for a shorter, easier route went right. Rolling round a bend we passed our first group, all clustered at the side of the road while the Red Max worked feverishly to fix a rear wheel puncture.

We had no intention of stopping and rolled past, now forming the clubs advance party, or tête de la course, if you prefer, travelling down toward Dyke Neuk on a road we more typically travel up. Slow-witted as usual, it took me an absolute age to realise I actually knew where we were!

Just before dropping down the dip toward Hartburn, OGL was spat out of a side road ahead of us – now our virtual leader on the road. Once again though he didn’t press his advantage, taking a different, shorter route at the top of the climb, while we followed the less well-travelled ride plan, up to Scots Gap, before starting to close on Middleton Bank.

I drifted off the back of the group as we rolled toward the climb, happy to ride at my own pace and nurse my sore knee along, only to find I’d acquired a pilot fish, as Crazy Legs dropped back to check on me.

The group splintered apart, Zardoz and Big Dunc riding off the front, with the Garrulous Kid in hot pursuit, while I spun up the climb alongside Crazy Legs, slowly closing the gap to Taffy Steve.

Over the top, Zardoz and Big Dunc were pressing on for home without regrouping. Crazy Legs took over on the front, checked I was happy with the pace and set off for home. “All aboard the gimp express!”

We caught Taffy Steve in short order. “All aboard!” I called, easing back to open a space behind Crazy Legs’ back wheel. Taffy Steve slotted in, Crazy Legs blew an imaginary train whistle … and then we started to eat into the gap up to the Garrulous Kid.

The Garrulous Kid appeared to be lost in a daydream and seemed a bit startled as we thundered past, but managed to respond to the call, “All aboard!” tagging onto the back of our line.

We never did catch the rampaging Zardoz, or the only slightly-less rampaging Big Dunc, but then again, despite all expectation, our erstwhile front group of runners and chasers never caught us either.

We managed to keep our small group all together until the rollers just after the Milestone Woods, when Taffy Steve drifted off the back. I hung on down the descent and around the corner to the final climb, before Crazy Legs and the Garrulous Kid romped away to contest the minor placings in the sprint.

Ahead of me, OGL emerged yet again from another side road and I swooped around him and then eased to roll up to the café.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

The café has new coffee mugs, which are, apparently easier to carry, so I think the staff quite like them. Or at least they did – until they had to contend with a bunch of awkward, obstreperous cyclists insisting – beyond all reason and even after practical demonstration – that they were smaller than the previous version and we were all being short-changed.

We took advantage of the good weather to sit outside in the garden, reasoning there can’t be many more opportunities to do that this year.

Perhaps though, we should be more thankful we live in such a temperate climate, it is after all just a matter of perspective. OGL related how one of our club members was currently living in Las Vegas and didn’t seem too happy about it – perhaps because he can’t walk the dogs in the afternoon as the pavement (sorry, sidewalk) is so hot their paws blister.

Not that he can even get out himself either, as his steel gates expand so much in the heat they jam closed. Apparently the strict grid-like layout of American urban areas and the surrounding blank, flatness of Nevada ensure that all his Strava routes could be easily replicated by a child on an Etch-A-Sketch.

Crazy Legs recalled riding with the guy on one club run, in mid-autumn when it was typically wet, blustery and cold and everyone was complaining about the weather, apart from our ex-pat, who positively revelled in it and couldn’t have been happier. You see, perspectives.

Gazing into a nearby field, the Garrulous Kid seemed excited to see a black lamb amongst all its snow-white brothers. (He doesn’t get out much.) OGL revealed this was the field he was planning to use if he’d won the charity auction for Sean Kelly’s donkey at one of the Braveheart dinners. Luckily he was outbid at the last.

(I’ve yet to discover what possessed him to even think about bidding to win Sean Kelly’s donkey, or perhaps more accurately how much alcohol you have to consume before bidding for Sean Kelly’s donkey seems (even remotely) like a good idea.)

I felt duty bound to ask if OGL hadn’t felt a bit of an ass, while Crazy Legs wanted to know if the donkey had later wandered up to his room and “brayed on the door.” Well, it kept us vaguely amused anyway.

Coming out of the café and setting off home, the Garrulous Kid and Monkey Butler Boy got into a bitch-boy slap-fight, which the Monkey Butler Boy seemed to win, simply by virtue of his well-honed, rapier-sharp wit, as evidenced by his final retort – “Blah-blah, bler-bler-bler.”

“Blah-blah, bler-bler-bler?” I enquired.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Your scintillating wit, bon-mots and clever word-play really would put Oscar Wilde to shame.”

“Who?”

“Oscar Wilde?”

“Never heard of the feller.”

I cocked an imaginary pistol, Contador-style, pointed it at the Monkey Butler Boy’s head and (figuratively) shot him dead.

“You’ve never even heard of Oscar Wilde?”

“Well, you’ve got to remember, I’m only young … I wasn’t around in the ‘80’s.”

Sigh.

The Monkey Butler Boy rode away to continue his fractious discussions with the Garrulous Kid, leaving me in splendid isolation, where I found I was continuously yawning. I mention this because it seemed so utterly incongruous – I can’t remember ever needing to yawn while cycling before – and now I couldn’t seem to stop.

I also began to feel nauseous and strangely displaced. This wasn’t good. At the next junction, I baled, swinging right to track through Ponteland for a shorter route home, while the bunch sped left. I started to feel chilled, even though I was sweating, but it was the clammy cold sweat of not being well, rather than the good, honest sweat of a hard workout and my speed began to drop away.

I stopped to throw up and pull on my arm-warmers – completely separate actions I’m afraid, I’m not that good at multi-tasking – before pushing grimly on.

At one point I suffered a too-close pass by a learner driver and started to wonder what exactly they were teaching them these days – but more or less forgave the driving-instructor when the car then bounced off the verge in a puff of dust and I saw him wrestling with both the wheel and the driver, trying to centre the car back into the middle of the road.

I finally made it to that Hill and crawled up it using gears I haven’t troubled since L’Alpe d’Huez, managing to make it home before an unfortunate attack of the Dumoulin’s. Well, that scuppered any chance of riding out Monday to catch the Tour of Britain – not that it was heading anywhere particularly scenic mind …

SWP_OVO_ENERGY_TOUR_OF_BRITAIN_0017x-1024x681 — In a picture stolen from the OVO Tour of Britain website, the peloton rides past Bamburgh Castle, en route through one of my favourite places, the remarkably beautiful, Northumberland coast.

Actually, now that I think about it, the familiar scenery is about the only thing the OVO Tour of Britain has going for it – what an incredibly dull … I was going to say race, but “series of unconnected sprints” would be a better description – they’ve managed to make it almost as uninspiring as the women’s version.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for both races as an opportunity to see professional cycling on British roads. I want them to succeed and spread the appeal of the sport and I’d rather watch even this level of racing ahead of just about any other sport you care to mention … but … what remarkable lack of ingenuity was employed in designing this race and does anyone want to see a GC largely decided among sprinters on bonus seconds?

How come the Tour de of Yorkshire (despite its sad, naming pretensions) can come up with an interesting parcours and compelling competition based on a couple of days of racing in just a single county, yet our National Tour, which should be the showcase event for cycling, has the whole, infinitely variable landscape of the British Isles to choose from (and a super-strong start-list), yet is so completely lifeless? Got to hope for better next year.

Right, time to rest up the knee and hopefully get better before next weekend.

YTD Totals: 5,253 km / 3,264 miles with 60,111 metres of climbing

Composed on the Cornish Coast

Club Run, Saturday 12^th August, 2017

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 83 km / 52 miles with 900 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 3 hours 09 minutes

Average Speed: 26.3 km/h

Group size: 33 riders, 0 FNG’s

Temperature: 20°C

Weather in a word or two: Blustery

The Ride:

Not only composed on the Cornish Coast, but tapped into an iPad too – which I can’t say was an experience I’d care to repeat.

I managed to commute into work every day last week, which not only allowed me to try and recover some cycling fitness, but also gave our office cleaner the opportunity to wish me “good morning,” on ten separate occasions. I like this, as it affirms the complete transformation and very clear distinction between a skinny, scraggy weird bloke in odd, too tight, clothing and clippety-clop, clown shoes, to someone who, after showering and changing, might look sober, respectable and perhaps, dare I say it, almost professional.

Given that she chats away to both figures, someday soon she will twig it’s the same person, but, even with double the exposure, it wasn’t to be this week.

The increased commuting was necessary, because I’m flying off on holiday again and set to miss more club runs. Not this Saturday though, as a late afternoon flight and careful negotiations meant I could just about squeeze in a ride, if I drove to and from the meeting point to allow a decent margin of error.

Saturday morning then found me up later than usual and loading the bike into the back of the car for a quick trip across town.

Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:

I arrived in time for the Prof’s ride briefing to explain the route he’d set. After the usual heckling and demand for hoary old clichés – it’s not a race, you don’t have a number on your back, we are the biggest club in the world, bar none, nobody ever uses Facebook etc. – the Prof outlined the route that would take us down into the Tyne Valley. This had an option, for those wanting a longer ride, to indulge in a much too rare venture south of the river and around Blanchland. Some of my favourite rides are around this area, so on any normal weekend I would have been well up for it, but it wasn’t going to happen today.

There was then a call-out for others to post up routes and lead rides, with our current group of stalwart lieutenants and ride leaders getting a name-check, G-Dawg, Crazy Legs, the Hammer, the Red Max, Benedict, Taffy Steve, Aether and the Prof. With my attention wandering at this point, I mistook the call for additional ride volunteers with the Prof’s pedagogic prevalence’s, raised my hand and declared I was present, only to realise he wasn’t actually taking a register. Hmm, perhaps not a bad idea though.

There was only time then to learn the Garrulous Kids travails last week could be traced to a snapped gear cable, obviously a case of inferior Far East componentry letting down Teutonic engineering par excellence, before we conducted a quick split into two groups and we were off.

Unusually, especially with a strong, gusting wind to contend with, I spent long portions of the first part of the ride on the front with a succession of partners, the Garrulous Kid (nervous and jittery about his impending GCSE results) the Red Max ( full of dire tales about the “beastings” the Monkey Butler Boy now turns every ride into) and Ovis (who’d dropped a pile of weight, confessed he was feeling super-strong and had managed 3 whole Shredded Wheat for breakfast.)

The Monkey Butler Boy was using us only as a relay to get him out to where he was to meet up with the rest of his wrecking crew. He spent the last 15 minutes with our group arguing with the Red Max about the best route to take, convinced his dad was trying to send him the hilly way round. He may no longer officially ride with our club, but something’s never change …

Taking pity on my extended spell on the front, or more likely being bored sitting mid-pack, Crazy Legs moved up to the front to provide some relief along with Sneaky Pete. I dropped through the group and onto the back, as we crested the last rise before the long drop into the Tyne Valley.

We pushed along the valley floor passing a couple of clusters of other cyclists, including a group from the Sunderland Clarion (I always like the name!) if I’m not mistaken, quite a long way from home. Then we rolled around a corner and into the back of our front group.

They’d pulled up at the junction just before the Bywell Bridge, the route they were planning to use to slip across the border and into the dark lands south of the Tyne. Rather ominously though, the bridge was littered with traffic cones and road closed signs.

Luckily, the maintenance work was confined to the parapets and it was still possible for a group of hardy cyclists to sneak across. Still, we seemed to stand around for an inordinate amount of time, spilling across the road and clogging up the junction while those intent on crossing the river built up their courage.

In fact, we hung around so long that both groups of cyclists we had passed in the valley caught us up and had to swing into the opposite lane and weave dangerously around oncoming traffic to find a way through the melee. Sorry fellow cyclists, that was not our finest hour.

With the split finally made and many of us wondering if we ever see our adventurous comrades again as they filed across the river, the rest of us turned away and almost immediately began climbing our way back out of the valley.

Ahead of me G-Dawg was now riding with his attention totally fixated on what was happening under his feet, or perhaps not happening is a more accurate description. Perhaps for only the second time this year, he was attempting to coax his chain down and onto the inner ring. Seized or atrophied from lack of use, or perhaps just confused and lost, never having travelled in that direction before, his chain was having none of it. Finally, in exasperation, he pulled over to the side of the road and manually lifted the chain over.

I started climbing alongside Princess Fiona, but the cadence wasn’t quite right, so I switched up a gear, increased the pace and started to reel in Ovis and the Garrulous Kid who’d forged on ahead. G-Dawg pulled up alongside and then the BFG bridged across to us, moaning all the while at the pace, at how little shelter he was getting on our back wheels and totally ignoring my urging to attack over the top.

We all regrouped just before the thundering cataract of traffic that marked the A69, before engaging in another of our occasional games of Frogger. I can’t recall ever seeing the road quite so busy, but we finally made it across safely and pushed up the last climb to finally escape the valley.

As we closed on Matfen the Colossus of Roads nodded at the Garrulous Kid’s bike, indicating a horrendous piece of cross-chaining, as he thundered along, the chain stretched taut from inner ring to the smallest sprocket. I assured the Colossus that, unlike a normal bike, the precise and exceptional Teutonic engineering of the Garrulous Kid’s ride meant it would laugh off such abuses and, in fact, probably actively encouraged them.

“Ah,” he replied sagely, “Like his gear cable.”

Once again I found myself on the front, battling into the wind and trying to contain an utterly rampant Ovis. As we approached the Quarry, the BFG continued to complain about the pace and even started lamenting the controlling (i.e. slowing) absence of OGL.

We turned off toward the climb, following the road as it swung right and – for perhaps the first time all day – found we actually has a tailwind to help us along. Ovis forged up the Quarry Climb, while I just about hung onto his wheel and then pausing to allow everyone to regroup, he lined us out in a charge for the café.

I was sitting comfortably second wheel as the pace increased, but a low rumbling indicated a rapidly softening back tyre and I eased, sat up and waved everyone through, coasting to a halt beside the entrance to a field.

Sneaky Pete and then Carlton slowed to check on me as I set about changing the tube, but I had everything in hand and waved them on. I managed to fix the puncture with relative ease and trailed into the cafe, at least making it before the last of our group had been served.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

Mini Miss revealed that no matter what address she typed into her Sat-Nav it always plotted a route to Hull. She dismissed my suggestion that a higher authority was guiding her to attend the new messiah, although it seemed obvious to me the Sat-Nav was the modern equivalent of following a star.

Trying to find something positive to say about Hull (UK City of Culture, 2017) the best we could come up with was Teekay’s recollection of a fine Victorian public convenience there, which had massive in- built fish tanks lining the walls. We of course couldn’t help wonder what happened to the fish whenever someone flushed.

Talk about brakeless fixies somehow led to a discussion about driverless cars. I have to say I’ve yet to meet the cyclist who doesn’t think the roads will be a safer place once the erratic, irrational, impatient, conceited and occasionally aggressive and inept human driver is replaced by the cold calculation and logic of a computer.

While Teekay suggested one drawback of driverless cars was that mad drunken moment when you come out of the pub and think it would be a brilliant wheeze to tell your driveless vehicle to take you to France. He imagined waking up, hours later, horribly hungover and finding you’re parked in a ferry terminal somewhere in Dover.

Mini Miss was convinced she’d seen some advertising for a plugless electronic car and we imagined every house having a massive induction charging plate that not only cut off all your mobile communications, but could play havoc with a pacemaker. It was suggested that standing on it would be an ideal way to generate a new hairstyle – well, if you want to look like Albert Einstein on one of his bad hair days.

The BFG then reminisced about Muhammad Ali’s seemingly impromptu visit to South Shields in 1977 – an event that, despite its startling unlikelihood, I confess I couldn’t recall at all. Perhaps he had a faulty Sat-Nav too?

The group decided on a longer loop back home through Stamfordham, but I was on a schedule so decided to stick to our usual routine. I had Taffy Steve for company and at the last minute the Garrulous Kid decided to come with us, while for some unknown and unrelated reason, Sneaky Pete changed his mind and decided he’d like to go with the rest after all, so sneaked smartly away to try and tag onto the back.

It was a good ride home and I was able to catch up with Taffy Steve, fresh from his return from holidaying in Canada. In between times we became acquainted with the Garrulous Kid’s execrable taste in comedy and music and a deep, underlying streak of racism which had him suggesting all French are blue-eyed, blonde-haired, beret-wearing Aryans and all oriental people, be they Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Taiwanese all look exactly the same.

To top it all, for some reason after our conversation touched on Coldplay and Chris Martin, the Garrulous Kid had lots of questions for Taffy Steve about Martin’s Welsh wife. Apparently anyone called Gwyneth couldn’t be anything else but Welsh in the Garrulous Kid’s world.

Still at least mention of Miss Paltrow sparked a quite remarkable and unexpected conversational boon about vagina steaming – which I have to say is an unusual topic for a bike ride, even by our most eclectic and wayward standards.

YTD Totals: 5,005 km / 3,110 miles with 57,511 metres of climbing

Pugs and Uggs

Total Distance: 103 km / 74 miles with 781 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 3 hours 59 minutes

Average Speed: 25.8 km/h

Group size: 28 riders, 0 FNG’s

Temperature: 16°C

Weather in a word or two: Chilly and very, very wet

The Ride:

They say a week is a long time in politics, but I have to say it’s even longer in relation to the rapidly plummeting fitness levels of ageing and mediocre club cyclists. I returned from holiday four pounds heavier and over a twelve hundred pounds lighter in the wallet, with nothing to show for it but blurred tan lines and a sharp decline in whatever small measure of cycling ability I possess.

This manifested as a real struggle to commute in and out of work, where I felt slow, weak and generally out of sorts. I tried to ride through it and managed to fit in three days commuting before Saturday and the chance to make up for the two club runs I’d missed.

On the commutes I’d noticed the mornings have a distinct chill to them already and had started to think about digging out some long-fingered gloves. In August? Maybe I’m just getting soft.

Saturday morning wasn’t quite so bad, but this was probably the result of the banks of thick, leaden cloud that had been scrawled heavily across the sky in various shades of grey, by my estimation using 2B to 9B pencils. This cloud cover may have provided some degree of insulation overnight, but totally precluded any chance we’d see the sun today.

Still, the roads were dry and the weather forecasts suggested no rain until mid-afternoon, when we’d hopefully be home and hosed.

I slipped smoothly down the Heinous Hill on a new patch of pristine tarmac and pushed on along the valley floor, immediately butting up against a strong westerly. I was rolling along, minding my own business along a wide, straight and totally empty road, when a small, silver hatchback snarled past, too fast and much too close, in what I can only assume was a deliberate attempt at provocation or intimidation.

I gave the driver my best WTF gesture, which he responded to in kind, which only seemed to suggest the close pass had been deliberate and he was watching to see what sort of reaction he’d get. Dick.

The rest of the ride was thankfully uneventful, but I was delayed by even more roadworks and traffic lights along the route. Nevertheless, when I hit my mark of 8.42 miles covered at 8:41 I knew I was on schedule and eased back.

Main topics of conversation at the meeting point:

The Colossus of Roads was there showing off his newly pimped up bike, complete with a new red and shiny chainring to accessorize with all the other red and shiny bling bits: hubs, jockey wheels, quick release skewers, cable ends, bar plugs, seat clamp, gear hanger, headset spacers and the like. To cap it all he’d gone for a gleaming gold chain, which prompted a frankly disapproving OGL to remark that if he took the bike into his shop the first thing he’d do would be to clean the chain because he thought it looked rusty. Let’s just say he seems to have a different aesthetic appreciation than me.

OGL himself was sporting his own “new look” – a sort of scruffy Abe Lincoln-meets-the-Amish with a hint of hill-billy, face fringe with a bare upper lip that reminded me of Mad Willie McDougal, the caretaker at Springfield Elementary School. Crazy Legs wondered aloud if OGL had deliberately cultivated his face fungus in club colours, the mix of ginger and white bristles lacking only a touch of lime to be a perfect match for the white, tangerine and green of the club jersey.

OGL suggested he was considering keeping the face fringe for a function he was attending at a local brewery, when a plan for excess libation could perhaps induce a gangrenous, green tinge to his features to complete the transformation to club colours in their full … err … glory.

The Monkey Butler Boy was at the meeting point, as a precursor to joining up with his new clubmates somewhere en route and took the opportunity to terrify me by flashing his startlingly white, utterly blank and featureless chest, the likes of which I’ve only ever seen on strangely asexual, abstract shop mannequins.

The pristine snowscape of the Monkey Butler Boy’s unblemished upper torso contrasted starkly with the dark brown of his lower limbs, creating some razor-sharp, cyclists tan lines, a badge of honour that he seemed inordinately proud of. So proud, in fact then when joining a new college and being pressed to help come up with a suitable nickname, he’d flashed a half brown-half white bicep and suggested “Tan Lines.” In this way and much to his regret, he’s now been saddled with the unwanted moniker of “Fake Tan.”

(Still, it could have been worse, the last time I saw the Monkey Butler Boy in civvies (or at least his Mother’s jeans!) he was a combination of deep tan, red and raw sunburn and a rather startling ghostly and underexposed white, that looked like nothing so much as a giant Neopolitan ice cream.)

We wondered why Crazy Legs was uncharacteristically quiet, but apparently he was simply mesmerised and in the thrall of the larger than life “Atomic Blonde” movie poster splashed across the entire side of a double-decker bus. Apparently he was having trouble speaking through the puddle of drool that was overflowing from his mouth and dripping noisily onto the pavement. The Garrulous Kid confirmed I was looking at a picture of the rather anodyne and strangely characterless (IMHO) beauty that is actress “Charlies Felon.”

Crazy Legs finally managed to stir himself long enough to outline our plans for the day and left to lead the front group, pulling with him a strong group bolstered by a couple of University racing snakes.

I dropped into the smaller, second group, ostensibly and titularly led by OGL, but in reality following the Red Max. We were joined by a handful of Grogs, a few irregulars, Sneaky Pete, Captain Black, Szell and the Garrulous Kid. The Big Yin looked at the composition of our group, shook his head and quickly set off in pursuit of the first group.

Who can blame him?

Leaving a decent interval, Red Max led the way and we pushed off, clipped in and rode out on yet another fun-filled adventure.

I dropped in alongside Sneaky Pete for a catch-up, but it wasn’t long before our conversation was being rudely interrupted by a persistent clacking, which we finally traced to the back end of his bike. We called a halt so OGL could try and determine what the issue was and after some investigative work he expertly diagnosed the issue as cracked balls – either a euphemism for a particularly nasty testicular fungal infection, or a serious issue with the bearings in his rear hub.

Both potential diagnoses were equally distressing, and leery of suffering a terminal malfunction in the middle of nowhere, Sneaky Pete reluctantly cut short his ride and headed for home.

I next caught up with Captain Black, fresh from a holiday in Majorca where he’d somehow managed to smuggle his bike along. He listened to my complaint of too little cycling while on holiday and raised me a case of too much cycling on holiday, suggesting he was so worn out he wouldn’t even contemplate engaging in the coffee shop sprint. (Hah!)

Our discussion of our much derided club jersey was interrupted by OGL who objected when I complained about its 1970’s styling, by informing me it was actually designed in the 80’s – “but as a tribute to the 70’s,” Captain Black added sotto voce.

I then learned that not only was it designed in the 80’s, but it was the collaborative work of “a committee” – which rather appropriately suggested the old saw about how a camel is just a horse designed by committee. We were then informed that the jersey’s garish colours and hideous, dated design are a positive virtue as nobody wears anything quite like it and it allows you an instant appreciation of where all your teammates are during a race.

OGL’s final argument in defence of his beloved jersey was that many pro teams use a similar design, although considering some of the efforts the likes of Skil-Shimano, Teka, Mapei, Castorama, Phonak, Polti or Tonton Tapis have turned out over the years, I’m not sure that’s exactly an endorsement.

At the top of Brunswick Hill, the Red Max rolled off the front, while, with impeccable timing and a great deal of affected insouciance, the Grog next in line slowly reached for his bottle and took a very long and involved drink, while drifting back down the line. With no one willing to come through and take up the lead, a mentally shrugging Red Max moved back onto the front and stuck his nose into the wind yet again.

On the downhill run I worked my way through the group until I could relieve Max on the front, dropping in beside a relative newcomer who said he’d been out with the club quite a few times, but I didn’t recognise. We set what I felt was a remarkably sensible and sedate pace, only to be castigated for racing. In truth, the ride was so slow and unthreatening, that a weasel was able to stroll across the road in front of us, stop, eye us up speculatively, then hop unconcernedly through a hedge and disappear.

As we pushed through Whalton we were met with a lashing rain shower and a halt was called so we could pull on jackets, before pushing on again. The shower slowly eased and passed, so that by the next stop, at Dyke Neuk, jackets were doffed and stowed once again. Here I caught Szell singing the praises of his Castelli Gabba waterproof and had to inform him it wasn’t as good as The Ramones version, the Gabba Gabba Hey.

I now found myself on the front with Captain Black and we plotted altering the planned route in light of the deteriorating weather, chopping off the leg up to Rothley Crossroads. Re-worked route agreed, we dropped down through Hartburn and began to grind our way across to Middleton Bank.

NOVATEK CAMERA

With the rain slashing down again and bouncing off the tarmac, I pushed on ahead of everyone and stopped at the next junction to fish out my jacket again. As the rest whipped past and away, I found Szell stopping behind me and also reaching for his jacket. I warned him it was a case of bad timing as his bete noire, Middleton Bank was looming and we’d already been left some distance behind.

I started to give chase and Szell, realising his predicament followed, not even delaying long enough to zip his jacket closed. On the run down toward the base of the climb we slowly clawed our way onto the back of the group, but by this point Captain Black and the Red Max were already tackling the steeper ramps up ahead. Still, there were plenty of hares to chase and act as relay points as I set off in pursuit.

Working my way up the outside, I found the Garrulous Kids wheel as we hit the steep section and, as he accelerated, I dropped in behind and followed until the road straightened. As I rode around and past him he started complaining his gears weren’t working, which seems rather unusual given the … ahem … ultra-precise and exacting standards of his German engineered bike.

I’d reeled in the Red Max by the crest of the climb and then set off in pursuit of Captain Black, not even thinking about stopping and regrouping and just wanting to get out of the rain. Between the two of us we then drove the pace along. I never looked back and had no idea who was following, or who was floundering.

Down through Milestone Woods and onto the rollers I tried attacking the slope, but the road was awash and my rear wheel started slipping and spinning without traction. I dropped back down onto the saddle and ground my way over the top and down toward the last climb up to the café.

As I took the last corner Captain Black whirred past (Hah! I say again) and away, shortly followed by Kipper and I was left competing for the minor places with Mini Miss and the Red Max.

Main topics of conversation at the coffee stop:

In the café, soaking wet and dripping it was black bin bags all around to keep wet posteriors away from the furniture.

We’d been served and were sitting comfortably by the time the Garrulous Kid rolled in, easy prey to Red Max’s wind-up that he’d not only been beaten in the sprint, but thoroughly thrashed. He bit. Hard. He started leaning on a sorry pile of excuses, stuck gears, malfunctioning brakes, poor visibility, too little pressure in one tyre, too much pressure in the other, before simply vowing revenge next week, when, he warned he would “utterly destroy everyone.”

The Red Max related being asked by the Monkey Butler Boy to take a day off work, theoretically so father and son could do a bit of bonding on a long ride into North Northumberland. Giving up a precious day’s holiday, Red Max had suggested Wooler as a good destination, only to be told, no, they were actually going to Ford. En route, he then learned that they were heading to Ford because that’s where the Monkey Butler Boy’s current squeeze was holidaying en famille.

It then turned out that the Monkey Butler Boy had not only not informed the Red Max about the real purpose of his trip, but he hadn’t bothered to tell his girlfriend either. So, after valiantly battling away for fifty odd miles, up hill, down dale and through the elements, the Monkey Butler Boy’s surprised reception was a somewhat less than welcoming, “What are you doing here?”

As if on cue, the Monkey Butler Boy and his wrecking crew rolled up through the sheeting rain, eventually followed in by their harassed-looking, out of breath, grey-faced and thoroughly exhausted looking coach. The Red Max sympathised with the coach, suggesting riding with the wrecking crew was a quick route to self-annihilation and prompting questions about whether the Monkey Butler Boy is deserving of a more dynamic and sympathetic name change – maybe to The A-nyallator, or similar…

Nah, of course not.

Talk of the Monkey Butler Boy’s girlfriend led the Red Max to an intense interrogation around the Garrulous Kid’s holiday romance with the girl from Hull, with the Garrulous Kid protesting they were “just friends” – even though he had a photo of her on his phone … and even though he had a photo of her dog on his phone too – a Pug called Doug (the dog, not the girl.)

A rather bemused Mini Miss wondered why they were discussing Ugg boots and I had to explain they were actually talking about Pugs and not Uggs – and, one particular Pug called Doug. We agreed they were both equally as ugly (the dog and the sloppy and shapeless footwear, not the girl)

This did lead to some idle speculation that Uggs were actually made out of dead Pugs, which would explain some of their shared characteristics…

The Garrulous Kid protested that he liked Pugs, especially the cute, wheezing, snuffling, distressed little grunting noises they make trying to breathe through their in-bred, facial deformities. I suggested this was the exact same distressed noise he was emitting when I rode past him on Middleton Bank earlier – and I didn’t think it was at all cute. (I never did establish his position on Uggs.)

One of our number started squeezing a long stream of dirty water from his track mitts and directly into his coffee cup. “You don’t have to do that, mate” the Red Max told him, “They’ll give you a free refill if you ask.”

Just then the Monkey Butler Boy wandered up, soaking wet and leaving a long trail of water in his wake. He’d decided to wear his club skinsuit for the ride and so had no way of carrying a rain jacket and was thoroughly drenched. Typical teen, he did of course have his phone clutched firmly in his hand and I wondered where he stored this when riding. Apparently, clenched between his buttocks, according to the Red Max, who also suggested this was why he always used it hands-free as he didn’t want it anywhere near his nose.

Pulling on wet gear again, gloves, arm warmers, helmets, jackets and the like, is always an unpleasant end to the otherwise enjoyable café stop, but it had to be done and once more we ventured out into the teeming rain.

I rode back with the Red Max, finding out that he isn’t away on holiday until a trip to Spain in October. I queried if the weather would be all right then.

“Well, it’ll be better than this,” was the terse reply and I couldn’t argue.

This time around he’s persuaded Mrs. Max to take her bike too and I suggested that with the Monkey Butler Boys new-found prowess, this was at least one way in which Max could ensure he wouldn’t be last in all the sprints.

“Hmm, I’m not so sure about that.” He concluded glumly.

He then suggested tonight would be great conditions for venturing outdoors to watch for Perseid meteor showers and seemed serious in his assertion.

I looked at him quizzically, soaking wet and thoroughly sodden and bedraggled, rain dripping off his nose and running in rivulets down his bike, shoes squelching with every pedal stroke. He seemed sincere, there was no hint of a smile, or the slightest trace of any irony.

I then looked through the gloom at the rain hammering down all around us, the long puddles stretching out from the verges to reach across a road awash with water, and then I looked up at the louring dark, mass of low, unbroken cloud…

Well, you’ve got to admire his optimism.

The Monkey Butler Boy and Garrulous Kid took to racing each other up Berwick Hill, but I was heavy legged and tired out and couldn’t react, so just plugged up behind them. We caught up with OGL who’d left the café ahead of us and, rather bizarrely, he too joined the youngsters for some sparring up the hill to Dinnington.

Before too long everyone else was swing away and I was cast free to plod my way home, being battered by two more heavy, stinging showers, a particular low point amidst the otherwise continual and steadily unrelenting downpour.

I was beginning to feel a bit chilled by the time I reached the bottom of the Heinous Hill, so for once its demands at least had some side benefits and I it wasn’t long before I was home and heading for a very welcome hot shower.

YTD Totals: 4,825 km / 2,777 miles with 55,162 metres of climbing

Sur La Jante

The Chronicles, Confessions and Idle Musings of a Club Cyclist

Tag: cycling clubs

Expecting the Rain

The House of Dying Flaggers

Attention retention …

Wooler-Wooler-Huh, Tell Me More, Tell Me More…

Gategate

Captain, My Captain

Ghost in the Szell

Ozzie Rules

Composed on the Cornish Coast

Pugs and Uggs