Black Mirror

Club Run, Saturday 5^th March, 2016

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 102 km/63 miles with 997 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 17 minutes

Average Speed: 23.7 km/h

Group size: 32 riders, no FNG’s

Temperature: 7°C

Weather in a word or two: Bright to bruising

Main topic of conversation at the start:

Crazy Legs was still counting down the incomprehensibly precise 39 days until the arrival of his new, fake Oakley jawbone specs from the Far East and wondering what sort of subtle Chinglish branding might adorn them.

We speculated that 39 days was the amount of time to gather enough orders to make it worthwhile breaking into the factory at night for a quick production run, sort of the cycling equivalent of the shoemaking elves in Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

It was a small leap of logic to then wonder if these were the same magic elves who mysteriously clean and pimp Son of G-Dawgs bike whenever he leaves it in his Pa’s garage overnight.

Ovis appeared in one of the thoroughly indestructible jerseys from his old Triathlon club which appeared to have cannibalistically part-consumed another jersey, leaving only the tell-tale sign of a faint branding transfer where there should have been none. Appropriately for Ovis, it’s all a bit “Silence of the Lambs”, with the Buffalo Bill jersey first skinning and then wearing its conquests like a second skin.

It now seems certain that at least one of his seemingly endless stock of identical jerseys has mutated, perhaps as a result of the successful stress-testing undertaken on the kit to give it that bright, acid yellow colour that appears nowhere in the natural world, as well as to check it will survive through an all-out thermonuclear war.

The mutated, uber- jersey is now quite obviously sentient and intent on growing stronger by absorbing all the other jerseys and garments in Ovis’s collection through forcible osmosis – a strange, Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest struggle for lycra supremacy.

A discussion about solid rubber tyres had OGL reminiscing misty-eyed about pram tyres which were apparently delivered as one long coil of rubber that had to be cut to size to fit the wheel diameter and then secured in place with a stripped wire core that was twisted into a cork-screw gimlet, before the whole thing was folded over itself. I didn’t quite understand the baffling intricacies, but I was certainly convinced they were a complete and utter bastard to fit. Think I’ll stick with clinchers.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

Ovis stood in the queue with a face almost unrecognisable behind patchwork spatters of mud and dirt and grime, pointed at my similarly begrimed face and laughed out loud. We were all and without exception utterly filthy. I deployed my buff for official use #43 and managed to wipe at least some of the excess crud away, but I still needed the coffee to wash the grit out from between my teeth.

G-Dawg had been in a gym where a static bike complete with monitor had let him simulate an Alpine climb. His verdict was that it wasn’t particularly impressive, but better than staring at the wall. I queried whether there weren’t more rewarding, err, distractions in the gym, but we all agreed that we were beyond the age when we could safely lift our eyes up from the floor in such environments.

This led to general discussion about how uncomfortable and careful we feel we have to be around children these days. Taffy Steve talked about a recent social experiment when observers set a lost-looking child to wander around a shopping centre just to see how people interacted with them.

After being studiously ignored for an uncomfortable amount of time, a Scout Master was finally brave enough to cautiously approach the child to find out if they needed help, moving carefully from downwind while maintaining eye-contact and a safe exclusion zone of at least 3 metres. What’s the world coming to, eh?

Another Engine then back-tracked on a story about “his paperboy” to explain his paperboy isn’t actually his paperboy because:

He doesn’t deliver their paper and
They don’t actually have a paper-delivered

Anyway, the actual kernel of this story is that the paper-boy who operates in Another Engine’s street rides a bike with a chain so rusty that it’s ginger and furry and squeaks like a demented polecat with its paw caught in a snare.

In the old days Another Engine would have combined his benevolent, avuncular nature, keen understanding of cycling mechanics and easy access to machine oil to provide a lubricating salve to the offending chain, before affectionately patting the lad on the head and sending him off, probably with a spare ha’penny so he could buy his own oil for next time.

Now Another Engine says he sees the lad and just crosses the road, realising that any offer of help is likely to be dangerously misconstrued. We were of course determined to find a way to make innocent assistance sound as damning as possible, with suggested euphemistic approaches such as, “Does your chain need a good lubing?” or, “Step into the hallway and I’ll give you a bit of oily relief.” Things were admittedly juvenile and shockingly low brow, but thankfully Szell, the master of the single-entendre wasn’t around to drag the conversation even lower than we’d managed to achieve all by ourselves.

Taffy Steve was left to once again ponder the vagaries of Italian sizing and wonder aloud where their rugby team managed to find clothing to fit a proper props body. Aether speculated that Evans Cycles and Evans “plus size” shops were in fact one and the same and they had tricked us all into thinking UK cycling kit was the norm when in fact it was all over-sized.

Ride Profile

The Waffle:

The day started in the worst possible way, a sudden chilling downpour that had the roads instantly awash with surface water. My Garmin seemed to be struggling mightily with the atmospheric conditions and I had to reboot it 2 or 3 times before it could even find a satellite. Meanwhile the rain and road spray quickly soaked through my overshoes to my shoes and socks and tights and gloves became unpleasantly damp and chilled.

At the bridge a local rowing club were completing shuttle runs in the pouring rain, chanting en masse about closing with the enemy and killing them with their bare hands, driven along like rookie marines under the tutelage of a beasting, sadistic drill sergeant. Odd.

While stopped at the lights I exchanged pleasantries with an Eee-Emm-Cee rider (I believe they started out as an offshoot of our club) utilising the traditional and UCI approved cycling lexicon and subject guide:

“How do?”

”Going far?”

“Do you think the rain’ll ever stop?”

As I started to retrace my route on the opposite side of the river one half of the sky was smothered in an angry towering mass of ominously thick, dirty grey cloud while ahead a swollen sun had just about pulled itself over the horizon into startling clear sky and burned down with shattering brilliance, the light bouncing savagely back off wet tarmac that burned like a black mirror.

I began to worry that drivers approaching from behind would be blinded and unable to see me and kept as far left as I could, almost riding in the gutter and flicking on my rear light, even though I suspected it would be far too feeble to provide any counter against the suns vicious glare.

At one point the road was reflecting the sun so brilliantly that I had trouble looking forward and if the car in the outside lane hadn’t come to a sudden halt I would have sailed straight through a junction, completely oblivious to the red light that was demanding I stop.

Turning to climb up the other side of the valley and putting the sun behind me brought some welcome relief, even with the front wheel ripping through the stream that poured down the inside of the road. The rain finally started to ease just as I made it to the meeting point, intact but uncomfortably damp around the edges.

With it being the first Saturday in the month the kids were out to accompany us some of the way, and there was a good turnout of over 30 riders including the Red Max’s son, the Monkey Butler Boy set to ride the entire route with us.

With the rain easing I slipped off and stowed the waterproof, before we pushed off, clipped in and sailed out.

I dropped into line near the back and alongside Mini Miss, chatting as we pushed along. At one point we swung by Red Max and he paused from shouting abuse encouragement at the Monkey Butler Boy long enough to confirm he’d recovered from the desperate ride he inadvisably completed in the throes of his illness, despite being flushed out the back of the bunch like a blue ice meteorite from a 747. Mini Miss said she’d been concerned and continuously checking on Strava until he’d posted up his ride to prove he’d made finally made it home.

At a quick, Prof encouraged pee stop we learned from OGL that peeing au naturel had inspired the first weed-killers. He then went on to correct the unforgiveable gaping hole in my education with a discourse on Scottish and Newcastle brewing and the genesis of Newcastle Brown Ale.

Taking the open road, as distinct from last weeks closed road, we clambered and climbed and swooped and regrouped until the time came to split away from the amblers for a slightly harder, faster and longer run to the café. The Red Max left with the slightly more sedate group, understandably taking the Monkey Butler Boy with him, along with a distinctly under the weather Son of G-Dawg

As our group approached Middleton Bank I was castigated for freewheeling past all the fixies, but they had the last laugh as I hit the bottom slopes at high speed and in completely the wrong gear. I found my legs spinning as fast as theirs had on the descent, but there was no resistance.

Figuring it was too late to go hunting for another gear and being inherently lazy I let everyone sweep past and freewheeled until the slope finally began to bite and I could actually gain some traction, only then was I able to set off in pursuit of everyone else.

It seems to have been an age since we last tackled Middleton Bank, so it was good to know it’s still hateful and the gradient remains awkward enough to confuse me so I rarely feel I’m in the right gear.

Everyone regrouped over the top and we set off for the café, gradually winding the speed up. This was it, this was fun bit – a dozen or so of us in a tight bunch, hurtling around corners at break-neck speed, shoulder to shoulder and inches from the wheel in front as the pace ramped up along with a booming heart rate.

Legs burning, a face-full of grit and cold spray, leaning hard into the corners and scrambling up the hills as we jockeyed for position and raced along finely poised between exhilaration and catastrophic disaster. It hurt, but I found myself grinning like an idiot.

As the front of our arrow-head hit the final slopes on the drag up to the café it shed riders like bits of sabot being stripped from an armour piercing shell. I clung to Crazy Legs’s wheel as long as I could before sitting-up and drifting back as Taffy Steve swept past with Laurelan in hot pursuit. Great fun.

On the return the Mad Mile proved not quite as breakneck with Son of G-Dawg obviously suffering and I surfed along on the back, getting a mighty slingshot around the roundabout as I split for home. I found myself briefly in the company of the Cow Ranger who wanted to put in a few extra miles and as I left him and turned uphill the hail started pelting down, ticking off my helmet and seemingly intent on filling up the vents.

The hailstorm accompanied me almost all the way home, rattling and pinging off car roofs while bouncing and drumming off the road. It wasn’t particularly unpleasant as I was well wrapped up and it was falling more or less vertically so couldn’t find any exposed skin to sting. I soon found myself happily swinging up onto Heinous Hill to cap another good run.

YTD Totals: 1,155 km /718 miles with 11,547 metres of climbing

Proxy Proselytisers Batman! – The Superhero Edition

Club Run, Saturday 20^th February, 2016

Taffy Steve’s Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 99 km/64 miles with 1,033 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 38 minutes

Average Speed: 23 km/h

Group size: An unknown number of riders. No SLJ!

Weather in a word or two: Well, it was nice indoors…

The return of some dread viral chest infection had me feeling fuzzy round the edges, aching in every limb and confined indoors, missing the club run and wondering if I could get away with another gaping hole in my blog publishing schedule.

I was considering writing about the conundrum of different crank lengths, although that’s far too technical for me, so perhaps something about be the relative aesthetic merits of Castelli vs. Santini gear was more in order, or something else equally as useless, earth-shattering and revelatory …

…and then, crawling bravely through the shattered wire, mud, shell holes, blood and trenches, an after-action report brought words from the front: Saturday’s Club Run seen through the eyes of Taffy Steve and complete with a metaphorical white feather for those caught malingering indoors.

With the odd (and I do mean odd) addition from Crazy Legs, Taffy Steve gamely took up my heavy and less than subtle cudgel of irreverent and sardonic commentary to beat everyone about the head and shoulders with, outlining what sounds like an absolute classic club run.

So without further ado, and only a touch of paraphrasing and one or two embellishments, take it away Taffy Steve… (corny, I know – but I’ve always wanted to say that)

“So Sur la Jante had an unauthorised absence this week, and typically it was a vintage week for nonsense.

At the arrival at the meeting place a small leather strap was found on the floor and we quickly decided that the it must have come from the steed of the BFG which is bedecked solely in cow products. (As you may have noticed from our past encounters with him, the BFG is truly devoted to vintage bicycles featuring the use of all natural materials, even though the more modern equivalents are cheaper, lighter, better engineered and far more effective. Hence he likes to ride on wooden rims that warp after a few miles, while using cork brake shoes that don’t work very well and are scientifically proven to actually speed up wheel rotation when applied to rims in the wet.)

We drifted slowly westward – pushed onward by Crazy Legs until he ran out of steam. During this journey OGL declared that he had been riding a bike “seriously” since 1959 – so not as old as Sputnik but predating the Apollo program. (I often think one of the problems is too much serious bike riding, but then I have been accused of being flippant on more than a few occasions)

He told me that a certain house had actually been there since he had been riding – apparently my reply of “Excellent” made Crazy Legs forget that we were flat out at 22 kph. (Although we all recognise he’s old, I was unaware up to this point that OGL regards himself as a modern day Methuselah – a man who has outlived entire buildings, if not civilsations).

After a couple of splits, four of us were joined by an interloper – dressed all in blue with white stars – Captain America had arrived in Stamfordham!

Tour of California - Stage 5 — Captain America

We caught up with Crazy Legs and Ovis struggling with a punctured Conti 4 seasons which didn’t want to be re-homed and was hanging desperately to the rim like a Calais Jungle refugee clinging to the Eurostar.

Red Max tried to take control, but succeeded only in managing to fire an errant tyre lever off into some brambles and boldly went in after it. (Rumours that he’s still in there and waiting for some kind hearted Daniel to remove a thorn from his paw are I believe exaggerated.)

Unfortunately, Captain America showed no interest in helping with any repairs and any hopes that he was Bicycle Repair Man in disguise were cruelly dashed. He wasn’t a real superhero after all!

BRM — “Is it a stockbroker? Is it a quantity surveyor? Is it a church warden? No! It’s Bicycle Repair Man!

Reading between the lines, it would appear that somehow the collective might and manpower of the club (sadly absent any superhero assistance) finally managed to fix the flat, only for Ovis to cunningly, “it was an accident, honest” insert his flip-flop hub the wrong way round so he could do a bit of freewheelin’ with the 40 mph tailwind pushing at his back.

Setting off again Captain America revealed to Crazy Legs that he not only had an amazing outfit, but a cornering style reminiscent of Warren Barguil at his worst. Crazy Legs and Ovis managed to avoid this rather more intimate than expected encounter better than Geraint Thomas, somewhat discomfited, but none the worse for wear.

Captain America then made the fatal mistake of responding to one of the Red Max’s Forlorn Hope attacks and fatally dragged both Max and Taffy Steve to the line, learning as Taffy Steve succinctly puts it “that you shouldn’t tow the fatties,” as he was then mercilessly mugged in the sprint.

In the café recently anointed Grandpa, the Red Max proclaimed to a thoroughly stunned and silenced table that he’d gone through all the computations and worked out that terry nappies were cheaper than Pampers and the pay-back time on the initial investment was only 8 weeks.

This was taking into account the relative material, distribution, transportation and disposal costs, environmental and societal impacts, local taxation rates, power, water and detergent usage, plus the additional benefits of providing the safety pin industry with a new source of users beyond just cyclists pinning numbers to their backs.

I understand that the whole 48-page Excel workbook containing the finer details of his calculations has been submitted for consideration to the Nobel Committee.

We shouldn’t be surprised by such deep and provocative thinking, after all the Red Max is the eccentric genius who developed Horner’s Theorem which irrefutably proves a direct relationship between the number of shiny, posh and clean carbon bikes out on a spring or autumn morning and the number of crap-covered farm tracks, pothole and gravel strewn roads, gates and cattle grids OGL will “accidently” include in our route for the day.

Despite his impressive cognitive abilities however, it was revealed when it comes to devices for expressing milk, then even the Red Max has met his match – or his kryptonite, if you will.

Anyway, Taffy Steve happily concludes that Max’s Grandad switch has now been irreversibly thrown, he just needs to adopt a constantly confused demeanor and selective deafness. He’s actually half-way there with the latter, having successfully been ignoring OGL’s diktats for several years now.

Congratulations Pops, I’ll hopefully see you next week.

Sturm und Drang … or Hail and Pace

Club Run, Saturday 13^th February, 2016

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 105 km/65 miles with 1,030 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 38 minutes

Average Speed: 22.6 km/h

Group size: 13 riders, no FNG’s

Temperature: 4°C

Weather in a word or two: Like riding through a slushie

Main topic of conversation at the start:

G-Dawg turned up replete with the bright blue oven gloves again, but having swapped out the carpet-felt muffler for knee-high hiking gaiters. I can’t decide if this is an inspired choice of winter accoutrements or just plain odd. Maybe if the gaiters had Castelli emblazoned across them I would be more accepting?

Crazy Legs wondered if the oven gloves were there so G-Dawg could help out in the kitchen at the café, but even professionally equipped, I didn’t think there was a hope in hell they’d let him anywhere near the bacon and egg pies as they emerged hot from the oven.

Unbelievably the weather mid-week had been so good that G-Dawg had felt the need to unleash his good bike and had temporarily hung up the winter fixie for the Wednesday run out. He managed to enjoy his freewheelin’ fun, despite an unadvisable tendency to try and slow down by simply adding a bit of pressure to the pedals. Where was that good weather now?

Crazy Legs told us a salutary tale of steppin’ out to see Joe Jackson in concert, deciding to miss the support act in favour of a pint or three, and then turning up to find Mr. Jackson already on stage and mid-song, halfway through his set as there had been no support act.

Crazy Legs therefore missed the iconic “Different for Girls” but I assume caught “Steppin’ Out” and “Is She Really Going Out with Him” – and sadly that’s just about where my limited knowledge of the Joe Jackson oeuvre ends, although I always coveted a pair of those cool, Cuban-heeled, side-laced pointy-toed Beatle boots that adorned one of his early albums. Maybe in a more utilitarian black not white though, after all I’m not a total fop.

joejackson_photo_gal_all_photo_398425881_md

Anyway, Crazy Legs saw enough of the show to highly recommend it and I’ll be taking heed of his warnings not to arrive late for my hugely anticipated trip to see the mighty Shearwater in some pokey hole on the banks of the Tyne later this month.

Readying ourselves to ride out we held back as we noticed a late arriving cyclist carefully weaving his way through the traffic and street furniture toward us. “Who’s that?” someone asked.

“Craig?”

“No…”

“Josh?”

“No…”

“It’s that Scottish feller” Crazy Legs finally determined

“Yeah,” I agreed, “The one from Ireland.”

Oh hell, I guess they’re all Celts, aren’t they?

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

As we reached the café my lobster mitts finally succumbed to the weather and cold water began to seep through their linings. We decided that the holy grail for cyclists were fully waterproof gloves, which seem to be an impossible dream, although G-Dawg did suggest a pair of Marigolds. Of course we agreed these would need a little Sharpie branding to make them acceptable to cyclists, but someone got there before us …

g-rapha-marigolds

It amused me when I Googled “cycling Marigolds” and found a great picture by photographer Steve Fleming of one of our youngsters scaling Hardknott Pass during last years Fred Whitton Challenge, all the while sporting yellow gloves that the photographer purports are in fact Marigolds. I’m not wholly convinced they were, but must remember to ask.

Motor-doping was back on the agenda, along with how an engine could be so difficult to detect. I suggested the UCI set off an electro-magnetic pulse halfway up an Alpine climb, just to see who then keeled over as their motors died a sudden and brutal death. My Strava-enamoured companions were somewhat horrified by my blasphemous suggestion that someone might deliberately fritz their beloved Garmin’s.

Talk of advances in bike technology led to reminiscing about the past, when specialist winter clothing wasn’t readily available for cyclists. OGL recalled wearing old-fashioned motorcycle gauntlets with a big flared cuff, which we decided would also be suitable for a bit of on-bike falconry. Never mind motor-doping, if you could tether an Eagle Owl or Andean Condor to your bike think how many more watts you could generate? And how cool would you look in the process.

We then indulged in a wide-ranging conversation that wrapped around cycling books, old-style, rock-hard chamois leather inserts, saddle sores and the Laurent Fignon and Lance Armstrong books. OGL mentioned the traditional method of alleviating the pain of saddle sores was to cut a hole in your saddle, or ride with raw steak down your shorts.

We speculated that when Fignon lost the 1989 Tour to LeMond by an agonising 8 seconds he may have ridden the final and decisive time-trial with steak down his shorts to ease the suffering and unbearable pain from his saddle-sores.

In an “if only” moment, Son of G-Dawg suggested Fignon may have gained a small measure of consolation and revenge if he’d proffered the used steak to his victor as some sort of rare, ultra-exotic, specially prepared, luxury dish, which LeMond would unwittingly have consumed after it had been carefully tenderised by the Frenchman’s thudding backside, basted in saddle sore secretions and liberally marinated in butt sweat –a “filet fignon” if you will. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

In a discussion about under-age drinking, OGL claimed to be in the Percy Arms and playing on their darts team at the exact time Kennedy was shot. Personally I thought it was a bit suspicious that he went to such lengths just to establish an alibi.

We also learned that both Crazy Legs and G-Dawg are strangely discomfited by the sound of cotton wool tearing. I just don’t think I’m empathic and mature enough, or have the proper medical and psychological training to properly respond to such a heartfelt revelation and strange revulsion …

The Waffle:

Strava highlighted the ride temperature in blue once I’d finished, so I’m guessing it was officially cold out there by any measure and way beyond one of Carlton’s Cold Hand Days. Despite this I woke to find the curtains sharply silhouetted against an unexpected brightness from outside. Ever the pessimist my first thoughts were that I was either a target for an attempted alien abduction, or winter had returned with a vengeance and the light was bouncing off a deep, pristine layer of snow.

Thankfully I looked out to find the garden free of both extra-terrestrial lifeforms and snow and although the ground was wet there didn’t appear to be any frost or ice. Time to ride.

Even with the initial brightness it still looked cold, so I dressed accordingly, two long sleeved base layers, jersey and jacket, digging out the massive and ridiculous (but warm!) lobster mitts.

By the time I’d breakfasted and made it outside the initial brightness had been smothered by dark and threatening clouds. A quick check of the bike, a topping up of tyre pressures and I was dropping down the hill to the valley and straight into the teeth of a sharp, stinging hailstorm.

With the hail bouncing audibly off my helmet I stopped to pull my waterproof jacket over everything else and once on it never returned to my pocket for rest of the ride.

The shower passed to leave the air still and strangely hushed, seeming to carry and amplify the odd, random sound. There was the occasional whisk-whisk of tyre on mudguard, a ripping noise as I cut through random puddles and the low, ominous hum of power cables strung high over the road.

From somewhere unseen seagulls greeted me with a chorus of raucous shrieking. Did this mean the weather over the coast was particularly bad, or just that there were richer pickings to be had amongst the rubbish inland?

Thumbs and toes turned slowly numb and then, even more slowly, recovered as I warmed to the task and started to clamber out of the valley on the other side of the river. With time for a quick pee stop (cold and ancient bladders aren’t a great combination) I arrived at the meeting place with a handful of others, including OGL, slowly recovering from last week’s illness, but not quite there yet.

There were however a couple of noticeable absentees from the “Usual Suspects” who can be relied on to try riding regardless of the weather. I assume the Red Max had finally given up an unequal fight and decided to recuperate properly from his vicious illness, while the seagulls may have had the right of it and sensibly retreated from the coast where it looked like the weather was bad enough to keep Taffy Steve penned up.

It was a small group, a baker’s dozen if you will, who finally pushed off, clipped in and rode out, for once with no lasses present, although we did encounter both Mini Miss and Shouty at various points along our route.

I dropped to my usual position, hovering near the back where I started to chat to the “Scottish-Irish” feller. He’d begun riding with the club before I joined, but had been forced to stop because of family commitments (damn kids!) and had only just started again.

I was surprised to learn he’d actually been in the North East for over 8 years as we still hadn’t managed to knock the corners off his accent. While he could almost convincingly adopt the full Geordie, indignant-dolphin-squeak (well, far more convincingly than the Profs embarrassing Dick Van Dyke type stylings) –his underlying lyrical Irishness gave it a strangely odd and musical quality.

Being a feisty feller he began telling me a tale about confronting a speeding motorist, who’d ended up calling him a “Speccy, Scottish git.” Oh hell, I guess they are all Celts after all.

The blue flashing lights of a police car warned us of trouble ahead and we were forced to creep around a massive recovery vehicle squatting across two thirds of the road. Beside it sat the attendant police car and a battered and scraped silver pick-up truck that looked like it had been driven at high speed through a concrete pipe that was too narrow for its bulk.

I’ve no idea what actually happened, but couldn’t help feeling a degree of satisfaction that at least there was one less of these vehicles on the road. I know I shouldn’t stereotype all drivers based on their cars, but my only encounter with pick-ups has been when some homicidal, willfully careless, red-necked RIM has driven them directly at us too fast down too narrow lanes, with no intention of slowing and even a hint of accelerating toward us.

Having crested the first serious climb of the day we were halted by a puncture and instead of hanging around in the cold, the still-recovering OGL sensibly took this as an opportunity to strike out early and alone for the café.

While we waited for repairs to be effected the heads of state gathered to decide a new route in OGL’s absence. I had a brief chat with beZ to try and determine why he’d given up on the bright purple saddle that provided such a, err, startling contrast shall we say, to his pink bar tape. Apparently, although it might have looked “da bomb” it was too damn uncomfortable.

I idly speculated if anyone would ever come up with a heat mouldable saddle you could pop in the oven and then straddle when still hot to form it to your own unique contours. Alternatively, I guess you could just stick a sirloin down your shorts…

We pressed on as the weather began to get a little nasty and the roads a whole lot filthier. Son of G-Dawg pointed out the coating of snow and ice lurking in the grass at the road verges, as we discussed whether we should adopt the athletics ruling on false starts and apply this to punctures – we leave you behind on the second one, even if you were in no way involved in the first.

Almost in direct response the call came up that there had indeed been another puncture and we pulled over to wait before finally deciding to split the group. beZ and Aether went back to help out with the repairs and the remaining nine pressed on.

In horrible sleet and frozen rain we scaled the Trench, negotiated the dip and clamber through Hartburn and suffered the drag and grind from Angerton to Bolam Lake. From here speed started to build as the café beckoned, with Captain Black in fine form and continually driving us along from the front.

At the last corner three consecutive fast commutes in a row and the exertions of the day took their toll and I drifted off the back to finir sur la jante and in need of a quick caffeine fix.

Despite being royally beasted in the café sprint, when we hit the climb out of Ogle on the return home, my contrary legs felt suddenly transformed and I floated up it effortlessly.

We were then blasted by a sudden and harsh blizzard of wet stinging snow that lashed down, striking exposed skin like a hundred tiny micro-injections of novocaine which stung and then almost instantly turned flesh numb. With the likelihood of the weather worsening I decided to turn for home early and cut off a few miles by looping over, rather than under the airport.

Now I was able to ride at a good pace as if my legs had settled on a steady and comfortable rhythm. I found myself clipping along at a surprising 17-18mph even as the road started to tilt upwards, my momentum only occasionally interrupted when I slowed to wipe occluded lenses clear of the wet, clinging snow.

I took the long, hated grind up past the golf course in the big ring, and kept the pace high right until the descent down to the river. For some reason this winter has been especially hard on brake blocks and here I found braking that had been fine in the morning when I set out had become decidedly sketchy in the cold and wet.

Having trouble scrubbing off speed quickly, I eased gingerly downhill, pulling hard on the brakes all the way, despite the icy flood that welled from my waterlogged gloves every time I squeezed the levers.

Swinging across the river I pushed along until the next hill beckoned where progress was slightly interrupted. I’m usually quite content with the thumb operated shifters on my old Sora groupset, but the combination of cold, wet and numb fingers coupled with bulky lobster mitts meant I couldn’t drop down onto the inner ring without stopping and using my right hand to forcibly click the lever down.

With this task finally, if not smoothly accomplished, I scrabbled quickly up, away from the river and swung left for the last few miles home.

Considering I was carrying what felt like an extra 6 or 7 kilo in my waterlogged socks, gloves and jacket, the climb up the Heinous Hill was relatively accomplished. As I ground up the last but steepest ramp another punishing hail shower swept in, pinging off my helmet with a sound like frozen peas being poured into an empty pan.

Stung into action by the hail, I watched the white streak of one of our cats shoot across the neighbour’s front lawn at high speed before launching himself headfirst through the cat flap and disappearing with a loud clatter.

Shelter seemed like a sensible idea and I swiftly followed, temporarily abandoning the Peugeot in favour of a hot shower with bike drying and cleaning set for some indeterminable future when the weather improved.

YTD Totals: 861 km /535 miles with 8,519 metres of climbing

Hell Among the Yearlings

Club Run, Saturday 6^th February, 2016

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 102 km/63 miles with 813 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 28 minutes

Average Speed: 23.0 km/h

Group size: 34 riders, no FNG’s

Temperature: 6°C

Weather in a word or two: Filthy

Main topic of conversation at the start:

Taffy Steve was the first to bring up “motorised doping” with his wry comments that just when athletics was being seen as the bad boy of international sports, cycling somehow found a way to shoot itself in the foot and re-claim the low ground. Again.

OGL rightly pointed out that the worst fallout from Femke Van den Driessche “borrowing a friends bike” (complete with in-built motor) for only the single most important race of her season, was it detracted from a very worthy winner.

So, in my own small and meaningless way to try and redress the balance, congratulations to Britain’s new Women’s U23 World Cyclo-cross Champion, Evie Richards who won with style and panache by riding away from all the older, more established competitors in dreadful conditions on a wind blasted, rain lashed course. And she’s only 18. And it was her first ever continental race. Impressive.

Crazy Legs decided that Taffy Steve deserved the acronym MIR following his Most Improved Rider award. He also made it clear that any likeness to a large, obsolete piece of Russian space junk, prone to a decaying orbit and likely to burn up in the atmosphere was purely intentional.

Somewhat predictably, this set him off on a tribute to Billy Bragg and a quick rendition of New England. It’s wrong to wish on space hardware, but I think Taffy Steve somewhat wished he’d never become embroiled in the conversation.

Apparently the Cycling Weekly reporter never made it to the café and his rendezvous with OGL last week, but will be returning at a later date for a full-on feature on the club.

We’ve been warned that only those in official club jersey’s will be allowed to partake in the accompanying photo-shoot. What effect massed ranks of our lurid, club jersey might have is hard to tell, but I’m predicting a sudden outbreak of subconjunctival haemorrhaging amongst the unsuspecting readership of Cycling Weekly.

Captain Black suggested the photo-shoot might provoke a Songs of Praise phenomena, when usually draughty, empty churches suddenly see congregations swell alarmingly as soon as the TV cameras show up to a service. There was even some speculation about a black market in illicit club jersey’s developing, perhaps signalling the first time this venerable piece of club kit has ever been even remotely desirable.

Footnote:

Not content with motor doping (allegedly) we have since learned that Van den Driessche’s father and brother (already a convicted bike doper) are facing criminal charges for trying to steal parakeets from a pet store.

In any sense of the word you want to take, I suggest it’s now fair to refer to the entire Van den Driessche family as “budgie smugglers” and treat them with all the opprobium and revulsion you would typically reserve for being confronted by a pale, wobbling, moob-endowed, hirsute man in too-tight Speedo’s. You know the sort, we’ve all seen them.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

OGL stopped by to inform us that new club skinsuits were now available for our Racing Snakes. I don’t want to prejudge, but I hope they’re a more sympathetic design than the current club jerseys, or I might be getting that “budgie smuggler” nausea all over again.

He also told us to be careful on the way back as a local Tri-Club were running a time trial down Berwick Hill. We convinced ourselves that the only way we would do this in weather like todays would be to have a hot tub at the finish. We reasoned that getting into the tub could even be used for transition practice, but then realised the idea would probably fail as once in the tub no one would be coming out in a hurry.

Again motorised doping reared its ugly head and Son of G-Dawg had perhaps the best idea, fitting pullback motors to cyclo-cross bikes, specifically for their “cavalry charge” starts. I can see it now, a long line of 50 or so riders dragging their bikes backward to wind up the spring, before being unleashed to race toward the nearest course bottle-neck. High speed carnage almost guaranteed.

Crazy Legs revealed a life-long ambition to be bundled into a mail pouch and snatched up by a speeding express train, apparently just for the buzz of that initial retina-threatening acceleration.

Perhaps this dare-devilry is purely genetic as he then told us of accompanying his 75 year old mother to an avant-garde installation in the BALTIC, where following a series of screens led them to the brink of a 12 foot high, stainless steel slide. Not only was his mother thoroughly undaunted by the slide, but demanded another go.

The Waffle:

A dry if chill start to the day promised good riding and I dropped into the valley to find that the winds weren’t anywhere as bad as the storm-whipped, westerly gales of the past few weeks and had swung completely around to blow upriver just for a change.

Without a debilitating wind to battle, I was early and the only one at the meeting point when OGL swung by in civvies, loaded down with a very large, shiny club trophy, which had apparently been donated by David Millar. I started to politely and modestly decline it, as I couldn’t see how I could possibly ride while burdened with a large piece of what footballers always, unimaginatively and predictably refer to as “silverware.”

OGL patiently explained that the trophy wasn’t for me and he was taking it to the Club’s Go-Ride event to present to Daniel Dixon, our best young rider. Well done Daniel, I didn’t touch it. Honest.

OGL also explained he wasn’t riding this week as he was full of cold. While Our Glorious Leader was crying off, this was the first Saturday in the month, so all our more advanced youngsters were out in force.

Their number included the Monkey Butler Boy, accompanied by the Red Max who was suffering from a particularly vicious bout of the lurgy, but had somehow managed to drag himself out despite being “as sick as a parrot” – another hoary old football cliché that seemingly fits alongside (dare I say dove-tails with?) a worryingly recurring avian theme this week.

With OGL being absent G-Dawg and Crazy Legs put their heads together, intent on devising a route that would be somewhat different from the usual. After a few minutes they offered a couple of alternatives, but were immediately shouted down – nobody wanted to think and have to make a choice. We didn’t want options, we just wanted to ride!

Point made they set out and 32 lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and followed, not really sure of where we were going and not really caring too much either.

Loitering at the back I caught up with Andeven, recently returned from summer at the bottom of the world and finding acclimatising back to British winter a trifle depressing. I also discovered Rab Dee lurking here, out on a new winter bike for his first ride of the year and also finding the cold less than agreeable.

For a short while, on one of our less frequented routes, we sped down a narrow path bordering the A1: a cracked surface, rucked with tree roots and strewn with debris, but infinitely preferable to jousting with the thundering HGV’s on the main road.

Somewhat surprisingly, we survived without puncture or mishap, exiting onto a private road, where still in single-file a long line of us streamed through a quiet village.

I watched in amusement as a woman on the far side of the road picked up one of her small, yappy and obviously semiprecious, dog and clutched it to her chest protectively. She rather warily watched us go by with fear filled eyes that might, perhaps, be a suitable reaction to a horde of wild Cossacks intent on pillage, but seemed misplaced for a meandering line of mild-mannered, grinning and gurning cyclists. Maybe they don’t get many visitors from “the outside”

Freezing rain had started to liberally pepper us and we were losing order along with riders as they stopped to pull on waterproof jackets. Well, all apart from Shoeless who with seeming insouciance retrieved his rain jacket from a back pocket, shook it out, slipped it on and deftly managed to zip it up despite the massive winter gloves limiting his dexterity – all the while driving the pace at the front of the bunch.

We decided to stop under a road bridge to regroup and let everyone get sorted, before pushing out into what had now become a steady, icy downpour. I later learned that Keel had bizarrely decided the forecast was good enough to break his good bike out of hibernation and had obviously offended the cycling gods, who now punished us with earlier and heavier than forecast rain.

I was braced for the steep climb of the Mur de Mitford, always a challenge and especially when the road is slick, but we by-passed this particular nasty and dragged ourselves up through the village of Mitford itself. From there we worked our way to Dyke Neuk and another quick stop for the Racing Snakes and braver amongst us split for the longer, harder, faster, Self-flagellation Ride™.

Our reduced group pressed on with thoughts of coffee and cake fuelling our pace, though we prudently scrubbed off the speed for the increasingly sketchy drop down the dip and then sharp clamber up to Hartburn.

Again we regrouped to allow stragglers to catch on, before sweeping down through Milestone Woods, and hitting the first rollers. Taffy Steve led the charge for home with a hopeless attack dedicated to the absent Red Max, but faded as the road ramped up.

I swung past on the back of a long line, but couldn’t hold the pace and the gap widened. A few riders nipped past, including Kipper, but he started to slow as the next gradient bit. I swung to the outside and started to ease past him, just as he swung right to avoid several potholes in the road and our bars became entangled like two ancient, rutting stags locking horns.

With a frantic bit of wrestling and a whole heap of wobbling, we finally managed to pull apart, but the momentum directed me laterally over the white line, right across the road and into the thick mud in the opposite gutter. Needless to say the driver of the fast approaching, sharply braking car was mightily unimpressed as I was swept across the road in front of him.

With wheels churning and spinning in thick mud, I clung to the very edge of the road to let the car slip past, waving sheepishly in embarrassed apology to the driver. Kipper apologised for not having seen me, but it was just one of those things that can happen and no harm was done, although the adrenaline spike to the heart wasn’t particularly pleasant.

Clearing the café, the Prof took some of the others back by a longer route, but the weather wasn’t conducive to an extended ride, so most of us took the usual way home.

Somewhere along the way, I have a vague recollection of the Red Max drifting off the back in a case of illness induced enfeeblement. I’m guessing he should really have been home recuperating, instead of battering himself to try and contain our more enthusiastic youngsters and suffering through his own private hell among the yearlings.

Still, not all bad as I’m guessing the Monkey Butler Boy revelled in dropping his Pa – hey, a victory is a victory and you can only beat the competition that turns up on the day.

On splitting from the group I was relieved to find that, for once I wasn’t faced with punishing headwinds on my push for home and the miles were duly ticked off with no great trials or traumas.

YTD Totals: 533 km /331 miles with 5,207 metres of climbing

Vittoria’s Secret and the Cold Hand Gang

Club Run, Saturday 30^thJanuary, 2016

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 100 km/62 miles with 1,156 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 28 minutes

Average Speed: 22.3 km/h

Group size: 14 riders, no FNG’s

Temperature: 5°C

Weather in a word or two: Bright, blowy, brisk

Main topic of conversation at the start:

When G-Dawg rolled up wearing what looked like over-sized oven gloves and a muffler made of thick, carpet underfelt, we knew we were in for a cold, cold ride.

Crazy Legs was next in, lamenting that supplies of strawberry jam in his household were wholly depleted so breakfast had been a minor disappointment. As a consequence, and without its sugary boost, he declared his ride was probably doomed before it had even started. How fragile we are.

He’d already conducted his patented ice-test however, wandering out, into the road and finding a puddle to dip his finger into before declaring it safe to ride. I suggested he should just have jumped into the puddle, if it splashed everywhere then all was good, if he slipped and fell on his arse then a degree of caution needed to be exercised.

He said this was impractical as he wasn’t fully dressed at this point and during this exchange we discovered we both had an inimical hatred of slippers. Perhaps both of us thought that footwear that’s soft, fluffy, brightly patterned and utterly shapeless is the clearest indicator yet that you’d taken the first step (or shuffle) toward terminal decline and dotage, a road that all too easily leads to baggy, zip-up nylon cardigans, a complete wardrobe makeover to ensure all your clothes are the same dingy shade of beige or pale blue and a world where wing-backed La-z-boy chairs seem like a good idea.

We differed only in our solutions to this issue, he opts for a kind of hybrid sports slipper or plimsoll, while my choice are kung-fu shoes. Yes, we are officially weird.

What I presume was a mother and daughter approached us to ask if we knew where Bulman House, or some such place was. As we dithered, Taffy Steve popped up out of nowhere to display an encyclopaedic grasp of the local area that would shame “The Knowledge” of a competent cab driver. Even more startling, he’s “not from around these parts” and doesn’t actually live anywhere close to our meeting point.

He proceeded to confidently and assuredly issue precise, step-by-step instructions and the couple disappeared in the indicated direction.

As the woman returned sans daughter, Crazy Legs cheerily asked if she’d found the building, then as she passed archly suggested that the daughter was stealthily working her way around behind us and didn’t want to be caught and have to admit we’d suckered her into going in completely the wrong direction.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

Carlton declared this was officially a Cold Hand Day – his unique measuring system for defining exact ride temperature, so now we knew we were operating somewhere between a Frozen Toes Day and a Frost-bitten Face Day.

Goose recalled having a steel-framed Peugeot which would be classed as a vintage bike nowadays and we briefly discussed the provenance of my winter bike, a (fairly) modern, aluminium framed Peugeot. These had only been available for one year before seemingly disappearing without trace as Peugeot re-entered the bike market, then just as quickly abandoned it again.

The cold had obviously addled our brains because Goose then asked if Peugeot still made cars and I have to admit I had to think really long and hard about it, before unconvincingly confirming they did.

One of OGL’s long-term acquaintances was at the café when we arrived and he kept us hugely entertained with a series of anecdotes of spurious origin, all wickedly laced with the type of language that might make Chubby Brown blush. In that instant my Teacake Haiku inspired dream of a cadre of sensitive, poetry writing cyclists, staring thoughtfully out of the café window before illuminating their experiences in contemplative verse, died a quick and horrible death.

At some point in our ride, Crazy Legs had wandered off for adventures on his own and entered the café late to tell us how he’d ran into the back of a car that had stopped suddenly as the driver dithered and changed their mind when approaching a junction. When Crazy Legs clambered off and approached the driver to apologise for the tyre sized groove he’d left imprinted in the rear bumper, she’d taken fright and bolted.

Discussion about the inability to stop a fixie quite so unexpectedly inevitably led to the issue of disk brakes. Crazy Legs informed us he was very impressed with the brakes on his new mountain bike but felt the “cockpit” (as the trade magazines like to call the handlebar area) was incredibly cluttered and restrictive. He demonstrated this by wiggling outstretched fingers and flapping his elbows in and out, doing a fair approximation of the funky chicken.

G-Dawg dryly queried if this wasn’t more akin to a demonstration of one-man-band skills rather than bike-handling and wondered whether Crazy Legs preferred cymbals or a horn under his arms.

The Waffle:

Isn’t the Internet a strange and wonderful thing? Not only because my witless meanderings find an audience, who amazingly seemed to appreciate and, even more astonishingly, occasionally ask for more. There also seems to be quite a refreshingly friendly community amongst bloggers, who all provide slightly different perspectives, read each other’s work, contribute with insightful or amusing comments and promote competitor blogs to their own readers.

This week I was able to offer a tiny modicum of help to a club mate who’s undertaking the rather daunting and Herculean task of building a searchable database of all the grand tour stage winners, complete with their nationalities, ages, teams, bikes et al. For an esoteric take on cycling stats and an eclectic mix of pro cycling insights, try SiCycle.

Sur La Jante also got a name check in a blog entry from the The Lonely Cyclist who provides a completely different perspective on British cycling and cycling clubs, not surprising really as the Lonely Cyclist is neither male, middle-aged, cynical, sardonic nor quite as jaded as this old blogger. Hmm, now I think of it, old blogger sounds somewhat pejorative, if not quite as bad as arse hat.

Then, either inspired by my teacake haiku, or alternatively wholly embarrassed by my putrid efforts, Ragtime Cyclist responded with a haiku of his own:

What is riding for?
If not the mid-ride teacake.
Helps to shut up legs.

For one, brief moment I had a clear, lofty vision of cycling clubs up and down the land immortalising their weekly rides in verse form, and presiding over a renaissance of British poetry … but the dream didn’t survive the hard reality of first contact with my fellow cyclists.

It’s well worth stopping by to see what the Ragtime Cyclist has to say, such as his take on Haribo abuse – it made me laugh and I can’t think of a better endorsement than that.

This week I was also proud to learn I’m a Vittorian. Somewhere along the line my appreciation of Vittoria tyres has seen my details captured in a random database and now I receive periodic copies of their newsletter; The Vittorian. This is obviously a thoroughly gripping (no pun intended) read, dedicated to all things tyre-related and doubtless ripe for parody on Have I Got News for You.

Through this less than august journal, I found out their secret for the new season – tyres reinforced with graphene, the wonder-substance that’s a 100 times stronger than steel. I wonder how long it will be before we’ll all be lusting after exquisitely light, super-strong and shockingly expensive graphene frames and our love affair with all things carbon will be dead and buried.

We’ll still be going no faster, but the bike manufacturers will be rubbing their hands with glee. This also makes we worry about what we’ll do with all the useless discarded carbon frames that are all but indestructible and non-biodegradable.

Anyway, I digress wildly. Feeling much, much better than last week I was looking forward to another club run, despite the temperature which would struggle to reach a heady 5°C and gusting westerly winds predicted to hit 45 mph.

Just in case of any lingering ice, I eased down the hill slowly and immediately turned to greet this wind head-on for a slow grind to cross the river. Here I could enjoy a brief respite with added tailwind benefits before I had to clamber out of the valley again.

I had just about found the right gear and cadence to battle my way into the wind when, seemingly out of nowhere, a black clad, ninja cyclist cruised past, greeted me with the universal and UCI approved, “How do?” and invited me onto his wheel. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I latched on behind and had a couple of miles of relative shelter until I decided his pace was slightly too high, too early in the ride.

As I dropped off and turned to cross the river he disappeared up the road, pounding away into the headwind that seemed to be having no appreciable effect on his speed and effortless riding.

14 lads and lasses eventually gathered at our rendezvous point, where surprisingly there was no mention of ride etiquette, mechanical or wardrobe faux pas or overdue club fees. We pushed off, clipped in and rode out, looking for routes that might give a modicum of shelter and some small relief from a gusting wind.

We were warned however to be on our best behaviour at the café, as OGL was meeting some journalist from Cycling Weekly – presumably for a forthcoming feature on the Cyclone Festival of Cycling™.

As we rode out I immediately dropped to the back of the group, my usual position, but more imperative on a day like this when I didn’t really fancy sticking my nose into the wind.

Here I found Mad Colin, riding with us mere mortals, whilst bemoaning age and responsibility and we were soon discussing daughters, body building, structured training, proper rest, drugs and Lance Armstrong. He revealed how he felt that, even before Jon Tiernan-Locke registered his breakthrough wins on the Continent, racing against him was a somewhat, err shall we say, other-worldly experience.

First OGL, then Crazy Legs, Red Max, G-Dawg, Taffy Steve and Carlton all took turns at the front as, pummelled by the incessant wind, we started to track 3 riders in the far distance. I felt sooner or later their lack of numbers would tell and we’d catch them, but we weren’t rotating off the front often enough to keep our pace really high.

With the other group dangling annoyingly in front of us for what seemed miles, Mad Colin finally took a hand, rode to the front and with Crazy Legs pushed the pace up a notch higher. We closed in, finding much to everyone’s disbelief one of them riding in shorts and his raw, angry legs looked the colour and texture of corned beef. Luckily we were soon past and leaving this uncomfortable sight behind.

shadows2 — Despite the cold it was a very bright, very breezy day

As we made the turn for the café, I dropped back to check on Taffy Steve who was starting to feel the effects of prolonged efforts riding on the front. Then, as we battered up the Quarry Climb, he became slightly detached with OGL and cresting the climb they found themselves stuck behind a huge, slow-moving tractor and trailer at the precise moment that the Red Max launched a Forlorn Hope attack.

Max quickly gained about 100 to 150 metres lead with Goose stuck firmly to his wheel and Carlton queried whether we shouldn’t be chasing them down. I told him to wait and explained that it was still far too early.

We duly held formation until the road began to rise and Max’s efforts began to get a bit ragged, then a quick injection of pace had the group reforming before the road kicked down again. Meanwhile, further behind, Taffy Steve having failed to convince OGL to join the chase, finally overtook the tractor and began a madcap pursuit on his own, closing fast, but ultimately running out of road.

On the next descent and aided by some daredevil cornering, Max attacked again and again managed to open up a sizeable lead only for Mad Colin, G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg to quickly overhaul him as once more the road kicked up.

With the strong riders pulling away up front, I dragged myself through the last junction slightly distanced from a group that included Goose, Red Max and Shouty. I pressed harder on the pedals to pick up speed and with glacial slowness the gap started to close. I made contact and decided to keep going, swinging over onto the other side of the road and sliding past down the outside of the group.

I’d just eased past Max when we hit the approach to the Snake Bends and braking sharply we zipped and switched our way through and into the final run to the café.

We left OGL at the café staring morosely into a second and now empty cup of coffee and still waiting for his contact from Cycling Weekly to show, as we piled out and saddled up for an uneventful ride home. The group split and we entered the Mad Mile, where the pace was kicked up I slipped slowly backwards through the group.

As everyone else zipped left, I swung to the right, then right again until I was pointed directly into a headwind that I suspect had been waiting for this precise moment to amp up its intensity. As I started the long drag uphill I quickly ran through the gears, trying to find something that I could spin relatively easy but still feel like I was making some headway.

I settled into the grind, watching the fog of my breathing starting to coalesce in the cold air as the temperature noticeably dropped. A stinging shower of ice-hail-snow was swept horizontally down the road to needle my face numb for the last few miles, until I could once again cross the river and ride the tailwind home.

YTD Totals: 392 km /244 miles with 3,855 metres of climbing

The Teacake Haiku (Destry Rides Again)

Club Run, Saturday 23^rd January, 2016

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 102 km/63 miles with 968 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 36 minutes

Average Speed: 22.0 km/h

Group size: 34 riders, 1 FNG

Temperature: 10°C

Weather in a word or two: Typically Tropical?

Main topic of conversation at the start:

Along with the latest FNG, I found myself being hugely entertained by one of Taffy Steve’s inspired rants at the meeting point. The target for his ire this time around was bike manufacturers who inflict narrow, hard and excruciatingly uncomfortable saddles on the uneducated, new bikers – who then accept them simply because they look “racy” – despite perching on them being akin to straddling the thin edge of a 2×4 piece of timber.

He concluded by suggesting that if the FNG was looking for more comfort he should perhaps look for a Specialized saddle as, “they’ve had years of experience catering to fat-ass Americans.”

It was at this point that Crazy Legs spun up and declared the weather was Typically Tropical©- self-inflicting his own savage ear-worm and instantly banishing the more credible, post-punk tune he’d earlier embedded into his brainbox.

As he vigorously hummed “Whoa, we’re going to Barbados” and waved his arms around with some exaggerated (and less than convincing) reggae-styling, he caught a whiff of his own gloves and recoiled in horror at their rancid staleness.

Part in shock, part in amazement he had a Spinal Tap moment and asked everyone to “smell the glove.” When I politely declined he tried to balance on one leg and lift his foot into my face, inviting me to sniff his boots instead.

This then reminded him of the bizarre time Dave Le Taxi innocently asked if anyone else’s cycling shoes ever smelled of cat’s pee. The rather obvious response – apart from the sea of uncomprehending and blank looks – “Oh, so have you got a cat then, Dave?”

I learned the club annual dinner and awards event had gone down a storm and Taffy Steve had won the accolade of “Most Improved Rider”. There was some discussion about whether he should have this engraved on his frame and if there was an accompanying jersey for the year ahead followed by some coloured bands for cuff and collar that could be worn in perpetuity.

I’m sure that solely to avoid disappointing my expectations, OGL then reminded everyone that club fees were now due.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

One of the waitresses approached our table and enquired if anyone had ordered the teacake. One of our number somehow misheard this simple request and thought she’d asked if anyone had ordered a haiku. Unfortunately, we were all too leg weary and brain battered to come up with a suitable, short Japanese ode to teacakes.

We decided that the indomitable, indestructible G-Dawg was our own version of Jens “Shut Up Legs!” Voigt. It was suggested that he didn’t suffer road rash when he fell off, but the tarmac wore the signs of G-Dawg rash for weeks afterwards.

With all the other family combos in the club, you could trace a trajectory to when the still improving, maturing son would supplant the ageing, slowing father. We saw it happen with beZ and the Prof, and for all the Red Max’s denials, evil machinations, deceptions and manipulations I think he’s just delaying the inevitable day when the Monkey Butler Boy regularly whups his ass.

You wonder though if Son of G-Dawg will ever face a day when he doesn’t have to fight tooth, nail and claw to get one over on his Pa. I likened this to Prince Charles’s attitude to the Queen, desperate for her to abdicate so he could take over before falling into useless senility (as opposed to his current state of useless cogency).

Not of course that G-Dawg in anyway resembles “Her Madgeness” (despite similar hairstyles) … nor does Son of G-Dawg remind me of Prince Charles for that matter.

Goose related discovering a posh, custom-build bike shop on a recent trip to London and with a few minutes to spare did that thing that all cyclists do, went to sate his more voyeuristic instincts on some suitably over-priced, but shiny, shiny bike porn.

He found the door to said establishment firmly barred however and had to wait for someone to unlock and unbolt it before he was allowed to even peek over the threshold. Interrogated as to precisely what he wanted, he lamely mumbled something about, “Just wanting to look around.” This was met with stony silence and a mighty frown, until things became so uncomfortable that he was discouraged from investigating further and fled the scene.

He rather satisfyingly reported that he’d since heard the shop had closed. Doesn’t sound like a great loss to me.

As we were finishing up, beZ returned along with other members Demon Cult of the Racing Snakes to report that they’d been delayed when the Cow Ranger somehow destroyed his front mech with what turned out to be a less than simple gear change.

This opened up a whole new discussion about completely contrasting riding styles and how some are sympathetic and perhaps empathetic to their bikes mechanical limitations, while others take a, shall we say, more direct and agricultural approach. Interesting.

Finally, in a fit of overwhelming juvenility we decided “arse hat” was a suitably disparaging, underutilised profanity that deserves greater recognition. We even had cause to test it out on several brain-dead drivers on the return home.

The Waffle:

For three whole weeks, twenty-one entire days I’ve been out of action with a bad chest infection which had filled my lungs to overflowing with a claggy, slightly radioactive and luminous industrial gunge and left me with all the aerobic capacity of an asthmatic gerbil.

Recovery has to start somewhere however, and working on the principle that riding a bike is … well, like riding a bike, something you don’t forget, I embarked on two straight days of light testing, commuting en vélo.

Having just about survived this, I tentatively set off for the rough and tumble of a first club run in what seemed an absolute age, not sure how well I’d manage, but certain it was going to hurt. Destry rides again?

Mother Nature had continued to roll around in my enforced absence, so at least it was near daylight as I checked over the bike one last time and pushed off for the meeting point.

For a winters day it was also surprisingly mild, so no chance of any ice and the forecast was for it to remain dry throughout. Sounded like too good an opportunity to miss.

It was still early enough for the roads to be relatively quiet, although the peacefulness was brutally shattered at one point by a van with a slipping fan belt that managed to sound like a barrel of cats being drowned in scalding water.

Despite this audible assault, I made it to the rendezvous point with plenty of time to spare and in not too bad a shape. There I found Taffy Steve complaining he was over heating in just a Gore winter jacket and short sleeved base layer and threatening to confine the jacket to the back of his wardrobe until at least October next year.

juliana — G-Dawg again asserts his authority over Son of G-Dawg (second from the left)

I was far from being alone in deciding the weather was too good an opportunity to miss and a large pack of 34 lads and lasses were soon clustered along the pavement. By some bizarre coincidence an appreciable number of us had turned up in matching red jackets, so that it appeared as if the Red Max was fielding a full team of personal domestiques.

As we pushed off, clipped in and set out I noticed that, rather tellingly, and in contrast to the “red wedge”, only 3 riders in this large group were wearing the official (and officially lurid) club jersey that nobody likes, but we seem stuck with.

I drifted to the back of the group where I had a long chat with the Prof, who predictably wanted a wee stop minutes after we set out. How refreshing to learn that nothing had changed in my absence.

I found going along the flat to be generally fine, but was struggling on the hills and panting like a crazed, over-excited phone pest as I tried to force air into less than optimal lungs. Stepping up off the pedals and climbing in a bigger than usual gear seemed marginally less demanding aerobically, but I knew the likely trade-off was more quickly sapping whatever leg strength I still possessed.

We finally stopped to allow the Prof some much needed relief and split the group. I slowly and quietly edged toward the amblers, intent on taking the slightly more direct route to the café, but I wasn’t sneaky enough and was spotted and called out.

I tried to look suitably ill and enfeebled, even throwing in a dramatic hacking cough as I pointed weakly at my chest and gasped loudly, but it wasn’t going to wash. Taffy Steve however promised I wouldn’t be left too far behind and since it would obviously be churlish to spurn an offer of assistance from the clubs most improved rider, I shuffled back into line, hoping I wouldn’t regret the decision too much.

The next split saw us lose the Demon Cult of the Racing Snakes as they switched into full self-flagellation mode. When Zardoz then took an impromptu left (later claiming voices in his head made him do it) I gladly followed him and half a dozen others to make the longer, harder, faster ride slightly shorter, slower and easier by cutting out the ascent of Middleton Bank.

With Taffy Steve as point man, lead out, wheel to follow, wind foil and general protector, we skilfully negotiated a small hunt and their horses, road surfaces cratered like a lunar landscape and several huge pools of water as I clung onto his back wheel.

gas mask — Desperate measures are called for to combat burning clutches

I managed to stay in touch as the pace wound up and we dropped through Milestone Woods to crest the rollers, before dropping back on the final long drag uphill, completely oblivious to any sprint that may have been going on in the distance ahead of me.

I arrived at the café to find it mobbed with other cyclists and the general public, or as they’re more commonly referred to, normal people.

Luckily it was just about warm enough to get away with sitting outside as long as we huddled together and eked out our body warmth, so half a dozen of us decamped to the garden

As I wrestled with my tray in the wind outside, I noticed that someone had thoughtfully placed a large section of discarded mudguard on one of the benches, obviously in the expectation that whoever it belonged to might return to claim it.

A nice gesture, but I felt sure that with mudguards being so inexpensive it would be far easier and much more effective to just go out and buy a complete new set, rather than try to jury rig something using cast off pieces.

One benefit of sitting outside was that we didn’t have the struggle of leaving the warm sanctuary of the café, and with no incentive to hang around we finished our mandatory refills quite briskly and set out for home before the others.

I rode at the front with Taffy Steve and we seemed to be clipping along at a fairly reasonable pace, despite a growing headwind. As we approached his turn for home, I remarked how surprised I was that the other group hadn’t caught and passed us, waved him away and pressed on.

I’d gone no more than a few pedal strokes into the Mad Mile, when G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg whipped past as they wound up their personal race for home and first use of a hot shower. All the other riders from the café then whistled past, including zeB, who, no doubt under explicit instructions from the Prof, now carried the discarded piece of mudguard from the café precariously balanced across his handlebars.

I couldn’t help but laugh, only the Prof would want to reclaim such a cast-off bit of kit, with no doubt grand plans to turn it into some semi-functional, eccentric, Heath Robinson, gimcrack something-or-other in his secret laboratory/workshop/lair.

As the last few riders passed, I dropped my own pace feeling my legs were now totally and completely empty and as I made the turn for home the last dozen miles were starting to look like a real challenge.

The drag into a headwind, up past the golf course proved a real grind, but things eased after that. I don’t think I’ve ever climbed the Heinous Hill quite so slowly (in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever climbed any hill quite so slowly)

My assault on its lower slopes definitely wasn’t helped by having to breathe through the acrid, all pervasive, lingering and uniquely rank stench of some arse hat driver burning up his clutch, but I somehow survived and made it home.

how_to_walk_like_john_wayne — … or alternatively, just cycle for 3 days in a row after a long absence

Hopefully the ensuing sore throat doesn’t mark the re-emergence of the illness, but is just a consequence of having to forcefully drag rasping, cold air down into malfunctioning lungs.

After 3 weeks of enforced inactivity I expected the difficulty breathing, the tired, heavy legs and all the associated hurt. I wasn’t however prepared for how quickly my posterior had become sensitised and how much it would object to having to perch for long periods on a saddle again.

In recovery, I don’t much resemble Jimmy Stewart in Destry Rides Again, but I have developed the buttock clenched, stiff-kneed, bow-legged and awkward gait of a Shootist-era John Wayne.

Right, I’m off to google Specialized saddles.

The Teacake Haiku

To ride pale winter light

Promises a rich reward, then

Hot, toasted teacake.

YTD Totals: 252 km /157 miles with 2016 metres of climbing

Braking Bad

Club Run, Saturday 2^nd January, 2016

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 110 km/68 miles with 528 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 41 minutes

Average Speed: 23.4 km/h

Group size: 14 riders, no FNG’s

Temperature: 8°C

Weather in a word or two: Cold and wet

Main topic of conversation at the start:

OGL emerged from the gloom of the car park having heroically struggled through to us to cry off with what he was claiming was a severe bout of man flu (# cough # hangover).

He stayed long enough to remind us that club fees are now due and warn us of both an impending hurricane and the sudden appearance of mutant ice. This ice has allegedly adapted and is now capable of spontaneously forming at temperatures up to and including 5°C.

Taffy Steve appeared with twin, syncopated disco strobes illuminating the dark underbelly of the clouds, an attempt perhaps to induce fits and seizures in random passing motorists?

We had to persuade him to turn at least one of the lights off before we could even bear to look at him. Despite being all lit up like the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree and using lights with the intensity of a Blitz searchlight, he still reported a few too many SMIDSY* encounters with the traffic.

I’m pretty certain this isn’t going to be the last edict issued to remind us that club fees are now due –the massive £10 a year seems a paltry amount for 52 weeks of fun and frivolity, but apparently there are a large proportion of club members who begrudge paying even this token amount.

*SMIDSY – Sorry mate, I didn’t see you

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:

With our regular haunt closed for the day, we had to make the annual pilgrimage to our alternative café. This was prominently adorned with notices warning of local encounters with the Bolam Lake beast, a monster depicted on the posters as a rather large, mature Silverback gorilla.

Everyone looked at the picture, then at the Taffy Steve, and then back to the picture, and he was forced to admit that he had indeed been seen around the Bolam Lake area, funnily enough almost a year ago to the day.

We were unable to ascertain if this coincided with the last sighting of “The Beast” or whether it has ever been spotted sitting smartly astride a velocipede.

The Red Max pointed to one of the white children’s high chairs and giggled that at least Plumose Pappus would have somewhere to sit if he decided to join us.

Half way through my coffee the BFG and Crazy Legs finally joined us after the purgatory of puncture repair duty. G-Dawg remarked how the BFG’s face was so dirty he looked like he’d just completed a 10 hour shift down a coal mine. BFG complained his “tyres were really filthy…”

“So you rubbed them clean on your face?” G-Dawg asked, not unreasonably.

The BFG again drew attention to his fallible eye-sight which he’d amply demonstrated on several previous occasions (see “The Texas Chainring Massacre and the Road to Cheescake”, Club Run, 31^st October 2015) by failing to identify brown sugar cubes and asking Crazy Legs if he always put dry roasted peanuts in his coffee.

Crazy Legs bemoaned not having the services of Taffy Steve’s mighty frame pump and having to use the molto piccolo, Blackburn Airstick. At this point Carlton dipped into his backpack, pulled out something and started flipping down hinges, tightening ratchets, pulling out telescopic extensions and uncoiling a long rubber hose as he revealed a semi-compact track pump.

“That’s not a real pump” he drawled, “This is a real pump”

We couldn’t help but happily reminisce about the time Szell suffered an explosive puncture and, by all accounts bent the barrel of his frame pump into a perfect right angle trying to force air into the newly repaired tyre through a stuck valve.

As we were leaving the café the Prof declared that it was, “impossible for lobsters to pick up worms.” An insight that left me with a very strange mental image and knowledge I’m sure I’ll be eternally grateful for…

The Waffle:

Following last week’s stunning sunrise and bright skies, this week I rolled out to low, leaden cloud, a curtain of rain and what seemed like perpetual twilight. These crepuscular conditions never brightened much throughout the entire day and encouraged everyone to keep their lights burning for the duration of the ride.

It was still mild though and despite OGL’s direst warnings there wasn’t the merest trace of ice to worry about.

In an attempt to combat the incessant rain and at least try and stay dry, I topped my winter jersey with a light waterproof jacket, hoping the outer layer would keep me dry, while the inner one would help control my temperature and wick moisture away from my base layer.

This seemed to work well and I finished the ride comfortably dry apart from a noticeable damp patch on my forearms. The rest of me wasn’t so lucky, and everything else, tights, socks, overshoes, shoes, gloves and helmet were thoroughly soaked through and waterlogged.

As an added benefit the outer jacket took the brunt of the huge volumes of mud, dirt, debris, disintegrating plant life, general crud and who knows what else that sprayed up from the roads and was relatively easy to sponge clean afterwards.

There was plenty of true grit in evidence … punishment comes one way or another

Around 14 lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and rode out, but our numbers really were a moveable feast as late-comers tagged on while others dropped away or took alternative routes. We even had a rare appearance from Dave Le Taxi, getting his annual club ride over and done with early this year, although you’d have to say he could have chosen a better day.

The wet and filthy roads conspired to coat everything in a layer of grit that got everywhere. And I mean everywhere – halfway through the ride I could bite down and feel it grinding between my teeth, and when I tried to delicately re-arrange my helmet hair in the café, my scalp got an unexpected exfoliation which would probably have cost a small fortune in some upscale beauty spa.

The grit also served to turn brake blocks into whetstones. You could hear – and almost visualise rims being viciously ground away whenever we had to slow and braking was so seriously impaired that stopping quickly became a bit of a lottery.

Having put off replacing my brake blocks for one week too long, I became intimately acquainted with the inner workings of my brake levers which gaped open to an alarming degree every time I needed to stop, hauling down so hard the ends of the levers were in danger of smacking off the bars.

If I had it bad, others had it worse. The Prof started to hang about 100 yards off the back of the group so he had plenty of time to stop. Only a portion of this can be attributed to his ancient reflexes and less than nimble reactions, so the impaired braking we were all suffering must have played a part.

Dave Le Taxi bemoaned the cantilever brakes on his winter bike, which he said were a continual source of frustration and bad stopping power, while Carlton was castigating himself that he hadn’t chosen to ride his disk-brake equipped bike.

At one point dropping into Stamfordham village he swept serenely inside me and through a junction in a long, graceful glide, only to admit he was scared witless, had tried to stop and couldn’t.

When we called a quick halt, beZ discovered part of his problem was that he’d lost half of one of his brake pads somewhere along the way. We naturally sent him to retrace his steps and try and find it.

not a knife — That’s not a ~~knife~~ pump, this is a ~~knife~~ pump

None of us had managed to sink quite as low as, the perhaps thankfully absent, Moose Bumps however, who not only regularly rides without bar tape, bar end plugs or adequate cold weather clothing, but was discovered a few weeks ago to have worn his pads down to the metal.

As well as the potential danger, I would have thought this produces a deeply disconcerting audible assault and probably sparks when he hauls the anchors on and must be tearing through his wheel rims at an alarming rate. I can’t help feel he’s taking the poor student shtick a bit too far and perhaps the need for club brakes we mooted last week is more urgent than we thought.

With no OGL to bark at everyone, Crazy Legs invented a surrogate OGL, the “Proxy Peter”. This proved far too cultured, with proxy messages being passed from the rear up to the front of the group to politely request a change of pace. I must admit I missed the creative over-use of the f-word in the UCI approved ratio of 2:1 – two eff’s, effing’s or effer’s to accompany every other word (including any additional swearing required).

Knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist, I asked Crazy Legs if we should: “Pass the proxy ‘pon de left-hand side?” instantly inflicting a vicious ear-worm on him and eliciting a startling tribute to Musical Youth through the medium of song. For the second time in as many weeks this earned me a (surely unwarranted), “Bastard!” epithet.

Somewhere along the way we lost Shouty and Plumose Pappus, but picked up the Cow Ranger. He wasn’t aware our usual café was closed, so we were able to save him from whining and scratching futilely at its door and scaring the owners with his deranged howling.

BFG kindly highlighted all the potholes, mainly by planting his front wheel squarely into them. It took longer than I expected, but he eventually managed to puncture, just as we were gathering pace for the run to the café. Crazy Legs stopped to help him and they soon had the matter in hand and waved the rest of us on.

The Red Max celebrated the New Year with his first Forlorn Hope attack of 2016, but this died as we turned away from the usual café route and climbed the rollers in reverse. Shoeless and Son of G-Dawg led the charge upwards, and along with G-Dawg I just about managed to hang onto the wheels.

50a2657256864cea631c31e0586604eb — It really wasn’t the day for the BFG’s white jacket

There was a bit of a scramble to wring out and dump wet gear on the radiators in the café, which might have turned a bit competitive until we discovered the radiators weren’t actually on.

With no way to meaningfully dry or warm up all the sodden outer layers, we just had to grin and bear it, pulling on wet gear for the ride home. Well, all except for Max who smugly pulled a spare jacket and dry gloves from his ever expanding backpack.

On the way back the Red Max and Taffy Steve took an alternative route to avoid the climb of Berwick Hill, then Dave Le Taxi dropped off the pace. I was going to ride back with him as he too lives south of the river, but he was soon completely out of sight and it was too cold and miserable to hang around.

I suspect he was more than happy to make his way homeward at his own pace anyway. Alternatively he might have learned a hard lesson and dropped completely out of sight before calling for motorised assistance.

As we approached Berwick Hill, Carlton too dropped off the pace, still concerned by his lack of braking and more comfortable on his own. Shoeless and the Cow Ranger stepped up the pace on the front and tucking in I reached my turn off in seemingly no time at all and began to work my way down to the river and home.

So, brand new year, same shit weather – 2016 here we go…

YTD Totals: 110 km /68 miles with 528 metres of climbing

Ride of the Long Shadows

Club Run, Sunday 27^th December, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 111 km/69 miles with 987 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 28 minutes

Group size: 16 riders, no FNG’s, 1 guest

Weather in a word or two: Bright and chilly

Main topic of conversation at the start: Thoughts turned to the fixie gaucho and whether we should invest in a set of club brakes that we could loan out to those in need, much like the fabled, semi-mythical club rollers.

Talk of the fabled, semi-mythical club rollers brought us round to where they were now and whether Dave le Taxi still has them, which in turn led to Crazy Legs explaining to Suds how Davey Pat became Dave le Taxi – a shameful, sordid tale of reaching the café with “tired legs” and, without even bothering to concoct a faked mechanical or family emergency, blatantly calling the missus for a lift home. A deep and indelible, black mark that can never be scoured away.

We had a guest with us for the ride, a girl from a club in Cambridge who was up for the holidays visiting parents and actually looking forward to riding some hills! She went around all of us in turn asking if we were OGL and, like Spartacus in reverse, we all denied it.

We patiently explained that since it was only 9.25 and we weren’t scheduled to leave until 9.30, then OGL was unlikely to put in an appearance anytime before 9.38. She seemed somewhat bemused by our strange time-keeping ways, which would suggest that this actually isn’t normal amongst cycling clubs. Who’d have thought it?

She also wanted to know what signals we used while riding in a group, and like one of those supremely disinterested attendants you sometimes get on Ryan Air flight, I gave her the shortened version, pointing desultorily at the ground: “pothole” jerking a thumb over my shoulder: “car back” and pointing ahead: “car up”.

I also explained that in some parts of the country I understood that “car up” actually means there’s a car behind and she told me this was the case with their fast group … but not their slow group, and this did cause occasional confusion when fast riders dropped down to the slower group. Ha! And I thought we were weird?

She then did that bent arm thing behind her back and asked if we “do that bent arm thing behind the back” to warn the rider behind we were approaching an obstruction and needed to pull out. I assured her that we did indeed do that bent arm thing behind the back, concluding lamely that I’m sure she’d be fine and it wasn’t exactly rocket science, although as Suds noted dryly we do, somehow manage to over-complicate everything and indeed turn it into rocket science.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Crazy Legs pondered if putting rollers on a slope would mimic riding uphill, but didn’t get a decent answer as OGL went off on one about the GB track team and their ramp tests.

Halfway through the ramble Crazy Legs was distracted as rows of tiny lights seemed to periodically sweep over us and he started looking around to try and find out who’d installed a disco mirrorball in the café and where it was.

We finally concluded the lights were just the low sun reflecting off watches, plates or cutlery, although we couldn’t determine the exact source. Having a disco mirrorball in the cafe is, for now, just a pleasant but wholly unfulfilled fantasy.

The guest from Cambridge got a tiny thimble-full of espresso which she pretty much downed in one and started to pull her gear on to leave. It appears her club view café stops as nothing more than a quick transition between riding out and turning round to ride back, and you get extra kudos the quicker you are.

Ours is, thankfully a much more relaxed affair as we exorcise our inner demons through the incessant, gloriously incoherent, babble of chatter and offer up coffee and cakes to appease the gods of cycling.

Crazy Legs wanted to know when the Cambridge riders ever had time to talk, to which the answer was that they “talk while they ride”. He sat back looking astounded and shaking his head in wonder – “Why haven’t we thought of that?” he asked, somehow, unbelievably managing to convey not even slightest trace of sarcasm.

The Waffle:

The Sunday start, half an hour later meant that at least darkness had pretty much retreated as I dropped into the valley and set off toward the rendezvous point. I rode toward a huge full moon hanging low over the trees and houses and slowly turning from brass, to pale gold, to bone white as the sun clawed its way up behind me.

The sky had been washed clean of clouds by last night’s rain and scoured and polished a brilliant blue by the high winds. It was chilly, but bright and clear up to the heavens, as perfect a cycling day as you’re going to get in northern England in the midst of winter.

I arrived fairly early at the meeting point, so got into a prolonged “what to expect” discussion with our guest for the day, a girl from Cambridge Cycling Club, which even got as far as her telling me where I could find her ICE contact details in the event of a catastrophic accident!

Luckily Princess Fiona and Mini Miss eventually turned up so she wasn’t cast loose into a pack of hairy-arsed male riders incapable of discussing anything more culturally relevant than Sharknado 3, Fallout 4, Star Wars 7, a re-hashed Shimano vs. Campagnolo debate, or whether Yeats’s “A Dialogue of Self and Soul” can be read as the poet arguing that our existence is inexorably tied to the intrinsic difficulty of life itself.

Some 15 minutes after our scheduled start-time, around 16 lads and lasses were able to push off, clip in and roll out for a ride to blow away all the Christmas cobwebs and start slowly paring away some of the festive excess.

Although continuously bright the sun never did rise much above eye-level, casting long shadows that were a constant accompaniment, rotating slowly around us as we wove our way out into a rather bleak and water-logged countryside.

Despite numerous flooded fields I didn’t realise just how much water the landscape had absorbed until we stopped to split the group and I stepped onto the grass verge and cold water instantly enveloped my foot and raced through the holes in my shoes to soak my socks.

As we split into two groups, our guest still hadn’t seen enough testing hills, so was encouraged to go with the longer, harder, faster group. Within a few miles though we hit the climb up Cobbler’s Lane and she was gasping like a fish out of water and dropping off the back.

We regrouped, climbed and then regrouped again, until hitting a long, straight and gradual descent where, for some inexplicable reason, our guest rider seemed to have a rush of blood to the head, or perhaps more accurately the legs and attacked.

The Red Max was having none of this and accelerated in pursuit, as whatever order we had instantly exploded. I found myself riding off the front, tucked in behind Crazy Legs and Ovis as they churned away at high speed.

The three of us were beginning to feel a little heavy legged at this point, so Crazy Legs suggested a slightly longer, more rolling route to the café, but crucially one that missed out the stiff climb up to the Quarry, which would have been an extra effort for Ovis and him on their fixies.

Course plotted and agreed, we scorched straight-ahead at the next junction, where a quick look over the shoulder confirmed we were all alone with everyone else turning for the Quarry.

The two upfront continued to drive on, keeping their momentum going over each small rise, while I had the luxury of dropping down a gear or two, dropping back and spinning up at a more leisurely pace, which was about all the legs could cope with.

Cycle-wet1 — Almost inevitably, there was yet more of this …

At one point we ripped through a flooded section of the road, once again the water level topping overshoe height and leaving us with water-logged socks. Then we were up to the junction and turning to head down to the Snake Bends.

Crazy Legs led the charge and, when he reached terminal velocity on his fixie, his upper body began to rock like Charlie Carolli on a wonky-wheeled mini-bike.

I clicked down a gear, nudged out of his slipstream and eased past, nonchalantly whistling “The March of the Clowns.”

This earned me his deepest respect and the highest of accolades, which if I recall correctly he forcefully expressed in just a few, short words: “You utter bastard!”

article-1383606-0BE7A37A00000578-642_468x470 — Yat-dat-daddle, didlle-yat-dat-da-da

We regrouped just before the Bends and pressed on to the café, arriving comfortably before those who’d taken in the Quarry climb.

The ride home was pleasant enough for Crazy Legs to declare this as the best, most successful, post-Christmas holiday ride we’d had, as even ripping through the flooded road sections was better than grappling with ice and the pace had been hard enough, for long enough, to hurt.

Even his rendition of “Disco Duck” failed to spoil the ride, and it was with more weary resignation than actual ire that I remonstrated with a B52 style BUFF in a pick-up truck who cut me up as I tried to cross the river.

Potentially the last ride of the year (unless I can sneak something else in) has left me 57 miles short of 4,000 for the year and 2 metres shy of topping 70,000 metres of climbing. Not a bad effort and a decent target to try and surpass next year.

YTD Totals: 6,345 km / 3,943 miles with 69,998 metres of climbing

Christmas Cracker turns Crash-Tacular

Club Run, Saturday 19^th December, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 100 km/62 miles with 851 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 13 minutes

Group size: 24 riders, no FNG’s

Weather in a word or two: Balmy (and quite barmy)

Main topic of conversation at the start: Crazy Legs discovered one drawback of wearing a Christmas jumper over his club jersey: the rear pockets were now inaccessible behind a thick barrier of wool. This led to a collective realisation that there is a serious gap in the market for Christmas-themed cycling apparel.

We thought Rapha were most likely to rise to this challenge with a range of super-tasteful, pure-wool, merino Christmas jumpers -in black perhaps, replete with a dropped-tail, reflective trim, the traditional three back pockets and subtly featuring tiny, tiny turkeys.

We then discussed what would happen if it rained on all the non-lycra wool jumpers, how big they’d be likely to grow and just how heavy they’d be when wet.

Thoughts turned to some crazy gaucho who’d been stalking our forum and Faecesbook page and threatening to come and ride with us on his fixie. OGL had told him firmly not to bother unless he fitted a brake to his bike, as no matter how in control he was, or how accomplished a bike handler there’s the issue of the other 20 or so riders around him.

When the gaucho failed to turn up we assumed he didn’t want to dilute the “purity” of riding a fixie by fitting brakes and had taken umbrage at the restriction. Who knows though, I may be doing him a great disservice and he may be sitting home alone, still struggling to cope with such horribly unfamiliar technology as callipers and cables.

The Prof didn’t have a Christmas jumper, but wore his traditional festive bobble-hat, designed to look like a very sorry, misshapen Christmas pudding with (naturally?) a big pom-pom on the top to match the one on Crazy Legs’ jumper.

In a scene with all the searing, suppressed homo-eroticism of Alan Bates and Oliver Reed wrestling nude in the “Women in Love” film, the Prof and Crazy Legs stood nose-to-nose, gazing lovingly at each other, while taking turns to fondle each others pom-poms. It was only a shame no one had a clown’s horn to punctuate each convulsive squeeze.

It was perhaps as well that we left quickly after that, or we’d have needed to throw a bucket of cold water over the pair to separate them.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Along with Goose I eyed up what sounded like the perfect fusion of Bakewell Tart combined with Festive Mince Pie – a Bakewell Mince Slice. Genius!

Well almost, theoretically this revolutionary new confection should have been a synergistic blend of the best bits of a beloved staple of the cyclists café stop, combined with a uniquely novel and seasonal twist. Sadly we were both left disappointed, a clear case of one plus one equalling … err … one.

OGL’s Christmas jumper featured a homely Yule time scene of a roaring fire, decorated mantelpiece, Christmas tree and a sack for all the presents. Someone wondered aloud if the single sack was symbolic of OGL’s intimate encounter with a Cinelli stem (see: Stems, Scrotums and the Melancholy, Winking Dog Ride, Club Run, 27^th June). I couldn’t help worrying that for the third week in a row we were forging links, no matter how tenuous, to despotic leaders with a penchant for eastward facing territorial aggrandisement.

Our travails of the day reminded us of Dabman’s first hard encounter with the tarmac to start the year with a bang, or more accurately a dull thump and crack. We again wondered how we still weren’t expecting any ice on the road after we’d stopped to push a stranded car out of a ditch only minutes beforehand.

Crazy Legs said he’d forbidden Dabman to ride again until at least May and related that in the NHS had agreed to let the broken collar bone heal “naturally”, so Dabman would probably spent the rest of his life looking somewhat unbalanced – unless of course he can contrive to fall and break something on the other side.

It was also agreed that he probably shouldn’t risk a trip to Paris or hang around Île de la Cité, in case he stirs up an unfriendly pitchfork wielding, torch carrying mob.

I was somewhat conscious of an elderly couple at the adjacent table, who were now surrounded by a mob of voluble, over-excited, gibbering and hooting club cyclists and hoped they weren’t going to be too offended. As they got up to leave however they told us they were England tandem champions in the 50’s and had thoroughly enjoyed listening to our endless, mindless banter. Well, that was unexpected.

The Waffle:

For the second time this year I set out in near dark, just as dawn was slowly leaking a pale light and some wan colour into the sky. The difference this time though was the temperature was already an exceptionally mild, totally unseasonable 12°C and rising.

Despite all the forecasts aligning like some modern-day Delphic Oracle, I didn’t quite trust their prophecies after last week’s “winter howling” and had my pockets loaded down with spare bits of kit that I never got to use including a gilet, spare gloves, a skullcap, toe covers and a buff. What is going on with the weather?

As it was I felt somewhat over-dressed in a long-sleeved base layer, windproof jacket, shorts and legwarmers.

Despite a club wide directive, I was not however wearing a Christmas jumper because:

I’m a miserable curmudgeon. Bah, humbug!
I ride an hour on my own either way to our meeting point, and thought I’d look even sadder plodding home alone in festive attire.
I don’t actually own a Christmas jumper.
I think there’s a time and place for Christmas jumpers, but this definitely wasn’t the time and I’ve yet to discover the place.
Did I mention I was a curmudgeon?

Hey, maybe next year.

As I dropped down into the valley and made my way along to the river crossing, entire sets of street lights would blink out suddenly as I approached them and it felt like I was riding a wave of impenetrable darkness. Just a case of bad timing I guess, but it did feel rather strange.

Despite this I was able to revel a little in the warm temperature and utterly quiet, early morning roads as, after a week bereft of any cycling commutes I stretched my legs for the first time in what felt like an age.

I positively flew along to the meeting place and was the first there to see the arrival of all the festive funsters. G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg put on a splendid show, riding up in formation and resplendent in matching red and blue Christmas jumpers.

Son of… then admitted he’d borrowed his from his Dad. Just for the record I think it’s worth pausing and considering the fact that the granite hard, indomitable iron-man, G-Dawg has two Christmas jumpers.

Crazy Legs was the next to roll up, in a bright red jumper emblazoned with a large Rudolph head, replete with a massive pom-pom for a nose. Crazy Legs’ approach was very circumspect and tentative and you got the feeling he was ready to turn round and high-tail it home if he appeared to be the only one festively attired.

27f1a0a7fed46a073a57b364ead57288 — Enflamed by thoughts of the Prof’s pom-pom, Crazy Legs has to resort to a cold shower to cool his ardour.

OGL’s jumper featured a fireplace complete with a sack for presents, the Prof wore a Christmas pudding hat and beZ disappointed by not wearing the threatened snowman onesie, but somewhat made up for this wearing a penguin jumper, complete with a hood featuring eyes and a beak.

The Red Max was one of the riders who took the opportunity of the ridiculously warm weather to wear shorts and a summer jersey, but had at least made the effort to decorate his top tube in tinsel (red of course). I reckoned this wasn’t particularly aerodynamic, but probably made him invisible to German radar.

Shoeless was dressed as an Elf, Laurelan wore a Christmas jumper and had attached some jingling bells and baubles to her stem, while Arnold I think had on some designer fashion-knitwear in luxury cashmere.

b168ab206815c6d74021973b11b306ac — The Prof got a little too excited as well.

All in all a very good effort, although I couldn’t help thinking Josher misunderstood the concept of a “Christmas jumper” and decided to just wear something his Granddad might once have received as an unwanted Christmas present.

I didn’t get a good look at this, but got the impression of a Bri-Nylon cardigan of an indeterminate, nondescript colour, complete with leatherette elbow patches, a chunky zipper with big ring-pull and baggy pockets to store your pipe and baccy in. Très chic (well, in the late 50’s anyway).

So it was that a suitable Advent group of 24 lads and lasses pushed off, clipped in and rode out, none of us quite believing just how mild the weather was.

03efc79ac8a3dae462e69a9674acf26f — Early Gallic version of the Christmas Jumper Ride

It was turning into a very pleasant, uneventful and relaxed ride, although everyone seemed to be having trouble with just how warm it was and soon gloves were being discarded, jackets unzipped or unshipped and belted around waists and the sleeves of all the Christmas jumpers were being rolled up.

We turned up a narrow country lane and found ourselves having to slow and single out to pass large groups of riders, finding yet more coming up behind us, and the roadsides nose-to-tail with 4×4’s and horse boxes.

We were riding through the middle of what seemed to be a massive organised hunt, although as I didn’t see any hounds around and everyone was in tweed rather than “pinks” or colours, I assume this was a Hunter Trial or some other obscure equestrian gathering.

We got lots of very cheery “Good morning’s” as we carefully threaded our way through the massed ranks of the Northumbrian landed gentry, all astride their monster horses (ok, they all look big to me) and our Christmas jumpers raised a smile or two and were declared “fraytfully amusing.”

xmas tree — Next year I’ll take a leaf out of this guys book and ride with a complete Christmas tree

Arnold gagged on a cloud of, no doubt excruciatingly expensive perfume, as he passed one of the female riders and suggested any hounds might have some trouble picking up a scent with her around. I thought that perhaps she was the intended quarry and had overdone the perfume only to be able to leave an easily detectable trail.

I then rode past OGL who declared, “That’s a big hunt,” which I thought was quite uncharitable. I’m still not quite sure which individual he was referring to…

We finally cleared the traffic and ran up the Quarry Climb to turn for the café. As we were just shaking ourselves out for the final run in a large farm truck passed on the other side of the road. I’m not sure what happened next, but think there was a touch of wheels somewhere behind me, Laurelan came down hard and Red Max came down harder still and unfortunately right on top of her.

Behind them Cowin’ Bovril jammed on his disk brakes which stopped him so fiercely and unexpectedly he too toppled over before he could pull his cleats clear of the pedals.

As I turned around to ride back all I could see was Laurelan lying prone and totally unmoving on the wet tarmac, with much murmuring about broken hips and collar bones. Now everyone had an excuse to discard the jackets and jumpers they were overheating in and our downed rider was soon engulfed in all the excess clothing.

10906005_10154968167360548_6669386691393511417_n — Just prior to Dabmans tumble … pushing this car out of a ditch should have been all the warning we needed that the roads were icy

As we tried to get a signal and call for an ambulance, Laurelan started moving and climbed slowly and gingerly to her feet, carefully testing out her limbs and feeling her various injuries. I suggested if she was going to ride on to the café she might as well keep all the spare clothing on and would likely just bounce if she came down again.

As it was she seemed to have recovered with remarkable resilience and was soon ready to ride again, battered, bruised and scraped but apparently not suffering any major injury, although the back of her helmet was badly cracked.

I guess we’ll never know if the helmet saved her from a more serious injury, but at the risk of offending the anti-helmet brigade, I’m inclined to believe anything that lessens the impact of a clout to the back of the head can only be a good thing.

The Prof and Shouty pressed on as everyone regrouped, then G-Dawg and Son of G-Dawg set off too. I wheeled around the group and took off in pursuit, trusting everyone behind would finally sort themselves out and follow on.

I caught up and slotted in behind the G-Dawg pack as we slalomed our way between numerous potholes and deep fissures cratering the road surface, slowly building up speed.

At the point when G-Dawg’s whirring fixie reached maximum velocity, Son of G-Dawg accelerated in pursuit of the Prof and Shouty and I pressed on, before slowing before the Snake Bends when I was caught by Red Max, Captain Black, Goose and G-Dawg for the final push to the café.

In the café, Laurelan was able to inspect the damage more closely and was given some wet wipes to try and scour the dirt and grit from her abraded elbows. Now that’s got to sting every time.

As we were leaving the café, Plumose Papuss stripped to the waist as he tried to lose a base-layer. The Red Max informed us we were lucky to be wearing dark glasses, preventing serious eye injury as even the weak sun was shatteringly bright as it bounced directly off pale, pale skin.

G-Dawg offered Plumose £20 if he’d ride home topless, like some deranged Elf in lycra Lederhosen, but luckily sense prevailed over monetary gain and we were spared further excesses of the flesh.

On the return trip up Berwick Hill I fell foul of one of the steel-tipped thorns we tend to grow in the hedgerows around here and dropped off the back with a rear wheel puncture. I was quite happy to wave everyone on, while I stopped to make repairs and start my lone trek for home a little early.

Even a sudden, sharp shower couldn’t dampen my spirits, although I did have a minor brain fart and spent 5 minutes trying to work out how to get the repaired wheel back into the bike – something I’ve done a hundred times and should be routine, but which left me momentarily flummoxed.

Finally resolving my unexpected dilemma, I happily struck out for home, ticking off the miles and wondering how long it would be until the next ride in such agreeable conditions.

Merry Christmas all.

YTD Totals: 6,234 km/ 3,873 miles with 69,011 metres of climbing.

Italian Mobster Shoots a Lobster

Club Run, Saturday 12^th December, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance: 99 km/62 miles with 602 metres of climbing

Ride Time: 4 hours 18 minutes

Group size: 22 riders, 1 maybe-FNG

Weather in a word or two: Benign to blizzard

Main topic of conversation at the start: For some utterly bizarre, unaccountable reason OGL rolled up to the meeting point bang on 9.00. When questioned, even he couldn’t give a rational explanation for actually arriving on time.

Crazy Legs told us about the rider who’d turned up in shorts for our very chilly Club Run a couple of weeks ago (A Winter’s Blast, Saturday 21^st November). Having taken pity on this criminally under-dressed rider (a bit of a shameful, recurring theme this week as well) Crazy Legs cut short his intended run to ride escort duty directly to the warm sanctuary of the café and avoid the potential onset of hypothermia.

Once there however the rapid change in temperature caused the riders exposed legs to erupt in swathes of itchy and vicious bright red chilblains, becoming so uncomfortable he was forced to take his coffee out into the garden in an attempt to cool down his super-heated skin and find some relief from the crazed itching.

As Crazy Legs described it, his skin had “erupted with loads of mini-Vesuvius’s” I queried whether the correct term shouldn’t be “Vesuvii” and while debating this fine, etymological point, Taffy Steve helpfully pointed out that, on the good authority of a Marine Biologist, the correct plural of octopus is in fact octopuses, not octopi, as the word is of Greek, not Latin origin.

For some bizarre reason we then ended up wondering what a Mafia-style octopus would look and sound like, given the national stereotype for Italian’s to talk with much exaggerated arm waving: “Bada-bing, badda boom!”

We also found common ground in our complete and utter disdain for Paloma Faith. Who? What? Why? When? How? Really?

3 of the girls turned up in formation wearing what looked like identical red jackets, and, as if on cue, parted to reveal the Red Max … wearing blue! Huh?

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: The criminally under-dressed students huddled together as close to the fire as they could get, staring fixedly at nothing and trying to control their shivering, while we tucked into cake, supped wonderfully hot, bitter coffee and wondered aloud about the merits of being a young racing snake, devoid of that extra lardy layer of insulation you need to stay warm.

Of course, there’s no reason you can’t be both lean and mean and comfortably warm, but this requires careful wardrobe choices and a degree of common sense, which seems to be in short supply. Kids today, eh?

Carlton pondered aloud why we didn’t all move somewhere with a better, warmer and more benevolent climate, at which point the maybe-New Guy, originally from Galway in the far west of Ireland, piped up earnestly, “Well, that’s what I did.” Everyone paused long enough to perform a swift double take, checking out the horrendous weather through the window, before we were engulfed in gales of uncontrollable laughter.

Captain Black admitted joining the Hall of Shame, having lent his one and only spare inner tube to a fellow rider in need and being caught out when he later suffered a puncture himself. He thus earned himself a notorious black mark for becoming stranded at the side of the road with a simple mechanical that’s easily avoided.

Red Max didn’t really help, continually dipping into his magical, ever expanding backpack until he had half a dozen spare inner tubes lined up on the table.

The Waffle:

For the first time this year I set out for the meeting point in near darkness and had to use the lights while I waited for the sun to creep up and add at least a semblance of warm colour and daylight to the blanketing cloud cover.

Despite this it was, seemingly for the first time in weeks, benignly mild with, temperatures well above freezing and a barely noticeable wind. Given the BBC forecast was predicting frost and sub-zero temperatures at dawn I was pleasantly surprised. Even taking into account the light and possibly sleety intermittent showers due in the evening, it looked like being a great day for a ride.

I had dressed accordingly for the forecast, but strangely absent cold and predicted overnight frost: light and heavy long-sleeved base layers, winter jacket, buff, gilet, tights, thermolite socks and heavy overshoes. On my hands I went for a new pair of Planet X lobster mitts, which were incredibly warm, but felt a little odd and took some getting used to. I even remembered to pack a spare pair of gloves in the unlikely event these mitts somehow got soaked through.

bada bing — “Bada bing, bada boom!” – you don’t mess with Don Calamari

By the time I made it to the meeting point I was slightly overheated and beginning to regret dressing for near Arctic conditions as I stowed away the gilet and buff. If the fact that the BBC Weather got the predicted temperature so wrong was perhaps warning of more forecast unreliability to come, it went sadly unheeded.

Encouraged by the first spell of decent weather in a while, there was a good turnout of around 22 lads and lasses, our numbers bolstered by some of our students who had returned from University, most notably Chilly Willy and Plumose Papuss. As an indication of just how decent the weather looked, there was also a lone FNG sighting, or at least a maybe-FNG, someone I didn’t recognise from previous rides.

At exactly 9:20 we were ready to ride off in the absence of the Prof, who had earlier declared via Faecesbook that he would be out, but was apparently running late. Having been jilted and left behind by one of the Sunday runs starting bang on time, OGL was particularly – some might uncharitably suggest unusually – eager to cut the blather and set out smartly.

We hadn’t gone far when beZ caught and overhauled us to let us know his old man, the Prof was trailing behind and I heard OGL cackling hysterically with glee. We did slow enough for the Prof to catch on and ride up to the front to check-in with OGL and take his medicine like a man. Cue more maniacal laughter as vengeance was duly served.

The Prof’s sojourn with us didn’t last long however as he was soon stopped by a mechanical. We rode on a short way to find somewhere safe to pull over, and were waiting there when another club passed and relayed the message that the Prof’s mechanical was terminal and he was heading home. Apparently his wheel bearings had objected to the abuse of constant immersion in the floodwaters last week and were rattling like a hand full of marbles in a spin drier.

While the front of our bunch pulled away to resume the ride, those at the rear had to wait for yet another club to swish past before tagging onto the back. A little further on roadworks and traffic lights stopped everyone, and so it was the three clubs got compacted into one mass peloton of around 60 or 70 riders.

We now effectively, if unintentionally formed a massive rolling road-block, maybe 100 yards long, with me as tail-end Charlie, sitting right at the back with some of our youngsters.

From here I was in the perfect position to watch numerous, impatient and death-defying RIMs trying to force their way past us in the most insane places, including blind bends and hill brows. This was the cue for crazy, wild-driving accompanied by madly revving engines, wild evasive manoeuvres, flashing lights, braking, swerving, cursing and incessant horn leaning.

peloton — I’m not sure massive groups of cyclist ensure safety in numbers, or just encourage REALLY stupid driving

Miraculously no one came to grief, despite several heart-in-mouth moments as this pseudo-Demolition Derby come Wacky Races played out, but this was solely due to luck and not good driving abilities or instincts. Where are all these people dashing to that they have to risk life and limb (not always their own admittedly) to ensure they’re not a scintilla late?

It was while trying to keep at least half an eye on irrational, unpredictable motorists that I noted with incredulity that half the group we were stuck behind were riding in shorts! At least I was incredulous until Plumose Papuss cheerfully informed me they were from a triathlon club. Ah, that explained everything….

As we hit the long drag up Berwick Hill I could sense the triathletes dropping off the pace and I think the race honed instincts of beZ and Josher immediately took over. I was already accelerating in anticipation, as they surged around the slowing group, and was able to sit on their wheels for a tow up, as they easily bridged across to the front.

At the top of the hill and with the triathletes behind us, the other club swung off to the right and we reformed and pressed on, only until icy rain began to fall and we called a halt to don rain jackets.

Far from being one of the intermittent and passing “light rain showers” forecast for later in the day, it was soon raining in earnest, lashing down until everyone was soaked through and everything became a little grim as we pressed stolidly on.

We swung up the Quarry Climb, pretty much in formation, but at the top all bets were off and, despite OGL shrilly screaming for calm, the race to the café was on as the Red Max shot away with Plumose Papuss in close attendance.

I stuck with the front group as Max faded, hopping from wheel to wheel wherever I could and riding well within my limits. Swinging round the junction for the final run down to the Snake Bends Taffy Steve took off after Plumose Papuss to contest for honours, while I was contend to push along at a steady pace, somewhat surprisingly either holding off or passing G-Dawg, Son of G-Dawg, Captain Black and Crazy Legs along the way.

It was black bin bags all around in a remarkably quiet café, where our two students Plumose and Chilly sat in mute sympathy, huddled as close to the fire as they could squeeze with glassy, thousand yard stares, shivering intermittently as they tried to warm up and dry out. I’m not sure if they ever made it out of the café with the rest of us – for all I know they could still be there.

As we sat there at our leisure, talking trash (as opposed to trash talking, which is a completely different thing) the Prof rolled up, having been home to change one unfeasibly small-wheeled cycling contraption for another unfeasibly small-wheeled cycling contraption. Meanwhile the weather outside gradually worsened and the temperature started to dip alarmingly.

Nothing was either particularly dry, or particularly warm as we kitted up for the return journey, although I briefly felt some smugness pulling on my spare gloves. It was at this point we were subjected to one of the strangest sights ever, as the Prof decided to don his monstrous lobster mitts before his jacket, reasoning that this would provide the best seal between glove and sleeve. The only trouble with this plan was that the jacket sleeves were too tight and, as well as being too bulky to pass through them easily, the mitts were a clear impediment to his manual dexterity.

In desperation he somehow corralled, coaxed or bribed one of the waitresses to help and we were met with the unedifying scene of this young girl first having to drag and pull and heave each mitt through the sleeves, before zipping the Profs jacket up to his chin for him, while he stood around like a sullen infant being dressed by an over-protective mother for a sledging trip.

Finally all ready, we sidled out of the café, mounted up and tried to get arms, legs and brains all working again, and warm ourselves up despite the debilitating, leaching effect of the cold. We hadn’t made more than two or three miles before my smugness evaporated and the substitute gloves became completely soaked through with sleet and freezing road spray and my fingers turned numb.

As I split from the group and turned for home the sleet became very serious, very wet snow that started to lie on roads previously washed clean of all salt by the incessant and heavy rain.

I stopped to swap soaking wet gloves for equally as wet lobster mitts. After a bit of a struggle, I somehow managed to cram my cold, wet fingers uncomfortably into some semblance of the right holes. Despite the stream of cold water that was forced out every time I pulled on the brakes or gripped the handlebars too tightly I found they were considerably better and my fingers began to warm up again.

PXLGWL_P2 — Live long and prosper – with the impressive Planet X Crab Hand Winter Glove

Thankfully I was feeling a lot fresher than in previous weeks and cruised up the hill past the golf course still in the big ring. As I climbed higher and higher the snow got heavier and soon everything was coated in a soaking wet layer of white.

I had to discard the specs as the lenses became “all bogeyed up” (a technical expression learned from Daughter#2, who always seemed to have terrible trouble with swimming goggles) and the snow started to cling to my front and collect in the creases of my clothes, swiftly turning black to white.

Fittingly having last week descried megalomaniac despots and their ill-thought out invasions of Russia, this ordeal was swiftly beginning to remind me of Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow, as I tried to find the balance between covering any exposed flesh with my buff and retaining some ability to see through the thickening snowfall. I was though spared marauding Cossack hordes, presumably they were all Christmas shopping in the MetroCentre with everyone else.

cycling-in-snow — **Last weeks talk of invading Russia, was followed by the inevitable retreat with the onset of winter**

Luckily my skinny tyres were doing an effective job cutting through the fresh snow and down to the underlying road surface, so grip seemed better than some of the fish-tailing, wheel-spinning cars were experiencing. Nevertheless I took the long descent down to the river extremely gingerly, filthy brakes grating horribly on the wheel rims and a streamer of icy melt water squeezing out of my mitts.

Approaching the climb back out of the valley I found a combination of numb thumb, restrictive gloves and stiff STI lever was just too much and I had to stop at the side of the road to change down to the inner ring.

I finally reached the bottom of the Heinous Hill to find the traffic going up completely grid-locked and a large white BMW slipping down slowly, slipping down sideways toward me.

butkexsepia_clone — It’s always a good idea to dress … err … appropriately for the weather

I quickly realised that even if I could find any traction through the snow to climb upwards, I had no way of avoiding the out of control cars sliding down in the opposite direction toward me. I climbed off and took to the pavements, grateful that I swap road for mountain bike shoes during the winter, so I at least had some traction in a “two steps forward, one slip back” sort of way.

About halfway up the hill my Garmin crapped out on me, overcome with the cold and wet, or perhaps going into auto-shutdown because I didn’t appear to be moving anymore.

I also noticed that my bike had collected a thick crust of snow in the areas most exposed to the wind. From the thickest deposits I was able to surmise that I would get the most benefit from a new aero-seatpost and that I had perhaps discovered an affordable DIY way for the average cyclist to indulge in a bit of wind-tunnel testing. Weather permitting. Assuming they don’t mind getting cold. Oh, and wet.

As a measure of how bad it was by the time I’d dragged my soaked and sorry ass home, not only was I allowed to bring the bike into the kitchen to dry off, but Mrs. SLJ actually suggested this drastic course of action and even gave my trusty Peugeot a quick rubdown while I was huddled in the shower trying to restore feeling to my extremities.

www.fastmail.com — The Ice-Giant certainly left its mark on our back garden – as captured by Daughter#2

As the bike sat their dripping quietly onto the tile floor, perfectly moulded sections of the compacted snow and ice caught under the mudguards worked loose and slipped out. I swear they resembled nothing more than the smooth, discarded toe-nail clippings of some mythological ice-giant, perhaps the very one that thought it would be fun to lure unwitting cyclists out with the promise of a relatively pleasant day, only to conjure up a snow storm to really test them.

I hope it gets bored and slinks back to its lair for next weekend.

YTD Totals: 6,134 km/ 3,811 miles with 68,154 metres of climbing.

Sur La Jante

The Chronicles, Confessions and Idle Musings of a Club Cyclist

Tag: road cycling

Black Mirror

Proxy Proselytisers Batman! – The Superhero Edition

Sturm und Drang … or Hail and Pace

Hell Among the Yearlings

Vittoria’s Secret and the Cold Hand Gang

The Teacake Haiku (Destry Rides Again)

Braking Bad

Ride of the Long Shadows

Christmas Cracker turns Crash-Tacular

Italian Mobster Shoots a Lobster