Tag: road cycling

TWOCing ‘copters and the consternation of choice …

Club Run, 4th July, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

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

Ride Time:                                             3 hours 58 minutes

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

Weather in a word or two:             Meh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ride 4 july
Ride Profile

The Waffle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next week…

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

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

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

Puttin’ on the Ritz…

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

My Ride (according to Strava)

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

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

Ride Time:                                            5 hours 19 minutes

Cyclone Time:                                       3 hours 41 minutes

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

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

Ride Profile
Ride Profile

The Waffle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Puttin' on the Ritz
Puttin’ on the Ritz

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

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

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

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

I trust normal service may be resumed next week…

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

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

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

My Ride (according to Strava)

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

Ride Time:                                             4 hours 14 minutes

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

 Weather in a word or two:               Surprising.

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

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

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

Ride Profile
Ride Profile

The Waffle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Road rage (male)
Beware RIM encounters

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

Until next week…

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

Man Down!

Club Run – Saturday 30th May, 2015

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance:                                     110.2km/68.5 miles with 1,099 metres of climbing

Ride Time:                                             4 hours 16 minutes

Group size:                                            33 cyclists at the start. A handful of FNG’s

Weather in a word or two:               Bright, breezy, chilly. (Okay, 3)

Main topic of conversation at the start: Half Man Half Biscuit and the Dukla Prague away kit, the Sausage Festival and answering lots of sensible questions for one of the young FNG’s, who turned out to be super-fit and well able to handle himself without any of my blather.

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: One of the girls is swimming the Channel next week and we were all shocked to learn the rules outlaw wearing wetsuits. Here I was thinking the UCI had the monopoly on arbitrary, asinine rules that lack all credibility, common sense and compassion. It may also explain why she’s been ordering industrial sized tubs of Vaseline recently. Or not.

Ride Profile
Ride Profile

The Waffle:

Man down!

32 brave lads and lasses set out under mainly bright skies, laced with a chill and occasionally debilitating westerly. A day warm enough for shorts and arm warmers as long as you kept moving, although one rider was rather bizarrely dressed in a bandana, helmet, shades, jersey, arm warmers, full length gloves, a gillet, a rain jacket, shorts, leg warmers, shoes and overshoes. Who was that masked man? What did he know that we didn’t? Were we due unheralded bad weather of Biblical proportions? Was it the Invisible Man? Was he allergic to sunlight? A vampire? All eminently sensible questions that, sadly, remain unanswered.

With Reg convalescing, I had the opportunity to take the no name winter bike out for a spin, and we slotted in to the back of the group where I got the chance to catch-up with super-fit, twinkle-eyed octogenarian Zardoz. He’s not really that old (allegedly) but carries with him the aura of a benevolent, white-haired, Bernard Cribbins-style good natured and avuncular grandfather. This however merely serves to hide a psychopathic killer instinct to put the hammer down just when the hills start to bite. Which is fine, and you accept it, because all the while he’s smiling sweetly at you through your pain.

We were tootling along quite merrily until we hit one of those small innocuous hills, get halfway up and find the road blockaded by a tangle of supine riders and bikes. As I’ve already outlined, going up hills are where things can quickly become a bit sketchy on club runs, amidst jostling, switching position, bad choices and inattention. I was too far back to see exactly what happened, but depending on who you spoke to, someone either shipped their chain or accidentally “uncleated” at an inopportune time. There was a wobble and perhaps a bit of barging and a touch of wheels. Seizing the opportunity to get out of a solemn promise to spend the afternoon shopping for a new kitchen, Dab Man hurled himself to the tarmac with a few others. His shoulder pinged. Or maybe it ponged. Either way, it ended up pointing in the wrong direction, and by the time I got up to the accident he was sat quite cheerfully on the side of the road, seemingly oblivious to the pain, lamenting his bad luck and starting a long, long wait for an ambulance. OGL, Szell and a few others hung back to keep him company while we rode on.

8443857716_9e8631c956
Nothing good ever comes from a chute dans le peloton

I hope the Dab Man makes a swift and speedy recovery and is soon back riding from what turns out to be a broken clavicle. I should also, I guess, take this opportunity to apologise for calling him a wuss when he tumbled on black ice during one of our winter club runs earlier this year and had to call for the broom wagon to sweep him up from the café. Ok, ok, in retrospect maybe having a fractured wrist and being unable to brake are acceptable excuses for abandoning a ride after all.

The group split, then split again and Crazy Legs took the opportunity to drive us into the teeth of the wind at a murderous pace. I drifted back off the front and slotted in behind our very own Plumose Papuss, a 44kg bundle of youthful energy and seething enthusiasm, laced with wicked potential and armoured in long green socks(!) Well, I say bundle, but only in the sense of taking a bundle at both ends and twisting and twisting until it forms a whipcord thin, razor-wire of muscle and sinew. I tried sheltering from the headwind behind his back wheel, but he has so little body mass it was as ineffectual as standing in the middle of a raging torrent with an umbrella up and hoping to stay dry.

I dropped further back until I was just about hanging on as we made the haul up Middleton Bank, where Zardoz attacked and young Papuss floated up after him. Crazy Legs and G-Dawg dutifully followed and I dropped down to my own pace, sliding around The Red Max, who was loudly and roundly cursing Sir Isaac Newton for having the temerity to ever invent gravity(?)

We had a general regrouping at the top, and from there I watched The Red Max manoeuvre into position for his customary “Forlorn Hope” a massively long break for the café, or as he likes to think of it a short, 5 mile sprint. A bit heavy legged I couldn’t catch the wheels, and became slightly detached. I thought I might pull a little back as the road climbed, but the gap stayed resolutely the same and I was forced to coast into the café sur la jante and in splendid isolation.

After an uneventful ride back I turned off for home and a draggy climb of 4 or 5 miles into the headwind to cross the river. Then with the wind thankfully behind I scuttled along the valley at a fairly decent clip to the bottom of Heinous Hill. 1.2 miles long with an average gradient of 7% and ramps of up to 16%, on paper it doesn’t sound too hard, but it’s a bit of a leg shredder at the end of a long ride. Makes me wonder why I choose to live up here, although if the catastrophic weather the Invisible Man was expecting ever arrives, perhaps I’ll be safe from all but the worst flooding.

Until next week…

YTD Totals: 2,477km/ 1,539 miles with 27,096metres of climbing.

Afterword: For those who are as much in disbelief as I am, the snappily titled Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation rules quite clearly state: “No swimmer in a standard attempt to swim the Channel shall be permitted to use or wear any device or swimsuit that may aid his/her heat retention such as wetsuit. The swimmer is permitted to grease the body before a swim, use goggles and one hat. Nose clips and earplugs are permitted. Caps may not be made from neoprene or any other material which offers similar heat retention properties.”

Rolling with the Raphalites

I was making my way home from the club ride last weekend, nursing tired legs, Reg and a poorly bottom bracket, when I was stopped at the lights leading onto the bridge and noted a couple of serious looking cyclists, game-faces most definitely on, coming in the opposite direction. The lights changed and I crossed the river and began wending my way home, expecting any moment to be overtaken in a whirr of spinning wheels, a flash of bright colours and a hearty, “How do?”

Nothing.

I slowed to cross the railway lines and let a van out of side road. Still nothing, I began to think they must have taken a different route and not crossed the bridge.

Pushing on I skipped up the short, but steep rise to the road junction, stopped and unclipped at the red light and waited. First one, then the other dragged themselves up beside me, panting like an asthmatic, overweight Darth Vader when the turbo-lifts on the Death Star malfunction.

“How do?” I dutifully enquired, the recognised, UCI approved and universal greeting of cyclists everywhere.

“Going far?” one asked in reply, perhaps not quite realising it was almost 2.00 in the afternoon, the best part of the day had come and gone, and I’d been out since 8.00 o’clock that morning. I mentioned I was on the fag-end of a 70 mile club run and he mumbled something about a planned 100 miler. Ah, I was in the exalted presence of Raphalites.

One glance across showed me a beautiful, painfully expensive and acutely niche Italian carbon frame, deep section carbon wheels, and prominent Rapha logos adorning the necrotic, fag-smoke blue of heavily tattooed limbs.

I rolled off down the hill, soft pedalling somewhat because of Reg’s and my own fragile state, expecting the two to whiz past at any moment. Again, nothing and I became convinced they’d turned the other way at the junction.

They did finally catch me when I was held up busy roundabout, and we rode through the town centre together – just long enough for them to cast a few disparaging glances down at Reg. At another busy roundabout they dared more than me, and I watched them ride slowly away.

I hit the final, steep climb home, and there they were in front of me. Despite 70+ miles, a creaking bottom bracket and legs shredded by Mad Colin’s impromptu paceline (see here), I was closing on them with every pedal stroke. They turned left at the first junction, opting for the slightly easier, longer, twisting, but much less busy and infinitely preferable climb to the top.

I followed, expecting to overhaul them on the steeper lower section, but they turned left again and freewheeled down to a well-known cyclist’s café, obviously needing to stock up on triple shots of espresso and apple flapjacks to fuel their 100 mile epic. I hope the wholegrain goodness and industrial strength caffeine super-charged their ride, because if they couldn’t lift their pace beyond what I’d seen I couldn’t see them getting back before dark.

Wooler Wheel Borderlands Sportive – Saturday 16th May

My Ride (according to Strava)

Total Distance:                                     172.6km/107 miles with 2,593 metres of climbing

Ride Time:                                             6:58 hours

Group size:                                            8 less 2 (then 5, then 2, then 1)

Weather in a word or two:               Changeable

wooler wheel

No Club Run this week, as a bunch of us found ourselves getting up at an unfeasibly early, God-forsaken hour of Saturday morning to travel Even Further North™ in order to start the Wooler Wheel Borderlands Sportive at 7.30am.

For those who are geographically challenged, or lacking an encyclopaedic knowledge of the hidden rural enclaves of deepest, darkest Northumberland, Wooler, according to the event manual, is located in the far north-west corner of England, “perched perilously between the steep foothills of Cheviot and the Milfield Plain”. Strange, it didn’t seem all that dangerous a place when we got there, and I don’t recall much seismic activity in the Border Region from my Geography ‘A’ Level. Mind you, since I achieved that I think we’ve actually entered a completely new geological time period, so maybe things have changed.

Climbing out of Wooler, the route bends east to the North Sea, then turns quickly north before we get our feet wet, to run parallel to the beautiful Northumbria coastline for a while. Climbing over the border into Jockland, it then runs west along the Tweed Valley, climbing steeply to Scott’s View, dropping down into Teviotdale, and then climbing again, up and over the Cheviots to return to Wooler. Hmm, I’ve used climbing four times in that paragraph – that seems about right.

The Event HQ was located in a cattle market, which, although providing plenty of space and parking, did leave me with a somewhat sacrificial feeling, as we were herded through the dark and empty cattle pens to sign on, slipping and sliding down the same concrete ramps that I’m sure give our hooved bovine friends a similar feeling of nervous uncertainty.

From parking, to sign on, to fitting numbers to the bike, to lining up at the start gate, I managed to find, lose, find again, partially lose, search for and then find all 8 of the club lads and lasses set to ride, as well as a few others who were doing the shorter 100km route. Organising cyclists is an utterly thankless task, much akin to herding spooked cats in a thunderstorm. It was unsurprising therefore that by the time we’d rolled through the start gate minutes later our numbers were already down to 6, with 2 riders AWOL and never to be seen again. Maybe they fell foul of the hidden perils of the Milfield Plain?

The weather was bright and breezy for the most part, occasionally interspersed with sudden heavy showers, and a westerly wind that seemed to gather in strength as the day wore on. This necessitated several stops to pull on and take off rain jackets as the squalls blew past. Other than that the day was warm enough to go without overshoes and just arm and knee warmers.

Out on the road, and one of our number started romping up the first serious hills like a supercharged and enraged Armstrong chasing a Simeoni break, but I wasn’t remotely tempted to join in. It’s been over 30 years since I’ve ridden over a hundred miles so I adopted a much more cautious and conservative approach, dropping to the back and matching pace with our slowest rider as I tried to casually spin out a low gear. It was surprising to find cyclists already walking up the hills, I hope they were on the shorter route.

We hit the coast for some spectacular views of Holy Island and the Farnes, and our first headwind, slowing progress and demanding a bit more grunt, but were still clipping along at a decent pace and chattering merrily as we crossed the border into Scotland.
The first water stop was an opportunity to recharge bottles. Luckily mine was still fairly full as the group taste-test concluded the replacement water was “minging” and tasted heavily of chlorine. The contents of several bottles were summarily jettisoned when we called a quick pee stop.

Our first marker was at around 36 miles, where I reckoned we’d completed the first third of the course. It was at this point that I realised just how far 107 miles actually is and how long the ride was going to take. It was around this time that we lost the first of our number who, deciding the pace was too high, sensibly dropped off the back to continue in a more leisurely manner.

50 miles came and went, and the chatter in the group became less and less while legs became heavier and heavier.

75 miles and we’re mainly riding in companionable silence, occasionally stopping to don or doff rain jackets as the weather couldn’t make its mind up. We’re now faced with a series of ramps that lead us onto the climb up to Whitton Edge and the 301 metre highpoint of the route. Up ahead, in what appeared to be an argyle chequered jersey of white black and purple, a rider was weaving across the road trying to keep his momentum going as he struggled with the incline. He ran out of road and shuddered to a halt on the verge. I rode around him and followed his companion, also clad in argyle like a Garmin-Cannondale negative. This rider had bright pink fluorescent socks (why?) that looked so absurd that I was momentarily distracted from the pain in my legs, and I followed him to the top.

A quick chat with a photographer at the water station there confirms there are only a couple of serious climbs left, and we tip over the summit for a scary-mad, narrow twisting, descent down to the valley floor. For the first time all day I’m in the big chain-ring  with enough momentum to carry me over the a few minor hills without changing down and I take a long pull on the front.

Now I’m fixated on my Garmin and the slow countdown, always having to add 7 to the quick calculation of 100 minus however many miles the computer shows that we’ve done. I’m beginning to really hate those extra 7 miles, and whoever was so untidy or just too lazy to devise a ride with a nice round number, and I’m becoming a little too fixated on them.

Several cruelly hard ascents follow. They would normally be nothing to fear, but given the distance we’ve covered already and the “grippy” road surface, they have us slowing to a sustained and painful crawl. 100 miles come and go under our wheels, and there’s just that awkward, bastard, tail-end, untidy, cast-off, the uncalled for and damned inconsiderate runt of 7 miles left.

I note 102 miles tick past, ride some more, look down and the screen still resolutely shows 102 miles. I ride some more, telling myself not to look, and then I do, and it still says 102 miles. Maybe I’m cracking up?

Finally, agonisingly the screen ticks over to 103 and we’re on the last leg. We’re strung out along the road now, heading in and burning whatever meagre supplies of energy we have left. I’m clinging to the rear wheel of the first rider in our group as the miles squirm past. 104-105-106 miles and now the road is pan flat, but there’s a savage headwind. I’m slowly detached from the wheel in front, but as I turn into the finish strait my companion has slowed and is waiting (what a gent!) and we freewheel across the finish line together reminiscent of LeMond and Hinault conquering L’Alpe in ‘86 – although I suspect our ride was much harder.

lemond-hinault-alpe-d-huezhinaultlemond-
The Wooler Wheel – like Alpe D’Huez, only harder.

All that was left was to collect our (rather tasteful) T-shirts (immediately bagged by daughter number#1) and enjoy a traditional pie and peas meal (haute cuisine to us Northerners, and a welcome savoury break from sickly sweet gels and energy bars.)

All in all a great day out, and a fantastically well-organised event with clear sign posting and marshalls on all the major junctions to not only point the way, but control what little traffic we encountered. The countryside was somewhat wild and remote, but beautiful and the weather decidedly changeable – I was very surprised to find I had sunburned calves at the end – thankfully tiredness numbed the pain.

YTD Totals:         2,160km/ 1,342 miles with 23,474 metres of climbing

Bitchin’ Climbs#1

 

Whenever I get the opportunity I like to take in one of the behemoth’s featured in the book “100 Greatest Climbs” to see how much strain I can put my on ancient knees before they explode in a welter of bone, sinew and blood, like a feral alien bursting out John Hurt’s chest cavity.

A recent holiday in Keldy Forest, North Yorkshire saw me travelling with Reg to tackle the fearsome Rosedale Chimney – the climb the recent Tour de of Yorkshire wimped out of.

The books author Simon Warren, who just happens to have competed in National Hill Climbs, helpfully explains his rating system in the book is an amalgamation of gradient, length and the likely hostility of the riding conditions. He concludes, “all the climbs are tough, therefore 1/10 is hard and 10/10 is it’s almost all you can do to keep your bike moving.”

Rosedale Chimney is a 1.4km climb rated 10/10 with gradients reaching 1-in-3, and Simon cheerfully goes on to recount how he snapped his chain “not once, but twice while trying to conquer this vicious stretch of tarmac.” Oh my.

Oh, well…

The top and bottom of Rosedale Chimney.
The top and bottom of Rosedale Chimney. That’s not Reg by the way.

My allotted day arrives and I kiss goodbye to an anxious wife, say a final farewell to the kids, and we’re off. The weather is pleasantly mild and quite bright, but there’s a noticeably stiff breeze whenever the road is exposed.

A 25 kilometre or so loop gets me warmed up, and as I ride along the valley approaching the climb I can look over to the left and see a daunting picture of the road snaking its way up to the top of the North York Moors.

I slow down deliberately, gathering myself and coasting pass the big sign at the bottom of the hill. The road twists and turns a few times then spits me out past the last building and now we’re going resolutely uphill. Out and exposed, with the road clinging precariously to the side of the moors, and the “noticeably stiff breeze” has turned into a capricious, gusting blast that seems to come from all directions at once.

I hit the 33% hairpins and suddenly I’ve run out of gears and my legs are barely moving. I now have an image from a Ted Hughes poem lodged firmly in my brain, and I’ve become a “black-back gull bent like an iron bar slowly.” My mind keeps repeating the line over and over, to the rhythm of my straining, shuddering, agonisingly slow pedal strokes.

The gusting wind has me going from almost a standstill, to skeetering nervously across the road and swerving wildly to avoid running out of tarmac. And upwards, always upwards. A protracted crawling and dragging upwards.

I’m fighting the bike and the incline now, legs and lungs burning, zig-zagging back and forth across the surface and praying there’s no traffic coming the other way. I want to sit on the saddle, but when I try the road is so steep that the front wheel keeps lifting and I’m barely keeping control.

And then slowly, agonisingly I’m past the hard bit, the road straightens out and the climb goes from suicidal to just plain hard. I reach the top and crawl into a gravel strewn lay-by to unclip, breath again and admire the majestic, but rather bleak and threatening views. A quick photo and I turn around for the descent.

It’s only now that I realise my ordeal on the hill isn’t over yet. The sign usefully suggests that “cyclists dismount” and the road seems to drop away into emptiness. I creep down slowly, gingerly, brakes almost full on, knowing if I gather any momentum it’s going to be difficult to reach a controlled stop, uncertain on an unfamiliar road and sketchy surface.

Twice on the way down I have to pull over to the side of the road to shake out and flex my aching fingers back into some semblance of life. Then the incline eases and I can sit back and wheel merrily the rest of the way, off the climb without looking back.

rosedale chimney
That big, isolated bump at around 30km, like the topography flipping you the finger, is Rosedale Chimney. It laughs in the face of aged cyclists.

Well that’s that one ticked off. It was one hell of an experience, but I can honestly say I don’t ever see myself going back for another attempt.

Random Rambles and Esoteric Observations, Part#1

I have to admit to being a bit of a cycling dandy – as my teenage daughter might say, “he loves him some cycling jersey” – although if she saw I’d just written that she would instantly, and quite rightly, disown me (inheritance be damned!)

Anyway, an unfortunate and unexpected change of bike last year has opened up a radically new colour palette and gear rethink as, like any rational cyclist, I attempt to perfectly blend and co-ordinate man with machine like some Borg-infested Gok Wan. Resistance is futile, girlfriend?

I now have the perfect excuse to add to my bulging drawers (sorry, that not only carried all the wrong connotations, but a rather unpleasant mental image), ahem, to add to my ever growing collection of cycling jerseys. With this in mind I recently sent off to the sweatshops of the Far East for a jersey reportedly inspired by the Bundisliga. Yes, we’re talking football, and German football at that. I still don’t quite understand the connection or thinking here, but the colours perfectly match my new bike, so it works for me.

Not only was the jersey well-made, a good fit and excellent value for money, but according to the tag it had quite startling features beyond my wildest imaginings, promising “high elasticity Lycra” to “cultivate one’s morality version of joint human body.” Even Rapha or Assos don’t give you that.

eighteen
By the way, I’m by no means the worst offender when it comes to bike styling – I once caught a club mate changing his usual drink from blackcurrant to orange so the faint blush of colour through the plastic of his bidon* would complement his new bar tape.

* faux posh for water bottle

“Fuggar, cumma rubba, ronts!”

My Ride (according to Strava)

Club Run, Saturday 9th May, 2015

Total Distance:                                    117.2km/72.8 miles with 739 metres of climbing

Ride Time:                                             4:46 hours

Group size:                                            A Dirty Dozen. No FNG’s

Weather in a word or two:            Dreich

Main topic of conversation at the start: How it’s always the same hard core (sad core, maybe?) of a dozen or so lunatics who turn up for club rides, no matter how bad the weather is

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: The unfeasible, unlikely and unattainable weight of the pro peloton “grimpeurs extraordinaire.” Domenico Pozzovivo, 53kg soaking wet! Over-the-top cakes featuring various countline confectionery bars in their entirety; Mars cakes, Snickers cakes, Rollo cakes et al.

I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think Snr. Pozzovivo and the triple layer chocolate and fresh cream, Mars bar brownie cake, with the Malteser topping have ever been formally introduced.

The Profile:

9 10 May

The Waffle:

A small group, the Magnificent Seven were bolstered by a few late arrivals to form (very fittingly, judging by the end results) a Dirty Dozen brave lads and lasses who met up at our rendezvous point under cold leaden skies and a never ending supply of rain.

Off the leash without OGL we set our own route and travelled down roads a little less known and travelled, even foregoing our usual café stop for pastures new. Such an offence is usually worthy of excommunication, a public flogging with knotted inner tubes and having your micro pump snapped in disgrace.

Two random indignant motorist (RIM) encounters. The first over-taking impatiently on a blind bend, only to have to stamp ferociously on the brakes as an on-coming vehicle, (also travelling much too fast for the horrible conditions), came barrelling into sight. I hate these encounters because I can almost feel the driver wondering just how much damage would be done to his shiny automobile if he just slid the wheel, ever so slightly left to avoid a car on car incident and took out a bunch of skeletal blokes on plastic bikes instead.

Encounter number two had a driver making a slow pass (no, not that kind) so his passenger could lean out the window red-faced and apoplectic with rage and jabber incoherently at us; “Fuggar, cumma rubba, ronts!” We naturally gave him a very happy, cheery wave and a hearty thumbs-up. Unfortunately he didn’t take the opportunity of stopping so we could discover his nationality, and what strange dialect he was speaking. A shame really as I’m certain we could have broken down the language barrier, helped him with whatever his problems were and parted as new best-friends.

No mad heroics, long breaks or mad sprinting this week, but lots of sensible riding as a group and selfless riding by the stronger ones to shelter everyone else from headwinds. All in all, a grand day out.

Until next week…

YTD Totals:         1,957km/ 1,216 miles with 20,379 metres of climbing

Longer! Harder! Faster!

My Ride (according to Strava)

Club Run, Saturday 2nd May, 2015

Total Distance:                                     108.7km/67.5 miles with 1,035 metres of climbing

Ride Time:                                             4:17 hours

Group size:                                            45 cyclists at the start. No FNG’s

Weather in a word or two:               Chilly

Main topic of conversation at the start: The Tour of Yorkshire (sorry, I’m too ashamed to call it the Tour “de” Yorkshire. Nonsense. The only thing I found more embarrassing were Gary Verity’s yellow pants. Just NO!)

Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop: Tweaking gears until they’re irreparably broken, (a little knowledge IS a dangerous thing). Strava Flyby’s and whether they had the potential to inspire some bizarre cyclist/“gang-banger” drive-by’s. Verdict: probably not, but watch this space…

hinault
Tour OF Yorkshire podium, Scarborough. The Badger goes on the attack against Gary Verity’s minders as he reacts to the insult of “les pantalons jaunes.”

The Profile:

2 to 3 May

The Waffle:

A very large mixed group of 45 brave lads and lasses met up at our rendezvous point, under mainly grey skies with the odd sparkling patch of brilliant blue.

Although things did warm up a little on the rare occasions when the sun managed to prise a fissure in the cloud cover, the day was still cold enough to ensure anyone without gloves generally regretted the choice. Dry though – so no complaints, right? Well, almost.

A generally incident free ride followed, with no real encounters of note with the random indignant motorist (RIM) and only a single solitary puncture (thankfully not mine). As usual we completed a planned split, disintegrating like a MIRV with each group independently locked onto the café, but each travelling a different path and trajectory to get there. I rode with the middle group taking a slightly longer, harder and faster route than the amblers, but steering well clear of super-hard, super-fast flagellation of the young and brash racing snakes.

As we closed on the café I chased down the lone early break across a couple of hills dragging the main bunch behind me, and with that job done retired from the final mad sprint to roll in comfortably (sur la jante, naturellement.)

A surprisingly even-paced and orderly ride home followed, without the usual mad attacks and jumping about.

Until next week…

YTD Totals:         1,780km/ 1,106 miles with 18,885metres of climbing