Going back

They say you should never meet your heroes but that's a lie. Bear with me and I'll explain.
30 months. 30 months of my life. I'd pretty much gotten over the psychosis I'd developed from that time; 22 months straight as a cycle messenger in Dublin, spanning '95-'97 and subsequently two Summers and a Winter. I just could not get that life out of my head for more than a decade after I'd walked away from it. You see it wasn't a job, or at least, it started out as a job but wound up as an identity that shaped me and made me grow up fast. And it was a great escape.
Like a stereotypical Californian I needed to find myself in '95. Unbeknownst to my inner-self I was totally lost. My Dad had died a few years earlier, my attempts at serial monogamy were crashing and burning regular as clockwork. I was in college but as a mature student I felt like an outsider even though I was developing incredible friendships. I needed to deal with my issues. I'd even been dealt the death card in a tarot reading resulting in the clear-cut message that a section of my life was passing and I needed to lay a wreath and move on.
I somehow got a job despite my lack of knowledge of Dublin and soon became part of a community of cycle-messengers. A murder of couriers. All of them bar none possessed exuberant personalities that more than matched that type of work. You had to have boundless energy and focus. And then off the bike that would continue. Most were musical...either DJs or playing in a band. Some were writers. Many just bounced from one party to the next. Or double/ triple-jobbed. It didn't matter, there was always energy to do more. During that time I made a lot of friends and as is my thing, I spent a lot of time on the periphery. A couple of these people were absolute heroes of mine, icons, people for whom nothing would prevent their stars from burning, infusing everyone about them with vivid energy.
And so it came to pass that a couple of days ago I shook hands with Tom McDonald here in the provincial town I call home. He was back from Australia. Tom had always looked out for me and we'd instantly connected on Stephen's Green. He had stuck in my head for nigh on 20 years and when I sat opposite himself and his lovely wife and child nothing had changed. We've both moved on, through adulthood and responsibility, family and strife but it seemed to me as if we'd met like any other Friday in Bruxelles and just got on with being us. That healthy irreverence and quick wit had gone nowhere. The red dredz are long gone but the same smile and depth of feeling stood out. Nearly two decades apart and the small matter of 10,000 miles... but otherwise....
Funnily enough we both identify and deal with teenagers and young adults coming from tough backgrounds. Later my brother would point out that we probably deal with and identify with those people because we were surrounded by them in the mid-noughties or we were in fact one of those troubled young adults ourselves, albeit skittering around Dublin's warren of streets on bicycles stopping at nothing. Having coffee with Tom just seemed to give clarity and function to all that time on the streets. I know most of my family saw what I was doing as a waste, a lower-caste way of making ends meet. But I just wasn't able, wasn't grown up enough by my mid-twenties. By the time I was spat out the other side of that life-path as if I was surfing a giant, killer wave under the cliffs of Moher, I had graduated. Not just college but I felt I could deal with things, anything at all. I'd been part of something very important to me, a scene or cohort of like-minded people. Funny that most people don't get it, don't see it for what it was, and that makes it a little more special for me. For the craic you should try, just like I did, to explain to middle-aged yokels in your home town that being a bike-messenger was the experience that influenced you the most in your life. Guarantee they stare at you like you have two heads.
I just loved the freedom. Yes I was working long hours on long jobs and spent lonely hours traversing Dublin but the beers and banter in between were phenomenal. Yes it was minimum wage when you took everything into account. And yes it sometimes sucked. But BurgerKing would have been the death of me. So many of the bit-players were transients, between 'proper' jobs but I didn't care. They coloured in everything for me, influenced me with their world view and I seemed to do the same for them. I had my niche, even moving on to a bigger, better company. And I felt valued. You can unearth negatives everywhere but I just know I was very very happy at that time. For all intents and purposes it was like an extended gap year that taught me well. Mostly that I had a value way higher than I'd previously believed. I don't remember half of what I did but I'm extremely proud of my time in Quickstream and Cyclone. Tom, all the way back from Oz, helped to put a cap on the bottle, to place people and things seen and done and put it away for once, maybe labelled as vintage.
Of course the other side of that is that we could meet and have a coffee, Tom and I. We came out of that scene and kept it together. There are the dead and the broken-forever back there.Some people's psychosis [for I really do believe being involved in that world affects your cerebrum for years afterwards] kept on giving. They may have searched out other highs to get them through or travelled a lot rather than sit still, or been paranoid or friendless in the vacuum left by road-hunger. But we escaped. No broken bones, little road rash, less road-rage. A lot of cold and sleet and bucket's of rain. Maybe some arthritis but few betrayals. Meeting Tom was a good thing for me, that catharsis I'd been dreaming of, the closure of a door two decades swinging on it's hinges. They say you shouldn't meet your heroes but I disagree.

Aplausos

Bullfighting is a metaphor for life. Its in the struggle, the beauty, the torment and excellence before the inevitable. On the yellow yellow sand of the bullring the torero only sees the bull, the beautiful creature he will do the dance of death with. He doesn't see or hear the crowd, doesn't absorb the adulation or jeers. He only thinks of the domain of the bull and the domain of the bullfighter. Like life, the outcome isn't pretty but sometimes the living of it is a thing to behold.#################################### Yesterday was one of those days. I wasn't ever gonna be a bullfighter. I was always gonna be ordinary. Yet yesterday, for an hour, everything was sublime. I wasn't hoisted on the shoulders of the crowd and whisked out the main gate, flowers and hats floating past on the breeze...but I won a race after being in the wilderness for such a long time. To be surrounded by such a welcoming team of friendly faces and fierce team-workers made it special. And the cuadrilla at home...friends and mentors and my coach seemed a huge part of it too.############################### Yesterday we clipped in and sped away into the domain of the bull. Moving ever closer to the creature that could make us or slay us. And it was beautiful, symmetric, controlled. Mick and Albert contained everyone's effort inside an infernal metronomic pace that became the creature's undoing. The bull charged and stood, charged and stood and in doing so wore itself out. Us toreros pressed home our advantage. A sublime day where everything went right.################### The last few movements played out quickly. Pressing on, the late last surge, an energy emptying effort from the beast behind and it was over. I planted my feet in the sand, dug in for grip and for less than a second myself and the beast were one as the sword went in and the creature went down. I had finished what everyone around me had begun, getting to the line first, getting the kill for the first time in six years. It felt beautiful covering my gold and purple cape in the sweat of effort, the dust of the ring. And better still the handshakes and messages from good people who'd stuck with me during the poor times.

Alien

December. The Omens are good. I am healthy. I am motivated. Somewhere out there is a new cycling season waiting to swallow me up. As I trundle through training sessions I feel like I'm back playing Space Invaders as a sixteen year old, in the basement of what is now Ephesus Kebab in the New Ross old town. A bunch of us used to run down Goat's Hill during morning break in school, play video games for a few minutes and finally run back up the hill in time for whatever subject was up next. Askew adolescents. Anyhoo...Space Invaders...you see, you keep moving, don't slow up even for a moment, back and forth blasting the baddies off the screen. Consistently avoiding the explosion that heralds your demise, your last life spiralling into deep space.####################################I've been locked into the tractor beam of training since September and I'm loving it. 48 in a few weeks time and I've never been more motivated. Yes the roads are slippy. Yup the air is cool. Of course I could be curled up on the couch drinking port and watching Fast and Loud re-runs. I just can't. What was Grace Jone's tune from the same era as I played Space Invaders? 'Slave to the Rhythm'? That's it. That's me. Kit laid out, bottles full, tyres hard. Sometimes daylight, sometimes not. It doesn't matter to me. Out the door to stop the thoughts or sort them out. Attack the imaginary rival or watch the numbers defy my age or ability. Always a glimmer. Just a glimmer. Probably shortening my life but justifying it in the process. I've come a long way from Space Invaders down the town but I'm still trying to escape the mechanical humdrum of my greatest fears; The white noise awaiting me if I ever stand still. So don't think or blink, just keep moving.

Russet

I'm cutting into Winter in rude health, mobile, willing and motivated. Of course I'd rather be peering into a wine bottle but you can't have it every way. Isn't it an odd time though? In the last weeks bringing home pumpkins, soon to be Jack o' lanterns, surrounded by the sweet kick of huge apples in the background. Or enjoying the multi-rust carnage of the woods, watching as it all falls. I could do a poor-man's Shakespeare and compare the slow and beautiful decay to our own; of how I watched my Mother watching me as I climbed the ladder to harvest the crab apple tree at her house, feeling the moment slip by in total irony. But there is nothing in that scene that can't be better said in silence. It's not a season, it's a sense. And it should be a sense of your own self worth, as well as a timely reminder. I don't see it as a chance for one last cigarette as I sweep up the leaves in the gathering howl of dusk. I can't help but drink in the light and the chance to slow down a little imposed on us by nature. It's only a short, beautiful season, not long in the scheme of things. The mathematical buckos [first Irish builders] that knocked Newgrange together knew what it all meant. From December 21st it all widens out from quiet to a Springtime and Summer riot and then all the way back in again. Reeled in like a Marlin in the Gulf Stream. Its a beautiful, slowing time. Listen to what it says. Regroup, re-examine, relive, return.

The Art of Cycling

Kunst is the German word for art. Cycle racing is an art too. Its no wonder I try to cycle early on Saturday mornings with Kunst Racing Klub. It's simple really. In fact so simple its sublime. You throw a bunch of like-minded cyclists together, they cycle at a common speed with a common goal and go home smiling a couple of hours later. Simple. Except its not. What it takes to bring said like-minded cyclists together is, like Roald Dahl's short story about Hitler's birth, a combination of genesis and catastrophe. Happily the genesis is coffee. Cyclists like coffee. Lipid mobilisation is what the boffins call it. A good buzz is what cyclists want. And stimulated by coffee we spill the metaphorical beans about how we feel. Turns out there's always a common cause. Over the last few years of my life a bunch of us have discovered that cycling is a tough game. Tough and time-consuming. It requires inordinate amounts of patience and understanding from loved ones too. In order not to waste that time, cyclists knock back espressos [Never trust a cyclist that doesn't consume coffee], shake hands and make moves. The genesis of discontent therefore, can often be found in coffee grounds.########################## Then the catastrophe. We all think rapid disasters, multiple deaths, carnage.... In reality catastrophe can be change. Or more accurately, lack of it. Catastrophe on a slow, psychological, wear-you-down-in-a-Gulag kinda way. More coffee is consumed. Nerve-ends, once frayed, become exposed. Catastrophe leads to taking things into your own hands.############################# Saturdays after dawn. Like-minded souls congregate. Not everyone is of the same ability but everyone IS singing off the same hymn sheet. Park the ego, ride the same as your fellow cyclists, sameish effort, same endgame. Banter, and towards the end, a canter. No fascists allowed [yes cycling Nazis do exist], no rosey groups of elite that were introduced to cycling through the friendly patience of club members only for that kindness to be instantly forgotten. A plague on well meaning clubs. Jam novice/A4/A3 and A2 together into a functional assembly and get the work done. Cut out the middle man, meet when you can, ride your bike. Don't impact on your own club in any way. What happens at kunst Racing Klub, stays on the road.################### Kunst. You are thinking very apt. A right bunch. You are thinking of a crowd of no-hopers playing silly-buggers with the local club scene. Actually it's a concept full of hope. We have a hope by doing it right from the start. Anyone like-minded can come along. Just be warned, your say is only worth the same as each of it's participants. And thats the art of Kunst. This bunch, Kunst Racing, are a beauty to behold. Not because of the self-deprecating club name. Not the hairy, knarly racers themselves, just the concept. There's a fluidity, form and function to it, a joy too. I'm not claiming to be part of a moving art installation. I'm just happy to cycle unimpeded by psuedo alpha male codology, with a sound bunch of no-nonsense friends.

Staking pain

What do you put yourself through? I'm only asking because I'm not long off my physio's plinth. It's all been worthwhile, I've learned what I'm doing wrong and stupid habits I need to change, you know, mutate or die. But laying there it struck me that I'm not the only person putting myself through hardship to stay afloat in sport. Physio is one thing, however that's only tickling the underbelly of the beast. When Ciaran Power had his op years back to sort out a blood flow issue in his leg I thought to myself there's a man that won't let anything stop him. I know it was part of his professional progression, but it was some sacrifice. But he is a God. Us plebs do lesser things in our lesser worlds. If for example you have kids, you'll know the thin-line forced on you by Catholic guilt, the type that makes you question your ability at parenting as you slip out the door in all weathers and times to pursue your goals. You hope you are leading by example, showing them that dedication is good, nothing should stop you. But it is some sacrifice. Time doesn't stop.############## There's always someone who'll hydrate on Pre-Workout formulas just to get psyched for a gym session or intervals. Motivation-in-a-bottle can't be beneficial long-term but that doesn't stop the Gym-juicers. But wouldn't a double espresso from your favourite café do the same job?!!############# Silver Nitrate. Even mentioning it sends shivers up my nostrils. I now know a few people who've had their sinuses treated by this process, basically a sprong stuck up your nose followed with silver nitrate to unblock any recurring sinus/ allergy problems. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Always the sprong. That takes cojones to willingly let someone do that.############ Ever tried cryotherapy? The Royal Marines have a segment in Basic where a squad, all dressed in Arctic clothing, full rucksacks and rifles, plunge individually into a ten-foot long hole cut out of the ice above a lake. As they enter, their chests are assaulted by the cold to the point of panic. They are cajoled by their fellow recruits to swim the ten feet and not drown. You see, cryo sounds similar to me. Forcing your body to do something completely alien to it's needs. Shock solution. Would I do it? Yes. Would I have got into the Marines? No!############### Similarly I've seen all kinds of hip and knee replacements although I only know of one athlete that came back so fast from the knee op, ignoring all the protocols in order to be ready for the next season that he can't compete at all now. But there's the broken ankles from soccer, the cruciate ligament damage that is rehab-inducing, all things that people fight to come back from. Even Pantani was pictured after shattering his leg in Milan-Turin, leg wrapped in plastic to keep it dry, walking lengths of a swimming pool in utter agony.Alright, it's not Alex Zanardi but in our mere mortal world it's big. Like Ciaran, some people are just Gods.############# Add to that the 'normal' conversation I had where two beer-bellied sportif riders were telling me all about there Nurofen consumption prior to events to 'get them through' Seriously? Just to get through? To stay functioning?############# And yet we keep going. To rail against the alternative, to back away from the abyss. That could be the couch, the regret, the physical decline, the denial and disappointment.... Don't get me wrong, it's in the offing, in the post, but...hopefully not next season. If an op or procedure or time spent on a physio's plinth can keep you trucking a little longer then the outcome far outweighs the trouble you put yourself through in the first place. Memories fade, the body has a way of kicking pain into touch over time. Like the hacker clearing the hard drive. Pain, procedures, sickening worry, hopes and prayers are removed. You hope to switch on your computer one day and see, finally, an empty file waiting for your new thoughts [hopefully pain-free]. A slot in the chiropractor, a cortisone shot, yes it seems as though we are addicted to staying ahead as long as possible. In essence, nobody wants to witness their own inevitable physical decline, where their strength is gradually retarded because soon follows the feeling of being discarded.

Mr Byrne

We are reliably informed that there's two things we just can't avoid in life, those being death and taxes. Whilst being Irish and resident here leads me to know the latter is often still not always true thanks to portly, duplicitous bastards, devoid of any scruples, I am however, only too well aware, especially this past week, that death still has the upper-hand, levelling it's often unexpected focus at all and sundry. Its easy get philosophical about how short life is, you never know your time etc. However that clichéd faff just doesn't do it. Rather like the heroin suppositories Renton gets to help him come off the gear in Trainspotting, most of those sentimental, Facebook-sage sayings are, to paraphrase, well, "You may as well stick 'em up your arse...!". I've lost a friend in the last week and I can't find the words or the wherewithal to express that loss. It's only through listening to others that I've heard anything near to what helps. You see, I'm contradicting myself publicly here because, well, words are all I have. But I usually don't listen. Yet all I've heard are stories, anecdotes, tales and truths. Lets not bullshit here I only met Richie Byrne once, yonks ago at a race. To be honest in the mid-nineties I was always on an MTB and I can't remember exactly where I met him. I think it was a champs somewhere but my brain plays tricks. I don't remember the venue but I remember the man. He was just someone that stood out as being strong. He was to me even then a sentinel. He was hairy and lairy, heard but not part of the herd. And that was ok in the 90's because it seemed we, as a nation, had got our shit together. When you came of age in the 90's you had a sense that you were leaving a cancer behind; that cancer being a lack of freedom, or a grey personality that never stood out truly, or the religious bigotry that saw Anne Lovett die in 1984 in a grotto while trying to give birth without 'shaming' her family and community. The cancer of emigration due to systemic political failures too,was being reversed. In short, the tide was coming in and lifting the nation out of ignorance and monochrome. And I had got a sense of that. I was couriering around Dublin and there was an atmosphere...a palpable something.... But Richie stuck in my mind because there was an assuredness and can-do about him. He just was, what everyone else might be. I hung around with a bunch of nuts-come-bike-messengers that had so much energy they would hit the trails at the weekend after a full weeks cycling so I always heard some occasional story of Richie. But I guess there's lots more people that knew him for real whereas I went on to my own adventures elsewhere. Getting in touch with him since his diagnosis and following his pure, explosive positivity, I was blown away by how little had changed. Over time he had not become, just reinforced his status as a God of cycling whilst I was still, in relative terms an atheist, ghosting along in the shadows. Roger McGough's poem 'Let me die a young man's death' begged for an exciting death, far from the angelic passing of some old man. He wanted a red sports car to mow him down when he was 73 and 'in constant good tumour'. And that was Richie, in constant good tumour, smiling and encouraging to the last. He may not have been hit by the red sports car but sure wasn't he himself the red sports car? Didn't everyone notice him? Wasn't he loud, and fast, and beautiful and not for the faint-hearted? And the cancer came back to visit. On a grand scale all the sheer propulsion of the ninetie's and noughtie's that saw me being offered a mortgage whilst I waited for a delivery signature bathed in sweat and snot in a bank on Baggot Street came to a grinding halt. We were all lost again. It would take a mesomorph of epic vigour to overcome it all. Whilst the concrete cancer knaws away at our souls, Richie rose above the chasm and fought back with true punches and a spirit that most of us know we'd never, ever muster. Eight million people will be robbed of life by cancer this year but Richie won't be a number. He'll be the supernova that was destined to light our world but, ultimately burn out too soon.

Twilight

Banking miles and effort before the end of September is nothing new. However, this time around I'm doing it with proper purpose. I have good reasoning behind each effort, I know what I should achieve as a result and I welcome the specifics. My coach knows what he is doing and has made the training fun. I need to concentrate and work hard. The old 'use-it-or-lose-it' thing at my age looms large.I used to sit down every Autumn and work out what I needed to work on [a long list!], look at the time I had to do that in [never enough], try to find novel ways of achieving targets [ever-moving targets] and then use some vague concepts to bury myself all winter long with sprints, hills and intervals. Malcolm Elliott without the talent.The only way I seem to have survived that carnage approach to training was by tagging along with more talented cyclists than I and reaping the benefits. I've been damn lucky in the last six years to have cycled alongside two of the best. But I ain't as talented or fit. I figure I've survived at a decent level of fitness for my age and time constraints because while those talented dudes could tie themselves in a knot and then do it all again the next day, I didn't have the time to go out the next day so I'd recover and reload and be fresh for the next onslaught. The only thing I seemed to do right in all those years was arrive at a race ready to race. I can't get to races regularly but even if there's a month in-between events I know what to do to get there. I actually like the challenge. I have no idea where next year will take me but I really want to hit the races that meant something to me, that would be the couple of gallops in Meath at season's opening, the Frank O'Rourke and county champs for the rose-tinted nostalgia and the Eddie Tobin because I know I can win it if ridden right. Meantime, as the 2017 season doesn't start for another 20 WEEKS, I'll just keep the head down, chin up and do what I'm told.

Scotty

F Scott Fitzgerald reminds us from the grave that it's never too late to start. Start living or start something new. He knew more than most what life could throw at a man, having lived it and lost it over and over in a vain attempt to be the epitome of the lost generation. Despite all his crazy capers and hanging with the lunatic fringe he left us that message; Start. Its never that simple but what can I say? We all have it in us. Putting down the bottle, binning the burger, smiling at our own reflection, thinking twice, apologising, grovelling, opening that book, slowing down, going back, regretting. Or, if we were to be honest, being unapologetic, raising our voices, breaking a plateau or setting the bar higher. I'm not so naïve to think that its so easy. Obstacles are there. Sometimes the move off the couch is the biggest, most crippling effort. And the bar is lower for some it seems, more than others. I know that sometimes we park projects never to return despite our best intentions. There's barns full of rusting husks of cars that will never get that TLC they deserve, there's places that will never get the dreamed-of-visit from the man who was saving for it. Hopes and good wishes and intent die too with time. But imagine starting.... Just the simplest thing, anything. Starting towards the tiniest goal but yet something YOU want, not what people want for you. Or even better, starting, like I did today, towards something you regretted doing and needed badly to rectify. Human beings often want but forget or stop dreaming. A small incidental step is all it requires. Soon a minor alteration can become a world shattering re-boot of huge proportions. Even Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby had two characters that succeeded and, ultimately, failed. Gats blew it all for a dream but was amazing while his sun shone. Nick tried to follow suit but ended up back home in the mid-west a broken man. Both men started. Get it? They changed something, a frame of mind or a pattern or a geographical position in order to go and achieve something different. To start.... Just try. The smallest thing to begin with. Fitzgerald's flawed heroes did not make it but they were ALIVE as they tried to. So there's a simple letter Fitzgerald left, despite his brilliant novels, some unfinished, his poems, his film-scripts his short stories such as Benjamin button, a simple letter that brings it all back to a basic, no frills beginning. He said it's never too late to be whoever you want to be, or too late to start again. But start!

Fall

Don't you love it? Autumn has arrived like a wounded animal, snarling overhead and through the trees. Rain sits over the country like a dark-lord's shroud of hate. I love it, the dash from building to building, the warmth in the heavy air still healthy. It's a significant signal of change. Gutters full of leaves, contorting apple-tree branches straining to hold on and bear fruit. Heaving hedgerows braced for an annual cull. Horizontal rain encourages the windscreen wipers to quicken, conversations are short and curt, one eye skywards. Even though its 'inside' weather its too beautiful to be so. And the farmer's lucky run has fallen short, the final dice-throw wins muddy drills and laboured work. But it's been good. Nice, rose-tinted memories to recall over wine and a lit stove. Sun-stretched evenings in May and June, children playing into the dark, smiles and ochre burnt folk still around in August. It's been a healthy, beautiful toy of a Summer and early Autumn, a joy, a Bullfighter's run of passes and veronicas and adulation intercepted by a cornada in the last bullfight of the season in the faded light and glimmer of early September. Yes it has been a damn good run of growth and ripeness but now the Atlantic claws at us, reminding us who is really in charge for half the year.

Life Cycle

Stand up for what you believe in, even if it means standing alone. There's always gonna be hurt. We either hurt ourselves by the choices we make or people we befriend, maybe we are hurt inadvertently by other's choices, actions or a long chain of events that begun millennia ago. Often we just get in the way. Life is chock-full of the pseudo alpha males that are convinced they know right. Logic and age tells me that more often than not people who hurt are just not aware of what they are doing or the effect it might have. Age has also taught me to no longer waste my time on said trolls. We all have our lives. Everyone's reality differs. In my case I've always got something going on, to the extent that I'm a time-squeezed whirlwind of activity. My 5.30am starts are unavoidable, my juggling two young kids out the door is thrilling, my need to train just insatiable. I also have to write, be a husband, brother, son and friend, show up to work now and then like everyone else too. Oh yeah, and I'm supposed to do good too. Help my fellow souls out with random acts of kindness. Throw in a liberal amount of common stresses and there just isn't time to muck about really. I'm trying to still be a racing cyclist too, god forbid. I don't get much time to do that because my wife and kids will ALWAYS take priority over everything. I guess what I'm trying to say is I can't waste time on anything that wastes my time. My training, what little there is of it, is always full on. Believe me I can make 30 minutes work. I guess I am selfish enough to just want to get the most out of everything. If I stutter and stop and approach training in a half-assed way then it stands to reason that I'll race in a half-assed manner, guaranteeing that I'll be left behind in next year's races. I need to be in control of my training time, my efforts, my preferred terrain, my pace, my plan and ultimately, my cycling destiny or at least only share my training with like-minded people in similar scenarios to my own. How can I honestly justify wasting any precious seconds of my limited time when I have a family that I could give my time to instead? When I threw my leg over a bike and went training out the school gates 30 year's ago with Pat Lyng there was no bull, just hard work where you found your level and ability quickly. Nobody found it for you, judged you or imposed their unhealthy narcissism upon you or the group. Or if they did they soon found another club. Nobody was turned away because they might not be good enough. They found out they had it or not themselves. Our time was spent cycling. Hard work and zero bullshit was the common goal. Those basic traits stuck to me like tub tape. I only want to ride my bike when I go cycling. I'll only ever ride for someone sound, and I'll ride my heart out for them or with them. I think I've proven that in the leagues in recent years, often on next to zero fitness but with a cause. I absolutely and unashamedly ADORE bike racing. However, I'll never light up the world with my ability but I will light my way. That first day I went out with a club the hourglass was turned over to count my time in bike racing. I've come and gone for love or money or drink or family or growth but all the time those grains of sand have filtered downwards towards the inevitable. Only a few grains to go but I'm enjoying the countdown. I'm going to make every second, every grain count in sweat and effort, toil and smiles, in a prattle-free zone that screams at me from the past.

Friends and fallen comrades

Let me set the scene. Sunshine, sitting on a wall under a shade tree, chatting to three people. Shane, who is new to the game of cycling but not unwise to it, Gerry, whom I've known for more than quarter of a century and who always puts a smile on my face, and Martin, surfer, cyclist, entrepreneur, Mr can-do. Its the Eddie Tobin race in Bunclody, gateway to the beauty of Mt Leinster. But this race turns it's back on the mountain and goes north into the rolling hills instead. I'm sitting on that wall joshing with these people that mean a lot to me. It feels as good as the shaft of sunlight on my legs through the lush tree branches above. Its the usual intelligent banter of people I respect as opposed to banal pleasantries . Two of those guys are in categories above me, Martin having just ridden the Ras for God's sake! But we are equal in loving what we do for sport. This whole thing means a hell of a lot to me today. Eddie Tobin, of the race's title, was someone I knew. I've written before of his part in Wexford's re-emergence in the cycling world. Today meant a little more because I knew it's my last Eddie. I love the course, love the crew, loved the man. So, I'm sitting talking to some bloody nice people and then I'm on the grid and I'm in the race. And I'd been thinking all week what was the best thing to do? I mean, my friend Eoin coined the phrase 'What would Joe do?' in answer to the best way to win a race five or six years ago. Whatever I did at the time was bound to lose me the race, so if you did the opposite, you'd likely succeed. Yet today I knew I wasn't going to do what I'd been doing these last seasons...namely sitting and waiting. I learned to race, for good or for bad, in league races all over the county where you made the race and scrubbers got nothing. After a warm-up of a first lap I knew I had to get the blood going, fill the heart and give it socks, old school. Pauly joined me and we got going for a couple of kilometres, ultimately to no avail. But don't we do countless intervals? 30/30s in blocks of eights or hill repeats until we need to call Petvet? No point in not going again! And yet in two more forays on the second lap nobody wanted to join me. I know I have a marmite personality, but still, a race is a race! So I parked my aspirations for the next twenty kms and tried to recover while being alert. Last year I got tailed off with a couple of kms left because I was unfit. This time I'd done more hours, done the weights, buckled myself doing epic efforts, dispensing with any excuses. I've lost my sprint. I now need to power down long and hard on a hill to achieve anything. 400 metres to go I laid it all out. And I felt ok. But it wasn't enough and I was swamped. And yet I smiled like the village idiot going over the line. I hadn't so much had a tailwind into that finishing straight as the gentle breath of a hundred people I've known and loved and been influenced by in my wonderful, awful sport. I grinned like the fool because I lost but I gained. I enjoyed myself more today than I have in years. I did what I wanted to do and losing meant nothing. Of course the flip-side is that I seldom have a day like that and the tedium of monastic, snot-producing intervals and graft is slowly killing me. But the glimmer...just the glimmer....A glimmer that has me alert and writing at night, youngest kid asleep on the sofa behind me, bats flying around the yard, mind trying to get it all out onto the screen in front of me. But I always miss something at home, something significant that hurts a little each time. I guess what makes it a little better is that from the sign-on to the marshalling to the lead-cars to the place, all the familiar, friendly aspects of Wexford cycling were present and accounted for today, making being away a whole lot easier. My turn next year to be a part of that than pack-fodder.

Licking the bars

Everyone knows a long road somewhere. Just a plain old stretch of road that never ends. Mine is south of Madrid in July, heading for Malaga, usually late at night with my family asleep, the outside temperature 'down' to 27 degrees. Despite the late night espressos from a truck stop or three its just mind-numbing. Watching city signs for count-downs and hoping you can do your job. Just when it's starting to grind you into a tight, nervous ball half curled up in the driver's seat, you catch a hint of dawn and your neanderthal mind releases the last dregs of seratonin into your cerebrum to tell you you'll survive. Then comes the 150 kilometres of wheatfields followed by the tunnels to the coast. Suddenly 50km feels like 5 compared to the night you just put in. Then theres a family awake and arrived and none of the midnight monsters and figments of a tired mind to deal with until next year. Am I writing a travelogue? Nope. But if I could condense that trans-Iberian trip into a 25 minute sketch it would be the ten mile time trial I raced on Tuesday last. Why? For me the race against the clock has always been the race of truth. And in the last ten years I've been found out to be the liar. I used to love those events, really enjoyed the screaming pain. Could keep my focus for 56 minutes in a 25 miler. Real men aren't afraid of Time Trials. So I've plugged away every now and then. I just stopped enjoying them. Last Tuesday could have been that road south of Madrid or the road south of Tunis heading for the desert with it's little markers every kilometre, left by the French colonists. Because I had to pick a point every kilometre or so to strive for, a person, place or armco barrier to target, telling myself I could re-assess when I got there. Maybe twenty points on the road to ignore the pain 'til. Kinda reminiscent of that long drive was my approach to the race. I eased into it, coasting, saving energy up for the bad stuff to come. The only difference being that the strain cut in earlier. When it did I sat out on the hard-shoulder line willing trucks to pass, rode full tilt on the drags because it felt right and managed to get oil on the 12 sprocket a fair deal on the flats. Of course I was passed. But at five miles instead of five kilometres. Looking at my photo later, I sat tall, it seemed as though I was one giant drogue creating drag in enormous amounts. And thats how I feel on the long drive south, like a basking shark, maw wide-open, a creature so ungainly it doesn't belong in it's environment. Hurtling along in the thick, dark and empty Andalucian night. You just don't belong on a motorway in the land of the Moors and Romans. 120km/h cutting a swathe through history and civilisations is not right. Similarly, 25 minutes of enlarging your heart, battling every little devil your body can manifest, willing yourself to excel but wanting it all to stop in equal proportions is just...well...wrong. But then dawn arrives. Dawn in cycling terms is the realisation that there is just enough ether left on the rag to subdue your body into completing this farce. You sense the finish or you get a second or third wind or the road levels. Whatever it is, it works. Mentally, you smell the coast. After all the banter and fun while you are getting ready for the pain, at the end of the day the hard part is up to you. Theres a great crew at local events, just like your family in the back of the car. But the responsibility of traversing the dark night, whether to the lights of Malaga or to a lone man with a stopwatch on the side of the road...is all yours.

NFTO

I have to admit you need a beautiful day once in a while to remind you why you put in so much effort, steal time, feel pain and stay focussed in cycling. And why we give up the bikkies and crisps and the like. Mentally and physically I crashed after racing last weekend and I found myself wallowing in Pringles and Merlot. I was losing the head. Tired and drained. But my Sunday spin was gonna happen. I did however, park my Thursday/Friday/Saturday training. How could you not go cycling after seeing the men of the Ras the day before in Inistioge? The ghosts of seven-straight-days-racing.So I ghosted out of town in the mist well before eight in the morning and felt the warmth of the sun after only fifteen minutes. It was gonna be a good one. Scooting along through the winding country of Rathnure and Kiltealy on the way to Bunclody [Wexford's answer to Pau] I had to face my fears. I was either going to be a car wreck and have to make the call of shame whilst sitting in a ditch somewhere, head in my hands, or, not admit defeat, have a shot at each ramp on Mt Leinster and go home smiling at my laboured breathing. Lo and behold, it was the latter!I rode the early 25 miles steadily and washed all the acrid shite out of my legs to the point where I felt good. Like awesome good. There was a time I'd do the early ramps and promptly calve. But in recent years I'd spent most of June in Bunclody working and regularly ran 5km up and back at lunchtime. So in my mind the hill was do-able. I got over my fear. And the sun and light airs helped, like a gentle hand to guide me. And its the view. The valley to the left is just...well...Alpine. I could sit and look across the slopes all day. That last 5k before the turn left near the Corrabutt gave me a pleasant crick in my neck. And I found the hump to the carpark easy. I didn't get any K.O.M.s but I sweated buckets like strava lava.####################################################################### However, this is all just a preamble. We all think we are kings when we can stomp on the pedals and have a 'no-chain' day. At least I did yesterday until I passed another cyclist down by the grids while descending the Behemoth. I dropped to the valley floor 'like a snot' as I was told later. I stopped to pick up a bottle jettisoned the day before in the Ras. It was a red NFTO bottle, Not For The Ordinary. How apt. The other cyclist caught up. 40 year old steel bike. 30mm tubs. 72 year-old rider. He had ridden from Shillelagh [?] and was out for a seven hour ride to prep for an Eroica event in England soon after doing the Italian original in the past. I was completely humbled. All of a sudden I realised that there I was killing myself all day, pushing the envelope, pushing my body, pushing my senses to be better. Yet here was this older version of me, a real character, who had it right. He too was soaking up the beautiful day, pushing his limits too. Just not the tunnel-vision limits I'd been nudging. To me ,what he was doing was sublime.################################# I left him and headed for home under the viaduct in Borris realising all my reasoning throughout the last 8 months about giving up racing was sound and sensible. Im still me, I'm still a cyclist with goals. But they are changing. I've done Flanders and have a fascination about Roubaix to satisfy yet. And I'll do the dolomites, Alps and Pyrenees too, please God, in the near future. I'll still be happy cycling. I know because I met myself in the valley below Mt Leinster yesterday and I enjoyed the company.

Dominoes delivery

Could Joey finally pull out a result? Could 8 months of training actually merit a good day on the bike?! First Barrow Wheeler in the race is one result I did achieve! Sounds great considering my club had it's strongest team in years at a race. Sprinters, climbers, pucheurs and rouleurs abounded, there was so much endorphins knocking around that if they were on the UCI prohibited list, we'd all be banned. So first in my club was an achievement, right? Don't be daft! Like a bunch of Cubans playing dominoes in the afternoon, my club succumbed to all sorts of craziness and as the afternoon went on the numbers tumbled. Some just wanted to survive their first open race for a while and did admirably. But it was to my utter surprise, through the afternoon that all of the boys and all of the plans, went South.@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@There's nothing more demoralising than your clubmates sitting on a grass verge sipping cups of tea in the afternoon sunlight, calling out your name in encouragement whilst you struggle by, throwing yourself around to stay in contention all the while stopping your tongue from catching in the front spokes. And my clubmates shouldn't have been there at all. It was a big push up the hill on the second lap that did for them. A typical, headless, no-rhyme-or-reason effort you get in the A4s. A few strongmen drove it over the hill and then sat up. This put some of my team mates out the back yet the same strongmen couldn't replicate their actions on lap 3 and therefore I and a few others stayed in the race. Chapeau headless strongmen!And the last lap was pedestrian.@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Then you get the silly crash. Cyclists are weight concious. And mathematical. They probably average 75kg. That didn't prevent the conundrum of an average cyclist trying to fit between a ditch and a bigger rider in a space reserved for an anorexic squirrel. Cue resultant carnage as balance is lost, ditch is found, brakes are tested, chamois' soiled and skin is broken. Apologies to the hand I rode over[and it's owner]. I got back on, surveyed the damage. Good to go, now last of my club standing, by default, as Shane's bike had been damaged. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ And then the cramps come to visit, like unwanted visitors, knocking on the door of my quads. Spasms fly electrically to my brain in the shape of a grim reaper, whispering "You're legs are dead sonny jim...you feel shite...you have cramps in your cramps...that fred in front of you with the flapping Aldi jersey, saddle bag with deck chair and coffee maker, tyres at 26 p.s.i., is gonna best you!" And your head spins....Isn't there sambos and fresh coffee at the finishline? Isn't some bastard cooking a barbecue on the back of the course every lap? Can't you just stop?! And it feels like someone has tilted the inclines and turned the last lap into a right auld son of a syphillitic camel. And the hailstones....@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ But the cramps subsided, the giant tsunami of pain had subsided to a ripple in a duck pond. The mind stopped sparking like a loose wire and started focussing again. Everything, like an alcoholic's moment of clarity, came together. Could this be my day? Hell no! The cramps came back when I started my sprint so I sat and ground out a top fifteen place [again]. At least I was in the bunch sprint, not waving at it as it disappeared up the road. No prizes for 15th. Praise for finishing well, praise for being first of the club in, praise for not succumbing to the crazed, lunatic, last lap psychosis either. Time for a re-boot and re-route and a ramp up for 2016 season part two!

Little do you know

Marcin Mizgajski first showed up on my radar like a ghost. I'd heard there was a 'Latvian' dude doing laps of the ring-road at warp-speed, however I hadn't seen him. And then like Casper, he latched on to the back of our training group on the Ring Road, turned out to be Polish and had so much enthusiasm and strength that we are still the best of friends today. 12 years later, each other's biggest fan. I've forgotten a lot but theres a few chapters that are stuck in my memory. Miz was a tri-athlete when we met but it didn't stop him doing road races. In Poland, only priests teach religion. I picked up Miz in my car for his first Comeragh league race. We drove to Waterford, The Offspring blaring on the car stereo. I explained to him that I was teaching religion in Tramore at the time, and I was cursing the little f##kers that never listened. He put two and two together and tried to figure out how he was in a car with a cursing priest who liked California punk. He was baffled. But thats ok, for I was extremely baffled as to how the blondy haired dude had driven all the way from Poland in a Trabant, belching smoke, the only two-stroke car to make it to New Ross EVER![With his future wife and their belongings]. If Miz sets his mind to something, thats it. His Ironman in Lanzarote was a group effort where his enthusiasm and work ethic pulled cyclists, swimmers and runners together to get his long training done. And then he did it. The amount of times years ago we rocked up to races with one-day licences and got placings, much to the annoyance of the organisers. Miz has that ability not to race lots but yet show up and light a fuse. When we went on tour like that we laughed all day, returning with sore jaws from the banter. Not for us the tradition and bluster of provincial road-racing. But nobody puts in the work like Miz. I've been lucky to trace our way to Wexford in deep snow, done the hilly spins in the dead of Winter with him, hung on for dear life during intervals. I once filled the car-boot full of water as Miz did motor-pacing behind in the rain. Theres always an espresso somewhere. Theres the feeling when you are near Miz that you can achieve. Bullshit is not tolerated. I'm an also-ran in races but Miz has an ability to get the last drop out of every situation. With him I've had my best results. He IS endorphins. The Gorey 3 day...winning a stage stuck in the 39. Or winning the time trial because he knew all year he would. Riding the Ras twice, Setting the world alight at the Ras Mumhan. Determined to work in a leisure centre and getting the qualifications to do it. Being so focussed on the County Champs as to win it over and over. Oh, and a Leinster Championship too! So its no big surprise to me that I'm writing this blog 48 hours after Miz the pilot and Damien the stoker won the road race at the world cup round in Pietermaritzburg South Africa, after a bronze in the time trial. No surprise to me that that tandem pairing is a success. Theres two very determined blokes on board and the more the odds are dead against them, the more likely they are to succeed. Here's hoping....

Wreck of the Hespers

I is wrecked. I've been juggling so long that I had to drop the baton. What with cleaning the pharmacy out of anything stronger than Sudocrem to treat my Sinusitis, trying to get the kids as much fresh air as possible, being a good[ish] husband and son, reading late loads, cooking a bit, training like a pro, teaching, burning the candle at both ends and in the middle for good measure....well, you get the picture! I raced very strongly on Sunday, loved it, went home spent. And then the tsunami I've been holding back of late just washed over me. The sinuses are back, my patella tendonitis returned for a [painful] visit too. I ain't sleeping, my muscles are sore and refusing to hydrate. I have a pain in my face and for the first time since September I don't want to race. That is tiredness. Put the heavier wheels on after washing the Belgian toothpaste out of every grey nook and cranny on the Ridley last Sunday evening and just left it there. Although the love affair is still on... we are on a break. I just need to regroup. Its all gone remarkably well so far, something had to give. I really did not expect my tendonitis to transfer over from running. But then May is my month, I've been buried in thresholds and goals lately, really stepping out on the razor blade. I will just go easy for a few days until the bags under my eyes and heart go. Easy spins and coffee. My Mum, God bless her, would often use that phrase 'you look like the wreck of the Hespers!' She hasn't in years, until she saw me today. If the Mammy can see it....

Hardy Bucks

Everyone was sick. Nobody was racing. Nobody felt good. Chest infections, sinusitis, tummy bugs and tiredness. Add to that the hail, cold, wet roads. And then they all showed up. Like ghosts out of the weak grey light, rolling around, getting warmed up against the odds. You have to applaud people's dedication. Racing around a 22 km circuit four times is a tall order. Racing full gas even taller. Couple that to fitter athletes, more competitive ambitions, let alone rivalries, club pride and sheer Irish doggedness and you get the picture! A random Sunday in May can be a lot more exciting than having a quick fag outside the Cloch Ban before rushing back in to finish your pint. Theres no point in trying to explain the intricacies of bike racing to the outsider. It's way too general. But lets look inside the average Joe's head. That...would be me!#################################################################################################################################### Friendship means a lot. Up and going in a bike race, apart from settling into your usual spot, you become aware of your friends and rivals. I'm always gonna give at least a quick check-in to my mates as we go up and down the pace line. Not necessary right up at the front as, obviously, your mate is doing just fine or wouldn't be there. But further back you want to make sure they know they are counted and sometimes, when going badly, you need to take their mind off the pain. A hand on the back of a good guy, a word of encouragement, a swift joke maybe. Non-friends can get the works. Barging their space. Stony silence or a glare when passing, letting the wheel in front go in order to make those behind you close it, taking up more space than you need or leaving someone in the wind and attacking them to add insult to injury. But really a bike race is a good-hearted affair with little in the way of argy-bargy. There might be the odd arrogant kid but nobody pays them any attention as they give it all to themselves anyway. Positioning, as the actress once said to the bishop, is key. I like to keep an eye on things, therefore I'm a sit-in-the-sweet-spot type of animal, top thirty, away from the twitchy tri-athletes that think handling is squeezing their quads at night. Also away from the juicers, caffeine or PWO-ed out of their skins, fine motor skills resembling an electrocuted rhino. But some like the rear, having a chat, keeping their powder dry with the off-chance of catching a crash or two as the penalty for taking a gamble. It takes a bit of getting used to. Countless races trying to hold your position, akin to a chinook fighting the falls. Its a tiring process but once its right you save yourself oodles of calories and watts [whatever they are]. Sometimes clubs can work really well, pretty much a unit, defending a position or keeping a high pace to dissuade Jacky Durand types. When they do its an endorphin high. When it goes wrong, its a learning curve. But you'll spend more time going over all the minutiae than you spend training. And then there is yesterday. The Frank O'Rourke race. You try to get it all right but get a sinus infection the previous week and swallow a pharmacy to get yourself right, stay out of trouble for 87 kilometres in sketchy conditions. Then find yourself fighting to stay upright withthin sight of the line, in the right hand ditch, yup, right hand ditch, so far right I started panicking in French! Soon you find yourself passing your team mate with 80 metres left, he on the ground, you holding out for maybe 15th place and a less crampy thigh. Of course theres always an unknown gobshite that tries to pass you for 14th place and doesn't care if he switches you doing it. You cross the line, swing around back down the finishing straight and try to use your sense of humour to regail your fallen comrade who looks BAD on the ground. Thankfully he isn't. And you go home empty handed, after doing everything right, and beat yourself up about it all. And plan the next race. Report card says 'room for improvement.' I wish my team mate hadn't gone down. I wish a chunk of the 40 boyos behind me had raced instead of trained. I wish rivalries were put to better effect. I wish a couple of my good mates had gotten to race instead of spectate. I wish ,I wish, I wish!

DAVIDSTOWN 2

Holy God! What an evening! It started like the Vietnam war was fought; I dropped down on Davidstown out of nowhere, bike and kit in hand and was in a warzone within 20 minutes of landing. The warm-up wasn't one really, just a healthy shock to find a cancer survivor shaking my hand and pedalling along beside me in the day's afterglow. I had such a smile on my face at the start I'm sure people thought I was juiced. So the search for the enemy began within a klick of the start, out of nowhere... probing attacks and random defiance began. Not everyone it seems, read the manual. Just like in-country in the Delta back around '68, skirmishes happened and unhappened like Casper the unfriendly ghost materialising out of thin air, albeit a heavily armed version. I held fire. No use in bursting off all your ammo in a firefight only to find yourself isolated and empty-handed. Davidstown is an organic process. Getting used to the pace of that cross-country slog takes patience and understanding. Finally, confronted by the enemy becoming more daring on the 4th lap it was time to lock and load. I had enough ammo for three rapid bursts. One was used to up the pace, push the envelope, fill the legs and head with fast flowing blood. The second was a counter-attack to put a number of rivals in their place. The third, and longest, death-defying burst, was up the outside and into the last turn smoothly, switching the firing pattern to auto as the runway-length finishing straight hove into view. It was so far to that LZ that I changed gear twice, changed position once, to keep the sub-kilo front wheel on terra firma. Fifth to the line. Into the chopper for extraction. Gone.############################################################################################################################### DE-BRIEF; Shane Doyle shouted something along the lines of 'Lets go Lads!' And that my friends, was akin to shouting 'mad minute!'. The bunch swarmed, the frontal vacuum of the race sucked the successful to the last bend and all hell broke loose. Five from the same tight platoon in the top six. Victory. Not to mention the comebacks and hijacks and fresh meat and good friends and bantering and grovelling and the odd pilot-fish. And was that James Maddock at the back, making a return to the fray after his free but unhappy ride in a medevac chopper last month? I tell you, there are amazing soldiers out on Wednesday nights; those that have massive battles just to get to the start, or personal fitness fights, or mental battles that can be insurmountable to others. But all the time theres just those good people, good, good people that make a snapshot, one-hour event, an extravagant experience.

DAVIDSTOWN

Imagine a place where anything can happen, crazy scenarios could come true? A place where gladiators hold off the baying crowd occasionally, where dreams are begun and realised, where hard work might actually pay off. Davidstown is such a place! I have to hand it to Slaney Cycling Club, having a novice racing section is the only way to allow people get a taste for racing in relatively sane conditions. Open races are not nice places for newbies! Have to say I've had some great fun in Davidstown. Over the years, theres been ding-dong battles and great rivalries. Its a calm environment, a friendly place where people generally leave their egoes at the door. And get racing. And if you don't you'll be humbled.If theres one thing I've learned its that you shouldn't be the first to blink. Theres always some donkey [usually me] who works through in the pace line all evening just so many others can profit. Just because someone is escaping up the road does not make you morally responsible to chase it down! Of the half dozen teams racing, you must remember that they are laughing at the back while you pant at the front. DO NOT DO THE BULK OF WORK!! Another handy tenet is to have a shot in the sprint. You'll be surprised how many people come back in the finishing straight. You might just pick up a top ten or better through perseverence. Oh yeah, don't forget to get something out of the racing; A bit of work, an attack, a pursuit, a sprint train. Get involved and get something back. They are training/ league/ novice races. I know this year I'll be attacking and having fun, getting fit for the open races and getting my heart and lungs used to the strain of racing hard. I'm really looking forward to catching up with the whole community that is Wexford cycling too. Lots of banter on the move. I suppose everyone has something in the back of their heads that they plan to do at the leagues. Thats good. Its gonna be tough on everyone trying to gauge their efforts. In the novice race its a tough call measuring your effort not to arrive into the finishing straight running on fumes. In the other race its a tightrope, getting the over fifties back, not over-cooking the effort, watching the shadows. I won't be at Davidstown when I'm fifty but I admire their section at the league simply because theres no room for slacking. Its as honest as it gets. And I wouldn't begrudge them any win. But I'll leave it all on the road trying to prevent it. Just remember, don't be a diva. Leave it all on the road. Respect everyone of every category because we've all been there. Bring the temporal parietal lobe of your brain with you. Thats where the spatial awareness is. It stops us from swinging around like five bar gates in the wind. Don't forget that all the organisers and marshalls have lives, are voluntary and don't need to deal with silly stuff. Finally, don't forget how cool it feels to RACE.

Old Timer

I remember a time when carbon was used to copy pages. When hubs ran on big,fat ball-bearings that needed to be greased religiously after rainy training. I remember saddles that had more leather than a tannery and lasted a lifetime. I remember handlebar stems and headsets that needed a horse-whisperer's knack to adjust correctly. I remember steel. Pounds of it. I remember 12 speed. Toe clips and leather straps that you could open as fast as anyone can clip-out now. Leather helmets that wouldn't save your life unless you fell on a mattress. Cotton or wool jerseys that sagged like a trawler's net full of cod. I remember large old socks and plastic bags underneath as overshoes. I remember shorts that were a pain in the ass. And crosso rosso spray jobs. And stainless dropouts. And clothesline brake cables. Tyre rubber wasn't wonderful, chains were thick, derailleurs were slow. So much has changed yet...not really. If you are under thirty then the above list is an alien world to you. But so much hasn't changed at all. The fastest I've ever gone on a bike was 104 km/h on the strip between the cattle grids on Mt Leinster. Twenty odd years ago. With eff all brakes, no lid, and a northerly wind. I haven't got near it since. The happiest I've ever been on a bike was in the Blackstairs 200k, away on my own for the last 20 miles, on a borrowed navy Mercian, courtesy of Adrian, out of food and drink and slowly getting sun-burned. I sat on the doorstep of the clubhouse in the Irishtown and was high as a kite on endorphins. A long time ago. No carbon or Garmin in sight. But last night I was in a training race with my clubmates and even though I'm getting old and wrinkly, I got that smile back, chasing hard and getting the the crazed race-face thing going on again. I've lost many years in the wilderness of youth but I'm still keen as mustard. I love remembering those heady days but I have no objection to carbon weaponry, the whir of deep sections, the extra speed of better training. And today I cycle in the second coming of cycling in Ireland. Whats not to like? Sometimes its good to get old.

Post Mortem

When your friend asks you, 5 kilometres into a race, if its still neutralised, you know you aren't going as fast as you should. When the flag dropped last Sunday and the lead car sped away, nothing changed. I actually thought I was in a sportif and the feed was coming up soon. Alas it took three quarters of a lap for the touch paper to be lit. Having said that, I wasn't going to be the one that lit it, was I? In the previous 10 days I'd slept little, travelled a lot, ate badly and not trained at all like I should have. So, just like the first race of the season, I was into the unknown and going to play it conservatively in case I didn't make it to the end. And Dungarvan is a tough race where anything can happen and when it does go, it fires off hard. Three kilometres of a tough climb to finish is only the half of it, theres also the sinuous back road that seems endless, and the long straight road before that, like a no-man's land where everyone feared to thread. Throw in Sunday's rain and wind and the consequent Belgian toothpaste and you have a tough day and a tougher day for a white Barrow Wheeler jersey! I'm gonna park the first of two laps because really we rode like...well..as if we were parked! Then it rained a little... the pace went up, we climbed like diminutive Spanish mountain goats and the pace stayed elevated and excited for the whole second lap. I hid in the top twenty, told myself to take it handy and stayed out of the wind. And despite a couple of crazed lunatic bike handlers, determined to frighten/ put on edge/ agitate and aggravate a whole bunch of cyclists, we arrived intact at the base of the final climb and someone switched on the fan, because the s##t hit it! Three kilometres in zero time. I sat comfortable in the top 10 all the way to the 300m mark. My lungs burned badly and I could not have cycled harder. And I never realised 300m could be so long. We were swamped at the finish and completely empty. After I stopped hyper-ventilating I began the post-mortem. Apt, considering my legs were dead. What could I have changed? I had stayed in the top thirty, out of the wind and out of trouble. Yet some of those that beat me had hidden even further back for the whole race. I don't know if I'm prepared to do that because its skittish at the back, my nerves would be shot. And the elastic stretches even further back there. If I want to feel like a bungee-jumper I'll head to New Zealand for a gap year. My handling was a lot better in the rain too, yet I didn't capitalise on it by attacking. Notoriously, A4 races tend to stay together. But thats only because people are happy to stay there and wait. But in my last two races, 50 of those that stayed hiding at the back were still at the back when the race was over. Now that IS headless! I'd rather race at the next level up for one hour and be dropped than coast and wear brake-blocks for two. But I'll have to change my tune...; I have to sleep, eat, train and focus with intent if I want to win my targets in May.

Hup Hup!

First race of the year done and dusted! Phew! Cue tremendous sense of relief at not being pack fodder, a crash victim or worse. OK, I won't get carried away with a virtually flat race, basically a sausage shaped kermesse but still.... I'm a lucky guy to be on a last lap like 2016 and it was nice to find myself fit up in Clonard last Saturday. Of course, turning off the N9 and listening to Google Maps guiding me to the race venue was tougher than the race. Even the American voice hesitated at one point as I took another 'left in 500 metres' and I thought I heard it say 'What d fu...?' in that Alabama drawl. Boreen roads, canals, turf, pick-ups full of pitch-fork wielding yokels...the journey had it all! Arriving at the race was a relief. Because I thought for a while I was gonna be someone's pig-roast. Phew, made it! The fact that the route was pretty much out and back was another relief, as my gyroscope was still spinning from the drive. Signed on, bike out, getting sorted one hour before the start felt great. Usually my warm-up is the double espresso grabbed while exiting the house. So I was surprised to find myself getting a nice early warm-up and even more surprised to find it way colder than I had allowed for. Rocketing back to the carpark I emptied the kit bag and found an extra thermal vest, making it two and a half thermals, a race jersey, buff, thermal three quarters, two pairs of socks, overshoes, hat and lid. And crab-claw gloves. And more DeepHeat than a geriatric clinic. So all my muscle definition [!] was negated by a rotund, lard-butt with the aerodynamics of a Skip Lorry. There was a cold crosswind and I honestly expected to be hanging. But it was like going back in time to yesteryear, an initial acceleration, a stall, a sportif pace,[If Jacques Anquetil had been there he'd have lit a cigarette, quaffed a flute of Champagne and stopped to kiss female bystanders]. Then there was some headless handling; I marvel that a bloke can be told there's 94 in a race and yet he can sit in tenth place and swing his back wheel left and right as if he is last man but really he is causing a series of percussions back through the bunch. All the way back to the Fred at the back. Juggling a gel and bottle with a gear change at that precise moment. Cue very dirty chamois and shot nerves. Anyhoo, a nice break got up the road and was kept at a minute for ages and then came back, and then thankfully the pace ramped up for the sprint. Clubs swarmed to the front in numbers as if it was Cipollini's heyday, yet disappeared like a ghost ship in the fog of the last kilometre. WTF? Don't get me started! I found myself snug in the top [magic] fifteen through the myriad roundabouts and at a glance behind, the bunch was spread out for hundreds of metres. I opened up full gas a little late down the left, got baulked by a blown rider on the inside and a shimmy from the right, cursed my luck, went the long way around, reloaded and snuck into the top twenty. I probably would have got tenth at a push but that was all. As the 200 metre mark hove into view the sprint was already 200 metres old. More importantly was that I got nicely sealed into that vacuum around tenth-fifteenth place that forces you along in the group with the least amount of force from you. The Dyson. And the roundabouts were a lot less hazardous as a result. My best thoughts were smiling all the way back to the car with relief and the overwhelming feeling of safety in the race. You see, the race filtered out through village after village and I can't remember a junction or slip road NOT marshalled. And the motorbike marshals/ commissaires did some job, keeping the eejits inside the white line and always having a prescence that was incredibly safe and effective from my vantage point inside the peleton. And it all sounded like we were in Tirreno-Adriatico, the buzz of high revving rice rockets pulsing up and down the bunch like protons in C.E.R.N. Ah yes its good to calm pack-mongers riding the outside like their name is Jean-Claude, forcing all the rest of us to squeeze our butt cheeks tight at the sight of an oncoming vehicle! I handled myself well, [I am from 'Rosh' afterall!], stayed in the top 30 pretty much the whole race, never felt under pressure. And riders came and went which is always a good sign. I Concentrated too which is my achilles heel. I usually end up day-dreaming about coffee or wine or how un-aerodynamic the meerkat on the aerodynamic bike beside me is, with an outsize head and the positioning of a squirrel on bonzai , or perhaps just how hairy-legged some neanderthal A4s can be. What seemed shocking was the number of racers that stayed in the back half of the race and never came out to play. Pilot fish swinging on the Shark. Theres always something to be gained by having a go or handling the pace up front. Not a lot to be had at the back except an example of the physics involved in a bungee cord. You can use many expletives to describe me but 'scrubber' or 'hider' ain't one. I don't hang at the back. I'm also terrible at maths but a 4 hour round-trip for 2 hours cycling at the rear with the heart-rate of a hibernating bear just don't fly. Its a happy start to what I hope is a good, long season. And with the good lads heading up through the club over the Winter it'd be sweet if we can kick a few asses using a team to good effect! More importantly, I'm healthy and gagging to race again. Lets go race!

Start of the yearly affair.

I must be in love. Its an infatuation. I have no choice in the matter. Theres no backing out now. Its a little out of control. This weekend will see the start of it all. I'll find myself in that state of mind, an opiate-like trance in a random carpark up country, waiting for my rendezvous with the most passionate creature I've ever encountered. Hopefully she'll be kind to me. But the reality is often different. Like the good looking dead-cert you are throwing all your charm at in the night club, only for the lights to come on and her to turn into Godzilla; bike racing is seldom straight forward and never easy. If it was we'd all be winners and podium-girl-kissing experts. Yup, racing can be ugly. It takes a lot of love and passion to show up, get a hiding, then go home and plan the same for next week. But there are ways to get a good start, things, and people, to avoid. ******************It all starts in the wee hours of the night before; You need as much of your gear ready, prep done before you get near the race itself. Have your gear stacked in order of putting it on, have your number already pinned tight,your helmet should have a cap and gels in it, your shoes sitting beside it. Try to pack the car, Honda 50, bus or whatever your transport the night before. Spirit away toilet paper somewhere too, pre-race nerves often affect your insides in fun ways. And using your new gloves to wipe your butt is always a false economy. **************Packing your bike away the night before is practical too in that it stops you looking at it, tinkering with it, raising the saddle a fraction of a mill or tightening something just enough to shear a bolt and cause a mild anxiety attack, call to Care-Doc and fears for your mental health as you crawl around on all fours looking for a bottle-cage bolt in the shed at 2 A.M. Get your ass to your LBS and get it sorted and leave it be! *****************Next, try not to be too friendly. Shooting the breeze in the car park and catching up with all your auld pals can seriously damage your chances of doing a warm-up. You find yourself belting out the road trying to do a 40 minute warm-up in 15 and gasping like an Austin Healy in the Alps. And then you are dropped. **************Bottles. Too many bottles is always better than 'Ah the curse of the hairy camels on it!' as you take out the bike and admire it's lightness, only for it to slowly dawn on you as to why. Put the bottles on the bike in the car, put a large bottle of water in your bag, have a spare bottle for the warm up and bobs your uncle. If you are uber-organised you might have a to-do/ to-bring list and keep it in your gear bag so you can use it for every event. ***************Tyre pressure. Are you one of those gobshites that asks everyone around you for a track pump? Stop being a figure of hate and get yourself together. When you ask for a pump you are eating into another rider's prep/ warm-up. Its not fun for them. Multi-tool? Same. Bring your own. Why not pump your tyres slightly over the mark the night before? Maybe not the tubs, but your clinchers for sure! The idea is to tick off as many boxes that lessen your stress levels as possible. *******************And what about the pressure? The other pressure. Try to stay away from it all. Personally, if a race is due to start at 11 A.M. I try to get a warm up and switch off and saunter back as close to kick-off as possible. It stops the stupid stuff; Getting cold, or listening to the gimp [every race has one] who wants to tell you he is flying, how he isn't training but did 5000km over the winter and why he didn't win the last race or how they 'could have gone to Belgium' if they'd wanted. Unnecessary, head-filling shite. They'll be dropped faster than grease outside a kebab shop but will have left you unable to concentrate. No, go do that warm up and get your head together all by yourself. *************The Hype; its a simple fact of cycling life; If someone is going on about doing little training and hoping to hang on, they've actually been doing the sneaky spins, getting out with different cyclists during the week, bringing the bike in the car to work and sneaking in rides at lunch or after and blaming traffic for getting home late, never telling their team mates the truth. And the ones that tell you about all the numbers they are hitting, sustaining and surpassing, numbers, numbers, cycling bingo... are too busy looking at their Garmins to notice the break filtering off the front. Just don't listen and get out and race!************* After the fact; Pack the bike, put on the compression socks, have a drink and go home. Just like coming out of a Leaving Cert exam, theres nothing to be gained by a post mortem, unless its your own team that messed up. You can work it all out on the cycle/ drive home and plan your next moves in the silence of your own head. Stay off the kakao. Some cyclists highest heart-rates and best moves are kept for group chats. ***********Afterglow; Go home, look at the bike, enjoy what you have done. Think of next week.

100k stew.

What a day was Sunday! Sublime. All the ingredients for an epic. We had the lot thrown at us; the weather, an apocalyptic route change, fit cyclists, greasy roads, lineouts...a little of everything. It was an epic day! But for me it began last Wednesday with a strep throat and no biking. You know how the head works...little doubts have sprouts, so by Saturday I was thinking of not doing it. But I had managed to get to a gig in Dublin the previous evening and not felt too bad. I could hardly not ride the 100k yet sing and carouse at a Fun Lovin Criminals gig. And the forecast; look, no disrespect to the boys in Met Eireann but we live on a rock on the periphery of Europe. Forecasting has to be bloody haphazard. Hence the outlook changing daily in the run-up to yesterday. Like menopausal isobars. Fine, showers, rain, sleet, the boys couldn't make up their minds. I had my Hydra on and it turned out to be the best choice. In fact the hydra was so good that water ran down the outside of the sleeve, and filled my Sealskinz gloves! Rookie mistake but we all make them, don't we?. So I felt like a king-crab cycling along, outsized hands weighing four kilos holding the bars. Every sip from a bidon allowed the water to swish around in the gloves, like a sad, horizontal lava-lamp. But otherwise it was not a bad day at all. Only the enforced detour, up and over the rocky road was an irritant but at least we didn't have to cancel. Some road for a sunny day, just not for the day we got. I digress! There was a great group there at the sign-on, people relieved to be out of the training bubble and re-united with society again, if only for 3 hours. It hasn't been a long winter but its been a tough one. Personally I've killed a rear hub, bottom bracket, six brake-blocks, two tyres, four cables and a crow in my journeys. As always its great to see your friends and make new ones. We all have a healthy outlook and are pleased to be once again in the tribe to which we belong. Beards, legs, stomachs all trimmed. Once we rolled out it was good fun until we were jettisoned by the lead van on the back roads to Mullinavat. Then you don't get to talk much, you concentrate a whole lot and mind your house. Being in a lineout before the sixty kilometre mark was a novelty. I don't really see too many lineouts at A4. So to witness baggy, flapping rain coats {not rain-capes}, gynormous saddle bags that must of contained a spare tube and two infants, and an assortment of mudguards last seen in speedway, all in a single, rapid line, holding on for grim death was good craic. The silence too was deafening. You see, we were all super lucky to escape onto the roads for a few hours out of our week, yet the weather and course were snakey enough to require all eyes down, like biking bingo, drying up the banter. And as the ride got to the interesting bit, the sinuous, unforgiving road from Stonyford to Bennett's Bridge, the real work began and concentrion was key. Its a sloppy, short road. If you could afford to look up you'd see stud-farms, stone walls and ranch-land stretched along a serpentine , roller-coaster route that wears out brake blocks and patience in equal measure. People go backwards quickly here. Like living in Louisiana. And then, after a lull, the festivities really began; gels consumed, fireworks resumed. Riders off the front that should not have been, pace being pushed, hopes being crushed, limits found. Those who are fit find the front. The longest spin I've done all Winter has been ninety kilometres. So it was ironic that at exactly 89.9 kilometres I felt my thighs tighten!I laughed to myself on the long drag out of picturesque Inistioge, watching the Garmin humming way above my best pace up there, even though I was in pain and the 53, trying not to blow, Ciaran Power giving me a sling to keep the pace up. And then it was sublime. I recovered, got going again, found a new level and drove on. And despite the jockey wheels on my derailleur dying on the Ferry hill, I'd done what I'd wanted to do. I stood looking at the botched mech {it having died through the effects of a grit-driven Winter and neglect} and I felt pleased. Not for the mech. And then the delicious stew.... The smell alone had calories in it! Riders smiling through dirt covered faces, heating up in front of steaming plates of nourishment. Bliss. And that's what we all forget. The good people that did the sign-on, the kitchen prep, the tea-stop, George in the back-up van, the road markers and all the incidentals that we forget because we are in a bubble ARE the 100k. If I could have put in the same effort in the event as those organising it, I'd have been in the front group, first to a plate of spicy stew!

Why You Must Ride The Barrow 100k!!!!!!

Look,lets be honest. Life is short. We can sit around waiting for the thermometer to go north of single figures, or the barometer to quit falling as oddly-named storms batter the rock we live on. But you might have to wait a long time. Instead, your conscience is telling you that you need to gather yourself for the Barrow Sportif in a little over a week. Listen to the voice of reason in your head. YOU NEED TO GET GOING! But theres a long list of reasons why. First of all, you need to get over the grit-driven season of base training, open up your system to big gulps of air and remind your body why you got off the couch and started cycling in the first place. A heart-rate of 60 whilst on said couch, feet resting on a slab o' Dutch isn't our natural state! The sooner we get up and at it the better the year will be, the longer the season too. Secondly, its time to prep your bike! Your bike is a reliable horse that needs care. It needs to be event-ready! Get the thing overhauled! Treat it to the equivalent of a facial or colonic, get the cables done, chain replaced, check those bloody tyres that probably have enough cumulative tiny shards of glass on board to make up a bottle in total. We are all up to ninety about the names of who'll be flying at season's start and from where, when really, the only names on your mind should be your local bike mechanic's. Haul your ass down to George or Johnny or David or Paul and don't show up to your first event with a fit body on a failing machine. Rust is not a sign you've been training in the rain. Squeeks don't mean you have to put out more watts. Worn tyres don't prove your mileage. Pitted headsets do not 'liven up' cornering. Buckled wheels may be bothersome to fix but that beats rubbing the paint off your ten grand bespoke frame. And brake blocks. The 'wear-line' is on the blocks, its not the line worn in your wheel rim! Sludge in your derailleur cannot be used as bottom bracket grease later. A smooth running bike is a joy to behold. Thirdly, its too easy to be anti-social, big ourselves up on social media such as grouptexts or turn ourselves into kakoa-nuts and live in a cocoon all winter. Its good to get out,hear live conversation, see real people, not some graphics on a screen. Some people don't see outside their pain cave until Paddy's Day and by then they have scabbed knuckles and can't hold a conversation that doesn't contain numbers. The Sportif prevents this early-onset-troglodyte-syndrome. Fourthly, starting the Barrow Wheelers event will save on razors/lady-shaves/trips to A+E. Why? Look, if we don't bare the legs until Spring has truly sprung, you'll be harvesting instead of shaving. Why use up a Taiwanese factory's output of cheap blades on each leg in April when you can get started in January and prevent that moment when you fall over at pedestrian lights because your leg hair is between the 53 ring and chain. An early sportif can also prevent that awkward conversation with your partner about burning out the ladyshave and the subsequent acrid smell of burnt plastic in the en suite. Or, horror of horrors, the call of shame from A+E regarding the profuse bleeding as you slit your knee open with the switch-blade in the steam-filled shower. Silky smooth legs in January also saves on rain or dirt or snot forming attachments to your legs. Flailing snots from fellow cyclists can dangle off hairy pins until you think a miniature Bear Grylls is absailing from them. Trust me, the Barrow 100 will solve all these problems. And fifthly; What about the economy? Haven't said partners bought all that you wanted for Christmas? The silk tubs, the custom Garmins, plush shorts, sexy eyewear...the list is endless and bordering on pornographic. All that jewellery needs an airing. The carbon has to come out, the shiney, un-dirtied kit needs to impress. Similarly, to help the economy, you must pay your bikeshop for the aforementioned work, buy enough gels to slow a Sherman tank, buy tubs of High-5 too, and of course, you have to sit in your local coffee shop discussing the event before and after, quaffing flat-whites and once again... boosting the economy! So, while you him and haw over the start of your season, really, there's a lot more to it than unhooking the bike and setting off. Come on! Think it over! You know you want to! See you on Sunday 31st!

the squeeze

Sweaty men, disco lights, gulping drinks, grunts, no women, smiles. Must be spin class! Its that time of the year. Upping the game. Spin class with pursuits and sprints. Outside its time for longer and harder weekend spins, harder intervals, less time for recovery. I love it! I can smell the new season less than a month away, the calendar is up on the Cycling Ireland website, I have the licence confirmation e-mail from the Feds. Good to go! It must be the time to nail my colours to the mast and state my objectives for the year. This may seem strange but they are quite diverse. First off, I want to get into the season. What I mean is that everyone, EVERYONE fears those first races, hopes their standard is acceptable, prays not to be dropped. Anyone tells you otherwise they've been already doing training races in secret. Theres the crazy relief of being back where you belong or the instant panic and sleepless nights that follow. "But I was beating him last year!"/"Things have got a lot faster"/"I should have done more intervals" etc. So to glide in with the bunch is my first goal. I want to enjoy this season and I'm in no hurry to get up the road.My main objectives are to win a league, win a race in May and to enjoy cycling in Spain on my holidays before having a shot at some end of season stuff too. Thats the guts of it. Of course I know it ain't that simple but it is the way I've been heading in training. By the time I get on either of those start lines in May it could all have gone to pot. But by beginning training last September I hope to emulate five years ago when I Wintered similarly and had a whole season of fitness. Out in the snow and ice all the time. Worst case scenario is as follows; Rock up to the first open race,somewhere in Meath with superlight everything,perfectly smooth legs, espresso-laden and laughing on the grid. Up the road, back to bunch, back to rear, back to cavalcade, back to carpark, back to basics. Pack bike quick and leave before you have to do a post mortem on your sh**e performance.@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Best case scenario; Ease into carpark early, get a decent warm-up for my 47-year-old diesel legs,pay attention to the movers and shakers, Hover in top twenty, play the waiting game as the grommits burn all their matches before the last kilometres, then go for the sprint easy, only turning on the lamps within spitting distance of the line. Straight up.@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@. Well thats it,isn't it? Dream races only come together occasionally but that would be my dream scenario. What did Lance call it? No chain? Of course, how anyone wants their season to go is simple. We all want to get to the end of it with as little stress as possible. We don't want some fool to wreck our time on the bike, we want everyone to ride steady, as if we actually don't want to be in hospital the next day. Don't stand up,move around or corner without being aware of your fellow competitors. Simple rules. Nothing worse than spending hundreds of hours in training through the worst of weather, on the worst of roads,battling frost, black-ice,sleet and now snow, only for a club-racer to be the one that does the damage. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@'. I'm looking forward to a few sportives too. Some are becoming chariot races,yet the ones I like have hills and a naturally selective course. and a tea-stop! A 90 mile sportif in May bolsters your endurance too, having forsaken long steady spins once the race season starts. And you actually get to TALK to people. Racing is a bubble, we really only get to talk to a few. Sportifs are catch-ups that often revert to races but initially the banter is great. Catch you for a chat soon?

Over indulgence

I may have overdone it. Its just, well, chocolate goes really well with red wine. And turkey is so moreish. And Roses. And ice cream is a really good digestivo. But I trained hard over the holiday. It wasn't 'til the New Year that I could smell bacon when I sweated, with a hint of berries and tannins from the Rioja. And then Christmas day's turkey crown had to leave my system but it was breach. Diet pills, laxatives. They aren't worth a s**t. The best way to stop your swerve and get back onto the straight and narrow is to train harder and jettison the bad stuff. We are all nice people. We fill our houses with more temptations than a harem for friends and families and wayward visitors. But when half of the stuff is still left because your Aunty Nuala is lactose intolerant, Uncle Ignatious is diabetic, in fact it seems as if Christ in the crib will grow to be coeliac, we are all in trouble. And we don't like waste, do we? All that nasty stuff in January can't be given away, so it wends it's way through our alimentary canals and barges it's way out in time for the tough stuff training of January. I have no intention of racing in 2017, and judging by the calories I consumed over this Christmas, I'll be Elvis, dead on a toilet seat by this time next year. In the meantime, I have to work on the cellulite that's on my cellulite. *************************************************************************************************************************************** Training is going well and the reps are coming good when you can taste the iron tang of blood in the back of your throat. But It has been followed by the bilious after taste of quality street. Some work still to go. However, I have saved a fortune on chamois cream now that I'm secreting turkey fat at such a level that the harder I train the more comfortable my ass gets. Bonus! My pores are working overtime, letting out the produce of a small corner of Bordeaux. A lot has come out. Mer-lot. Coffee is good. Ups the heart-rate, promotes the burn. Along with snatched flat whites when the wife ain't watching, my sister bought me some Nespresso pods that were obviously roasted in Chernobyl. Campag may go to eleven, as the amps in Spinal Tap did, but these pods go to strength guide 12! Twelve for god's sake! So I have the shakes. And I don't sleep much. And if I wake in the early hours I go through endless crazy crap in my head. And Tabata sessions. And then I drift into the arms of Morpheus just before the alarm buzzes and I think I'm Richard Virenque waking to get my heart-rate up after another fleche of EPO. But really I'm just Joe Rossiter and I haven't slept coz I'm strung out on Caffeine and stress.****************************************************************************************************************************** And I hit the fruit and salads. Love bananas. But beetroot juice feels like the taste you get when you have crashed in the opening kilometre of the Des Hanlon [circa 2001] because a junior slipped his gears in front of you and you cop a mouthful of earth from the verge. It may raise your Nitric Oxide levels but it takes some getting used to. The fact that it looks like bottled blood in your fridge DOES give it an uber-cool factor though! Lettuce is not for human consumption. Onions empty a room. Eight kilos of salad is the equivalent in filling you up as two dry crackers. And how can you avoid cheese? Cheese is proof even to atheists that god loves us! A lock on the fridge {with a picture of David Gest to make it tamper proof} is the only answer. Awe hell, lets just get out there and leave the trans-fat trail for others to follow.