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!