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.