Ah the olive groves... thousands of acres of symmetric trees glistening in sun-speckled solitude. It must be the Tour of Andalusia that appears to burst from my tv.
Beautiful. But not reality. No indeed, while a whole bunch of mad Spaniards juiced to the gills flung themselves around the B roads of southern Spain real life was being played out on an insignificant piece of blacktop between Enniscorthy and Wexford.
Back story. Cue the music....
I brought my daughter to enniscorthy for a tennis camp. I planned to go cycling whilst she belted backhands and drank Robinsons. The missus wanted a fitbit from a shop in Wexford so I thought I'd kill two birds and enjoy the spin. Little did I know....
I love headwinds. When you turn around they become your friends. There I was having my eyebrows reshaped by a howling hoor of a southerly and making as much headway as a brexit negotiator when I ran into roadworks. This wasn't some farty old few yards of tar or line-painting. Oh no, this was a one mile stretch of crazy one-way-only that had me ringing my psychologist before the biscuit-eating, hipster-bearded Neanderthal sign-man turned the lollipop to 'Go'. I was now time crunched. Don't tell the missus but I jumped a creamery truck, now set free and pedalled like a gurning goat in it's slipstream at 71km/h.
So far so good. I turned in towards Wexford town and hit the Flandrien concrete roads along by the river with panache. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum for an eternity.
Drew Barrymore. She was the spit of Drew Barrymore. In looks anyway. Alas the good-time, girl-next-door Drew had been replaced by a humourless kid with the people skills of freddie Kruger. She didn't like that I had vouchers. Didn't like that I had a laser card too.Didn't like that I refused the insurance I could have with the product. I was the only customer in Argos but I wasn't feeling the love. It still needed a calendar to time the fitbit coming from the storeroom to front of shop. Like they were busy. Once outside and with a quick glance at the Garmin I knew it was serious. Would I make it to enniscorthy on time to pick up my daughter? Cue tense music....
I retraced my pedal strokes. Concrete roads. Check. Traffic lights. Check. Jump a truck? Check. Don't tell the missus but I jumped a concrete delivery truck and maxed out my gears at 73km/h. Avoided a suicidal pensioner in Oylegate. She only seemed to look left. French I assume. Shimmied a shite-fest of epic proportions thanks to a slurry carrying farmer and rode into enniscorthy with 3 minutes to spare. And brown in colour. Pretty.
My daughter beamed as I rolled in just as she finished up. My heart soared. Because I'd timetrialled like an animal for 40 minutes and felt like vomiting.
Lidl car park New Ross. 30 minutes later. Exit the car. Get a cramp akin to childbirth. Lean against the car screaming. All in a day's work. Kill two birds? Enjoy the spin? D'ya know what? I Did!!🤣😣
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Spring Sportif
As a first event of the year the Barrow 100 Sportif is a cracker. Helped by sunshine and seasonal cold, to all participants it feels like coming home. And that's just the sign-on! In reality it is different things to different people. We all want to shake off the carnage of Christmas and see where we stand.
However some of us want to complete, others compete, yet more want to delete. 100k is no joke. Just cycling that distance in one go takes it out of you. Add in trying to stay with 180 other humans, each and every one with a different viewpoint and goal and completing isn't a given. Competing is another kettle of fish. Some live on Zwift. Some do 15 hours a week. Some turn themselves inside out in the shed/ garage/ mancave doing ferocious efforts in the depths of Winter. Some just go cycling when they can. ALL arrive on February 10th with a hunger that no food will fix. Road hunger.
And what of delete? Last year's poor form. A change of club that brings pastures new. Past mistakes; Not enough food and drinks. Over/ under-dressed. Mistakes to be rectified, problems to be solved. Delete the past, evolve, learn.
Weather apps, surfers, old farmers and TV channels are scoured for the wind, temperature and moisture content of a three hour segment on a given Sunday. Your kitchen table begins to take the shape of a meteorology laboratory what with your apps and laptop. Makes Met Eireann look stone-age. Clothes choice is whittled down as weather patterns are confirmed. Saturday night, as your friends sink pints and flick peanuts in the air to catch like seals would a fish, you have your gear laid out in order of putting on. Tyres at requisite pressure [grippy/ not too slippy]. Salt in the bottle. Bananas and gels. Everything charged.
Thank God, out on the road all is forgotten. It's a meet and greet. A reunion on a grand scale. Platonic speed-dating. "Ah Jaysus how are you lad???", "Good my friend!", and we are all back together again in a social sense, moving up and down the lines like soldiers on the Somme. Then without further adieu the poop hits the fan. We turn towards a cutting wind that comes at us from the Comeragh mountains. It smells of ragged sheep and icicles. Conversation stops. All we hear is a headwind licking past our ears, parting our eye-brows and stretching what was a 200 metre, smiling, cycling snake into a one kilometre long road kill. By kilometre 25 you've got it or had it. This wasn't the plan. Neither was seeing full-timers or those back from Gran Canaria attack like there's a first place. The soup at the finish will be delicious but I don't think it's a prize. So the horse has bolted and what's left are 'riders' or 'hiders'. Riders keep pushing at the front causing momentum to move us all forward. Hiders sink into tiny gaps and shadows, unable to be up the road making the race. Instead they stay out of the wind, conserve energy and leave the work to others. They can fit their front wheel into the one inch of road you leave in the gutter, in order to arrive at the last few hills rested, 50 mile-phantoms. And the other riders, the ones that didn't make the split in the headwind; They are the day's real winners. A slog in a small group or solo is a religious experience akin to purgatory. You hope to make it to the finish but most of your day is suspended just above hell. Any old goat can hide. Real cyclists are the ones that look like ghosts at day's end.
Picturesque Inistioge is an oxymoron. Here is where grimaces and pulled faces and pure carnage constricts the best of us and hands us our hopes in a bag. Everyone feels the few kilometres of vertical. No jersey or wheels or gears or prayer prevents pain up there. Gravity turns your blood to gravy and your hopes to mush. Your incantations to God fall on deaf ears. It's your own tough if, instead of twelve o'clock mass you are waylaid on a hillside in South Kilkenny by your own short-comings. A decade of the rosary won't lift cramp or double-vision. But if you pray long enough you'll crest the hill and breathe again.
New Ross is a beautiful place. After 99 kilometres of self-inflicted mutilation, arriving at the town limits is akin to seeing the promised land. Or a Saharan mirage. Minutes later you are holding a group post-mortem with your similarly dead-legged friends. Wolfing down the prized soup and eating the weight of a Spanish climber in sandwiches. A wave of euphoria, the release of the endorphins of relief, and in no time you are bigging-up next year. And then you try to stand up....
However some of us want to complete, others compete, yet more want to delete. 100k is no joke. Just cycling that distance in one go takes it out of you. Add in trying to stay with 180 other humans, each and every one with a different viewpoint and goal and completing isn't a given. Competing is another kettle of fish. Some live on Zwift. Some do 15 hours a week. Some turn themselves inside out in the shed/ garage/ mancave doing ferocious efforts in the depths of Winter. Some just go cycling when they can. ALL arrive on February 10th with a hunger that no food will fix. Road hunger.
And what of delete? Last year's poor form. A change of club that brings pastures new. Past mistakes; Not enough food and drinks. Over/ under-dressed. Mistakes to be rectified, problems to be solved. Delete the past, evolve, learn.
Weather apps, surfers, old farmers and TV channels are scoured for the wind, temperature and moisture content of a three hour segment on a given Sunday. Your kitchen table begins to take the shape of a meteorology laboratory what with your apps and laptop. Makes Met Eireann look stone-age. Clothes choice is whittled down as weather patterns are confirmed. Saturday night, as your friends sink pints and flick peanuts in the air to catch like seals would a fish, you have your gear laid out in order of putting on. Tyres at requisite pressure [grippy/ not too slippy]. Salt in the bottle. Bananas and gels. Everything charged.
Thank God, out on the road all is forgotten. It's a meet and greet. A reunion on a grand scale. Platonic speed-dating. "Ah Jaysus how are you lad???", "Good my friend!", and we are all back together again in a social sense, moving up and down the lines like soldiers on the Somme. Then without further adieu the poop hits the fan. We turn towards a cutting wind that comes at us from the Comeragh mountains. It smells of ragged sheep and icicles. Conversation stops. All we hear is a headwind licking past our ears, parting our eye-brows and stretching what was a 200 metre, smiling, cycling snake into a one kilometre long road kill. By kilometre 25 you've got it or had it. This wasn't the plan. Neither was seeing full-timers or those back from Gran Canaria attack like there's a first place. The soup at the finish will be delicious but I don't think it's a prize. So the horse has bolted and what's left are 'riders' or 'hiders'. Riders keep pushing at the front causing momentum to move us all forward. Hiders sink into tiny gaps and shadows, unable to be up the road making the race. Instead they stay out of the wind, conserve energy and leave the work to others. They can fit their front wheel into the one inch of road you leave in the gutter, in order to arrive at the last few hills rested, 50 mile-phantoms. And the other riders, the ones that didn't make the split in the headwind; They are the day's real winners. A slog in a small group or solo is a religious experience akin to purgatory. You hope to make it to the finish but most of your day is suspended just above hell. Any old goat can hide. Real cyclists are the ones that look like ghosts at day's end.
Picturesque Inistioge is an oxymoron. Here is where grimaces and pulled faces and pure carnage constricts the best of us and hands us our hopes in a bag. Everyone feels the few kilometres of vertical. No jersey or wheels or gears or prayer prevents pain up there. Gravity turns your blood to gravy and your hopes to mush. Your incantations to God fall on deaf ears. It's your own tough if, instead of twelve o'clock mass you are waylaid on a hillside in South Kilkenny by your own short-comings. A decade of the rosary won't lift cramp or double-vision. But if you pray long enough you'll crest the hill and breathe again.
New Ross is a beautiful place. After 99 kilometres of self-inflicted mutilation, arriving at the town limits is akin to seeing the promised land. Or a Saharan mirage. Minutes later you are holding a group post-mortem with your similarly dead-legged friends. Wolfing down the prized soup and eating the weight of a Spanish climber in sandwiches. A wave of euphoria, the release of the endorphins of relief, and in no time you are bigging-up next year. And then you try to stand up....
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