Sunday, April 10, 2022

Rude awakenings

 Today was some day. It may have been colder than a polar bear's bottom, windier than the morning after a tandoori and tougher than Chuck Norris' biceps, yet it was epic. What was it? The Barrow 100 Sportif. Last year's event had been scuppered by the bat-bug and with a later than usual April date this year, the crazed, lunatic-fringe of gladiators in lycra were away racing. Yet it was one of the quickest 100 kilometres any of us had ever done.

But like any good tale, there has to be a back-story. Mine was a quick spin on Friday evening to check that the bike was functioning correctly. I call it a weapons check. Long story short I tried to corner like they do in speedway on a greasy corner and wound up on the ground leaving a nice rare-steak tattoo on my hip and elbow. [Yes, the bike was fine]. Saturday I wake up to what a medic calls a haematoma, a sizeable swelling on the hip. Cue a heady mixture of nurofen, lines of antiseptic powder and enough plasters to start my own A+E. I crossed more than my fingers.

And then I wake up today to an overcast, scaldy-cold and ominous day. My road rash stings like an ex-girlfriend's memory. Two coffees and a bucket of Weetabix later I'm up to the sign on. And out of the woodwork and a grey sky came dozens of cyclists. Damn near a hundred. And with them came the smiles and laughs and happiness that comes from a bunch of half-crazy, cycling-mad brethren. You have to be slightly eccentric to face an event like that on a day like that and actually like it.

All the old faces were there too along with the wrinkle-free, whippet-bodied carefree youths that could be my adult kids. The safe hands had already sign-posted the route, done all the safety stuff and stocked the kitchen for later and as the sign-on closed the road opened in front of us. Once out the gate I could see the bunch stretched out like a conga line of Sunday warriors. Brave souls to face the biting wind. And we were treated like pros. A motorcycle outrider, a Garda car at every hotspot, respectful motorists and a lead and service car. Tour de France treatment indeed.

Then a chance to catch up with people I hadn't spoken to in ages. There are new babies to be discussed, new clubs, new tandem partners to be congratulated too. And there is of course the shared relief of being there, after surviving a Global pandemic. The cycling community is awesome. A chance too to ogle flash new bikes like Wayne Rooney would a granny. There I was surrounded by bling yet I felt immeasurably proud on my older machine, not just because I was there but because I was passing and leaving behind a few of them.(Really I felt like a local boy racer rubbing shoulders with Lewis Hamilton) And when we turned after 25km and had the wind with us I was sure I would be dumped ignominiously at the road-side, heaving for breath while being passed by a procession of beautiful steeds and their smirking I-told-you-so jockeys. The group whittled down and down and finally the speed died a little just before my legs did. I ate like an episode of Man vs Food. I held on tighter than Jack to that piece of wreckage in Titanic. I chased like Liam Neeson in Taken. Every kilometre north was another box ticked because the last time I'd been here I'm pretty sure I had Covid. I hadn't been able to breath back then and was out of the game quicker than a Ukranian farmer robbing a tank.

Onto the sinuous back road with so many bends and gut-churning twists I thought I was at Alton Towers. I was in a group of ten and desperate to make up ground. I cut every corner as long as I didn't hear screams of 'car!', 'oops!' or 'shiiiiite!' from those that had rounded the bend first. Soon in Bennet's Bridge I made the mistake of rolling through too hard to give the lad at the front a dig out. I over-estimated him and under-estimated the headwind and found myself hitting the wall soon after. 70km of happiness was followed by 30km of the man with the hammer hitting me everywhere. I got cramps in my cramps. My eyebrows were parted by the headwind from hell. If I sat too long my legs screamed 'stand up!' and if I then stood for too long they shouted 'Sit down!' Yet despite how ragged I was, when I saw PJ the motorbike outrider on a bend in Thomastown, I gave out to myself and cornered nicely, smiling of course, all for show you understand! The lead car soon passed and if Seamus had lowered the window to say hello I'd have been sitting beside him before he'd have gotten the window back up. I was passed by a couple of clubmates later, just slightly less beaten up than me but still on the ropes. The silence said it all.

And then I realised I was nearly home. I was still top twenty, still moving forward, still going. And that euphoria crept in. Like a soldier who's leave comes through after a month in the trenches. A sense of survival. A sense of achievement. Okay, I'd be walking like a hermit crab until Wednesday but....

And then I was home and dry and the crew was there and the pain disappeared and I had the chats and realised that the club had looked after everyone so well from start to finish, leaving nothing to chance. And I felt like the luckiest fella around. Soup and congratulations, biscuits and commiserations. Either way everyone was smiling. 

























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