Sunday, June 24, 2018

Ready steady Eddie

Flashbacks.
Tyres pumped so hard before a time trial we couldn't make the slightest impression upon them.
Blue blazer wearing commissaire holding us back at the start of a race, keeping us warm in the midday chill by poking fun at all of us.
Meeting him at the zoo with his daughter and him being such a family man.
Ah yes. Eddie Tobin.
Every time I think of him there's sunlight. Apt then that I rode my last Eddie Tobin memorial race today in beautiful sunshine. Clean, perfect, kingdom-of-heaven sunshine. Was talking about him as I sat in the shade before the race. Sat like a poncho wearing Mexican. 24 degrees by God! Yup, Eddie was about, a divilish smile as we clicked in and rode out. He would have smiled too at the faces around the races. A bunch of folk that would have known him.
So where do I come into it? Well I don't really. I raced, I raced well. I've learned. It took a while. Three decades give or take. I did everything right but didn't bother the top ten. You know those old newsreels of nuclear explosions in Nevada? That was me at 75 measly metres from the line. Gone from the podium to needing Imodium in the blink of an eye. The writing isn't just on the wall, it's graffiti on my soul at this point. "Go home old timer!" or "this is a young man's game!". Yup, graffiti. As if Banksy himself was getting anxsty with my presence.
As a result this season has felt like a farewell tour of sorts. I'm saying goodbye to the people that formed me. Some of them,to our loss,have races called after them. I'm saying goodbye too to the people that race with me now. Very young to very wise.... And those that don't know I exist; those weekend gods I've always admired from afar.(Not in a weird way, just wanting to BE them rather than BEAT them.)
And in the last while all of those I've started out with or clashed with or met or lost have whittled down to a few that actually know me. Thats not as brutal as it sounds. Let's face it, cycling is a solitary pursuit. So we might turn up like Roman gladiators to do battle on odd sundays but otherwise we are... well... hermits. We hide away, use cycling as our spiritual waypoint, and do a very violent and contrived, nasty and physical mass of a Sunday. Imagine it! A cyclist's Sunday service is one where we lie, outsmart and rejoice in the beating of our fellow human beings!
So for me to call a few people REAL friends that know me isn't so terrible. I also realise I'm a good person. Every human is questionable, however, cycling mixed with the crazy sh##e of life of late has taught me that I'm ok.
And full circle brought me via Eddie and a galaxy of superb human beings over 3 decades of falling in and out of love with my chosen sport. So I feel like a stoned Californian with a spliff in hand on the beach at Aya Napa... I've found myself. By losing myself in the fellowship of the chainring.





Ah hold on a minute. Even by my poor standards, that's a cop out.
What's the moral of the story? I'm kicking on 50 years old. Great if I'm a Ruby Port. I'm not. Today I raced against people 31 years younger. Want me to repeat that? And the dude at the roadside with the broken collarbone? It's all fun and games until someone can't go to work. I don't bounce like I used to do. Time is in shorter supply than morals in the Dail. I thought I could juggle but I make Bobo the clown look pro. The kids like having me around. It's time to hang up the wheels. Figuratively, as they are nice wheels and would be wasted on a wall. And as all this is happening, I've been surrounded by the coolest people on planet earth. Fact.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Tied to the mast

What the hell? I mean, it's odd enough to sneak out at 7am, wending my way down the hill in lycra, an ungodly hour to be going anywhere. So imagine my surprise to find the boardwalk at the Dunbrody famine ship thronged with Japanese tourists. I mean, whats the Japanese for "get out of my way, I need to take a selfie!" anyway? It was a mutual thing in the end. They stared at me like I was a lunatic cyclist at 7am cycling in the fog, I stared at them as if they were camera toting tourists on a whirlwind tour of...New Ross.
But I got my selfie, thinking it was gonna be a weird day. My plan was to ride from sea level to the highest point in the province. So I needed a selfie with the masts in the background, the intention being to book-end it with a t.v. mast selfie up on mt Leinster. 55 mile round trip. Easy peasy...eh...japanesy?
Japanese tourists were the least of my worries.
I scooted along, finally feeling relaxed for the first time in a couple of months. It was warm. Shorts and short sleeves after 7 in the morning is normally reserved for Marbella. I assumed it would be cold 795 metres higher. Doh!
Just like a cheap spaghetti western I encountered omens. A road-kill cat that seemed to have been annihilated from four different directions. He didn't look happy. He'd have made a fine imitation lion-skin rug for a sitting room.
A texting driver on my side of the road.
A buzzard circled near the mountain. I hoped it was looking for a non-lycra-clad breakfast. From down in the valley it's wingspan resembled a hang-glider from hell.
I wound my way to the lower slopes and smiled. The mountain was shrouded in mist. I wouldn't be able to see the scale of the leviathan I'd chosen to assault. Mt Leinster climbs in a series of punishing ramps. The narrow road clings to the mountain side, it's sheer nastiness visible all the way on a clear day. Not today.
I passed broken glass at the bottom. A vodka bottle. Huzzar. Wasn't 'huzzah!' a celebration first exclaimed in Shakespeare's time? Why am I thinking about this anyway? Altitude. Must be kicking in. Or perhaps it's this bit of road, the Dying Sow? Nothing like a stretch of asphalt named like that to concentrate the mind!
And up I went defying gravity, for beer bellies are meant to stay at sea level. And then there was a bunch of horses on the road. Wild ones, calling the Blackstairs their home. Well, obviously they can't speak so they don't actually call anything, well... anything. They parted to let me on up the hillside. One of them looked at me pitifully and shook his head. "Poor f##ker" I imagine he snickered in pony dialect.
And then I arrived at the gates of hell. The private road to the summit and destiny. A walker was 100 metres up the road and disappearing into thick mist. I followed. It took me 6 minutes to catch him. I was in my lowest gear almost immediately. That was a shock. As was the 19% gradient reading on the computer. That's steeper than any learning curve I've encountered! On passing the walker I discovered he had seen two decades more than me. We shared a quip about heavy breathing that in hindsight should have been accompanied by duelling banjoes and a hog roast. Maybe thats why the Dying Sow died? My pace quickened.
Around the only serious bend halfway up, the heat kicked in. I was at 2000 feet and I was blinded by sweat, my hands couldn't grip the 'bars and the tar under my wheels was soft! 18 degrees below the summit. I put my foot down to clear my eyes, remembered the walker behind me, and pushed on again. And the summit was closer than I thought, hidden in a humid fog.
Mt Leinster's summit is an anti-climax. You touch the galvanised gates, take a picture, and descend. Apart from a family of walkers milling around, it's lonely. Not far off 3000ft up, yet celebration amounts to a slowing of the thumping in your chest and a realisation that you've sweated so much you are about to freeze.
A couple of white knuckle minutes warms you instantly. Then you pass the horses again and wink, bunnyhop the huzzar bottle, outrun the buzzard coasting the thermals above you and, with the wind at your back you arrive almost elegantly back where you started, in time to bid 'sayonara' to your animated, camera-swinging Japanese buddies....