Day release

I was lucky to spend Thursday on a hill a few miles from here, mountain bike in hand. I was out accompanying students as they learned skills and had a scoot around the fire roads. And within a few minutes of checking out the trails I was in my mid twenties again and reliving adventures. ########################################## I got into dirt trails and mud when I lived in Dublin city centre. Strange, right? I picked up a lurid green hacker when I was in 2nd year in college. My Dad had passed and the four walls of UCD were painful. So biking, as always, was the Xanax for me. The funny thing about Dublin is that it has the Phoenix Park. It is huge. It fits a lot in. Of course it has the president's house, although he may find it too big. Of course it has the Zoo, although from what I remember some people living nearby on the North Circular Road should have been in it. In 1979 the park played host to Pope John Paul 2 and a million people. And a stones throw away was the rent-boy enclave of the Khyber Pass. How do I know? Because right in the middle of it was a fantastic mountain bike course that ran over ridges, a stream, down into the magazine fort and up through the woods. It was spectacular and relatively unknown. Mountain biking wasn't big, the park was though, so I could pop over from Rathmines, thrash myself stupid and let off some steam, usually alone unless the rent boys were up in the trees. Some craic. ########################################### Eventually I got better at the sport and drifted in and out of it as I have done with most things in life. I even raced once on that same course in the Phoenix Park. Minus the rent boys. But I got as far as riding two National Championships. And they were night and day. The first one was somewhere in Tipperary I think in '96. I dragged the girlfriend down to it on the bus and she dragged her sister with her. We stayed in a B+B and I got an early night because I was working as a bicycle courier 5 days a week and was knackered. The girlfriend and her sister headed out for a beer and I slept like a lamb... until 3am when she came back and climbed in the window so as not to wake the house. I wouldn't sleep another wink as her elephant-trumpet, drink-induced snoring rattled the window. Next day I flew around for the first hour of the race. It was hot. I remember feeling relieved when we hit the woods as it was cool while I felt like I'd visited Malaysia every time we went out across the open pasture area. My girlfriend was supposed to hand me a bottle half way through but every time I passed the pit she either wasn't there or was looking the wrong way. I remember on the second last lap hitting the woods flying and then I just crumpled. I came out of the woods as dry and useless as a ten day old ham sandwich. I think I was 6th but I'd been 3rd for 80% of the race. I remember being lapped by Robin Seymour on a section that needed ropes and a sherpa. (At least dehydration made me feel that way). As I pushed my bike, he cycled up it like he was out shopping. And had enough breath to encourage me too. Oh yeah and I remember it was a long, quiet bus ride back to the city. They say you should never put the keys to your happiness in someone else's pocket. Wasn't long before I got my keys back. ############################################ A couple of years later,'98, I'm home from Spain, unemployed and cycling every day. And I'm cajoled into riding the nationals in carrigbyrne, where I was last Thursday with the students. I just remember trees and smiling a lot. It was and is a 'challenging' course. If by challenging you mean exhausting/ death-defying and ruthless. You climb a lot and it gets steep, narrow, steeper and then...impossible. You get over the top and hit a downhill path that requires nerves of steel. The main course is of single track and fire road and an eye-watering descent to the bottom to press repeat and do it all again. Enthusiasm, support and being the local boy got me through 2 of the laps but my facial expressions were changing for the worst every time I passed Edno Delaney the photographer at the top. Eventually I stopped smiling and I presume he stopped taking my photo...🤦‍♂️. ####################I said it was ruthless; some awesome dude ahead of me didn't avoid a tree on a tight bend. In my experience you should avoid the trees. Blood and mangled metal followed. He fell and took bark off the tree with his forehead. And the guy behind fell on top of him. My day? I just remember pain. My ass was like mango chutney and my legs just two long cramps from pushing uphill for half of every lap. And having to cycle those miles home. God bless my Mother, I imagine I ate the family's food for the week at one sitting. ########################################### So there I am up that hill again with students and instructors and I had a ball. Why? I guess it's because I wasn't racing. I don't mean because I race like an electrocuted turkey at the best of times. I mean I stopped and had a look around. Had a laugh, enjoyed the trails and challenges without racing them full on. When you race you see a place differently. If you see it at all. Watching the students laughing, skidding, falling off and just 'being' looked a whole lot more fun than what I used to do. Going home splattered with muck was never as much fun. Will I be out there again? Does a bear shi... Well, you know I will!

Reasons why I still cycle

Why on earth do I love to go cycling? I mean, lets face it, it would be easier to quit, wouldn't it? The odds are stacked, the world has changed, I've put in enough pedal revolutions.... Yes it would be easy. And there's probably a lot of people that would rather I went away, took up hill-walking or watched Coronation street. 

There are 1059 wheel bearings that would be relieved. Some are crushed, rusted old things after horrible winters, others mere victims of my ViseGrip. They lie in the dust of the shed now, corpses... killed by my ignorance. Add egg-shaped wheels, buckled rims that move like drunken fools, or chains that have been worn to the texture of tinfoil by my inability to care for a bicycle. The shed is a graveyard to beaten bikes. My old friend Adrian used to be wide-eyed when I'd wheel my racer into his workshop. Odd-sized bearings, overtightened nuts and perished cables were the starter for him, the main course was often catastrophic. 🤦‍♂️ Yes, even my bikes would thank me now if I left them in the shed to chat with the split tyres, bent chainrings and pieces of lurid bar tape with the oily smell of GT80 and WD40 for company. 

 

As regards people, sure it is impossible not to annoy someone on life's journey. Apparently I don't mind falling out with people. I'd imagine there's a queue wishing that I'd go away. That's why I post cycling pics on social media and keep showing up. Why I un-retire a lot. Those I call friends now, after almost 35 years in cycling, are awesome. They understand our fragile place in the world. I have friends still with me from the start. And yet some of the best chats and biggest smiles I've had in cycling are in the last few years. 21 year-olds spur me on with their enthusiasm; 75 year-olds share nuggets of wisdom I'd never have bothered with way back when. 

I have calmed over the years and know I belong. But cycling hasn't always been a welcoming experience. Now newbies to the sport laugh at the old rules. Back in the day you had to do something like an apprenticeship to be accepted. You shouldn't have to do an apprenticeship to earn respect. I am an oldie but I've always liked a healthy helping of disregard for old rules, usually made up by old fools. We all have a bad side to us and as long as everyone realises that then we can get along. Doesn't matter if its the GAA or soccer or chess.

 And lets not forget life on the road. When I cycled in the '80s fluoro, hi-viz colours were a fashion statement, not a lifeline. Drivers actually respected us; There's a thought! I now have my lights charged and quiet roads planned for my Sunday spin. I'll still encounter countless head cases trying to remind me who is boss even though the fight isn't quite equal. I may be a tad overweight but I'm not a car. So hang on a minute! If I haven't as many friends (and no spare parts) willing to keep me going, let alone safe roads, then why cycle? I suppose I could just scroll Instagram and stare at the impossibly beautiful, unlikely, fit, happy, lucky, wrinkle-free and colourful people. I could Netflix myself into a ball or drink wine until I'd forgotten where I'd come from or where I was supposed to be headed. But that isn't real. Real is real. Ups and downs and the in-betweens. I have a love of the outdoors and the people I find in it. I have a love for the road and what it teaches me. I have a love for nature and my place in it, as I have a love of those that have joined me along the way. If you shared that with me over the last 35 years then thank you. Life throws us all curve balls but the one thing that has kept me together is that road. My counsellor, my coach, my friend of 35 wholesome years. I'm not about to give up on it any time soon.