Cancellara or cancelled? What will it be?

 

CANCELLARA OR CANCELLED. WHAT WILL IT BE?

Finally the evenings have gotten long enough to cycle for hours before dark and with it come the midweek time trial leagues that crop up all over the country. Always a great way to get safely into cycle racing, these local, good humoured events are a gem. Yet rocking up to your very first can be a daunting experience. Don’t know your tri-spoke from your aero tuck? Here then, is a guide to help you get started against the clock.

Firstly, do not be intimidated! It is easy to feel inadequate at the dazzling cycling jewellery on display. And yes, there’ll be a dozen bikes that each cost more than your car. However, the dude astride more carbon than the HAAS F1 team might be able to quote savings of 10 watts over 20 kilometres but he was eating Red Cheddar by the pound last night so don’t be worrying! Time Trials are a test of yourself, not Cervelo’s latest offering. Your local time trial is nothing like Eurosport, so some riders may look like a Pepperami but most are far from typical. Portly, middle-aged, school-goers, 8 feet tall… the evening time trial has it all. So don’t let the one with the sports-balm slathered legs or ego the size of their gluteus maximus put you off.

Secondly, while aerodynamics are very important, it’s what you do with it that counts. So don’t be fooled! Of course there are helmets that resemble a stealth bomber over Iraq but if you constantly turn around to see where your rivals are then you may as well be wearing a hat like Doctor Seuss! If like me, you find all your jerseys have turned into skinsuits in recent years, then you are fine. However, there will always be the looks-like-a-gnarly-ex-pro fella pried into his extra small aero suit one size above a baby grow. He may look fast but he’ll be speaking like an 11-year-old Aled Jones in the weeks ahead. As regards overshoes, a recent study in the Mongolian Centre for Yak and Sports Research has shown that one millimeter of sock sticking out over the top of an aerodynamic overshoe will cost you half a second per 100 kilometres in a tailwind. Fact.

Thirdly, fitness is where it all starts. Ask yourself the following questions to test your fitness; Have you had the top-tube of your bike re-sprayed recently because your gut is rubbing the paint off? When you stand in front of a mirror does your frontal profile look lean yet your side profile look like you are in the second trimester? When standing, can you see your shoes? If, having answered these questions truthfully, you still want to race this evening then at least you are not lacking the fourth step;

Confidence; Did I tell you about the fella that regularly gets placed in the time trial leagues around here. On a standard road bike. With standard wheels. Wearing a standard helmet. That is confidence. Or as Boonen said, “Sometimes you don’t need a plan, you just need big balls.” You see, if you feel strong, have put in the work, believe in yourself, then….  You see, newcomers are often put off by the swish of disc wheels, the death-stares, the deep-veined legs resembling a map of the Mekong Delta. That’s all for show. At evening’s end, talent will out.

Fifthly; Time Triallists are an eclectic mix. Prepare yourself. When you roll into the carpark you’ll be accosted by every conceivable type. Just observe while describing them to yourself in a David Attenborough accent. There are the sixty-something retirees that do a hundred miles every other day and probably have an ass a blacksmith could use for an anvil. In the corner is the one doing it for fun with the handlebars higher than the saddle. These are the Fidos, as they sit up and beg. You’ll also find the Praying Mantis types, their fore-arms an inch from their heads as they ride their tri-bars in a scrunched up, unique style. You might meet Mister Bean, the agitated young fella on his eighth espresso; a man so caffeinated he can’t talk, sit or hold eye contact. And he won’t sleep tonight either. And don’t forget the Lisinopril candidate, stress central. Yes, there is always one with high blood pressure. Is my brake rubbing?!? Are the tyre pressures wrong because there is a cold front on the forecast?! Should I have gone for the 80mm front wheel instead of the 50mm?! Why is the Garmin not syncing?! Yes indeed, one man’s simple decision can be another’s tachycardia.

And you! Yes you! The newbie! Fresh to this game. First night at a TT and you will either A] Warm up too much and be empty after the start line. B] Talk too much, do no warm up and calve within a kilometre. C] Ask the organizer on eight occasions what your start time is. D] Lean too far over when the starter holds you and ride into a parked car when you hear the word ‘go!’ E] Overdo the pre-workout drink the muscle-bound silver-back in the gym swore by, and jump a five bar gate to slurry a field. F] Take a wrong turn and do the fastest time until someone realizes what happened. G] Really enjoy yourself, find your calling and wonder why you never did this before.

A few agonizing miles later and you cross the line buckled. The colour has drained from your face, your butt is shredded, the last time your heart rate was this high your doctor had mentioned a prostate exam. Yet suddenly, uncontrollably, that grimace transforms into a grin and you realise that pain has given way to a contentment rarely found. Turns out, everyone there has a similar story to your own to relate. On the way home you transform from a newbie to a member of the Time Trial Community, eagerly counting down the days to next week’s race.

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.