Doctor Hutch in Cycling Weekly often speaks of his cycling buddy Bernard, a semi-fictional friend who often becomes the butt of funny incidences. My Coach's friend Russell is the same. Even though I've met him, the way Coach talk's about him its obvious he is semi-fictitious....
And in my life right now its Mick. Honestly, he exists! Mick is a mine of information and generally has me in stitches on an average [steady-hard] bike ride. A reformed character once fuelled by IPA or a crisp, he is great company. Sunday was no different. He has a cold. I'd just feel miserable, hot and bothered by the remains of a chest-infection. Mick however was "sweating like a gypsy in a tax-office" after our first and only drag.
He is in the middle of beet harvesting at the moment. He has a super reliable harvester that seems to have nothing electronic in it's operation. Just levering and clutching to beat the band. Mick is understandably tired after a long, dawn to way-after-dusk day and I suggested it was like driving a stair-master. Stair-master? He wouldn't hear of it...driving a whole gym was more like it. For twelve hours a day. I was left picturing Flann O'Brien's character who cycled so much he was half bike/ half human.
And it's not all joking and joshing. Mick can speak in depth on most subjects that affect his fellow man. More cerebral than your average cross-bar jockey. The balance is there....Yet he has no time for the pretentious. Rounding a bend and encountering what I described as a murder of crows reciprocated a withering look from said Mick.
Somewhere in there on Sunday was a knee-op that became a...dare I say it...well, something quite sexual [You had to be there]...and be careful what emojis you use and when.... just make a good fist of it....
You wouldn't want to be afraid to pick up a shovel or brush around Mick either if needs be, you'd get a well deserved bol***king.
And as we are both early risers 'coz we have a lot to get back to, I'll mention this little gem from before 8am around harvest time.... Cresting a hill side by side somewhere not too far from Ramsgrange, Mick takes a sharp inhalation of the morning air, smiles, and says dead-pan..."I love the smell of Roundup first thing in the morning...!"
So what's the moral? Well I'm not very good at maths but if my friend Mick is anything to go by and there's lots of like-minded bike-nuts that I'd call friends, then an algorithm suggests that as a tribe, cyclists are generally good fun to be around. If I know lots of cyclists with both a sense of humour and a head full of ideas and opinions, then most cyclists must be as lucky as me, so exponentially the world is full of fun-lovin' cyclists by the thousand. Go find your Bernard or Russell or Mick, laugh out loud, shoot the breeze, inhale the Roundup and live a little.
Monday, November 6, 2017
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Happy Anniversary
My Dad passed away 24 year's ago tomorrow, the 16th of October. I knelt in mass this morning at 9am looking around me for calm and inspiration. Knelt in the same pew with my brother as my Dad would have.
I tried to get into my father's head, wondering what he would have been wondering at early mass long ago, long before that blondie-haired Joe arrived. 1940s. Was he like me? Thinking of the race ahead? Thinking of what he had to do? Would his bag be packed in Cross Lane, ready for the great escape? Wondering was he, too, constantly worried as I am these days? Did a darkened church clear his head occasionally but not always too?
I know he worked himself into a box. From the poor diet of the war years through long, wet and cold incessant days on the buildings, stress, and never the pay he deserved for the hardship endured. I know I don't share his work ethic or morals but I did inherit his ready smile and compunction to see the good in others. I surely don't share his engine either. Maybe I have his need to exceed and compete but only in sporting terms.
I tried to get into my father's head, wondering what he would have been wondering at early mass long ago, long before that blondie-haired Joe arrived. 1940s. Was he like me? Thinking of the race ahead? Thinking of what he had to do? Would his bag be packed in Cross Lane, ready for the great escape? Wondering was he, too, constantly worried as I am these days? Did a darkened church clear his head occasionally but not always too?
I know he worked himself into a box. From the poor diet of the war years through long, wet and cold incessant days on the buildings, stress, and never the pay he deserved for the hardship endured. I know I don't share his work ethic or morals but I did inherit his ready smile and compunction to see the good in others. I surely don't share his engine either. Maybe I have his need to exceed and compete but only in sporting terms.
He, like me, couldn't sit still much.
And in that pew this morning I looked up to see the gilt-edged frames of yesteryear containing the stations of the cross. Right beside my seat was 'Jesus is stripped of his garments'. I was instantly snapped back seventy years to the corner of a sloppy field in Kilinieran in north Wexford. My Dad, then a pigeon-chested young athlete was stripping off his cross-country kit in exchange for dry gear in order to take on the long cycle home. No cars, no cash, no regrets. And he was smiling and joking with my uncle Mick and the gang. And I was sucked back into mass and he was gone again.
An hour after mass I pulled on my skinsuit in a parking lot in Oylegate.
I'm not pigeon-chested or ever been Leinster champion but I still smiled and shook hands with all those I care for. I belonged. I didn't shed a tear at the coincidence until I was warming up on the road towards Wexford. I cycled. I looked at the ploughed furrows in countless fields and felt, definitely felt, the season and the reason and tick-tick-ticked to the make-shift start-line and laughed with the time-keeper.
And for the first time in a very long time...I time-trialled fast and well. I didn't win. Not close. But I became my old self for the ten minutes it took me to cover five miles. I didn't panic. I started easy and opened the taps one kilometre in. Never changed position and rarely changed gear. I was alone and switched on. My heart was free and functioning, my blood warm and flowing but in someway stone cold, for I felt like bending the bike under me. My grimace was a smile when I glimpsed my gold chain, just a beautiful blur.
I know how my Dad must have felt when he won alone [and that was often]. Kill it, drive it, push, push, push until you are away from all the pain and stress and carnage that life hurls. You cast open your vestments and bare your chest to life and God and the elements and know you are free...absolved from it all.
If only for a precious moment in time.
And in that pew this morning I looked up to see the gilt-edged frames of yesteryear containing the stations of the cross. Right beside my seat was 'Jesus is stripped of his garments'. I was instantly snapped back seventy years to the corner of a sloppy field in Kilinieran in north Wexford. My Dad, then a pigeon-chested young athlete was stripping off his cross-country kit in exchange for dry gear in order to take on the long cycle home. No cars, no cash, no regrets. And he was smiling and joking with my uncle Mick and the gang. And I was sucked back into mass and he was gone again.
An hour after mass I pulled on my skinsuit in a parking lot in Oylegate.
I'm not pigeon-chested or ever been Leinster champion but I still smiled and shook hands with all those I care for. I belonged. I didn't shed a tear at the coincidence until I was warming up on the road towards Wexford. I cycled. I looked at the ploughed furrows in countless fields and felt, definitely felt, the season and the reason and tick-tick-ticked to the make-shift start-line and laughed with the time-keeper.
And for the first time in a very long time...I time-trialled fast and well. I didn't win. Not close. But I became my old self for the ten minutes it took me to cover five miles. I didn't panic. I started easy and opened the taps one kilometre in. Never changed position and rarely changed gear. I was alone and switched on. My heart was free and functioning, my blood warm and flowing but in someway stone cold, for I felt like bending the bike under me. My grimace was a smile when I glimpsed my gold chain, just a beautiful blur.
I know how my Dad must have felt when he won alone [and that was often]. Kill it, drive it, push, push, push until you are away from all the pain and stress and carnage that life hurls. You cast open your vestments and bare your chest to life and God and the elements and know you are free...absolved from it all.
If only for a precious moment in time.
Monday, October 9, 2017
Gluten free roulade.
Always fancied myself as a rouleur. I can do most things on a bike quite well. Its hard enough to drop me up a hill, I can win the odd sprint and whilst I dislike time-trials I know I'm not the worst at them. That all may change soon. A slice of roulade yesterday made me think. Well, ok, more than a slice of roulade. It was a conversation about diet and diets that did it. Turns out I should be changing a few things. Getting the weight manageable, leaving out certain toxic foods, you know the drill. This conversation took place over a superb roulade. And as I cycled home I pondered if a gluten-free anything was as good as the full-sugar, full diabetes-inducing bad stuff I'm used to. I persuaded myself that I felt light-headed because there was no sugar rush. And ate a banana. Which apparently isn't totally right either. So its looking more roulade than rouleur next season.
I've been looking at organic meats lately and realising I'm not rich enough. Honestly, the price of an organic chicken in some places has me picturing a hen doing a pimp-strut down the supermarket aisle weighed down with gold chains. Like a Mr T with feathers. And without the Snickers diet. Ham is the same. A chunk of organic ham is equal to the price of a whole pig in some places. And then, as was pointed out to me, I'd be boiling it in fluoride-rich water which would probably undo all the good. And farmed salmon seems to be so toxic that a weekend sunbathing in Chernobyl would be preferable. But if I stay eating as I am I won't be IN the grupetto next year, I'll BE the grupetto.
Still, I worry. Cellulite appears like a road map on my body. Albeit a road to nowhere. My arteries are hardening as the rest of me goes soft. What should I do? Today's foods cause me stress...Life's stresses make me want to eat. A dietary Catch-22.
Age isn't all bad. I know I'll have to work hard to shed weight and I'll just have to get to it. Also, weight might have a lot to do with it but there's plenty of skinny-latte cyclists not finishing races I'm doing and likewise I've been roundly beaten [pardon the pun] by guys much heavier than me, even on rolly courses. Diet isn't everything it seems. Beetroot juice made me flatulent as hell. So in theory it works if you count jet-propulsion. Gels are just a nicely wrapped version of a banana. Artificial monkey food. I thought keytones were the noises my house alarm buttons make. And over the roulade it was suggested to quit potatoes, breads and crisps. Lee Child had a novel a while back entitled "Worth Dying For". I thought it was about those three foods.
Sitting here writing I feel as if I'm in the middle of a perfect storm. Tiredness and stress are part and parcel of my life. Cycling helps. But so does wine [Merlot has loads of antioxidants!!!]. Food gives me energy and I don't have the time to belt out a salad of Nigella Lawson's standard. [Although I suspect she may be covering her lettuce in chocolate sauce....].Half a bakery a day fills the void and gives me the energy to play with the kids, bamboozle the students and fulfil family commitments on top of a sneaky spin. I know I'm slowly killing myself off and doing myself no favours but its all I've got to give right now. I might try fasted rides although I'm confused as I thought a fasted ride was getting the shift outside the Colosseum disco before you got to the chipper....
the excesses of Summer holidays
I've been looking at organic meats lately and realising I'm not rich enough. Honestly, the price of an organic chicken in some places has me picturing a hen doing a pimp-strut down the supermarket aisle weighed down with gold chains. Like a Mr T with feathers. And without the Snickers diet. Ham is the same. A chunk of organic ham is equal to the price of a whole pig in some places. And then, as was pointed out to me, I'd be boiling it in fluoride-rich water which would probably undo all the good. And farmed salmon seems to be so toxic that a weekend sunbathing in Chernobyl would be preferable. But if I stay eating as I am I won't be IN the grupetto next year, I'll BE the grupetto.
Still, I worry. Cellulite appears like a road map on my body. Albeit a road to nowhere. My arteries are hardening as the rest of me goes soft. What should I do? Today's foods cause me stress...Life's stresses make me want to eat. A dietary Catch-22.
Age isn't all bad. I know I'll have to work hard to shed weight and I'll just have to get to it. Also, weight might have a lot to do with it but there's plenty of skinny-latte cyclists not finishing races I'm doing and likewise I've been roundly beaten [pardon the pun] by guys much heavier than me, even on rolly courses. Diet isn't everything it seems. Beetroot juice made me flatulent as hell. So in theory it works if you count jet-propulsion. Gels are just a nicely wrapped version of a banana. Artificial monkey food. I thought keytones were the noises my house alarm buttons make. And over the roulade it was suggested to quit potatoes, breads and crisps. Lee Child had a novel a while back entitled "Worth Dying For". I thought it was about those three foods.
Sitting here writing I feel as if I'm in the middle of a perfect storm. Tiredness and stress are part and parcel of my life. Cycling helps. But so does wine [Merlot has loads of antioxidants!!!]. Food gives me energy and I don't have the time to belt out a salad of Nigella Lawson's standard. [Although I suspect she may be covering her lettuce in chocolate sauce....].Half a bakery a day fills the void and gives me the energy to play with the kids, bamboozle the students and fulfil family commitments on top of a sneaky spin. I know I'm slowly killing myself off and doing myself no favours but its all I've got to give right now. I might try fasted rides although I'm confused as I thought a fasted ride was getting the shift outside the Colosseum disco before you got to the chipper....
the excesses of Summer holidays
Friday, October 6, 2017
Cycling's Silly Season
'Tis that time. Autumn. Time of change. The colours, the temperature, the air. For a racing cyclist its time to let off some steam with IPAs by the bucket, Hunky Dorys by the skip, Rioja by the vineyard and chicken boxes by, well... the box. In this downtime cyclists are prone to look inwardly and, as a result of not cycling enough to expend excess energy, find fault with themselves, their club or something that requires a bit of angst. It might just be the grease from the late night bag of sinful chips that makes us feel guilty and in need of venting our unhappiness. I know the vinegar does it for me.
Sometimes its easier to just go play soccer and pull a muscle. Sometimes we want to run cross-country or a whole marathon. That's good. That's focus. Sometimes we can drink enough to not think at all. But that has it's own drawbacks. Yep, unfortunately, we find time to think at some point.
Jumping ship is easy. You get to let everyone know how you feel and you go to another club and life is better. This happens. I know, we all know a lot of cyclists super happy in their present club. Like me. Actually, lets look at me for a minute. I left my present club a number of years ago and regretted it. I'd had a great season. My club mates were fundamental to that success. But I didn't recognise it at the time. I left and spent the next few years beating myself up about it. I was the problem. I had sat around at this time of year thinking I could do better elsewhere. I never once snapped out of my Leffe-induced coma of arrogance enough to realise that if I had even the tiniest problem with anyone it was up to me to fix it. A new club wasn't going to solve anything that I could fix myself. And I listened to others. Big mistake. Thankfully I've rectified that and, guess what? I've found my mojo again in the club I should never have left! Longest way round is the shortest way home and all that....
Look, sometimes you have to leave. You could be in a shambles. I have seen that in the last couple of years. There are sportif clubs that have little, lost racers in amongst their ranks who often deserve better.
Similarly there are racing clubs that can't or won't cater for anyone else. Sifting through old cycling calendars will show you a huge increase in the number of clubs. Cycling is booming. But take a closer look and you'll also see many towns with two or three clubs where there was one.
Makes you think!
Look, its completely natural. There's an inherent, Neanderthal want in us humans to expect or seek change in Autumn. There's also an inherent want in us Irish to take out our frustrations on everyone by saying nothing but doing something. Before you send that e-mail why don't you look in the mirror and ask yourself a couple of questions. How about looking at someone that changed clubs a couple of years ago. Are they better? Are they as adrift now as they were? Did they just need a coach? And how about you? Is your grievance one that you have internalised so much and argued with yourself about that really it probably only exists in your own head?
Or the flipside. Will you add something to a new club? Will you cause friction by joining another club? Did your racing year necessitate being part of a club at all? And the jersey...some of them are god awful. Only some clubs are great. Are you good enough? If you are a separatist in your present club won't you just be the same in another?
Really the off-season should be a time to buy beer for your club mates that really are great human beings that share the same mad passion for our gladiatorial sport. Does a silly season even exist considering racing is pure madness and the winter is for building ourselves up to that madness again? Isn't it all silly?
Sometimes its easier to just go play soccer and pull a muscle. Sometimes we want to run cross-country or a whole marathon. That's good. That's focus. Sometimes we can drink enough to not think at all. But that has it's own drawbacks. Yep, unfortunately, we find time to think at some point.
Jumping ship is easy. You get to let everyone know how you feel and you go to another club and life is better. This happens. I know, we all know a lot of cyclists super happy in their present club. Like me. Actually, lets look at me for a minute. I left my present club a number of years ago and regretted it. I'd had a great season. My club mates were fundamental to that success. But I didn't recognise it at the time. I left and spent the next few years beating myself up about it. I was the problem. I had sat around at this time of year thinking I could do better elsewhere. I never once snapped out of my Leffe-induced coma of arrogance enough to realise that if I had even the tiniest problem with anyone it was up to me to fix it. A new club wasn't going to solve anything that I could fix myself. And I listened to others. Big mistake. Thankfully I've rectified that and, guess what? I've found my mojo again in the club I should never have left! Longest way round is the shortest way home and all that....
Look, sometimes you have to leave. You could be in a shambles. I have seen that in the last couple of years. There are sportif clubs that have little, lost racers in amongst their ranks who often deserve better.
Similarly there are racing clubs that can't or won't cater for anyone else. Sifting through old cycling calendars will show you a huge increase in the number of clubs. Cycling is booming. But take a closer look and you'll also see many towns with two or three clubs where there was one.
Makes you think!
Look, its completely natural. There's an inherent, Neanderthal want in us humans to expect or seek change in Autumn. There's also an inherent want in us Irish to take out our frustrations on everyone by saying nothing but doing something. Before you send that e-mail why don't you look in the mirror and ask yourself a couple of questions. How about looking at someone that changed clubs a couple of years ago. Are they better? Are they as adrift now as they were? Did they just need a coach? And how about you? Is your grievance one that you have internalised so much and argued with yourself about that really it probably only exists in your own head?
Or the flipside. Will you add something to a new club? Will you cause friction by joining another club? Did your racing year necessitate being part of a club at all? And the jersey...some of them are god awful. Only some clubs are great. Are you good enough? If you are a separatist in your present club won't you just be the same in another?
Really the off-season should be a time to buy beer for your club mates that really are great human beings that share the same mad passion for our gladiatorial sport. Does a silly season even exist considering racing is pure madness and the winter is for building ourselves up to that madness again? Isn't it all silly?
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Mercatone uno
I doubt Marco Pantani was well impressed with Joe Rossiter when he slid past him and into the team camper van outside Dublin Castle in 1998. Its not like he would have thought "Wow, skinny feckers them Irish..." would he? I, on the other hand, was mesmerised by the diminutive climber. I mean he was just tiny. Tiny. Likewise Fernando Escartin the Spanish Kelme rider with the hook nose of Coppi. I wished him good luck in Spanish and he too was smaller than any good-sized chorizo I'd ever eaten in Madrid. They were heading for a team hotel after the Tour presentation for a good rest and an IV while I was plodding off with my pals to Temple Bar for Guinness and Tayto crisps. I know I'll never be that small or powerful or lean or talented but it just struck home today what damage I might have to undo just to be average.
As I said, Marbella in August was my Winter break. Add a slightly lax week of personal celebration after securing the local league and I now have a gut. Doing a new skinsuit justice is gonna take either a good tailor, surgery or a bucket-load of training starting tomorrow. Sobriety isn't always a given but its going to have to be from now on. And the watershed on TV is mimicked in my personal life by a similar limit. After 10pm if still awake...well, put on Liam Neeson's voice in Taken and picture me in a darkened kitchen talking to biscuits..."I will find you..." etc.
There's two things I can't afford to do any longer. Not training for any length of time is carcinogenic to my body. And a lack of sleep is my nemesis. I start back training tomorrow to shock my system. That's that. And so long as I get 5 hours of sleep a night I can in cycling terms only, keep going like Ron Jeremy.
I feel 'hungry for road' too. Still motivated. I know that putting in the miles will sort both moobs and mood at the same time. The only hormones my body may produce in common with Marco and Fernando will be serotonin and growth hormone but at least they won't be administered by a shady doctor in a hotel room. And in present circumstances where I'm not getting a lot of sleep due to stress, I could do with that Seratonin. Catch 22. The upside is I'm back to health. I can go cycling. Speaking to the Barber today, turns out he snapped his leg at his 50th Birthday party and won't ever ski again, a past time he is passionate about. And there's the dudes that go straight to pub or off-licence at the end of every working day to start the second shift...the one to oblivion. At least I pulled the halter before that beast had bolted.
I'm a lucky kid to be where I am, I just have to convince my body to tag along.
As I said, Marbella in August was my Winter break. Add a slightly lax week of personal celebration after securing the local league and I now have a gut. Doing a new skinsuit justice is gonna take either a good tailor, surgery or a bucket-load of training starting tomorrow. Sobriety isn't always a given but its going to have to be from now on. And the watershed on TV is mimicked in my personal life by a similar limit. After 10pm if still awake...well, put on Liam Neeson's voice in Taken and picture me in a darkened kitchen talking to biscuits..."I will find you..." etc.
There's two things I can't afford to do any longer. Not training for any length of time is carcinogenic to my body. And a lack of sleep is my nemesis. I start back training tomorrow to shock my system. That's that. And so long as I get 5 hours of sleep a night I can in cycling terms only, keep going like Ron Jeremy.
I feel 'hungry for road' too. Still motivated. I know that putting in the miles will sort both moobs and mood at the same time. The only hormones my body may produce in common with Marco and Fernando will be serotonin and growth hormone but at least they won't be administered by a shady doctor in a hotel room. And in present circumstances where I'm not getting a lot of sleep due to stress, I could do with that Seratonin. Catch 22. The upside is I'm back to health. I can go cycling. Speaking to the Barber today, turns out he snapped his leg at his 50th Birthday party and won't ever ski again, a past time he is passionate about. And there's the dudes that go straight to pub or off-licence at the end of every working day to start the second shift...the one to oblivion. At least I pulled the halter before that beast had bolted.
I'm a lucky kid to be where I am, I just have to convince my body to tag along.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Glutton intolerant
God almighty. So the gluten-free diet died a death after a few days. Beige food that tastes like a Cornflakes box and hard-bread alternatives that resemble beef jerky just ain't me. Likewise the wine instead of beer approach. I'd rather have a light beer occasionally rather than a bottle of wine that renders me comatose. Now if only I could stop impulse buying tortilla chips and family bars of Fruit and Nut chocolate, or, for that matter...eating anything resembling a sin, it would be great.
I'm at an age where every dietary mistake makes seeing my shoes less likely. If I race my bike I'm up against kids possessing the metabolisms of a rocket launcher. Their bodies haven't known stress, their minds are free of worries and they are as fresh as sushi. I on the other hand sometimes need a glass of wine to decompress. I have bills and kids and commitments. Food is often a Xanax alternative. I'm telling you...the odds are stacked.
Approaching fifty has left me with a few scars. A 32-inch waist is becoming a luxury. There's more grey-hair growth from my ears and nose than anywhere else. I'm beginning to grunt getting up from the sofa. 'Older' people seem to know my name. I could be a grandfather. I spend tea-breaks talking about aches and pains. I see problems as chores rather than challenges. I'd more easily unfriend rather than befriend. Actually, I must be a right old pain to be around.
So is it possible to reverse the effects of nature? No, but can't I keep on laughing, keep on pushing myself physically, try to fool myself into believing I'm younger than I am as long as possible? Some people are born being a forty-nine year old. Thankfully that has never been me. Damned if Spelt bread, couscous and mouse-shit flavoured Ryvita will change that either.
I'm at an age where every dietary mistake makes seeing my shoes less likely. If I race my bike I'm up against kids possessing the metabolisms of a rocket launcher. Their bodies haven't known stress, their minds are free of worries and they are as fresh as sushi. I on the other hand sometimes need a glass of wine to decompress. I have bills and kids and commitments. Food is often a Xanax alternative. I'm telling you...the odds are stacked.
Approaching fifty has left me with a few scars. A 32-inch waist is becoming a luxury. There's more grey-hair growth from my ears and nose than anywhere else. I'm beginning to grunt getting up from the sofa. 'Older' people seem to know my name. I could be a grandfather. I spend tea-breaks talking about aches and pains. I see problems as chores rather than challenges. I'd more easily unfriend rather than befriend. Actually, I must be a right old pain to be around.
So is it possible to reverse the effects of nature? No, but can't I keep on laughing, keep on pushing myself physically, try to fool myself into believing I'm younger than I am as long as possible? Some people are born being a forty-nine year old. Thankfully that has never been me. Damned if Spelt bread, couscous and mouse-shit flavoured Ryvita will change that either.
Friday, September 15, 2017
Gloves off
Sitting in Ardkeen yesterday as the nurse picked staples out of my elbow, [now christened Frankenstein],{The elbow, not the nurse!] it occurred to me that it's been a tough year. Waaay too much going on to get into here but its been a nightmare. And it also occurred to me that if I didn't have bike racing to look forward to, or training to do regularly, I'd be in a bad place. Once those staples were out I knew I wanted to go racing. I needed to retrieve something for myself by racing and I needed to repay a hell of a lot of people for parking their time to look after me in whatever capacity. As it turned out it was good fun and well worth the pain. I'd had my Winter break in August, reading 'til the wee hours on the balcony every night accompanied by a vineyard. Then straight to hospital upon my return for the op to unwire my elbow to return it to full motion. Bloody anaesthetic. Not my friend at all. Then tentative steps on the turbo. Not a friend of mine either. Four hasty road spins of dubious duration and there I was in Camross, league hingeing on me getting a single point but feeling like I wouldn't get that unless I was the only entrant. Tom Simpson once put a deposit on an extremely expensive car. Something to aim for. He had to race and work hard to get the car. I'm not Tommy so I just told my team mates I'd get that point. Something to aim for. I was forcing myself to go for it regardless of the fact that on the way back from hospital the devil on my left shoulder that said don't go racing was knocking ten bells of crap out of the angel on my right. I took a leaf out of Zippy Doyle's pre-race primer and filled myself with so much espresso my passport would have read Ethiopian/Kenyan blend under Nationality. I wore my skinsuit but had to put a jersey on top because Camross exists in a micro-climate labelled unpredictable. After 10 kilometres I wanted to vomit/stop/sell my bike/feign a puncture/ease myself out the back and hide in a field. But every time I looked around a friendly club mate would ask how I was. And going through the finish I had David and Sean looking at me. Two guys that had given up swathes of time to let us have a regular run-out. I'd like to say I was out to show the purple and gold to it's full lustre but really I hoped to survive and get around without catching my tongue between brake block and front rim.
And then I came round. Thought the least I could do was a long range sprint to lead out any of my team that wanted a free ride to the line. Funny then that I ended up watching Street Outlaws at midnight last night. Its about street racing and that's exactly what materialised 500 metres out last night. I was getting ready to go when my friend Hughy got the jump on me 50 metres early. Mark Cavendish or Peter Sagan will tell you every tiny detail of a sprint. I'm not them but in what felt like 20 minutes of a sprint last evening I was looking at it like it wasn't me. Hugh on the left torqueing it down, myself on the right talking it up. Both of us hitting the nitrous and waiting for the end of the world's longest quarter mile. I just hoped my club mates were on my coat tails and they were. I needed a point. I got two. First four in the bunch sprint were Wexford Wheelers. And one up the road. Sweet as! Moral of the story? Sometimes you are better off sticking at it although everything points at failure.
And then I came round. Thought the least I could do was a long range sprint to lead out any of my team that wanted a free ride to the line. Funny then that I ended up watching Street Outlaws at midnight last night. Its about street racing and that's exactly what materialised 500 metres out last night. I was getting ready to go when my friend Hughy got the jump on me 50 metres early. Mark Cavendish or Peter Sagan will tell you every tiny detail of a sprint. I'm not them but in what felt like 20 minutes of a sprint last evening I was looking at it like it wasn't me. Hugh on the left torqueing it down, myself on the right talking it up. Both of us hitting the nitrous and waiting for the end of the world's longest quarter mile. I just hoped my club mates were on my coat tails and they were. I needed a point. I got two. First four in the bunch sprint were Wexford Wheelers. And one up the road. Sweet as! Moral of the story? Sometimes you are better off sticking at it although everything points at failure.
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