Funny half hour

Forty odd years ago my Dad would let out a holler from downstairs at us to quiet down, to go asleep, that it wasn't 'funny half-hour!!'. So we'd quit our sniggering and stop hitting each other with pillows or insults and nod off. As I cycled around town today I couldn't get the phrase 'funny half-hour' outta my head. It wasn't nostalgia. It was relief. I'd spent a week in a nether-world between sleeping on a sofa or walking like a zombie. Energy-depleted. Sore. Listless. Antibiotics and coffee the staple-diet. I'd gone from riding a time-trial on a Saturday to beaten old man by Sunday. Fun times. I knew I was going to get sick, what with viruses and doses having turned my house into a small hospital in the previous weeks. The virus I got had been in the post, so to speak.

And today I cycled for half an hour. Half an hour steady. To put that in perspective, I normally do full-on intervals on Monday, dragging my ass up a hill ad infinitum or sprinting like a deranged greyhound after a non-existent hare. But today was a litmus test. Ride a bike. For thirty minutes. Just cycle. And I did. I watched my heart-rate climb, felt my legs spinning in the cold air. And I laughed and smiled and laughed some more. Funny half hour was thirty minutes of beaming like the village-idiot, laughing at the air filling my lungs and feeling alive. I had thought my legs would go, my heart palpitate like a caffeinated octogenarian, dizziness would overcome me like a wobble to jelly or I'd just fall over like a fool.{I have form lately in that department!}.

Nothing happened. I survived. My lungs are good. I'm still smiling. There's been days in the past when time was too tight and I'd not cycle, thinking it wasn't worth the hassle. Never again. I'm sure half the people that saw me lapping the town like an idiot, grinning at my luck, probably think I should be sectioned. They could be right. But I'll keep on smiling, just to keep them guessing.

Hope

Why do you ride a bike? There's complex answers to that one. And I'm only asking because of late I realised that there's every possible avenue into our sport. I'm reminded that cycling doesn't have to follow the traditional routes of many sports. I'm reminded of Dutchman Steven Rook's drunken bet in a bar that he could win a race despite not riding a bike at all. And later rode the Tour regularly. Or all those ski/biathlon/triathlon/runners/GAA players with injuries that did more than take up cycling, they took it over. And we are surrounded by people who inspire without knowing it, simply because there is no hallowed path into cycling, no sure fire system like a lot of mainstream sports with their apprenticeship approach. Truck drivers, teachers, accountants, dentists, farm contractors,fitters, joiners, builders, salespeople, gangers, are the first people to mind that cycle in my world. That makes for some eclectic mix of personalities and mindsets! Get the picture?
I got into cycling through my brother Stephen and also my friend Adrian. Let's be honest. When your bro brings home Tour magazines in French from, of all places, well...France... you are only going to fall in love. He was off in France for parts of college when cycling was on the rise in Ireland. I was absorbed by Phil Liggett-voiced American cycling tales on RTE but Stephen taught me 'La tete et les jambes' (the head and the legs). Of course it didn't stop me from ignoring the 'tete' bit for the next 20 years but as they say in Brittany... actually I don't know what they say because I didn't learn much of that language! Roughly translated they would say "Imbecile! You are as useful as a teapot du chocolat! Mon dieu!" And besides, the shit-cool photos of Laurent Fignon and his ponytail or backdrops of open, heat-shimmered roads caressed with echelons in the mags sold my soul forever.
Adrian brought me out clubbing. Before you ring the drug squad or Greenpeace I should point out that it was bike-clubbing. Hard-as-nails chain-gang torture in the muck and wet of winter. Joyce described plunging into the Forty Foot in Sandycove as 'snot green and scrotum tightening'. That also defines our local roads. Just replace snot-green with slurry brown. Adrian was up for long spins of the return-home-buckled variety. I can honestly say that I was lost on his bike rides. And never as happy. And then I was hooked. Fast sprints around the town on friday night's when Stephen got off the bus followed by character building Sunday spins with Adriano where you came back with a beard.
Other club members came from handball or cross country running. Grass-track champion DNA or the Belgian school of hard knocks.
That was back in the Ark compared with today. And this is where cycling is beautiful. You can't pick up a Hurley at thirty and rock up to the GAA club but you can cycle with any club. You might like to think the local rugby club might accept a 25-year-old newbie that doesn't know their ruck from their try but really you'd be better off on a bike. Only a golf club will be as accepting. (Of your cash). So cycling it is then...! As an example, look at the crowds that participate in the Cycle Against Suicide or any large Sportif for that matter. They haven't come through the system in most cases. They needed an outlet and found most other sports inaccessible. Seriously though, Like drops of rain draining into streams until they become an ocean, it thankfully doesn't matter where we come from anymore as long as we get out cycling. Snobbery exists everywhere but thankfully in cycling it's being slowly swamped by a tide of MAMILS and smiling young folk that are of the zero-tolerance-of-BS generation.

Is this too chirpy for you? Too endorphinated? Seriously?! Sunday I met a bloke called Garrett and had a great social chat in a snow flurry as we cycled along at 8am. By 9.30 I was talking to a lady by the name of Mia who happens to be part of the National set up and is a track rider and good company too. But neither cyclist started with a club as a 12-year-old and learned the nutty, prohibitive rules. And both are definitely better for it. Instantly sociable will always trump the silence new cyclists used to receive. There is no longer a pecking order. Can you ride a bike without knocking me off? Fair enough, no need for an apprenticeship then, or, the 457 grey rules to accompany it. Why shouldn't you enjoy the same event as everyone else?
Mindfulness has probably, single-handedly re-shaped Irish cycling. We need our break. We need to re-connect. We want to enjoy the Irish countryside without a book of rules that basically shuts the door on day one.

So an average club cyclist equates to an average club member in any sport, right? No way! Look at what we are; Super social; apart from the odd grommet in your ear, we can instantly connect with most fellow cyclists. A Sunday group ride is basically manic speed dating in lycra. Had a mechanical? You might sit in your car waiting for the tow-truck but as a cyclist you'll be surrounded by helpful people instantly, like a benevolent pit-crew. Want to push yourself? Then you'll find events with hundreds of people (just like you) lining up, all with diverse backgrounds and circuitous routes into the sport. Cycling is a beautiful activity, a passion and a lifestyle. You are less ordinary. You are a rarity. You are a deity in a world of worshippers. You may not feel it when the trolls pass too close on the road but its blind jealousy that brings them close. They want to be you. They have drifted from soccer at 30 or hurling at 32, felt betrayed at 34 in rugby or dropped their gym membership at 36. They want your will and your resolve. They want your heart too. Pity them. They don't cycle.

Tramadol for the craic

You have to laugh. Karma has been buzzing around the last ten days like an unwanted fly in a kitchen. As the fridge magnet reads, 'Sometimes you are the pigeon and sometimes you are the statue.' Last week I was the pigeon, soaring, carrying the message of karma to all. This week I am, most definitely, the statue. I rounded off last week with the tough Sunday session in my schedule and it went really well. I felt good and didn't waste a kilometre. In fact I had time to spare coming back from the Hook and headed, as suggested, for Sliabh Coillte. It's a hill that my friend Mizgajski turned into a training Mecca. I've probably, literally been up there a hundred times and it's a horror. A Bullfighter will often refer to the bulls as being their friends, even after a goring. I'll never call that hill my friend. Frenemy on a good day maybe. I must have been motoring in the last week whilst delivering that karma message. I'm one to torque. My chain snapped as I rounded the first hairpin bend. I was standing, churning, doing a Contador. Well, El Pistolero but firing blanks. And then I was on the deck, via the handlebars. My pride was shot to bits. My broken chain became a broken projectile headed for the nearest ditch. My voice became that of a drunken cowhand's, cursing mostly myself.
At this juncture you may be laughing solidly at my misfortunes. Thats how karma works. This week I'm the statue. A cracked rib, stiff neck and swollen knee delivered at 5mph. But then karma just might have been taking really great care of me because during that morning's session I'd totalled 28 all-out short efforts. So I could have face-planted anywhere and at any speed. Fair enough I could probably do with the free cosmetic surgery more than most. But methinks something is keeping me alive. So the 'Jeers' (As my Dad called them) from the past can come get more karma....
And although I'm sore, I'm not terrible. My friend Shirley nearly broke her ankle last evening playing hockey and vomited on the way home with the pain. That's nasty. I can pick up my kids but can't turn sideways. Grand really.
That's not to say I didn't consider painkillers. But if my body is telling me it's sore then I should just back off. Like the cyclists going to league races a few years ago with a car boot full of supplements... you are only writing cheques for your body short term, knowing that the account will soon be in arrears. Better rest now. Besides, even though there's Tramadol in the house I'm not a pro rider in need of results. I'm not even a second string kermesse rider in Flanders. I'm just a weekend warrior. Actually more a Sunday skirmisher. No, a partially motivated MAMIL with delusions. So Tramadol or Nurofen or NO Explode are out the window. As for creatine, yohimbe or beta-alanine... I can always do with a tingle but no amount of potions will make me great. A doped donkey won't win the derby and all that. I won't give up my coffee though. I may never be a champion but my Cuppa Joe tells me different. I'll just avoid the pastries and general, stretch-mark inducing, diabetes-in-a-bun delights I seem to be surrounded by.
So where to? An easy week beckons. I can do that. I'll cycle by the bike shop, coffee shop and off-licence so word will get around that I'm constantly clocking kilometres. I'll stay off Strava to keep the chaingang chimps guessing too. I might drink 4 cortados per day to keep the weight down and trick my heart into thinking it's training. In no time at all I'll be the pigeon again. Pecking around, noisy when approached and leaving my mark on whoever's the statue next.

Manipulation examples

"Go on, it'll be the best tenner you ever spent!" She winked and put the tiny pill with the Mitsubishi symbol on the end of her long tongue. She smiled and it disappeared.
And I knew what was inferred, her message.... Join in with me and you just might get me too. But that was the voice in my head. It didn't occur to me that in a club with 1000 other pill-necking, beautiful-people, it might not be me she'd go home with. But it did occur to me, like a neon sign flashing over my head, that if I didn't do it, she would disappear like a witch into the night. So I took her hand, her exquisite, manicured hand, and she led me into the corner of the club, near the booming bass and pointed out her dealer of choice. She called him Instagram, explaining that he could always, no matter where you were, show up with a gram in an instant. But the bass pounded, we didn't talk, I waved a tenner, he waved a pill. On the dance floor, Amy waved a finger at me in a come-hither way and my conscience dissolved away with the powdery taste in my mouth. She had won.
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"F**k you ya clown!" My first impression was that he was big. Rugby big.
"It was an accident lad. I'll buy you another beer." And I turned to the bar to do just that.
"I don't want another beer, you've ruined me night ya eejit." He was squaring up. Well as 'square' as a chunky, over-weight rugby jock could get.
But my girlfriend wasn't having it.
"You ain't gonna let that blob call you an eejit, are you?"
"Well, I just want a quiet time Rachel. Hadn't planned on A+E tonight." Rachel had had a few drinkies by now.
"Well I think you should take that fella to the street and 'bate the head off him!" The problem with this statement was it's volume. So loud that the Jock looked at me expecting me to go through with it. Thank you Rachel, my soon to be ex.
"OK, you want a beating, I'll give you a beating!"
Then we were outside, tucked away around the corner out of sight of the bouncers. As I passed out from his knee blocking my wind-pipe, I remember the smell of urine in the alley and the absence of Rachel, bloody Rachel, presumably still in the pub.

Biting back.

'A' game my ass. Don't get me wrong but I couldn't capitalise on my physical resilience with some mental strength today. 100k swooping through the southeast with 170 fellow cycling nutjobs should have been a doddle but my pride got in the way. I had everything sorted but half way through the event he showed up....You know the guy, right? Am I moving too fast? Ok, breathe... lets start at the start.
I can be vindictive. Cross me and I'll not forget. Might be something cutting you said in passing or a look you gave me you know you really shouldn't have. Cross my wife or kids and you're dust. I've really tried to work on it, letting it go etc. In fact there's people talking to me today that would not a few years ago. Over in the old Saint Mary's Abbey in New Ross there's a Leper's squint in the wall of the North transept. The leper's colony in the town (Norman soldiers had brought the disease back from the Holy Land during the last Crusades) would go to the tiny hole in the wall to receive communion, being forbidden to mix with the general population. At one point half a dozen years ago I felt like that leper, the focus of a condescending attitude from a coterie of cyclists I had once known well. And in today's event a particular scenario came flooding back as I ran into one of those self-same dudes. I don't know how much you understand about cycling but it's about conserving energy as long as possible. A few years ago I found myself only a few kilometres from home in a small group dropped by the leaders. The gap was only a hundred metres and on a false flat, three out of four of us were trying to bridge, each giving it everything. And this one guy told us he was cooked. Couldn't contribute. I rode on like a demon possessed, alarm bells ringing because the same dude was putting in savage training every week. We got to within fifty feet of the group but they were starting to pull away again. I did one last savage turn and expected honesty from the others when, out of nowhere,the non-contributing 'cooked' lad shot out from my slipstream and sprinted across the gap to the disappearing leaders. I blew spectacularly and limped home. And stored that away in my hard drive.
Today, 65km into the ride, on a serpentine, flooded back road, whom did I find myself in the company of? Mr 'I'm cooked' from yesteryear. I pushed myself hard and followed him in the gutters for the next few sections of the course. Indeed I pushed myself too hard in order to position myself well for the final few climbs. I made sure to hold back a little and certainly not contribute to his pace. My heart rate peaked at 188 on the climb after he was dropped. I needed to copper-fasten his demise but my efforts were signalling my own. My legs locked like Brinks in the final few minutes but by then I believed I'd delivered some karma for past misdemenours. Yet I'm sitting here feeling petty. Shouldn't I be all Zen and forgive and forget? Shouldn't I be the better person? Maybe. But sometimes you gotta right the ship when its been listing a long time.
I feel ashamed in one way to have finished today's ride in such a manner. Hadn't I had a ball catching up with the friends that always respected me? Hadn't I felt like a fleet God in the bunch all day? Wasn't it a Belgian-toothpaste-handlebar-licking-morale-lifting beauty of a ride before my pride? Yes it was. Maybe I'll pop over to the Abbey tomorrow instead of cycling and ask for forgiveness and tolerance.

See you Sunday. Bring your A game.

A minute turns into an hour, turns into a day, turns into a week... a month and then it's a year. Where was I at a year ago? Peering at a dystopian computer screen full of silver and white shades having a well-broken elbow pointed out to me in post-mortem, post x-ray detail. A Morgan Freeman voice; "This son, is it. You've had it." But I knew I hadn't. I knew I'd do something. I wasn't going to be a God, like Mathew Hayman, winning Paris-Roubaix after 6 weeks on a home-trainer. But I would come back. I would not die as a sportsperson and take up golf. All due respect to my fifty year old peers playing golf but I can't respect that. Argyle only sits well on Travellers and 19th-hole-graduates and last time I looked I wasn't either of those. I refuse to talk handicaps and Gant.... I can always run, or walk, or hike, or... you get it. Not golf.☠ Did I mention I don't like golf?!
So this week I find myself in the privileged position of once more looking forward to the first event of the year in good, healthy form. Fingers and all sorts of bits crossed like a squid doing Pilates. A year ago the veil had come down and I'd already sunk into an overwhelming darkness. Affectionately known as the abyss. A broken elbow just as I was starting to hum in training. I was so happy just before I fell. So, so content. Rotten luck. I'm back now. My goals may have shifted to a long-view, racing, sun-holiday with the bike etc. but I'm here.
And I'm counting my blessings in every sense. I didn't fracture something important such as my skull or someone else's life. I'm thankful the Egyptian lady in charge of A+E took a shine to me and fast-tracked me out of what is carnage on a daily basis. I'm blessed my wife didn't put her foot down when really she had the right to. I'm glad I've regained full function and also got over that sea-fog of anaesthetic. If I'd hit the fentanyl I'd be dead by now. Instead I had no pain and I'm super grateful to the Flandrian in my DNA for that. I'm glad I was awakened to the caring few as opposed to the disingenuous multitude. Those I trust could now be counted on one (slightly inbred) hand.
And do I have a beautiful message, like Jesus with a bunch of misfits at his feet, somewhere in Galilee? Why yes, yes I do. Seize it. Seize it all before squinting eyes or early-onset-Alzheimer's or heartbreak or realization or circumstances beyond our control rob us of the right or ability to do it all anymore. Conquer before the tide turns against us. And if that doesn't sound like Jesus, then... seize life and don't hurt a soul in the process. Get what you can from life before it knocks on your door looking for something in return. For it will not be pretty.

Where were you at 7am???

I like feeling alive. I like that ain't nobody up at 6am on a Sunday. I like my two coffees as I catch up on a bike mag. I like locking the front door behind me at 7am and slipping off into what is still the night. I like heading down onto the main street and going the wrong direction, avoiding the broken glass outside the closed and blacked-out pubs. I don't like the discarded chicken-boxes and detritus from the Kebabish strewn at the mouths of lanes and doorways like terrible, random art installations.
I liked the rain this morning. I liked feeling dry apart from a stray dribble of road-water sifting down my chin occasionally. I liked the fantails of water arching up and away from my lights. I liked feeling that someone was trying to get up out of bed to emulate me at that moment but heard the rain and thought wiser of it.
I liked passing a lime-kiln and imagining Noah standing into it's hearth cursing the rivers of God's tears wending manically downhill. I imagined nodding and winking and heading onwards. I liked the sounds of drains and channels choking up with the deluge. I did not like the long puddles before first light for fear I'd forgotten a pot-hole or road-cut that could ambush me. I really liked the pre-dawn gloom forcing itself out through a dismal, foreboding sky that boomed "NOT today!"
I liked meeting not a soul for what felt like an eternity but was really an hour. Then the workers in cars getting back on the treadmill of life spoiled the moment now and then like sharing a cave with fireflies. I liked the silence near Thomastown, the empty fields and run-off that put paid to farm work. I liked seeing the same mare and foal, their backs covered with blue canvas, standing in a gateway, looking bewildered as I passed twice.
I disliked heading south, tired after the hard work, an hour of surviving ahead. But I liked the idea of the kids being up now, wife too, the happiness of disturbia. I liked the Ferry Hill knowing I was back to town, now that the chipper food and glass would be swept up and the café on the corner would be filling.
I liked returning as though I'd gotten away with something. I liked the look of those few people up and about wondering who did I think I was?
I liked unlocking the front door and stepping inside with a story to tell.