Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Mount Leinster Challenge
But really it all began 3 days earlier. I'd been too busy to get my usual 2 litres of water a day, or the Dioralyte needed to hydrate properly. Fast forward a few days and my legs seized like my timing belt had gone. I got over the Corrabutt, cycled towards home, 50k away, like an old man. My pedals were lead weights, my quads like a corpse's, my voice hoarse from shouting at the pain. I cycled and screamed through a downpour in Drummond. Luckily no locals were about to see the demented fool seep through, anger and snot and rain-water running down his lined face. If I'd seen me I would have been worried for my health.
Let me ask you a few questions! Do you love the Mount Leinster Challenge as much as I do???? Where else would you climb a hill called the Dying Sow? Where else would you smile through agony on a 20% incline to have your photo taken? Where else would your marshalls have begun a nationwide cyclist awareness campaign, or won significant races or know your name? What's not to love about a food stop that was a pleasurable challenge all on it's own? And the mountain itself? Like Ventoux, a leviathan sitting there waiting to slay you for a moment's hesitation or lack of respect. Who didn't smile on it's slopes at the mere achievement of being there, on those very inclines?
Where is the beauty in hurting yourself? I suppose it's the theatre of war. You see, every spin I go on gives me a feeling that I'm fighting. I'm not just talking about driver ignorance. It could be the simplest of things to fight against...the comfort of the couch, could be family or personal health issues, time-thief guilt, financial or work stress etc. Or a combination of all the above. But I'm fighting. Always.
However, the Mount Leinster Challenge is a beautiful theatre of war. You might meet your inner-self out there but you'll both be looking at the view! An Alpine valley that resembles a cascade of vivid green paint spilt from top to bottom on the East-side of the mountain. Or the heavy ramps resembling Caporetto sapping your will as you cycle the funnel of the 9 Stones. Or as your heart is sinking but beating furiously there's that pastoral quilt thrown over your right shoulder on the summit of the Corrabutt. County Carlow laid out like a giant's picnic blanket to the West. Hurt yes. Worth, definitely. The fact that you can endure all that in sound company and live to tell the tale is even more sublime.
Yes I suffered like a dog, yes I would go back again tomorrow. I underestimated the Challenge this year. I rode the 32km from home, approached the mountain like it was a Dutch canal bridge and got nobbled on the dead roads between battlefields. But I did meet Ben, hoping to race around Europe this Summer in between a PHD. I did meet Andy, back from Bilbao and pedalling effortlessly. And Mick, working hard in Oxford. I helped someone get their Garmin out of a ditch on the cattle-grids, chatted to old friends from other lives , has-beens and will-be's, whippets, tryers and damn fine people all living the dream in an event organised to the max. All you had to give was your sweat and time. Screams optional.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
The truth hurts
I always thought living in the past makes you repeat it. Not true. Recently I went back to my past, a local league race, hoping to rekindle some of the fire I once felt while racing there. It had been a couple of years and as I drove down I had a mind filling with nostalgia. Glimmers. The zenith of my Comeragh league experience was winning one by complete fluke, jumping the bunch so as not to get completely savaged in the sprint. I wasn't passed. A couple of scalps in there too. Fluke. And that was a dozen years ago. But I always got in the front selection over Church Hill in Portlaw and had a dig or hung on to the finish with Ras riders and race winners. Or watched Sam Bennett throw up at the finish line after using the race for intervals. These are the races that Ciaran Power would use for training and proceed to tow groups around, helping everyone. I think the Aborigines call it Dream-Time, before reality arrived.
And arrive it did. Meeting the usual suspects, the Power family running the show like clockwork, Ciaran there to race and a huge number of wizened faces that, like me, should have known better.
I blame the bastards with better tattoos. You see its one thing having your ass handed to you by people younger than you. That's life. Its a whole other ball game when they are supposed to be at your level. And its a whole other universe when their tattoos are really good, full sleeved and gnarly ink-jobs. That really got to me. I can forgive anything else. I was pulled around like one of those shot cowboys in a black and white movie that get their foot caught in the stirrup. For 40 minutes. The horse was three black and blue clad robots that took turns in proving their strength on the front. And every time I glanced back there were less cyclists. I wish that had been it.
Ah sure twas grand until the real men turned up. At the start of lap three a storm broke over the race. The sun still shone but our countenances changed from happy-but-deranged-at-a-league-race to oh-my-god-what-was-that and discovering we were out of our league altogether. The big guns caught and strode through the group as if we were at a café. And they motored on so hard, so quickly that in 1500 metres the race was spread over 500 of those. 53x12 on a false flat? If you were gone you were finished.
I was gone. A chequered 17 year history at the Comeragh leagues came full circle as I turned full circle in the road and returned to the car. No mercy. Will I go back again? Hell ya!! You can't get better unless you learn to suffer harder. I'll be back damn soon!
And arrive it did. Meeting the usual suspects, the Power family running the show like clockwork, Ciaran there to race and a huge number of wizened faces that, like me, should have known better.
I blame the bastards with better tattoos. You see its one thing having your ass handed to you by people younger than you. That's life. Its a whole other ball game when they are supposed to be at your level. And its a whole other universe when their tattoos are really good, full sleeved and gnarly ink-jobs. That really got to me. I can forgive anything else. I was pulled around like one of those shot cowboys in a black and white movie that get their foot caught in the stirrup. For 40 minutes. The horse was three black and blue clad robots that took turns in proving their strength on the front. And every time I glanced back there were less cyclists. I wish that had been it.
Ah sure twas grand until the real men turned up. At the start of lap three a storm broke over the race. The sun still shone but our countenances changed from happy-but-deranged-at-a-league-race to oh-my-god-what-was-that and discovering we were out of our league altogether. The big guns caught and strode through the group as if we were at a café. And they motored on so hard, so quickly that in 1500 metres the race was spread over 500 of those. 53x12 on a false flat? If you were gone you were finished.
I was gone. A chequered 17 year history at the Comeragh leagues came full circle as I turned full circle in the road and returned to the car. No mercy. Will I go back again? Hell ya!! You can't get better unless you learn to suffer harder. I'll be back damn soon!
Monday, May 1, 2017
Biblical Belgian Toothpaste
I never once thought about climbing off yesterday. Yes it pissed rain. No it wasn't easy passing the carpark on each lap. Seeing more and more boots open, bikes abandoned, vacant stares on defeated cyclist's faces. Never crossed my mind. But I'm not Sean Kelly and tough as nails isn't my thing. Its just that its been a long winter, breaking my elbow only the half of it. When I sat and watched the TV in February I was a broken boy. The bike stayed in the shed communicating with the spiders. My mind was blank but despairing. Only my Coach Richie and one or two others kept at me, getting me up and going again. Non sports people don't get it. They are funny. If you break a bone its the end of you. For them a surge of adrenaline is an extra finger of Prosecco. For me, as a cyclist, I saw it differently. I'd invested heavily in my fitness from September to January and Richie got me to reboot, throw off the mantle of setbacks and get going again. And he was right. It was only a matter of weeks.
Fast forward to the Frank O'Rourke races yesterday. It was my club, the Wexford Wheeler's biggest event and it was time to repay their faith in me. All that time and effort to climb off? No thanks. So my legs were a purple/blue shade? So what? I was shaking on the headwind sections but hadn't I been out in every conceivable type of weather all winter? It was going to take more to get me to quit my first open race of the year. Besides, if my legs were a funny colour and if I was cold to the bone, so was everyone else.
So when Philip scuttled up the road in a break of four it was our race to lose. Albert filtered around the front running interference as the gap hovered at 30 seconds. We still thought it was crossable but a couple of stalls in the bunch and then it was a minute. Game over. Our guys had a few digs. But fourth and fifth places for myself and Dave were not yet guaranteed. After the race Dave said that he'd been way back coming into the last few kilometres. That was some game of leap-frog to play because there was no bunch, just a long, sorry line of sodden bodies marching home. I, on the other hand found myself too far up front, scared and exposed like a groom tied to a lamp-post on a stag-night.
I'd done a recce the night before. How was I going to use the south-easterly wind to my advantage? Driving up and down the finishing straight with me Ma in the passenger seat, I discovered a channel down the right-hand gutter that would be more exposed to wind-assist than the traditional left side I always seemed to be in.
Come race day I jammed it in a heavy gear and exploded down the right, two seconds before I reckoned the sprint would start. Instead of cramps, cramps and more cramps, I just felt numb. I doubt I'd have hurt myself if I'd fallen. However. I wasn't numb to the dude creeping up my left-hand side. On a Colnago. He used the same road-channel and the vortex of my escaping ass to tootle past and claim third. Just as well I like Colnago bikes or I'd be gutted.
I didn't have a sprint so much as a numb, jelly-legged wobble to the line. But the hardest part of the day was ten minutes later trying to hold a coffee cup without drowning everyone in the hall. I shook like I had the DTs. And then it struck me. If I had the shakes while staying warm by cycling, how on earth did the stewards, Marshalls and photographers feel? They must have been destroyed!!! Good God! And what about Sean Rowe, a cross between Gandalf [for appearing out of nowhere, anywhere on the course] and Captain Ahab [for that rain-cape and his single-minded dedication, bordering on obsession]. The bigger performances of the day were of the non-cycling variety. I had it easy. Hats off!!!!
Fast forward to the Frank O'Rourke races yesterday. It was my club, the Wexford Wheeler's biggest event and it was time to repay their faith in me. All that time and effort to climb off? No thanks. So my legs were a purple/blue shade? So what? I was shaking on the headwind sections but hadn't I been out in every conceivable type of weather all winter? It was going to take more to get me to quit my first open race of the year. Besides, if my legs were a funny colour and if I was cold to the bone, so was everyone else.
So when Philip scuttled up the road in a break of four it was our race to lose. Albert filtered around the front running interference as the gap hovered at 30 seconds. We still thought it was crossable but a couple of stalls in the bunch and then it was a minute. Game over. Our guys had a few digs. But fourth and fifth places for myself and Dave were not yet guaranteed. After the race Dave said that he'd been way back coming into the last few kilometres. That was some game of leap-frog to play because there was no bunch, just a long, sorry line of sodden bodies marching home. I, on the other hand found myself too far up front, scared and exposed like a groom tied to a lamp-post on a stag-night.
I'd done a recce the night before. How was I going to use the south-easterly wind to my advantage? Driving up and down the finishing straight with me Ma in the passenger seat, I discovered a channel down the right-hand gutter that would be more exposed to wind-assist than the traditional left side I always seemed to be in.
Come race day I jammed it in a heavy gear and exploded down the right, two seconds before I reckoned the sprint would start. Instead of cramps, cramps and more cramps, I just felt numb. I doubt I'd have hurt myself if I'd fallen. However. I wasn't numb to the dude creeping up my left-hand side. On a Colnago. He used the same road-channel and the vortex of my escaping ass to tootle past and claim third. Just as well I like Colnago bikes or I'd be gutted.
I didn't have a sprint so much as a numb, jelly-legged wobble to the line. But the hardest part of the day was ten minutes later trying to hold a coffee cup without drowning everyone in the hall. I shook like I had the DTs. And then it struck me. If I had the shakes while staying warm by cycling, how on earth did the stewards, Marshalls and photographers feel? They must have been destroyed!!! Good God! And what about Sean Rowe, a cross between Gandalf [for appearing out of nowhere, anywhere on the course] and Captain Ahab [for that rain-cape and his single-minded dedication, bordering on obsession]. The bigger performances of the day were of the non-cycling variety. I had it easy. Hats off!!!!
Monday, March 20, 2017
Ten things you must do (or have) to be a champ.
BREAKFAST ALONE; Get your ass out of bed before your partner/kids/parakeet. This gives you 'you' time. Now you can chew your porridge and chew over whatever sport-porn magazine you have on the kitchen table. It may just be a moment of morning glory as you dribble the spit of jealousy onto the page containing the latest, impossibly sexy,carbon trickery, or perhaps the pair of runners that weigh less than your 30g serving of oats. But it puts you into that Runner/ Cyclist/ Triathlete frame of mind for the whole day.
ESCAPE; I've never minded hitting the road in the dark of pre-dawn. If it means getting my training done before my family notice I've gone, then its win-win. You come back with a baggy of endorphins that will energise more than any chalky-white line off a pub's toilet cistern and its fairly free in comparison. Back by 10am you can juggle the lot, give your partner free time or attention by the ladleful and keep everyone guessing as to why you are permanently smiling. Heading out, in fact, often heading home before some clubs have left on their group rides often gives you an amazing feeling of having got one over on everyone too! Try it!
PREP; In the 3.5 minutes it takes to heat my three-bears worth of porridge and watch the thermostat on the coffee machine ratchet up I will have filled my two bottles, one with electrolytes and one with protein, laid out my apparel [sounds better than tired 'aul gear] in order of putting on, starting with chamois cream and HRM strap. And everything is right side out so as not to resemble an octopus in the grey light of dawn. Bike is in the hall, tyres pumped the previous evening, oil bottle outside the front door in a flower pot so as not to stain the hall mat. Oh, and there's a scoop of protein powder waiting in the shaker for my return.
CHARGING UP; Not like the good old days, a lick of speed in your bottle like for a Grand Prix chaudiere race in Northern France. Charging today is a double shot of oily espresso. It releases chlorogenic acid that sets your endurance day up to be more easily endured. And of course there's the other charging, plugging in your Garmin or whatever GPS you use. Ever spent an eternity watching one bar of battery life wondering when it will shut down? Most likely in the middle of your super energetic and in-need-of-accuracy interval. And charge the phone. It might just be for Strava but the one time you forget to charge it will be the crash/ hospital/ carnage of a lifetime ride. A charged phone at just the right moment doesn't have a price.
DOWNTIME; Set a weekend or holiday where you do nothing. Be human again. Don't mention sport. Shower everyone around you with love and proof that you can be more than one-dimensional.
TARGET; You have to have at least one. Its so easy to fall off the wagon when you don't have a D-day or two pencilled in on your calendar. You might occasionally kill the cookie jar, empty the dessert trolley or guzzle a province worth of Tempranillo but you will stumble back to your default setting of 'in training' if you know there is a day of reckoning. Excuses have a hollow sound when you have targeted something and told everyone about it. Without the D-day marked off there's no reason not to go full diabetic with the diet or full orbit with the alcohol.
BELIEVE; Hard to believe it but your local pub is often frequented by chubby gobshites talking behind your back, in between bouts of listening to their arteries hardening. Alcohol and low-level lighting help to bring fool's thoughts even lower than you can imagine. But you are NOT in that pub. You believe in yourself and what you are doing...training, racing, resting, planning...and aren't you the lucky one? Sometimes you may not feel it, maybe you are tired or injured, but you are always lucky. Fit, awake, alive because you believe in what you are doing. And you don't have the banger headaches, broadening gut and slowing bowel movements of the gossiping beer-swiller either!
SLEEP; Ah Morpheus. Get your rest. Compression socks, no coffee after 5pm, Read a good book but get resting. Human Growth Hormone is great stuff! Ask Sylvester Stallone! But seriously, HGH is a naturally occurring hormone that supports recovery and repair and its released when you nap/ sleep. Free drugs? Get them into you! The other free drug available to you is serotonin. Mood elevators can be bought on any street corner or from the pale dude in the pub jax or gained naturally by getting your R.E.M. sleep. It's a short segment of your night's sleep but its the one that keeps you sane, alert, smiling and motivated. Oh, and you need your beauty sleep for God's sake!
PERSEVERENCE; Ghosts coming out of the mist, or the "neon haze with Confederate dead" to quote James Lee Burke. Yep, you see them; the crappiest weather...Baltic temps, Biblical rain, Floridian wind, yet they are out...exercising, gaunt, doubled and smiling. Living here on a Craggy Island you'd often feel as if you were in the Hobbit. Except our little spot feels like its weather being thrown at us, by the bucket load.
Of course, you also have to persevere against the ignorance of those that don't understand your dedication in the face of so many obstacles. As an island with such a widespread diaspora, its incredible how some people can be so insular and parochial in their mindset. But ignorance is just another obstacle for you to overcome, because you CAN.
CELEBRATE; Achieved your goal? Reward yourself! Super happy just getting there? Reward yourself! Beaten the odds on your generation/ family/ background/ age/ weight of expectation? Celebrate! It might be a bar of chocolate or even falling asleep at the bar...but do it. Your soul will thank you for it!
ESCAPE; I've never minded hitting the road in the dark of pre-dawn. If it means getting my training done before my family notice I've gone, then its win-win. You come back with a baggy of endorphins that will energise more than any chalky-white line off a pub's toilet cistern and its fairly free in comparison. Back by 10am you can juggle the lot, give your partner free time or attention by the ladleful and keep everyone guessing as to why you are permanently smiling. Heading out, in fact, often heading home before some clubs have left on their group rides often gives you an amazing feeling of having got one over on everyone too! Try it!
PREP; In the 3.5 minutes it takes to heat my three-bears worth of porridge and watch the thermostat on the coffee machine ratchet up I will have filled my two bottles, one with electrolytes and one with protein, laid out my apparel [sounds better than tired 'aul gear] in order of putting on, starting with chamois cream and HRM strap. And everything is right side out so as not to resemble an octopus in the grey light of dawn. Bike is in the hall, tyres pumped the previous evening, oil bottle outside the front door in a flower pot so as not to stain the hall mat. Oh, and there's a scoop of protein powder waiting in the shaker for my return.
CHARGING UP; Not like the good old days, a lick of speed in your bottle like for a Grand Prix chaudiere race in Northern France. Charging today is a double shot of oily espresso. It releases chlorogenic acid that sets your endurance day up to be more easily endured. And of course there's the other charging, plugging in your Garmin or whatever GPS you use. Ever spent an eternity watching one bar of battery life wondering when it will shut down? Most likely in the middle of your super energetic and in-need-of-accuracy interval. And charge the phone. It might just be for Strava but the one time you forget to charge it will be the crash/ hospital/ carnage of a lifetime ride. A charged phone at just the right moment doesn't have a price.
DOWNTIME; Set a weekend or holiday where you do nothing. Be human again. Don't mention sport. Shower everyone around you with love and proof that you can be more than one-dimensional.
TARGET; You have to have at least one. Its so easy to fall off the wagon when you don't have a D-day or two pencilled in on your calendar. You might occasionally kill the cookie jar, empty the dessert trolley or guzzle a province worth of Tempranillo but you will stumble back to your default setting of 'in training' if you know there is a day of reckoning. Excuses have a hollow sound when you have targeted something and told everyone about it. Without the D-day marked off there's no reason not to go full diabetic with the diet or full orbit with the alcohol.
BELIEVE; Hard to believe it but your local pub is often frequented by chubby gobshites talking behind your back, in between bouts of listening to their arteries hardening. Alcohol and low-level lighting help to bring fool's thoughts even lower than you can imagine. But you are NOT in that pub. You believe in yourself and what you are doing...training, racing, resting, planning...and aren't you the lucky one? Sometimes you may not feel it, maybe you are tired or injured, but you are always lucky. Fit, awake, alive because you believe in what you are doing. And you don't have the banger headaches, broadening gut and slowing bowel movements of the gossiping beer-swiller either!
SLEEP; Ah Morpheus. Get your rest. Compression socks, no coffee after 5pm, Read a good book but get resting. Human Growth Hormone is great stuff! Ask Sylvester Stallone! But seriously, HGH is a naturally occurring hormone that supports recovery and repair and its released when you nap/ sleep. Free drugs? Get them into you! The other free drug available to you is serotonin. Mood elevators can be bought on any street corner or from the pale dude in the pub jax or gained naturally by getting your R.E.M. sleep. It's a short segment of your night's sleep but its the one that keeps you sane, alert, smiling and motivated. Oh, and you need your beauty sleep for God's sake!
PERSEVERENCE; Ghosts coming out of the mist, or the "neon haze with Confederate dead" to quote James Lee Burke. Yep, you see them; the crappiest weather...Baltic temps, Biblical rain, Floridian wind, yet they are out...exercising, gaunt, doubled and smiling. Living here on a Craggy Island you'd often feel as if you were in the Hobbit. Except our little spot feels like its weather being thrown at us, by the bucket load.
Of course, you also have to persevere against the ignorance of those that don't understand your dedication in the face of so many obstacles. As an island with such a widespread diaspora, its incredible how some people can be so insular and parochial in their mindset. But ignorance is just another obstacle for you to overcome, because you CAN.
CELEBRATE; Achieved your goal? Reward yourself! Super happy just getting there? Reward yourself! Beaten the odds on your generation/ family/ background/ age/ weight of expectation? Celebrate! It might be a bar of chocolate or even falling asleep at the bar...but do it. Your soul will thank you for it!
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Cut and trust.
There's always a bigger picture. We've all learned that over time. A tough time is often just a blip but it can feel like an eternity in the right/wrong circumstances. Of course I never take my own advice, and the initial time after breaking my elbow felt like an eternity. Anaesthetic is a wonderful thing, just not when it makes ya feel like a Patagonia-jacket wearing, skeletal junkie drifting in and out of scenarios. I'm not sure how many Friends episodes I watched [or rather, 'sat through' as I wasn't particularly compus mentis for a week] but I know it wasn't fun. I was so edgy I couldn't watch Fast and Loud for God's sake!. I know now that a week isn't a long time really. Gradually cycling hove into view again. I must like cycling considering I've ridden through 2 courses of antibiotics, re-configured the cockpit of my bike to resemble a fighting bull throwing a matador overhead, elbowed my way around the roads and gone out the door at 7am to fit my 'training' in instead of curling into the arms of Morpheus and sleeping off my aspirations.
Today, 7 weeks after my fall, the sun is shining and Coach has me doing sprints in the afternoon. Cannot wait.
As regards never taking my own advice, its silly really how we notice what others are or are not doing, try to correct them but aren't capable of taking correction ourselves. I'm aware of my own shortcomings but not taking advice is top of the pile. Sometimes you just want to be brave and do your own thing. Other times, something neanderthal cuts in and drives you. Often there's no explanation. Stopping listening to my own advice, in fact my own alarm bells ringing like a four-storey fire, has led to stupid places and people. Trust as a theme has been beating me up recently. People I accepted despite the alarm bells or people I ignored in haste and now regret. But sure that's life, ain't it? As I've got old I seem to have developed a Perspex detector that was non-existent in my twenties. I can now see through people, detect layers, different needs or angles that went straight over my head years ago. Or maybe I'm just a cycnical mofo that deserves to lose people and refuses to see his own faults.
But I know that life goes on. I'd put my hand in the fire now for probably a handful (!)of people in total.
Its ying and yang really. I've let people down and vice versa. Hemingway said you spend the first two years of your life learning to speak and the next fifty learning to keep your mouth shut. Words do damage.
So in cycling terms I'm on a crusade, well, a little crusade. Okay, tiny. Without the 1000 knights, countless hangers-on and the march to the holy-land, my 'crusade' seems ridiculous. But the plan is simple. I'm going to forgive all the people in cycling that I know of that have crossed me with negativity, be it their arrogance, stupidity or egotism. The ones with one side of a story. The ones that looked down on me. The ones that twisted the knife. I'm even going to let slide the 'only members or prospective members here Joe' guy from seven years ago, and the people who stood there and said nothing at the time. Carte blanche I think its called. You see there's many an eejit out there, many a pseudo alpha-male in cycling, but I've been one as well sometimes so I can't expect people to be good if I can't myself. I'm going to try and trust people again. Hemingway also wrote 'the best way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them...'
Everything this year is a new start. I'm so happy to be back in the Purple and gold, I'm delighted to be out on my bike and training hard and planning ahead. Its best to start anew on all fronts. I intend to continue being happy and spreading that joy in our sport without asking for anything in return. I know, looking at the seven-inch scar on my elbow, that I'm lucky. Time to give something back for all the good luck I've experienced and all the good people I've met that never pointed out my shortcomings because they knew they had some themselves.
Today, 7 weeks after my fall, the sun is shining and Coach has me doing sprints in the afternoon. Cannot wait.
As regards never taking my own advice, its silly really how we notice what others are or are not doing, try to correct them but aren't capable of taking correction ourselves. I'm aware of my own shortcomings but not taking advice is top of the pile. Sometimes you just want to be brave and do your own thing. Other times, something neanderthal cuts in and drives you. Often there's no explanation. Stopping listening to my own advice, in fact my own alarm bells ringing like a four-storey fire, has led to stupid places and people. Trust as a theme has been beating me up recently. People I accepted despite the alarm bells or people I ignored in haste and now regret. But sure that's life, ain't it? As I've got old I seem to have developed a Perspex detector that was non-existent in my twenties. I can now see through people, detect layers, different needs or angles that went straight over my head years ago. Or maybe I'm just a cycnical mofo that deserves to lose people and refuses to see his own faults.
But I know that life goes on. I'd put my hand in the fire now for probably a handful (!)of people in total.
Its ying and yang really. I've let people down and vice versa. Hemingway said you spend the first two years of your life learning to speak and the next fifty learning to keep your mouth shut. Words do damage.
So in cycling terms I'm on a crusade, well, a little crusade. Okay, tiny. Without the 1000 knights, countless hangers-on and the march to the holy-land, my 'crusade' seems ridiculous. But the plan is simple. I'm going to forgive all the people in cycling that I know of that have crossed me with negativity, be it their arrogance, stupidity or egotism. The ones with one side of a story. The ones that looked down on me. The ones that twisted the knife. I'm even going to let slide the 'only members or prospective members here Joe' guy from seven years ago, and the people who stood there and said nothing at the time. Carte blanche I think its called. You see there's many an eejit out there, many a pseudo alpha-male in cycling, but I've been one as well sometimes so I can't expect people to be good if I can't myself. I'm going to try and trust people again. Hemingway also wrote 'the best way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them...'
Everything this year is a new start. I'm so happy to be back in the Purple and gold, I'm delighted to be out on my bike and training hard and planning ahead. Its best to start anew on all fronts. I intend to continue being happy and spreading that joy in our sport without asking for anything in return. I know, looking at the seven-inch scar on my elbow, that I'm lucky. Time to give something back for all the good luck I've experienced and all the good people I've met that never pointed out my shortcomings because they knew they had some themselves.
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Finding a vein.
Phew, thank God that is over. September to the end of January is a long time but thankfully well spent. As it turns out it was 5 months investment into this past month's risky venture. A broken elbow doesn't just require a month to get over it. There's the store of memories and a lifetime addiction to cycling that helps too. Cycling has always saved me, given me that dangling carrot to strive for. This past Winter is not something I want to throw away but its the past that has got me through. The juice in my veins. The majority of my life seems to have had cycling as a pivot point, like a drug of choice. In essence its been running through my veins a long time. Its been a refuge, a way of life, a goal or a talisman since the age of thirteen. I watched Kelly win classics, followed Roche's improbable triple crown and got completely hooked. Dumped was the BMX with yellow mag wheels and bought was the Peugeot racer with profiled tubes.
Ah yes, the drug that has sailed me straight for more than three decades. For instance when things went pear-shaped in Madrid I found a Cash Converters near my apartment in Cuatro Caminos and put a deposit on a Massi racing bike, paying the instalments out of my meagre TEFL teacher's wages. But I would go out of my way every night on the way home from work around eleven, slip left out of the Metro instead of right to pass the shop and stare at the 'reservado' sticker on the handlebar of the soon-to-be-mine purple bike. And then I got it, escaped from the carnage in my life right then by cycling in the Casa de Campo up through the fire-breaks or down past the zoo where the scantily-clad Cuban prostitutes would tout for a different type of lunch-time trade in the midday heat. And sometimes I would get wing-mirrored in the ass by taxi drivers that didn't know how to get around cyclists. I could cycle too as far as the Rosalera in the Retiro park, down past the boating lake and smell the April blooms that would work like an umbilical cord connecting me to the fifty rose bushes my Dad had left behind him at home in the garden.
In fact, even at thirteen, farting around the unfinished town park in 'Ross on my BMX I guess it was escaping from mixed emotions and struggling to find an identity. Wheelies and coming of age. Except the bike just tagged along in one guise or another on the journey ahead. I may have got lost a few times but I always found a bicycle.
There was the cadex I cycled into the Dublin/Wicklow mountains in '93-'94 when I lived in Ranelagh. Seeking pain and isolation to deal with grief I sought the only vein I knew, pushed the plunger on the syringe down to the grit until I was absolutely and utterly destroyed. Then one day I found myself disoriented in Glendalough, couldn't see straight in fact...but I seemed to have found some sort of Neanderthal closure.
Of course, racing is like mainlining a speedball. League or open race, you are on a buzz from the minute you close the car door and close out the world [filled with crying babies, work put on the long finger or guilt maxed to the last] until hours later, everyone asleep, you are up like a meth-fiend at midnight, deconstructing the day like a statistician. Who did what? When did I? Could I have? In the Collins Christle seven years ago I rode from the in-laws to the sign on, rode a sublime race, got Miz to the front twice, never felt the pedals, rode back to the in-laws after Miz got his third place prize, soon drove back to 'Ross for two hours and sat up until midnight smiling at getting a top ten after all of the craziness. I had gotten married in Kilmessan, knew the finale over the bridge like my own driveway. So I sat there in focussed cocaine clarity re-living it all.
And being a courier? Escape at it's best. No real responsibility, no real consequences. Pretty much one long high. There were of course days that were down. Days I felt like crying with exhaustion or lack of fight. Days I couldn't light a Marlboro whilst sitting under Liberty Hall because I was too cold to strike a match. But 90% of it was mindless, escapist highs. Again the bike.
And so I find myself four weeks on from breaking my elbow. Whilst cycling of course. I spent a couple of weeks messed up in the head watching Friends episodes and drifting in and out of some tortuous torpor. Then watching the Bike channel, mostly cyclocross re-runs. I couldn't open the shed and speak to the bike. I didn't know what to say. But I knew the bike was there. Not when I turned my elbow into a tennis ball or when I just wasn't right after the anaesthetic. But somewhere in the white noise was a need to turn September to January into something tangible. All that bloody time turning bearings into mush in all weathers had to have a worth. And two days ago, under the watchful eye of Miz...I got back on a bike, albeit a spin bike but...I thrashed myself silly for an hour and slayed the misery and self-pity in one go. I was back straight away... instant junkie. High on the coming season, high on possibilities, high on the mere whiff of a race finish.
I make no apologies. My addiction is total. It transcends broken bones, broken friendships, caustic relationships and poor decisions. Rehab? Maybe someday. Right now I'm too high to come down for it.
Ah yes, the drug that has sailed me straight for more than three decades. For instance when things went pear-shaped in Madrid I found a Cash Converters near my apartment in Cuatro Caminos and put a deposit on a Massi racing bike, paying the instalments out of my meagre TEFL teacher's wages. But I would go out of my way every night on the way home from work around eleven, slip left out of the Metro instead of right to pass the shop and stare at the 'reservado' sticker on the handlebar of the soon-to-be-mine purple bike. And then I got it, escaped from the carnage in my life right then by cycling in the Casa de Campo up through the fire-breaks or down past the zoo where the scantily-clad Cuban prostitutes would tout for a different type of lunch-time trade in the midday heat. And sometimes I would get wing-mirrored in the ass by taxi drivers that didn't know how to get around cyclists. I could cycle too as far as the Rosalera in the Retiro park, down past the boating lake and smell the April blooms that would work like an umbilical cord connecting me to the fifty rose bushes my Dad had left behind him at home in the garden.
In fact, even at thirteen, farting around the unfinished town park in 'Ross on my BMX I guess it was escaping from mixed emotions and struggling to find an identity. Wheelies and coming of age. Except the bike just tagged along in one guise or another on the journey ahead. I may have got lost a few times but I always found a bicycle.
There was the cadex I cycled into the Dublin/Wicklow mountains in '93-'94 when I lived in Ranelagh. Seeking pain and isolation to deal with grief I sought the only vein I knew, pushed the plunger on the syringe down to the grit until I was absolutely and utterly destroyed. Then one day I found myself disoriented in Glendalough, couldn't see straight in fact...but I seemed to have found some sort of Neanderthal closure.
Of course, racing is like mainlining a speedball. League or open race, you are on a buzz from the minute you close the car door and close out the world [filled with crying babies, work put on the long finger or guilt maxed to the last] until hours later, everyone asleep, you are up like a meth-fiend at midnight, deconstructing the day like a statistician. Who did what? When did I? Could I have? In the Collins Christle seven years ago I rode from the in-laws to the sign on, rode a sublime race, got Miz to the front twice, never felt the pedals, rode back to the in-laws after Miz got his third place prize, soon drove back to 'Ross for two hours and sat up until midnight smiling at getting a top ten after all of the craziness. I had gotten married in Kilmessan, knew the finale over the bridge like my own driveway. So I sat there in focussed cocaine clarity re-living it all.
And being a courier? Escape at it's best. No real responsibility, no real consequences. Pretty much one long high. There were of course days that were down. Days I felt like crying with exhaustion or lack of fight. Days I couldn't light a Marlboro whilst sitting under Liberty Hall because I was too cold to strike a match. But 90% of it was mindless, escapist highs. Again the bike.
And so I find myself four weeks on from breaking my elbow. Whilst cycling of course. I spent a couple of weeks messed up in the head watching Friends episodes and drifting in and out of some tortuous torpor. Then watching the Bike channel, mostly cyclocross re-runs. I couldn't open the shed and speak to the bike. I didn't know what to say. But I knew the bike was there. Not when I turned my elbow into a tennis ball or when I just wasn't right after the anaesthetic. But somewhere in the white noise was a need to turn September to January into something tangible. All that bloody time turning bearings into mush in all weathers had to have a worth. And two days ago, under the watchful eye of Miz...I got back on a bike, albeit a spin bike but...I thrashed myself silly for an hour and slayed the misery and self-pity in one go. I was back straight away... instant junkie. High on the coming season, high on possibilities, high on the mere whiff of a race finish.
I make no apologies. My addiction is total. It transcends broken bones, broken friendships, caustic relationships and poor decisions. Rehab? Maybe someday. Right now I'm too high to come down for it.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Going back
They say you should never meet your heroes but that's a lie. Bear with me and I'll explain.
30 months. 30 months of my life. I'd pretty much gotten over the psychosis I'd developed from that time; 22 months straight as a cycle messenger in Dublin, spanning '95-'97 and subsequently two Summers and a Winter. I just could not get that life out of my head for more than a decade after I'd walked away from it. You see it wasn't a job, or at least, it started out as a job but wound up as an identity that shaped me and made me grow up fast. And it was a great escape.
Like a stereotypical Californian I needed to find myself in '95. Unbeknownst to my inner-self I was totally lost. My Dad had died a few years earlier, my attempts at serial monogamy were crashing and burning regular as clockwork. I was in college but as a mature student I felt like an outsider even though I was developing incredible friendships. I needed to deal with my issues. I'd even been dealt the death card in a tarot reading resulting in the clear-cut message that a section of my life was passing and I needed to lay a wreath and move on.
I somehow got a job despite my lack of knowledge of Dublin and soon became part of a community of cycle-messengers. A murder of couriers. All of them bar none possessed exuberant personalities that more than matched that type of work. You had to have boundless energy and focus. And then off the bike that would continue. Most were musical...either DJs or playing in a band. Some were writers. Many just bounced from one party to the next. Or double/ triple-jobbed. It didn't matter, there was always energy to do more. During that time I made a lot of friends and as is my thing, I spent a lot of time on the periphery. A couple of these people were absolute heroes of mine, icons, people for whom nothing would prevent their stars from burning, infusing everyone about them with vivid energy.
And so it came to pass that a couple of days ago I shook hands with Tom McDonald here in the provincial town I call home. He was back from Australia. Tom had always looked out for me and we'd instantly connected on Stephen's Green. He had stuck in my head for nigh on 20 years and when I sat opposite himself and his lovely wife and child nothing had changed. We've both moved on, through adulthood and responsibility, family and strife but it seemed to me as if we'd met like any other Friday in Bruxelles and just got on with being us. That healthy irreverence and quick wit had gone nowhere. The red dredz are long gone but the same smile and depth of feeling stood out. Nearly two decades apart and the small matter of 10,000 miles... but otherwise....
Funnily enough we both identify and deal with teenagers and young adults coming from tough backgrounds. Later my brother would point out that we probably deal with and identify with those people because we were surrounded by them in the mid-noughties or we were in fact one of those troubled young adults ourselves, albeit skittering around Dublin's warren of streets on bicycles stopping at nothing. Having coffee with Tom just seemed to give clarity and function to all that time on the streets. I know most of my family saw what I was doing as a waste, a lower-caste way of making ends meet. But I just wasn't able, wasn't grown up enough by my mid-twenties. By the time I was spat out the other side of that life-path as if I was surfing a giant, killer wave under the cliffs of Moher, I had graduated. Not just college but I felt I could deal with things, anything at all. I'd been part of something very important to me, a scene or cohort of like-minded people. Funny that most people don't get it, don't see it for what it was, and that makes it a little more special for me. For the craic you should try, just like I did, to explain to middle-aged yokels in your home town that being a bike-messenger was the experience that influenced you the most in your life. Guarantee they stare at you like you have two heads.
I just loved the freedom. Yes I was working long hours on long jobs and spent lonely hours traversing Dublin but the beers and banter in between were phenomenal. Yes it was minimum wage when you took everything into account. And yes it sometimes sucked. But BurgerKing would have been the death of me. So many of the bit-players were transients, between 'proper' jobs but I didn't care. They coloured in everything for me, influenced me with their world view and I seemed to do the same for them. I had my niche, even moving on to a bigger, better company. And I felt valued. You can unearth negatives everywhere but I just know I was very very happy at that time. For all intents and purposes it was like an extended gap year that taught me well. Mostly that I had a value way higher than I'd previously believed. I don't remember half of what I did but I'm extremely proud of my time in Quickstream and Cyclone. Tom, all the way back from Oz, helped to put a cap on the bottle, to place people and things seen and done and put it away for once, maybe labelled as vintage.
Of course the other side of that is that we could meet and have a coffee, Tom and I. We came out of that scene and kept it together. There are the dead and the broken-forever back there.Some people's psychosis [for I really do believe being involved in that world affects your cerebrum for years afterwards] kept on giving. They may have searched out other highs to get them through or travelled a lot rather than sit still, or been paranoid or friendless in the vacuum left by road-hunger. But we escaped. No broken bones, little road rash, less road-rage. A lot of cold and sleet and bucket's of rain. Maybe some arthritis but few betrayals. Meeting Tom was a good thing for me, that catharsis I'd been dreaming of, the closure of a door two decades swinging on it's hinges. They say you shouldn't meet your heroes but I disagree.
30 months. 30 months of my life. I'd pretty much gotten over the psychosis I'd developed from that time; 22 months straight as a cycle messenger in Dublin, spanning '95-'97 and subsequently two Summers and a Winter. I just could not get that life out of my head for more than a decade after I'd walked away from it. You see it wasn't a job, or at least, it started out as a job but wound up as an identity that shaped me and made me grow up fast. And it was a great escape.
Like a stereotypical Californian I needed to find myself in '95. Unbeknownst to my inner-self I was totally lost. My Dad had died a few years earlier, my attempts at serial monogamy were crashing and burning regular as clockwork. I was in college but as a mature student I felt like an outsider even though I was developing incredible friendships. I needed to deal with my issues. I'd even been dealt the death card in a tarot reading resulting in the clear-cut message that a section of my life was passing and I needed to lay a wreath and move on.
I somehow got a job despite my lack of knowledge of Dublin and soon became part of a community of cycle-messengers. A murder of couriers. All of them bar none possessed exuberant personalities that more than matched that type of work. You had to have boundless energy and focus. And then off the bike that would continue. Most were musical...either DJs or playing in a band. Some were writers. Many just bounced from one party to the next. Or double/ triple-jobbed. It didn't matter, there was always energy to do more. During that time I made a lot of friends and as is my thing, I spent a lot of time on the periphery. A couple of these people were absolute heroes of mine, icons, people for whom nothing would prevent their stars from burning, infusing everyone about them with vivid energy.
And so it came to pass that a couple of days ago I shook hands with Tom McDonald here in the provincial town I call home. He was back from Australia. Tom had always looked out for me and we'd instantly connected on Stephen's Green. He had stuck in my head for nigh on 20 years and when I sat opposite himself and his lovely wife and child nothing had changed. We've both moved on, through adulthood and responsibility, family and strife but it seemed to me as if we'd met like any other Friday in Bruxelles and just got on with being us. That healthy irreverence and quick wit had gone nowhere. The red dredz are long gone but the same smile and depth of feeling stood out. Nearly two decades apart and the small matter of 10,000 miles... but otherwise....
Funnily enough we both identify and deal with teenagers and young adults coming from tough backgrounds. Later my brother would point out that we probably deal with and identify with those people because we were surrounded by them in the mid-noughties or we were in fact one of those troubled young adults ourselves, albeit skittering around Dublin's warren of streets on bicycles stopping at nothing. Having coffee with Tom just seemed to give clarity and function to all that time on the streets. I know most of my family saw what I was doing as a waste, a lower-caste way of making ends meet. But I just wasn't able, wasn't grown up enough by my mid-twenties. By the time I was spat out the other side of that life-path as if I was surfing a giant, killer wave under the cliffs of Moher, I had graduated. Not just college but I felt I could deal with things, anything at all. I'd been part of something very important to me, a scene or cohort of like-minded people. Funny that most people don't get it, don't see it for what it was, and that makes it a little more special for me. For the craic you should try, just like I did, to explain to middle-aged yokels in your home town that being a bike-messenger was the experience that influenced you the most in your life. Guarantee they stare at you like you have two heads.
I just loved the freedom. Yes I was working long hours on long jobs and spent lonely hours traversing Dublin but the beers and banter in between were phenomenal. Yes it was minimum wage when you took everything into account. And yes it sometimes sucked. But BurgerKing would have been the death of me. So many of the bit-players were transients, between 'proper' jobs but I didn't care. They coloured in everything for me, influenced me with their world view and I seemed to do the same for them. I had my niche, even moving on to a bigger, better company. And I felt valued. You can unearth negatives everywhere but I just know I was very very happy at that time. For all intents and purposes it was like an extended gap year that taught me well. Mostly that I had a value way higher than I'd previously believed. I don't remember half of what I did but I'm extremely proud of my time in Quickstream and Cyclone. Tom, all the way back from Oz, helped to put a cap on the bottle, to place people and things seen and done and put it away for once, maybe labelled as vintage.
Of course the other side of that is that we could meet and have a coffee, Tom and I. We came out of that scene and kept it together. There are the dead and the broken-forever back there.Some people's psychosis [for I really do believe being involved in that world affects your cerebrum for years afterwards] kept on giving. They may have searched out other highs to get them through or travelled a lot rather than sit still, or been paranoid or friendless in the vacuum left by road-hunger. But we escaped. No broken bones, little road rash, less road-rage. A lot of cold and sleet and bucket's of rain. Maybe some arthritis but few betrayals. Meeting Tom was a good thing for me, that catharsis I'd been dreaming of, the closure of a door two decades swinging on it's hinges. They say you shouldn't meet your heroes but I disagree.
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