Club Run, Saturday 13th February, 2016
My Ride (according to Strava)
Total Distance: 105 km/65 miles with 1,030 metres of climbing
Ride Time: 4 hours 38 minutes
Average Speed: 22.6 km/h
Group size: 13 riders, no FNG’s
Temperature: 4°C
Weather in a word or two: Like riding through a slushie
Main topic of conversation at the start:
G-Dawg turned up replete with the bright blue oven gloves again, but having swapped out the carpet-felt muffler for knee-high hiking gaiters. I can’t decide if this is an inspired choice of winter accoutrements or just plain odd. Maybe if the gaiters had Castelli emblazoned across them I would be more accepting?
Crazy Legs wondered if the oven gloves were there so G-Dawg could help out in the kitchen at the café, but even professionally equipped, I didn’t think there was a hope in hell they’d let him anywhere near the bacon and egg pies as they emerged hot from the oven.
Unbelievably the Weather mid-week had been so good that G-Dawg had felt the need to unleash his good bike and had temporarily hung up the winter fixie for the Wednesday run out. He managed to enjoy his freewheelin’ fun, despite an unadvisable tendency to try and slow down by simply adding a bit of pressure to the pedals. Where was that good weather now?
Crazy Legs told us a salutary tale of steppin’ out to see Joe Jackson in concert, deciding to miss the support act in favour of a pint or three, and then turning up to find Mr. Jackson already on stage and mid-song, halfway through his set as there had been no support act.
Crazy Legs therefore missed the iconic “Different for Girls” but I assume caught “Steppin’ Out” and “Is She Really Going Out with Him” – and sadly that’s just about where my limited knowledge of the Joe Jackson oeuvre ends, although I always coveted a pair of those cool, Cuban-heeled, side-laced pointy-toed Beatle boots that adorned one of his early albums. Maybe in a more utilitarian black not white though, after all I’m not a total fop.
Anyway, Crazy Legs saw enough of the show to highly recommend it and I’ll be taking heed of his warnings not to arrive late for my hugely anticipated trip to see the mighty Shearwater in some pokey hole on the banks of the Tyne later this month.
Readying ourselves to ride out we held back as we noticed a late arriving cyclist carefully weaving his way through the traffic and street furniture toward us. “Who’s that?” someone asked.
“Craig?”
“No…”
“Josh?”
“No…”
“It’s that Scottish feller” Crazy Legs finally determined
“Yeah,” I agreed, “The one from Ireland.”
Oh hell, I guess they’re all Celts, aren’t they?
Main topic of conversation at the coffee stop:
As we reached the café my lobster mitts finally succumbed to the weather and cold water began to seep through their linings. We decided that the holy grail for cyclists were fully waterproof gloves, which seem to be an impossible dream, although G-Dawg did suggest a pair of Marigolds. Of course we agreed these would need a little Sharpie branding to make them acceptable to cyclists, but someone got there before us …
It amused me when I Googled “cycling Marigolds” and found a great picture by photographer Steve Fleming of one of our youngsters scaling Hardknott Pass during last years Fred Whitton Challenge, all the while sporting yellow gloves that the photographer purports are in fact Marigolds. I’m not wholly convinced they were, but must remember to ask.
Motor-doping was back on the agenda, along with how an engine could be so difficult to detect. I suggested the UCI set off an electro-magnetic pulse halfway up an Alpine climb, just to see who then keeled over as their motors died a sudden and brutal death. My Strava-enamoured companions were somewhat horrified by my blasphemous suggestion that someone might deliberately fritz their beloved Garmin’s.
Talk of advances in bike technology led to reminiscing about the past, when specialist winter clothing wasn’t readily available for cyclists. OGL recalled wearing old-fashioned motorcycle gauntlets with a big flared cuff, which we decided would also be suitable for a bit of on-bike falconry. Never mind motor-doping, if you could tether an Eagle Owl or Andean Condor to your bike think how many more watts you could generate? And how cool would you look in the process.
We then indulged in a wide-ranging conversation that wrapped around cycling books, old-style, rock-hard chamois leather inserts, saddle sores and the Laurent Fignon and Lance Armstrong books. OGL mentioned the traditional method of alleviating the pain of saddle sores was to cut a hole in your saddle, or ride with raw steak down your shorts.
We speculated that when Fignon lost the 1989 Tour to LeMond by an agonising 8 seconds he may have ridden the final and decisive time-trial with steak down his shorts to ease the suffering and unbearable pain from his saddle-sores.
In an “if only” moment, Son of G-Dawg suggested Fignon may have gained a small measure of consolation and revenge if he’d proffered the used steak to his victor as some sort of rare, ultra-exotic, specially prepared, luxury dish, which LeMond would unwittingly have consumed after it had been carefully tenderised by the Frenchman’s thudding backside, basted in saddle sore secretions and liberally marinated in butt sweat –a “filet fignon” if you will. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
In a discussion about under-age drinking, OGL claimed to be in the Percy Arms and playing on their darts team at the exact time Kennedy was shot. Personally I thought it was a bit suspicious that he went to such lengths just to establish an alibi.
We also learned that both Crazy Legs and G-Dawg are strangely discomfited by the sound of cotton wool tearing. I just don’t think I’m empathic and mature enough, or have the proper medical and psychological training to properly respond to such a heartfelt revelation and strange revulsion …
Ride Profile
The Waffle:
Strava highlighted the ride temperature in blue once I’d finished, so I’m guessing it was officially cold out there by any measure and way beyond one of Carlton’s Cold Hand Days. Despite this I woke to find the curtains sharply silhouetted against an unexpected brightness from outside. Ever the pessimist my first thoughts were that I was either a target for an attempted alien abduction, or winter had returned with a vengeance and the light was bouncing off a deep, pristine layer of snow.
Thankfully I looked out to find the garden free of both extra-terrestrial lifeforms and snow and although the ground was wet there didn’t appear to be any frost or ice. Time to ride.
Even with the initial brightness it still looked cold, so I dressed accordingly, two long sleeved base layers, jersey and jacket, digging out the massive and ridiculous (but warm!) lobster mitts.
By the time I’d breakfasted and made it outside the initial brightness had been smothered by dark and threatening clouds. A quick check of the bike, a topping up of tyre pressures and I was dropping down the hill to the valley and straight into the teeth of a sharp, stinging hailstorm.
With the hail bouncing audibly off my helmet I stopped to pull my waterproof jacket over everything else and once on it never returned to my pocket for rest of the ride.
The shower passed to leave the air still and strangely hushed, seeming to carry and amplify the odd, random sound. There was the occasional whisk-whisk of tyre on mudguard, a ripping noise as I cut through random puddles and the low, ominous hum of power cables strung high over the road.
From somewhere unseen seagulls greeted me with a chorus of raucous shrieking. Did this mean the weather over the coast was particularly bad, or just that there were richer pickings to be had amongst the rubbish inland?
Thumbs and toes turned slowly numb and then, even more slowly, recovered as I warmed to the task and started to clamber out of the valley on the other side of the river. With time for a quick pee stop (cold and ancient bladders aren’t a great combination) I arrived at the meeting place with a handful of others, including OGL, slowly recovering from last week’s illness, but not quite there yet.
There were however a couple of noticeable absentees from the “Usual Suspects” who can be relied on to try riding regardless of the weather. I assume the Red Max had finally given up an unequal fight and decided to recuperate properly from his vicious illness, while the seagulls may have had the right of it and sensibly retreated from the coast where it looked like the weather was bad enough to keep Taffy Steve penned up.
It was a small group, a baker’s dozen if you will, who finally pushed off, clipped in and rode out, for once with no lasses present, although we did encounter both Mini Miss and Shouty at various points along our route.
I dropped to my usual position, hovering near the back where I started to chat to the “Scottish-Irish” feller. He’d begun riding with the club before I joined, but had been forced to stop because of family commitments (damn kids!) and had only just started again.
I was surprised to learn he’d actually been in the North East for over 8 years as we still hadn’t managed to knock the corners off his accent. While he could almost convincingly adopt the full Geordie, indignant-dolphin-squeak (well, far more convincingly than the Profs embarrassing Dick Van Dyke type stylings) –his underlying lyrical Irishness gave it a strangely odd and musical quality.
Being a feisty feller he began telling me a tale about confronting a speeding motorist, who’d ended up calling him a “Speccy, Scottish git.” Oh hell, I guess they are all Celts after all.
The blue flashing lights of a police car warned us of trouble ahead and we were forced to creep around a massive recovery vehicle squatting across two thirds of the road. Beside it sat the attendant police car and a battered and scraped silver pick-up truck that looked like it had been driven at high speed through a concrete pipe that was too narrow for its bulk.
Just another obstacle to negotiate
I’ve no idea what actually happened, but couldn’t help feeling a degree of satisfaction that at least there was one less of these vehicles on the road. I know I shouldn’t stereotype all drivers based on their cars, but my only encounter with pick-ups has been when some homicidal, willfully careless, red-necked RIM has driven them directly at us too fast down too narrow lanes, with no intention of slowing and even a hint of accelerating toward us.
Having crested the first serious climb of the day we were halted by a puncture and instead of hanging around in the cold, the still-recovering OGL sensibly took this as an opportunity to strike out early and alone for the café.
While we waited for repairs to be effected the heads of state gathered to decide a new route in OGL’s absence. I had a brief chat with beZ to try and determine why he’d given up on the bright purple saddle that provided such a, err, startling contrast shall we say, to his pink bar tape. Apparently, although it might have looked “da bomb” it was too damn uncomfortable.
Mid-ride conference
I idly speculated if anyone would ever come up with a heat mouldable saddle you could pop in the oven and then straddle when still hot to form it to your own unique contours. Alternatively, I guess you could just stick a sirloin down your shorts…
We pressed on as the weather began to get a little nasty and the roads a whole lot filthier. Son of G-Dawg pointed out the coating of snow and ice lurking in the grass at the road verges, as we discussed whether we should adopt the athletics ruling on false starts and apply this to punctures – we leave you behind on the second one, even if you were in no way involved in the first.
Almost in direct response the call came up that there had indeed been another puncture and we pulled over to wait before finally deciding to split the group. beZ and Aether went back to help out with the repairs and the remaining nine pressed on.
In horrible sleet and frozen rain we scaled the Trench, negotiated the dip and clamber through Hartburn and suffered the drag and grind from Angerton to Bolam Lake. From here speed started to build as the café beckoned, with Captain Black in fine form and continually driving us along from the front.
Climbing The Trench
At the last corner three consecutive fast commutes in a row and the exertions of the day took their toll and I drifted off the back to finir sur la jante and in need of a quick caffeine fix.
Despite being royally beasted in the café sprint, when we hit the climb out of Ogle on the return home, my contrary legs felt suddenly transformed and I floated up it effortlessly.
We were then blasted by a sudden and harsh blizzard of wet stinging snow that lashed down, striking exposed skin like a hundred tiny micro-injections of novocaine which stung and then almost instantly turned flesh numb. With the likelihood of the weather worsening I decided to turn for home early and cut off a few miles by looping over, rather than under the airport.
They all zigged, while I zagged
Now I was able to ride at a good pace as if my legs had settled on a steady and comfortable rhythm. I found myself clipping along at a surprising 17-18mph even as the road started to tilt upwards, my momentum only occasionally interrupted when I slowed to wipe occluded lenses clear of the wet, clinging snow.
I took the long, hated grind up past the golf course in the big ring, and kept the pace high right until the descent down to the river. For some reason this winter has been especially hard on brake blocks and here I found braking that had been fine in the morning when I set out had become decidedly sketchy in the cold and wet.
Having trouble scrubbing off speed quickly, I eased gingerly downhill, pulling hard on the brakes all the way, despite the icy flood that welled from my waterlogged gloves every time I squeezed the levers.
Swinging across the river I pushed along until the next hill beckoned where progress was slightly interrupted. I’m usually quite content with the thumb operated shifters on my old Sora groupset, but the combination of cold, wet and numb fingers coupled with bulky lobster mitts meant I couldn’t drop down onto the inner ring without stopping and using my right hand to forcibly click the lever down.
With this task finally, if not smoothly accomplished, I scrabbled quickly up, away from the river and swung left for the last few miles home.
Considering I was carrying what felt like an extra 6 or 7 kilo in my waterlogged socks, gloves and jacket, the climb up the Heinous Hill was relatively accomplished. As I ground up the last but steepest ramp another punishing hail shower swept in, pinging off my helmet with a sound like frozen peas being poured into an empty pan.
Stung into action by the hail, I watched the white streak of one of our cats shoot across the neighbour’s front lawn at high speed before launching himself headfirst through the cat flap and disappearing with a loud clatter.
Shelter seemed like a sensible idea and I swiftly followed, temporarily abandoning the Peugeot in favour of a hot shower with bike drying and cleaning set for some indeterminable future when the weather improved.
YTD Totals: 861 km /535 miles with 8,519 metres of climbing
