We dream of going out on a nice warm sunny day, the roads are quiet, the birds singing in the trees, we feel super fit, the wheels are whirling, hills are no problem, the air is clean and fresh, motorist wait to overtake you and give you a friendly wave as they pass (you’re return wave is conventional and not with two fingers) it is utopia, the countryside wizzes by and you find the best tea stop ever, and then you wake up!
The rain is lashing off the window and you have a sore hip where you came off the day before, your legs cramp up in bed causing you to pull the duvet off your better half, which doesn’t get the day off to a good start, and then you remember the reality. The bike will be rusting because of the rain and you need to oil it but you have to go to work, and then there is the punctured inner tube waiting to be repaired in the back pocket of your jacket, the wet cycling shoes and so it goes on.
Weird or what? we get home wet, tired and hungry and while you are still trying to get your wet socks off, your better half says, “Had a good ride pet?”, you say, “Great, I felt alright today” now we don’t really want to lie but we know if we say anything else it will be “I told you so, you should have come to the shops with me” What you do not mention is that you’ve never had a puncture for months and then get one when it’s blowing a gale, the rain is horizontal and it’s freezing cold. You struggled with the tyre because it’s was tight on the rim and with rain drops dripping from your nose, your fingers were freezing and your hands oily (it’s always the back wheel) and you lost the valve covers in the long grass.
And then there is the constant quest for faster times or better placings, you’ve put up with all the trials and tribulations of training and you still find yourself towards the back of the bunch or your times are not improving, what does that prove? Are the rest on happy baccie or are they just more masochistic than you, you decide it must be the latter and resolve to go out no matter what the weather, faster and further.
And it doesn’t get any better as you get older, the speed gets slower, the miles get less and aches and pains appear in places where you didn’t think existed. It’s now the children and grandchildren telling you to be careful you are getting older, as though you need telling! Conversations between your friends have morphed from race results to medical results, from heart pace makers to hip replacements and as old men do, all repeating the same stories over and over. You have to accept that other cyclists are going to pass you as though you are standing still, when runners are running faster than you can cycle, when kids ride alongside laughing and when drunks take the mickey and try to keep up with you drunkenly slobbering on the handlebars.
And so it goes on, sad and deluded, but it’s great, isn’t it?And some of us have been deluded for 60 years but still think it’s great, just remember the good times with fondness and forget the bad and when you pass overweight people with walking sticks,think yourself lucky and just be grateful for the bike! we might be knackered, but we are happily knackered!
