Filed under: Words without wisdom
For many years, nobody has bothered to ask me the age-old question of why cyclists shave their legs. There’s probably a good reason that they don’t ask me, as I have a pair of pins that King Kong would probably consider trimming down a bit and, until recently, the hairy legs were accompanied by a suitably matching face.
The question in question (the shaved legs one, in case you happened to stumble across this blog by virtue of being a colossal pervert, searching the ‘net for overtrimmed ladies’ front bottoms, and finding my Shaven Haven instead) has, over the years, been asked of some of the world’s greatest cyclists, such as Eddie Merckx, Sean ‘King’ Kelly, Stephen Roche, et al. None of them, not one, could actually answer the question properly, coming up with a range of bizarre reasons, such as aerodynamics and, remarkably accurately (but no less twatish, as the answer came from Neil Stephens, who never was one of the world’s greatest cyclists and only made it onto the telly because he spoke English), “because everyone else does”. Kelly* himself muttered something about “dorrt” (which is, I’m reliably informed the Irish for “dirt”) and how “dorrt” doesn’t stick to the legs when they are shaved. No-one asked Lance Armstrong, as he’s a proper prick. And he didn’t exist that long ago anyway, being at a pre-production phase in an EPO laboratory owned by Dr Ferrari. Possibly.
Kelly’s legs. No “dorrt”
Let’s put this shaven legs thing to bed, once and for all. It’s pointless asking professional riders, as they were shaving their legs since before the real reason could or would ever become apparent to them. It is, after all, the done thing in cycling circles, and turning up to a race, any race, with wolf-like legs would result in howls (no pun intended, for once) of derision from their peers. The simple reason or, more accurately, reasons are these…no self-respecting burly soigneur would get his hands sullied by a pair of chimp-legs and, most importantly, having hairy legs massaged hurts like fuck.
Come to think of it, there’s another two reasons. A proper cycling photographer (and you know who you are, McMillan) told me that my hairy legs ruined his pictures. And fake tan is, apparently, a right fucker to apply sans streaks on the less-than-smooth skin of the, say, footballer. I like these reasons better than the proper reasons, to be honest. Balls to practicality. Vanity is where it’s at.
*Oh. Apparently, it was Martin Earley that said the bit about “dorrt”. I’m old now. I blame that. I still reckon it was Kelly, though.
Three-times Tour de France winner, Greg LeMond, once said, “It never gets easier, you just go faster”. It’s a great quote, but he’s wrong. When I started cycling again, I weighed nearly 100 kilograms. Most of those 100 kilograms could’ve been cut off and used to fry chips, were there not strict EU legislation against such things. Probably. An 8-mile round trip to nearby Amersham was a killer, and I’d need until the following day at least before my heart stopped beating like a fucked clock.
When riding a bike was so hard, writing about it was so easy. Spilling my guts all over the virtual pages of an interweb blogging site was infinitely easier than giving my soul to the tarmaced roads of Buckinghamshire. Sharing my agonies with the four people (if I include my mum) that read these pages eased the pain, and allowed me to give some humour to something that was otherwise excruciating. More than that, Fat Man on a Bike became my online cycling diary and, further still, the comments and encouragement from those that read it inspired me to carry on riding my bike.
Since that first recorded ride, way back in the Middle Ages or whenever it was, I’ve continued to ride my bike. I ride it for fun. I’m not training for anything, and I never have or will. I have met some of the most wonderful people ever to populate the planet. I’ve ridden in the Italian Alps, on the cobbles of Flanders, on Welsh mountains, in five different countries, and in many parts of the UK. I have ridden with Sky Pro Cycling and, despite my kind offer, Juan Antonio Flecha wouldn’t swap bikes with me. Soon, I will be going to ride in the French Alps, tackling the mighty Alpe d-Huez, Cols du Telegraphe and Galibier, and perhaps some other mountains too. With the exception of the ride with Sky, these events, all of which were wonderful beyond all comprehension, have gone unrecorded.
I wish I could remember who it was that’s supposed to have said “A happy writer is a lousy writer”, or something similar. It’s probably attributed to Mark Twain and, therefore, almost certainly wasn’t him. Whoever it was was spot-on, and I don’t mean flea treatment for cats and dogs. I doubt Bob Martin said anything quote-worthy, and his pet products are shit. The point is, I am now a happy cyclist. I weigh less than Lance Armstrong did in 1999, and I wouldn’t pretend to be ill if you rang to tell me we were off out to ride 100 miles today. My legs still hurt, my lungs still hurt. My arse, although toughened from hours in the saddle, still hurts. However, my mind doesn’t, so that’s it. Being a happy cyclist has turned me into a lousy writer. There’s no way I’m giving up my bike, so Fat Man, in it’s present guise, is over.
Leave the door on the latch on your way out, though…you’ve not heard the last from me.
Sunday, 18th July 2010
Sue Ryder Big K Cyclesportive
I’ve heard it said that a happy writer is a lousy writer. That is not to say that Fat Man on a Bike is borne out of a suicidal depression, or periods of alcohol-fuelled paracetamol overdoses. On the contrary. However, I have become fitter, and the suffering has become secondary to the enjoyment of the cycling itself, words have failed me. Sort of.
It was the only way they could shut FatMan up...
Perhaps it was destined to only be a temporary blip, a relatively brief period when I could convince myself that I was getting better, but still maintain that I should be spending July in France, riding somewhere in the Alps, wearing a yellow jumper, and shoving a bicycle pump through the front spokes of that little Spanish chap, Bertie Cupboard-door. Or whatever his name is. The proof would be in the pudding which, in this case, was a big fat Yorkshire Pudding. With sugar and lemon juice. This was the Bronte Big K sportive.
I was relatively confident that an eighty-eight mile jaunt around the hills that I still considered “home territory” would be little more than a walk in the park, and the utter absence of blazing sunshine, as is customary in Yorkshire, would simply make it easier. I duly arrived at my brother’s house at around 08.00hrs, and was greeted by a man dressed not in a lycra outfit, but instead in the expected dressing gown. Never ready, he’s nothing if not consistent. After much messing about, bouncing of a small child on my knee, and a torrential downpour outside, we finally set off for the event registration in nearby town of Keighley.
It wasn’t long before we were on a hill, although we nearly didn’t make the first climb of the day. The signage was pretty poor coming away from the town centre, and a bit of common sense (one of the most inappropriately named senses, perhaps) was needed to avoid riding round in uninspiring circles for the entire day. In retrospect, it’s entirely possible that common sense failed, as we could’ve used it as a criterium-style circuit, and saved ourselves from the sadistic route planner and his/her vile course. Anyway. The first hill was the climb from Keighley up into Haworth, home of the Brontes. Well, it was, but since they’re all rather dead by now, and as we’re not a pair of time-travelling freaks, I should probably have said the former home of the Brontes. We’d left the start line with another chap, who was clearly a wheel-sucker with no intention of sharing the pace. It took a set of temporary traffic lights, and our refusal to disobey the road traffic regulations to get rid of him, as he whipped around us and disappeared off up the road. That was the very last time anyone rode past us all day.
The first climb of the day was already completed, and I was looking forward to a few miles of flattish road to get the legs going. I was going to be denied this most basic of requirements by a route planner that probably drove around the course rather than riding it on a bicycle. The hills were joined together with hills, with some wind and rain thrown in there for good measure, meaning that at times we had to ride at an angle of approximately 45〫to the road. Or 135, depending on which side you’re measuring. Pedants. By the time we dispatched a number of riders on the 26% ascent of Goose Eye, I had a thigh strain, and couldn’t ride out of the saddle for much more than ten or twelve pedal revolutions. I had to ride like Der Kaiser himself – Jan Ullrich. Except without the a face full of chips. Or, sadly, beer.
Twelve hills in, we hit something that not only resembled a descent, but was somewhere I recognised. Considering I spent the first twenty-nine years of my life living in the area, I’d been utterly lost until we reached Stoney Ridge. From here, we dropped down into Saltaire, a picturesque Victorian model village, founded in 1853 by Sir Titus Salt, a miserable twat who built houses for his workers so they couldn’t be late for work in t’ mill (or something), and boasts streets named after his children, the most memorable being Fanny Street. My brother is, by his own admission, shit at riding his bike downhill, and I’d opened a gap between us. The gap was to be very short-lived, as this was also the location of the second feeding station. On offer were such delights as the cyclist’s perennial favourite, the banana, flapjack, and the highly-rated High5 energy drink. I threw back several small cups of High5, and was tucking into a nice bit of cake when my brother arrived. “Don’t go drinking that High5 stuff fast…it’ll give you a really bad stomach if you do”, he said (or words to that effect).
“Oh”, I replied. “It might be a bit late for that”. He wasn’t to be proved wrong.
Leaving the feeding station was a slightly confused affair, with crap signage and the route requiring us to cycle over a footbridge where cycling is prohibited. A few turns later, and we were heading up into Baildon, and across Baildon Moor. The High5 had delivered it’s promised stomach problems as soon as we’d set off, which is a shame really, as the road pointed upwards. I went backwards, and it was the last I was to see of my brother until well after the finish. On the descent from Baildon Moor, I chased as hard as I could without puking, but the rider in the distance turned out not to be him, but a chap who’s name almost certainly wasn’t Jeff Dangleberry. I caught and passed Jeff easily enough, but he hung on my back wheel for a while and refused to come and share the work. I gave it as much wellie as I could find, and dropped him.
A few solitary miles later, and after an energy gel which seemed to suck energy out of me rather than put it in, I rolled into the posh spa town of Ilkley. You can tell it’s posh, because it has a Betty’s cafe. Or maybe it has a Betty’s because it’s posh. Either way, if it didn’t have a spa, it’d be as piss-poor as everything else around it. But it does, and so it’s not. It’s a pleasant, busy little town, with a big bastard hill on the other side. This is where I was headed. Ilkley Moor is the highest part of Rombalds Moor, and is famously known outside of Yorkshire because of the stupid git who tried wooing his bird on the moor without his hat on, and the associated county anthem, On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at. I’d considered the climb of Ilkla Moor (upon which I was wearing a helmet, which is a sort of hat, I suppose) to be the toughest part of the route. On it’s own it didn’t concern me, but after fifty-something miles that was tougher than I was expecting it looked bloody huge. It was. At it’s steepest point, it’s “only” a 13% gradient, but I managed to go slow enough to be, albeit briefly, stationary. After about four days, I crawled past the Cow and Calf rocks, and the public house of the same name, and I was at the top.
Despite all my moaning, groaning and wheezing, I’d managed to not only not get caught, but to catch someone up. Well, nearly. From the top of the Cow and Calf, the road levels out briefly before starting a lumpy descent across the moor itself. I pedalled for all I was worth, all £3.26 of it, in a desperate pursuit of the chap in front. Hitting speeds of over 50mph, the descent into Burley Woodhead became a little technical, due to my lack of desire to ride through steaming piles of horse poo, and the road surface leaving a little to be desired. I caught Mr Yellow-jumper just before The Hermit public house, and his legs clearly felt as bad, if not worse, than mine, as he disappeared behind me as the road kicked up again.
Either the road surface was getting worse, or my arse was getting more sore, as I felt every bump after the descent from the Cow and Calf, and I suspected I had a puncture. I looked down at my back wheel through my legs, but it looked alright, and so I pressed on. I bumped along for another mile, realising that there was something very much “up”, but not quite being able to put my finger on it. I figured I should probably stop and have a proper look, and there it was. A great big fat hole in my tyre, winking at me like some kind of rubbery pervert, measuring about and inch and a half, with my still-inflated inner tube poking through like some kind of cycling hernia. It occurred to me that slowing to safely negotiate steaming horse excrement may well have saved me from a speedy crash which would have left me, physically and metaphorically, in the shit.
I’d ridden for only sixty miles of the total eighty-eight, but the tyre was dead and, if I rode on, there was a fair chance I’d be next. Apparently, the better part of valour is discretion. I turned round and headed for The Hermit, and a nice pint while I awaited rescue. Don’t blame me…blame William Shakespeare. It’s his line, not mine.
The bikes:
Fatman: Planet X SL Pro Carbon with full 10-speed Ultegra
Patrick: Some Orbea thing with 9-speed 105, and Ultegra compact chainset
Monday, 4th January 2010
Undisclosed location, London
Anyone that thinks spending several hours of their lives of Facebook is a waste of time can think again. By following the newly formed Team Sky on their Facebook page, I was gifted the opportunity to ride with them on a pre-launch ride around London village.
After a speedy change in the toilets at work (for I was working on the Sunday night), followed by hurtling down the M1 motorway into London, I received the text message that would tell me the location of my super-secret special meeting place. I had to go to the Inner Circle of Regent’s Park. I found the rather conveniently located car park in St John’s Wood, following a tip-off from a fellow Twitter user and, with the aid of the on-bike GPS made my way to the aforementioned location. Once there, I was met by my good friend, Simon. The day was cold and icy, and hanging around talking nonsense waiting for a bunch of professional cyclists to turn up with their swanky new bikes and their swanky new team kits did nothing to aid the flow of our rapidly freezing blood, but after what felt like about six weeks, the first sight of the new team Jaguars, with new Pinarellos on the roof, swept into view.
Bike Porn.
As we stood in the cold, here was much messing about by team mechanics, and milling about by film crews, while the professional cyclists sat in the warmth of their posh cars, waiting until the last minute to get out and onto their bikes. I think the plan was to wait until I was truly hypothermic, so that they could beat me. Once my body temperature dropped to dangerous levels, we were off.
For some reason, WordPress doesn’t want to embed this, so clicky the linky:
SKY PRO CYCLING TEAM LAUNCH from Dan Thornton on Vimeo.
I’ve no idea whatsoever where we went. When I finally download the data from the Garmin, I might provide a map. Then again, I might not. It could be top secret.
Riding PRO. Team Sky thoroughly enjoy their day out with the Fat Man...
The bikes:
Fatman: Pinarello Paris with full 9-speed Ultegra and Mavic Open Pros
Simon: Cervelo S1 with full 10-speed Ultegra and Dura Ace wheels
Team Sky: Pinarello Dogma 60.1 with full Dura Ace Di2 (lucky bastards!)
Saturday, 3rd October 2009
St Albans – Outskirts of St Albans – St Albans
It had been a while since Chris and I had been out for a ride, so I was looking forward to today’s ride immensely. The reality was nothing like I’d envisaged.
After about four miles, a fat man in an Arsenal training top stepped off the pavement into my path, and I hit the ground at about 30mph, landing shoulder first. I picked myself up, dusted myself down, cried over my ripped T-Mobile jersey, then cycled slowly and painfully back to our starting point and a cup of tea.
This is what happens when speeding bike and a fat pedestrian collide...
Until then, I’d be murdering Chris with a cracking pace. Subsequent trips to the hospital and the doctor’s surgery have revealed a desire for them to ban me from the bike. Next time we ride, the normal situation of Chris killing me, and me moaning, will be resumed.
Sunday, 14th June
Dragon Ride, Wales. 117.41 miles.
A week of barbeque dinners and drunken debauchery is hardly the preparation of a professional cyclist, yet a diet of burgers, lard and beer preceded my Dragon Ride. Since I’m not a professional cyclist, I didn’t see this as a problem, and I had been attacking my daily grub with similar spirit to that shown by Carlos Sastre on 2008 climb of l’Alpe d’Huez. A few ales on the preceding evening seemed like a good idea at the time.
The resulting following morning’s early start was greeted with the contempt that all early starts, with the exception of those necessary for an outbound holiday journey, are held in. I managed to force-feed myself with a couple of crumpets and a mug of tea, load the bikes onto the back of the car, and make the hour-long journey, in the company of my brother, Patrick, to Chris’s hotel in Bridgend before I was truly capable of speech.
I thought I had cracked this Dragon Ride malarky with my custom ride
After much messing about with the appalling BikeHut track pump, fumbling with cable-ties for fastening race numbers to bikes, and sharing out bananas, the three of us set out for the start line. Adding an extra four and a half miles to the day wasn’t really the sort of warm-up I’m used to, normally settling for a cup of tea and some light banter, and the legs felt like they were filled with runny brie as we made our rolling start from Pencoed Technology Park.
It wasn’t long before the road started to point skywards, and I started to go backwards. I confess that I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to the signage, but I think it may have been at the foot of the Bwlch when I was dropped. Patrick, being far fitter than either Chris or myself, disappeared around a left-hand bend, and Chris, making up for his lack of fitness by having a proportionate lack of weight, went with him. I decided, right there and then, that I was going to ride at my own pace, well within myself, and make it to the finish line alive.
The ascent of the Bwlch was closely followed by the hair-pinned climb of the Rhigos, where the road rose steadily upwards and the riders climbed to the ringing sounds of Tour de France-esque cow-bells, and the shutter of Phil O’Connor Photography’s Nikkon, permanently recording the drained faces of the riders for posterity and, presumably, for Phil O’Connor’s wallet.
A fat man goes on the attack...
The sight of the first feed station at the top of the Rhigos was a welcome sight and, despite over a hundred riders milling around with jam tarts, bananas, and High 5 energy drink, Patrick and Chris were spotted near a burger van. Like a moth to a flame, my attention was immediately drawn to the wafting smells of the hot plate, so it was probably the best place for them to stand and wait. The crumpets and cup of tea had long since been used and, despite my better judgement, a dirty burger was consumed, and was relished with relish. Duly poisoned with the filthy fast food (the onions were sweaty enough to have come directly from a rugby player’s jockstrap), and having had the ladies’ bottoms that Chris thought we should attempt to follow next, and a rider with a prosthetic leg, pointed out by him, we headed for the wonderfully fast descent of the Rhigos.
The barely-cooked patty of ground-up cow’s lips and hooves had failed to provide me with any kind of nutrition whatsoever, and it wasn’t long before I found myself off the back, once again, for a long and lonely slog across the windswept Brecon Beacons National Park with only the sheep for company. After about ten miles of watching the wheel of the bike in front, from it’s permanent distance of about three hundred feet beyond my reach, I could’ve thrown the towel in, except I didn’t have a towel, or know where to throw it if I did. Now, I’ve seen what happens on the telly. I’ve been watching telly’s for years. On the telly, I pull over at the side of the road, get off my bike, the numbers are peeled from my jersey and I get into the team car or the voiture balai and hide from the cameras. Out in the Brecon Beacons, there was no team car, nor a television crew filming my sorry abandonment. Until the motorcycle cameraman turned up, I’d just have to plug away.
Hogwarts rail replacement service is never there when you need it.
If there was any fluid left in my ravaged body by the time I reached the second feed station at the top of the Cray, I could’ve cried tears of joy at the sight of both Patrick and Chris. Not because I was all that pleased to see them, per se, but more for the fact that I was riding much closer to them than I had thought. Patrick’s greeting amounted to, “Oh hello. I’m just going. Bye!”, and so he did, proving that it wasn’t him, but Chris that I was close to on the road. Chris sat rocking on the grass banking by the roadside, repeatedly muttering “this isn’t fun” and “never again” to himself. I grabbed a refill of High5, and joined him on the banking.
After twenty minutes of being thoroughly abused for “forcing” Chris to enter the Dragon Ride, we hit the road again. The descent off the Cray provided us with long sweeping descents, and something that almost resembled a flat road. We rode together on the ascent of Coelbren, with Chris’s moaning only silenced by distance. On the run-in to Neath, we became separated by my need to hide behind a tree, and he (probably) didn’t hear me saying anything. It didn’t matter. Chris had done plenty of moaning about how rough he felt, and it was to have a rejuvenating effect on me.
The groupies gathered...
Once into the old Roman town of Neath, the climb of the Cimla stood in the way of the third feed station, where a number of sunburnt cyclists lay about on either side of the road, many looking back down the hill for friends, relatives, or the next bottom to follow. Chris was waiting in the latter group, eagerly checking out the rear end of anyone that still had a pulse, and we joined forces once again for the second ascent of the Bwlch. The western face of the Bwlch, from the Afan valley, is reputedly the harder of the climbs, and felt decidedly alpine, with it’s sheer drop to one side, and a number of riders ground to a halt, keeling over sideways in front of me. Chris didn’t make more than a hundred yards on me on the ascent, and was in sight at the summit.
The paparazzi lay in wait for a tired fat man...
On the last climb of the day, the short climb of Llangenor, Chris disappeared for the final time. I couldn’t turn the pedals over at any great rate on the incline, so I tried to make up my deficit on the flat road to the finish. I passed a man on a unicycle, and finally rolled into Pencoed after a spirited chase, only seventeen seconds down on the much younger and skinnier Chris. I’d finished the Dragon Ride, but I’d been beaten by both of my companions. Oh, and the one-legged man beat me too.
The map, Boy-o!
The bikes:
Fatman: Pinarello Paris with full 9-speed Ultegra and Mavic Open Pros
Chris: Wilier Mortirolo Carbon with full 10-speed Veloce and Fulcrum R7s
Patrick: Some Orbea thing with 9-speed 105, and Ultegra compact chainset
Sunday, 26th April
Princes’ Risborough Sunday Sportive. 76 miles.
After several years of being bugged by my brother to enter (and presumably to ride) the Dragon Ride, a 100 miles+ journey round southern Wales, I finally relented and signed up. With this looming on the horizon, I stumbled upon the Princes’ Risborough sportive ride whilst idly flicking through the pages of Cycling Weekly, and thought that it might be an idea to ride a sportive and find out what the chuff they were all about. With Princes’ Risborough being a twenty minute drive up the road, and the sportive being a mere seventy-six miles, I thought that it would be a good introduction to riding organised events.
Now, for those readers amongst you that are not particularly au fait with the topography of the Chilterns, seventy-six miles might not sound like much. In fact, my brother, on learning of my impending endeavour, went as far as to say, “Seventy-six miles? Huh…is that all? You big puff.” However, it represented a distance as yet uncovered in one go since my returning to cycling, on a route that had approximately three feet of flat road in the entire route.
Seventy-six miles is a distance for men in pink headbands
Getting up before the dawn, perhaps of time itself, to stuff your face with carbohydrates is not something that I do regularly, and so when Chris knocked on my front door to announce his arrival, I was far from ready to ride a bike. I think I disguised my lack of preparation well, and pottered around with as much purpose as I could muster. In retrospect, he probably cottoned on to my attempted subterfuge rather quickly, as I clickety-clacked my way across the laminate flooring in cycling shoes. If he didn’t, and hangovers are not unusual for him, the game was certainly up when I changed my shoes for the drive to Princes’ Risborough.
We took the start a shade after nine o’clock. This was just about the only shade we were to see all day, as the weather was unseasonably glorious. We set off at a cracking pace and, almost immediately, was away from the main road and into the countryside bordering Buckinghamshire with it’s Oxfordshire neighbour. After we’d been lulled into a false sense of security with the opening few miles being the flattest section of the race, we’d calculated that barring illness, injury, or mechanical incidents, we wouldn’t be last to finish, and settled down to enjoy the riding and the scenery.
The Princes’ Risborough sportive doesn’t boast any particular route-defining monster climbs, but with the advertised maximum gradient being a rather wicked 15%, I was pleased to see that the little tin triangle on a pole by the side of the road advertising the first real climb of the day as being just that. What I didn’t know, and was only to later discover through agonising experience was that 15% also represented something close to the average for the climbs on the course. Chris, who resembles a garden rake and weighs about as much as one of my shoes, skipped off up the road and left me to get on with my own ride to the top. Halfway up the climb I was passed by an express train of Cycle Club Luton riders, all of which I’ve decided must’ve had their own respective bodyweight in recombinant erythropoietin coursing through their veins and their stretchy pants filled with cortisone-rich chamois cream. Perhaps if I wasn’t such a lard-arse, I might have been able to jump on the back of the train for a millisecond, but I am, so I couldn’t, and I struggled my way to the top, and was reunited with the waiting Chris.
Follow that bottom...
Then, along came our saviour. There was no brilliant sunlight, no parting of clouds, nor a booming voice from the heavens – probably because the sun was already out, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and because I’m as certain as I can be that there’s no God anyway – but a vision, the cycling donkey’s carrot-on-a-stick. A carrot that looked like a blonde, riding a stick that looked remarkably like a silver Bianchi. “Follow that bottom”, said Chris. I looked over at Chris. “Follow that bottom”, I agreed. And so, like two wise donkeys following a lycra-clad star, we followed that bottom over vale and hill until we reached a stable. More accurately, the stable was a bus shelter with a big fold-out table in front of it, bearing fruit and drinks. We replenished our empty bidons, grabbed a banana and a piece of flapjack each, and remounted our carbon and steel machines. But the Bottom had gone, and with it our chances of a good time.
A rubbish map. Courtesy of Rubbish Maps Inc., Boston, MA
The bikes:
Fatman: Pinarello Paris with full 9-speed Ultegra and Mavic Open Pros
Chris: Wilier Mortirolo Carbon with full 10-speed Veloce and Fulcrum R7s
Filed under: Words without wisdom
Writing a blog, especially a cycling blog, isn’t easy, and don’t you let anyone tell you otherwise. In some ways, it’s far harder than the rides themselves. Not the first few months of riding, in which I suffered like a fat bloke wearing incredibly tight pants at Christmas dinner with the in-laws. That was, of course, purgatory, which is doubtless why the words came easily, despite the relative lack of newsworthy events. Despite the evidence of the ever-present gut and each ride finishing with my face looking puffy (much in the same way that Chris Boardman used to look after a TdF Prologue-winning ride), the riding has, for the most part, become a little easier. Yet the words are somewhat harder to find.
I didn't say that I'm a Twit, I said I'm on Twitter
So, for a little while now, FatMan has been embracing the weird and wonderful world of Twitter. Don’t panic, fair reader. This is not a move away from writing these pages, but should be viewed as a valuable addition. The other problem with writing a cycling blog is that it’s always going to be about cycling. Nothing wrong with that per se, but there is, just about, more to life than carbon compact chainsets, deep-section rims, and stretchy spandex. Those things, along with plenty that is FatMan will be covered on Twitter. Sadly, the Fat Man on a Bike twitter moniker has already been taken. By a fat man, who admits he hasn’t ridden his bike in yonks.
Monday, 31st November
Utley – Cottingley – Eldwick – East Morton – Silsden – Steeton – Utley. 20.47 Miles.
I didn’t feel exactly well when I left my mum and dad’s house this afternoon. The rain was falling at an angle that only northern rain can, due to an irritating wind that threatened to blow me off my bike every time I turned and brought it side-on. However, I was determined to crack the 1,000 mile-marker that had been looming ever closer on the Aerodeck, and also to see my grandma for the first time since her hip-replacement operation. Just like Floyd Landis, she’d had constant pain for some time and concealed it well. Unlike Floyd, however, without the aid of exogenous synthetic testosterone, she was unable to win a Tour de France.
Like my grandma, but with a bit of druggie cheater thrown in
I arrived at my grandma’s house with little incident, other than dodging the big bad wolf, and having to nip the wrong way down a very short one-way street that was previously two-way. I’m fairly certain that there was a police officer there, directing me to do so (honest, Your Worship), and to avoid doing so meant either a short ride on the pavement or a lengthy detour, neither of which I fancied.
It could be argued that you can never spend too much time with your grandma, unless she has big ears, huge yellow eyes and saliva drooling from her prominent fangs. If that’s your grandma, the red coat is best left at home. Fortunately, my grandma displays none of these dubious qualities, but I had spent too long drinking tea, and trying to work out from the barely perceptible limp which hip had been replaced. I was now not only wet, but cold too.
Usual conditions for cycling in the frozen north
After the usual attempts to refuse my grandma trying to give me her pension money, all of which fell on deaf ears, I left. I say deaf, but it’s just a selective deafness that dogs and old people seem to develop. I still had the 1,000-mile mark to pass, and the straight route back to mum and dad’s wouldn’t be enough. I headed for the hills I’d ridden years ago, past my old school, and for Bingley Moor. My troubles were about to begin.
The next seven miles were to be mainly uphill, in driving rain and wind. Just the sort of weather/terrain combination you might expect from a November ride in Yorkshire. I’d felt less than tip-top when I left mum and dad’s, and a lengthy delay in wet gear at my grandma’s house had done no favours. With every pedal-stroke, a non-specific winter lurgy took further hold, and I passed the 1,000-mile mark almost without noticing. I certainly felt too rough for any kind of celebration, and limped home, coughing and spluttering, a shadow of my former self.
Having the lurgy, the map is for my benefit as much as yours
Todays bike: Pinarello Paris with full 9-speed Ultegra and Mavic Open Pros
Sunday, 30th November
Utley – Connonley – Carleton – Broughton – Gargrave – Rhylstone – Skipton – Utley. 35.51 miles.
Once again, Fatman is playing the blogging ‘Catch Up’ game. A combination of winter lurgies, and the pre-Christmas preamble has given me more than sufficient distraction from the writing for some of the more interesting and newsworthy elements of the bike rides to fall into the darker recesses of my murky mind, possibly never to be recovered again. However, numerous requests and, in some cases, demands have prompted me to pick up the virtual quill and re-commence my mindless scribblings once again.
FatMan has started to write again
Today (although, technically, it was one day several months ago, but who’s counting?) started remarkably early, with the alarm sounding at 4.30am, and a trip to Heathrow. Sadly, I was to be remaining in the country, whilst my international jet-setting girlfriend was to board a plane bound for New York, and a week of sightseeing and shopping, leaving me to my own devices. Girlfriend-duties duly completed, I hurried home, loaded the car with my shiny bicycle and the necessary paraphernalia for a few days in the native north, and hurtled the two hundred miles to the borders of West and North Yorkshire, and a lunchtime cycling date with my brother, Patrick.
As I should have expected, Patrick was far from ready upon my arrival, and the cycling didn’t kick off until after the lunch of pizza and more tea (I was the one drinking the tea) than you could shake a tea bag at. He eventually arrived at the rendezvous point of mum and dad’s house, and there was further delays, as dad spent an age trying to decide if he was coming with us or not. Having decided that he would, he pottered around, dressed more like Jacques Cousteau than anything resembling a cyclist, as he tried to repair an inner tube that had more holes than a war-time pensioner’s best underpants.
Jacques Cousteau, clearly in the wrong place, lines up for the start
Inner tubes with so many holes weren’t meant to be repaired. Eventually, dad gave up, and Patrick and I went on our way without him. It being mid-December, we were hardly full of the joys of spring, but rather jovial, nevertheless. This was until the Patrick’s first pedal-stroke of meaning. He popped the chain onto the big ring and stood up on the pedals, then the chain snapped and he nearly lost his wedding vegetables on the crossbar. We turned around, and I pushed him the four million miles back to his house.
Finally, astride his single-speed of unknown gearing and dubious lineage, we started out again. The lack of anything other than the one gear meant that Patrick’s plans of attacking the climb of Fleet Moss and, presumably, murdering me in the process had to be shelved. The route took us out over some rather lumpy roads, but without anything in the way of major climbing. Other than nearly losing the bicycle to the ice (the temperature never got above -1°c) on the dark side of a hill, and a tea-eliminating wee against a secluded tree, the rest of the ride went without incident.
Several hours later, we arrived home. I was knackered, but Patrick was rather disappointed. In a pre-ride text message, he’d said, “You’d better have the good grace to be shite”. I was, but I “wasn’t wheezing enough”. There’s just no pleasing some people, is there?
By 'eck! It's that thaar map thingymebob!
The bikes:
Fatman: Pinarello Paris with full 9-speed Ultegra and Mavic Open Pros
Patrick: Orbea Somethingorother with buggeredifIknow/Raleigh single-speed thing of unknown-ness
Dad: The sofa. Asleep in front of Bargain Hunt or similar
