Hail to the Chief!

‘No story ever got worse for getting better’

Gaelic proverb

I read today that President Obama will soon give his state of the union address. No doubt it will cover weighty topics such as falling off Fiscal Cliffs and the like. I’m sure it will be a florid and supremely articulate speech but ultimately telling us only that we are up the proverbial without a paddle. Less state of the union more the state we are in.

There is not much that my father and the president have in common. Other than perhaps a mutual love of golf matched by their mutual lack of ability. However, my dad is a man that I respect enormously and love dearly. He is an immensely sensible, practical and stoical man.  An atheist Calvinist to his very core. Everything he does has been meticulously planned and thought through, as a result, things can take a while to get done, but he rarely makes mistakes.

Unfortunately, on the rare occasion that he does err it goes down in the family annuls. To be oft repeated and to get better with each telling…

The interior of my parents home has pretty much been built by my father, although there are glacial valleys that have been formed with greater speed. It has taken him the best part of 30 years to install the kitchen. But credit where credit is due, it is a fine kitchen. It has involved many trips to local DIY stores to get hundreds of pieces of wood. He has got this down to a fine art. He knows the exact size of the largest piece of wood he can get to fit in the car and the kitchen has been designed around that limitation. When he goes to the hardware store he follows the same regime. The wood is carefully measured (‘measure twice, cut once’ – an oft repeated maxim), then placed diagonally across the interior of the car to maximise the size of the wood that can be carried. The boot is then slowly lowered as far as possible, without closing, to check that the wood is in the correct place. Once it has been established that the boot can be safely closed, it is then slammed shut with vigour, gusto and a certain elan.

On this particular occasion, as usual, faither performed the door shutting ritual, scurried off round the car, got in the car seat, as usual, checked the car was in neutral, as usual; turned on the ignition, as usual; checked his mirrors, as usual and skooshed his windscreen. Only to be confused when he felt a refreshing spray on his face. At first he couldn’t work out where the spray was coming from. And then it slowly began to dawn on him that the windscreen of the car was not where it should be, but instead was scattered across the bonnet of the car. The merest milimeter of wood protruding beyond the window frame.

His reaction is not recorded for posterity, but my father rarely, if ever looses his temper. I imagine him taking a deep breath, closing his eyes and slowly letting his head fall and rest momentarily on the steering wheel. An oath may have been muttered, the wisdom of the gods questioned, but it would have been barely audible.

The only time that I have ever heard my dad swear is on the golf course. He is cursed with a terminal slice and on the worst of days when the 18^th tee shot of the round has been carved into the trees and the ball clatters like a pin ball through the woods, when the rest of us would gone home, or in tearful frustration, wrapped their clubs round their knee, or their playing partners neck, you may just catch him wearily shake his head and utter a profanity under his breath.

My dads eyesight is changing with age, its not getting any worse, infact you may argue that it is improving. He now only requires his glasses for close up work. For anything more than about 5ft of distance he will remove his glasses and go au natural (calm down mother, its only his glasses that he takes off). That poses its own difficulties when on the golf course. Although a tall man, when crouched, tiger like over the ball before a tee shot he is probably just a shade under 6ft. Thus he needs his glasses to see the ball, but once the blow is dealt he can't pick up the ball in flight with his glasses on. So an almighty kerfuffle ensues to take his glasses off before he looses the ball against the sky. After a shot he will invariably have no notion of where his ball has ended up. In his heart, he will know that in all probability, the ball has nestled in the jungle on the right of the fairway. But, ever the optimist he will hope that was the one in a hundred ball that makes its way on to the fairway. He will stand on the tee straining into the murky sky looking straight down the middle of the fairway in vain hope, one hand on his hip the other resting on his golf club, looking all the world like a champion a teapot impersonator.  He will then look round to me and ask expectantly…

‘I kinda lost the flight of that one against the sky, you didn’t happen to catch it did you?’

To which I always reply

‘Yup, went out right, Da'. Waaaay out right’

Dad will sniff, shake his head wearily and stoop to pick up his tee peg.

You have to understand that my fathers slice is a chronic and, alas, a degenerative condition. So 99.9% of the time that is infact the correct answer. Regardless of whether I managed to follow the ball or not.

There are occasions, and in my defence they are seldom, when the planets will align, there will be a stiffening right to left gale whipping off the sea, he will crack one off the meat of the bat and it will bisect the fairway…

‘I kinda lost the flight of that one against the sky, you didn’t happen to catch it did you?’

‘Yup, went out right, Da'. Waaaay out right’

And to his credit once he has waded through navel high gorse and knee high swamp looking for his ball, bravely risking the wild animals that tend to lurk in such wilderness and I have finally told him that it infact lies right slap in the middle of the fairway, he will smile, take it in good humour and have a wee chuckle to himself. He is just not a man who is quick to temper.

He has lived with my mother for over 40 years though, so if this patience didn’t come naturally, he most certainly has had to develop it. If it wasn’t for his looks he could have been a poster boy for Darwinism. Adapt or perish.

His adaption has taken many forms over the years, currently when things get too much in the house, he disappears into the garage for hours on end and comes out with the most wonderful wooden bowls.  Fashioned with care from exotic sounding woods such as zebranno or just with bits of wood, of unknown progeny that he has picked up whilst out walking (probably when he was searching for golf balls, its amazing what grows in some of that jungle like rough). Like the kitchen they take a good while to produce, but they are worth the wait.

There is no heating in the garage and during winter it can get punishingly cold. However dad still feels the need to get out from time to time and escape the madness of inside. My mother, realising the value of his retreat, has encouraged his hobby. I got a call from her asking advice on how she could make the garage a little more clement for the old man during the winter. I had expected her to be asking advice about how to rig up heaters for the garage or similar. But no, her question was to whether I knew where she would be able to buy him a set of thermal overalls. She might appreciate the value of his private space, but she also knows the value of money…

I took a call from my mother a couple of months ago.

‘What do you know about campervans?’ She demanded.

‘Erm… not much really, why?’

‘I’m thinking of getting one’

‘A campervan? Why on earth are you thinking of getting a campervan?’

‘To follow you round France’

‘What!?’

‘To follow you round France’

‘Yeah, I heard you. But since when are you going to follow me round France’?

‘Since I thought about getting a campervan, I reckon it’ll be a wheeze. Just like the old days when your dad and I travelled round Canada’

‘They’re not cheap’ I said. Trying to dissuade her.

‘That’s why I’m going to sell the car’.

I would have been better trying to stop a charging elephant with a stick of celery.

‘You’re going to sell the car?’

‘Why are you repeating everything I say, me boy?’

‘It’s incredulity’

‘I knew you’d like the idea’

‘I’m not sure that’s what incredulity means, Mum.’

‘There is a nice young man in Dairsie who can do me a good deal if I trade in the car’

 ‘But, you get car sick, it’s a long way to drive round France’ again, trying to dissuade her.

‘Och details, details’. Celery. Elephant.

‘What does dad say about this?’ I was getting desperate. It was my inheritance she was squandering, after all…

‘What’s he got to do with it?’

‘Well, its his car. I’m assuming your planning on bringing Dad too?’

‘Course he’s coming, you don’t think I’m driving up those hills do you? Don’t you worry about your Faither. He’s used to my great ideas. If he knows what’s good for him he’ll think it’s a great idea too’

‘…Right’

‘Don’t mention it to him though, I haven’t told him yet. Just waiting for the right time’

‘When its already a fait accompli?”

‘Precisely. We are of the same mind. I knew you’d think it was a good idea. I’m coming through to Glasgow tomorrow to look at a van that I think is a good deal. We can buy me lunch. You can tell me in more detail how much you love my idea’

And so we went to see a van in Glasgow and if truth be told, it was a cracking van. All mod cons, good little runner, just the ticket. Except it was decked out like the Scooby Doo van.

I'm not making this up... The Scooby Doo Van

Dad sidled up to me mid way through the viewing he was visibly pale and through the side of his mouth, muttered sotto voce:

‘It’s a bloody Scooby doo van. I'm going to have to drive round town in a bloody Scooby doo van. Do you know she’s going to sell the bloody car?’

‘Bloody’. Three times in as many sentences. I hadn’t heard that level of profanity since Faither ran out of golf balls trying to clear the water on the 16^th back in the 90s. Yup, he was shaken to the core, alright.

Fortunately the purchase of the Scooby Doo van fell through, however a van is currently on the high seas, inbound from Japan, and will be converted into a campervan by spring, ready for full sea trials before embarking on the long trip to and round France in the summer.

The Tifosi (The Emperors New Clothes) will now have their own means of transport.

There will be no State of the Nation address in castle Kemp this year, nor indeed any other.  But when I went home last, the table next to the TV was positively groaning. Piled high with the most exquisite hand turned bowls, salt cellars, pepper grinders, egg cups and other assorted wooden crafts. My dad may lack the soaring rhetoric of the president. But in his own way, he’s just as articulate.

From Glasgow,
N

Gone fishing

Digging in...

‘It doesn’t matter how good you get at cycling… You’re always gonna be shit. Unless you’re really, REALLY good. But even the REALLY good are gonna be shit when you compare them to Merckx.’  

I may be paraphrasing slightly but an old worthy told me that. Not the most optimistic of words, but sage ones, nonetheless. Having always inhabited the shallow end of the cycling gene pool they weren’t exactly earth shattering words of advice. I have always been very well aware of my own ineptitude and have never had any ambition beyond just trying to get a little better than my present station.

But then it’s all about context, I guess. Even as a duffer you have goals and targets. For me, first it was to cycle more than 50 miles, then a hundred, then a stage of the tour, then 7 stages, then get into the scratch group on the Wednesday night habble, then to hold on up the ministers, then to compete in the sprint into Torrence… Modest ambitions all, but ambitions nonetheless.

When it came to the track, until recently my only ambition was not to fall off and even that had proved to be too to lofty a goal (Blood on the track(s)).

However, at the velodrome yesterday, more by accident than by design, I found myself on the front of the first race of the evening. The front of a bike race is not the place you want to be, unless you are just about to cross the finish line. You expend a great deal more energy at the front of a bunch than you do if you are tucked in behind another wheel. I had hoped that when I swung up and allowed the peleton to slide past me I would be able to nip in behind a wheel and catch my breath. Alas, good will was not forthcoming last night and the only spare wheel was the one in last place. Unfortunately that was piloted by a rather rotund gentleman, who would not have been my first choice of lead out man. So I decided to start my sprint for home 1 lap into a 10 lap race. Not classic track tactics, I'll grant you, and not ones that you will see often practiced, mainly because they never work. There is just too much physics going against you. 20 slavering, sweaty cyclists is opposition enough, trying to take on Einstien and Newton as well, is just too big an ask. With sad inevitability I was swamped with half a lap to go and finished well down the field. The final ignominy being that I was left staring at the hairy arse crack of the aforementioned chubster as he eased passed my heaving and gasping frame on the line. He was barely out of breath.

Despite this set back, when put in context it was a victory of sorts. I had expected to be swamped after three or four laps rather than 9.5. I started to feel a little more confident that I could challenge in the races to come.

The next race up was the elimination race (or the Devil). I normally hate the Devil. It's kinda like musical chairs, and I hate musical chairs too. The person in last place at each lap gets eliminated. The name and number of the eliminated rider is shouted out over the tannoy, just to make sure that maximum ignominy is heaped on the first rider to exit the race. By the way, just incase you were wondering, there isn’t even space for music and there are no chairs.

There are 20 riders in the race, which means 20 laps. Which is obviously longer than 10 laps. Based on the experience of my last race I could see that I would have to re-think my tactics of starting my sprint from 9 laps out. So I went in with a complex set of tactical options. All based around getting the ‘second wheel’ (cycling parlance for being in third place). Unfortunately this seemed to be a popular tactic and even my hardest and most intense stare couldn’t persuade the rider to give me the wheel. So I was left high up on the banking. Looking back the only wheel spare was in last place, again piloted by the corpulent cove of earlier. I was flummoxed.

Not wanting to spend 20 laps eyeballing the sweaty hairy bum cleavage of an overweight middle aged cyclist, I decided that there was only one option open to me. I started my sprint from 19 laps out and just kept going. Given my experience of the last race, I expected that someone would come over the top of me at about lap 9, but it didn’t happen. Then the bell came, signalling one more lap to go, I stood on my pedals and put in one last effort and still no one came past me. I had won my first ever race as a cyclist. All my hard training had paid off. I was (and am) delighted. Inside I was turning somersaults and high fiving the crowd, however in true calvanistic style I didn’t raise so much as a smile, just incase someone thought I was showing off and they kent my faither. Oh, the shame that would bring.

The next race was the points race. Where you get points for your place in the peleton every 5 laps and 10 points if you manage to get a lap up on the field. This results in a hare-em, scare-em rabble of a race within a race. With the pace gradually cranking up over each five lap section and exploding into an all out frenzy, then suddenly slowing down again, before building for the next 5 laps. I had tactics again. I didn’t contest the first sprint. But as soon as the leaders had crossed the line signalling the end of their sprint, that signalled the start of mine. I figured that if I went hard enough for long enough I would catch them cold and would try and gain a lap. I went, no one followed and I won the second sprint by almost half a lap, my legs were giving out then so I decided to cut my losses, go back into the pack, grab a wheel and catch my breath. Alas, again I couldn’t get a wheel apart from my hairy assed friend who was playing the part of lantern rouge again. I was beginning to worry that he would think I was eyeing him up. So I attacked again, again got half a lap up and won the sprint. There are only four sprints in the points race so I figured I had probably done enough to win. I hadn’t a clue who had won the first sprint and I was way too far behind to figure out who had won the last. Unfortunately I tied on points with another rider, but because he won the last sprint, he won the race. However, I was delighted again.

But just before you get the idea that you have some track star in the making. The standard of the Glasgow Wednesday night track league is pretty low and I’m in the lowest league. Perhaps I will get promoted to the dizzy heights of the B race next week, then I'll be back to being shit and back to just trying to survive.

But for one week only I am a big fish in the shallow end of the gene pool. I am revelling in being right at the very top of the bottom of Scottish cycling. I may still be shit, but in my context, it’s a nice place to be.

From the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome,

n

There but for the grace of god…

Cycling is a tough sport. Really tough. It's physically hard, it's mentally hard.  Often the person who wins the race is not the most talented, but the guy who is willing to hurt the most, be that in the race or in training.  But the great irony is that no matter how tough we are, no matter how much training we put in, we are still incredibly fragile. No amount of training will stop us getting hurt if we fall off our bikes. After all, we are only skin and bone.

It was with great sadness that I heard about my club mate Scott, who got knocked off his bike the day before yesterday. He is currently in hospital with a broken neck and has had MRI scans. The car driver was done on the spot for dangerous driving.

I always feel slightly sick when I hear about an accident on the bike, especially when it's someone I know. I have ridden close on 2,000 miles since October, many of those miles are on busy roads. I daresay Scott was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, just bad luck. It could have easily have been me. I loose count of the number of times I have been cut up, or shouted at by passengers, or almost knocked off by cars not paying enough attention. It happens every time I am out for a ride.

I read that recent research shows that close on 90% of accidents involving cyclists are caused by car drivers and perhaps more worryingly, 83% of the time drivers are not aware that they have put a cyclist in danger.

But even with all of that, cycling is incredibly safe. Safer even than walking (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/sep/28/road-deaths-great-britain-data). However, not as safe as driving. Although one suspects that if motorists were more careful, both cycling and walking would be a whole lot safer.

So, if you are a car driver, go easy on us cyclists. We are delicate and there is not much between your 1/2 tonne metal box travelling at speed, and us. Some lycra and a wee bit of plastic on our heads afford little protection. Look out for us and take care of us, please.

After all, we don’t need anyone else to make us suffer – we do enough of that already.

Get better soon Scott, it sounds like it might be a long road, but I really look forward to seeing you back down at the track.

From Glasgow,

n

Polar Bears in the Campsies

I can always tell how much my pal Grant has had to drink. If he has five pints, then during a hiatus in the conversation the same old pub debate inevitably ensues.

‘Who would win in a fight between a lion and a bear’

‘What kind of bear?’

‘em… I dunno, does it matter?’

‘Course it does, the only chance a Koala Bear would have is if the Lion ate him before the referee had blown his whistle, then he might win on a technicality, but he’d be eaten, so its not like he’d be bothered about the adulation of the crowd’

‘hmmm… OK. Polar bear’

‘Which is the home side?’

‘eh?’

‘Whose playing at home? Is it at the Polar Bears gaff or the Lions…?’

Cycling can be a beautiful sport. Professional bike races cover huge areas of their host countries. With the massive viewing figures, the Tour de France doubles as a three week long advert for the French Tourist board.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the participants. Cycling garb is functional… but it's certainly not flattering. Lycra is not a good look for anyone, and cycling helmets make you look like a mushroom. But it’s the shoes that are perhaps the most ridiculous items of clothing.

Modern bikes have pedals that the cyclist clips into, this allows him to pull up as well as push down whilst pedalling. Part of the pedal is effectively built into the front of the shoe, which means cycling shoes look as if they have a Cuban heel attached under the ball of your foot, a kind of inverse high heel. The sole of the shoe is also often made of an exotic material selected for its stiffness. No flex in the sole means that maximum power is transferred to the pedal stroke. When used in their chosen environment only a fool would question the design the cycling shoe, one might even describe it as a thing of beauty.

However, the combination of the inverse high heel and an unbending sole means that if you try and walk in a cycling shoe you mince around like a gay cowboy who has soiled his pants. Traction is also an issue, many a cyclist has shown heroic bravery on an alpine climb, battling through snow and ice only to be brought back to earth with a bump, completing an involuntary arse over tit acrobatic manoeuvre on the tiled floor of a café. Or worse, and I am speaking from experience, the slow ignominy of carrying a coffee and a cake and one shoe deciding to strike out in an easterly direction and the other a westerly. The resulting Bambi on ice splits can seriously damage both fragile egos, hamstrings and cakes.

The Tak me Doon Road and is a favourite for the Glasgow cycling cognoscenti, although I use 'favourite' in the loosest sense of the word.

The Tak rears skywards from Kilsyth and takes you up over the Campsies towards the Carron valley. Tak Me Doon? Get Me Doon, more like. It is a beast of a climb. 15 minutes of lung busting, eye bulging, weight training for your legs. I rate it as the hardest climb in and around Glasgow. It’s not long, but it’s vertiginously steep in places and makes for a real herculean effort. There are, on occasions, great views to be had from the top of the Tak. However, taking them in, is dependent on the oxygen debt blue spots clearing from your eyes at the same time as the grey clouds clear form the sky: An all to rare coincidence.

On a clear day you can see the whole of the Clyde valley and central Scotland stretch out in front of you. If you're lucky you can just make out the Firth of Forth.

Once you have negotiated the Tak and have started your long descent there is a ford in the road. Normally it is nothing more than a puddle with a pulse. Slowly dribbling its way across the road. The water itself does not present any real obstacle. Rather the rough cobble stones that form the floor of the ford need to be negotiated with care as if you hit these hard a puncture can easily result.

Given the rain that we have had over the last few weeks I had expected the puddle to be flowing a little more forcefully than usual. However I had not expected the raging torrent with which I was faced. Since I couldn’t see the paving under this bubbling, frothing maelstrom I decided to dismount and walk the three steps it would take to cross this deluge. 

The puddle with a pulse. In spate.

Alas, as we have already ascertained cycling shoes are not designed for wading/tottering across algae coated cobble stones. When half way across the river (approx 1 and a half normal steps, 5 tottering mincing cycling shoe steps), I half turned to see a Royal Mail van hoving into view. The pressure of not wanting to delay her Majesties mail was too much for me, I lost my footing and all of a sudden I was lying face up in a freezing cold river, soaked to the skin. Whether it was the embarrassment, the cold, or both, I shot to my feet, I am not sure that I was down there long enough to get wet, only to slip once again, this time landing face down in the freezing river, ensuring that my wetness was at least uniform. The pain of the fall had barely registered and paled into insignificance when, retreating from the icy water, my testicles retracted so far and so fast I could feel them under my armpits. The impact of testicle on clavicle would have made a weaker mans upper lip tremble with emotion.

I got to my feet (more slowly this time) and tried to lift my bike up and get out the wet. Unfortunately my pedal had become lodged between two cobblestones and it was proving troublesome to release my steed. 

The Royal Mail van was now upon me and I realised that I was causing an obstruction to the Queens highway.  I pulled harder on my handlebars to try and free my bike. The mail van let out a plaintive peep on his horn... It was then I noticed that my saddle bag had released itself and was bobbing off slowly down the river. I decided that I would get my bike free, and get out of the way of the van before going back to retrieve my saddle bag.

I tugged harder on the bike and it suddenly released sending me sprawling in water for a third time. Much to the amusement of the postie.

I managed to extract myself from the white water and stood there shivering. Debating whether I should chase after my saddle bag. To be honest my mental debate didn’t even get beyond the reading of the motion. I decided that I would give the saddle bag and its contents (a puncture repair kit) up for lost, and head towards somewhere warm and dry. My testicles gave an almost audible cheer of delight and inched closer to where they should have been residing.

I did a mental check to make sure nothing important had been dropped in the river,

Wallet – check

House keys – check

Phone – check

All present and correct.

I swung my leg over my bike and started on my way, without so much as a glance over my shoulder towards my saddle bag. Half a pedal stroke into to my homeward journey it hit me.

Car keys.

My mother trucking car keys were in my mother trucking saddle bag. I leapt off my bike like a gazelle and minced back to the river as fast as an incontinent cowboy with inverse high heels could. I plunged once more into the icy water and chased after my keys. My testicles making plain their displeasure at the situation with every totter. As the river got further from the road it got deeper, first up to my thighs and then over my waist. About 10 meters from the side of the road there is a sheep fence. This fence normally crosses the river at a good distance from the water, but today the river was a matter of millimetres from the wire. I caught sight of the recalcitrant luggage, just as it was about to disappear under the fence, it had got caught on the wire, however it was clear by the way that it was moving that pretty soon the force of the water would push it under the fence. I leapt towards the bag ignoring the plaintive cries from my testicles. Unfortunately I missed and the splash from my leap pushed the bag under the wire. I cursed. It became clear that in order to get my car keys I was going to have to duck under the sheep fence, submersing my head in the icy water. I cursed again.

I took a deep breath and cleared the fence. God it was cold. So was the ride home.

My testicles came down from under my armpits eventually, but we’re still not on the best of terms.

So, you see Grant, its all a matter of context. A Polar Bear would win at a neutral venue. But not if the Lion got a home draw. The polar bear is a mean so and so but he’s not much use on the African savannah. Especially if he’s wearing cycling shoes.

I trust that settles it.

QED.
From the (wet and windy) wild west (end),
n

The Emperors New Clothes

Tulips - The original get rich quick scheme.

In the 1600’s the humble Tulip was introduced into the Netherlands from Turkey.  By the mid 1600’s Tulips were the Dutchies fourth biggest export earner. Then things went a bit nuts. Tulips became a luxury item and the wealthy started to line their estates with the garishly coloured flowers. Stripy tulips became particularly sought after and their prices went through the roof. People were paying the equivalent of 10 times the average yearly wage for one tulip bulb.  All of Dutch society dabbled in the Tulip exchanges, in the mistaken belief that the richest in society would always be willing to pay whatever the asking price to get their hands on tulips. Unfortunately they weren’t and over night the price of tulips crashed. Many people lost fortunes; the fools. It would be little comfort for them to learn, but they had just witnessed history - the bursting of the first ever stock market bubble.

Italian cycling fans are generally regarded as being the most passionate and are collectively referred to as the Tifosi. Much like the tulips on the Dutch gentries estates, they line the roads often in garish fancy dress and ring cowbells to exhort their hero’s to superhuman efforts.

France has much to commend it; fine wine, haute cuisine, haute weather, beautiful scenery and of course this year the chance to see me suffer up hill and down dale.  As a result of one or all of these factors a number of my extended family are planning on coming out to France next year. But mostly, I suspect it's to see me suffer. I will have my very own travelling Tifosi.

I decided to try and get my hands on a few cowbells to give as Christmas presents to those who are planning on making the trip out to France during the summer. However, my moral embargo on Amazon meant that finding suitable cowbells was more difficult than I had thought. I found a few on ebay, but was dismayed when my bids of upwards of 20 quid for a simple cowbell were unsuccessful.

I cast my net further and managed to find a company in Pennsylvania who sold the very same cowbells on which I had been out bid on ebay. Individually they were about 2 quid each, unfortunately you can only purchase these in bulk. My mind began to whirr and even a fool such as I could see that with the liberal application of a little entrepreneurial spirit and a sprinkling of a little derring do I could make a killing.  Even with the extra shipping required to get the cowbells across the Atlantic, I'd be quids in. I could just sit back and watch my profits grow, like tulips in the spring. By ploughing any profits back into my sponsorship fund I could go a long way to meeting my sponsorship target. I’d be eating nothing but caviar, wiping my arse on £10 notes and be bathing in champagne until Paris. Everyone would be a winner.

I put the order in 'toute suite' as they say in France. A day or so later I got an email back from the good people at cowbells.com to say that the cost of shipping would be more than I had anticipated, given that I lived in Glasgow, Scotland rather than Glasgow, Kentucky. I didn’t think this unreasonable and the margin of profit was going to be so huge that it was barely a drop in the ocean. And anyhow, captains of industry such as myself are used to overcoming trifling set backs such as this. I replied by return to get them to package them up and send them over, without further delay. After all, I had money to make.

Everything was going swimmingly until I happened to check the latest price on ebay for cowbells. I was devastated to find that in the intervening days the price had dropped by tulip like proportions. Where a week ago cowbells had been flying off the shelves at £20 a pop they were now barely making £3. My financial world had crumbled.
It was beans on toast for dinner that night. Then just to add to my fiscal woes, I got a letter from HM Customs saying that they wanted a piece of the action and had impounded my consignment of cowbells and were holding them ransom until I paid import duty. I cursed Osborne's impudency. I know we are all supposed to be in this together, but I hadn’t even made my first million before he was scrabbling for his cut of the pie. I immediately took the beans off the heat, popped the bread out the toaster, returned it to the loaf of bread and dined on cold beans. I was ruined. My cowbell bubble had well and truly burst. The fools indeed.

So if anyone wants a cowbell, I have a job lot. Whilst not exactly going cheap, they do make a rather pleasing clanging sound when agitated vigorously. You will be immediately transported to the high Alpe. Their mellifluous tones result in images of Heidi and Alpine meadows coming rushing to the inward eye. Not exactly the bliss of solitude, but as near as you’ll get in Maryhill.

I also have a tin of half eaten beans and a couple of slices of half toasted bread. I’d be willing to listen to offers.

I’m off to buy some Tulips.

From Glasgow, Scotland (not Kentucky)

N

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cowbell-Cycling-Cyclocross-Cow-Bell-/261151921759?pt=UK_SportGoods_CyclAcces_RL&hash=item3ccdde165f

Weather and lots of it...

'There is no such thing as bad weather - just bad clothes'…

Really?

I struggled up the stairs to my flat the other day having spent a, shall we say - 'refreshing', 5 hours out in some lovely west coast December weather. I pulled my 100% waterproof goretex lined winter boots off, turned them upside down and stream of dirty water poured out. Knowing that it was going to be wet, I had taken the precaution of pulling on my 100% waterproof 'Sealskin' (brand name rather than actual sealskin) socks that morning. These were wet through. 

I struggled to pull off my 100% waterproof 'Arctic' Gloves too. The suction caused by them being saturated meant it took quite some time to liberate my now soaked and wrinkled hands.

I have a 100% weather proof computer that sits on my handle bars, measuring my speed and distance. Apparently they test these things under water to make sure they work in adverse conditions. As I am sure you have gathered, there is a theme running here. My prized Garmin 750 may have been tested in some southern californian swimming pool, but it didn't survive a wee jaunt up the Crow Road in the rain.

To be fair, we have had a particularly wet December, with many areas in the UK flooded, and you do get a particular type of wet when you are on the bike. Not just wet from above, but the spray from the roads ensures that you are getting rained on from below as well as from above.

Cycling in December and January in Scotland gives lie to the adage above. No matter how good the clothes there is always bad weather in winter in Glasgow.

The weather too takes a toll on the bike. The spray from the roads contains grit and salt. The salt devours all parts of the bike, the grit acts as a grinding paste accelerating the wear on all moving parts. I am getting through a pair of brake blocks every couple of weeks at the minute. During the summer, I'd expect to change my break blocks maybe once. The short days mean that cleaning your bike, if done at all, has to be done in fading light or even by torch light. After a cold wet day out on the bike, your'e lucky if you have the time or the spirit to perform a perfunctory spray down with some WD40 to repel the water.

In some weathers even the Vomitron seems appealing…

From Glasgow,
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