A Close Shave

Big Merv. Angry after a sea gull shat on his nose.

I remember it distinctly. Seared in my mind. It was 1989 and the Australians were touring England, trying to recapture the Ashes that they had given up in 1985. They didn’t stand a chance, so was the collective wisdom. They hadn’t won an away test series in donkeys and even then that was only one test against Sri Lanka; and they were barely recognised as a test playing nation. Terry Alderman was their strike bowler and he was made of glass, constantly injured and past his best, although he had seldom stayed fit enough for long enough to establish a ‘best’. He was a ‘has been’ that had never been.

The Aussies won the test series 5-0. Batting for day after day and bowling with metronomic and ruthless consistency. Alderman, in the form of his life was chief tormentor. And they were mean. By god they were mean. A motley crew of snarling, foul mouthed delinquents. As one wag put it ‘they didn’t just go for the jugular, they ripped it out and made balloon animals with it’.

But it wasn’t the cricketing excellence or the unflinching will to win that so impressed me. It was the laissez fair attitude they had to personal grooming. I had never seen such a bunch of hirsute and unkempt individuals. They looked like a band of swarthy, sweaty South American brigands fresh from raiding cattle on the high plain.

I had never seen anything like it. Border, Boon, Hohns, but most of all Merv Hughes.  Big ‘Merv the Swerve’. It was like a particularly hairy marsupial had stretched out and gone to sleep under big Merv nose. A huge hairy boomerang that covered fast expanses of his face.

The Victorian era was surely the zenith for facial hair.The moustache, the beard, the beard and moustache, the sideburns that were so luxuriant that they had their own hair style. It is perhaps fitting that Merv was (and is), in fact, a Victorian.

It was as if this Australian team had stepped on a plane in 1889 and arrived in London 100 years later. It really was super stuff.

I travelled to Australia a few years ago and there still seems to be a fascination with facial hair. Alas, the bouffant styles prevalent amongst 80s cricketers has been replaced with something a little more stylised and all together less masculine. Like the moustache under the bottom lip, or the beard that only covers the bottom of the chin which makes the wearer look like he’s put his head on upside down. They don’t look mean any more, just stupid. They have somehow managed to make the wearing of facial hair somewhat effeminate. Quite how they have managed that is beyond me.

I journeyed home last weekend to take part in an Audax. Audax’s are long distance cycling events (the classical scholars will know that Audax was the greek god of cycling). To the outsider, they seem rather pointless. You spend all day on a bike and end up back where you started. 120 miles and 8 hours of pedalling and you get precisely nowhere.

They are organised events but in the loosest sense of the word. The only objective is to finish the course within a time limit, however, there is also a maximum average speed limit. Which presumably means you are disqualified if you ride too quickly. There are no marshals or judges, you are just left to get on with it.

The Audax cycler is a completely different breed to any other type of cyclist that I have yet encountered. They have their own language and terms. For instance if you complete a 200km Audax you are a Randonneur. Which I imagine is kind of like a musketeer, except without the lethal weaponry. These guys are much more old school. Given the long distances that they have to travel and the fact that they can’t do it too quickly, they are much more tortoise than hare. Sure there were some carbon fibre and other space age materials on view at the start line, but you got the impression that they were slightly looked down upon, in an ever so gently patronising way. Steel frames and waxed cotton saddle bags were definitely de riguer. And beards. To be proper a Randoneur seemingly one must have a full face of hair, if not a full head. You are supposed to ride these Audaxes self supported, I guess to save on weight a good few of the competitors (although its NOT a race) have eschewed their Gillette Sensor. As I got my kit together in the Forfar Asda carpark I was transported back to 1989 and that Australian rabble. I had never seen so much facial hair concentrated in such a small area, since Lords in ‘89. I full expected big Merv to be swinging his leg over a cross bar.

A fella (bearded and bespectacled) signed us in at some ungodly hour in the morning, issued me with a Brevet card and sent you on my way with a cheery ‘Good luck’ and a ‘Bon Courage’.

The Brevet (French for Brevet) is a card that to which you attach proof that you have been to certain parts of the route within the allotted time and not before. Proof can be a stamp given to you by another bespectacled and bearded man or a dated receipt from a particular shop on the route. Its kind of like a treasure hunt for middle aged men who have lost their razor and been told to get out the house for at least 12 hours.

The Audax itself was great. A jaunt round Deeside taking in Banchory, Braemar, up over the Cairn o’ Mount and Glenshee through the Angus Glens and back to Forfar. It was a tough day in the saddle, however. Initially driech, a strong wind got up and scudded the clouds away by mid morning, unfortunately that strong wind morphed into a brutal headwind from Banchory all the way to Glen Isla. I managed to get into a wee group of (clean shaven) riders and we made good time making it back to Forfar first (although its not a race). I am guessing that the surfeit of facial hair amongst the competitors (although it’s not a race) hampered them in the strong winds.

Have you ever seen big Merv or David Boon on a bike? Exactly. Wiggo take note.

From Arbroath,
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