The Tour of Narnia

Spring racing in scotland. Gales, snow and ice. I want to emigrate.

‘Its always winter in Narnia – always winter but never Christmas’

The Lion the Witch and Wardrobe – CS Lewis

‘This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang, but with a whimper’

The Hollowmen, TS Eliot

During a long day on the bike, and there have been few, your mind tends to wander a bit. ‘What do you think about when you are cycling for so long?’ Is not an uncommon question. If I am honest I find it very difficult to have any productive thoughts when I am cycling. I come back no wiser after a bike ride than before. There are seldom any insights to be had. When I get fatigued I find even the simplest of arithmetic difficult – like how long it will take me to cycle the last few miles home. Any thoughts deeper than what I’m going to have for dinner are pretty useless.  Today I found myself trying to figure out what chocolate eggs have to do with Easter. The only thing I could come up with was eggs were a symbol of the stone that Jesus rolled back from his cave – hence why you roll eggs down a hill.  Which is, of course, total nonsense. Then I realised I was so cold that I had better pedal harder to warm up.

I get suckered every year. Every. Single. Year. We have a beautiful couple of days in late February or early March and I proclaim to all who are willing to listen that winter is over. In a flurry of excitement I wake the hibernating summer bike from its slumber and get it dusted down, apply new handlebar tape, give it a polish and a smear of oil and make sure the tyres are pumped up, tight as a drum.  I rummage in the depths of my cupboard and pull out the short sleeved cycling tops that have not seen daylight since September. No sooner have I prepped the steed, and organised my summer wardrobe than winter swoops back in and bullies the infant Spring into submission. Every year it happens, and every year I fall for it. When will I learn?

This March has been particularly cruel. When will winter piss off? I have had more than enough already. Whatever point winter is making, it has made it loud and clear, beat it and let the spring have a say. It seems like we have had snow every day this month. Every race I have entered in March has either fallen to the weather, has been re-routed or has been subject to a late ‘pitch inspection’. Conditions have been tough, to say the least.

Cycling in the snow is not easy. Aside from the fact that it is cold and all exposed skin gets a stinging sandblast. Vision is difficult too, if you wear glasses then the snow sticks to them and you can’t see properly. If you remove your ‘bins’ you get snow in your eyes, which is uncomfortable, and you cant see properly. You can always keep your head down to shelter from the snow, but then you can’t see properly. The only (imperfect) solution I have found is to close your left eye, move your head 45 degrees to your right in the hope that your nose and your eyebrows afford your right eye some shelter from the snow.  There are numerous problems with this approach, the main one being that you have limited depth perception, a serious handicap when on fast moving bike. Secondly, one closed eye and a contorted face can give on coming traffic the impression of a lascivious wink. A fully grown man in lycra winking at passers by in the snow is probably grounds enough to get you on the ‘register’.

I don’t have a big nose, so there is limited shelter to be had when hiding behind it. In short, no matter what you do, when it snows, you can’t really see properly.

It’s all relative though, I guess. The beast that is this March has been magnified by the beauty of 12 months ago. This time last year we were in the middle of a heat wave. I remember marshalling the annual Nightingale APR in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. Although a beautiful March was followed by a wash out until August. I am not sure what is worse.

The Lake APR was held last weekend. This is one of the two races that my club (The Glasgow Nightingale) put on annually. It takes a big effort to put a race on and it involves large numbers of the club members turning out to help. Most of these guys don’t race, so they really are doing something for little return. I managed to get a start in the race. Given that I should have been helping put the race on, I am very grateful for.

An APR (Australian Pursuit Race – no idea where the name comes from) is a handicap race. Other races that I have been involved in are ranked so that you are always in with a category of other riders who are of roughly the same standard. In an APR anyone can enter, however each rider is handicapped, roughly according to ability. The weaker riders in the race get a head start and the strongest riders set off last. As ever with cycling, but perhaps more so in an APR, you are both competing against, and dependent upon those in your group, which gives it an interesting dynamic. If you work together you stand a chance of holding off the better riders and catching those who set off first. If the handicaps are calculated well, then the whole race should come together towards the closing stages.

The conditions for the race were tough. There was a very strong, cold wind blowing. There was snow piled high on the sides of the road. It was barely above freezing but when you added in the wind chill factor it felt nearer -4. The route was 2 laps of a circuit so there were headwinds, tailwinds and cross winds to deal with and as a result the race blew apart very quickly with riders scattered across the course.

I was riding well and feeling strong, we were working fairly well as a bunch, with each rider taking a turn on the front. The pace was high and as a result a number of our group had been shelled out the back. Whilst at the back of the bunch I snatched a look round to see the scratch group (aka ‘the big boys’) off in the distance, approaching fast like the cavalry in a western pursuing the hero outlaws. The tactics of the race change somewhat when it becomes inevitable that you will be caught. Rather than battling to stay away from the bunch you start thinking about conserving some energy, then jumping on the back of the bunch as it comes past.

When our group turned a corner I glanced back again to see the scratch group almost upon us. I turned round to find that the bike in front of me was not where I expected it to be. We touched wheels and the next thing I knew I was lying in a ditch on the side of the road staring at a leaden sky.

Whilst I was contemplating life and the universe the scratch group roared silently past. I didn’t even notice that they had over taken me until I had untangled myself from my bike and looked up the road to see my group scattered across the road in the wake of the cavalry charge.

I quickly checked all appendages to make sure nothing was missing from either the tumble, or the cold. Then jumped back on my bike. Its much harder cycling on your own than in a bunch, so your only hope is a short hard effort to try and get back. If you don’t make it back within a few minutes then it is likely that you’re not going to and your afternoon will probably be over. I managed to hold the group to the same distance away for a time, before they started to pull away.

I gave them up for lost and settled into my own rhythm, hoping that I could perhaps pick up a few stragglers and form a group to help with the long ride home.

Then a group of about 10 riders came up fast behind me. I jumped on their tails and settled in for the ride. Within about 3 miles 10 had become 5 and the pace had started to quicken. It was eye balls out and chew the bars type stuff. These guys had originally been in the scratch group but had been caught cold by an early attack and were themselves trying to get back to the head of the race. They were a class or two (or four) above me and I wasn’t able to contribute much to the chase. My main focus had become holding onto the contents of my stomach. In my mind not throwing up on my new riding pals was contribution enough, although I didn’t feel that this sacrifice was fully appreciated! It was a case of grim survival for me. If my heart hadn’t been concentrating on not exploding through my chest, then she would have been lifted by the sight of my original group just up ahead. Alas I was cooked by then, and was yo-yoing off the back of the chase group. With each ‘yo’ it became more and more difficult to get back to the shelter of a back wheel. When we were within about 20 yards of the bunch ahead the elastic finally snapped. As my new amigos breezed through the larger group, I was left in no mans land, desperately trying to close the gap on my own. Despite turning myself inside out the gap stayed at a stubborn 20 yards. Then I blew completely.  I was about 3 miles from home, but I had nothing left, I limped home on my own. This is the way the race would end, not with a bang but a whimper.

There are positives though. I later found out that the group I was in contained ex pros and Scottish champions. Exulted company. There is no shame being busted by riders that much better than me.

I mainly cycle with a blank mind, simply concentrating on the immediate task at hand. Occasionally thoughts do come other than easter eggs and the scripture. Today I wondered if Bradley Wiggins was the complete cyclist. It wasn’t his multiple track gold medals, or his TdF victory, or his Knighthood that confirmed my decision that he was. No, as I ploughed through Newport on Tay in what felt like a blizzard, I realised that he had the gift of an unnaturally large nose, probably the biggest in the professional peleton. That surely gives him a competitive advantage. Especially if he were to race in the Tour of Narnia.

The clocks go back this weekend, everything is now set for summer to start. Light nights mean less time on the turbo and more in the open air. Cycling can start to be fun again. But then according to TS Eliot, it is April, not March that is the cruellest month. So maybe it will get worse before it gets better.

I’m off to console myself with an Easter egg and await some divine inspiration.

From St Andrews

N

PS A huge thanks to Scott Smith for organising the APR and the purvey afterwards. Great effort Scott. Looking forward to seeing you back on the bike.

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That Sinking Feeling

The worlds first bicycle

Hands up if you know who Kirkpatrick McMillian is? Come on, don’t be shy. Anyone?

How about John Boyd Dunlop? Or John McAdam?

I am guessing that a fair number of people who read this blog will have at least a passing interest in cycling and a few others will be Scottish. If you fall into either of these camps and you don’t know who these gentlemen are – then you really should.

There are a few places that can claim to be the spiritual home of cycling. The Italians, Belgians and the French will doubtless have vociferous claims. But perhaps the South West corner of Scotland has the strongest claim of them all and that we don’t shout it from the rooftops is strange indeed.

You see, Kirkpatrick McMillian, of Keir, in Galloway, invented the bicycle in 1839. I wont lie to you. It wasn’t the fleetest of machines. Made of wood, with iron wheels and solid rubber tires, it must have weighed a tonne. No carbon or space age materials on this baby. Still, Kirkpatrick was able to get from Kier to Dumfries (14 miles) in an hour and even up to Glasgow (78 miles) in two days.

Dunlop of Dreghorn in Ayrshire invented the pneumatic tyre in1887, bringing a little more comfort and speed to our velocipedes.

And the last of this trinity (or chronologically the first), John McAdam of Ayr, invented tarmac. Bringing us smooth roads to race our bikes on. All of them born within a cycle ride of each other in Ayrshire and Galloway.  It’s remarkable that they were born so close to each other, but perhaps even more remarkable is that you probably didn’t know.

I found myself down in Dumfries again this weekend only about 30 miles from where the bike was invented.

There are so many unknowns in bike racing. Over the course of any race there are so many things that can happen, it makes trying to predict a winner very difficult. That unpredictability is what makes it so exciting. All you can do is make sure that you are as well prepared as possible. Physically, tactically and mechanically. All you can do is make sure that you give yourself as good a chance as possible to ride as well as you are able.

After last weeks race, I had high hopes of a good performance and good result. Having been caught out by the finish of the last race, I decided to get down there the night before and make sure I knew the course as best I could. I had planned where on the course I was going to attack and what my race tactics were to be. I was confident that I was as well prepared as I could be.

Unfortunately we have had some pretty horrible weather over the last few days. Lots of snow and as a result the race organisers changed the route of the race at the last minute. They decided, correctly, that taking us up over high ground wasn’t sensible given the snow. So all my plans went out the window. I quickly thought up some new plans, which amounted to try and stay at the tete de la corse, as the say in French and as far as possible stay out the gutter, as that where the potholes are.

Then 10 miles into the race I hit a pothole hard. Which wasn’t part of my plan. But when it’s wet, potholes have the ability to effectively disguise themselves as puddles. When you are in a bunch riding at race pace its hard even see the puddles far less try avoid them.

When you hit a pothole, there is always a jolt through your arms. You groan internally and hope that you are going to get lucky and not puncture. Without fail, just as you think you have got away without puncturing, you get the rattle through the handlebars the slight loss of control and that sinking feeling when you  know you have a flat, and that in all probability your race is over.

In pro races top riders always have a willing domestique to donate a bike to his team leader and another couple who will wait and pace the rider back to the bunch. Alas, at this level of racing all you can expect from a team mate is a ‘hard luck’ shouted over a fast disappearing shoulder.

It took me a while to change my wheel and I knew it was going to be a tough job to get back to the bunch. However, not knowing the course, I then missed a turn. I think the marshalls were sheltering from the atrocious weather and who can blame them? I battled on but ended up coming in second from last. Dumfries is a long way to go to spend a morning forlornly chasing down a peleton.

As another luminary of the South West of Scotland might say:

‘The best laid plans of mice and men,

Gang aft agley’

Kirkpatrick was ahead of his time, a visionary. Of that there is no doubt. I wonder if he knew how ubiquitous the bike would become? His bike provided little comfort for the rider and came fitted with solid rim tires. That was maybe because Dunlop wouldn’t invent the pneumatic tyre for another 40 odd years, I prefer to think it was because he knew how pot-holed the roads of Dumfries are. With no air in his tyres, there’s no chance he would have suffered from punctures.

Visionary indeed.

From Dumfries,

n

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100 Days

Oh dear, oh dear. Sprinting on the hoods and in the saddle (far left in blue). Bad form. Maybe that's why I get pipped for 5th place.

Your heart races, you cant sleep, your palms are sweaty, you have butterflies in your stomach, your breathing intensifies and your eyes widen…

Are you nervous or excited? Are they the same emotion, just viewed through different prisms? Yet everyone loves to be excited, but perhaps not so much to be nervous, even if they cause the same physical reactions. Perhaps the difference between nerves and excitement is confidence. The more confident you are of success, perhaps the more excited you can become.

What were you doing on the second of December? It’s probably long enough ago that you don’t remember exactly, but close enough to have a vague recollection. For the record it was a Sunday, the first Sunday of the month, just after payday. Maybe you were nursing a hangover. Maybe you were out Christmas shopping. I had the Glasgow Nightingale CC Dinner. It was a freezing night, and a brutally cold and icy day. So, I sat inside and did a double session on the turbo trainer. Three hours on the hamster wheel. There was nothing memorable about the session, but I know I would have hated it.

The relevance? Well, the 2^nd of December was 100 days ago, and its 100 days until I start the Tour. The second of December doesn’t seem that long ago and that is looking back through the coldest, wettest weather and the darkest days of the year. Winter cycling is no fun. By the end of this month it will be light enough to get out during the evenings. The Wednesday night habble round the glen will start. Soon we’ll be cycling in shorts, t-shirts and sunglasses. Pedalling with the sun on our backs (in Glagsow?!). Cycling will become fun again and the time will race by. 100 sleeps. It’s not long. Things are starting to get very real, and very exciting.

After the fun of the two up Time Trial last month the racing season also started in earnest this week, with a Fourth Cat race down in Dumfries. It’s a long way to go for a race, however the rest of the country was treated to heavy snow showers, which had the races closer to home cancelled, so the journey was worthwhile. Especially since I managed to get a 6^th place finish and win my first points of the season. However, in perhaps the most controversial refereeing decision since Les Mottram inexplicably chopped off Paddy Connolly’s rasping volley against the Harry Rags back in early nineties (yup, the defender handed the ball to the keeper), I was awarded 7^th place. I await the outcome of the stewards enquiry with interest…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKuLtLXl7FI

Last week also saw me get back on the track at the Wednesday night track league. I managed 1 third place and 3 second places in the four races.  I am definitely making progress.

I am back down in Dumfries this weekend for another race. If I can manage another top 10 finish then I’ll win some more points and take further steps towards getting my category 3 race license, which was one of my big goals for the year. I need to get 10 points. A top three finish will see me get my promotion. However, as sporting pundits are apt to say; that will be a ‘big ask’.

I am pleased where I am with my fitness and form and there is still time to get stronger before I head to France. As my fitness grows, so does my confidence, and thus the nervousness fades and gives way to excitement. Things are becoming more real, I can almost see the start line now. I am still nervous about the road ahead, after all it is still a massive challenge, but I am also beginning to get excited.
100 sleeps.
From Dumfries,
N

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My Fifteen Minutes

Andy Worhol reckoned that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. This has always concerned me slightly. I have no wish to be famous, even for 15 minutes. It seems like an awful lot of bother. Especially as I sit here in my paint splattered and ripped jogging bottoms with a sink full of dirty dishes. If I was famous and the paparazzi were camped outside my flat the pictures wouldn’t be particularly flattering. I don’t have any curtains, you see. If I became famous I’d need to go out and buy curtains. Nothing fills me with greater dread than the prospect of having to go and buy curtains. So if you don’t mind I’ll leave the fame game to those who are well disposed in the curtain department. Or at least postpone it until I get some curtains.

No, it’s not me that I am concerned about when I think about Worhols 15 minutes. It was those who actually wanted to become famous. Before I had developed my aversion to curtain purchasing I had thought fame might be a bit of a wheeze.

Although I grew up in a small town, it was large enough to have a newspaper, but not large enough for anything interesting or newsworthy ever to happen. Thus, the paper was filled with mundane stories about lost cats and charity tombolas. If anything happened in St Andrews, and I mean anything, it would appear in the St Andrews Citizen. When I was a kid, like every other kid in the town, I often graced its pages – for nothing more noteworthy than playing for the St Andrews Colts U11’s, playing for the School Rugby and Hockey teams and once gaining a ‘highly commended’ rating in the annual Junior Hortus Daffodil growing competition (I have only recently discovered that everyone who entered gained a ‘highly commended’ rating, which has somewhat devalued that particular achievement).  However, perhaps the zenith of my press appearances was when I won a competition to design a poster for a new flavour of ice cream. The prize was a knickerbocker glory served at the Old Course Hotel and I got my picture in the paper. Alas, I was both a gauche child and a younger sibling which meant that the picture in the paper was less than flattering. Me, in hand me down flared trousers and a jumper that could have doubled as a sail. I still remember searing playground critique of my sartorial choices the next day.

‘Ho! Kemp! I saw you in the paper. Where’d you get those trousers? Fine Flares?’

Nah – fame wasn’t for me. At least not whilst my brothers taste in clothing was still so rotten. But if Warhol was right you might not have a choice. So I was quite happy getting my name in the paper every so often in the hope that it would use up my 15 minutes. However it seems like I didn’t quite use up all of my allotted time. The media heavyweights of both the St Andrews Citizen and the Kirkintilloch Herald have picked up my story and have run a piece on my challenge.

I’m off to Remnant Kings – I hear they have a sale on.

From Glasgow,

N

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Contre La Montre

Should Hielin coo be added to the list of banned substances?

Forget Wiggins or Froome or Cavendish. Alberto Contador is probably the most gifted cyclist of his generation. The problem is he failed a dope test and served a suspension. He cheated.

He has served his ban and is now back racing, indeed he won the Vuelta (Tour of Spain) immediately on his return. There will almost certainly be further grand tour victories (he is favourite for this years TdF). But his significant past achievements and his undoubted future ones will forever be tainted by suspicion. Rather than glorying in his future victories we will forever be asking and wondering what he was on when he won this or that race.

There is a culture of omerta in the peleton. Even after you have been caught- bang to rights, there are still denials and stories as why you failed a drugs test and how it’s not your fault. An admission of guilt is rare. Like children caught red handed they trot out excuses, however implausible.

“Honest mister, A big boy done it and ran away” is the refrain.

Fans show what the think of 'El Pistelero'

Oor Alberto? Well if he is to be believed, he ate a particularly large steak sandwich one evening during the 2011 tour. The morning after he failed a drugs test. The steak was specially sourced from his native Spain and delivered by a pal, driving over the Pyrenees. Apparently it was the cow had been taking a performance enhancing drug, which had then been transferred into Contatdors innocent body. Never mind that those drugs are banned for use in cattle. Never mind that despite getting the meat specially sourced, he wasn’t able to name the shop where it came from. Never mind that in order to get that concentration of Clenbuterol from a cow, he would have had to eat just about the whole bloody cow and never mind that his blood also contained high levels of plastic (a sign of blood doping). Presumably the cow had been experimenting with transfusing its own blood too. They breed smart cows in Spain, you see. It's just as well Alberto ate the cow, it was probably so juiced up on various chemicals it’s a surprise that its owner didn’t shove it on a bike and enter it in the tour. On reflection it looks like Contador was doing a service to his fellow cyclists by eating the beast…

This weekend saw the first competition of the season, a two up time trial. For those not familiar with cycling parlance a time trial is the simplest of all the cycling disciplines. It involves finding a relatively flat piece of road, usually a dual carriage way, with a roundabout 5 miles away from the start. Riders set off individually, at 1minute intervals and are timed as to how long it takes them to batter to the roundabout, turn around and batter home again. It's basically you against the course, the wind and father time. And of course against the louts that shout abuse from cars as they scream past you on the dual carriageway.

‘Get off and milk it’ is an oft heard quip, invariably shouted from the passenger seat of a low slung ford fiesta with an exhaust pipe the diameter of a rubbish bin lid.

A 2 up time trial is slightly different in that you have a partner. You and he/she ride together and are able, therefore, to benefit from drafting behind one another. As a result you should be faster in a 2up TT.

You are also allowed to use a fancy bike and a big pointy helmet when you are doing a time trial. So not only do you have to suffer the indignity of the inverse Cuban heels (Polar Bears in the Campsies), you get to wear a helmet that makes you look like a smurf. As you can imagine, this only further endears you to the sooped up fiesta driving fratenity.

The bike is fitted with tri bars. Long protruding extensions that stretch in front of the bike to allow you to ride in an aerodynamic tuck position, rather like a down hill skier. It makes you look like a prat, but it does make you go faster. This has the undoubted advantage of reducing the amount of time that you are subject to the words of ‘encouragement’ shouted from passing cars.

The secret to riding with a partner is to try and stick as close to his back wheel as you dare, within a couple of millimetres, if possible. The advantage of this is that you shelter from the wind whilst you are at the back, the disadvantage being that you cant see where you are going or what is coming. Infact all you can see is the arse of your partner. There is nothing worse than sitting behind a partner who has worn and see vaguely see through lycra. 10 miles seems is long enough without having to be endure that.
Thus, there is great advantage to selecting your partner carefully, it pays if your partner is strong both athletically and sartorially. I partnered up with Phil, who is one of the strongest riders in the club and one who also takes pride in his appearance. Thankfully Phil was wearing his Sunday best racing shorts…

We made good progress during the TT. Until about two miles from home, when - not being able to see the road ahead, I hit a pothole. Hard. The resulting judder that went through the bike knocked me off balance. Unfortunately, the lever arm of the tri bars amplified the collision further and worked loose my bike computer. This was catapulted at quite some velocity, and came rearing off the bars to strike me right square between the eyes, bounce on the tarmac and fly into the long grass by the side of the road. I’m not sure what our Fiesta driving friends would have made of me getting off my bike, mincing across the road and then getting down on my hands and knees, arse up in the air rummaging about in the verge to try and retrieve my computer.

2up TT. Studying Phils arse.

Needless to say we didn’t need to wait for the official results to come in to know that we would not be bothering the podium that day.

Although, to be honest, my ineptitude should not have come as a great surprise. I do not have a great history when it comes to time trials.

In one my first attempts at a TT, I lost count of the number of roundabouts I had to negotiate. Unfortunately, I caught a marshal looking the other way and powered right past him when I should have been heading in the other direction. A plaintive wail from the marshal alerted me to my error and I was forced to wait for a gap in the traffic, before clambering over the crash barriers on the central reservation and heading back the way I had come – much to the delight of passing motorists. Funnily I didn’t clock a good time in that race either.

However, perhaps my finest time trial trial came at the club championship 25 miler. An hour of pain generally won by the guy who is willing to suffer the most. I had already been passed by two competitors much earlier in the race, which meant I was a good few minutes behind the leader and well out of contention. About 5 miles from home a police car pulled out from the junction ahead and sped off out of sight, sirens wailing and lights flashing. Rounding a corner I was faced with the a police man standing in the middle of the road, the police car parked across the road about 200m ahead and in between them a big hairy highland bull loitering in the middle of the road.  It wasn’t doing much. Just standing, perhaps contemplating the mysteries of the universe. But even just standing, he was an intimidating sight.

I pulled up to the Policeman.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked.

‘Well, sir… there appears to be a coo in the middle of the road’

This man was sharp.

‘Right. So I see. So… what’s happening?’ meaning, you’re a polis man, brave defender of realm. What are you doing about clearing the queens highway of its current bovine obstruction?

However, I didn’t want to seem too direct. He was a policeman after all. His uniform deserved the respect of me not actually articulating what I was meaning.

Without hint of either frustration or sarcasm: ‘Well, sir… the middle of the road seems to be occupied by a coo’

It was reassuring that Glasgows finest had correctly identified the genus if not the sex of the obstruction. I could tell that this city cop was not used to dealing with half tonne obstructions with pointy things coming out of their head. His stab vest, handcuffs and truncheon weren’t going to of much use here.

‘Thing is… I’m in the middle of a bike race.  Can I go round it?’

‘Irunno’ he shrugged before observing expertly ‘its a big coo, like’

Much like my bike, this conversation was going nowhere fast.

‘Yeah’ I said. Meaning: ‘I can see that it’s a cow. Are you going to attempt to move said cow or are you going to stand and hold up traffic and just tell everyone that there is a ‘big coo in the middle of the road’?

‘They horns look pretty big.’ He added. He was certainly proving to be an expert in the anatomy of pedigree highland cattle, but it wasn’t helping me get on my way.

‘I think it might be a bull’ I said a little exasperated.

‘Really, sir? How can you tell?’ Perhaps not the expert I had given him credit for.

I looked at him to see if he was taking the piss. He wasn’t. I decided not to answer.

‘Think I might just try and go round’

‘Right you are. Mind they horns, sir’

The bull was side on to me and was happily munching some grass on the side of the road. I approached slowly trying not to startle it. He seemed quite happy to ignore me as I approached.

Emboldened I started to speed up slightly. Everything was going swimmingly until I drew alongside the bull and slipped down a gear. The noise of the gear shifting must have startled the beast and he suddenly reared up and bolted along the road.

I crapped myself at the same time as the bull and not having a reverse gear I tried to out run the bull. Rather than just letting the thing go on its way. But he was fairly shifting. There was a few seconds when we were both belting along together each trying to out run the other. Before the bull veered off the road and crashed through a hedge into the adjacent field. The adrenaline release had my legs birling faster than the Road Runner, I didn’t look back, but I don’t think I have ridden five miles faster than that, before or since.

So, Alberto… If you think beef is not a performance enhancing substance, then maybe you’ve just been administering it incorrectly. You should perhaps try a placing a heilin coo with big horns beside you as you cycle. They can fairly mak ye shift…

From Irvine,

n

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The Big Stink

Down in the jungle where nobody goes...

I guess that there are a number of ways that you can react if you do something wrong.

There's the George Washington approach of performing a complete mea culpa. Immediately ‘fess up. Admitting that you have done wrong and hope that you are forgiven. Truth, then hopefully reconciliation. And if you feel the need you can always find a handy tree to fell;

There is the classic 'A big boy done it and ran away'. Let someone else take the blame. A favourite of young children and disgraced former energy ministers.

You can adopt the Rupert Murdoch approach. Deny, deny, deny. Then pretend that you have forgotten whatever it was you were denying.

Or, you can just ignore it and hope no one will notice or that someone else will be blamed. The fart in an elevator approach, if you will.

I read with interest the other week about a foul smell that had infected the south of England. A gas leak from Rouen, just north of Paris was blamed. A favourable wind having spreading the stench all the way across the English Channel to the home counties. Apparently, Mercaptan, a nasty smelling additive that is put into natural gas, so you can tell if there is a leak, had been accidently released. An open and shut case, or so it seemed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21141351

There was a comedy series that screened on BBC Scotland a number of years ago called Chewing the Fat. I was in exile in London at the time and only caught the series when I was visiting home at christmas. I found it hilarious and decided it was scandalous that this series did not have wider exposure to the rest of the country. I promptly purchased the DVD and felt it was my duty to act as a cultural prophet and export this comedy gold to the philistine south. Amidst great fanfare I insisted that my flat mates sit and watch the programme with me. Whilst I sat, my cheeks wet with tears of hilarity, my sides sore from laughter, my two flat mates sat in stony faced silence. Despite sharing the same language I guess the comedy just didn’t translate.

One of the sketches followed the fortunes of a couple of fictional lighthouse keepers marooned on a rock in the middle of a perpetually stormy sea. It chronicled the practical jokes played by one of the keepers on the other. The bottom of bed pans were removed, flies of simmits were sown up, the last page of books were ripped out etc. The scenes always finished with the first lighthouse keeper saying…

‘Gonnae no dae that?’ (‘Would you mind refraining from doing that?’)

‘How?’ (‘Can I enquire as to why?’)

‘Just gonnae no?’ (‘I would just prefer if you didn’t’)

I have already relayed that working out on the turbo trainer is not my most favourite of pass times (Elvis is alive and cycling). But not only is it difficult for me, it is a generally a pretty anti social activity. I don’t live in a large flat and the turbo takes up most of the front room. Even if you could look past that, the noise is similar to that of a jet engine starting up and me stripped to the waist and coursing with sweat is a less than appetising sight; especially first thing in the morning.

Once I get off the hamster wheel my kit as well as a towel used to mop my brow are absolutely saturated. Not wanting to throw this soiled kit in the wash basket I often put it straight in the washing machine until I have enough to put a wash on.

My flat mate, lets call him ‘Mark’ so as not to cause any unnecessary embarrassment, has many attributes and he is a fine fellow. However, stoicism is not high on his list of personality traits. At the first sign of falling leaves Mark will be hit by a ‘flu that will render him all but incapacitated. This state of near death usually lasts a few days and is probably repeated a couple of times before the coming of spring. It means that the heating in the flat will be pumped up to maximum, any available hot water bottles will be purloined and he won’t emerge from under a duvet for a week. Towards the end of January 'Mark' was hit with a particularly virulent strain of 'flu.

Coming back from work to a flat that feels more like a sauna than a house, with condensation streaming down the windows, made spending time on the turbo trainer even more challenging and unpleasant than usual. I was loosing a ton in weight during a turbo session. This weight was transferred directly into my kit as sweat, which, as usual, I threw straight into the washing machine.

Towards the end of the week I came home to be hit, as usual, with a wall of heat as I entered the flat from the cold of outside. Rushing to take off my jacket so as not to spontaneously combust I was right inside the flat before I noticed the stench that had permeated through the building.

This smell was nauseating, like a mixture of diesel fuel and rotten eggs. 'Mark', having been in the flat all day had not noticed the stink. His feet were the chief suspect and I didn't hold back in voicing my displeasure. I accused him of lacking personal hygiene and insisted that all windows were opened and that he take himself off to the shower forthwith. He volubly and vigorously denied his guilt, but was unable to come up with a viable explanation for the olfactory assault. After a lull in our contretemp, hoping to pour oil on troubled water, Mark piped up.

‘I hope you don’t mind, I put your washing into the tumble drier’

‘What washing?’

‘The stuff that was in the washing machine’

‘Ah… that wasn’t washing’

‘But it was dripping wet’

The fart in the elevator technique to facing up to mistakes may not be the most moral approach, however in this instance it worked. I fear that the chemical factory in Rouen may not have been the source of the stench in Maidstone. Kit, soaked in sweat from workouts conducted in stifling heat, had already been fermenting for a few of days in the washing machine had then been cooked nicely in the tumble drier was more likely to have been responsible. 

I'm sure you can imagine the smell and the residents of numerous south coast towns can attest to it. 

To the workers of Rouen, I say, ‘Cétait moi et je suis désolé’ and sorry for besmirching the good name of your town. 

To the good people of the South of England, I can only apologise and hope that no undue stress or harm was caused.

And to ‘Mark’, sorry for all the noise and the unedifying early morning vistas. Thanks for being so considerate and tumble drying my kit. But to borrow from the wonderful lighthouse keepers of Aonoch Mhor, next time, ‘Just gonnae no’?

From a less than fragrant Glasgow,

N

What the pros say...

Apparently a group of 'rank amateurs' cycling the Tour de France has caused quite a bit of chatter amongst the pro peloton. And when I say chatter I mean derision. Its fair to say they are not exactly quaking in their boots...

BTW... Anyone else think that Tommy Voeckler looks like a thin Colin Miller?

Coco Miller donning the Malliot Jaune

Voeckler getting a smacker from a podium girl after another stage win.

Milldog multitasking: Sticking his tongue out and riding his bike.

Tommy larking about and sticking his tongue out

From Glasgow
N

PS With thanks to Peter Addison-Child, a fellow TdF'r. Check out his much more professional blog here...

willBradleyCatchMe?