Brian Ferry

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday, for which I unreservedly apologise.  I was under some pressure at work, a combination of short-staffedness and the serial shortcomings of several other colleagues.  Also, a horse died, which caused some consternation.  I should qualify this: It didn't keel over in the office.  I work for a periodical thats primary interest is equestrianism.  And the horse in question was a famous steeplechaser, not any old nag.

If it's any compensation, I didn't get to race last night.  The heat in London yesterday was phenomenal.  It was so hot that I genuinely feared I might do myself a mischief if I overdid it at the track.  I've managed to get myself quite fit of late, which is great.  But with great power and all that.  When one is fit, it's possible to go into the red in a medically contraindicated and damaging way.  A combination of this and my Celtic inability of deal with proper heat persuaded me it would be wise to back away this week.

And just as well - for in a couple of hours I head off on a cycling holiday.  I wouldn't fancy that with heatstroke.

Bike D. Eisenhower

Three weeks tomorrow (but who's counting?) marks the first day of my first major holiday of the year.  The missus and I are off to The Netherlands for a week's bike touring.  The Tour de France starts there this year, so they're going to get motivated by watching the shaven, oiled pros do their thang first.  Thereafter, it's a joyous week of pootling along well-appointed and safe cycleways from city to city, stopping only en route for excellent Dutch coffee and cinnamon biscuits.

There is nothing on Earth as enjoyable as arriving at your destination under your own steam, carrying your own luggage on the bike.  You feel tired, yes, but not jaded or disspirited.  On the contrary, you feel absolutely alive - your senses singing with information.  A quick shower the slough off the muck and it's on to the hors d'oeuvres and drinks.  And they, believe me, never tasted better.

Before I can enjoy the genteel face of bike culture, I must endure a few more weeks of racing.  I say 'endure', but the truth is I'm enjoying it more and more as the weeks go by.  It's always like this, competitive cycling.  It's miserable when you're not fit enough, and one always begins the season not fit enough.  It's nigh on impossible to recreate the intensity of racing when training.  But I'm finally starting to feel some power in the legs.  Also, the mental aspect of the game is sharpening up too.  My concentration is must better, as is evidenced by my changing perception of the length of each race.  At first they appear to last for months, but as you get more and more in the zone, the duration drops dramatically.  Last week's race was over before it began.

I'm hoping to get so fit I forget the whole thing one week.

Bike Riced

Mrs O and I went for a weekend away en vélo over Easter.  We popped our folding bikes on the train and trundled up to Cambridge on Good Friday to commune with the hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists who had made the trip also.  It actually wasn't so bad in Cantab.  The students are at home (the normal ones, at any rate), which helped a bit.  We steeled ourselves by spending the night there and heading off the following morning, a massive complimentary buffet breakfast to the good.

The first few miles were great; well-appointed cycle paths take you right out into the mercifully-flat Cambridgeshire countryside.  It's quite dull, the landscape here, but good for low-octane cyclisme.  The trouble only starts when you get to Essex.

The physical geography of Essex is the absolute inverse of Cambridgeshire's.  The whole county appears to have been corrugated by a malevolent god.  It was massively hard going.  Mrs O had planned this first day to be 35 miles of bucolic bike jollies.  Five and half hours later, we pitched-up in Great Dunmow, utterly broken.  We must have cycled closer to 55 miles, what with the peaks and troughs.  As a consequence of this unforeseen extra effort, we spent the evening eating and drinking with abandon.  That's the quid pro quo of arduous cycling, and one of the pasttime's joys of course.  

After a mighty chug of Chenin Blanc and a slap-up Vietnamese dinner, we both slept like sedated babies, and lept out of bed, ready for the miles ahead.  Unfortunately, the weather undid us.  Literally as we were leaving the carpark of our hotel, Mrs O detected a spot of rain.  It then opened-up for ooh, let's see, the next nine hours solid.

The plan had been to ride all the way home, but by the time we reached the quaint end of the Central Line, I hoisted the white flag.  We jumped on a tube and headed to my sister's house, which is nearby.  We threw ourselves on her mercy.  She did the needful and filled us up with tea and hot cross buns.  She popped the tin hat on it by then offering us a lift home.