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.

Pain is just weakness leaving the body...via the legs

Good grief - last night's first time trial of the season was hard.  It was always going to be a test of will and sinew; I haven't raced for a year after all.  But the elements decided to chuck their oar in too.  It was blowing a hooley down the home straight - the longest stretch of the course.  It was such a stiff breeze that you felt like you were crawling, and consequently slightly overdid matters.  The cumulative effort required for this meant that the final two and a half laps were physically tortuous and conducted at brisk stroll velocities.  Disheartening.

I had the highest of hopes going into it too.  I'd prepared myself and my bike carefully.  I'd warmed up properly.  In spite of this, I finished a full minute slower than my lacklustre time from last year.  I thought I'd take a minute out of it, to be honest.  Still, I don't think I was the only disconsolate grown man in Lycra there last night.  I heard one of the other riders disputing his time.  He was, like me, incredulous that a ride that hurt so much could have been conducted so slowly.  Despite this, I did enjoy it.  It's good to be back among the faithful.

Yes, they're weirdos, but their my weirdos.

When the go and get stuffed.

It's time trial season again!  That's cycling time trialling, I should make clear.  I knew it was looming, but had managed to wipe it from a my mind.  I was in cycling denial.

As soon as I found out my first one is two weeks away, I leapt into action.  I cut out food for the most part, well the foodstuffs that afford pleasure.  Food for an endurance athlete, even one as modest in his abilities as this one, is fuel.  It's not to be enjoyed; it's to be endured.  The only upside to food when one is training is that it stops you shaking when you've overdone it on the bike.

As well as not eating fun stuff, I've cut the portion size of the rest of it by at least a third.  I do feel lighter, which is good.  It's all about power to weight ratios, this game.  Which brings us to the second part of the preparations: training.

I went out after work last evening and did my first interval session.  Intervals involve going hell-for-leather for a short period and then having a rest.  You do this eight times.  It's quick.  Unfortunately it also makes you look like a loon.  You ride along as if all is well with the world, and suddenly, apparently for no reason, go crackers.  You ride with the intensity of a man fleeing a hippo.  Ten seconds later you stop and calm descends once more.  Other cyclists can and do take offence at this type of training.  Understandably so.  You fly past someone like he's going backwards, only to sit up and let him catch you shortly thereafter.  It looks like you're taking the piss, frankly.

I'm feeling it today.  I can scarcely keep me eyes open.  Luckily today is the portal to a bank holiday weekend, so I couldn't give a shite.  A couple of real ales this evening, a homemade curry will restore the tissues.

Right, home time.

Beer and skittles

Oh, hello there.  It's the weekend finally.  Let joy be unconfined.  I must do something with my free time this weekend.  The trouble is I don't have a plan, and a man without a plan is like parrot with a rubber beak - amusing but unlikely to get on in life.

I do have plenty of domestic chores to perform, but this is really a last resort.  I only turn to these when I need to bolster the old self-esteem a bit - like a weeping woman doing five sit-ups after having eaten an entire Swiss roll for lunch.  And I think the weather's supposed to be okay this weekend too, so it'd be nice to get in amongst the great unwashed for a bit.

I could really do with a training ride on the velocipede, but that involves sweating and I'm not really in the perspiration zone at the moment.  That's a May thing.

First things first - I'll ride home and start drinking.  I'll work on the plan later.

Deadline

I'm under deadline pressure today, so a very short and very simple post.  I'm off to the boozer with colleagues for an ale or several.  This is a rare but welcome occurrence.  I must be disciplined though.  I have my bike with me, so seven pints - tops.  I'm joking, officer.

Can I speak to your back please? 'Fraid not - He's out.

I somehow put my back out last evening.  This is a depressing and unhelpful development at the best of times, but when you've a long train trip in the diary in a day of two, as I have, it's doubly unwelcome.  It also happened in the most innocuous of circs.

I was on the phone to my sister for 10 minutes or so, and when I walked away from the wretched apparatus, I could distinctly feel a twinge.  This escalated over the coming hours.  And this morning, it was properly sore.  I spend all my waking hours when not shackled to the desk at work, cycling and doing yoga.  How is it then that answering the land-line can upset my lumbar spine?  It's not right.

It's easy to get psychotic - well it is for me at least - when one's back plays up.  It's such a debilitating pain.  Every simple action is turned into a test of will and physical endurance.  The ironic thing is that when I'm being active and physical, it's fine.  It's only when I sit that it starts to ache.  Unfortunately, sitting is what I do for a living, so the days are long and arduous - my two least favourite adjectives.  Well, 'long' has its moments, but you see what I mean.

So the plan tonight is to scoot straight home, carbo-load on wine and then see out the evening in palliative yoga poses.  I wonder what Axl Rose is up to tonight.  No doubt his back will be aching in the morning too.  The rotter.  Anyway, I digress.

Anne Guish

I had a very vivid and troubling dream last night.  There was nothing nightmarish about the subject matter, but it was one of those dreams that could have passed for an actual memory.  Nothing supernatural happened, and I wasn't sat it the basket of hot air balloon with Brian May or anything.  No, all the events were played out in plausible surroundings with "real" human beings filling all the major leads.  It was so mundane in fact that the befuddled night manager of my brain thought it was real and flicked the "go" switch.  At this I started shouting and flailing, which is what I was doing in the dream.  Loudly and violently enough to wake my wife as it happens.  I thought being paralytic during sleep was supposed to stop things like this happening?

And so it was that this morning I woke up physically refreshed, but a little lateral in the noggin department.  And I've been at 6s and 7s all day since.  I don't know quite what prompted this whole thing, a combination of factors in all probability.  I may have eaten something that disagreed with me for a start.  Also the council in my locale has introduced a "mini-Holland" scheme to promote cycling, which is as condescending and cock-headed as the name implies.

They've closed a largely commercial street to traffic, much to the annoyance of local business owners, and decanted the cars to several residential streets instead - my own among them.  This has given home-owners to pip, as you can imagine.  The worst aspect of the whole idiot exercise for me is the fact that I am lifelong cyclist: commuting, touring, racing, utility-cycling, I do it all, and it has made my cycling life worse.  I now cannot cycle the roads that have become rat runs, due to there being too much traffic on them.  I also cannot cycle down the main street in my village (the one that was closed to traffic).  It is supposed to have been given over to cyclists, but the locals now think of it as having been pedestrianised, so it's always thronged with people window-shopping or simply staring off into the middle distance, like expensively-dressed pink cattle.   

So all-in-all it's been a colossal fuck-up.  This is what is annoying my mind.  I have a phobia about flabby, illogical thinking.  I work with a lot of marketing types.  Marketing tends to attract two types: people who think plugging, selling and hawking are a necessary evil but are good at it.  And those who actually think it's laudable, akin to being a healer or a prophet.  The first type are women and the second men.  The men also all think they can count and think clearly, when the actual fact of the matter is that they know shit and pretty much do shit for a living.  So I've developed quite a specific aversion to dunces throwing their fuck-nutted weight around.  Having some of their brain-storming ordure, still warm from the colon, dumped on my doorstep, then, has got right in among me.

I will rise above it, however

Legless in Seattle

Ooh, the legs hurt today.  Well, not really hurt, but they're under the weather, certainly.  I competed in a 10-mile time trial last night for the first time in 14 years, and don't I know it.  I've managed to keep a fair degree of fitness over the years, what with commuting and training, but training is nothing compared with racing.  Racing marks a real step up in intensity.  I'd forgotten this until about a mile and a half into it when my central nervous system started sounding the fire bell.

It really takes some self-procession at times like this not to pack-up and start weeping.  I'm proud to say that I managed to take stock and recover some composure.  My physical well being wasn't helped by my being woefully under-geared.  I'd never ridden this circuit before and had to take a guess on what would be appropriate.  Actually, I didn't take a guess; I simply turned-up on what I had under me yesterday and hoped for the best.  Unfortunately, the track was like shit off a shovel and I couldn't stay up to speed on the flats without spinning like the crankshaft on v-reg Escort RS-2000.

The worst aspect of all this is that I ended the torture thinking I'd acquitted myself pretty well, thank-you.  Sadly, the timekeepers thought otherwise.  I wasn't the slowest by any manner of means, but there were quite a few lame and aged individuals among the starters, so I shouldn't take too much succour from that.

As is always the case with time trialling, the winner appeared to be turning over his pedal cranks slowly and with ease, and yet was averaging 30mph.  Had he been built like concrete shithouse, this wouldn't have been too dispiriting.  As it was, though, he looked just like the rest of us.  He just had a bigger engine. 

That's endurance sport for you.  She's a bastard.

Mister Punyverse

I've got a taster session booked at the Olympic Velodrome next week.  Initially I was hoogely excited by this, but later, as surely as night follows day, the doubts started to creep in.  Riding to work on Wednesday morning I thought I felt one of my hamstrings complaining.  This is normally a sign that my sciatic nerve is unhappy with developments, so it's not a problem.  I just step-up the yoga a touch and get on with it.  But the looming public display of cycling prowess had added a extra dimension of worry.

You see, I am fiercely competitive once I've thrown my leg over a bike, so I cannot and will not race unless I'm in prime condition.  I think it's referred to as "doing oneself justice".  So will I be able to give it full gas at the velodrome?  If I can't, I need to pull out beforehand.  The reason for my uncertainty is that I'm prone to psychosomatic episodes, particularly when I know I need to be 100%.  Chances are this is one of those.

The competitive instinct on the bike is an odd sensation for me.  Other than in this one arena, I have no competitive spirit at all.  In fact I dislike and mistrust competitive people.  I think it betrays a weakness of character.  Why do you need to prove yourself to others?  I know what I'm good at; I don't need to demonstrate that ability.  Except, that is, on a bicycle.

In other news, Mrs O and I are off to a garden party tomorrow at her old college in Oxford.  Sadly, my meteorological advisors tell me it's going to shit down rain, so that's the croquet gone for a Richard Burton.  No matter.  The sherry and nibbles at these do's are of the finest order available, so if push comes to shove, I can always spend the time indoors, face down in the buffet.

Ambre Solaire and lager

There's another mini-break looming on the horizon this weekend.  The missus and I are off to Belgium tomorrow for a couple of nights.  We're heading east to catch a bike race, Liège-Bastogne-Liège.  I appreciate that this is some (i.e., most) people's idea of hell, and I understand and celebrate that stance on the subject.  Imagine what the world would be like if we all enjoyed the same things: that's right, even duller than it currently is.  I'm all for diversity of opinion.

Anyways, I'm really looking forward to it.  Belgium is the spiritual home of road racing.  It is to them what football is to the English, or rugby to the Kiwis.  Everyone there understands the sport, and has forthright opinions on it.  No such thing as neutral in these matters.  The Scottish pro rider David Millar once observed that he particularly enjoyed racing in Belgium because "it's so damn...well, Belgian."  

I concur.  Yes, Belgium isn't the most beautiful country on Earth, or the most exciting, but it is its own man.  It's happy in its own skin.  It cares not two hoots if you enjoy or even understand its ways. But if you take pains to study the place and understand its people, your efforts will be met with open arms and a winning smile.

It's strange how difference nations hold different opinions of each other.  Apparently the Dutch think the Belgians rather "other" and exotic although they only live about 50 miles away.  For example I was once on a cycling holiday in The Netherlands and spotted a Belgian restaurant.  I couldn't resist a closer look, so that evening Mrs O and I booked a table.  We didn't know what to expect.  I'd never been particularly bowled over by the cuisine in Belgium, save for the hand-wrought chocolates, which are rather good. 

The food was fairly workaday if I'm honest: fine but not brilliant, but the decor of the restaurant was a work of art.  It was kitted-out in dark wood panelling, heavy 19th century furniture and doilies, billions of doilies.  It was like being inside the drawer of a giant Welsh dresser.  This is at odds with the prevailing Dutch aesthetic, which is functional and easy-wide.  This contrast in visual sensibilities and the tradition of dangerous monastic beer gave the Belgians a romantic and wild-eyed quality that the Dutch felt they rather lacked.  I couldn't see it, myself.  

I suppose we're all guilty of this to some extent.  The English tend to think of the west of Ireland as a cross between Middle Earth and Cornwall.  The truth, I can tell you from family experience, is rather more prosaic: ill-fitting jeans on ill-fitting buttocks, sat in Hiace vans outside supermarkets, and drizzle...plenty of drizzle.

You know how to whistle, don't you?

As it wasn't freezing cold and/or p1ssing down with rain yesterday, I thought I'd treat the wife to a walk.  It's important to keep the magic alive like this when you've been married since the last hurrah of britpop, as we have.

Sometimes we jolly down to the coast of Essex or Kent on our Sunday constitutionals as Mrs O grew up on the coast and gets the yips if she can't dip her trotters in the briny once a calendar month.  But we decided to give the Thames Estuary a swerve yesterday as when the weather is half decent, the less-agreeable denizens of the capital head off there en masse and make a holy show of themselves and generally despoil the environment.  I know one isn't supposed to kowtow and amend one's plans to accommodate ruffians like this, but to tough it out and go for a stroll down there anyways would have constituted a massive Pyrrhic victory.

So it was then that we stayed in town and walked up the Thames path from Greenwich to town.  Clearly all of this walk was conducted on Her Majesty's highways, so we set off with scant equipment: a pair of flips-flops each, a loaf of bread and a block of Gruyere.  And this proved to be ample.  We are rather unusual in this regard, Mrs O and I, as most walkers tend to pack tonnes of gear before leaving base camp.

I've never understood people's obsession with kit for walking.  I mean, all you've got to do is place one foot in front of the other until you've reached your goal.  I do all my walking in civvies.  The only concession I make to "kit" is that I'll wear trainers if the mileage means the walk might exceed four hours.  Other than this though, specialist equipment brings nothing to the table.

I suppose people buy this stuff in order to protect themselves against mishap somehow, a kind of secular GORE-TEX amulet, if you like.  But most wouldn't recognise this as the reason; they'd probably explain to you at heart-breaking length why you simply must pull on a pair of £400 trousers to walk across wheat field in zone 6 of a Sunday.

Part of the Thames Path in south east London also doubles-up as a cycle path.  Cycling is particularly poorly served by "technology" (by which I mean injection-molded plastics plus marketing).  This is due to its perceived status as a sport.  And sport requires kit.  That's why people (i.e. men) put on lycra onesies and irridescent goggles to ride to Oddbins.  But utility cycling is walking to bike racing's running.  If you're not racing, you don't need a carbon fibre bike.  Honestly...would I lie to you?  I would, but not about this.

equipment overload

Down wit da yoot

I've been pondering a return to time-trialing of late.  That's bicycle time-trialing, not driving around the alps in a two-seater Bentley with a pair of flying goggles and a silk neckerchief.

I used to do a fair bit of this kind of thing when I was younger, not young, you understand, younGER.  I really enjoyed it too.  But then I packed-up, for reasons I can't properly fathom.  Anyhoos, after a 14 year hiatus (Great Scot - has it really been that long?), I feel increasingly desirous of a return to competition.

I've been trying to analyse the reasons for this change of heart.  When you get to a certain point in life, it's important to start scrutinising the motives for your actions carefully, lest ye be acting at the behest of the dread midlife crisis.  When this happens, all dignity is lost.  It's for this reason, for example, that 20-stone bald hedge fund managers take up snowboarding, or leave their wives and move in with teenage Russian slappers.  That, then, must be avoided.

I think, however, I'm mooting this change for the right reasons.  I've kept myself fit, and I do enjoy racing bikes.  Mind you, it's important I keep an eye on matters in case the mania escalates; otherwise I'll end-up buying a one-piece lycra gimp suit, a yard-long aero helmet the shape of a bidet and a five grand carbon fibre bike.  These things, needless to say, are the cycling equivalent of buying Ludmilla a pair of crotchless scanties.

My trouble is that I'm as thin now as I was at 20, and I've kept my hair (nightmare, 'eh?).  It's all too easy, then, to fool myself into believing that I look pretty sharp dressed like an adolescent.

Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

I had occasion to cycle to Homebase en route home last evening, to fetch some new paintbrushes - never a joy at the best of time, this.  I go through paintbrushes like a chimp through bananas.  I can't seem to clean them properly, despite following the manufacturer's instructions to the letter, and buying the finest brush-cleaning chemicals money can buy.  They all turn into petrified slabs.  Anyhoo that's not the point of this article - let us return to our sheep: it was a grim January evening in east London; it had been vaguely damp for most of the day, which don't mind ordinarily.  A small drop of the wet stuff never killed anyone (with apologies to the family of anyone it did, however.) 

But when I emerged from HB, the weather took a turn for the worse.  It started to rain.  The rain wasn't heavy, more fat really.  By this, I mean the drop density wasn't high.  Visibility was good etc., but the individual drops were massive, like peanuts.  They seemed to be falling to earth quicker that the usual, smaller raindrops.  I realise this is a physical impossibility if Newton is to be believed, but my hand to God, it was the fasted rain I've ever seen.  Each drop carried such a payload that being struck by one actually hurt; it was like a small electric shock.

By the time I'd unlocked the bike and reattached the lights, the game was up.  I was soaked.  I shot home and jumped in the bath.  Also, the new brushes soaked-up enough moisture to keep them soft for the duration of the journey home, so not a wasted effort.

Next to Godliness

I'll be honest with you - I cycle to work. That usually requires that I have a shower when I get to the office. I'm lucky in my current job; the facilities for the sweaty cyclists are vee good. We have a bank of power showers at our disposal. I was scrubbing the mire off the other morning when I spotted a plug had been placed in each cubicle. What's the thinking behind that?

The base of the shower cubicle is a little, recessed trough about four inches deep. It is possible then to fill this space with warm, soapy water if so desired. The plug was in the plughole when I arrived this morning. I shudder to think what the previous occupant had been up to, but whatever it was, he's more flexible than yours truely. I suppose one could squat down like a sumo wrestler and park the spuds in the water, but it's gilding the lily really.