Horses for courses

I was reading an article in Cycling Weekly earlier, my preferred organ of record on these matters,  about a club cyclist from Rotherham who's just broken the world record for distance cycled in a week.  He covered 1758 miles, this chap.  In a week.  Don't bother; I'm waay ahead of you - that's 252 miles a day.  When asked if he'd experienced any hiccups (sic) during the week, he gave up the following gold-plated quote:

"I had a bad day on Tuesday. I fainted after a massage."

As well one might.  He's not a pro, by-the-way; he does this for a hobby.  He was also riding circuits, not place to place.  So he didn't even have  the satisfaction of reaching a new town each day.  What was he thinking about as he pounded around for hour after hour?  Not much, I'll warrant.

I torn between admiration for the endeavour and horror at its utter futility.  Like darts.

A couple of years ago, I had a bit of a dalliance with distance cycling.  I was getting bored of race training, and I thought I'd have a crack at the Dunwich Dynamo, a 120-mile overnight ride from London to Dunwich in Suffolk.  By way of prep., one Saturday in high summer, I rode from my home in London to Maldon in Essex and back, a distance of 90-something miles.  I immediately vowed never to do another long ride unless there was a valid reason for it - touring, for example, or fleeing toxic fallout.  

These days I like my bike rides like my women: short and sadistic.

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