Stuff and nonsense

I treated myself to some new pedals and cycling shoes today.  This on the basis of last night's 10 at the Olympic Velopark, which was as slow and painful as childbirth.  Why did I do this?  Well, I suppose it's partly a material requirement.  My current shoes are showing their age, and they're really not fit for racing.  But mostly it was because I wanted to nail my colours to the mast and make a public declaration of my status as a racing cyclist.

Given last night was excruciating and to date the slowest 10 mile time trial I've ever completed, this might strike the onlooker as odd, but it makes perfect sense.  Racing cyclists revel in physical discomfort.  It's part and parcel of the game.  The argot of the sport is shot through with references to suffering and masochism.  When one or two cyclists gather together, you'll quickly hear references to "seeing stars" "turning myself inside out" or "blowing up".  Last night we each of us knew he was about to enter his own private Golgotha, and that drew us together as a group.  "We happy few, we band of brothers."  It was joyous.

All I need to do now is bring my new shoes out for a spot of training - the hard part.

Treble-Digit Co-efficient of Arse

Mrs O and I ended-up in Hackney Wick yesterday afternoon.  For those of you who aren't au fait with the east of the capital (of England), I ought to contextualise HW somewhat.  The London 2012 Olympic site sits in a huge swathe of river valley in London's east end.  Previously this site was home to a lot of down-at-heel industrial businesses.  But during the 70s and 80s the businesses either went jugs up or relocated outside London, so the area fell into serious disrepair.  

The residential areas that abutted this wasteland were, unsurprisingly, fairly shitty in their own right, thanks to their proximity to this eyesore.  Stratford, Bow, south Leyton - none of them would set the pulse racing, unless it was from fear of molestation from n'er-do-wells.  Hackney Wick sits to to the south east of the Olympic site, and is an odd place because it's always been rather beloved by the tattooed-graduate-set, who make a bee-line for London as soon as Durham University confers a degree on them.  This is probably due to its name.  It may have Hackney in the title, but Hackney it ain't.

So while the rest of this shabby cohort of districts have tidied themselves up, courtesy of the Olympic money and the need to persuade the rest of the country that they're no longer effectively open prisons, Hackney Wick has rested on its laurels rather.  And who can blame it?  The graduates still come.

To my cock-er-knee eye, however, it's an absolute shithole, HW.  It's looks appalling.  It's like being in an episode of The Sweeney, one of bleaker, nihilistic ones too.  Shirley to goodness Britain's young things will cop on to themselves soon and relocate to nearby Stratford instead?  I suppose, however, that would require them getting some self-awareness and then getting their thumbs out of their derrieres, and that's no going to happen.

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.

Velo darkness, my old friend...

I'm off to London's Olympic Velodrome this evening.  It's not called that any more; it's the Toilet Duck Velo-Excellium Experience or something.

One can't just pitch-up and "ride the boards" as we cyclists term it.  You have to be accredited.  This is a sensible precaution.  Most every office Johnny of a certain age these days has access to a road bike courtesy of the bike-2-work scheme.  Worse still - most think they can ride them.  It is (just) possible to get away without causing a crash when you don't know what you're doing on the road, but the track is less forgiving.  You're riding in a lot of traffic in a confined space.  You're also riding a fixed-wheel bike with no (count 'em) brakes.  It makes sense, then, to teach everyone some race craft before letting them off the leash.

Sadly, I've just learned that I cannot ride using my preferred pedals.  There are several pedal systems for cyclists these days.  They require matching shoes to work.  I assumed that I'd be able to select the pedals of my choice for the hire bike I'll be riding.  But, no.  So the Lord alone knows what I'll be riding.

I'll report back tomorrow, but they're going to have to charm the shorts off me to get a decent write-up after this.

Absolute rotters.