The gulf in class stream

As an added little incentive for me to look shit last night, British aspiring neo-pro Tao Geoghagen Hart unexpectedly turned up at my regular Tuesday night 10.  He's still only 20 and still looks like a child to mine eyes, TGH, but when he threw his leg over his bike, he was untouchable.  He completed his 10 in 20:42, which is the fastest time I've ever seen posted at Eastway.  He left some very competent and serious testers for dead.  No-one could live with him.

His strength and speed was doubly impressive - firstly because it appears to be summoned from nowhere.  He must weigh 10 stone sopping wet, this lad, and he has zero upper body definition.  He doesn't even have the barrel chest of most great time-trialists that presages a massive engine; secondly, when he came back to the signing-on room to hand his number in, he clearly hadn't been anywhere near his limit.  He'd been riding within himself.  His ordinary, however, was beyond the ken of anyone there to witness what he did.  

What's more, he's a climber; he's not even considered a strong tt-er among the rarefied ranks of the neo-pros.  He's very talented, clearly, even among his elite cohort, and has placed in some very prestigious amateur races, but that's no guarantee that he'll make the step up to full pro.  And if he does, will he have enough to make it into a UCI World Teams squad?  This is the highest division of pro-cycling teams.  And if he does that, will he make it into the grand tour squad?  And if he does that, will he make it to 'protected rider' status, or simply be a humble domestique?

This illustrates the quantum vide that exists between professional cyclists and the rest of us.  I could not have matched his average speed for the entire ten mile event (29mph) for a single mile.  My fastest speed, at the bottom of a fast descent, was only 30mph.  My average for the whole shebang was 22mph.  Now, admittedly, I could improve my times a lot by training properly, getting a time-trail bike and losing a stone, but I still wouldn't get near him.  He simply produces too much wattage.  And all the motivational babble and bullshit in the world turns to quivering shite in the face of cold, hard physics.  It would be like telling a motorbike rider on a 250cc machine to 'believe in himself' when racing against 900cc-equipped foes.  Belief, like flattery, gets you nowhere.  It's power-to-weight.

Anyway, the beauty and point of time-trialling is to race oneself.  Just as well really because I'm unlikely to catch any other bugger this season.

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.