Illness

I have a cold - a heavy one - aching joints, weakness, the tremors, you name it.  So I'm going to bugger off home, clamber into something comfortable, like a coma, and forget today ever happened.  The only obstacle to overcome before I can realise this dream is the ride home.  It's a foul day in London Town - really miserable.

Dubbin - must buy dubbin.

Hold that thought

I'll have to be brief today; I've been snowed under and I've got ton(nes) to do when I get home too so I can't hang about.

What have I learned today?  Apart from some vba code that came in useful earlier, not much if I'm honest.  Still, at least the sun shone on my ignorance.  That sounds like a euphemism, doesn't it?  It isn't.

Adiós.

I'm in love

Well, well...the missus and I popped to the Olympic Velodrome in London last evening for the first day of a new six-day cycling event.  I booked this out of curiosity more than anything, and because it was my birthday on Saturday, so I thought it made a nice bookend for the festivities.

I'm not much of a lad for track cycling really, despite having ridden the boards myself occasionally.  I do watch it, but I'm primarily a road cyclist have always looked upon the track as the road's boss-eyed, simpleton sister.  That all changed last night.

I hadn't had any great hope for the evening, but the tickets weren't that expensive, so even if it were shite, I reasoned, we could bail out after an hour or so and go to the pub.  However, it was riveting - absolutely compelling.  From start to finish, I could not drag my eyes from the spectacle.  I had to force myself to answer the call of nature at one point, but other than that, I stayed glued to my seat.

It's usually the case that televised sport is better than the same event in the flesh.  Football, rugby, cricket, road cycling - all of them are better served by television than by the empirical evidence of one's eyes.  Not so track cycling - it's so much better when you're there.  It's easier to follow; you also get the impression of the very real speed and danger inherent in the disciplines.  I was hooked by the end of the show, no question.  I'm now furiously trying to organise a trip to the continent to see one of the older, more-established six-days.  The two on the shortlist thus far are Berlin and Copenhagen.  We'll have to see how the flights work out etc.  Over there, six-days are basically a wafer-thin excuse for a piss-up - a nightclub with a bike race in the middle of it.  And it's as much fun as that sounds.

Boeuf Dei

It my birthday tomorrow!  I hate being the age I am (currently 46).  It doesn't sit at all well with yours truly.  And it's not because I'm vain or nuttin'.  Nor did I particularly like being young.  I like the material creature comforts that early middle age brings.  I own my own home; I have plenty of disposable income; I travel a lot.  But it's the way that one's generation slowly starts to become marginalised that I can't stand.  The cultural spotlight simply ebbs away.  The process is imperceptible until its dour work is done.  And I'm a late-starter; I was happy to bide my time as a young'un.  As a result, I'm fizzing with enthusiasm and ideas, just at the moment when my voice is starting to fall on deaf ears.  That's what I object to.

However, all that notwithstanding, I can't help but be a little excited by the event.  Firstly or course there will be presents.  The missus and I are popping out to our favourite restaurant tomorrow night to celebrate.  And, unusually for me, money will start burning a hole in my pocket and I'll feel compelled to splash out on some material frippery or other.  I'm minded to buy some musical equipment - a home studio for recording perhaps?  Yes, that would be nice.

Once more unto the top, once more

I'm dipping my multi-faceted hobby toe back into musical waters this evening.  Last weekend, my best friend and I reprised our musical venture of recording interesting covers of rock and pop classics.  To make them interesting, we transpose them to other musical genres - The Model by Kraftwerk in a ragamuffin stylee for example.  That one works remarkably well, by-the-way.

I was around at his last Saturday, ostensibly for a haircut - not off him, off his missus, who's a fully-qualified stylist and coiffeuse.  I wouldn't let him cut my hair.  Do I look stupid?  What's that?  No, apart from the hair?  Oh, yes, very good.  Anyway, we took the opportunity to record a version of Ace Of Spades that we've been working on for...oh about five years.  It was fun recording it, and as it had been percolating for so long, we both had strong opinions about how it should sound, which always helps.  The whole endeavour really rekindled my enthusiasm.

As luck would have it, the wife's out tonight, carousing with former colleagues, so I've planned a night in front of the computer with my guitar, bass and mandolin.  To maximise studio time, I'm not even going to cook.  It's straight home via the local Spar, whip up a cold supper and hunker down.  I can't wait.

It's rare that one is able to cause one's younger self some green-eyed envy, but this is one of those situations.  I have a good computer, several good guitars, a good bass, a wonderful mandolin, a comfortable and rangy home in which to work and plenty of expensive Belgian beer to help the creative juices flow.

Ahh, be still my beating heart.

Bike Riced

Phuque-ing Nora - that was a hard session at the velodrome last night.  It was partly my fault for not being correctly prepared for its severity, but in fairness to me, there was absolutely no information on the 'drome's website to correct my erroneous a priori assumption that it would be a piece of piss.  Firstly, I thought the session would last an hour; the others I'd been on do.  No - this one lasted ninety minutes.  That wouldn't normally be a problem, but an hour and a half requires proper fuelling.  

Also, it was a session of very short, very intense sessions - not what I was expecting.  By the end I was running on empty.  I got through it okay, but on the ride home I couldn't get the bike over 12mph even on the flat.  That's an indication of hunger knock, which is no good for one fitness or morale.  Also, the lack of electrolytes meant I cramped up quite badly too.  Not great - and totally avoidable.

The positives are that I got some intensity back into my bike work.  And as I'm still reasonably fit, the pain dissipated quickly and I was right with that pleasing combination of hunger, righteous fatigue and endorphins that endurance training gifts one.  I forgotten how vivid and pleasurable planet Earth is when viewed through this prism.

Ryan's Torture

I'm back on a stationary bike this evening for the first time in yonks.  Tonight's is a slightly different session from any I've experienced before; it's on a machine called a Wattbike.  The difference in technology from other static bike is quite marked apparently, but the upshot is the same: you're there to suffer.  Cycling, competitive cycling, hurts.  And cycling indoors magnifies this agony.  You've nothing to distract you from the essence of what it is you're doing.

Normally I love challenging myself on a bike; that makes me sound like one of those arsehole haircuts that applies to go on The Appentice, doesn't it?  The type who are convinced that the ability to remain upright in a suit after only four hours' sleep more than compensates for a double-digit IQ.  I'm not like that, really I'm not.  It's just that I've always loved competitive cycling, and am reasonably adept at it.  Also, there is something joyous about being really fit.  Your body feels like it's separate from you, like it has an objective existence outside of and independent of your awareness and/or influence.  You're just given preferred user status, and that's enough, believe me.  Life is effortless when the corporeal system is well-tuned.  And the mind falls in love with this new hunk, like a giggling schoolgirl.  It's great.

But maintaining one's fitness is harder, particularly when the weather gets cold, as it has in London recently.  I've let my fitness slide a bit and now it's time to suffer.  I need to court it again, win it back; I've treated it with blithe indifference and its ardour has cooled.  Hmm...I never learn, do I?

Men, huh?  We're all the same.