Chaplog tries hard

Get the Broom Wagon

If you click on the photograph above you will be seeing the view I got yesterday when I went for a ride with the "boys". The photograh was easy to take, as I was walking and they were cycling.

As I watched the tour de France this year they frequently showed the cyclists in severe pain, swaying from side to side, before giving up. When they finally stopped, they get off their bikes and got into a vehicle. It is nick-named the broom wagon. I needed one yesterday. My plan had been not go cycling with any "proper" cyclists until I had cycled for a couple of weeks. Then I could telephone them, be economical with the truth, and they would think I was a naturally talented cyclist who did not need to train as much as they did. Excitement got the better of me, and I rang them. I was naïve, somehow I think people are going to be kind to me, you know, they might have a little chat first and say things like "you know Mike isn't fit, lets go for a short ride" or "lets ask Mike first how far he wants to go because we don't want him to get too tired". How could I possibly even consider that for a second. What would I have done if one of them wasn't fit? Exactly!

When you have not been cycling for awhile, a lack of match fitness, any ride over two hours becomes very difficult. You run out of energy and your will to carry on disappears and sometimes your will to live. From that point on there is little you can do. Going slower just prolongs the agony, going faster is not an option. There are no choices, suffer. The only bright spot in this depressing scene is that the two cyclists fading into the distance have frequently been in similar situations to myself and will do so again. Hopefuly in the near future and preferabley with me in front. I have never understood people who say they have no motive for getting fit.

I am wrong, it is not the only bright spot, it stopped raining shortly before the time the photograph was taken.

Points to consider before deciding that mountain biking is for you:

1. bike's need new parts - positive lots of retail therapy sessions
2. you need specialist clothes - see positive above
3. you have to keep up with the Jones's - Steve has got disk brakes, so has Sid and a certain person with the surname Jones has had more titanium frames than I have had new ropes
4. you fall off - no different to climbing then
5. you get extremely muddy, cold and miserable
6. you have to clean the bike afterwards
7. hyperthermia on long rides in Britain is a possibility in winter - positive go to Majorca or Sardinia
8. you sleep well and for longer
9. you can eat a lot
10. sometimes you get to go to the pub after cycling

So now we have clearly established that going mountain biking is a good idea, a little more needs to be said on that point of getting muddy. Shown below are three pictures of cyclists and a non cyclist, on that particular day. Note it rained when the cyclists were out, there was one very large extremely muddy puddle taken at speed by two gentleman and walked around by the other one. Sid has a naturally brown skin colour. Now who is the muddiest? To make this task easier for you I suggest you click on each of the photographs in turn to enlarge them and if required enlarge them again. You need to see the mud. Well! Who would have thought you could get that muddy gardening and Steve looking like he was posing for a fashion show with a sparkle in his eye, it could be the flash!

Posted by mikec at August 22, 2003 06:21 PM