22 Stone Cyclist

Saturdays. For most, it appears to be a day for one of 2 things.

The first is the weekly shop. Thousands of people routinely deposit their brain at the automatic doors to Tesco/Asda/Sainsburys (delete as appropriate) in exchange for a shopping trolley that simply will not go in the direction they push it and spend hours wandering around like aimless sheep filling their trolleys with fattening crap they don’t need.

The second is football. Thousands of men voluntarily cram themselves into seats made for people much smaller than themselves and in the freezing cold watch 22 men run about kicking a inflated piece of cow’s hide around some grass, after which they proceed to the nearest public house to either celebrate or drown their sorrows.

Neither is particularly appealing, thank you very much. Internet shopping was invented for a very, very good reason and my childhood football team is languishing in League 1 (let’s call it Division 3 because that’s what it REALLY is).

Instead, I do something that the above people would probably consider close to insanity. I dress up in tight fitting clothes (sounds good so far) and ride a push bike for countless miles in the name of fitness and socializing. Tescos is starting to sound good, isn’t it?

As it happens, it was the first Vag’s ride of the year for me. I have been chomping at the bit since New Year to get out with my friends (despite bottling last Saturday due to the rain) and no amount of inclement weather was going to stop me. I was awake early, my resting heart rate was 39, and I had lost another pound (I’m down to 15 stone 11.7 now). I showered, clobbered up and set off to meet the girls at the garage.

It was cold - and since losing weight, I feel the cold. It makes sense really, all my insulation has gone (well, not all of it). Despite being layered up to the max, I could feel the cold. My toes were almost instantly numb. My face felt like it had been slapped a few times with a cold, damp fish. If I still had ears, I certainly couldn’t feel them! “What would Lance do… what would Lance do”, I shivered to myself.

Cath, Lisa and I pedaled to Ponteland, and I’m convinced either Cath had eaten 3 Shredded Wheat or has found a supplier of dodgy vitamins as the girl was on fire. You could almost see the vertexes coming off her helmet as she powered forward. I’m fairly certain we actually broke the speed limit at one point.

There was a healthy turn out at Pont, despite us all congregating outside (apparently Anna has broken a bone). I arrived with my face a dark shade of purple from trying to keep up with Cath “I’m just trying to get my cadence up” Amos but pretty quickly my temperature dropped to below Arctic as we waiting for everyone to turn up. There would be 2 groups, 1 slow and 1 medium (except the medium group was to be lead by Alan Dick, so internally I questioned the “mediumness” of the group) and Simon Gibbs decided for me that I was going in Alan’s group!

In all honesty, it was a good route. We headed out over the club 10 course to Ogle and then Whalton, and up to the Dyke Neuk, and over the hills eventually arriving at the Gubeon. I might have got told off for getting on the front and going too fast *again*, but I still say I was struggling and just trying to keep out of everyone’s way! The hills were bloody hard work, and gravity clearly hasn’t decided to be my friend in the New Year. Yes I stuck at the front, and yes I wasn’t getting dropped, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t find it hard - because I did!

We stopped off at the Gubeon golf club for a cup of tea and a cake (it would be rude not to) and at this point I decided to be a proper geek and compare the data on my Garmin to that of Cath and Lisa. Well I would, had I remembered to press “Start” at Ponteland. So here’s my Top Tip of the week. If you ARE going to spend £500 on a bike computer, it is an extremely expensive paper weight if you don’t actually tell it to start recording your data. Feeling sufficiently stupid, I changed the topic of conversation very quickly to something that somehow sparked the following comment from one of the girls…

“James, in a room full of women you’re like a child in a sweet shop”.

Quite.

Coffee stop over, we began the civilized ride back to Pont. Civilized until Alan MACAULAY (not Alan Armstrong!) and Kyle Watts decided to jump off the front. Like the child I am I chased after them and clung on behind them until Ponte. Kyle kicked, and so did I. Kyle kicked again, and so did I. Ultimately, you’d expect Kyle to beat me in a time trial or on a hill climb but in a sprint on the flat, for now at least, I was always going to eat him up. He’s bloody impressive though for someone so young and small - definitely one to watch for the future as long as he doesn’t discover beer and women…!

Exhausted and happy I spent the rest of Saturday aching and tired. It had been a fab re-introduction to riding with the Vags, even if there were a few faces missing. It reminded me that I am in by the far the best cycling club in the North East. More importantly, it reminded me why I took up cycling. It reminded me why freezing my ass off on a bicycle is so rewarding. You can keep your family trips to the supermarket. You can stick your season ticket and Pukka Pies where the sun don’t shine. I’m a road cyclist, I’m a Vag, and I’m bloody proud of it.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 2:22 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.