footloose crow
Veteran
- Location
- Cornwall. UK
23 Feb Sunday afternoon spin and some philosophy
I used to think I was immortal until I met an oncologist. Thereafter I thought every day was a precious jewel to be spent wisely and mindfully. Well that didn't last. Today I decided that immortality might be a bit boring. Stay with me on this. If you have an eternity of tomorrows, would you ever do anything? Or would you wait until the day was more perfect, the wind even gentler and going your way, dappled sunshine, a smoothly ironed road, a mysterious affliction to all internal combustion engines, tea shops every ten miles? I know that living by a surf beach, I surf less often than I did when it was a drive to get there because I keep waiting for better conditions, smoother waves, fewer people, warmer seas. I think immortality might be boring but remind me I said that next time I meet an oncologist.
An immortal cyclist would not have gone out at anytime this month. And I haven't been out enough either. So this afternoon I have left my elderly father (we are doing respite care) with Madame Crow for an hour and gone out. It has stopped raining and the wind has dropped and although it is grey and near the end of a lazy Sunday afternoon, I have a need for the bike.
Would I want to be immortal? And why don't I do this more often? These are the thoughts that run through my mind. Along with 'haven't these hills got a bit steeper?' and 'Am I always so breathless?'. I feel slow and fat. Old and tired. I am lifted by all the signs that Spring is coming. Camellias flowering. Daffodils in profusion. Wild garlic and penny wort running riot in the granite walled field edges. Then I worry that sporadic cycling for the last eight weeks between illness, holidays and family stuff means I am too unfit, legs puffy and weak, lungs shrunken and leaking like punctured bellows. I feel fraudulent wearing lycra, unworthy of being considered a regular cyclist, just a poseur.
The back lanes north of Truro have been hammered by the storms this winter. Debris fans of gravel, grit and mud cover the road. Streams are still running off the fields, brown, swiftly flowing downhill to flood the boggy valley bottoms. I splash through them and realise how impossible these roads would have been a few days ago.
I said I would only be out for an hour. I need to turn back now and find my way back into Truro. Faster roads here, more traffic. I have read in cycling magazines of reviewers describing how the bike they are testing 'spins along at 30 mph'. I want a bike like that. My bike spins along at 15mph unless I am going downhill and then I brake. Maybe it's just me? I try and try and although the road is what passes for flat in Cornwall, I can't hold it above 20mph for any length of time and that hurts. It is not to be immortal that I want, just to be that sprinter that wins the hilliest stage of the Tour de France, that leaves the peloton behind on the Paris-Roubaix, that sets a new Strava record on the Ventoux. I need a thigh and lung transplant.
Through Sunday evening quiet Truro and the lights stay green all the way. I am invincible. I am the greatest. I am on a hill.....oh dear, down through the gears and spin. The speed drops as the gradient climbs until both figures meet at eight. Eight mph. 8%. I have gone too fast lower down the hill and now I am in lactic purgatory until I have paid for the sin of pride.
Home. Madame is cool. My father wants to know where I have been. I am fourteen again, accounting for my absence to him. But I want to share with you that on that final hill.....new best time on Strava! I am now 1729 out of 4264. I guess that means that I won't be on the Tour this summer?
I used to think I was immortal until I met an oncologist. Thereafter I thought every day was a precious jewel to be spent wisely and mindfully. Well that didn't last. Today I decided that immortality might be a bit boring. Stay with me on this. If you have an eternity of tomorrows, would you ever do anything? Or would you wait until the day was more perfect, the wind even gentler and going your way, dappled sunshine, a smoothly ironed road, a mysterious affliction to all internal combustion engines, tea shops every ten miles? I know that living by a surf beach, I surf less often than I did when it was a drive to get there because I keep waiting for better conditions, smoother waves, fewer people, warmer seas. I think immortality might be boring but remind me I said that next time I meet an oncologist.
An immortal cyclist would not have gone out at anytime this month. And I haven't been out enough either. So this afternoon I have left my elderly father (we are doing respite care) with Madame Crow for an hour and gone out. It has stopped raining and the wind has dropped and although it is grey and near the end of a lazy Sunday afternoon, I have a need for the bike.
Would I want to be immortal? And why don't I do this more often? These are the thoughts that run through my mind. Along with 'haven't these hills got a bit steeper?' and 'Am I always so breathless?'. I feel slow and fat. Old and tired. I am lifted by all the signs that Spring is coming. Camellias flowering. Daffodils in profusion. Wild garlic and penny wort running riot in the granite walled field edges. Then I worry that sporadic cycling for the last eight weeks between illness, holidays and family stuff means I am too unfit, legs puffy and weak, lungs shrunken and leaking like punctured bellows. I feel fraudulent wearing lycra, unworthy of being considered a regular cyclist, just a poseur.
The back lanes north of Truro have been hammered by the storms this winter. Debris fans of gravel, grit and mud cover the road. Streams are still running off the fields, brown, swiftly flowing downhill to flood the boggy valley bottoms. I splash through them and realise how impossible these roads would have been a few days ago.
I said I would only be out for an hour. I need to turn back now and find my way back into Truro. Faster roads here, more traffic. I have read in cycling magazines of reviewers describing how the bike they are testing 'spins along at 30 mph'. I want a bike like that. My bike spins along at 15mph unless I am going downhill and then I brake. Maybe it's just me? I try and try and although the road is what passes for flat in Cornwall, I can't hold it above 20mph for any length of time and that hurts. It is not to be immortal that I want, just to be that sprinter that wins the hilliest stage of the Tour de France, that leaves the peloton behind on the Paris-Roubaix, that sets a new Strava record on the Ventoux. I need a thigh and lung transplant.
Through Sunday evening quiet Truro and the lights stay green all the way. I am invincible. I am the greatest. I am on a hill.....oh dear, down through the gears and spin. The speed drops as the gradient climbs until both figures meet at eight. Eight mph. 8%. I have gone too fast lower down the hill and now I am in lactic purgatory until I have paid for the sin of pride.
Home. Madame is cool. My father wants to know where I have been. I am fourteen again, accounting for my absence to him. But I want to share with you that on that final hill.....new best time on Strava! I am now 1729 out of 4264. I guess that means that I won't be on the Tour this summer?
Horrendous headwinds in places - struggled to maintain 5mph on the flat at times, 
often very cold, I guess because the wind is blowing across snow-covered peaks. 
A few 
