Saturday 22 February 2014

In memory

Today I rode in memory of someone I have no memories of because I didn't know him.  Terry Brown was a member of the North Cheshire Clarion cycling club, the club I have belonged to for two years.  I seldom ride with them, life and other activities taking priority, but for me they are more of a convenience.  A Saturday ride of guaranteed distance and duration, with folk who keep a reasonably decent pace, and where someone else, crucially knows the route.  It takes away the need to think about route planning or map following, and I simply get to ride my bike along only gently undulating roads with friendly folk.

It's a club now 300 members strong, after just four years of being. It has a nice feel to it.  Nearly half that number showed up this morning to hold a minute's silence for one of our own.  Oddly his death kind of hit me.  It hit me because I of that "one of our own" sense.  How could somebody do this to someone like me.  And that's also the crux of it.  This is a first for me, well, maybe two firsts.  Firstly, the first first is that on hearing of his death I identified with him.  Up until now it seems that every other death or life threatening injury I've heard about catapults my mind into thinking about their wife, partner, family.  I identify with the bereaved person or the carer because that's mostly where I've been, that's the feelings I understand, and it's also a bit of a support for the underdog. Being a carer in those situations is brutal, simply brutal, and before I'd gone through it, my understanding of the sheer exhausting pain and devastation on an ongoing basis was just so limited.  First hand experience has changed me.  But this time, I identified with the man down.  There but for the grace of god go I every time I commute to work.  The second first was my suspended belief in the "how could this happen to someone like me".  Nearly a decade ago now I stopped thinking "things like this don't happen to people like me".  My brutal world told me to expect things like that to happen, or at least not to be surprised or phased in anyway when things unpleasant and unnecessary happen.  Bad things happen to anyone. It's part of life. Yet here I was, thinking how could this happen to someone like me.  I guess change is blowing through leafy canopy of my brain.

The National Clarion have a motto of "No rider left behind" and they have an almost frighteningly organised system to make sure that they are true to that.  We have various shouts of Tail and Pace to make sure those having a bad day don't get left behind.  You kind of roll with the punches a little bit as to what's going to happen in the grupetto you have elected to join.  Sometimes you all in military precision step on the pedals, and sometimes you dawdle along waiting for the person with the hangover / chest infection / six months off the bike / first time group riding / just not that fast.  And nobody minds if the pace is slightly slower than advertised.

Today I selected my ride leader (we split into groups of 8) based on his physique.  Short, carrying a bit of timber.  He didn't look too fast.  A group of mixed age range and body types, with mine the only female. I like riding with all male groups, I'll be honest, women tend to slow the damn thing down. I avoid girls.  Over the course of the ride, we lost, by agreement, two riders.  The first turned off for home realising it just wasn't happening for him. And the pace increased.  We break formation at hills, and I think me panting past one of the other riders finished him off. We regrouped at the top of the hill, and he managed to get some words, one of which included "bonked" out, and he headed for home.  Then it got interesting.  The war of attrition had reduced 8 to 6.  Who was going to be next, I wondered.  My answer was the bearded dude next to me.   Neither of us were capable of carrying out conversation as the pace started to punish us, but somehow when I saw him slipping behind I managed the yell of "pace" to get our leader to slow down.  It was good, I wasn't the worst, I didn't represent womanhood badly I feel, staying in the group.

Interestingly, and I know I'm harping on, I find it increasingly weird that there's discussion and argument circling around on various cycling websites about how our cycling clubs don't cater for women.  I don't know what other women are looking for from a club.  I really like that my club caters for cyclists.  I don't need anything special; I don't need help with punctures, I don't need a coffee stop, I don't need a wheel to sit on and I don't need to be given a pink option in the club kit.

What is it, I wonder, that women want?

Tuesday 18 February 2014

New Job

Well, OK, the job's not so new any more, and in some ways of course many people haven't noticed that I do actually have a new job.  A 10m move down the corridor doesn't count for much. I have, however traded up from the wrong sized men's fit adidas clothing into the sleek black of women's rapha kit.  Nice.

One of the odder things about the new job is the occasional ability to work from home but paired up with the occasional need to work from home at 7pm on a Monday night or 7pm on a Sunday from someone else's sofa.  I find it kind of mellow that I have now participated in two evening conference calls with the guinea pig.  There I am, in my dining room, still clad in my Rapha clothing because it's warm and my house is not.  In the corner sits the guinea pig, and throughout the call I can hear her gentle hay munching noises.  Rhythmic, content, the world is a remarkably calm place where guinea pigs can sit in on conference calls.  She hasn't signed a confidentiality agreement but that's fine.

One of the other curious things about the call is that folk are dialling in from all over the world.  Occasionally you find it's wine o'clock for one or other member of staff, and you can picture a mellow sunshiny evening with a solitary glass of red wine to relax after a hard day of whatever it is they actually do in the field.  I get the impression the wine is generally either a rarity or simply a scene setter and not actually real.  But it's a nice thing to believe in. My colleagues.  Relaxed, happy.  Pets, wine, family, rugby teams, cycling teams.  A jumble of life peacefully humming along behind us.

Working hours are a confusion.  When do I start; when do I finish?  It feels like every hour the macbook is switched on is potentially work, it's a 24 hour operation.  Right now, it's twenty to ten in the evening here but it's four hours ahead in Oman and who knows where the rest of my working word are right now.  And tomorrow starts at 8am.  Sunday involved an odd hour.  Monday seemed to finish at 8pm.  I think Friday may be an early finish ...

Friday 14 February 2014

Gotta Fly

I got stuck in Geneva last night.  Kind of.  Except that Easy Jet found it easier to send me to France for the night. 

One of those times where the only possible behaviour of a non wealthy adult is to stand in line, relax and hand over all responsibility for your own existence to the staff of an economy airline.  From the moment I joined my first queue of the night my destiny wasn't in my hands.  Without money, once you have finally discovered where you're meant to go and how to get there on discovering the flight is cancelled, you queue. 

First you queue for the desk where they are supposed to find you another way to get home.  With a van in Liverpool airport, the place designed to be inaccessible by any form of public transport, and me in Geneva, Easy Jet kindly found me a flight into Birmingham.  Apparently neither Manchester nor Liverpool nor Leeds Bradford being available for me.  Although people behind me in the line I later discovered had those options.  Still, for me, Birmingham it was.

Secondly you queue at the desk where everyone else is queuing for hotels.  After 25 minutes the queue hasn't moved, not one person has managed to leave the front of the line.  So they send a woman round with a list, and she takes down your room requirements. At this point you realise that as a single room requirer you are screwed.  But you wait some more.  After an hour you get to the front of the queue.  A  hotel room has been found for you.  It is in France.  You are sent to wait for a shuttle bus.

Thirdly you queue for a shuttle bus.  You wait there with the dude you have been chatting with in the last queue.  You have become good friends.  The Easy Jet woman comes out and looks at you.  How many of you are there asks the woman who has booked you all into the French hotel.  We may have to get you a taxi she says.  And disappears.  And returns.  The shuttle will be 15 minutes she says.  We queue.

The shuttle arrives, the driver concerned about numbers.  We get in.  We discover it's going to be a 30 minute drive.  I chat to my good friend Michael.  Turns out we have a friend in common.  We are both happy about her new born son.  He offers me use of his phone charger.  I decline.  On arrival at the hotel I have a second sense about queueing and make sure I am first.  I still can't get a shuttle bus at 8am to get me to my flight at the airport.  I missed the queue for that completely.  I'm on a 9am one.  It's going to be interesting.

The following day I arrive once more at Geneva airport.  I look at the queue for check in. I consider crying.  I am hand baggage only, surely it must be easier than this.  I haven't even, for pity's sake had access to pyjamas, toothpaste, clean knickers or deodorant.  I look for any cunning electronic machine to check in.  There are none. In desperation I queue.  I chose the information desk and put to him my "I'm going to miss my flight" dilemma.  He bobs over to the oversize luggage belt and miraculously produces a boarding pass for me.  I take it and head to security.

At security I queue.  20 minutes to get a tray to put my assorted phones in.  I queue once I  have the trays.  Eventually I get through. My gate is already announced, so to make a change from queueing, I walk.  Possibly to France.  I walk, then I sit then the flight opens and I stay sat.  I'm done with queueing now.

Friday 7 February 2014

The thrum

Sometimes on the bike it's just the thrum of the pedals.  Just like at work, I have this ability to zone out all the other stuff around me if I don't want to hear it.  But equally I can be completely present in my surroundings and choose to hear the sound of car tyres, engines, brakes, people walking and talking on the phone, and in central Manchester the occasional screech of a seagull.  I can choose to hear the flapping of my rucksack straps and the wind roar past my ears, but equally I can choose not to.

Last night I did a Watt Bike class.  In a moment of insane enthusiasm I booked up for the intermediate level despite having not been on a Watt Bike for at least 18 months.  OK, perhaps over two years.  Or maybe longer.  Still, optimism could be my middle name, eh?

The class was made up of fit looking blokes, mostly over 40 wearing club jerseys over their plain black shorts. I had no idea the velominati rules applied to a Watt Bike Class.  It's slightly crazy isn't it, I mean on a static bike with a bottle cage for just one hour and somewhere to hang your towel what do you need three handy back pockets for?  I was neatly turned out in a plain black light technical fabric t-shirt which fitted kind of gently and demurely over a pair of black 3/4 length bib shorts.  Very tidy and not at all showy.  It's a funny thing, because you are kind of on your own on a bike with a computer screen and numbers.  You ride the numbers.  Nobody else around you has anything to do with you.  It is still, however, disquieting to recognise around you a past Olympic Team Pursuit Medallist and a friend you follow as he knocks off Strava KOM after KOM.  You worry about the company you keep.

It's easy to focus on those who are "better" than you isn't it.  But there was also a mum and her daughter, there was the guy behind me puffing like the fabled dragon who lived by the sea, and a suffering dude in baggies positioned just in front of me, for my reassurance I fancy.  But all these folk faded into the background as the instructor started his instruction.  And that's the thing, I didn't zone out because I've paid for this music & words thing.  I zoned in.

Oh my, the numbers.  Different instructors do it different ways.  There's music to help with your cadence, there are gears you get advised on which to use and when for various efforts, but above all there's a hypnotising small screen in front of your face with numbers.  I note that my left leg puts in a bit more work than my right.  I notice that when I'm out of saddle my legs don't even pretend that they are doing any work on the downstroke.  I notice that I have a natural tendency to amble at 60rpm, but when the instructor says to up it to something sustainable I discover 75rpm is within my capabilities.  I note when he says fast flat between 90rpm and 120rpm just to hover above 90 feels like a flat out sprint to me, so that when he says to sprint it's horrendous trying to just lift to above 100.  I notice that towards the end of the class when we do ten second sprint, ten second recovery the sprint seems to last twice as long as the recovery which there isn't enough of, but also that when I realise the end is approaching I suddenly do have the ability to lift my cadence over the magic 120.  Hmm.

I have never sweated so much on a bike.
I thought I was going to puke.  But I didn't.
I am surprised I can walk without pain today.