Step Outside

It's July, and it's already rained all June, and is set to carry on, so it would seem for all July.  And I can't wait for the autumn, and for next year when I can put a key in the ignition and simply drive away or indeed to the weather I want.  Or at least try to.  And this gives me blind optimism, and the ability to cruise through the current wet spell, safe in the knowledge that soon I'll be out of here.  Two months now and counting down until I have the time and the means to just go out there and be me.  And I'm happily planning.  Well, with a spot of apprehension.  Going through the thought process of "have I done enough?" when I think about consecutive days of walking involving Bothies or tents.  Have I given my walking legs enough attention.  And I still want to get out on my bike and I want to get out and climb, and I know that all this is because I have had four days without much movement.  Suddenly a sense of urgency is hitting me.  I have to get out.  It's an irrational response but it feels with no warning as though all the exercise I've done in previous weeks is worthless, has gone, vanished, imploded leaving a widening middle aged spread and a strange sense of lethargy and stillness.  And I know deep down it'll all be fine, because I'm me, and I'm planning.  Planning my way out of things as ever.  So Wednesday will see me doing <something> which might be climbing (indoors, seriously, have you seen the weather?) or bike riding.

Anyway, the reason for doing the nothing thing over the weekend was a glorious weekend of mud,  mud, glorious mud (bother, I am going to be singing in my  head songs involving a bold hippopotamus now).  Which was a rather lovely experience, a little mellow and a little land of the strange but all in all, pretty damn satisfying.

In my normal embracing the random style, I went to Plymouth to the twentyfour12 event.  It's an enduro mountain bike event.  Riders race in pairs or teams or solo units for 12 or 24 hour period doing repeated laps of the Newnham circuit.  Bottles was my job.  As opposed to the bike (thankfully).  And Friday night in the campsite we welcomed the joy of the weather which the media was touting as "one month's rainfall in a day" and "heaviest deluge in 100 years" in the Plymouth area.  And our experience of this would confirm a gut feeling of correctness in the media for once.  3am and the flood waters were in the tent.  Paddling in rolled up PJs, moving already sodden clothing helplessly into a place of safety (that would be on top of the cool box then).  And going back to bed.  Because there was nothing else to be done.

This in fact, probably sums it up best:

TwentyFour12 from the pits.

And the tune inside my head courtesy of the four non blondes:

"And so I wake in the morning and I step outside
And I take deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs,
WHAT'S GOIN' ON!!"

Altered Ego

You know that phrase your mum said to you when you were little?  Something along the lines of pull a face like that and if the wind changes it'll get stuck like it?  Might have accidentally done this in a weird way.

*HEALTH WARNING* really really contrived metaphor.  Those of a squeamish nature with views on use of such contrivances please walk on by.

Being a proactive type and all about the change and the navel gazing, kind of decided at some point this year to try to get rid of the prickly shell I hang onto, horse chestnut style (you've been warned).  I mean, horse chestnuts are pretty sturdy beasts anyway without the shell, so why not just let the prickly bit go, vanish, let folk see the shiny conker (this is dreadful isn't it?).  So I did it.  Left myself open.  But inside the prickly cover there wasn't a conker, there was a smartie.  Soft and sweet with a shell that could be cracked by a very determined guinea pig (even I'm hating this direction now ...).  And somehow, having let the shell go, and revealed my inner smartie (sigh) the wind must have changed because it's now part of who I am; it's got stuck like it.  Which actually I'm mostly OK with.  I mean yes, I'm vulnerable to gentle hammer action but it's OK because there are plenty of smarties in the tube (ick).

So what has this got to do with anything active, you may hear yourself ask?  Well, it's something that now pervades my entire sense of me, and with an unfortunate side effect of making my confidence knockable.  Which isn't really the proper me.  I am confident, maybe not always competent but I have a steadfast inner core who knows who I am, what I can do, and isn't afraid of being me and being clear about who that me is.  Yet somehow my bike confidence has taken a huge bloody knock over the last month.

The trouble here is that I really do like to ride with other people, I like being part of a group, I like rapport, jokes, gentle teasing, and mickey taking for those inevitable stupid trail moments.  I like the shared talking over a cup of tea afterwards, the feeling of a shared experience, of belonging, being a part of a collective, even if it's for the fleeting time of a day.  I like reminiscing with other people over great days out, indifferent days out, and sodding awful days out.  It's a part of the joy of the bike for me.  Yet my confidence has taken an immense battering.  I have gone out of my way to try to increase the pool of people I ride with, and the result seems to have been a feeling of inadequacy courtesy of having shifted that prickly conker exterior.  I am slow.  This is not modesty.  I am slow.  And although not a testosterone rich bloke who has a problem with being at the back, I do have a problem with feeling that I'm taking away some of the joy from other people who are having to wait or worse still babysit me.  I don't want to be that sucker of living souls.  I'd rather ride alone.

Don't get me wrong, I also love to ride alone.  There's a massive joy to doing things at exactly your own pace, a freedom to do whatever you want to do, the challenge of attempting things which you maybe wouldn't with an audience just to experience and to experiment.  I am too shy to try these in company.  Again ... don't want to slow anyone down.

Anyway, where's this leading?  It's leading to the fact that I'm now nervous of even trying to find new riding folk.  I have probably three people now who ride at my pace, and as they are all particularly brilliant people to get along with, then frankly what on the earth am I fussing about?

And because I am an exceptionally old burd, I leave you with the Fun Boy Three Tunnel of Love circa god only knows when.

"consequences altered cases
broken noses altered faces
my ego altered altered egos
wherever i go so does me go"

The Gamut

I am made of stern stuff.  She says, frowning and attempting to look somewhat daunting.  Pushed aside the "oh but I really need to buy some calor gas for the weekend after work today" excuse, and simply put the bike lock in the bag.  Because of course bikes can carry calor gas.  And, it turns out a new t-shirt, pair of walking trousers and baggy cycling shorts.  Because I am fed up of having clothes which only fit where they touch and that would be mostly where the belt ensures contact.  I'm a teeny bit pleased with myself for accommodating shopping on the bike and not just opting for the car.

Sunny day and one of those weird journeys where cars have their windows open and you hear snippets of information.  Traffic on the M4, today's going to be a scorcher (this one puzzled me overheard at 6pm).  And because I'd veered across town to hit Go Outdoors up for the calor gas, my route home involved ... Langworthy.

First thing in the morning it's a pleasure to do this route, but in the evening you come to the top of a gentle rise, and into a long flat straight section.  Which would be absolutely fine on a dark evening or a rainy day or an early morning.  But on a sunny afternoon is treacherous.  For it is here that I cannot forget the experience of being water bombed by the locals.  So stealth cycling it is.  Timing the lights so I don't have to stop.  Being hyper aware of what traffic is about and staying nearer to the middle of the road than the kerb.  Because children can surely only throw so far.  Water bombs aren't the only thing the playful little dears have chucked at me along this stretch.  There have been cans, and crisp packets and just general chaos and mayhem, and most of me is screaming I'm old enough to be your mum.  But it makes for a good bike ride with clear focus and drive and determination ...

Dog - Rabbit

Let the dog see the rabbit.  What on the earth is it with my mindset, why when I see another cyclist ahead who is without lycra and road bike do I get the bit between my teeth and start to stalk.  Seriously I focus on nothing else other than the rider at 50 to 100 yards ahead.  My body position changes, my shoulders move inwards, my cadence gradually increases, I may even add a gear on and push a little harder.  And it's measured, incredibly measured.  There is no unseemly rush or sprint, it's a gradual gentle stealth approach but the acceleration is there, quiet, gradual and sustainable.  I want that rider's scalp.  Fortunately for me this morning the prey animal turned off to the left before I snuck into their wheel.  I say fortunately because I was definitely feeling yesterday's brave towing effort in my glutes, in my thighs, in my knees, in my lungs ... need I go on. 

It's a good feeling though, the reminder that yesterday I really put something into it.  Because that feeling alone tells me that this is a future gain, the effort of yesterday will reap its fitness reward in days to come.  I hope.  Does it work like that?  I don't know, but I sure as hell am enjoying fooling myself into believing it.

I was overtaken 6 times on my journey to work this morning.  Hopelessly left behind, feeling like the mature lady I am as the lycra clad men, and one bearded guy on a similar straight handlebars number to my own cruised on by.  I felt old, unfit and frankly a little despondent.  Will I ever be able to effortlessly ride at that pace?  How do people get to that point?  Is the bike important?  Is it truly, all about the bike?

As charged

I feel so guilty.  Such neglect.  After last Wednesday night's bike ride I have done very little.  Well, to be fair, I have cleaned the mountain bike, pumped up its tyres and oiled its chain, even sparing a little lube for the hybrid ... just because I could.  But somehow I have failed to get out on the bike at all ever since.

It's a litany of excuses which make me blench slightly.

• Thursday - Oh, I won't cycle to work because I'm going to cycle to the Lowry tonight to go to the Roger McGough performance. 
• Thursday evening - don't feel like cycling.  Won't.
• Friday - Oh, I won't cycle to work because I'm going straight from work to the Take That concert which doesn't finish until late and I'm worried about leaving the bike somewhere safe all that time ...
• Saturday - Oh, I've got a naughty girl letter from the council about my allotment, best I prioritise that over the bike.
• Sunday was a classic.  Sunday, bike outside house, Jason and his bike outside the house, all looking very promising indeed.  I shut the door.  Jason asks do you have your house keys.  I say yes, check my pocket and imagine a look of horror came over my face.  Locked out without house keys, his spare set and my set both inside.  Dammit.  Efforts instead went into sorting out how to access my home, ending up both bikes wheels off, and in Jason's car (thankfully he did have his car keys), and travelling to the other side of town to acquire the spare set from my guinea pig sitter.  Got home feeling drained,  humiliated ... oh, and it started raining.
• Monday, I don't think I even bothered to find an excuse.
• Tuesday the weather forecast for this afternoon looks horrid.

So there we go, take a bow, the queen of excuses.

Dorothy flight

Once again I'm being a feardy cat.  I have mental pictures of the gale force winds lifting me up as per Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  This picture has not been enhanced by reading people's twitter entries suggesting they are being physically lifted from their bikes and dumped on the road.  It's not pretty out there.

I am a wuss when it comes to weather.  It takes a lot to get me out on the bike in a) rain, b) wind, c) darkess, d) weather that looks like it might produce any of the previous 3 possibilities.  No matter how many times I tell myself I won't dissolve, it doesn't help.  No matter how much I prepare myself with bomb proof lights with long life batteries, it doesn't help.  Telling myself I will get blown into the path of a passing lorry doesn't form the best mental preparation for the journey either.  So I'm grounded.

Added to my weather woes, I have committed a guilty unfaithful act, and done 5 days kayaking in the last week.  My shoulder is so sore I can't use the mouse with my right arm, and in fact typing is causing some slight twinges.  Wonder  how much the bike riding would be affected ...

Grounded.

Thursday Fail

Sigh.  I'm sure this wouldn't have happened to me 20 years ago!  Hmm, mind you 20 years ago I was more interested in boys and beer for it to even have been an issue.  Thursdays seem to have become my traditional fail day.  I will cycle in to work on Tuesday and Wednesday and have the intention of looking favourably at the bike on the Thursday morning but instead I look at the bike and grab the car keys.

What is weird is I seem to wake on Thursdays with a stuffy nose and ear ache.  Surely as a youth I would have gone all gorilla hard on it and said I won't let it hold me back, I will do as I planned.  But as an adult frankly it's just not worth it.  There will generally speaking be another day when I can get on the bike, and it's not really like I'm missing something, and there's always the anxiety that by riding through the pain will actually make me fall proper ill by the weekend.  And weekends are important.  This is why the Thursday Fail is very much tongue in cheek and allowed to happen.

It's not all about the bike, it's all about the weekend.

Sheep Bells

So, a four day weekend has nearly come to an end, and it has been a good one for me and the bike.  Saturday took me here: http://www.ridetheclwyds.com.  A hearty route, starting at the Ruthin craft centre and doggedly climbing and climbing and climbing until you hit a forest at the top when you get to do a lovely downhill section through wide and open grassland (so you can see walking folk coming and not hit them), followed by a long hard drag up a fireroad and then you travel and travel and travel.  I very much enjoy it.

Both fortunately and unfortunately I suffered a minor and preventable but ride limiting mechanical issue.  Having finally found the perfect saddle, the prologo which makes me inordinately happy, it turns out my wrist action is not the finest in the world at securing said saddle to the Ritchie saddle post.  Sadly the first I knew of my error was after 2 hours of climbing when the front end of the saddle began pointing airwards.  Got off, checked and dammit, one of the two securing bolts has gone missing.  Tightened the remaining bolt but it's rapidly clear that it isn't enough to keep the saddle at a viable angle.  So, with some regret we turned round to head back down all the bits we'd just ground our way up. 

I say with some regret.  However, I've never done this route in reverse, and kind of longed to be able to whizz down those hills I normally climbed, so with saddle somewhat secured by a man's wrist action on the one remaining bolt down we zoomed, and zoomed and zoomed.  It's fun going down grassy tracks.  Normally trail centres etc. have no grass left on them, such is the popularity, it's all rock and dirt and gravel never sleepy grazing land.  One of the noteworthy points of grazing land is that things graze it.  Fluffy things.  Sheep.  There, in the middle of the path ahead I saw her, the sheep.  So, being a unique kind of an individual who actually has a bell on her mountain bike I started to ting the bell, and ting the bell and ting the bell to get the sheep to move.  I think in reality she shifted because the bellows of laughter coming from behind me and subsequently from me were loud and weird enough to alarm the poor beasty into moving well away from the strange people.  I liked ringing my bell.

The route down the hill which had taken over two hours to climb took just 45 minutes to descend.  Whee.  Indeed.

Making Conversation

Another cycle commute today.  Because I'm committed I took the hilly route.  Actually it's because I'm anxious that my mountain bike ability is suffering because on the hybrid commute I never willingly tackle any kind of incline.  The hilly route isn't really hilly, it just has three or four short sections where it goes up a bit, just a little bit, enough so that I can create different ways of making it harder for myself.  Masochistic tendencies are coming to the fore.

So, as you do, I noticed in front of me, approaching the top of the steepest incline of my journey another bike rider.  Clearly male, with thighs encased in lycra.  Somewhat eye arresting thighs if I'm honest.  Big built in a tall not wide way and on a road bike.  Man meant business.  This of course gives me options for tackling the hill.  The lights at the  top are red, and I know they stay red there for a bit as we're the minor road of a major junction.  So the question is "What kind of condition do I want to be in at the top".  So I low gear, high cadence it and am able to still speak through my breathing when I reach my goal (the man) at the top.

It's funny, because I can't imagine any other circumstances I would happily strike up a conversation with this guy.  I wouldn't approach him in a bar, waiting for a bus, walking my imaginary dog or at the cabbage display in Asda but on a bike at the top of a hill at a red light I'll happily start chatting, and indeed I do.  I mention the hill, and say I'm relieved sometimes to find the lights red at the top so I can recover a little.  He smiles and engages in conversation saying that he hates it if he's getting to the top when the lights are on green and start to change - the brow of the hill is beyond the line so there's a period of being slow.  We both agree on the fact that the next stretch of our ride is a pleasant leisurely downhill.  Then the lights change and I watch his bottom lift off the saddle and wriggle off into the distance.  Then I chase.

How many other situations are there when you can actually physically give chase to a man?  I appreciate early on I can't catch him, but you know, the thrill of the chase is in just that, the chase.  I enjoy it.  My legs circling like billy ho, my gear changed up to big ring to take account of the incline.  I'm pushing, powering and accelerating.  I don't catch him.  Well, not until the next set of red lights anyway.  These young men, they do keep me fit.

Endorphins please

I am grumpy.  Really grumpy.  After my bike pootle on Tuesday to assess the feasibility of Route 55 I came down with a head cold.  Not of man flu proportions, clearly, but enough to make me have a grown up talk to myself about how the chances are I will make matters worse if I go pushing it doing intense exercise.  I'm not really capable of going on a bike ride that is gentle ...

I'm just glad I went out for a ride Tuesday because it's now been two days without exercise, and I confess I am an addict to the endorphins.  Get proper grumpy if I don't get to feel my lungs gasp.  This is in fact a very real problem.  Like many growed up persons I do have an episode of mental health issues in my past, and maintenance of sanity and mood is a little dependent on the rush from exercise.  Add a cold into the equation and sleep disturbance and then square the effect of everything by adding in the PMT optional extra and I'm tamping mad.

The bike does, generally give me endorphins like no other exercise can within just a period of 30 to 45 minutes.  Running does it too but I can't sustain a goodly period of running and indeed I damage easily and the works physio really doesn't need to be helping to mend me every single week.  Indoor climbing is my other sneaky pleasure in accessing my drug but comes in longer blocks - 3 hours and then frankly getting to sleep is impossible with some freakish brain activity, the like of which Caffeine can simply not replicate.

Sigh, I am a person of hormones.