The Kill

Three day weekend, three very different bike rides.  And a climb.  And many many lovely people.

My tiny and lovely feisty female friend has been on a bike, what, maybe twice in the last two decades and she's never ridden on the road.  She's feeling a bit left out, but also feeling like maybe there's something she might get a lot from that she hasn't tried.  It feels to her like her friends are all moving away from hill walking, climbing, scrambling and getting on two wheels instead.  And she can't keep up.  So it was a privilege to be trusted to take her out on a mountain bike on Friday.  We had a whole entire day together which made the ride bit simply social and about experience and riding together and smiling, laughing, and for her there was also an awful lot of breathing.  For me, it meant a ride in keeping with the physio's instructions but with added sparkle of having my friend with me experiencing things for the first time.  Nothing like a first time for making your eyes shine.  It's funny too, the memories of the days when two hours was definitely enough on the bike, the memories of the kind of inclines which then put me into little ring and now don't.  And the big discussion over not wearing underwear under padded shorts.  At least she got to have that chat before the shorts went on.  I believe it was a few times before I embraced the odd feeling of going commando.

The next day I explored.  I meant to ride to Wigan but ran out of signs and somehow found myself in Leigh, where there's a lot of trail creation going on as part of the Sustrans National network.  It is, though, work in progress, and riding over the recently chipped brash gave a certain element of interest to the ride as well as fear of thorny punctures. Perhaps all that touching wood is what saved me.  Who knows?  The evening was socialising with my older climbing friends, kind of nice evening of the over 40s.  Weirdly far more me than the 20s were.  Or maybe that's just what I think now.

Today, though, I breathed.  I took the road bike out for the first time since the minor topple and with a map in my pocket and no clue of what I was doing, set out from the front door.  It was a lovely day for the Cheshire Lanes.  Grey clouds and a threat of rain, but cyclists everywhere.  My head bobbling like a nodding dog as I attempted to acknowledge other riders and the general joy of the day.  Breathing seemed to be my only focus, just breathing.  Hearing each breath and feeling the love of life that came with it, just breathing, sometimes panting, but mostly breathing and feeling alive, blessed and thankful for the privileges I have been given in health and friendship.  Thank  you.

Today has been brought to you by La Roux ...

Silver Flame

Today this song has drifted through my head throughout the steady flat bike ride from Eccles to Wigan along the Sustrans route 55, returning via Leigh and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal onto the Bridgewater canal back home.

From this you can reasonably assume I'm in a good mood and all is well with the world.  Today I was burning like a silver flame right from the off. 

Both on and off the bike I feel centred down, happy with just being.  On the bike I'm there, present, vibrant and alive.  Somehow I'm feeling in control, without having realised I felt precariously off balance for a while, maybe or maybe not related to the unsteadying injury.  It hurt to let go of words like Need, Want, Expect, Assume; without these there sometimes feels like there's no room for Hope.  Now it feels liberating not to have these chains around me.

Littlest things

I've started getting used to not being on the bike, and indeed to being the fastest rider on the sofa.  It's not a bad sofa.  I idled around the roads of Coniston Water on the mountain bike on Sunday accepting a mid ride change of plan otherwise known as a warning twinge from my knee which suggested off road might not be for me that day.  It was very vaguely satisfying, particularly when I was joined for riding chat by a local lady on her road bike.  It very nearly felt social.

Such has been my self imposed plight on the bike that I've felt too slow, too meandering and too tied to the flat to possibly have company out there.  It's been nice, doing my own thing, but Sunday was also nice, and I was actually grateful for the company.  I haven't been in the saddle since Sunday and haven't felt the normal no exercise trapped feeling either which is really odd for me. Have I somehow adjusted to a more sedentary state. Is this how it all starts?  Will I own slippers next, and perhaps gain a familiarity with my DVD player or subscribe to an enhanced Sky entertainments package?  Who knows?

To counteract this feeling, I read something today which sparked my thinking.  Just one of those brief platitudes which appear on facebook from time to time.  Something along the lines of when you ask  yourself what's the point, why are you doing this, just remember gently what made you want to do it in the first place.  I still remember the mountain bike ride at Llandegla on the hire bike with a group of friends who then seemed disproportionately fast.  I don't think I'd ever ridden anywhere other than the road and the odd gravelled surface before then.  I'd never swooped downhill over humps and round berms.  I'd never climbed up fireroads or rocky stones.  I'd never ridden on anything narrower than a pavement.  I was permanently at the back.  I went back again, and hired a bike again.  Then I bought one for a couple of hundred quid from Decathlon and spent a year with it.  I upgraded.  I was hooked.  The fast friends slowed down with time too.  Cannot really believe how much ...

Physical interaction

Back in the saddle again.  This would infer I’m back in the old saddle again. I’m not, I have a new one which has already clocked up 50 miles use.  It’s an odd thing a new saddle. My first impression was on my bum.  Well, it was a crikey this is proper hard, but the first 30 minutes came and went and I forgot I was on a new saddle at all, which is clearly a good thing.

I got out on the bike twice over the bank holiday weekend. I threw the physio’s words of caution to the wind, well, in a measured and calculated fashion anyway.  I have an awareness of the injury, what exacerbates it, how far I can go just before I feel it twinge.  Twinging, I have been told, is not good for a knee cartilage damage complaint but anything else goes.

Physios must have an interesting job, aside from hearing tales of utter stupidity and hilarity, and aside from coming up with imaginative forms of rehab to cope with multiple issues all at once.  There’s a whole branch of psychology to it too.  I come from a world where pretty much everyone I know is the kind of person who will try to do too much rather than the kind of person who won’t do the exercises.  Both kinds of people will inevitably lie about what they have and haven’t done.  So the physio has to figure out which kind of person you are and set limits or put in place higher challenges. Nobody, clearly, will do what they are advised to the letter. Well, caveat, nobody I know.  The physio here has to deal with some fairly big extremes.  People who believe if they are a short time off the bike they will lose strength, condition and talent of multiple years.  It takes a lot of clear information and exact details to deliver understanding and reassurance that talent will not simply disappear.  There’s also the peculiar return to the bike after illness or injury where the first couple of rides have your heart sink if all you do is ride, because you believe with an absolute certainty that you are miles behind where you were. Apparently scientific measurement will demonstrate that here is where feel is not to be trusted.  Hard facts and figures will demonstrate usually relatively little loss, sometimes a steady state because by the time you return to the pedals you may well be, for once in your life, well and truly rested.

Sunday I went up to Baslow Edge to join up with and watch some of my friends climbing there.  My remit was to bring cake and camera, and I think I fulfilled both satisfactorily, even managing two different kinds of cake.  The physio’s twenty minutes twice a day on the flat, preferably traffic free was on my mind, and I did plan a circular relatively gradient free route on a relatively well surfaced bridleway.  That was the plan.  Reality saw me scrambling over big rocks at the foot of the climbs, sometimes carrying the bike, sometimes leaving it casually hidden under very large rocks.  Reality saw me abandon bridleway for footpath, lovely rugged bumpy single track footpath at the top of a cliff.  The descent back to the van also made me aware that the journey from the van to the edge was probably uphill. So much for flat and even then.  It was a lovely day, and I returned home with just enough flapjack left ...

Monday I thought perhaps I had better do as I was told, and I set off down the canal towpath from Eccles to Manchester.  My aim was to hit the Sale / Chorlton Water Park and amble around there, stopping for cake. I’d even packed a bike lock for this occasion.  I was indeed ready.  But having got to Sale and not being entirely ready for cake, what was to stop me getting on the Trans Pennine Way and striking out towards Lymm.  30 miles later I completed the circular journey and due to a splendidly early spring morning start was back in time for lunch.  When, I wonder, did rehab become a 30 mile mountain bike ride?

Today I’m back commuting on the bike.  As yet, I’m not feeling ready for the road bike. It’s not because I fell off it particularly, it’s more about some apprehension over the twisting motion for the clip in pedals.  I’m not ready.  Today I rejoiced in the headwind as I did the final minor climb up to work.  It’s good to be on the bike.  It’s good to be alive.

When to run

"Know when to walk away
know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done"

You've got to know when to run.  Or when to ride.  Or when to climb.  Somedays you can hardly walk let alone walk away. 

I'll not deny this weekend is hard.  My shed was broken into on Friday afternoon.  Nothing was taken, but they mangled the bolt.  I spent a not very happy at all hour or two just moving all the contents of the shed which were either worth something or could be used to break into a house indoors.  Chaos reigned, and knee pain properly engaged.  But I felt I had no choices here.

The shed was full of things belonging to a previous life, a life that wasn't mine really, mostly belonging to my husband, he who originally secured the shed door and was paranoid about security.  He would have been mortified by the break in.  He might even have been angry, an unfamiliar emotion saved for occasions when it was properly merited.  He was never angry with me though.  He wouldn't have blamed me for this.  But I still feel I let him down by other people having access to his precious tools.  It was big demolition style tools that were in there.  I'm now trying to rehome them with friends.  I feel bad about that too but the shed isn't a shrine or museum.  Why couldn't they just have sat there quietly festering for another decade.  I hate being forced to face them.  It feels overwhelming and just too difficult. 

Leaving the house feels uncomfortable, and staying in it alone feels uncomfortable for the self same reason. I'm afraid whoever broke into the shed and took nothing will come back for what they really wanted and break into my house, my home, my sanctuary.  I'm grounded here, it needs to feel safe, secure.

But it's OK, I am leaving the house.  I went for a flat flat flat walk yesterday for an hour.  I have physio orders on activity and it's somewhat limiting but all in aid of full and fast recovery.  Today I did cake delivery.  Parked the van down the road from a crag some friends were climbing at and rode gently to see them, a gentle although knobbly surface, and a bit of carrying the bike down some of the escape routes to get to the bottom of the crag and then to the top of it.  Oh.  So, instead of resting up, I have actually been scrambling while carrying the bike and riding it along some particularly interesting singletrack otherwise known as footpath to access the crag.  Maybe I don't know when not to run ...

Good Bye

Getting a few good byes under my belt, backed up and supported by good old Billy Bragg:

"Goodbye and good luck to all the promises you've broken Goodbye and good luck to all the rubbish that you've spoken Your life has lost its dignity, its beauty and its passion You're an accident waiting to happen"

Yesterday we said goodbye to one of our senior coaches.  A likeable man who I've known for the past decade, and seen him turn from youth to grown up, father and everything. He's made  mistakes, who hasn't, and he's still absorbed words from others, made his own decisions, and gradually something else crept up on him.  Respect. He gained respect, and that's good to see, and his new job, will, I'm sure be good for him and he'll be good for it.  Everybody wins, cool, eh?  That was a good goodbye.

I did an angry goodbye to the AA Home Insurance "Services" today, as I did so, calmly, I accidentally engaged my quietly sleeping Quaker. Indeed, I gave the poor woman on the help desk a bit of a lecture in the meaning of truth.  What happened is the AA gave me insurance quotes for buildings and contents of something like £770 per annum with an alternative next best quote of over £800.   I was shocked.  This is a lot of money.  Taken out of my account monthly it's up there with my gas and electric bills.  My household monthly budget is tight, and gets tighter with every price hike, and that was one hell of a hike.

Because I believe that organisations such as the AA have integrity, I thought OK, fine, they are a big organisation, they'll trawl many other companies to come up with those quotes, and if that's the price they've given me, that's the price it is.  I nearly accepted it.  Right up to the line indeed.  But then I, out of curiosity, checked out some price comparison websites.  All the quotes given came in at under £500, and after a long and careful study of just what the cover was for bicycles, the quote from Barclays of around £270 seemed pretty much spot on.

So I phoned the AA, to simply cancel the policy.  I didn't phone them to try to get the price down because I believed in their integrity.  My own personal standards of honesty are what I expect the norm to be.  The woman I spoke to suggested she have a look at giving me a "discount".  I found myself explaining that no, I didn't want a discount. I trusted the AA to have offered me what they felt was a fair price, and that if they were an honest organisation then there was no conversation to be had, I simply wanted to cancel the policy.  Which I did.

But I still have a bad taste in my mouth. But I have a single standard of truth.

You exhibitionist

I know when I’m properly in recovery because I start to re-engage with the outside world.  I know when I’m not properly recovered when I have time to re-engage with the outside world.  It’s a small window, and we’re there.

I’m finding myself inquisitive about a few things at the moment, mostly these three:

1. The Paul Kimmage Defence fund
2. The Team Sky Tour de France leadership debate
3. The Everest Sherpa – “Westerner” brawl

Increasingly I find myself sceptical about third hand sources of information.  I guess that’s one of the consequences of the internet era; no longer can we be satisfied with seemingly expert opinion, the outcomes of someone else’s research.  Even their well thought out and researched balanced consideration, however well written, just doesn’t cut the mustard with me.  I’d rather see the stilted writing of a first hand source or hear an interview, but not just the carefully selected extracts of an interview.  I’ve become demanding and it’s because the internet makes it seem possible that you *should* be able to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

There’s a lot of well meaning folk who feel they are somehow qualified and appropriate to speak on someone else’s behalf. It’s interesting to think about their motivations.  And because there's a lot of hypocrisy and double standards about, maybe I'm just doing the same.

For example, the Team Sky Tour de France discussion seems to have two possible race leaders, both of whom I suspect understand that the decision will be down to who is best placed to win the race.  There’s a first hand interview with Bradley Wiggins where he outlines the process as he sees it.  There’s no word from Chris Froome.  There is, however, his girlfriend’s take on matters which makes me wince.  I suspect if I acted similarly on behalf of a partner then he’d have every right to be furious with me for a) assuming he was unable to speak for himself b) making a fool of myself c) believing that a professionally run organisation would allow a hysterical woman’s twitter to impact decision making.  If someone decided to similarly stand up for me I’d be bloody furious.  After all, I am a living thinking being, not tied to the apron strings of a man and I think for myself and speak for myself and choose how to fight my battles. Indeed, here I don’t even think there’s a battle of words to be undertaken. It’s all about the legs.  Madness I tell you, Madness.  But can you trust a third party viewpoint?  Here you have a pretty relaxed “G” on the subject G Talks to the Telegraph

I guess the issue which has rattled my cage most has been the Everest brawl.  I hate when individuals are lumped together in an extraordinary fashion.  I don’t like the binary divisions into “westerners” and “sherpas”.  I don’t like the way it’s assumed that the incident on the mountain has categorised people and suggested all who belong to either grouping are represented by the behaviour of a few.  It’s stupid.  

I have, inevitably looked for original sources.  There are language barriers and technology barriers and this is what I came up with:

Ueli Steck “Westerner” Interview with Ueli Steck

Simone Moro “Westerner”

Simone Moro's blog

Jon Griffith – source Guardian

Jon Griffith interview with Guardian

Or if you prefer, this one:

Jon Griffith letter to UK Climbing

The Sherpas Viewpoint. Not written by a Sherpa.

The "sherpa's viewpoint"

I mean, how mad is this, claiming to be the Sherpas Viewpoint and mostly backing this up with quotes from an American guide.  It contains this quote “I have pieced together an objective version of events” which comes across, in my view, as downright arrogant. 

All in all, I don’t have an opinion.  I can’t.  I’m only hearing one side, and frankly have in some ways perhaps no more than a passing interest.  I am intrigued though by the concept of cultural differences which may have contributed to this, the ways people react to threats, what behaviours are acceptable, and the naivety perhaps of people a bit like me.

Maybe the Paul Kimmage defence fund can wait for another day ...

This was brought to you by PJ Harvey, and this particular version chosen because hey, I was there that year in Reading.