Autrefois tu respirais le soleil d’or

I stopped counting how many rides over 161/200km I had done back in 2017. It was at the point that I had pushed my Edington number over 100-Imperial, which had taken a concerted effort over a couple of years, from its previous 92. It was hard enough doing the additional rides, a lot more than 8 in case you are wondering, but it took even more effort to keep a record and plan the intricacies. For once in my life I was able to drop a compulsion, leave it behind, and concentrate on just the sheer pleasure of riding a bike. 

There were still challenges though. The Cent Cols in 2018 still ranks as the biggest and toughest event I have ever, probably will ever, do on a bike. Then I have had health issues, job issues, family and friend issues, all of which take a little bit out of you, and change you, sometimes in a positive way, sometimes not. But I like to think I always learn something productive if I strive hard enough.

One thing I did learn from riding all those rides back in 2016-17 was how to get through the tough bits of a journey on a bike. The hardest part of a long ride, for me anyway, was between the 60-80% mark, give or take a few KM or the odd hill. This has happened consistently enough to make it one of my known rules.  I reasoned a few explanations. At 60% you have already put quite a lot of effort in to be a bit tired, but you are still a fair way off the finish. On a 200km ride that could be 2-3 hours away. Likewise, you may need to eat something, and it will take a bit of time to have a restorative effect. I’m always rubbish at fuelling early, I’m always playing catch-up.  If you are very tired, it’s amazing how restorative a short stop can be, especially when combined with the refuelling.

Last week I was in the Cèvennes, on holiday, tracking down some of the ancestral Huguenot haunts, but also rehabilitating my soul, and my knee, with some moderate hilly riding in very quiet and deserted hills. It was a great break, very refreshing, and a wonderful place to refresh the batteries before the onslaught of an English Winter. There was also plenty of fuelling, but generally of a nutritious kind, and enough activity to also enable the shedding of a couple of kg of baggage.

I don’t know about you but I’m hoping not to die at all, to be the first person to live forever, in a real, literal and physical sense. What’s more I hope to maintain enough physical fitness to be able to ride a bike until eternity, albeit  may have to continue to compromise on the gearing. 

Failing that, like French legend Robert Marchand, I’ll settle for a decent performance into my 11th decade. That being so, tomorrow I’ll enter that 60-80% zone. It seems astounding to me the ride is that far advanced already, it seems like only yesterday I was at the first control, or cresting the halfway point. 

What can you do to slow this ride down? Of course, there is nothing to stop the passing, and the ravages of time. My knee for example, whilst better, is not perfect, and I still have some pain in it. I think I may try some more physiotherapy. But it might also be that horrible of horrible, the “new normal”. But I can still ride up 20% gradients and 15km climbs without stopping, so it is not a disaster.

There really is only one answer, and it’s the same answer as for all those other long rides. Eat something, preferably the right thing, have some restorative breaks when you can, savour what you have accomplished, enjoy the company of your loved ones and your friends, but  more than that, take pleasure from the ride while it lasts.

Chapeau

 Hats off to the Met office. Apparently we have just had the warmest month of May on record in the UK or England, or somewhere. Perhaps the whole world, seems likely. I don’t know exactly where because I haven’t been paying enough attention to the weather over the last 48 hours since I came back from a gloriously sunny ride to the Bere Cider café with Steve on Sunday. We had hoped to go to Langport, but one of their cafés has become decidedly cyclist-unfriendly, and consequently the other was overflowing with Lycra and merino-clad, fair-weather seekers. And fun seekers.

Our family was quite fortunate though as we did benefit from a fantastic holiday in the Maya area of Mexico back in late March and early April. It was hot and sunny every day, and we had a wonderful time. Junior is now 23 and it was very, very scary when he decided to climb a fairly precipitous pyramid in a very isolate jungle site, well out of the range of mobile phone signals, towns with hospitals or anything vaguely resembling health and safety. I suppose it’s good for him, and good for us as parents, to indulge in the kind of moderate risk-taking that I probably thought quite tame back in the 1970s. This is him in the blue shirt going up, anbout halfway to the top, and trust me, it’s a lot steeper than it looks. But I couldn’t watch him come down.

I haven’t seen much evidence of this warmth though in May that they talked about so much. A quick internet search revealed that it was an average warmth caused by a lack of Spring frosts. The daytime temperatures were generally shit, and from what I experienced, murky and/or dull and/or wet. So Sunday was a very welcome tonic. 

But there were as I said, hundreds of cyclists out on the roads on Sunday. Not that I can blame them. As it was my last ride for a while, I too was desperate to get out into the rare 2024 Spring sunshine, and was delighted that the café at Bere was so quiet. A lovely chat and ride before, during and after, enabled by a very fit Steve. Thanks for the shelter back across the moors. In fact it was such a lovely day that we ducked into Sweet’s cafe, immediately post lunch, for a quick ice-cream. To be fair, I did do the longest ride I’d done for quite a while. Although my hill-climbing has suffered by (lack of) virtue of not riding up any hills recently, I have been chugging up and down the back lanes and gravel paths in May. All of which has helped build a certain, if not high, level of fitness.

The reward for which came yesterday, when my knee surgeon gave what I took to be a compliment, saying my leg was in “fine shape”, just before he drew two arrows in indelible marker pen, pointing directly to the right knee. It was oddly comforting to know that despite all the high technology interventions, monitoring and minimal invasive nature of meniscus surgery these days, some things do need an old-fashioned touch. Not that I’m complaining in any way. The internet, home to all medical truths, is full of stories of the wrong thing being done, all for the want of a good marker pen.

The tear in the meniscus was too bad to repair, so it’s been trimmed. Apparently this is a quicker operation to recover from, which is good, a slightly higher chance of future osteoarthritis, which is bad, but then to do nothing presented an ongoing risk of further deterioration requiring major surgery and almost definite bone on bone contact. I did the injury about seven months ago and tried physio, exercises and it clearly was getting no better. It wasn’t fully functional on the bike - I couldn’t go hard or ride long hills, and I couldn’t really walk longer distances than a half mile or so. 

So it had to be done. I’ve got crutches, more to take a bit of pressure off for a couple of weeks, pain is minimal and well-controlled by just ibuprofen and I am feeling confident. Before you say anything I will follow the advice of my CMO (Chief Medical Officer), aka Mrs Mendip Rouleur, not to be too impatient. The most surprising thing has actually been the impact of the general anaesthetic because I’m still tired today, despite lots of sleep, but it has been only 24 hours as I write, since I came round from the operation.

I also know I am very, very fortunate to be able to get it done relatively quickly. It’s also a very, very minor condition and “procedure”, so a speedy recovery is very doable, mainly thanks to those legs being in a fine condition. 

A big thanks to Mark Cox if he’s reading this. Or even if he is not. I was originally supposed to be doing the Somerset 100 as usual in May, but of course all this malarkey put paid to that, even though the operation got delayed by two weeks to the beginning of June. But it was so kind of him to allow me 12 months to enter and complete the course. So here is my plan:

1. Try not to eat too much for the next month.

2. Gentle and easy riding in  July then August, building up to a few hills towards the end of the month

3. Off to the Cevennes in September, for a mixture of warm weather flat road, tree-lined boulevards, hunting the haunts of the ancestors, enjoying the food & culture, and maybe, just maybe a few gentle gradients.

4. Come back and do the Somerset 100 on or near my 60th Birthday. Weather and fitness permitting. If I wimp out and do the 100km, I can call it 60 at 60. 

The hospital did offer me the non-slip socks as a leaving present, but I declined on the basis that they weren’t Rapha, or even Merino wool, and that shade of chartreuse doesn’t quite match the lightweight Brevet jersey I have. But is was a very kind and tempting offer. No one wants to think about the surgical pants.

I do have a big event coming up in a couple of weeks time over in Cardiff, which I’m hoping I’ll be able to go to because I’ll be safe to drive by then. I should be. The nurse told me that if I can crush a matchbox with my foot that indicates I’m safe enough to brake for an emergency stop. I thought about asking her what psi I’d need for that, but decided against. The constant questions about how soon could I ride a static bike, a bike on the road, a bike uphill and a bike in the mountains, had clearly led her to the belief that I was some kind of obsessive freak, and I didn’t want to give her any more evidence. But I’m pretty sure the Principality stadium, middle tier, should be fine. I’ll take the crutches, I might even get the Hat

I do love her music, especially her later stuff. The new album is great as was the last, but it was the two lockdown albums that I enjoy the most. I’m also looking forward to the cultural phenomenon that is a Taylor gathering. Just hope that all the younger Swifties are not trying to stand up the whole time, I may have to deploy the crutches in a way they were not intended.

Just like stand-up comedy and gravel riding, you have to put yourself outside your comfort zones sometimes and just go for it. Put on a different set of clothes, a new mindset and a new hat, and live a little. Or even a lot.

Like an angel on a balcony

I’ve got a lot going on at the moment.

Work is super busy and home life is a juggling act sometimes, with three people now working in the house. Yet again it has felt like a long Winter, with a dose of flu to improve the mood and almost perpetual rain it seems since January. Despite all of my vim and vigour, I’m a bit ground down by the mundanity of it all. Isn’t that how things end? Not with a blaze of glory but a mild disappointment and the slow grind to a halt?

My left shoulder bore the brunt of the brachial neuritis attack in 2021. After my own immune system had done its best to mess up my motor neurones in my arms, shoulders and hands, the differing rates at which all my muscles recovered pulled the shoulder out of alignment. It took the excellent work of a physiotherapist, and great support from a personal trainer to gently ease it back together again. The most complicated joint in the body apparently.

But shit happens to all of us and I was fortunate to have the resources and support in place to recover. Now I have conquered the shoulder I have moved onto the next most complicated joint, the knee. It all started with the acquisition of a titanium gravel bike back in January last year. Unbeknownst to me titanium is quite a slippy material, particularly when you have a carbon seat post stuck in the frame. I had noticed a bit of knee pain, more of a dull ache really, in my left knee in the late Spring, but by the time the late Summer came around it was pretty much gone.

Then just before Christmas all of a sudden I got an agonising pain in my right knee. To cut a very long story short, it transpired that the seat post had been slipping down by tiny increments all the way through the Spring, probably causing the dull ache, until the switch to the carbon bike over the Summer halted the damage. Then switch back to the gravel in the Autumn and boom, a problem. 

Some physio diagnosed meniscus inflammation, he reckoned it would heal over a few weeks, with some leg strengthening thrown into the bargain. I followed the prescribed routines and did see small, gradual. improvements. I also fixed the saddle height, and made sure I measured it every week, and added a stronger clamp. But what I hadn’t bargained for was the impact of some walking. Having walked from Temple Meads to my work office and back last Thursday I was a bit sore on Friday. But all seemed OK on Saturday so I thought nothing of heading out in the cause of democracy to deliver some leaflets in the remote parts of Winscombe on Saturday. Six miles to be precise, who’d have thought there could be that many long drives in Winscombe and Sidcot.

By Sunday morning I couldn’t walk. I could barely bend or extend the knee, put weight on it when I stood up and it kept locking up at awkward moments. Generally once I got going I could hobble about, but it was pretty painful and very stiff.  It’s improved a little today - not locking up and I can put weight on it - but it’s still far from its best self.

 Very, very annoying. But those resources are going to come in handy again, I’m getting the knee scanned on Sunday in an MRI scanner, so I hope at least I know what I’m dealing with. Ironically I did find the 10 yards of cycling on the patio didn’t hurt at all. Getting on and off the bike was agonising and problematic though, so I guess that rules it out as a means of transportation for the time being. If only I was a member of the Royal family - I could have a footman lift me on and off the gravel bike at each end of the journey.

I’m also going to have to fess up to our next MP (I hope!) that I’m going to struggle to deliver her last set of leaflets. If you fancy a good walk in Winscombe, let me know, you’ll be doing democracy and the country a massive service. 

All of this is a proper pain, figuratively as well as literally. I’ve calculated quite a few numbers recently, and all of this time off the bike is eating into my lifetime-available riding days. Anyway, once I get this knee sorted out, however long it takes, I’m not keen to work through more joints, complicated or simple.

Especially as Spring is round the corner. In every sense. I just hope it turns out like Spring ‘97 not ‘92!

We had great fun last week one night after work, a team event making clay pots. Mine is below, and I think it looks amazing. It’s obviously a self-portrait, the likeness is uncanny. From the weather-beaten face, the wispy hair, to the huge ears and ever-growing eyebrows it is 59-year old me made clay.

 In all senses of the word, make of it what you will. I won’t claim to have any technical proficiency, nor monetisable talent or much imagination. Well, not in terms of clay pots anyway. But I tell you one thing. It will take a very clever type of Artificial Intelligence to replicate this in a hurry.

Anyway, just in case you were worried about the downbeat nature of this post, rest assured I am not giving up. That’s not what I do. Quite apart from anything else, I am too stubborn to admit defeat and there are a few people I have to prove wrong before I’m finished. I think Hunter Thompson was a bit of an idiot in most senses, but in one respect he had it right when he said this:

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow, what a ride!””