It was two nights before the Eureka ride that I remembered I had a twitter friend in the event. I was briefly excited and then forgot all about it in quick succession, in a mixture of work life and late night work life.
Still, I tried to look after myself the week leading up to the event, getting more and more early nights and working a little less and then going in late if I'd been up all the night thinking about work.
I finally called a stop to it, said something had to be done then gleefully set out for my parents house on Saturday afternoon, having done little prep my bike, for ride 12 of (more than) 12.
I had dinner with the parents - not the best pre-race prep of pizza and potato cakes but it seemed to do the job. In the evening I sat in bed to try and keep warm in the draughty old farmhouse that is my family's ancestral home. My dad stuck his head around the door to say good night and that mum would be up to let me out at 7am. They were heading out to the pub, just as I was getting near the end of a rather depressing book that I'd been reading. They were going out to the pub and there was me, exhausted, alone and reading a depressing book. They left and I started to cry. I went downstairs to be with the dog and lay on the dog-scented floor and cried and cried. I bawled hard and the dog, despite being stroked, just stared at me like a tiny man faced with a crying woman.
Eventually I collected my thoughts, went back to bed and slept.
I was awake at 3am but went downstairs, got a glass for water and went back to bed with biscuits. I'd put on several layers, added a blanket and turned on an electric radiator (my parents would have been horrified if they'd realised I was sleeping with the radiator on). I'd got quite warm and sweaty and I'd actually gotten quite dehydrated, what with the crying and all.
6am came too soon of course but it was OK cos I was going out riding and I'd probably not got that far back into sleep anyway. I realised I'd left my porridge in the car then had a momentary panic as I thought I was locked into the house. As well as being as cold as a prison, the Farmhouse is locked up like one at night. There was no mother to release me. Thankfully, they had seen fit to leave the door accessible and I was able to get my porridge and nutella to see me through the morning. Sadly I'd forgotten my coffee and had to cope with instant.
Just as I was finishing up, dad came to wish me a good ride in his PJs... awakened by the call. It's rare I see him so early.
I was careful to make sure I had everything with me in case they weren't in when I returned home and so I didn't have to wake anyone to fetch any stuff from inside. I tossed my keys in the back of the car and started to lift my bike up. Toss, it was locked and my keys were in the house. Panic set in as I realised I'd have to wake the parents up. WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T WAKE THE PARENTS UP!!!
Memories of stealing home from night clubs at 3am came flooding back.
It didn't take me long to realise the keys were in the car but my heart was already racing.
I took my time over getting everything else ready to go, carefully removing tracky bottoms to put on cycling shoes, jersey on before helmet. Finally I was ready to go. Quick squirt of oil on the chain and away to ride through Whythenshawe and over to Cheadle.
I replaced my original plan to ride to the airport then follow the route backwards to the start in favour of the most direct line. It did put me thorough Whythenshawe but there was little traffic at 7am on a Sunday morning. Even the drunks were in bed by then. Soon Whythenshawe morphed into Gatley then Cheadle village where cyclists started to converge on the village hall.
I immediately recognised Ella from her photos although her hair was less pink than I was expecting. Instead of saying hi straight away, I went to get my brevet card to avoid the embarrassment of forgetting it then went to say hi with a hug and a chat.
We were interrupted by one of the Halifax riders from the Clwydian who wanted to congratulate me on finishing and give me kudos for getting over the moor. By chance we were also standing next to the other rider (Brum) who empathised with the effort involved. Again we were to see him on and off throughout the course of the day as well as one of the guys who had been on Yorkshire via Essex. It was a pack of familiar faces.
Ella and I set off together, chatting away, having already established that we both had a reasonable idea of what we were doing. I hovered uncomfortably between the setting off too fast pace and sitting in behind slower riders. They weren't actually slower, it's just I'm not used to milking the benefits of drafting so I suddenly got pulled back into the pack on the first short climb.
Us girls inevitably peeled off on our own and waved furiously at the photographer as we passed. We talked about *everything*. I don't usually do Audax talking but for once it was brilliant just to have a really good natter. My initial pace boiled off but Ella pedalled light, waited on hills and occasionally rode on ahead, only to wait at the next junction. We arrived at the Eureka cafe and both checked in then decided that, on account of her hacking cough and a tiny, sweaty space filled with other riders and a big queue, we'd take advantage of the buffer of time and push on for Bangor to get our lunch. It was, after all, only 11am.
We did shifts at the shitter then set back out on our bikes, snacking our way over into Wales to cover the distance effectively. I particularly enjoyed sharing the ginger flavoured oatcakes which Ella had brought. I hmmm'd about the prospect of going all the way to Bangor, "it's probably about two hours" then we did some maths and concluded that it was a bit hit and miss but we went for it.
It was a little miserable climbing over the hills of Frodsham on account of it being quite main roadsy but once we were off and back onto lanes, turning into Welsh lanes, we rode side by side again on and off.
In Bangor, we tried the pub but they were quoting 45 hours wait for food (yes you heard), particularly it seems to anyone wearing a cycling helmet and offering to sit outside. So we went back to the info control (the shop) to grab sandwiches, I bought fudge and a drink then sat on the doorstep of the neighbouring florist as a shower moved over us. Somewhere there was a rainbow as the sun glinted off the opposite building. Derby Mercury arrived and I was pretty chuffed to be going well, ahead of "The Mercury" as they referred to themselves. Let's skim over the fact that they'd already had a cafe stop.
We continued on our way into the flood of rainbow, bright, vibrant and complete. From there the weather only improved and I found myself removing hat and buff and changing into thinner gloves for the rest of the day.
Another two hours on from Bangor was the ice cream cafe. I hadn't planned to stop there but then I had planned to stop near Eureka and not scoff a sandwich in a doorway. Still, I was enjoying the avid conversation, even if I did need to up my pace a bit to always hear what Ella was saying. Her hacking cough made her talk softly so I had to ride a close pace to hear. Sometimes I just had to give up and drop back a bit. I got my own back on a climb by saying I was having "a wee stop to fix something" and found her crashing through the undergrowth a few metres ahead, having stopped for a wee, thinking I was doing the same.
At the icecream cafe neither or us knew where we were going, locked our bikes to the first bit of railing opposite people sitting on sofas inside then headed into the building / compound.
Ella has never done an audax here. I have just never been in because the place is a children's play park and too many little people make me nervous.
Small persons squealed and stumbled and crawled all over things and we rushed into the nearest building to warm our thighs and start the cafe hunt. Just as I thought we'd made it back to our bikes (but on the other side of the glass this time), we were cordoned off with rope so I booked a table (with a helmet and sweaty coat) and Ella went to order soup and coffee / tea whilst I went outside to move the bikes into view at the *actual* bike racks next to the *actual* cyclists's entrance.
I happily wheeled one big and one not-so-big happy bikes around the corner and locked them back up. By the time I was back at the table, coffee was placed and soup was arriving. Abject bliss.
My thoughts of cake were diverted to the fact that I had a lot of junk food to get through on the bike on the way back. I'd only consumed one piece of fudge and had Haribo and the leftover zombie chocolate left over from Halloween to get through yet. Somewhere in my handlebar bag, a Frankenstein was having a fight with a gummy-bear and I might be called upon to invigilate.
"How are you doing?" my pal asked me. "OK, bit tired", I confessed. Off the lanes, she towed me along a straight carriageway. I was grateful for the wheel to get me out of a headwind and away from traffic as soon as possible. Wjilst she describes herself as "Manchester's premier fat female cyclist", on twitter, she really isn't and is fucking strong to drag me around like a rag doll like that.
Back on the lanes we rode side by side and continued our conversation. Occasionally, when I had to let a car past, I had to sprint back on because I was enjoying the story of how she met Spandelles so much. As night caught us up and the lights went on, the conversations calmed down and each of us did turns on the front, if only because we both like leading. I probably got a bit annoying but it's only that I'm used to tri training so much, putting myself on the front when I'm out with TSK, getting used to being face to the wind.
Finally, as we entered back into Cheshire known-territory around Minshull Vernon, disaster struck and I experienced the familiar flaccid feeling of a snapped gear cable in a lever-housing. Absolutely zero response from my derailleur whatsoever, I was stuck in a big gear.
We took to a driveway and I threaded the new cable through but couldn't find the end of the old cable somewhere inside the lever. Looking under the lever, there was a hatch that I had never investigated before. Although every single screw and adjuster nut on the dura-ace groupset has a hex-wrench head for Allen keys, this one that I needed had a cross screwdriver head. I could've screamed!
Finally, after about 45 minutes of dicking-about, chatting, laughing, talking to the homeowner whose driveway we were using, I conceded to ride single speed to the next bit of civilisation.
At first it was a challenge, then a chore, then I started doing the maths on how long I had to keep going for and really concluded I couldn't keep it up for 3 more hours. It was already dark and I was just sore.
A fellow audaxer passed and I managed to catch him up and ask if he had a screwdriver. He didn't but he recommended I talk to his dad, a little further back who would definitely have one. I realised I had seen his dad riding in the hills around Sheffield before.. What a pleasure.
We carried on, knowing the next info control was a garage. Eventually I had the bright idea to adjust my temporary cable arrangement to a different gear since I wasn't using my big ring at all on the flat and I was getting sick of getting off to walk up any hill steeper than 7%.
I cranked the derailleur across and re-tightened the screw. Much better. I could definitely consider riding another 3 hours like *that*. For some time I span out on the flats at 18-21 kph before dropping into the little ring and getting as far up all the hills as I could - actually I was making most of them but after my earlier exertions, the spinning out on the flat was really starting to grate and average speed was suffering as a result. At the petrol station I resolved to try and fix the lever but failing that, to stick myself in a slightly higher gear.
The petrol station attendee was great. She found me the only screwdriver they had and let me exchange cans of coke when I actually (horror of horrors) bought low sugar coke. I don't drink the stuff often enough so had no idea what I was doing. That Ella girl was a bad (great) influence. It was exactly what I needed. The crisps I bought were also exactly what we both needed so I repayed the ginger oatcake favour from the morning whilst working on my rear derailleur.
We hauled out of the petrol station and onto what felt like some of the biggest climbs in Cheshire. Well, they were on single speed anyway. On the third one I felt the cable slip in its housing and crunch crunch I jumped up two gears. Time for another little walk.
Finally we spilled back into Alderley Edge and a team effort started to get us back to the finish in one piece. Through Wilmslow we were passed unceremoniously by an Asda delivery vehicle who insisted on passing us then slowed down for every junction thereafter, including the one at the bottom of a big descent. I swore at him, I swore at my legs, I let out a primal scream to get me up the hill then instantly felt guilty about waking up half of Wilmslow - before realising it was only 8pm... no, my point stands. I woke up Wilmslow from its post-Sunday lunch snooze
As we neared Handforth, I desperately hoped they weren't going to make me ride Stanleylands but it wasn't in the right direction so I was relieved to just roll through Handforth at which point Ella, on sniffing Spandelles arrival in Cheadle after his long ride, left me as she said she would. I ode into Cheadle and the arrivee toute seule. Quite frankly, I was astonished she hung around that long but I admit it was great to have a sista for company for the day.
Back at base they came out to welcome me in and I settled down to text everyone I was safe and share stories of the road, the organisers now having figured out who I was without my usual trusty sidekick in tow. A steady stream of riders kept filtering through so there were about 12 still on the road behind me - a strong indicator of the fast pace I had gone around in, particularly having been forced to rock a big gear to the finish instead of breezing it in.
So that was it, 12 of 12. I challenged Ella, of course, to keep going and deliver 11 more. She sounded moderately tempted.
I can't decide if I'm excited to have December off or if I want to join in with another ride and keep my tally ticking. I didn't think hard about work for a whole day - although I did my share of defending how exciting I find it. What I did think about was how much I had missed riding my bike. I made myself promises. Ones I intend to keep on keeping.
I dwelled long enough to eat soup and some biscuits and drink a cup of hot squash. Then packed up my stuff and headed back into the night to ride back to the Farmhouse. Mum was back in bed and dad was mooching around in the garden when I got back. I got changed and drank tea and told tales of a great day before hastily rushing back to Sheffield in the van. It was all I could do to keep myself awake - though the snake pass helped my alertness. I guess my reluctance to finish the tale is testament to my reluctance to stop riding these events.
I'll (not) end this here.
No comments:
Post a Comment