So the circus that is the Tour de France has been rolling into towns across Holland, Belgium and France for the past week with all the thrills and excitement you’d expect and, as with any circus, a couple of shifty looking travelling folks:

This year’s race got off to a predictable start with Fabian Cancellara winning his 5th prologue in imperious style. Camcellara had hoped that this win and subsequent x-raying of his bike would finally kill the rumours about his *mechanical doping* (the asterisk is the blog sarcastic air quote) at this year’s Flanders and Roubaix:

Sadly for Fabian, the results proved inconclusive:

In a further attempt to dispel “the rumours” Cancellara quipped to journalists: “After they checked my bike, I said, ‘You should also check the motor: Me!’”. Despite this evidence to the contrary, Cancellara has had to develop a pretty decent sense of humour in recent months as surely as his years of hard work have developed his *bionic* legs. And any sane person believes that to be true – Cancellara’s victories are thanks solely to his physical abilities and hard work. Although some – those nearer the Gazza end of the sanity continuum – might suggest his similarity to the Six Million Dollar Man doesn’t stop at bionic limbs. For this Tour has revealed that he switches his team radio to “transmit” by tweaking his right nipple:

The simple act of squeezing together his index finger and thumb enables him to both send updates to the team car and a frisson of excitement to himself. By all accounts by twisting his left nipple, Fabian can control the speed of his Gruber electric assist.

His motor was put to good use over the cobbles of the Ardennes as he successfully guided Andy Schleck through the treacherous cobbles (insofar as cobbles are capable of treachery) in the final 30kms of stage 3. Of course, Fabian’s guidance of Frank was less successful but 1 out of 2′s not bad. That stage also produced the shock of the week if most commentators are to be believed. They all professed that feather weight Contador would cross the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix with all the grace, and ultimately success, of a drunk clown crossing a tight-rope. I can only guess at the number of complementary croissants were spat onto keyboards as Contador crossed the line just behind the lead group.

Crash! Bang! Wallop!

As with every Tour there’s been no shortage of crashes in this opening week. Stage 2 in particular, as the riders descended the Stockeu, turned into a decidedly disastrous dress rehearsal of “Le Tour on Ice”. La Grosse Chute – in which every rider was obliged to fall off at least once – put an end to Christian Vande Velde Tour with broken ribs and Frank Schleckt’s was over the next day with a broken collar bone but the “Bad Luck of the Week” award has to go to Armstrong. His legendary bike handling skills appear to have deserted him to such an extent that Denny Menchov has been giving him some tips on staying upright. In fact, so far in this Tour Armstrong’s been on the floor more times than an MP waiting to vote. For someone with GC aspirations that’s bad enough but let’s not forget that Armstrong’s approaching an age where having a “nasty fall” could leave him hospitalised for months. Finally on stage 8 to Morzine-Avoriaz, Armstrong’s bad luck put an end to his challenge for an eighth title – he came off his bike 3 times and lost nearly 12 minutes to the day’s winner Schleck. It was sad to see that the days when Armstrong was able to make his own luck are well and truly gone but at least he can use the bad luck as an excuse as a crutch for his failure to win. And if he keeps falling off at this rate, it’s crutches that he’ll need.

Just as Armstrong’s luck seems to have gone, so too has the dignity of QuickStep’s Carlos Barredo and Caisse d’Epargne’s Rui Alberto Costa. For there are few more pathetic sights than that of a grown man dressed in lycra scrabbling around on the floor with another grown man also dressed in lycra:

The fight reached its climax at the end of stage 6 as Costa removed his front wheel and set about Barredo’s head and neck. As bicycle sourced weapons go, a front wheel isn’t going to do much harm to your opponent – unless you throw it like Odd Job’s bowler hat – but I suppose, save an empty bidon, it was all he could removed while he was still in a rage. Costa must be cursing the day bike manufacturers introduced the integrated seat post.

Cast your mind back, if you will, just a couple of years to the sordid case of then FIA chief Max Mosley and the 3 prostitutes. The nation was thrown in a state of moral outrage when it was revealed that Mosley, whilst dressed in a ridiculous outfit, paid for the privilege to be subjected to sadistic pain and humiliation all for a little sexual pleasure. What kind of despicable pervert must he be?

Anyway, enough of that, last weekend I rode the National Cyclo-Sportive:

Yes, last Saturday I survived – for 95 miles in 9 hours can’t be dressed up as anything else – the National Cyclo-Sportive (aka the Pendle Pedal) at Barley in Lancashire.

I suppose before going any further, I should say that,  yes, I did wear a ridiculous outfit (ridiculous to the average Daily Mail reader at any rate). Yes, I did pay for the privilege to be subjected to pain and humiliation but no, I didn’t take any sexual pleasure from it. Not one drop. If for no other reason than – as any male cyclist whose mind has wandered to a different kind of riding or even one who’s just enjoyed the tingle of chamois cream a little too much whilst riding a bike can testify – even the slightest arousal of the Member for Crotchly South is excruciatingly painful. Something that’s still true despite saddle makers designing their wares to look like a sex toy for  lonely men:

Back to the National Cyclo-Sportive. This was my first time in Lancashire and as a bike rider I thought it was both spectacularly beautiful and unnerving in equal measures – much like the sight of a super-model approaching you with a pair of sheers and a sinister glint in her eye. In fact the county was so picturesque that even the view from the window of the sterile Travelodge-next-to-a-motorway room that I stayed in the night before the ride was pretty (I believe this maybe the first time those words “Travelodge”, “view” and “pretty” have ever been typed in the a sentence without including the disclaimer “only a pit pony would think that…”.)

As morning broke on Saturday, my bladder was filled with yesterday’s PSP22 and my stomach with a sense trepidation at what the day’s riding would hold. The sky had a light covering of cloud with shafts of sunlight already breaking through hinting at the temperatures that were to come. A quick shower using the world’s smallest bar of soap/towel combination – what do you expect for 30 quid a night? – helped me shake off some of the nerves as well as the tiredness from a night sleeping on a pull out bed a good 6 inches shorter than me. Arriving at the car park and the sight of Pendle Hill filled the pit of my stomach with those bad feelings once again.

Water! Water!

I shan’t bore you with a pedal by pedal account of the 154 kms that I rode except to say it was every bit as challenging as the organisers had warned it would be. I’d convinced myself that I was prepared for the climbing involved – I’d bought a smaller mini-pump for God’s sake! –  but the reality was I was ridiculously unprepared. Compared to Lancashire, Staffordshire is as hilly as a mill pond and by the top of the first big climb, Waddington Fell, I knew I was in trouble. In place of training properly before the day I’d studied the route profile, erm, studiously so I knew that the first half of the day was tough but the second was tougher – it was hot, it was hilly and it was relentless.

The going was made slightly harder because I, like virtually every other rider, missed the ‘secret’ first feed station. I call it secret because every other turn and feed station was so well signed that they were impossible to miss but I pedalled straight by this first stop. By the time I made it to the 2nd feed stop – at 75 kms – I was running on fumes. But no need to panic, I knew that gallons of Gatorade waited for me. Although a drop had never passed my lips before in my life, I was convinced that this elixir would expunge those 75 kms from my legs and get me to the finish in no time. So imagine my disappointment as I rolled into the feed station not to be greeted by the sight of a Gatorade tanker lorry. Infact, I could see no Gatorade at all. It was a real punch to the stomach and by now I was low enough – both my energy levels and my motivation. I dragged myself over to a trestle table in the shade of a tree.

“Is there any Gatorade?” I asked a guy chopping bananas in two.
“No, but there’s a tap in the toilet block”.
“Is the tap sponsored by Gatorade, at least?”.

Sadly, it was not.

So I had to make do with a bottle of water, half a banana and a fistfull of CNP cola flavoured electrolyte gels – the consumption of which is much like having a diarrhoetic monkey shit in your mouth only with a slightly worse after taste.

Still, it seemed to do the trick and got my legs turning again.

Thank God, I’m Not the Only One!

The combined effect of my inadequate preparation, the heat, the hills, the dehydration left me ready to quit, ready to be swept up by the broom wagon each time I approached a feed station. “I’ll make it to the next feed station then pack it in” I told myself. “How far to the next feed stop?” I’d ask a marshal. “‘Bout 5 mile”. “5 miles and I’ll pack it in, then”.

But at those feed stations, sat on the grass, leaning against the walls, heads hung over their bars were dozens of others in the same boat as me. And each one of them squeezed a gel down their neck, then swung their weary leg over their cross bar and set back out into the hills.

This shared suffering is strangely reassuring. It’s the feeling of a condemned man, walking out to face the firing squad, only to temporarily forget his fate as he sees someone else is being shot that day. “Thank God, I’m not the only one”. So I let the monkey shit in my mouth, swung my weary leg over the cross bar and set back out into the hills to see how long I could survive for.

And thanks to some encouraging words and a tow from a high spirited bunch of Clitheroe Bike Club riders and the company of another condemned man, Julian, I did survive. My sincere thanks to both.

So finally, it was over. And as I sat on the grass verge at the start/finish area, with water pouring down my chin, I was struck by just how much endurance cycling is much like child birth. You lose all sense of your own personal dignity, bodily fluids are discharged, you look an absolute shower and you just couldn’t give a monkey’s. And it all leaves you walking like John Wayne, unable to sit down for a few weeks afterwards.

Pain is Temporary

I’ve been reminded since the ride of Lance Armstrong’s motivational words: “Pain is temporary but quitting is for ever”. But let me tell you those 9hours under the sun in the Lancashire dales it certainly felt like pain was actually forever as well – and thanks to the mother of all saddle sore’s pain has lasted at least a week.