I am getting older and should know better.
It was the only sunny Sat. in a spell of shite weather. Me, Bazza and Gordon had a ride out to Deal through the lanes, very pleasant passing through the Kent landscape chatting. This is where being on the road bikes is better, than off road. Off road there seems so many interruptions and conversations get truncated and left hanging without finishing them, you start saying something and you never make your point because you find yourself on a ‘white knuckle ride’ down some rutted flinty valley slope. Or the single track becomes so overgrown the vegetation wants to pull you off your bike and concentration levels required are way too high to do a second task like speaking as well. On the road you can indulge in pretty much uninterrupted chat, usually rubbish but that’s OK.
That was our outward ride news, views, gossip and lots of Boclolks about nothing in particular. We kept it one notch above what I call steady for most of the way. Then on the approach to Deal predictably one of us (not Barry he’s way too sensible for this old malarkey) steps it right up for a city centre finish. Just my cup of tea and it isn’t often I get the chance to muller the rider in question so I sat on his wheel and smashed it into the town centre opening a big gap in a very short space of time. Alarmingly I rounded a bend at approx 30mph into a queue of stationary traffic waiting at a set of lights, which rather slowed me down and we rolled up to the cafe.
So were are setting off home now, across the golf course and what little wind there is pretty much against us and there is a pain behind my knees already. I had not recovered from the explosive effort of the city centre finish. One of the riders kept it more than steady over every rise on the way home (not Barry he’s way too sensible for this old malarkey) and I’m beginning to resent the constant pain now because we have a long way to go.
I am starting to have to dig deeper than I want to and as we approach the time for Barry to swing off home it’s disintegrated into the usual situation where I’m on my limit and 30 yards behind. Stupidly I decided to not let this gap any bigger because I was going to wind it up one last time and show there was life in the old dog yet. This meant a couple of miles of agony to keep the target within reachable distance and I mistimed my charge to the turn off, I left it a little too late as I was completely sharthered and I needed a little more road. But it was all too late. This effort was pointless stupid and I should have known better, but I was resentful for being pushed outside of what was comfortable for so long. The result was the last leg of the ride I was in total agony. I had cramp so badly that if I had got off my bike and tried to walk it would have probably looked something like a cross between Max Wall and John Clease. I had to miss the ride the following day as I could hardly walk, I was close to incontinence for two days, actually vomited after taking the dog for a walk and had to go to work digging out sapling trees and going to grown up meetings where I was supposed to think and function coherently.
Total nightmare.
I proved to myself again, that my memory of what my body can do, and what it can actually do are not the same. I had learned that, but ignored it. What I have learned is that my body can not recover from what it can do.
So next time you will understand why I’m keeping it steady.
Tail Light.
