Diary of a 25….

5.45am… “beep beep beep beep……” bollocks, Sunday morning, and I’m up at stupid o’clock to head off, dress in tight lycra and a funny shaped hat (aerodynamics you see…) along with bunch of other blokes (and a few gals) for the hour or so of pain that constitutes a 25 mile TT. Stagger downstairs, just about conscious… I’m impressed I managed to make it without walking into walls, doorframes etc. Breakfast then…. the usual trough of porridge is exchanged for something speedier… 6 Weetabix, a fistful of almonds, raisins and a pint of cow juice keep me happy while the toaster does it’s thing with a couple of slabs of bread. Mustn’t forget the pint mug of Yorkshire’s finest either. I feel better now though my legs are still suspiciously behaving like bags of cement.. perhaps that hilly ride yesterday wasn’t such a bright idea. Decide to pack a small flask of especially strong coffee just in case…
Happily the early sun is streaming through the windows which is a pleasant change from the rampant drizzle that seems to have been a feature of recent weekends. Unhappily though a glance outside shows the trees in the garden dancing to the tune of a vigorous easterly….. buggerance.

7.15am…. roll into the parking lot at the scruffy little shed grandly labelled ‘Race HQ’ for the morning. It really is a ‘well-worn’ little joint, apparently belongs to the local Young Farmers group. Judging by the interior I get the impression that the owners like to take their ‘work’ home with them, not content to leave the barns in the farmyard where they belong, the only thing missing are the hay-bales and cowshit. Nah, I’m being unfair, it’s just not quite as nice as many of the village halls we get to use. On the bright side there’s no worries about marking the wood floors with cycling shoes as fellow riders clatter around the place stabbing each other with safety pins as race numbers are attached to slick skinsuits. At any other time and venue this would be a fetish party and the mountain of bananas in the kitchen would be for everything but eating….. Rapidly banish ghastly thoughts of sweaty black PVC skinsuits to the darkest recesses of my mind where they belong….
All the usual suspects are present, greetings are exchanged along with the standard set of comments and excuses designed to ‘disarm’ the competition… i.e.”there must be better things to do with a Sunday...”, “too much to drink last night, feel like sh*t….“, “the dog ate my legs“, that kind of thing.

7.35am… signed on, all lycra’d-up so nothing left to do but start my warmup…. I’m riding without a bottle so in the interests of staying well hydrated and fuelled until the start an energy gel finds a temporary home in the sleeve of my skinsuit and a bottle of isotonic juice gets stuffed inside the front zip. I look like the guy out of Alien, when the young monster is about to burst out of the victims chest. Roll out of HQ feeling like a proper twat as usual in a teardrop helmet, lycra shoecovers and now with the this ‘thing’ sticking out of my chest….

Easing muscles into action, as gently as is possible with a fixed 55×15 gear my bubble of awareness shrinks to encompass just me and the bike… for the next 30 minutes I do my best to prepare body and mind for the beating to come. I find a 25 hurts in a special way… longer events like ‘50′ or ‘100′ miles are hard but never seem to reach the intensity of pain of a 25, simply because I need to pace myself for those. A 25 can be ridden absolutely flat out, just like a ‘10′ that has been drawn out into a long scream of effort. Especially when it’s windy…

8:05am… warmup over, squirt the contents of the gel down a slightly dry throat (it’s warm already) and send half the contents of my bottle cascading after it. Suspect I’ll be feeling rather dehydrated at the finish so the half-full bottle gets stowed behind a handy road sign before I roll up the start. Briefly wonder if I’ll be too fried to remember where I left it.

8.10am… exchange pleasantries with the chap wearing number 15, he’ll be off a minute after me…. all being well I hope I won’t see him again ’till I have a face full of tea and cake

8.14am… I’m off… uphill start, nasty…
8.15am… shit, it’s a bit early for my legs to be hurting this much…
8.17am-ish…. ah, a gentle downhill, that’s better. wind the bike up to around 40mph, legs spinning like…. errm, fast spinning things, briefly wonder if my 15T sprocket should have been swapped for a 14.
It’s a long way down to the first turn, settling into my rhythm nicely I think, rare bit of flat road, still cruising at 33mph… doesn’t feel like a tailwind “hey, this could be a good ride“. More climbs… ouch… logical thought processes start breaking down with the effort.

At last, the sliproad up to the first turn, feck it’s steep… lock the pain away and manage to stay aero and keep 20mph to the top. Feel well pleased with myself for that as I drift past the guy who started 2 minutes ahead of me. Blimey. Manage a twisted smile at the dayglo marshall.
Come round 180 degs… shit it’s windy…. and uphill…
The drag is never ending…. it hurts. this bloody wind, maybe fixed gear wasn’t such a bright idea… I feel sick….
Brief ‘microrest’ as the wind eases… for a few seconds then it’s howling again. Must be blowing 20mph.
Mind is doing funny things, start thinking about the cateyes in the road, remember reading that the lenses are self cleaning as cars pass over the top they get pressed down past wipers.
Manage to regain focus on what’s happening in the legs, ouch, that hurts. Climbing again, wonder when the red mist will start to descend.

Ah, second turn ahead, another steep sliproad. Amazed I manage not to throw up with the effort. Nice little downhill and then flat after the turn, got a cross-tailwind now and I can spin the acid out of my legs and wind the bike back up to a decent speed.

Blank…
Pain…
Up to the final turn, can’t do it seated this time, my heart is going to explode… why the f**k am I doing this?

Final 7 or so miles now… here’s that wind again, and the interminable climbing. Can barely keep the bike above 20mph, any slower and my pedals will stop turning… think dark thoughts about building a geared TT bike for next time. Must be tired, the rumble strips at the side of the road have acquired a special magnetic property….
Got an itch on the side of my nose where sweat is dripping down, can’t do anything about it, bike is a bit of handful in the blustery wind. Eventually the itch joins the pain signals I’ve shut away and I forget about it. Think about icecream.
Where’s that bloody finish.
Oooh look 3 more competitors a km or so ahead of me… they must have started at least 3 minutes ahead of me so I must have been going well to catch them. Decide to try and pass them before the finish… Heat-rate goes through the roof and my senses dissolve into a homogenous scream.

Over the crest of the climb and at last, there’s the finish line. Didn’t quite catch the others, just a few seconds more and I’d have been on them.

Finally get to ease up, can’t quite describe just what I feel like…. parched, sore, sick… and all before 9am on a Sunday morning. Bet you don’t get that at church.

It’s a pleasant 5 miles cruise back to HQ. I even remembered where I’d hidden my bottle.
Back at HQ… tea, more tea, bananas, protein shake and ohmigod those apricot flapjacks are awesome.
My bike is parked up outside and I’m sitting in the sun when a team-mate arrives back from his ride, completely fried, looks at my enormous chainring and exclaims “bloody hell Mike, what gear were you riding, got any knees left?!” I feel smug.
As it happens I only made it into 8th, but I can always say I won my class being the only rider silly enough to use a fixed gear on this course. I missed getting under the hour too by just 50 seconds, I can blame the wind for that. If it had been a flat course I reckon I could have been truly scorchio today. We, Cyclelogic that is, did take the team prize however which was nice. Team-mate Martin was flying as usual on his carbon spaceship but ‘only’ managed third in the face of a truly incredible ride by a chap riding for the Certini outfit. I did get to feel slightly and shamefully smug again though for the second this morning when everyone said it was a bloody good time on a fixed gear given the conditions…

So there you go, that’s what I did this morning. It’s 4pm and now the adrenalin has gone I’m coming to terms with just how truly and completely bollocksed I really am, it’s a special kind of knackered that not even a hard 5 or 6 hr training ride can achieve… Still thinking about ice cream…

Here’s a couple of pics… that carbon stuff is a close up of part of Martin’s flying machine, mainly because you’ve seen pics of my bike and this chunk of carbon is rather impressive… and the other is fellow Cyclelogic rider Stuart gingerly learning to walk again… (scope for a caption competition there…. best one submitted via comments gets a free bike Mars Bar…

Next 2-wheel adventure is 200km romp across the Welsh mountains in a couple of weeks. Bet it rains.