I wrote this over 20 years ago, but most of it holds together today, I think. Hope a few can relate to it. ;) ------------------------------------------------ 4 \ 8 \ 94 FAT BOY ON A CHEAP BIKE It had been 20 years since my backside touched a bicycle saddle in anger. Now, two days and forty miles into our renewed acquaintance, Ive got the angriest backside in Surrey but my bike and I are an item once more. We are good together and I see us long-term, despite the changes weve been through. The man in the bike shop introduced us. After squinting a lot at my 6 4, 17 stone frame, he prescribed a 21 gear mountain bike with twisty-grip shifters and not a vestige of mudguard. Two-hundred and fifty-several sovs later, I was a cyclist-in-waiting. Yes, I realise she is no deraillerd dragster, no sprocket-rocket - and in todays cyclo climate, 250 quid lands me firmly in the cheap seats but we are a for richer for poorer couple. Besides, until shes shagged-out, or Im capable of doing justice to something raunchier, the old girlll do me fine. I listened attentively to Bikeshop Man throughout our pre-release lecture. He asked if I was familiar with the 21 gear system. I told him that until half an hour ago, I hadnt owned a bike with 21 spokes, never mind gears. He thought I was joking. I wasnt. My childhood dream-machines were scavenged piecemeal from rubbish tips and Jubilee clipped together, in a near-suicidal tribute to improvisation. Some had no tyres, most had no brakes - beyond the toe-wedged-between-front-wheel-and forks variety - and all would be rightly lobbed into a furnace if the Old Bill of today ever intercepted one. Ten minutes after liberation from the bike shop I learned a fundamental lesson; the open road is a wildly different animal when you swap steering-wheel for handlebar. Most of the differences are invigorating; the smells, sounds and that sweaty brand of solitude you only find at the crest of a rural hill, to name but several. However, life dictates that negatives shall always exist and a few are potentially bloody lethal. I swiftly pedalled my way through surprise, shock, anger, fear and right into loathing, before I got a grip of the system and how to survive it. I can handle the sad gits who play how close can we get to his pedal as we pass. I dont even respond to those who beep and rev at me, when required to wait 10 seconds for a safe opportunity to overtake. What I cant, and wont accept, is my apparent tendency to become invisible. As stated earlier, I am a big ol boy with a suitably big ol bike, both of us kitted out with reflectors, lights and visually-intrusive aids designed to promote driver awareness. Yet, some motorists I am certain would still fail to see me if I strapped an arc-lamp to each knee and stuck a distress flare up my arse. Why should this be? Three times a fortnight, some dork in a Dihatsu will screech his tyres to avoid me, (usually on a roundabout) hell look sheepish and if I can be bothered to press the gentleman for an explanation, hell mumble Sorry mate, didnt see you. Friends with hairy, roaring, multi-hued, 1250 motorbikes, tell me the same thing happens to them, so its obviously a four-wheel syndrome. The positive offshoot to the invisibility phenomenon is that it coaxed me toward the glorious world of offroad. Not too far off though. No Everest-buster me - more of a trundler along lifes tow-paths and nature trails, although I have locked my rear wheel during the odd runny-bottom decent. What a buzz it all is. Without wishing to sound completely luvvy, I can truly state that my mountain bike has changed my life, in a way no Ferrari ever could, probably. At the age of 37, Ive discovered intensely enjoyable, disgustingly healthy exercise and more places to enjoy myself than I knew existed - most of them virtually on my doorstep. First time out, not a mile from the bike shop, I peeled-off to explore a snaky wee track which skirted a stream Id not noticed before, despite driving past it for six years. I poodled and pedalled along, daring to take on the odd muddy bit, exploring the gears and making important clicking noises as the track became rougher, when my attention was caught by an almighty ruck taking place in a reed-bed on the far side of the stream. A pair of magpies, backed-up by a lone crow and a hysterical blackbird, were doing their best to deafen something they obviously regarded as a threat. Dismounting, I wheeled the bike toward the melee and watched in fascination as a family of wild mink slipped languidly from the reeds, tumbling and intertwining their shining bodies, not 10 feet from where I stood. Eventually, the feathered neighborhood watch became fed up with the total disregard shown by the mink and they left us in peace. I cant remember how long I stood there, but as that captivating family swam away and I remounted, my first thought was bleednell. Id never have seen that if I hadnt bought the bike. My new found exertions giveth and they taketh away. Ive dropped two stones in two months, which has to be the exchange of the century considering what I got for them. Talk about multi-beneficial. I have been virtually a prisoner for the past five years, thanks to a spinal condition and the subsequent operation needed to contain it. Pre-bike, anything remotely physical annoyed the pins and bolts my surgeon has implanted, resulting in muscle spasm and misery at the pick-up of a hat. Even swimming, that universal do-you-good, fires up my lumbar due to the bodily twistage involved. None of that with my bike. With fat bum planted square on generous saddle, arms bracing non-rotating torso and my largest, hungriest, muscle groups pumpin pedal, Im getting leaner and keener by the day. With 21 gears to regulate physical input, Im sitting on the ultimate rehabilitation machine. And Ive learned so much! For instance, I discovered yesterday that when you achieve 20 mph, a ladybird and a cricket ball feel exactly the same, if either hits you in the eye. With this, came the realisation that eye-wear is more practical than pose. Furthermore, after having a cranefly slam dancing inside my Ray Bans for a couple of miles, I see the sense of proper cycling glasses. Tree roots were another revelation. There are only two types of tree root; those that run along your path and those that run across it. The along jobs act like tramlines and steer you where they fancy. Seeing that all tree roots will invariably lead to a tree - this isnt always fun. The across variety are truly unique. If you hit a finger-sized rootlet sideways-on, it somehow mimics a ten-inch kerb and trashes your front wheel. Towpath roots are a law unto themselves. Honed and exposed by years of abrasion from rambling feet, they are of little use to the tree. Their job is to pitch cyclists into the drink - and they are never off duty. Until someone sandpapers every bare root within 50 miles of me, Ill do no more moonlight jaunts along the canal thats for sure. Brambles offer interest too. Should you brush one lightly with a pistoning shin, you may as well have been attacked by a posse of Samurai. Nettles enjoy a good ruck with any cyclist, becoming chemical harpoon guns at the approach of a knobbly tyre and giving us something else to scratch when we stop for a swig from our bottles. Theres a thing. How do you prevent your onboard refreshment tasting like plastic? Even aluminium bottles serve plastic drinks. I expect you stalwarts have sussed it but Im still replacing sweat with liquid polystyrene and Id like to try another flavour. I did the too much, too soon number of course, logging a touch over 20 miles on my first day as a born-again biker. The homeward stretch was a lopsided affair, as I swapped cheeks every half mile and wondered how the hell Id have handled one of those vinyl razor-blade saddles. Oh yes, its been a voyage of discovery and theres still so much to find out. Ive never managed to catch the alien creature who wears an allover condom and pointy-backwards helmet as it rides past me at warp 4 on a skeletal cycle that makes no sound. It must land somewhere but as its speed never wavers, even up the most intimidating hills, I think Ill have to drop a net over it to find out what it is. I guess only the Lord himself knows why there is always a junction at the bottom of every hill, especially those youve risked a coronary to climb, which denies you maximum freewheel. Or how the wind manages to blow against you, no matter what direction you travel. Never mind, Ill continue my glorious affair with the hidden reaches of the Central South, especially the watery bits. My pedal-driven probings have given me canal knowledge of the most intimate areas of Surrey and I find fulfillment around every bend in the river. Ive yet to annoy a fisherman, run over a dog, or fail to doff my helmet to a lady. Ive also yet to fall off and turn my elbows into pate, but mountain bikers have to take the rough with the smooth - even us fat, frightened ones. You can keep your Corniches, Champagnes and supermodels. From now on, this not-quite-so-Fat-Boy will see the wild side of life from the saddle of his bike. ******************** E N D *******************
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 08:27:10 +0000
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