The Month of Muddy May

As I sploshed through puddles cringing at the feel of cold water dribbling down my socks, and I grappled at the brakes like a fumbling teenager, rotors squealing in horror and gears tutting at me with every change, I thought to myself; why do we hate riding in the wet? And more than that; why do we ride differently?

Me and my new riding partner had been cycling through puddles for at least half an hour by the time I had ask myself this question. My feet were already saturated with muddy water and my shoes made a squelching cry for help every time I pressed down on the pedals. So what was the point in avoiding the next half-an-hour stretch of puddles? It made no sense to, and yet, my brain insisted on steering me away from them, performing ridiculous manoeuvres that would have me whipped by unnaturally long grass at the side of the trail or skiing sideways towards a tree to avoid them.

The month is May. From my last blog you may have noted that rainfall has been high and riding in a short sleeved jersey through beams of sunlight breaking through trees on dusty dry trails is a distant memory. But, does this mean we are doomed to have crap riding sessions every time the weather is crap? No, is the answer to that, but it took me nearly an hour of riding through it to remember this.

I watched my riding buddy speed off on his new big-wheeled rigid single-speed and found myself cursing his name under my breath. Still weak from a hard road ride two days ago, I knew I was going to struggle to keep up with him, however, it didn’t help that I was riding like an amateur and avoiding puddles like an old lady on her way to the shops in her best dress. Things had to change, I thought. And so it began.

I powered straight through the middle of a puddle; heroic I thought. Nothing bad happened, so I did it to the next one. Yuk, that one was cold, but I’m still alive. Let’s try that again… and again… oh, that one was quite deep…and again… and, oh hello, I can see my buddy again! Yes, it’s amazing isn’t it?! Riding the fastest line through a trail, not avoiding puddles and constantly looking at what’s going on under your bike rather than what’s coming up ahead is actually quicker. I should have been a rocket scientist, me.

So what’s my point? You’ve probably got the end of this blog and either thought that this is obvious stuff and that I’m a “big girl” (or something more offensive), or you can relate to it. If the latter, it’s not because you’re rubbish (well, I don’t think so anyway), but maybe you understand that sometimes a rider can shy away from the mountain bike during bad weather and forget what it’s like to get muddy. Or maybe you’ve trained on the road bike and forgotten how to ride your first true love; the mountain bike. Or maybe you understand that a faint memory of your Mum telling you off for jumping in a puddle and getting your new shoes wet and muddy still haunts you now. Either way, it’s time to throw it aside and get filthy (steady boys)! Let me tell you, it’s quite a lot of fun. Unleash the inner kid in you and, especially if you’re racing, you’ll find yourself riding the right line and not fanny around trying to avoid things that your brain tells you are slower. Puddles are your friend, go and make some new ones! J  

Spring Has Sprung

So the calendar claims Spring kicked off two months ago, but frankly I’ve not seen any evidence of this other than the odd desperate daffodil drowning in torrential rain at the side of the road. The ground has been wet for as long as I can remember, and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t need to be hosed down outside my front door before entering my house in fear of making everything look like a swamp monster had recently staged some kind of dirty protest, and yet, there’s still a hose pipe ban?! Really?! Fine. I’ll collect the immense amount of Spring rain in my pressure washer and use that instead then. Anyway, I stray from the point and am at risk of this blog starting to sound negative… the point is, it’s here. The very fact that I’m moaning about rain and longing for expectant sunny days means it’s definitely Spring time. Why is it we cling to “that Spring” when there was a freak heat wave and think that every Spring up until this Spring was like that? I think it’s a little wishful thinking and a little self-delusion. Either way, yesterday showed a glimmer of what could be a fine end to a crappy Spring.

I rush home, following a distinctly horrible day at work, and suit up in shower-proof long sleeves and hold up a pair of clean shorts and a mud-spattered set of long-legged bibs. Hmmm. I couldn’t possibly wear the same bibs twice in a week, especially as they still bare the mud scars from the last outing. Despite wanting a little shin protection from cold rain water, and wanting the ability to peel the layer off at the end of the ride instead of scrubbing my shin raw in the shower and creating a scummy ring around my plughole, I chose the short shorts. It’ll toughen me up, I thought.

I slip my feet, complete with long socks and bare pasty winter legs, into my sorry-looking muddy cycling shoes and pull on my long-fingered gloves and mud-spattered helmet. A knock on the door. That’s my cue to look chirpy and up-for-it. I’m greeted by my cycling buddy in shorts with leg-warmers, two jerseys and a long-sleeve jacket over the top. His red and yellow shorts with blue and black panelling together with Look bike make for a clever Mondrian remark that I couldn’t quite think of.  Plus I catch a glimpse of my white legs poking out of what look like hot pants and decide not to start the ride that way.

It took a moment to realise, as my house is poorly situated for sunlight, but when I stepped out the front door it became overwhelmingly apparent that.. is it? Yes it is… it’s sunny! My riding partner frantically peels off his leg warmers making me feel instantly less conscious of my lilly-white pins as I click them into the pedals with a cloud of muddy dust coming from the shoes. And we’re off.

I’ve always said it; Swindon’s a wonderful place to cycle… when you get out of it. The roads were quiet. Perhaps everyone had flocked to the beer gardens in panic. The trees were suddenly fluffy with tiny green/brown buds that made them appear blurred from a distance. Fields were purple and yellow as crops reach for the blue skies, and there’s a distinct increase of greenery surrounding our chosen route. Ten minutes in and it’s clear that the long-sleeve jersey is over-kill. One long hill done and I’m thinking a sleeveless tri suit would still be over-kill (and ridiculous-looking. Sorry. You guys look like wrestlers.).

As I rolled back to my house over two hours later, the sun was barely setting, but still cast a warm orange glow on everything it touched. Half bare, half budding trees looked honey-roasted and crop fields appeared to be yielding gold. As the low-lying light strobed across my vision through a line of trees to the side of my road I realised it had been Spring all along. Spring is that awkward month that bridges Winter to Summer. I know Autumn does this too, but Autumn seems to be Summer winding down, yet Spring is never Winter warming up. It is wet, windy, and unpredictable and has us all incorrectly second-guessing its mood. It will be warm and sunny one day, and just when you walk out in your new short-sleeved t-shirt or that skirt you’ve been dying to wear, a monsoon will appear with near-freezing winds just to remind you that you’re not out of the seasonal slump just yet. And just when you’ve got used to peeling mtb-style mud off your road bike, you’ll step out in waterproofs to baking hot sunshine.

I like to think of Spring as the joker of the pack. The trick is laughing with it; otherwise you’ll feel mocked and full of hatred for it. Don’t do that, it’s far too long a season for this kind of attitude. Revel in its humour like the inappropriate Uncle at weddings, i.e. you know you’ll look back and laugh anyway so why get uptight about it. Besides, you need Spring to really appreciate a British Summer. You know what I mean.

Enjoy!

A Dance to the Shuffle Gods

Today was a sunny winter’s day. The air was crisp yet inviting and the ground was dry enough to bring out the slick wheeler. Following a freak bout of overtraining, Coach has set me a recovery plan to follow. Today is an hour’s spin on the road bike. Perfect.

I dragged my shoes out of the cupboard still baring the scars and mud ornaments from the last mtb ride. They look out of place on the road bike (I pictured angry roadies chasing me down the streets with pitch forks) so I cover them up with some wind-stopping booties. I suspected the air would be a little crisper once cycling anyway, so these tackled two issues in one. I brushed the single-track dust off my helmet, popped it on over the iPod headphones and ear-warmers and headed off on my journey.

As the training was a leisurely jaunt for an hour, I decided that an “out and back” route would suffice and that the iPod Shuffle Gods could decide the theme tunes to said route. Spinning through the town centre on a busy Saturday always gives me a little thrillat the start of a ride – just the sight of angry drivers lined up doing 2pmh while I blitz through makes me smile. The iPod skips to something serene like Air and I find myself spinning towards a more picturesque scene in the distance. Heading towards countryside usually gives you quiet roads, and today I certainly found that. I had to keep checking behind me to see if there was a queue of traffic forming because hardly any had passed.

Twenty minutes in and I’m swooping through country roads with the sun on my back and birds darting in and out of the bushes alongside me as if they wanted to play. I chase them down a little, but not enough to raise my breathing. The trees are bare, but look warm in their fields against a blue sky and dimming light. The afternoon is fading and I realize I might be honoured to roll though my home street as the sun is setting behind a cloud. I try to imagine the colours.

Thirty minutes pass and it’s time to turn around at the next junction and head home. The iPod Gods realize this and shuffle one of my favourite “going out songs” on, and everything suddenly feels very up-beat. The street is quite so I steer the bike from left to right as if I was warming up for a formula one race, and the next thing I know I’m bike dancing and singing aloud in a strange village. Folk will talk, so I tone it down to a hum.

Fifty minutes later and the iPod Gods are well and truly on a roll with their choices. I wonder if it will find that Smiths album and ruin everything, but it doesn’t. I’m close to hone now and light is fading. Recalling the sunsets I had imagined I turn my final corner and glance at the delights in the sky – ah, gold. I hadn’t thought of that colour. Two minutes to home and Closing Time by Semisonic comes on as if were in a quirky romcom that has to have a song to match every eventually, mine being the end of the ride, but in a cheesy way it was just right; the victory song for the end of a perfect ride. I dismount and stretch out in the golden sun, close my eyes and thank the Shuffle Gods for a wonderful playlist. I’m not sure what dance I did to deserve it, but here’s hoping our relationship will prosper.

Happy Zen Year Everybody!

So Christmas is over and I don’t know about you, but it’s left a stale taste of mince pies and assorted chocolates in my mouth. Training dipped due to lack of routine and my waist resembles the mass of turkeys I’ve been eating for the last month. Multiple families to visit across the country meant I ate multiple roast dinners like I was in some kind of national eating competition. Still, I should be grateful my intake of vegetables has increase, even if 60% of those were brussel sprouts. I should also be grateful I managed to resist the urge to grapple at spirits like a teenager at their first house party. If you meet my mother and see that her idea of a good Christmas breakfast starts with a shot of Pernot with a Baileys chaser, you’ll understand this analogy.

I jest really, it’s not all bad. Driving home from the other side of the country on “January Sale Day” wasn’t my best idea, but the lengthy queues ahead did get me thinking about the races to come. The lines of cars slotting together like a giant game of Tetris reminded me of those familiar mass starts. The blocks of cyclists squeezing into every inch of space at the start line like their life depended on it. Focusing on the middle distance like an angry Next catalogue model. Best foot forward, slight tension in the arms from fear and excitement, and a brain drastically trying to throw images of a group crash on the start line out the head like a stubborn captain with a bucket and a sinking ship. She’s developed some calf muscles since the last race, has she been training more than me? That’s a new bike, is it going to slingshot her up the hills past me? She has nice new shoes, are they going to make her faster? As you can see, I haven’t quite mastered the art of achieving perfect start line arousal yet, but I’m working on it.

The rigid suspension on my classic Mini bumps over a pothole and my memory skips to a sunny summer race back in my days of attending local XC races in the Sport category. A time when I knew I was in with a good chance of picking up a medal. No matter how many bad thoughts crossed my mind as I rolled up to the start, something funny happened when that final call was made; “the gun will go off in the next 30 seconds” someone will shout, and everything goes quite. My ears feel like they’ve been muffled by cotton wool and my eyes are blinkered to the red and white taped up trail ahead. Then, bang! Or sometimes, hoot! And as if by magic my mind is reset. No thoughts cross my mind except for what’s coming up and what my body is doing. Trees fly past my face like a dog digging up the garden looking for his bone. The bike rolls over roots and rock like a boat on water. Everything feels fluid and natural. The racer in front of me is matching my speed, but I can hear them panting a lot harder. Every corner has me closer and closer to their wheel until I see that straight open bit of single-track ahead. In seconds she to my left, then before I can think, she’s behind me and I’m making progress through the winding trees. Past experience tells me that that racer will try and hang on, but I tell myself that if you can make it passed that easily, you’re a quicker rider and you don’t need to worry about them anymore. Let them strain themselves trying to keep up with you.

It dawned on me at the end of that race (just before I picked up my gold trophy, ahem) that, alas, it was a “Zen race”!  You know where everything is just right; the ground feels smooth even if it’s not, you feel strong and fluid, the bike appears to be doing the work for you and trees appear to be dodging out of your way like the bike was fixed to a track. The Buddhist would describe Zen as the deep silence of a peaceful mind.  I certainly felt peaceful during the race (and in the car on the way home snoozing in the passenger seat with my trophy in my arms). Many have searched for this state on the bike. It’s a time when skills pop out the bag that you didn’t even request. A time when the bike just moves underneath you in one seamless action without thinking about it. A time when the sun seems to shine, even if it’s cloudy. It’s a feeling you expect professional mountain bike racers to experience every day, but as good as they are, I’m sure they don’t. This is a state of cycling enlightenment where everything falls in to place like a self-completing puzzle.

I zone back into reality in my car amidst the festive queues of red and white lights on the M4 and wonder to myself how often this happens to riders. Am I the only one that feels like the monk that’s got the cream when it happens, or are there others meditating on turbo-trainers in order to feel it? This is something I must look into, but in the meantime, maybe reliving its power superimposed over my memory of a point-scoring national race will do wonders for my confidence. Who knows, maybe dreaming it enough times will make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. I hope that you all experience it in your sport at least once this year as it truly is magical and stays with you for a long time.

Happy Zen-year everybody.