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.

Autumn, the year’s last smile.

I’ve always loved autumn. It’s bright, colourful and usually pretty dry for mountain biking. Oh yeah, and of course it marks the anniversary of my wedding. Ahem. But this year my enthusiasm for Autumn is fading as quickly as the bleached out leaves on the trees. It has left a somewhat sour taste in my mouth and a blanket of slippery, sludgy brown leaves all over the grounds my bike and I usually frequent. A slip here and a wheel spin there and I’m ready to throw my bike off the nearest hill I attempt to climb. Every trail adventure makes me feel less and less technically apt, doubting my ability to tackle even the least aggressive corners and roots.

Despite this seemingly dark outlook, my mood is lifted today, as today revealed its first glimmer of winter. ‘What now?!’ I hear you cry, ‘How can this be uplifting?’ you ask. Well, don’t get me wrong, Autumn is a lovely time despite my first paragraph, but as it drags on with its ever-changing moods and unpredictable weather I can’t help but cling to the Summer’s riding and picture the previous season’s racing melt away with the fading daylight. The once warm and fresh woodland that I had trained for ‘that race’ in is now dark and dingy with an incomprehensible habit of holding vast quantities of surface water. Those bright green leaves that watched me completed my first (and last) smooth bunny hop are now lying face down in the mud. Waking up today revealed commuters scraping ice off their windscreens as I drag the road bike out the front door. A mist hung in the air to give everything a monochrome look. The scenery I passed on my bike journey through country roads revealed sparkling picture postcard images, and the fog allowed each scene to be revealed only when it was ready, giving me something to look forward to at each mile.

So what’s my point? Well, you see, Winter is a new beginning. We move on from the year’s racing and the Summer’s riding adventures. We talk about things like ‘base training’ and spending time with the family instead of the bike. We’ve stopped fantasising about that freak hot sunny Autumn day that would allow for dry trail blazing in a thin jersey and instead we look forward to the year of riding ahead and our dreams for the impending season of race to come. After all, there’s plenty of time to make a vast improvement on our previous results. So I guess what I’m saying is it’s time to let go of the past and start working towards the future. Get on your bike and dance over frosted mud patterns that suddenly seem the gripiest thing since you dropped your Marmite on toast upside down on the floor. Let the crunch underneath your tyres simulate a round of applause as you day dream about winning your next race. Slalom through the nearest dewy grass field and let your bike carve their signature for ramblers to marvel at like adoring fans. Commute to work on your mountain bike; you don’t want to drop down in an aggressive nose-to-tarmac position when there’s such beauty in the scenery around you. Sit up and admire the scenes you usually miss as the fog keeps its distance revealing wintery scenes one at a time and smile to yourself knowing that Spring is around the corner, but far enough away that you’ll be ready it.

Raise your mulled wine and flasks of black coffee to winter base training and the Summer joys it will bring you next year. Merry Christmas.

The Great Non-Adventure

Today was the day I convinced some work colleagues that they wanted to come out on a cold December's day for a bike ride. The moment I woke up I glanced over at the bedroom blinds for a sneak preview of what the weather had in store. Sure enough, golden beams of sunlight were fanning out from underneath like the intro to a Prodigy concert. I optimistically felt assured that the day would be a success.

A bowl of muesli later I peered out of the kitchen window for a more detailed inspection of Mother Nature's work and discovered that the clear blue skies that had presumable created my bedroom laser show were limited and patchy with ominous cumulus (Latin for bloomin' big grey clouds) were looming on the horizon. In my favour was the low-light sunrise of a sunny winter's day that will surely trick those colleagues of mine into at least packing up their cars with adequate steads. The large fluffy grey clouds that stood in between me riding with friends and me riding alone had a certain apricot and pastel pink glow that contrasted quite innocently against the bright blue sky as though chalked out by an Monet-loving artist. 'Aha,' I thought, 'That'll get them out their front doors at least.' and we all know that is the hardest part on a winter's day.

An hour later and I'd reached my destination with only a few threatening rain drops on the windscreen. I unload my bike in unexpected blustery winds - not the handiest of elements when you own the least most practical car for holding a bike (have you guessed it? Yes, it's a 1989 Austin Mini). As I perform my near perfected bike-removal yoga to extract the beast from the backseat of my miniature vehicle the gales have fun throwing my hair around my face and covering my eyes at key stages like a childish trickster. Fear of scratching my recently renovated antique causes the usually smooth process to be broken into stop-start act that took far longer than usually. tension in my gut is building. 'Stay calm' I thought to myself, hoping that the colleagues had noticed the change in weather.

So there I was. Bike in hand, hair in face, dressed for an arctic expedition in bright sunshine waiting for the others to arrive. I convince myself that they have parked in the next car park along and are happily spinning their way over to me oblivious to the once peachy clouds now closing in with a blackened centre. If  can get them lined up ready to go before it rains, it will happen. If not, then... well, the bike gods will decide. This got me thinking; there's a classic misconception that calling the ride off once you're already dressed up and unpacked is just as much effort to undo and return home as it is to continue on with the ride. My phone vibrates in my back pocket. Gloves off, puncture repair kit falls on the floor, text retrieved; 'stuck on the M4' it reads. Oh dear. Darn. 'They'll never get here before it rains,' I think to myself.

I decide to take shelter in the local leisure centre I'd parked at. No sooner had I sat down inside I heard an awful noise. People were running inside like a bomb had just gone off in the car park. I turned to face the window and witness the most epic downpour of slept and hail that I'd seen for some time. People were diving into cars head first and running into shops like mad men. I half expect an air-raid siren to sound. 'Oh dear,' I though to myself again, 'this is not encouraging'. I look over to my bike locked up outside and seeming sulking in the rain and imagined a wonderful scenario where the clouds part in a god-like fashion and sunshine burst out to reveal bluebirds and clear trails ahead. It didn't happen. In stead I realise the potential reality that would have to dismantle my bike again and perform vehicle-entering yoga in order to return back home without even having the satisfaction of a ride in my legs.

This fun-packed morning got me thinking. How naughty does Mother Nature have to be to put us off? I there a linear equate that plots the relationship between the state of the weather and the length of time a rider has been riding? I know I certain forgive Mrs M more than my less experienced colleagues, but where is the cross over? What would it take you to give up a ride when you actually want to go out for a ride?? For me, that day, it was the sad look on my colleagues faces and the prospect of me riding alone in hail. This probably my breaking point. A great lonesome mid-December non-adventure.