A Tale of Two Cyclists
David’s Tale
Up unbelievably early for me, not just on
a Sunday but any day. Polished the bike, lubed the chain,
inflated the tyres
and arrived at No.9 Willowby Park just before 8.00am in fine
fettle.
Gave Steve his first shock of the day by greeting
him with a loud “Good Morning!” as he was pumping
up his tyres, bent over with his back to me so had not seen
me arrive.
His second shock was that I’d actually accepted his invitation
to come and join the Roadies for an outing. (The University
doesn’t run to Remote Access email yet so he’d
not seen my message of 5.31pm on Friday).
After a quick chat with Colin who’d “got
things to do”, Steve spurned my request for a flat
ride lasting no more than two hours, and off we went. The
plan was to go
down to Tavistock, up Pork Hill, coffee in the Fox Tor café in
Princetown and a gentle run back to Yelverton via Peek Hill. “Not
a very flat ride” methinks with the first sign of trepidation
creeping in as further thoughts went along the lines of “Pork
Hill? Is that the one leading up towards Cox Tor? The
long steep one? The one I’ve never been up before?”
Anyway off we go and to my surprise not only am I keeping
up with Steve as we descend to Bedford Bridge, but I AM AHEAD!
Sadly this turns out to be on account of my carrying some 70
bags of sugar more than Steve does : they rapidly begin to
tell on the upward slope towards Grenofen as a result of which
I find he has been waiting for me for some 5 minutes at the
junction leading to Whitchurch. (I did have a bit of a problem
with the gear change just after Bedford Bridge which caused
a major loss of momentum).
Onwards and in this case downwards we went
to Tavistock along the Whitchurch Road, and I am still keeping
up with Steve.
In fact I am sufficiently together to engage with him in conversation
about our respective setups of chainsets and gearing and do
not take offence at his comment “Blooody hell, you’ve
got a huge rear…….sprocket cassette!.” At
which point he surges forward demonstrating the awesome power
contained in his tiny weeny sprocket set. (Not to mention those
calves, of course).
Next moment disaster strikes and I discover the reason for
the metallic clanging sound suddenly coming from the rear wheel
is that a spoke has broken. Arrgh! By the time I reach Steve
in Tavistock I suspect he has been waiting for another 5 rather
puzzling minutes wondering just how the hell I can manage to
go so slowly down hill.
Steve says something
about not being able to “spin” his
bike - apparently he has to go fast uphill otherwise he will
fall off. This is a foreign concept to me. However we agree
to proceed to Princetown at our respective paces where he will
meet me at the Fox Tor café. All I will say is that
I managed to get up Pork Hill without walking the bike to reach
the café just as Steve is about to finish off his second
cup of coffee. Seeing my bedraggled state (it was cloud base
zero and hence wet, rather than the fine weather Steve had
assured me would arrive by 9.00am), he kindly bought me a cup
of coffee and we compared our average speeds. 13.7mph to 9.2mph.
(It is all up to Princetown IMHO).
After
a discussion about getting proper cycle lanes built on the
A386 into Plymouth, off we go again. I
set off with
confidence thinking my 70 extra bags of sugar might help edge
my average speed back to Steve’s standards with the mainly
downhill route back to Yelverton. But this is not to be. For
within 100 yards I see that my abused rear wheel (with the
large cassette) has now not just punctured but is also buckled.
Steve does not hear my shout and I only see the top of his
helmet disappearing in the direction of Devil’s Elbow,
travelling even now at an average speed of 14.1mph I expect.
At
this point I declare unconditional surrender and call my back-up
team for support. This is in the form
of my wife who
arrives some 20 minutes later to take me home. She remarks
that she’d passed a cyclist wearing a similar shirt about
three miles down the road looking back in the direction of
Princetown. That will be Steve I say and if he has any sense
at all he should be heading straight home for a nice hot bath.
But no! A moment later he appears over the crest of the hill,
looking for me. I am most touched and fortunately manage to
let him know of my alternative arrangements to get home before
he arrives back at Princetown. Refusing the offer of a lift
he turns round for home and what was planned to be a 20 mile
bike ride probably becomes a 30 mile one. And he had waited
for his
errant cycling partner for about 45 minutes in a total of 2½ hours.
And just to cap his morning out, my
wife managed to cut him up on a bend on the way back as she
overtakes
him. Sorry about
that Steve - I did admonish her accordingly. Same time next
week?
David
