I am of the general understanding that alarm clocks were designed to wake you up at a respectable time in the morning, and respectable, in my humble opinion is based on two conditions, time and the day of the week. So when did 5:30am on a Saturday become respectable and don’t get me started on Sunday’s! – well it bloody hasn’t. I can assure you all that Edward John Dent would be spinning in his grave right now if he was aware of such practices. Well, I will let you all into a secret and it’s no urban myth. The biking fraternity starts riding at 7am, that’s not set your alarm clock for, but there is an expectation of meeting at some godforsaken place at 7am, some of these weirdo’s even earlier. The scary thing is, I’m now one of those weirdo’s!
They say the hardest part of any sport is getting changed, well getting changed at 5:30am is just not British, but it’s Australian. This lot get up at all sorts of daft times to do things like surfing or running where they stop to generally just look at the ocean – which is a magnificent sight I grant you but jumping into the stuff to be eaten by a great white is questionable, or is that what the runners are waiting for?
So let’s discuss my first ride. Captain Dishpig and his offsider (later to be known as Rainbow) meet me at 7am at the Whitebridge stop on the Fernleigh track where we were to take a casual, that’s what Dishy referred to it as on Facebook, casual ride for about 40ks. Where can you go wrong I was prepared for my first ride, carbon fibre bike, proportional distribution between my crankset and derailleurs (still not sure what they do by the way), a bottle of water and a banana – what could go wrong.
Loads that’s what! Not only did I get up at daft o’clock but nearly coughed a lung up and was on several occasions seen gasping for air like some floundering barramundi. Dishy (Dishpig likes to shorten his nickname for some reason, don’t understand why) kept telling me it would get more comfortable and Rainbow was nowhere to be seen (find the association please) but all I can say is, its hard work this cycling malarkey – oh and expensive. To put my plight into perspective I got home at around 11am, more than 5 hours after I woke up and sat in the living room until 3pm staring at the walls like an extra from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (excellent 1975 movie starring Jack Nicolson, watch it its good, sad but good).
Well as the 1997 UK Labour Party General Election campaign theme tune by D:Ream goes – Things Can Only Get Better…Well it did for Labour, under Tony Blair, the Labour Party won a landslide majority, the first time since 1966 – bodes well I feel.
For your visual pleasure, put it on full screen and it has sound.
Badger & Batbottom 