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My First Club Run
by Dan Benson
It started as a challenge from my wife.
"You need a hobby," she sputtered one weekend morning,
"anything to get out of my hair! You're boring me to death."
With those kind, considerate words of encouragement ringing in my ears, I
searched high and low, looking for a club with which to spend my Saturday
mornings.
I had been commuting to work, 10 miles
either way, putting in 100 miles a week on my secondhand mountain bike
(more on the bike later). I was in reasonable shape for the first time
since my university athletics days (as a distance runner then I would
regularly rack up 70 miles a week before my plantar fascia had enough).
But still something was missing. Competition.
On a whim I decided to enter the London
Triathlon sprint event. The last tri I did was in 1989 back in my home
state of Minnesota, and my cycling training then was as it had ever been -
two 15-mile rides the week before the race on my trusty Schwinn Prelude. I
would finish each tri but not after picking off several dozen people that
had streaked by me on the cycling leg.
Now it was different. I had the cycling
base, but no swim or run training. I quickly joined the Queen Mother
health club (on my way to work) and got a cheap swim membership. I picked
up my stroke as if I had never left high school swimming - once or twice I
swear I could hear my coach yelling form pointers!
I got a new pair of running shoes from Run
and Become, also near work just off Victoria Street. I finally got the
right shoes for my advanced case of duck waddle, thanks to their attention
to detail. Now one item remained.
I was at the Croydon Evans when I saw a
yellowing notice tacked to the notice board by the door for Addiscombe
Cycling Club. I called the number and spoke to the lovely woman on the
other end, who passed on to me the whys and wherefores of the club runs.
And so with my head held high and my wife's hot breath singeing my neck
hairs, I set off on a fateful July Saturday morning.
Mind you, I had checked out the website
before doing so. Reading the recommendations for gear, I absently skipped
over the skinny tyre/click-in pedals bit. "Can't afford those. How
hard can it be?" I mused as the thought of the Surrey lanes whizzing
by had me in dreamland.
So it was a bit of a shock when I arrived
on the train at Coulsdon South to find that I was SERIOUSLY underequipped,
not only in the bicycle department, but in the sartorial area as well. The
only thing I had over most of my fellow riders was the voluminous spare
tyre hidden by my flapping t-shirt.
Your starter for ten: What item of regular
commuting gear should you not wear on a 40 mile ride, unless you are a
committed masochist? Answer: a rucksack. With stuff in it. Add to that a
Gap pocket tee, underinflated 1.8 tyres, platform pedals, no bottle cage
and my trusty U-lock on top of La Lanterne Rouge - my 20+kg red Radford
mtb - hey, ready to roll, guys!
No surprise then that the initial
"climb" to the A23/M23 fork had me wheezing and slowly sagging
to the back of the peloton. Gamely I tried to keep up, but any sign of a
hill and I was toasted toast, hold the Marmite.
Just as the last riders were disappearing
into Merstham and my thoughts were spiraling towards Dante's Hell, blessed
aid appeared in the form of Agreeable Alex on his blue cross bike. Not
only did he accompany me through the rough bits, but he was a good
conversationalist as well. Had to be, to overcome the gasping from my end.
I pulled into the Pine Store in Charlwood
the worse for wear - sweating buckets, swearing a torrent under my breath
- but relieved that we could stop for a bit. The toast, water and coffee
worked its magic. There was a ways to go but I knew I'd be the better for
it. Besides, we'd be headed HOME!
While at the café the conversation steered
towards what I now recognise as the normal stuff - new gear, race results,
crash scars, work, comparisons of shops and equipment, kids, new gear - as
well as where a good craic was to be found. Rather like lunch at work.
I soon realised that over the sips and
munching I was picking up more bike info than I could from magazines. Here
were the road-tested bits, the strategies, flying through the air. I also
acknowledged that this was the fun bit. Conversation with those who
weren't out for blood - no secrets, just a pool of experience to be tapped
- and that cycling wasn't the end all-be all. It was an agreeable group of
folks out for the sheer stretch of the legs and the diversion of Surrey as
opposed to City - which is just what I was looking for.
We remounted, but not after a good-natured
weight comparison between the regular road bikes and the Lanterne Rouge
("Bloody Hell!" seemed to be the epithet of choice). In no time
flat I was at the back again and doomed to circle Gatwick for Eternity
when I found Alex waiting again at the first turn off the main road.
Slowly but surely we crawled to meet the
others at the Trinity Church in Redhill. Then, with a "See you next
week" the pack leapt away on the A23 for home in a pell-mell dash,
the only racing to be found on the day.
Needless to say, I made it back. Just.
Since then, I've found Saturday mornings to
be a lively relief from the commute on the other end of the A23. Numerous
upgrades to my equipment over time (SPD pedals, bottle cage, thinner tyres,
sweat-wicking kit, saddlebag) made the Lanterne Rouge easier to deal with.
In fact, I used it in the triathlon, where I finished a respectable 57th
of 480.
And now I've added a new lightweight Trek
road bike to the stable; as I write this it is soon to make its
competitive debut. It's made those hills just a little bit easier to
negotiate!
What does my wife make of it? I get a lot
of sighs and stern looks for the cycling and tri magazines stacking up on
the shelf (and the kit building up in the garden shed), but I think she's
secretly proud of me doing SOMETHING, and not just sitting on my shapely
bum in front of the telly. She saw me compete in the Docklands (liked the
look of me in a wetsuit) and has mentioned that someday she'd like to give
it a try. Who knows, when I do the Ironman someday, perhaps I'll have an
Ironmate?
See you on the roads,
Agreeably,
Dan Benson
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