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Apologies From a Humbled Roadie
Okay I'm not humbled I just have to
apologise for all my flippant off the cuff, degrading remarks made about
the sport of mountain biking.
I just entered the LCCA Dartford 'Cyclo
Cross' reliability trial. Not very cyclo cross though. If cyclo cross is
muddy fields and a few planks, this was extreme off road.
45 miles, my first time on a mountain bike
in about 10 years, and about 15-20 of those miles off road.
OFF ROAD!! That's paths through woods about
a foot wide and swamped in 3 inches of sand (god knows who carries it
there) or mud. Cycling through sand on balloon tyres is like running in a
swimming pool. Another thing, how the hell do you steer those things.!
UPHILL, well not too bad if the track
surface wasn't actually moving downhill against you or interrupted by
steps. So lots of cyclocross bike carrying practice would have occurred if
it wasn't for the fact that the mountain bike I had was a bit too heavy
for that but I developed one hell of a pushing technique. One bizarre
moment of confusion with the gearing, actually there were many such
moments but I'll tell you only two. The first was not finding the chain
into the smaller ring and grinding to a halt on a sharp road climb and
figuring "Hell I'll run". I'm not an elegant runner at the best
of times but after continually spinning these easy southern gears my
running turned into an exaggerated pedaling motion as done by Donald duck,
but I was moving quicker than anyone on a bike. The other was riding to a
t junction on a climb, the chain came off and I was spinning faster than
Lance on Alpe D'Huez and slowly felt myself start to roll backwards and
the cars behind me get a bit too close.
DOWNHILL. On a road bike it's still a scary
issue…..this turned me into a pool of jelly. These tracks, ravines,
gullies, I was told tricky by normal offroad antics were terrifying. Long,
steep, wide enough for a tyre but swerve and your pedals dig into the
bank, smash into a rock, over a branch etc. I went down at the back of the
group, one foot unclipped and took it in 10m increments with the brakes
full on. Stopping as I went. Took me twice as long as everyone else to get
down. Hats off, 'Chapeau', as we roadies say, to all those that race down
these things at full steam.
Who do I owe all this to, well Chris
Colford of course, that cheeky young chappy called me, offered me the use
of a mountain bike and a lift and was expecting to introduce me to cyclo
cross. Not quite what we had in mind. I thought that 45 miles would take
maybe 3 hours on a m.bike…..it took 6. All though my mind wasn't
entirely on the action (due to recent bad news) I had a lot of fun and met
some great people. Hello to Sarah and Barry of the London Phoenix (who
continue to grow in my estimation) what a great club. Those two were full
of encouragement and patience.
I was hoping to have photos of Marco
inspired gashes and cuts to add but all I got was lots of nettle rash down
my legs, and from my one falling off incident a skinned knuckle and stud
mark on my thigh. Again I fail to live up to the Addiscombe off road
standards.
Unfortunately 45 miles on a mountain bike
has actually convinced me that when I cyclo cross it will be on a cross
bike and I will never ride a mountain bike competitively. This is from the
guy who promised never to ride a 12hr again. But you know what I mean.
But this is it………….I cant believe
I'm doing this…… " I AM SORRY TO HAVE BEEN DISSING THE SPORT OF
OFFROAD CYCLING. IT IS A SPORT OF …..oh bum…..I THINK ITS HARD AND
GIVE RESPECT TO ALL THOSE DOING IT SCARES THE WILLIES OUT OF ME."
Signed,
Steve 'Tail between his legs' Dennis.
Ps I can't promise I wont take a little bit
of the piss again, but you'll know I don't really mean it.
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