Three separate weeks in the saddle with three old mates, the last trip almost a decade ago and no sign yet of a final tour reunion. If Genesis can….why not?
16 – BIKE RIDES
“Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.”
Charles M. Schulz
Cycling is the new craze for the middle-aged with a huge boom, men especially spending fortunes on hi-tech contraptions and kit. It attracts all shapes and sizes. Most of us had bikes as kids, crashed a few times, lost a few teeth and barely sat in the saddle again.
The attraction of cycling to the average middle-aged bloke is due to a variety of factors, not least that many of us still love a new toy. One dark winter’s night, four old pals decided to take on a new challenge in the form of the coast-to-coast cycle run.
The oldest of us was the best cricketer I’ve played with, Brent. Capable of bowling long, stamina sapping spells of hostile, fast bowling, he’d never been near a gym in his life and could not have imagined the agonies to come.
Lifelong friend, Rick, had been a very good amateur rugby player but a failing body meant that he now had to contend with regular poppings and pullings of various muscles. Time can be cruel.
Finally, there was JB, a contender for the scruffiest man on the planet, somebody you should never share a room with unless you want to experience what it would be like to live in a squat.
Lets do it, we all agreed, what could be so hard?
Reality Dawns
Only JB had experienced anything longer on a bike than the canal path to Shipley, indeed Brent had not ridden a bike since his paper-round. Each of my partners had spent fortunes on new gear ahead of 140 miles of torture spread over four days, something Bradley Wiggins would do before breakfast.
I was dubious about investing in what I viewed as a passing fad, before some opted for their armchairs and maybe we had to bury one of us. So, I placed my faith in my trusted Raleigh Five-Speed, The Bedstead, known so as it was forged out of solid iron.
I had won it in a raffle for a quid; whilst the other members of Team Villas had front and rear suspension, disc brakes and lightweight frames, I was sat on the cycling equivalent of a used Lada.
Whitehaven To Sunderland
The initial trip was a spectacular route, if notable for the first day when we nearly lost Brent to exhaustion and me to a broken neck in the woods.
We set off to Keswick after a train ride from Shipley to Whitehaven. Arriving, JB somehow managed to get his foot stuck in his fancy cycling cleats (a clip on cycling shoe attached to the bike) resulting in him jiggling around the platform like a dancing bear trying to free his leg. He was never far from bedlam.
This fascinated the locals as they had clearly never had such an entertaining show and out came the hat for an impromptu collection with shouts of “encore!”
That first day was sheer torture in extreme heat with murderous climbs in and out of the numerous valleys. Late in the day, as Keswick finally loomed, disaster struck.
After yet another lung-busting climb, JB flew off down the hill with a crazed Apache like yell. Rick decided to follow on so we could tell the rescue services where to find the body and I stayed with Brent who was wheezing more than usual.
Suddenly, he collapsed in a heap. We were genuinely concerned for the big man, especially as we had not named a 12th Man for the forthcoming Saturday game; he may have been fat and fifty but he was still our best player by a mile.
Fortunately we found an angel in the form of a lovely lady at a nearby guesthouse. With Rick escorting Brent, now full up on tea and cakes, JB and I decided to complete the route.
One Wheel On My Wagon
I should have known that following cycling’s equivalent of Eddie the Eagle was not a good move. Flying through the woods at a breakneck pace, The Bedstead was vibrating violently beneath me. Suddenly, I hit a huge brick and was launched through the air not unlike Eddie the Eagle, landing with a thud in the undergrowth.
With two flat tyres, a bent wheel, blood over my fancy new outfit and my new shorts around my knees this was not a good end to the day. I trudged along alone, dragging The Bedstead behind me trying to hold my shorts up, searching for JB.
When I found him it was clear that neither of us really had a clue how to mend a puncture – planning and preparation – but eventually we cycled into Keswick, half-bitten to death by midgies into the bargain.
We spent the rest of the remaining 100 miles waiting for either Brent to collapse, JB to get us lost courtesy of his totally useless GPS gizmo, Rick to twang a muscle or The Bedstead’s one remaining good wheel to fall off.
Eventually we reached the coast-to-coast offices in Sunderland covered in flies and stinking like tramps, dreaming only of a comfortable bed. Sat astride The Bedstead I dipped a front wheel in the North Sea and wondered if I would ever sit down without the aid of a cushion ever again.
Here We Go Again
It took a lot of persuading for Brent to make another trip and I thought it was a miracle we did eventually cajole him to do it “one more time”. Sadly, The Bedstead was not to make this one, melted down and shipped to China.
This time, as prepared as ever, I had decided to borrow a bike from Rick’s eldest son, Sam. It had twenty-one gears but only three that actually worked.
Our trip was a circular route around the Yorkshire Dales. Although far less signposted, we felt confident as Rick was a geography graduate and JB had again brought more navigational aids than Ellen Macarthur took sailing around the world.
“Tell Sue I Love Her!”
On our first day, although we’d all been ignoring his grunting, wailing and wheezing, barely ten miles into the trip Brent howled “You’ll have to leave me, I can’t go on…I’ve had it…tell Sue I love her!”
He was blowing harder than the local steam railway and an antidote was called for in the form of a wedge of chocolate cake; soon he was off like Mark Cavendish to our first stop at the Marton Arms in Thornton-in Lonsdale.
The owner here was a manic-depressive suffering from OCD and an addiction to laminate notices all beginning with “Don’t”. These failed to deter JB and by the time we’d left I could have offered several more along the lines of:
• Don’t turn the bathroom into a lake every time you shower.
• Don’t make your room resemble a squat.
Call The AA?
Cycling is great as a way of getting fit and, for some, losing weight. During that trip I lost about two stones that I could ill afford, due to my waterproofs being little more than a glorified boil in a bag suit. Four days of full English breakfasts, several cream scones a day and many beers, yet I was destined to arrive back looking like Posh Spice.
The scenery was magnificent, even if some of the mountain climbs were torture. Sheep appeared bewildered at four old guys gasping for air as we passed them up hill after hill and soon disaster struck.
The first major mechanical failure occurred as my chain came off. I was alone at the top of a mountain with no Swarfega or running hot water, wondering where Team Sky was when you needed them.
Rick Discovers Babestation
The best thing though about this trip – apart from the glorious cakes – was the Rose & Crown in Bainbridge, which was really an Eastern European lap dancing academy in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales.
The stunning Kosovo Kate greeted us on reception as my legs buckled clearly from the days’ exertions. She fluttered her eyes and offered to show us our room which had a four-poster bed; I won the toss consigning JB to the spare single dreaming of European harmony.
Noticing there were no towels in the bathroom I rang down to reception. There was a knock and with sweaty palms I opened it only to find Big Bettie of Bainbridge, wheezing and coughing at the door, stinking of lager and fags. She held a mop for JB as advance warnings had travelled down the Dales.
An early dinner was booked as this was England versus Sweden night in Euro 2006. Sociable as ever, we shunned the filthy locals and retired to the resident’s bar. Before turning in after the game, I decided to show Rick elements of Sky TV I suspected he was not aware of.
I flicked on to a few free channels as we heard an instant cheer in the background; we assumed the football highlights were on. There followed another and then the roof nearly came off with chants of “Engerland, Engerland….” What was going on?
Brent burst in to say that the remote I was using controlled the TV in the public bar and there was a busty beauty in an England thong on screen displaying her wares. It was time for bed.
One More Time?
It was three years before we were to ride again in the summer of 2011 this time taking on the Morecambe to Bridlington route. Although longer, it is a much flatter route so, rather dismissively, I prepared diligently with a night at the Idle Beer Festival.
I felt far from Olympian as I sat in the sun the next morning awaiting the 08.53 to Morecambe. Our first day was supposed to be the easiest day but soon we were having to indulge in motivational soothing “that’s the last hill today Brent” as he huffed and he puffed cursing us all for convincing him to do this yet again.
In keeping with tradition, by the time we reached a pretty village called Clapham still with 10 miles to go, Paul the Weatherman’s forecast of bright sunny skies was looking a complete load of bollocks as rain lashed down.
When we reached our B&B it was time to reflect on the wisdom of only bringing a single pair of cycling shorts and two shirts. The next day would be hot, never mind what Paul the Weatherman said, and we had a monster climb that stretched for almost 3 miles to start the day.
“Gentlemen, I May Be Some Time.”
As we climbed out of Burnsall, heading for a distant Pateley Bridge, the heat was soaring and Brent’s helmet was hot enough to fry eggs on it. A few miles short of the summit, he had his “Captain Oates moment”.
Off he came from the bike and started to trudge into the distance. He could easily have uttered those famously tragic words from the historic Scott of the Antarctic trip when right-hand man, Oates, sensing the futility of it all, walked into the arctic wilderness to his death with the words “I am just going outside and may be some time”.
It had been a very long day and we were in need of some rest and recuperation and not, in Brent and Rick’s case, lodgings under a joiners shop. Located in a stable block in the centre of Ripon, they had drawn the short straw and an early morning call courtesy of a chain saw.
At this point I had begun to suffer from nappy rash as my rotting gear took hold. I was grateful for the range of creams available from my elders. It was almost like having a mobile Boots.
Scooby Doo!
The courtyards had two giant patrolling – “harmless!” – dogs: Scooby Doo Snr and Scooby Doo Jnr. Resting on the bed waiting for the creams to take effect I thought I was hallucinating as Scooby Do Snr popped his drooling head in the door. When JB came out of the bathroom he took one look and promptly locked himself back in.
Mercifully the rest of the trip was as flat as the map but as we mounted for the final 44 miles and a train in Bridlington, our directional senses failed us – again – adding almost 20 miles to the day.
On the outskirts of Driffield, we laboured past an elderly gent, cycling gently. First he us caught up and then passed as Brent was heard to utter “that just about sums it up!”
The Rules
We made it just in time for the heavens to open and a mad dash to the train station. Tired, sweaty and hungry the last thing any of us needed now was a ticket office employee clearly with a remit of hacking off all who came before him.
“Four tickets for the Leeds train please” said JB, cap perched sideways and a sun block mark going from ear to ear like an Apache brave.
“Ah!!! I see you’ve got four bikes” he said “We can only get two on the train… it is the rules y’know… and there’s eight bikes already in the station…I’ve counted them!”
“So what’s the problem?” asked JB, amazingly patient for a volatile, little man.
“Well we can only get two on the train… it is the rules y’know.”
“Well just sell us the tickets and we’ll sort it” said JB now beginning to tick.
“No can do” he tutted “if you don’t get on I can’t give you a refund… it is the rules y’know.”
“So we have to wait till we get on in twos? What if that’s midnight?”
“Company policy… the rules….”
JB appeared prepared to launch himself head first through the plate glass.
We were tired, smelly and hungry and getting nowhere with the idiot. So we ignored him and got on the train ably assisted by the guard and driver who clearly had a refreshing approach to Company Policy by simply ignoring it.
It was all over until the next time and no doubt in my mind that these were three of the best weeks of my life.
Again?
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