New Boot & Panties

Sat in the mid-morning sunshine armed with a mug of hot tea, I am feeling righteous. The bike wheels have been trued and came back yesterday, so I have spent the entire morning (so far) stripping the rear cassette (the wee group of cogs that sit on the rear back wheel), cleaning them, then re-assembling them. I’ve also mounted new tyres on both wheels. Tidy. The tyres are knobbly Continentals.  Shelling out fifty quid for the 2 tyres, I reasoned that they will provide me with better traction than the old ones at the forthcoming cyclocross in Irvine in bonny Ayrshire. Truth be told, if I had reduced the pressure from 40psi to about 20psi last time around at Herrington, I might not have had to be so tentative at the tricky bits during the race and probably wouldn’t have needed to splash the cash. Let's not talk about the new mountain bike shoes, but you’ll agree that they will give me a further edge across the sandy beach course. I think I counted a field of 100 over 50’s when last I looked at the British Cycling entry list, so I won’t be alone, one way or another. There could be some horrible congestion, though.

I used to spend hours riding and cleaning my bike when I was an eager young chap back in the eighties when the world was full of possibilities, and, as Scott Fitzgerald once wrote ‘don’t go out unless you’re doing at least 20 miles’. This was later confirmed when Duncan McHardy (RIP), erstwhile part time coach in Dundee said ‘less than 2 hours on the bike is a waste of time’. Times were hard. Standards were high. I used to think that I could ride with the best of them (well, at least in training). Might just be selective amnesia. My VO2 max has slumped like Bitcoin since then and my heart rate can only daydream about what it used to do, but I’m grateful that I can still go out and enjoy a good beasting, whether it be a run or a ride. 

Getting new tyres on wheel rims is a right faff. They’re too tight and it takes technique not to nip the rubber tube. It is a technique that I do not possess. It’s no wonder that the kids send their bikes to the local shop for any little thing. I paid twenty quid for the wheels to be straightened and most probably I could have done it myself, if I’d watched a youtube clip or three. My mother used to get exasperated when she’d find my polishing my spokes in the hall with silvo or bathing my nuts and washers in turps on the kitchen floor. Nutbath city limits. I am slowly rediscovering my old love of the bike and just need to complete negotiations with Mrs Mac as to where in the house they can reside. There is something atavistic about men and their ‘little collections’. I am not very patient when it comes to hoarders, but I concede that I have a blind spot for my own transgressions. There's been more than one visitor to the house who was agog at the bikes all over the place. I should add that they’re not all mine. The garage is too damp for the lovies, and who wants to over-winter with the mice or leggy spiders and listen to that tumble dryer doing its best to destroy the planet. I would really like them (the bikes, not the mice) in a room downstairs. A shed might be an idea, but the garden’s not that big and we might lose the onions Mrs mac has recently planted. So, for the time being, they are a persistent fixture at chez al.  

Moving on to running, I managed to improve my placing at last Saturdays Lambton Cross Country and nearly managed to breach the top 100. As I flogged my way with 450 other runners around 3 laps of a country park near Washington, I mused that this time of year is (without fear of contradiction), my nearly favourite time of the year to run. The autumnal colours are stunning. Running in the snow cannot be beaten though. My mileage is already up to 32m this week so I better reign it in. Its Kirkcaldy tomorrow for the 4k. Wish me luck. I’ll have the cleanest sprockets on the course! 

Postscript: 'I now read that selective amnesia may be a sign of impending memory loss. Ironically this research was published by University College, Irvine, but not the Ayrshire Irvine!' Who said that?