I’ve certainly seen a fair but more of this fair city recently. You see February was Bike Auckland Challenge month in which like minded souls tried to convince those less minded to get out on two wheels and roll out those miles. Or in the case of New Zealand, kilometres. And kilometres means points. And naturally points add up to a team score and at the end of the month the points are tallied and the team with the most points wins. Or at least that’s the theory.
It’s all of course friendly and non-competitive . Except it’s not. I know you will find this hard to believe, but I became a little bit obsessed. Not too much, just a healthy obsession. So it became routine each morning to log on and scrutinise the points table and wondering how on earth an obscure team had a managed to jump above us in the table. I mean, they weren’t even close yesterday. Had they been riding overnight? Heck, they weren’t even engineers! How was it even possible? Maybe someone in our team wasn’t pulling their weight. Yes that must be it! Slackers. Who was it? Hang on a minute, that team there has ringers in it. How could an employee have done 180km in one day? Who were they - Chris Froome? Let’s check their Strava account..... hey, they’re not even based in Auckland. That’s not on. Deep breath..... Better have a cup of tea and a lie down. Wait, I’m already in bed. Phew that was a close shave.
And so on it went, throughout February.
As it turns out, it was really good timing for me - I picked up an injury in December that prevented me from partaking in my normal running routine. Actually I’m not being entirely honest there - I didn’t pick up an injury as such. Rather I ignored an ache in my foot, figuring that it would go away. After all isn’t the best course of action for an injury to keep doing the thing that probably caused it in the first place! Exactly.
To cut a long story short, a niggle in December became an ache in January, and eventually an ache became a pain. Pretty soon no amount of Neurofen was enough to mask the searing pain I felt whenever I put my foot down on the ground. Which as it turns out is quite a lot. Who knew?
So I was told to rest up. And this time I knew my physio meant it. Not like the last time when I assumed when my physio said stop running for a few weeks they actually meant run less.... for a day or two.
Thankfully cycling wasn’t ruled out...or at least they didn’t tell me that it was. But then again I didn’t ask - it’s a lot easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Boy does cycling take up a lot of time. Whereas a short 5k run can give you a quick and vital fitness top-up in less than thirty minutes, you have to comitt a full hour or so on two wheels to get the same benefit.
And it’s not just that. Whereas a run is a great time to switch off and put things into perspective, try that in a bike in a city and you’ll soon be swapping switching off for checking out. Sheesh car drivers are ignorant. On the plus side, it really helps develop a kind of sixth sense and just trying to figure out what on earth is going to happen next becomes all encompassing. Where a gentle roll down a hill should be a time to relax and take in the scenery, instead it’s a tense time. As the speed picks up, so does the risk of something unforeseen happening.
Take just last week. I was travelling down Onehunga Mall at a relatively relaxed pace, eyes scanning the road head, and well away from the parked cars with doors that suddenly open. One risk avoided. A cross roads intersection was next. A van and car were waiting patiently on each of the side roads to let me pass..... except ahhh no. The driver of the white car decided that I wasn’t really there and proceeded to cross the intersection. Right in front of me. It all happened it slow motion, even though it was anything but. Travelling at 40kph in shorts and a thin top through traffic really does focus ones attention. The sudden emergence of a car into my path was a problem.....
There is a temptation to overstate the danger, especially when it’s a shock such as this, but I knew it was bad because the driver of the van put his hands to his eyes and mouthed fu....well you can imagine. There was nothing else for it. I slammed the brakes on....
At this point it’s worth mentioning that road bike brakes are, well, piss poor. Or at least they are unless you have disc brakes fitted. Which I didn’t. And the thin and large wheels don’t make for great manoeuvrabilityx So I slid sideways. Thankfully my years of mountain biking, and before that BMX, has given me reasonable bike handling skills. I used the skid to my advantage and slid behind the car as it crossed my lane and went on it’s way, the driver oblivious to the distress and potential death they had nearly caused. Meanwhile, the guy in the van dropped his hands and I like to think watched in awe as I skilfully averted the distater.
Close shaves aside, I've actually grow to like cycling again and get a kick out of planning just where I’ll ride next and how far. And I’m getting better. Where once 20km was a typical distance, I’m regularly knocking out 80km. I’m not particularly fast but you don’t get points for speed. Far is better than fast in Bike Auckland Challenge month. And even if speed points were up for grabs, why rush? Auckland is such a beautiful place to roll around. And besides, there’s always next month to pick up the pace.....
Dear me Graeme
ReplyDelete