My mate Gavin of the ace new ‘Rather Be Cycling’ holiday company (swooshy man logo courtesy of yours truly) had the pleasure of getting muddy on the cobbled roads of hell the other week. More than that, he did it in the company of a bloke called Bernard (plus a bunch of journalists). That’s him in the photo - third in line getting gapped by my mate in the grotty blue anorak. They used to call him ‘The Badger’ you know (that’s Bernard, not Gavin) and, oh yes, he won the Tour De France five times...
There is a nice wee article about the ride by magazine editor Guy Andrews on the Rouleur blog, although Gav’s yet to be published version sneaks it for me, if only for his mention of seeing Dickie Davies introduce a few minutes of the muddy glory of Paris Roubaix back in the early ‘80s. It is something I remember seeing too, though I admit it did not inspire me to go searching out muddy tracks in Ayrshire on which to train, as it did Gav. He admitted to me this week that he had discovered a stretch of cobbles out behind Prestwick airport on which he trained incessantly and which he kept secret from everyone else. I think it’s safe to say that if he had shared the info with me in 1984 I would have thanked him politely and stayed as far away as possible, not wanting to risk getting my La Vie Claire jersey muddied. Yes, I always was a bit of a wimp.
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March 05, 2011
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To a non-cyclist this raises the question: how do you decide what is a pleasant cycling experience and what is undesirable? After all you yourself have undertaken extreme cycling experiences that to many of us would simply be excruciating.
Posted by: joe | March 05, 2011 at 20:22