My Third Week as a Budding Author

Last week was all about dentists, planning, being forgotten by your old workmates and the occasional bit of productivity towards the creation of my book. This week I actually got on and did something relevant, I rode my bike. In fact “rode my bike” is an understatement to be fair seeing as I’ve covered over 175 miles in the past five days.

I spent Sunday wrestling with the winter bike in the garage. As per usual, my preparation was poor and the day before a big ride I decided to swap all of the Shimano components for Campagnolo ones. For any non-cyclists reading this a non-technical explanation is that I am a complete tart and for no sensible reason other than vanity I had decided that my bike should sport trendy Italian components rather than bog standard Japanese ones that actually work.

Sunday did not go well though, after spending most of the day carefully routing and trimming cables followed by text book handlebar tape wrapping I decided to test the gears. And then I discovered that they didn’t work due to the fact that the shifters I’d lifted from an older bike were, to put it frankly, fecked.

Helen and the neighbours decided that this would be the optimum moment to enquire whether I would be interested in going for a walk with them around a lake. In hindsight “No I f****g wouldn’t” was probably not the politest response. I guess it will be slim pickings in my Christmas stocking this year.

Anyhow, I have more than one bike so Monday saw me head out for 75 miles of Wiltshire’s finest on my swanky expensive summer race bike. A very wise decision given that it was pissing it down and freezing cold. I rode off armed with a dictaphone and compact camera and quiet enjoyed the luxury of stopping every few miles to waffle on about the scenery and take rubbish pictures. It made a refreshing change from the usual frantic training rides that I undertake where I am glued to the GPS screen over-analysing average speeds and heart rates. The dictaphone will certainly prove to be a useful tool, as long as I can learn to actually say something useful into it. One of the comments I pla yed back later was “Remember to write something about the interesting tree”, which would be great, if I could recall where the tree was, and what was so interesting about it. I’ve clearly got a lot to learn.

The day was punctuated by punctures (please clap) clearly down to the racing tyres on the bike and pointed out to me by several golfers when I stopped to fix one at North Wilts golf club. I diplomatically bantered away with these fine, fat, old and tweed ridden fellows but mentally recited to myself that “golf is a good walk ruined”, Mark Twain would have been proud of me. I rolled in the door an hour before dark, knackered but with half a chapter in the bag.

Tuesday was more of the same, apart from the glorious sunshine that greeted me as I left the house and stayed with me for most of the day. I had a beautiful ride on traffic free roads and was starting to eulogise in my fortune at this being my working day, until my knee stepped in and ruined it. I’ve been suffering with knee pain for several months and thought I had cleared it, but after twenty miles it was announcing itself loud and clear through the layers of lycra.

Bugger.

I soldiered on and a few miles later it began to fade leaving me to concentrate upon the task in hand, namely completing another 75 mile ride. This went reasonably well, apart from a further three punctures and a poor feeding strategy. With twenty miles to go I was flipping starving and had nothing left in the jersey pocket. I’d forgotten to compensate for the previous day’s riding by taking more food and caught myself eyeing up roadkill as calorific potential. Nevertheless after 78 miles I fell in the front door and feasted on flap jack, a productive two days and enough material for an entire chapter.

Here’s a flavour of the rides on video.

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Wednesday and Thursday were photography days. Wednesday spent learning about it and Thursday driving round the place and actually doing loads of it. To be frank the results are pretty crap and will not make it into the book for the following reasons:-

• There are no cyclists in the photos which is not a great strategy for a book on cycling
• Thursday was a day of clear skies and blazing sunshine, not the best light for capturing the sparse rolling hills of Wiltshire
• I’m a bit crap at it and have lots to learn
• I was distracted by the two overturned cars I came across first thing in the morning

In fact the first overturned car had a woman next to it. I stopped and walked over to her carefully enquiring if she was ok?

“Yep, I’m fine” she quipped casually as if nothing had happened and then updated her Facebook status. There’s some tough old bints in this world I’ll tell you, I’d have been a quivering wreck if I’d just totaled by ’10 plate Feista into a ditch. She seemed to be acting as if this happened every day. Maybe it does, if so I’d advise others to avoid Hackpen hill at 8.30am in the future.

I did take one photo that I quite like. It’s a corny sunset I’m afraid.

Friday was a writing day, and that’s what I’ve done. I’m knocking on the door of 10,000 words already and will soon offer some over to my family for peer review. My 13 year old son, Jake, asked “Can we be honest when we feedback?”. I’m dreading this.

Dave

21st January 2011

WEEK FOUR>>>>>