Huw's winter blog 3: Cycling - a pain in the a...

[huw williams]

Word from the back pages reaches us this week with claims that the latest ‘affliction’ ruining the lives of young, professional footballers (bless ‘em) is internet porn addiction. Apparently, training over for the day, our future Alan Shearers and Gary Lineakers have so much spare money and time on their hands they don’t know what to do with it. So instead of filling their time wisely by bettering themselves with education, they log on to internet porn sites and, well you can imagine what happens next.

To quote one premiership striker who obviously wouldn’t give his name “I log on, start surfing the porn sites and the next thing I know its three-o-clock in the morning, and I’ve got to get up at seven for training.”

Of course many people have always thought that footballers are a bunch of overpaid w****rs so I guess this just confirms it in a very literal sense.

Pro-cyclists don’t have this problem. After training sessions or stage races they’re generally too saddle-sore to even think about any activity in that area. Imagine what three weeks of riding over 100 miles a day, in the hills, at pro race pace must do to your undercarriage.

After this weekend I have some sympathy, and I was only riding for an hour. Here’s what happened…

Following a hard week on the bike I couldn’t face the club run so wanted to do a steady, solo one-hour ride to recover. Riding the fixed gear bike on non-hilly terrain is perfect for this sort of thing so I rode south to Redhill at a pace best described as ‘conservative.’ All was going swimmingly, it was warm and I waved to a few club members coming the other way, no-doubt returning from the club run.

Suddenly, over the top of the Merstham drag, the serenity was shattered by a man dressed like a Liquorice Allsort who stormed past at 28mph. It was Toks, and he was still foaming at the mouth and spitting blood after what had evidently been a tasty workout with the club’s training group.

What I should have done is let him go, but his gravitational pull was so great that it swept me into his slipstream and that was my pleasant Saturday over at a stroke. Now, 28mph down the hill towards CSS on my regular bike and I’ve got the paper out, cigar in hand, enjoying the ride. 28mph on a moderately geared fixed entails a cadence in excess of 130rpm. A cadence of around 115 and I’m working like hell but at least sitting in the saddle, anything around 120 and I’m crazily bouncing around on the saddle as my feet try to keep up with the pedals. With that kind of leg speed your heart rate soon goes way above threshold even though you don't feel like your pushing against anything.

Priceless training this may be but its absolute bloody murder. After 15 minutes of this torture Toks waved his farewells and turned left at Purley, leaving me to nurse a bruised and battered backside back to Croydon.

Now I know what Graham Norton must feel like after the Royal Navy Christmas Ball every year. For an hour I could barely sit down, and lowering myself into what should have been a relaxing hot bath was akin to shoving a red hot poker up… well, let’s not go there shall we? The rest of the day had to be very delicately planned out in terms of what I could actually sit on so eventually I just gave up and lay on the sofa. On Sunday’s ride every bump, no every single piece of gravel, brought stinging retribution for my previous day’s stupidity.

Footballers addicted to porn websites? They’ve got it easy I reckon.

[Toks]

[quote]Suddenly, over the top of the Merstham drag, the serenity was shattered by a man dressed like a Liquorice Allsort who stormed past at 28mph.

[Andrew G]

Saw this and thought of Huw... (from [url=http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=4474]Pez[/url])
[quote]One of the best things you can add to your fixed gear bike is a road version of the Rock Shox seat posts (aka - prostate saver).

[Dr Frigo]

You should try singlespeed racing off-road Huw!
My singlespeed is the only bike on which I don't use a hard shell carbon saddle, for that very same reason - instead I have a near-400gm Bontrager anchor.
Although after two days of mostly dowhnilling in Alpe d'Huez with the hard saddle, I must've trapped a nerve between the right sit-bone and the saddle. Ouch.
As a result I couldn't get near a hard saddle for more than two weeks, and had to fit the Bontrager on my commuting bike!

[siwickm]

Hey, my only concern here is why was Toks going so slowly, 28mph is a bit wimpish on that piece of road, are you into winter training mode already Toks?

Cheers

Marek.....