Huw's winter blog 5: Cyclists and drinking.

[huw williams]

Cyclists and drinking. Now there are two things, which fit as snugly together as puppies in front of an open fire. Alan Peiper’s recent revelations that certain members of the Davitomon team would regularly drink half a bottle of wine plus two or three pints of beer during dinner in the middle of Le Tour was perhaps a little surprising, or then again maybe not considering they’re lack of success (I’m not including Rob Mac here of course but he’s Australian and they’re always drunk anyway).

To us mere mortals only dreaming of success in domestic ‘fish and chiper’ races, drinking is a vital part of the territory it seems. Any number of good riders I know celebrate wins or good performances with beer and wine and there’s nothing better than a few cold ones in the evening after you’ve completed a massive ride during the day.

If you sometimes feel guilty about imbibing of the odd glass or two during a hard period of training or race preperation you can rest assured that right to the top level, cyclists everywhere are right there with you getting drunk. Especially time trialists.

Addiscombe CCs history is littered with stories of drunken revelry (especially whilst on Majorcan soil) and more domestically there is the immortal tale of one now illustrious tester who, following the first of the now legendary ACC Thursday social nights in South Croydon, never made it home until well into Friday evening. He shall remain nameless but not shameless and suffice to say he’s not been seen near a bottle of lager since.

Testers take heart that even the mighty Michael Hutchinson is no shrinking violet when it comes to sampling the grain. Monday last, in celebration of a colleague’s birthday, a small but eager group of devout cycling pilgrims headed south east from the Cycling Weekly offices and washed up in Beer Circus, there to be met some hours later by the good Dr Hutch, who despite having already been drinking all day with a bishop of his acquaintance, was in no mood for going home with the job half done. The great man set quickly about the task in hand (namely getting as out of order as the rest of us in a short period of time) and revealed a talent for drinking to rival that of his unimpeachable time-trialling skills. In short he quickly dropped the rest of us, effortlessly opened up a huge gap, which he held to the line whilst all the while making the thing look entirely effortless.

I’m not sure whether to put this seemingly natural aptitude down to the fact that a) he’s Irish or b) he’s had loads of practice. Probably a bit of both. Anyway before the evening’s end he’d readily agreed to join us on the forthcoming ‘coastal clog’ (a totally meaningless 100 mile ride in the worst January conditions imaginable which we do every year) and also to play the saxophone solo on our band’s version of ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’ at an upcoming gig. The logic behind the latter being that Hutch is Irish and so were Thin Lizzy, making him the natural choice. Musical ability or interest in the task didn’t really come into it.

All of this got me to thinking about some of the things I’ve heard cyclists do when getting drunk after big rides. Doubtless you’ve all experienced your own instances of this and maybe you want to share them with us here. One of my own experiences was the only time I’ve ever been drunk and actually attempted to drive a car (though at the time I was convinced it wasn’t actually driving). Let me explain.

After a mountain bike race at high altitude in California’s Mammoth Mountain I was in no condition to do anything other than go to sleep. The base camp at Mammoth is 10,000ft above sea level and the race went way higher than that above the tree line and into the snow (despite the fact that it was June). Anyway racing at high altitude does weird things to your body and mind and I was exhausted. Trouble is our two pro riders on the day Caroline Alexander and Gary Foord had had an amazing day, getting 2nd and 1st respectively in the Elite world cup race that followed our humble event. That was the equivalent of Nicole Cooke and Roger Hammond getting 1st and 2nd in a spring classic, on the road in the same day. Naturally the British camp was exulted and we hit the bars around town in celebration. Foord did the honourable thing and got pissed on about two pints and went home crying. Alexander, being a Barrow-In-Furness gal is made of much sterner stuff, and we drank heartily until about mid evening with things started to get wobbly. Inevitably I suggested driving back to our hotel down the mountain because instances of attack by bears in that area, is fairly common. “You’re drunk” she said “I’m walking,” and, wisely she did. I took umbrage, decided that bears wouldn’t find much meat on a world-class, female cross-country racer and would probably leave her alone so she was safe and I’d show her that I was perfectly capable of driving back down the mountain.

Now I’ve never driven a car after drinking before and was clearly in no condition to do so here. Also, in California, if you’re convicted they not only lock you up and throw away the key; they hang you, then lock you up and throw away the key. So, sitting behind the wheel in the car park a kind of skewed logic came over me and I figured that if I didn’t start the engine I wasn’t technically ‘driving’. And there’d be no lights on and stuff, a kind of ‘stealth mode.’ The hotel was about 2 miles away, all downhill, easily freewheelable.

So I eased off the handbrake and inched toward the road. Modern cars don’t like being freewheeled, engine off of course and this one reminded me of that fact at the bend out of the car park which it refused to go around without the aid of power assisted steering. Power assisted brakes might also have allowed me to prevent it rolling gently into the trees, but alas these too were non operational in ‘stealth’ mode. That’s my entire lifetime experience of drinking and driving, I’d gone about 20 feet and crashed at 5mph. The hire car company were very understanding.

The reason for this madness of course is that after a hard days riding, all your natural bodily fluids and salts need replacing. But they don’t want to be replaced by pure alcohol, that’s what recovery drinks are for. But after an epic race or ride you naturally want to celebrate. After the Etape Du Dales in 2005 I got so drunk on a meagre amount of alcohol that I woke up naked, face down on the hotel bed next morning with the door to the room wide open, trying desperately to convince myself that the sore backside I was experiencing was due to the 110 hard miles in the saddle the day before!!!

So there you go, drinking and riding. Its not big, it’s not clever but hell, we do it anyway.

[Toks]

[quote]After the Etape Du Dales in 2005 I got so drunk on a meagre amount of alcohol that I woke up naked, face down on the hotel bed next morning with the door to the room wide open, trying desperately to convince myself that the sore backside I was experiencing was due to the 110 hard miles in the saddle the day before!!!

[Jim B]

Chapeau!!!
Big LOL.
Stirred up some memories I was hoping to bury of drinking and riding.
I have vague memories of watching Brazil play Scotland when I used to live in Holland. It was an early kickoff so myself and a Scottish friend got started early and things gradually went downhill. I recall my friend getting a fellow jock in a headlock as he was wearing a NZ rugby shirt and I decided it was time to leave. We all rode sit up and beg bikes, so I tucked my trousers into my socks and set off for home. Riding across the park I went over a footbridge and lost all momentum going up the other side, wobbled and fell head first into a ditch. At this point, I was so tired I just lay there with the bike still between my legs. Some joggers eventually came past and rescued me, probably thinking I'd had a heart attack or something.
They lifted me up and I tried to explain what happened mentioning football and Scotland.
I still feel a sense of guilt for Scottish people as I'm sure that these Dutch joggers assumed they'd found a Scottish drunk unconscious in a ditch in their park.
Sorry guys.