Sunday post

8/2/12

As snow stops cycle play again, Lesley and I meet in town for all essential caffeine and scheming. The latest wheeze is to combine an U12s rugby match at Harlequins with a visit to the Bike Show at Sandown Park followed by an attempt to cycle most of the way home. Sounds simple superficially but there are also the thorny issues of making it to first base and avoiding any form of train travel on a Sunday. More schemes and stratagems needed but we will get there.

Suitably fortified with coffee, we head to the bike shop. This is one of many environments in which I am totally out of my depth. At lunch times the place is haunted by skeletal chaps who delight in spending their hard –earned break time ogling bikes and bits of bikes that cost more than my pension fund will earn in a lifetime. Sometimes they cluster in corners for earnest discussions about sprockets and three spoke wheels but mostly they are a solitary breed. They regard obvious novices with great suspicion.

When I first bought my beautiful and beloved bike I figured I had two options:

1.Try and look like I know what I am talking about in a vain attempt at being cool or

2. Be natural i.e. ignorant and unashamed of that ignorance.

As option 1 crashed and burned before I even set foot in the shop ( I arrived by car) I chose the wiser option 2. So henceforth I go straight to the counter, explain in very basic terms what I need and hope for the best. There is always a fleeting look of despair in the assistant’s eyes but then they do try their best to translate my lame request into proper bike vernacular and hunt down the required item. By this time I feel well and truly smaller than my shoe size. However, today I made progress. I felt a small glow of pride when I managed to utter a relevant question about alun keys in relation to my new semi-nerdy shoes – more of which later. Even the assistant cracked a wry smile.

Of course there is no point having nerdy shoes unless one has scary “pedals” to go with them. I put pedals in inverted commas because they bear as much resemblance to a normal pedal as a domestic cat bears to a cheetah. Boy are they lean and I suspect rather mean when I forget to disengage. We agreed that it would be best for their tension to be at the minimum level to start with. Mine,of course, will be ratcheted up to the maximum whenever I use the new set up.

A couple of disguised proper cyclists ( they were in normal clothes) asked me about my decision to switch to grown up gear. When I explained about our proposed trip they did manage not to laugh and suggested pre race fun and games like sprinting down the Mulsanne straight. Let’s just get there first is my view.

So home james with my new toys. I will let them sit on the kitchen top to acclimatise to their new surroundings before I attempt to launch forth in to the Norfolk countryside.
Wimp , Moi? Oui!