TdF Preview

In lieu of any actual knowledge, facts or insider information, our overexcited heroine hands the cyclist a couple of painkillers and a Rum and Coke and asks him what's going to happen...


*Disclaimer - Other views are available, and possibly more valid than any expressed here.


Oh God I'm so excited.  Like I've regressed to being 8 and tomorrow's my birthday.  The TdF starts tomorrow! and Bradley Wiggins is going to win the winner! and a nation will rejoice! and there will be dancing in the streets! etc.

I really am very excited.  And I really do think Mr Wiggins is going to win the shit out of this.  And that is something I personally cannot wait to see.  A little vindication of my support, a tiny fragment of historic sporting victory I can share in my front room.  I've never invested any of myself in a sporting event or an athlete before, and a little part is the thrill of the anticipation of the event itself.

I guess I'm extremely lucky.  My growing interest in the sport coincides with a time where the British riders are a dominant force.  The British World Champion will contest the sprints.  The firm favourite being talked up to win the Yellow Jersey is British.  And it is highly expected that having returned victorious from the Tour, these two will, with the support of others, reign supreme at the Olympics on the road whilst their compatriots wipe the floor with all comers on the track.

I've always been a huge fan of Brad.  I love his bone dry sense of humour, his self depreciation.  It makes me laugh and reminds me of the cyclist sat next to me with his arm in a sling.  And I have nothing but respect for his abilities and achievements on a bike.  I want him to win.  I want him to win sooooo bad.  But that's not to say I don't love Cadel - I do.  And I am looking forward to these two gritty determined tough men going head to head in three weeks across France, without the distractions of Bert and Ernie Andy, neither of whom I've ever had much time for.

It's hard to deny this year's course suits Wiggins, what with the sheer quantity of TT kilometres.  And it seems to me that ASO are trying to mix the parcours up year on year.  Presumably this is another little slice of the Lance Legacy - a concerted effort to switch the courses to suit different types of riders in an effort not to let one rider garner win upon win, and run the risk that they too in time become bigger than the sport.  If this is their aim then it is one that I applaud.  There are too many risks to the brand of the 'Tour de France', too many questions automatically raised by multiple wins.

So now I've expressed my opinions, here's the interview I conducted with the cyclist after 2 prescription strength painkillers and a couple of Rum and Cokes, in full.

Can Wiggins win this?
'Wiggins will win this by at least 3 minutes.  Sky are going to boss the shit out of this, dominant to the point where people will start saying they ruined it.  He could've won last year had he not crashed.'
Can they (Sky) win both jerseys?
'No.'
Will they try?
'No. They're sending Cav home early for the Olympics.  He's going for stage wins; my prediction - 3.  The Green Jersey is not his focus for the season like it was last year.  I'm sure he'd love another, but he wants the Olympic title more.'
Is Cadel a contender?
'He might podium, but he doesn't seem to have the edge he had last year, the edge that Wiggins has now.'
But has Brad peaked too soon?
'Don't be fooled.  Just because he's so dominant and taking big wins doesn't mean he's peaked, it's just the level he's at.  Another's 100% is his 95%.  Cadel is secretly shitting his pants.'
Who's going to win Green?
'Sagan.  He's clearly a fantastic rider, but he needs to learn how to conduct himself a little more professionally, he's in danger of stepping on toes.  He needs to learn which battles to fight, he's taking the mick rather than making his mark.  There's a lot of hype, and he's an awesome rider but he could quickly get too big for his boots.  He needs to mix it with the big boys and show what he's got.'
And the Mountains?
'Samuel Sanchez. He'll win with consistency rather than fireworks.'
Talk to me about the other contenders.  Frank Schleck?  Vincenzo Nibali?
'Both could top 5 and win stages, but neither can force an upset on GC.  Even if they do manage to take some time out of Wiggins on the big climbs, which is going to be a big ask given the team support Wiggins has, Brad will more than make this up on the time trials.  The time trials will be decisive.'
Do Team Sky have a plan B?
'To win it, no.  I'm sure there are various plan B's in the event of a crash like last year; I expect they'd ride for stages and possibly the Mountains Classification for Froome.'




So there you have it.  The cyclist has spoken and you all heard it.

101 uses for an injured cyclist - Part 1

In which our heroine compiles a by no means exhaustative list of all the things that she can think of that can be done with a damaged cyclist... 


Always wishing to remain positive, I have been thinking about ways in which the cyclist can be used, during his hiatus as it were from being a cyclist.  Part one examines the 50 things I thought of to do with the cyclist during the first phase of injury, where he's pretty much incapacitated.

1. Firstly, and most importantly, INFO.  An incapacitated cyclist is a veritable goldmine of material for an unsympathetic blog written by his sarky wife.
2. Backseat driver.  The cyclist is not currently able to drive.  Since he had his crash I have learnt that I drive too slowly on motorways and too fast in carparks and round roundabouts.  I am of course, ridiculously grateful for this sage advice.
3. Being tall.  Even damaged, the cyclist is well over 6 foot and his good arm is still fine for getting things off high shelves.
4. Human dustbin.  The cyclist will happily eat anything not nailed down.
5. Test subject for Junior Doctors.  He will selflessly allow himself to be practised on, provided they are pretty.
6. Great source of prescription medication.  Hopefully he'll get some of the really good stuff after Wednesday, which like any good and caring wife I will swap out for paracetamol and sell outside the Co-Op.  I'd hate for him to develop an addiction.
7. Source of spare parts if all else fails.  Broken down into individual organs and sold on the black market the cyclist could be a fantastic extra income generator, and I would sell his kidneys to a Chinese businessman soon as look at him.  There's an incentive to heal fast if ever I heard one.
8. Smuggler.  The sling is pretty roomy, I could definitely get a half bottle of vodka into a wedding reception hidden in that at the very least.
9. Expert wearer of sweatpants.  He is rocking them like a bad boy.
10. Sofa warmer, and...
11. Cat bed. The cyclist is proving an excellent sleeping place for little Miguel...
12. ...And cat toy.  He can't move quickly, so the cat is able to attempt to remove his toes, when he's not being a...
13. ...Cat ladder.  Claws out, straight up the leg.  Often accompanied by 'Argh! You little BASTARD!'  Hilarious.
14. Research assistant.  He is currently occupied with finding me a bike.  After much to-ing and fro-ing he's beginning to grasp just how big an issue colour is.  I want the one with the gold bits.
15. List maker.  He is busy compiling all the information he is soaking up into various lists - what he wants, what he needs, what he'd get with a lottery win, etc.
16. TV watcher. We are finally getting to watch some of the stuff we've always meant to and never got around to seeing.  The accident has happened at that quiet time before the Tour de France, when there's great swathes of Nothing On evening after evening (not interested in the footy in the slightest I'm afraid), so all that stuff on the Sky+, our Netflix and latest acquisition, the Apple TV is finally getting an airing.  Sadly though, he is becoming a...
17. ...TV critic.  Because watching Jersey and/or Geordie Shore with someone saying 'This is shit' every thirty seconds adds infinitely to the viewing experience.
18. MTV expert.  The MTV music channels (not the crap teen mom documentaries) are the cyclists default background TV channels of choice...
19. ...And he could probably write a thesis on Katy Perry videos.  Or Shakira ones.
20. And I bet he'd make a great name for an Indie Band - The Fractured Ribs, Plated Collarbone etc.
21. Celebrity gossip fount of all knowledge. I have a terrible secret, I am utterly addicted to celebrity gossip magazines, and the lower rent the celebrity the better.  Who cares about Kerry Katona's lipo? Oh god, I DO.  The cyclist has full access to this library of shame and with time on his hands is eating it up.
22. Bike magazine reader.  When the latest inside scoop of the world of Peter Andre gets too much for him, which is often, the cyclist will slam down the gossip rag with a 'How can you bear this SHIT?!' and soothe his soul with the tech section of Cycling Weekly (or any other of the thousands of bike mags stacked in the corner)...
23. ...And when he runs out of Tech in the mags, there's the BikeRumor website, of which he becoming a leading authority.
24. Coffee drinker.  Gallons of the stuff.  Which leads to..
25. ...Leaver of mugs in interesting places.  Keeps me on my toes.  TBH he does this even when not injured, but now he has a brilliant excuse. 'I have HURT my ARM and I CANNOT be expected to bring that mug back DOWNSTAIRS'
26. Human shield (1).  Much like the moon, he can be used to mop up meteors, comets and space debris.
27. Human shield (2).  In the event of an axe-murderer attack or zombie apocalypse it's every man for themselves - well he's already injured and slow isn't he, it would be a kindness.
28. Supplier of the Switch Card.  I've had possession of the cyclists debit card since his accident and have no intention of giving it back.  I think he's forgotton anyway.
29. Patsy.  Much like 'blame the dog', 'blame the cyclist' is good for those otherwise inexplicable little odours.  Which is fair and just because he is also...
30. ...Resident evil.  The other reason we require febreeze. 
31. Hanger.  With his arm permanently in the 90o position supported by his sling, he is a quick and easy hanging point for your handbag.
32. Good excuse for not going to work.  Dropping him off and picking him up at appointments etc. has kept me off work for a good few days.
33. Anatomy instruction for an interested 7-year-old.  Who is fascinated with the X-rays and now knows what a clavicle is.
34. Other educational practice subject, for example Mummification.  Although informative and instructional for the kids, the cyclist got a bit pissed off when it came down to the brain through the nose with a crochet needle part.
35. Martial Arts practice dummy.  Especially good for roundhouse kicks.
36. Daddy Cool.  The kids are loving having daddy about a bit more, daddy is so much cooler and more fun than boring old mummy.
37. Dance show audience - Bella has put on several 'Ballet Shows' for poor bored daddy, and he is an appreciative and engaged audience who only fell asleep once.
38. MarioKart VS companion. Plus he gets to win at something, which makes him feel better.
39. Practice face for makeup.  Experimenting with the current fashion for fake eyelashes?  This seasons hot pink lip?  Need a bit of application practice?  Grab yourself an injured cyclist and it's like having the Girl's World 1989 mannequin head thing all over again.
40. There are several practical applications for an injured cyclist.  Examples would be: Floatation device, in the event of flash floods etc, like the small red ones they had in Baywatch, except bigger and more likely to be in an arse about the situation...
41. ...Voodoo doll - I could stick pins in him...
42. ...Pincushion - I could stick pins in him...
43. ...Acupuncture practice model - I could stick pins in him...
44. ...Dressmakers dummy - I could stick pins in him...
45. ...Draught excluder...
46. ...Doorstop...
47. ...Paperweight...
48. Art installation.  That miserable looking fella in the sweatpants on the sofa with his arm in a sling, a small kid climbing on him and a cat trying to rip his toes off? 'S ART, innit? 
49. Holder of things.  As long as they are things that only need to be held in one hand.
50. Keeper of unconsidered trifles.  And profiteroles.  And cheesecakes.

Part 2 will look at things you can do with an injured cyclist once the worst is over...

Welcome to Limbo, Population 1.

In which our cyclist is ever so fed up.

It has been a week since his crash.  It is still three days until the cyclist gets his operation to have his collarbone plated.  Three more days until he can begin the process of recovering.  This is wasted time, these are endless days, and he's not getting any better.  The frustration that nothing is happening, the sense of limbo is palpable.

His left shoulder has dropped dramatically compared to his right, thanks in part to the defensive way he is carrying himself.  The bruising has spread its yellows and greens and greys in a swirl from his neck to his hip.  The initial swelling has subsided, but there are still strange lumps and bumps in unexpected areas.  The unsightly lump of the broken collarbone itself is visible under the skin halfway along the shoulder.  He is wearing a sling to take the weight of his arm from the shoulder, stretching all his t-shirts as he wears them over the set up.

He is very listless, not really knowing what to do with himself.  The painkillers he's been given aren't helping - although they are more than taking the edge off the pain itself, they are not improving his mood.  He is getting a little cabin fever now, bored at home but not really keen to go out, mainly in case someone knocks into him.  He cannot drive at the moment, so he's being ferried about by me which is not ideal either, as I am not the greatest driver in the world and I tend to stress him out.  Especially at roundabouts.

He is at least sleeping ok.  Bolstered by my V-shaped pillow (which I have to say he ridiculed when I bought it), and with the aid of the last dose of the day, he can at least get comfortable enough to drop off.  He suffers in the morning though, as everything seizes up gradually in the night.  Now his fractured ribs are giving him real problems.  These are I suppose starting to knit themselves back together, but the process is not going unnoticed.

So then, the positives.  Because there are positives.  First and foremost, this hasn't put him off riding or racing his bike in the slightest, and I was worried it might.  He is spending his time in a fogged-up painkiller haze researching replacement and upgrade items on t'internet.  There are lists.

As mentioned before, we got off extremely lightly as regards damage to the bike.  The front wheel is totally fucked (that's the official technical term), and will have to be replaced, and he wrote off his helmet (no cyclist damage, he didn't even realise he'd hit his head), but he wanted a new one anyway.  There will be some new kit to buy, but the bits I cut off had served their time and were realistically due for replacement.  All in all, this could have been so so much worse.

The kids are being very good about the whole thing, not climbing on daddy as is their usual favourite pastime, and seem to understand which areas of him to avoid and why.  And our new kitten, Miguel, is definitely aiding the healing process.

Oops, he did it again...

In which our heroine gets to cut off a pair of bib shorts and sneaks a couple of prescription painkillers for her trouble...


I have now experienced first hand the thrill of Bolton Royal A+E on a Sunday afternoon.  Another Sunday, another race, another phone call.

It started off pretty innocuously.  A Sunday afternoon crit in Horwich.  The weather was better than it had been in a while, and the cyclist was pleased as he'd got an entry on the line.  I stayed at home with the kids.  The race starts at 3pm.  At 3.15 I get a message to call a mobile.  There's only ever one possible explanation for that, and so I am told which hospital they're taking my husband to.

Sigh.

He's done it properly this time, decked it at 50kph.  I'm told it's not serious, but he's probably broken his collarbone.  I ask if he's still swearing, reasoning that if he is it can't be too bad.  I can speak to him, he tell's me where he's going.  I make a quick call to my sister-in-law and load the kids into the car to drop off with her.  20 minutes later I'm at the reception desk at Accident and Emergency, apologising to two of the receptionists for the fact that the roads in Horwich have been closed since 10am for the bike races.  Because obviously both me and my injured husband are somehow responsible.

The irony is that when the race started he had stayed on the front the first few laps, eager to avoid any trouble, noticing the poor surface on the racing line of the corner that would bring him down.  The spot that later in the race a Marshall would refer to as 'Death Corner'.  Dropping back through the field on the fifth or sixth lap he caught the corner wrong, probably suffered an impact puncture to the front wheel, and came down bringing another with him, who thankfully was able to get back up and carry on racing.

Morphine, an X-ray, a sickbowl.  His race number is still pinned to his jersey, and asks me to take his shoes off.  He is yellow and the skin of his arms is cold, but slick with sweat.  He looks worse than I am expecting.  He has fractured his collarbone, taken the skin off his shoulder and knee, damaged his ribs and scraped his knuckles.  Bruising and swelling and small marks on him in strange places.  His wedding ring has a chip out, I tell him this entitles him to a 5 year discount.  We wait around a bit, he is eventually given some hefty painkillers and a sling and we are sent home.

The sad little lycra graveyard at the bottom of the garden has grown.  There was no getting round it, the kit he was in had to be removed scissorally.  Racing jersey, base layer (not technical enough to get him round this corner, evidently) and bib shorts all had to be cut carefully from the damaged shoulder.  The cyclist understandably winces somewhat when I'm cutting hundreds of pounds worth of lycra from his battered body, with blades uncomfortably close to his throat.  For those who might be concerned, the socks made it to fight another day...


And the bike.  The day after the crash I go to pick it up from the friend who took it home for us that day.  Yet again, we've got lucky.  The front wheel is completely written off, and there are marks where someone has clearly ridden across the cross tube and seat tube, but she is fine.  The bar tape isn't even scuffed - she's made of sturdy stuff is Carly.

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So finally, after all this time, he's a proper cyclist.  All the races and training in his previous life, as a juvenile and then junior, representing Great Britain at home and abroad, seasons raced in France and Belgium, he never broke his collarbone.  We get to talking about the injuries he has suffered in the name of the bike.

Like the training ride when he was 18 and his training partner rode into the back of him, skewering his leg with the quick release lever from his front wheel.  This happened on the afternoon of a football derby, so the cyclist was awarded two ambulances, a police car and an attendant helicopter for his troubles, as they were at a bit of a loose end until the pubs kicked out.  6 stitches and an ugly scar to the back of the knee.

Or the Junior Tour of Ireland where he was riding for the four man GB team.  Thanks to rolling in to someone else's crash he raced stage 2 with someone else's chainring in the front of his shin.  He finished the stage, only to get into the ambulance for stitching up along with 2 other members of the team, who were both there being mopped up for completely unrelated incidents (they still won).

His first ever proper road race, when he moved from the Juvenile to the Junior ranks, crashed on the first lap and got more and more bloodied with every lap.  Determined to finish, he refused to climb off and came in so far down on the rest of the field the attending St John's Ambulance crew had given up and gone home by the time he crossed the line for the final time.

And the 'infamous' crash in San Marino, Junior World Champs Road Race, 1995.  Doored by a mechanic in a neutral service vehicle as he chased to get back on having had his front wheel taken out in an earlier crash.  And the rest is history. Or not.

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UPDATE:

We took a trip to the fracture clinic today.  The cyclist needs an operation to plate his collarbone (X-ay above).  He has also fractured 2 of his ribs.  The goals he had for the season have had to be shelved, and in a lot of ways that's proving the bitterest pill to swallow.

Go hard, then go home.

In which our cyclist asks 'Just how hard is it to make a protein shake properly?'

It's just powder and water, innit?  So why on earth can I not get one in the other in such a way as to make a tasty and smooth post ride recovery drink experience?  I just can't get it right; they either have a consistency approaching Campbells Condensed Soup (apart from the chewy bits - in the shake that is), or pond water.

The key instruction is to James Bond it- a protein shake must be shaken, not stirred.  In desperation at my ongoing failure to satisfactorily make up a protein shake - I hate being rubbish at stuff, particularly stuff where the instructions are as simple as 'Add Water. Drink' -  I made one in a pint glass once and tried to stir the powder in, carefully, a bit at a time, like a reverse risotto (which is not entirely texturally dissimilar to how the fucker ended up).  A fascinating and completely impenetrable rubbery layer formed on the top, capable of supporting a stack of 17 2p coins (further experimentation curtailed by funding cuts), and the whole thing smelled a bit like raw chicken; it was chocolate flavour.  Down the sink it (eventually) went, after a moderate amount of stabbing with a bamboo skewer.

So now, if the cyclist wants a protein shake he generally makes his own.  Quickly, and quietly, with no fuss and remarkably little swearing, because apparently that is possible.

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A protein shake is just one part of the post ride schedule - because the ride is not quite over even when you've got off the bike.  There are still things to be done, and an order in which to do them as suits the individual needs of the cyclist.  After a ride or a race a cyclist will need food, fluid and a wash.  And some more food.  On top of that they might need a lie down, a cuddle and a cry.  And some more food.  And they will possibly need a massage, an icepack and a priest.  And some more food.

Back when he first got back on his bike, I would get a phone call from the cyclist when he was approximately t-10mins from home.  This would be my cue to get a bath running, make a sandwich and boil the kettle.  When he got back to the house he would collapse on to one of the garden chairs for as long as it took to eat his sandwich, drink his tea and get his breath back and his heart rate down, before heading into the house, swerving the kids and falling into the bath.  I would check he hadn't drowned, bring him another cup of tea, maybe something else to eat, and about 40 minutes after him coming home I would possibly be able to ask him how his ride had been and get an answer in full sentences.

This state of affairs didn't last long, as his fitness dramatically improved in a very short space of time.  His post-ride ritual still remains pretty much the same (tea, food, bath, preferably all at the same time), but the atmosphere has lightened somewhat, probably because the sense that the cyclist could very well drop dead if the cup of tea and sandwich were not placed in his shaking hand within 30 seconds of him dismounting the bike has diminished rather.

The cyclist much prefers a post ride bath to a shower, being of the firm belief that if you're able to stand up in the shower after a ride you didn't go hard enough.  It must be hot (a temperature somewhere between scalding and McDonalds coffee) and there must be a good supply of bubbles.  If you are freezing, filthy and soaked, sleet, hail and small animals have collected in your regulation cyclist stubble, your extremities have gone purple and all you can do is mutter '... the headwind... the terrible headwind... there... and back...' over and over, it is perfectly acceptable to stagger to the bathroom fall in to the bath in your full kit and turn the tap on.  You might want to take your helmet off, but if you can't don't worry; it probably works as a floatation device until you get enough feeling back in your neck to lift your own head anyway.

Food and drink requirements are down to the particular tastes of the cyclist.  My cyclist, not being of the sweet-toothed variety favours a sandwich, cheese on toast, pasta etc.  Toasted tea cakes are also a winner.  Post ride, quantity is very much favoured over quality (which is just as well given my aforementioned woeful culinary abilities and lack of concentr... Ooooh! A shiny thing!), and the cyclist will pack away pretty much anything put in front of him with no thought for calories, or carbs or fat grams, because, well, he might die.

At some point in all this, the cyclist will have to peel off the lycra.  I've only ever had to do it for him once, after his crash.  I've been told that this is never a pleasant process.  The worst bit is plunging the arm into the cold and sodden garments to turn them the right way pre-wash.

A domestique capable of giving a good massage is worth her weight in gold and jewels (and should be rewarded thusly).  The cyclist would love me to be good at giving massages.  I'm a bit odd and not a huge fan of massages myself.  I suspect I should put it down to what would have to be termed 'Personal Space Issues' (which I never even realised I had until my best friend drunkenly intervened on a night out when a mutual acquaintance tried to hug me, 'Gerroff, she doeshn't like people touching her!'  Gawd bless you, Saz.), but I'll be honest, I have never found it particularly relaxing to be stripped, oiled and rubbed, especially by a stranger (I'm sure loads of people would disagree with me here, but we all have our little peccadilloes).  I do understand that 'Sports Massages' serve a very particular purpose and are absolutely brilliant when your cyclist feels like he has been hit by a truck and dragged along the A57 for a mile and a half.  I have had a go, but I don't think it was a roaring success - I've not been asked recently.

I am lucky, in that my cyclist finds his post-ride ritual of food-drink-bath massively restorative.  He can return from a ride half-dead, but having drunk a bucket of tea, eaten everything not nailed down, soaked the road off and sorted the protein shake he's pretty much back in the game.  Which is great as far as I'm concerned, because for me a post-ride recovery lie down can be somewhat of a contentious issue.  You see, cyclists, if you've been out riding for 6 hours, and have been eating and in the bath (or just eating in the bath as the case may be) for another hour on top of that, you'll have clocked up 7 hours at this point.  In our house that's 7 hours that the domestique has been DS'ing the squabbling junior members of the team, and by now it's probably all gone a little bit Lord of the Flies and requires daddy's firm hand and at least one pair of clean trousers.

Under these circumstances, if you feel you really need a lie down, take 30mins or so, but if you can possibly face it, you need to get some trousers on, get downstairs and make your presence felt.  Your domestique will appreciate it.  Sprawling on the sofa with your legs up and whatever cycling Eurosport is showing or has been patiently awaiting it's turn on the sky+ on the telly is perfectly acceptable, as long as you can now be relied upon to step in and perform a little domestique duty of your own.

Any given Thursday night.

A race in the rain finds our heroine in a contemplative mood...

We are in a car park.  The car park belongs to UCLAN, this is their sports facility.  It is a Thursday in early June.  It is bouncing down.

We are early.  We have come straight from the office; freed from the responsibility of the children who have been packed off to their grandparents for part of the school holiday, I can play supportive wife.

We left the house at seven this morning, the cyclist packing his kit while getting his work head on.  He checks his bag.  He has forgotten his overshoes, and his race license.  We go to the sign on, both of us hoping the missing license won't have caused us a wasted journey.  The cyclist knows his numbers, and the man recognises him - he races here almost every week.  There is no problem.  He signs on, we go back to the car.

The car park is pretty full.  The assorted cars have steamed up windows and are gently rocking as those inside undergo the metamorphosis from Nine-to-Fiver to cyclist.  It looks like a doggers paradise.  The cyclist is getting changed beside me.  'Careful', I say as he puts on his shorts.  'There's kids over there, you'll end up on a list'.  He laughs.  It is my favourite thing in the world to make him laugh.

There are kids everywhere; children on the track, juniors on rollers in the rain.  Some of them are tiny, barely bigger than our own small daughter.  Some of them are 'faces', strutting round with teenage self-importance, deflating only slightly when someone's mum asks if they want a hot chocolate.  There is a family atmosphere.  This is a good thing.  In better weather the kids and families hang around longer, watching the full compliment of races, eating hot crepes with nutella and marshmallows.  In the summer holidays I will hope for warmth and sunshine so as to bring our kids here to stay up long past bedtime in the fading evening sun.

The field for the cyclist's race is reduced by the rain, and some of the riders who might otherwise have been here are racing the Tour Series in Colchester.  The commissaires are joking about the length of the race, it will be curtailed due to the weather.  The riders spin out for a couple of warm-up laps, the rain looks like it may be stopping.  They come back to the line, ready to start proper - the rain has rallied and is coming down harder.  I go to the cyclist, to take his rain cape.  I go back to the place where I was stood, near the start/finish line with my umbrella, desperately looking for someone to talk to.

The race gets underway.  They go hard; it's cold and wet and no rider wants this to go on any longer than it has to.  Within a few laps the E/1/2's have shaken the 3/4's.  There is a rider off the front, about a third of a lap off the main bunch.  A commissaire is talking to a man near me; they do not know who the rider is.  I butt in to their conversation to identify him.  They assume I am the rider in question's girlfriend.  I say something stupid, as is my wont.

The riders concertina in and out, the bunch stretching and contracting as the laps stack up.  Attacks form and are countered.  And the rain comes down.  A few laps to go, and the bunch is split in two as a rider escapes off the front.  He stays away, gaining time on each subsequent lap.  There are six behind him, and the rest a few seconds behind.  Small groups of 3/4's are scattered over the track, blue numbers marking them out.  Some have smartly attached to one or other of the groups of E/1/2 riders as they are lapped.  There is a small boy climbing on a bench; he cheers his daddy on every pass.  The only support that could possibly matter on a Thursday, in the rain.

The penultimate lap.  The rider off the front has gained so much time from the group that I fear there has been a crash behind him, out of view, as it takes so long for the bunch to come into sight.  The two groups have come back together in that final lap, picking up some more of the 3/4's on their way.  They sprint for the line, spray flying.  I see the cyclist cross the line.  I try to count, but am unsure of his position.  My second job of the evening (the first being holding his rain jacket), and I have utterly failed.

They come back round to the gate, having taken a lap past the line to wind down from the sprint.  They are soaked and filthy, epically dirty.  I am warned not to kiss the cyclist, but I do anyway.  He looks to me like he has ridden a sodden spring classic, his nose and ears are full of black crap; it is caked onto his cheeks and eyebrows.  The white sleeves of his jersey are grey, stark contrast to the back which has been protected from the grime.

We rush back over to the car.  The cyclist has forgotten a towel on the one day he really needs one.  He has his spray, and uses the spare jersey in his bag to clean himself off as best he can.  I take the numbers off his jersey, take them back to the small room that serves as HQ while he changes again, this time from cyclist to husband.

We are done.

'What's for tea?'

What's for tea?

The bizzle in the kizzle fo shizzle.


One of my many great failings as a wife, a mother and a human being is a distinct lack of enthusiasm in the kitchen.  I would love to be one of those people who thrives on food preparation and creation; can while away a happy afternoon baking amazing goodies for the family and knows of other things to do with amusingly shaped vegetables than adding features with a sharpie and posting pictures on the internet.  But I'm sadly not.

I am not a terrible cook.  There are a number of examples that counter this claim - the famous episode with the Leek and Potato soup ('How the fuck did you get it that colour? NO! I'm just not eating that!') and the Chocolate Mousse that could've been used to waterproof roads and has been attributed the full blame of the cyclist's 4am dash to A+E and subsequent appendectomy (God it was YEARS ago, you can barely even see the scar) aside, there are far worse cooks than me out in the general public.  Rather than straightforward cack-handness, my issues are more lack of desire and a tendency to get bored and wander off.  I just can't be arsed.

Which is becoming a bit of a problem. The cyclist needs feeding pretty much constantly, and the children aren't too far behind.  But thanks in large to the cyclists renewed interest and participation in the sport, an increased interest in and understanding of nutrition and food in general has swept the household.   This is no bad thing, because apparently Hula Hoops aren't one of your 5-a-day.  And, for the first time I have been introduced to the dark and mysterious world of Sports Nutrition.

The cyclist has always been able to pack it away; food I mean.  This is a man who once ate himself to a near-death experience in a restaurant in Dallas, pushed close to the edge by 'Mama's Apple Pie and Ice Cream' ('No, seriously, stop laughing and let me go towards the light'.  He is sweating and close to tears.  I am far far too far gone on frozen margaritas to do anything except laugh so hard I fall over).  But recently, the conversation in our house is 10% work, 10% kids and 80% food.  It's all he ever thinks about.  His car is an automatic, basically so he has a hand free for eating.  He has developed a complex relationship with carbs - We are loading! We are avoiding! - and we are dipping our toes in the dark waters of Low-GI.  I have experimented with various origami-based methods of wrapping sandwiches in foil so he can best unwrap them with his teeth mid-ride (Burrito-style - fold at the bottom, twist at the top).

Several nutritional wonderfoods have been attempted in the name of 'Marginal Gains'.  There was beetroot juice.  That lasted about 2 days.  Completely disgusting, and caused a little whimper with the cyclist's morning wee.  Luckily, he remembered the unique side effects of beetroot juice before calling the ambulance, and the relief was palpable.  Result:- large quantity ('No, we'll get this ENORMOUS bottle, I'm sure it's delicious') of beetroot juice down sink.  And coconut oil.  'We'll cook everything in coconut oil, it's much better for you.  Men's Health says so'.  Everything tastes like it's been fried in Hawaiian tropic and it made the kids cry.  Result:- large quantity (No, we'll get this ENORMOUS bottle, I'm sure it's delicious') sat in the cupboard next to the Cayenne Pepper (It speeds up your metabolism.  Well, it would do if I put it in anything).

And our kitchen has a little section added, near the xmas Baileys and the stickily dusty bottle of Drambuie with half an inch in the bottom; bearing such beguiling promises as 'Isotonic!' and 'Electrolytes!' and 'Real Fruit Flavor!' are several tubs of powers and sachets of gels.  There are Pre-Exercise, During Exercise and Post Exercise varieties.  There's even a special night-time recovery one you can get should you so require.  One of the great mysteries of the universe centres on gels; despite the vast range of flavours apparently available, it is only ever possible to buy 'Tropical' gels in the shops.  The cyclist has dismissed 'Tropical' as being fit only for Triathletes.  Not having a sweet tooth he would love to find a manufacturer that made savoury gels. Cheese and Onion, anyone?

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A few weeks ago, the cyclist found himself behind Chris Boardman in the queue at a service station Starbucks.  On our next coffee shop stop, the cyclist eventually came back to the table I was guarding with my Vanilla Latte and Caramel Slice, his Flat White and Croissant, and a tub of lukewarm soy porridge and a small tub of sarcastically priced dried fruit.

'This is what Chris Boardman ordered when I was behind him in the queue the other day!'

Raised eyebrow. 'And the croissant?'

He has the decency to laugh. 'Baby steps.'

(Also the cyclist said Chris Boardman had a Skinny Vanilla Latte - Coffee of Champions and Athletes).