Martin Thomas's blog

“That’s quite a pizza dish you’ve got there”, says the veteran club cyclist, viewing my new cassette with its 30-tooth biggest cog. My shame grows as I follow his disdainful gaze forward to the compact chain rings. I can almost hear his brain make the calculation: this clown has a 30-inch gear! On a racing bike!

Glory be! I managed a 100k ride this weekend for the first time since March. Just when I thought this year was going to turn into a complete write-off.

Remember the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark? When Indy escapes by the skin of his teeth being crushed by that massive boulder as he flees some dark cave or other with some artefact or other? Well I see this as the perfect metaphor for my struggle with fitness this year - and more generally as my sixth decade inexorably approaches.

Walking my kids to school, we pause at the traffic lights at the foot of our road until the green man appears. Stepping out into the road, I notice a fast moving object in my peripheral vision. Just in time, I realize that the cyclist who’s just gone through the red light with a little kid perched on his top tube has no intention of stopping so I pull my daughter out of harm’s way and warn a mum with a buggy who’s about to step into his path. I shout at him as he cycles past. He ignores me.

As I snuck under the Metric Century Challenge February deadline on the last day possible, labouring hopelessly at no more than a brisk walking pace up the gentle hill from the seafront to my house after an agonizing 68-miler, it struck me that these are the rides that make the Challenge challenging.

Bejaysus but I nearly fell at the first hurdle in this year's Metric Century Challenge. Today was the last day I could realistically expect to finish a 100k ride in November but when I woke at 7am it was dark, windy and raining. I was feeling slightly hungover, still full of last night's curry, and not quite sure if I was quite over my recent illness (sore throat, no energy, bit shivery).

I’ve been feeling guilty about something for over a year now and I figured it was high time I did something about it.

When I was writing news stories for road.cc I spoke to Doctor Ian Roberts, professor of public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine about an article on the subject of road safety – this one in fact. 

I have important news directly from the cutting edge of cycle training. Based on extensive first-hand research I can reveal that sitting next to a swimming pool in southern Spain for ten days doing very little apart from swigging tequila and eating tapas makes it quite hard to cycle anywhere when you get back home. This is particularly true if you try to cycle any faster than a gentle jogging pace, or up any sort of hill.

That's all for now - more developments as they come in.

There’s something about long climbs that goes to the very heart of cycling. Forcing those cranks round as the lungs scream for mercy and the legs turn to that curious mixture of concrete and jelly, the mind wants only one thing more than for the pain to stop: to conquer this bloody hill.

Cyclists often speak of the reflective state of mind they get into on their bikes. Certainly for me there’s something about the combination of repetitive exercise and constantly changing scenery that calms me down and puts my mind into a semi-detached state – mildly engaged with the process of cycling, avoiding peril and taking in scenery but otherwise free to roam.

I never seriously considered falling at the final hurdle of the 30 days of biking challenge, which simply requires that you ride a bike every day in April. No biggy for someone who rides pretty much every day anyway – particularly given the glorious weather we've had.