BIKE: A tale of two burgers

Winter 2000 in the southern hemisphere I found myself on the ferry to the South Island, with Bret, a good friend from my life in Colorado where I had spent nearly 5 years before going back to Ireland to take advantage of the boom as an IT contractor. I stayed 182 days and moved to New Zealand, where I had alternated periods of contracting with travel/outdoor play. In my stay to date I had done some travelling, coded utilities for a financial investment company in Wellington, spent 6 weeks climbing every day all around both islands and just come from a 6 week Delphi gig in Sydney. Now it was time for a snow boarding season. A group of my friends with roots in the States, England, Australia and Ireland were all spending some time snow boarding at treblecone in Wanaka, better known as TC. There were a number of anchor tenants and we had bought season passes, others were coming to stay for shorter periods.

It was the night of the Euro 2000 final between Italy and France. Bret is a soccer fan and actually wore my shirt after I left my co-ed team in Boulder, The Other United. So we were both keen to see the match. Driving into Christchurch after the ferry I knew what to expect, having crashed in a local climbing house for a few nights back in February when Martin and I night mountain biked in bottle forest and climbed up at Castle Rock. Christchurch is the South Islands biggest town, but it's dead quiet at night. With the match not starting until the wee hours our only option was to rent a motel room with satellite TV. But first food, we could not find an open "fush" and chippers so our only option was Burger King, we came back to watch the soccer with double bacon cheese burgers. Little did I know that it would be 11 years before I had beef again and that would be a burger too.

I was a recreational mountain biker stuck in the midland with a bit of a drive to any decent trails. Other mountain biker friends were taking to the road to mix it up as well and after training for a trip to Wales in 07 by going to a weekly spinning session and a weekend mountain bike ride I had finally realised that one needs to get the road miles in to be bike fit. The bike to work scheme and an incredible deal in Halfords for a carbon frame bike turned out to be the obvious no brainer.

The day after I picked up my bike on 5 March I went for my first ride on a road bike in 25 years was with a local club who go out for rides on Sunday mornings. My second time out I gave the B group a try. About 15 minutes into the ride going into a head wind out the Tuam road I was dropped from the peloton. I was talking to a couple of lads at the back and after a while realised I could not talk and keep cycling into this wind at 26 k/ph. It happened exactly like I have seen it on TV so many times, I could not stay with them and gradually dropped off and they were gone :-( I ended up doing a 55K loop myself, man the road from Shannonbridge to Athlone must be among the straightest in Ireland! I kept going every week and had a run of doing 40-60k 8 out of 9 weekends.

Having missed a bunch of weekend rides with life ramping up I heard at swimming that the group I had been doing the Sunday rides with, the C-specials were planning a Thursday night ride, meeting at the usual recreational centre at 6. I was still sore after the adventure run the night before, but the day was an absolute cracker and the girls were of visiting til about 8, perfect time for a 40K ride. Conscious I had no supplies, I asked a couple of riders if they had a spar banana but no. It was a brilliant evening to be out and the plan was to do 2 laps of a hill the lads call piss-off hill around Mount Temple. I had been up it once before but did not remember how it broke down really. I hung at the back and when I recognised the top was closer than I thought I pushed a bit for the top, well behind a handful of others. It was just a superb evening to be out on the bike, heading around the country roads, talking to Gerry, I was saying I think the best way to get up to the top was to stick with Sarah all the way. Gerry said go at your own pace not to worry.

I was in the mood for notching it up and bayed by Gerry's words I jumped off front, eased into a drop and took it up a gear but steady. I did not look back. I had in my head that at the end of a long stretch of road there was a right turn that lead onto piss-off hill. I was sipping a bit from my single bottle missing my mountain biking camelbak. When I got to the part of the road, that from a distance I thought was where the turn was located, I realised it wasn't the turn. And indeed it would not be a right turn anyway as we were coming at it from a different direction this time, having come in from Athlone the first time! There my powers of deduction stopped. Looking back for the first time since I popped off maybe 10 minutes previous there was of course no one else to be seen. I took the right turn anyway, there was a brown sign for some cross but the road petered out in a farmyard after climbing up a little. I had no water now but did not think about that.

Back at the main road there was a left turn not making quiet a crossroads, which I took. This started to climb a bit and I started to feel the no fuel on board since lunch time business. It was not long before I had completely bonked. Having had a couple of sort of out of body experiences climbing before it was a feeling I remembered. I passed a house gate and saw a lad, puling out of the pedals I spread eagled the bike over to where this lad was welding something. I turned around and inside the gate there was a huge artic truck parked, The window was rolled down and there was a little boy in the passenger seat. I noticed a hat on the ground under the window and he said my hat fell. I turned back to the man and said do you have an outside tap where I can fill my bottle please. He said no bother, turned off the welder and took the bottle off me to fill. I said thanks I could not see straight. I did not think to ask where I was. Trying to not drain the bottle, knowing I should conserve, I only drank 2/3 of it, I had to.

A while later, finally there was someone out, a lad working in the garden. I asked him where I was. Left at the turn will take you back down the hill to Athlone via Moydrum industrial estate. Right, will....and if you go up that road over there....and there's anther handy hill around that way. I was a little less confused that before I asked him. I cycled on and turned left, it seemed the fastest way home. As I sped down what I think now must have been piss off hill I started thinking that the route back to the car park went by fox's garage and I needed to stop there. I thought Athlone was mean to be close. Shortly afterwards I started thinking that Fox's also housed a supermac. It was not long after that I started thinking about a burger, a real burger.

It was a long road and finally the wee hill up to the service station. Parking the bike outside the door I went straight to the fridges and grabbed a bottle of lucozade sport which I necked straight. I went over to the supermac counter, looked at the menu and ordered a smokey bacon burger meal. Over to the chocolate and which one do you pick when you need the chocolate, it was no contest. I grabbed a dairymilk and got in line for the till. A minute later I was handing the girl my empty bottle and wrapper and asking her if she would mind disposing of them. As I waited at the supermacs counter I said to the lad whose face I knew from an occasional veggie burger, believe it or not this will be my first beef in 11 years.

Slumping in the fading sun outside, the burger was enjoyable, more satisfying that the 3 Christmas dinners I have had as my only meet in those 11 years. The fries were nasty, a quick duck back into the shop for ketchup little help. How do you celebrate your first beef in over a decade, clearly one then orders a 99, which I scoffed walking down the hill before rolling back to the car park at 20.45. Print this post