BIKE: A wet training ride

It was the weekend before TriAthlone and Martin & Nessa were home from London to Dublin, where Nessa was throwing a surprise 40th for her bro John. They were making the most of being home and inviting a few of their mates too. It was to be our second night out together since Cadhla was born. But Saturday night in Dublin meant no Sunday morning training ride in Athlone, I'd have to squeeze one in on Saturday morning. First we had to leave early for a family months mind mass. It was a brutal morning and I put on the gortex overshoes over the hiking waterproof pants. One of my least favourite things to do is to get wet, except of course in more temperate climates.

8.15 out of the house and with the rain belting I turned out the top of the road onto the bike course, the old Galway road passing our new estate leading westward and usually into the prevailing. I looked at the odometer on my handlebars, finally I knew that the changing speed was toggling between average and current and it was not malfunctioning. I had downloaded the manual at work the other day and managed to get 5 minutes to read it, the original jumbled somewhere in the massively unorganised, just moving in and sorting out office at home. Manuals, one of the necessities of my life. I thought about the reverso that I carried in my climbing bag and taken out the last couple of climbing trips, never knowing how to use the simple device and mentally checking to read the manual when I got home but never doing. Now I knew how this worked and had even reset the wheel size that morning.

Petzl Reverso

I figured I needed to be back at the house at 10 since we needed to leave by 11, maybe I could cycle out 15k and then turn around. I cycled along into the driving rain and started for the first time to break down the race the following weekend. Averaging 30kph meant doing 40k in 1hour and 20minutes, no way, any of my commuting training rides, 10k each way on the same bike, were averaging in the 22k range. Averaging 25k meant 5k every 12 min, so that's 94 minutes, if I could do that it would be ok, I reckoned. My thought process in the rain gradually came to the conclusion that I should try and see how long it would take me to do 40k this morning.

The road was quiet with not much on it, Duffys Discount and storage was coming up, almost exactly 10k from the house. I had got to know the proprietor Joe recently. We were due to move house Easter weekend and the day before we were meant to get the keys the landlord pulled out, though I had signed a contract and paid 600 euros a month before. He decided we would be too difficult tenants since we wanted the ash removed from the fireplace, the gook cleaned in the over and the dried powder cleaned off the washing machine darwer. With no time to find a place we found this storage option and rented 2 rooms from Joe for a month as well as his van and 2 sons who helped us move the stuff to storage. Was that only 3 months ago, damn it had been a mad time.

The rain pelted on and I said sure I'll go another 5 and then turn and have it at my back. McG said it didn't matter if it was blowing on the way out in relation to your average speed as you you would gain it on the way back in, tell that to my legs! It was not long before I was passing the top of our estate again. I took the next left out towards Glendeer pet farm, my first time up that road since I had jogged up that night and had my hubcap adventure. I passed the road towards the megalithic tomb and there the pet farm was, a relatively nondescript building pulled back from the road, with room for coaches to pull in. I turned around and reversed my route. Passing the top of my estate again, I was on 38k and just over 1 hour and 40 minutes. Could I average 30kph for a 1km up the road and back to get me home for 1hr 45.

100m up from my estate entrance the back tyre went flat. First puncture on the new bike. Damn, I had not put on those Ultra Gator Skin tyres I had been advised to upgrade to and did a deal for when I got the bike. I had my tyre levers and spare tube and changed it in under 5 minutes, imagining myself getting one in the race. Flipping the bike back over I realised that the weight of the bike on the cycle computer had pressed the 2 buttons together and reset the device. Time to get home. Print this post