NED BOULTING!

NED WORRIES ABOUT HIS INABILITY TO CLIP IN TO HIS PEDALS...

What’s the longest it’s ever taken you to clip in to your pedals? Ten seconds, 20, more? How long has it taken, coasting along and stabbing away at the pedal before the shoe clicks in with a relieving bite allowing you to move.

I only ask because recently I think I broke my personal best in fumbling around aimlessly with a cleat. Although I didn’t actually put a stopwatch on it, for the simple enough reason that I was entirely preoccupied with the task at hand (or rather at foot), I am pretty confident it took a minute. Maybe longer.

Fortunately, no one was around to witness my stunning ineptitude. Well, when I say no one, that’s not entirely true. There were plenty of people watching from the busy street that formed the backdrop to my ignominy. But they were just people, not cycling people, and as such they were massively unqualified to judge just how much of an ungainly mess I was making of an everyday cycling act that should be second nature. You see, in the eyes of the non-cyclist, all cyclists look like numpties, and that’s putting it politely, especially the Lycra-clad variety.

It was the judgment of my peers I dreaded the most. For clipping in should be so automatic to the experienced rider that it occurs in the blink of an eye and the snap of a hinge. It should be fluent, instant, negligible. It shouldn’t involve wildly stamping then repeatedly stroking the sole of one’s shoe against a pedal, more in hope than technique. To be found wanting in this skill would be to reveal oneself as a ghastly newbie, a horrible dilettante, someone not be taken seriously; an embarrassment to the clan, someone to be shunned. Spectacularly failing to clip in would be the equivalent of risking a very minor act of flatulence in the hope that it might pass unnoticed, or be mistaken for a squeaky chain, only to find a rip-roaring, uncontrollable and sustained fart bellowing forth from one’s rear.

Did I just write about farting? Yes I did, and I make no apology for this, even if I may have offended you in so doing. For the act of poorly targeted foot-harnessing is akin to blowing wildly from one’s bottom. It is indecent, and it should be avoided in polite society.

There are, of course, many other aspects of manoeuvring oneself on and off bikes, as well as actually riding the damn things, that I have consistently failed to master. Such simple pleasures as getting on, or getting off, the bike, especially now as middle age prevents me from extending my legs much more than about 10 per cent of their innate flexibility: Such thing are increasingly testing.

The thing is, you see, that bikes and cyclists are only worthy of admiration when they are in motion, and even then, only in the hands of the best practitioners. In all other states such as a stationary bike, or a walking cyclist, they are risible and shorn of all meaning, literally like fish out of water. Being in cycling kit when not cycling is one of the most stupid activities a human being can perform. I’ve often stood in the queue to buy a flapjack in a supermarket wearing a helmet and shoes that go clicketyclick, followed by slip! What other world do we inhabit that makes us think this is okay? Did you see NASA’s pioneers from the moon landings popping down to B&Q in a spacesuit? No, I rather think you didn’t.

The problem, then, when it is distilled, is that awkward, wobbly junction between the two universes: riding and not riding. Once on the bike, clipped in, and after a clear hand signal and glance over one’s shoulder, the cyclist is in their element. Up and running (or riding), there is much to admire. It’s just the getting on and off bit that I have never mastered. For this reason, and for the other reason that I simply don’t want to, I will never enter a cyclo-cross race.

To complete my thrilling story about The Time I Really Couldn’t Clip In: I did eventually get going, and managed to look up just in time to see a red light in front of me. I unclipped and came to a halt, only to begin the task all over again. If that’s not a metaphor for life, I don’t know what is...

The act of poorly targeted footharnessing is akin to blowing wildly from one’s bottom