Extinction rebellion
AGEING HAS CHANGED, NOT DIMINISHED, NORMAN’S DESIRE TO RIDE HIS BIKE
In sports writing, stories can be broadly separated into two distinct categories: one of rampant success and the other of heroic failure. To fall between these isn’t much seen as news. I’m not here to tell you about either today, but I’m hoping you can still take something important away with you. At my age, simply riding a bike on the open road is something to be celebrated.
I’m writing shortly after the 2021 Alzheimer’s Society London to Brighton bike ride last autumn. Why had I chosen to ride this 100-kilometre ride? Well, there is the obvious reason and the not so obvious. As for the latter, this ride related to my younger bike riding days. How far, to use cycling language, have I gone downhill? I am hoping that, if I can burnish those memories that are fading with age, then it will allow me to remember my younger self and reveal how far I’ve travelled. You may remember Roy Batty, the replicant from Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic film BladeRunner played by Rutger Hauer. In the final moments before his programmed death, Batty utters one of the defining monologues in cinema history, that his memories “will be lost in time, like tears in the rain”. The same will eventually be true for my memories forged on the bike, but there’s still time to renew and contemplate them.
The other reason for this ride is far more prosaic. At King’s College, London, I am part of a team that has been investigating the positive effects of cycling in the ageing of men and women. Part of being allowed entry into this programme of testing is to be able to cycle 100 kilometres in 6.5 hours. In general we, the investigators, try not to ask the volunteers to undertake any test that we have not undergone or would not be willing to undergo. We’ve done the maximal erg bike tests, had biopsies taken of our muscles – the full gamut. Currently we are a team of six. Not all of us are cyclists – four do other physical activity – but in a fit of misplaced enthusiasm, we decided it was time for the team to do that 100km entry requirement, in a total time of
6.5 hours.
At 8am on the start lime in Clapham Common we were ready for the off. Many of the non-regular cyclists waiting for the start had aspirations which are above those that even their sleek bikes can deliver. From previous experience on this ride I know they are going to clog the narrow lanes. However, at my age I’m not here to compete, so the Dunning–Kruger effect – the cognitive bias, in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are – does not apply to me.
What I am here to do is to compare young Norman, 72, with old Norman, using the connective tissue of my 25-year-old Audax steel bike. I’ve given it a rare polish. Mudguards shining, bell attached to warn horse riders and walkers of my coming, compass to stop me heading north instead of south, saddlebag with Phillips and Allen screw drivers, chain tool and long-sleeved cycling top in case I get cold after the ride. I never carry any sports drinks, bars of any kind or electrolyte tablets. In my opinion, they are totally useless for amateurs like me. Just eat food and drink water. I also always cycle long distance on a full stomach. How else will I complete over six hours on the road?
Lindy’s Law states that, for non-perishable things, the longer that it has survived to exist in the present, the longer its remaining life expectancy. You’ve read enough of my columns by now to know that whoever proposed this idea didn’t have me in mind. Every passing year without extinction doubles the chances of it happening the next year, especially at my age! I do not care. I tried. I got to Brighton. There were no drums or trumpets. Did I finish the ride in the time set? It’s moot, isn’t it? I am here. Being earnest about such things is unimportant to me and should be so to all us oldies.
“I’m here to compare t he young Norman, 72, with the old Norman, using my old Audax steel bike”