WEEKEND WARRIOR

Never afraid to dip his toes into controversial waters, this month Brunty reels off his triathlon bugbears. This could take a while…

Recently, while scrolling through

my newsfeed on Twitter I took a momentary break from trolling inept politicians to respond to a Tweet which asked, “What’s something you have never understood the appeal of?”

My immediate reaction was to fire off a list of everyday things that seem to have caught on with the general public for reasons I can’t fathom, which includes: plastic lawns, Masterchef, Michael McIntyre, SUVs, Ed Sheeran, adult scooters, those ‘Rules of the House’ posters and Mrs Brown’s Boys (please, no letters, I’m not Points of View).

However, it occurred to me that there are a lot of things in triathlon that appear inexplicably popular as far as I’m concerned, so I wrote a few down in a Tweet and sent it out into the world. To be honest I didn’t expect it to be all that controversial but, as it transpired, I couldn’t have offended more people if I’d tweeted it from Barnard Castle. But never one to shy away from controversy, I thought I’d elevate your heart rate by listing them here. Enjoy....

REAR BOTTLE CAGES

I’m old-school when it comes to cycling so I believe that bottles should be on your downtube and nowhere else. They shouldn’t be loaded into what looks like a rear rocket launcher to be fired under the front wheel of the poor sod behind you the moment you ride over a bump, which may have happened to me once and which I am in no way bitter about.

KIT BOXES

Is there a more inefficient method of kit transportation than balancing a square box on a circular top tube? The answer is ‘no’. And having wrestled your bike and box into transition, no doubt having dropped something en route and cracked your shin on a pedal, you then can’t leave the box by your bike. Get a bag.

WETSUIT-FITTING GLOVES

Fact: the only people who should wear white gloves are snooker refs.

STRAVA

Easily my most controversial choice based on the replies I got, which is why I’ve hidden it in the middle of this column. Quite a few people have looked for me on Strava and other apps, but I’m not on any of them because even I am not interested in my training results, so why anyone else should be is beyond me.

RUN VISORS

It’s basically just a hat with a hole in it. Wear a cap.

ELECTRONIC SHIFTERS

I’m not sure which is more expensive, Di2 or HS2? Plus for a triathlete of my ability the accumulation of milliseconds I’d save each time I changed gear would be more than offset by how much time I take putting socks on in T2.

RAPHA

I’m a dirty bugger when I’m out cycling and it’s fairly standard for my kit to get covered in sweat, snot, dead flies, mud, manky puddle water, arse cream and other certain excretions related to my unwillingness to stop when caught short. Frankly, I don’t need the stress of cycling around in clothes more expensive than my house.

DUATHLONS

This one upset people, although in fairness to them I did describe it as “triathlon without the hard bit”. However, I’m unlikely to enjoy anything that removes the one part of tri I’m any good at and replace it with the part of tri that already hurts the most.

SLEEVELESS CYCLE JERSEYS

The only person I know who wears them is my old chum Neill and it makes him look like Dusty Bin.

There you go. I realise I’m taking a risk writing a column like this, but if you do take issue with any of my choices, please at least make your comeback amusing, like Neill did when he responded to my endless jibes about his Rapha ‘essentials case’ being a purse by buying me for my birthday... a Rapha essentials case. Now THAT’S trolling.

“Fact: the only people who should wear white gloves are snooker referees”