The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
The thrill of conquering all the elements throw at you
Last week my son reminded me of the simple joys of riding.
He had just been given a new road bike for his birthday and was delighted with it.
We went out for a ride together and he started off tentatively, getting used to the drop handlebars and gear shifters that were so different to the flat-barred bikes he had ridden up to this point.
It didn’t take him long to get going, however and soon he was flying along the road with a big grin on his face.
I knew he would be keen – he is always asking to go out for a ride but up until now he has taken after his dad’s (increasing) tendency towards fairweather cycling.
That all changed with his road bike and no sooner were we back than he asked if he could go up and down the road by our house.
Five minutes into his little street circuit, the heavens opened in biblical proportions. I stood at the front door shouting him in but he ignored me and continued up and down and around.
He came in half an hour later, dripping wet and leaving a puddle on the floor but ecstatically exclaiming: “That was brilliant!”
His ebullience reminded me of a postride briefing I gave a group of cyclists I was guiding in Sardinia earlier this year.
They had started that day’s riding in temperatures pushing the high 30s but on the climb up Monte Albo the rumbles of thunder became louder and the rain started. A few spots to start with, then the drops became bigger and in a matter of minutes the sky had turned black and the road was a river.
There was nowhere to shelter until they reached the refugio at the summit, so on they rode.
The rain continued for two hours like that. As they cycled through the cobbled streets of Bitti the few townspeople who were out, sheltering under the awnings of street cafes, looked at us with a mixture of amusement and bewilderment.
Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun, so the saying goes – now torrential rain can also be added to that idiom.
That evening after dinner I told the cyclists about some of my rides. Many were memorable for one reason or another, some have been forgotten in the mists of time.
However, I can still recount every moment of the ones in extreme conditions. I can remember how I felt at the time and exactly how the weather was.
It is always nice to ride in good weather but the stories passed on to other cyclists and bragged about in the pub afterwards are the epic struggles that pitch rider and machine against the worst of the elements.
As if to confirm my belief, as I sat down the cyclists were already reciting their own stories of rides in terrible weather, no doubt with the odd flourish here and there.
My son has only just begun a life of riding but he has already chalked up his first battle against the elements. It may have only been on the road outside our house but to him he could have been battling up the slopes of the Col d’Izoard.
Cycling is not only a transport for the body but a transportation for the mind.