RISE AND FALL
Norman’s climbing stats aren’t quite what they were
I have never been much of a hill climber. I could, of course, get up most hills but in general, when I was with my friends, I was the one being dropped. On my desk I have an Audax Altitude Award. If I remember correctly it was for completing a 200km ride with cumulative climbing of 14m per km. In terms of these awards, it’s likely of the lowest rank. During the Covid-19 lockdown I read that there was a surge in Everesting activity, where cyclists climb 8,848m in one go, on one climb. It’s not for me. The stultifying boredom of going up and down a hill several hundred times would fry my brain. That said, I’m not totally averse to climbing.
There existed on the south coast an Audax series consisting of 200km, 300km, 400km and a 600km rides. If you did them all in a year you became a ‘Wessex Super Randonneur’. Between 1994 and 2003, in my years riding it, a total of 76 riders completed the series. I mention this because the 300km ride climbed 4,280m; the 400km climbed 5,985m and the 600km ride 8,185m. It took me about 35 hours to complete this latter one. It’s not far off an Everesting. Doing the ride three times has cured me of wanting to climb 8,000m ever again. In all, the total height gained over three rides was nearly eighteen and a half thousand metres. Of the four rides, the 400km was to my mind the hardest because at an average of 14.9m of climbing per km, the event posed quite a challenge.
The last time I did the 600km I lost my brevet card, which you need to prove the validity of your ride. This was a near disaster. To ensure that riders do not take short cuts,they are asked to answer a question about some landmark which is on the designated route. This keeps most people honest. I remembered there was a question set on the road via Warleigh in the West Country but had quite forgotten the specifics. At Warleigh I noted down all kinds of details, hoping that I would get lucky and find the correct answer.
While hunting around I came across a letter box with VR (Victoria Regina) on it and thought nothing more of it. Back at the finish the organiser asked whether I had noticed a post box on the road near Warleigh and if I had noted something unusual about it. Victoria Regina was the answer to the question, which meant that I was accredited with the ride. Because I was using the 600km ride as a qualification ride in order to be accepted for Paris-BrestParis (PBP), the 1,200km daddy of audax, which occurs every four years, you can imagine my relief. I definitely did not look forward to doing another 600km. A side effect of all of this was that I remembered VR forever and from that sprang my interest in letter boxes, which you may remember from columns past.
The interesting thing about the 300km ride was that it started at 2am. Now at that time of the morning your circadian rhythm is causing many physiological systems to be near or at their lowest. The hormone cortisone secreted by the adrenal gland is almost at its lowest level; body temperature is also approaching its lowest point. It’s time to sleep, not be out gallivanting in the dark. The organiser is fully cognisant of this physiological disturbance, which provides a way to add to the cyclist’s misery. I remember cycling at around 3am in the PBP when three cyclists in a line behind the leader came past me at speed. I was just ambling along at that time of night. There was a sharp turn ahead. Two cyclists took the turn. The third and last cyclist just kept straight on into a hedge. Luckily he wasn’t hurt but he had fallen asleep on the bike in those few seconds and had cycled straight on.
Looking at my cycling diary for last year I see that I cycled on 35 occasions between March and October. I climbed an average of 2,000ft per ride, about 610m, making a total height gain of 21,350m. That is only 3,000m more than I did on three 600km rides, back when I was still operating on testosterone.
Looking back, I cannot reconcile that cyclist from my past with the old man struggling up the North Downs on a weekly basis. The sheer feeling of freedom that you get on the saddle knowing that you could ride forever given sufficient time still lingers in remote corners of my mind. Now the horizons are limited in my dotage and the satisfaction and pleasure of cycling is now found on the way to my favourite cake stop.