Take to one’s wheels

The promise of more ‘couples’ time and a better bottom have persuaded Eve Jones to overcome her dislike of Lycra wearers and hop onto a saddle

MANY moons ago, my Uncle Alun was held up down a narrow lane by a lumbering herd of dairy cows. As he waited, instead of heaving and sloshing their udders around his Triumph Spitfire, the cows took a short cut and trampled over the bonnet. I was thinking about this while stuck behind some cyclists down a lane the other day and trying to decide which would make me more irate. I decided I’d rather take the milkers.

I like to think of myself as a fairly calm person. I don’t get road rage. I never honk my horn. I don’t swear at people at roundabouts and I only occasionally squawk if a 4x4 coming round a corner scares me – but even then I only think about ways to kill the fat Range Rover driving twit, not shout it. But if there’s one thing that makes my blood boil and my language filthy it’s cyclists.

I don’t mean weekend mountain bikers or basket-fronted Pashley pedallers. I don’t really have an issue with the sweary city-centre Bike 2 Work Scheme aggressors and I’m all for kids kicking off the stabilisers or hound exercise on wheels. I mean the spandex-clad, go-faster-striped, clipped-in, country-road cyclists. I live in the Chiltern Hills and you can be sure wherever there’s an unpleasantly steep hill there’s an unpleasantly slow, spandexed cyclist – we’re plagued.

Your average road cyclist takes themselves very seriously. You can tell they are very serious because of their very stretchy cycling clothes, with sporty slogans on as if they’re training for a serious event and helmets formed in seriously speedy shapes. The road cyclist choses seriously beautiful country routes to ride but hasn’t actually got time to look at the view because they are too busy concentrating on their serious technique and checking their speed, distance, heart rate and calories burned on their seriously expensive watch. The road cyclist, no matter how inconvenient to the cars behind, is far too important to pull over and stop to allow those behind them to pass. They have serious miles to clock up, after all. Road cyclists exist in a time warp. They appear to be whizzing along on their skinny little wheels at lightening speed but get stuck behind them and you’re crawling, maddeningly, for what seems like days. On weekends they pedal in a peloton. Hordes of them spin along, probably two abreast, anticipating – and taking – every turn on your route for miles and miles and miles. But don’t expect a thank you for your patience. Oh goodness me no, they’re going far too fast to manage that…

Um, but here’s the twist. Mr D has a road bike and so does our mate, Holly. Holly also has a really good bottom, so I was persuaded over supper in a moment of weakness (drunkenness) that I should also get a bike to: a) spend time with Mr D; b) get a really good bottom. This idea has been conflicting on many levels but, to be fair, my biggest concern when the hasty ebay purchase arrived was the requisite outfit.

For starters, cyclists actually attach their feet to their pedals. Bloody silly if you ask me and highly likely to end in a broken hip at a T-junction, so I poo-pooed that immediately. They spray-paint themselves into aerodynamic Lycra blazoned with official looking graphics, as if they’re on for the 2021 Tour de France when, in fact, most of their go-faster stripes, straining at overstretched seams, suggest they’re better acquainted with la grande fromage than La Grande Boucle. At a quick glance of the bike shop site I realised I could buy a new horse for what I can spend on ‘essential’ cycling garb so refused to concede, or care, that a hooped cycling top will make me faster. Stubbornly, and slightly in the hope people won’t think I’m ‘one of them’, I wear an old, baggy T-shirt instead. It has awful yellowing armpits, says Pizza Slut on the front and looks smashing with my holey old leggings, riding gloves and running trainers. I have a borrowed helmet and the one genuine necessity for these blasted bikes – if you ever hope to have children, that is – padded pants.

You know those adverts on TV, the ones for Tena Lady knickers? Slim, discreet, you’ll never know you’re wearing them? Nothing like that. This is more like Pampers x WWF. Circulation-restricting cycling shorts have a huge foam gusset, are held up with racingbacked braces and you have to pour yourself into them. Once you’ve dragged your leggings on top your arse looks extra enormous and the foam is so thick that for the first time in my life I found the elusive ‘thigh gap’. I’m also in danger of dislocating a hip, mind.

And so, Mr D and I have embarked on our first rides. He, of course, has all the proper gear and I merrily slow down the beeps tracking our pace on his fancy watch and yell, “You’re going too fast” a lot, because I can’t really use the gears and my billowing T-shirt is causing a little bit of drag. I’m coming to terms with the fact that I have joined the dark side by actively debunking the notion that all road cyclists are smug, slow, rude and annoying. I wave and beam at cars as we go, I pull over as I am painfully inching up hills, with utmost consideration for other road users (this just happens to coincide with imminent heart failure). Most people see all this and my outfit and assume, rather than out on a couples ride, Mr D is my minder and we’re out from the funny farm. They excuse the little hold-up because it’s a bit like care in the community, really, and it’s not like I’m trampling their bonnet. Unfortunately, my bottom hasn’t improved one jot. It’s a work in progress. But let’s face it, I’m really not quite serious enough for all that, am I?

The foam is so thick that for the first time in my life I found the elusive ‘thigh gap’