London, people, lots of. Want to escape but I’m trapped in a metal tube, jerking along in a blaze of stark strip-lighting. Country mouse, nay dormouse . Stink of hot bodies, beer breath, most looking like they’ve already downed a nights worth. I feel alien here. Something’s changed since this was part of the daily grind. A lot has changed and it’s not just the passing of time.
Go through the motions of the evening. The company’s good. A friends birthday, his friends making an effort, do my best but I’m floundering. Surreptitiously glance at my watch, long for quiet, pillow, book.
Rewind a week. Lying in a tent listening to the rain beat down on it’s not necessarily waterproof flanks. Pitched at 12.30am in a downpour, towels sacrificed to sop up the flood. No bike this time but another wet field in a long list of fields, perhaps one too many. Most recently they’ve been inhospitable. Wonder if it’s the endless repetition of being soaked through and ferrying home a car full of sodden kit or is it that I’ve got old, that I’m too tired, too broken?
I saw friends in that last muddy field; they were in all honesty my main reason for being there. I’d gone sans bike ostensibly to do other things but those long, not seen friends were the main draw. I’d gone prepared as always and with no expectation of seeing the sun. I could see folk having fun, that it was probably special but I couldn’t get there. Unhappy, tired, sick well differently so, getting dizzy getting out of bed in a tent you can’t stand up in is unusual even for this bag of bones.
Fed up, very. Questioning things that I’ve always looked forward to, always enjoyed no matter what the weather gods threw. Reminisced cheerfully under dripping shelters about the days when a gazebo acted as sun block rather than a way of keeping dry. Opened another beer, stayed up too late encased in wellies, waterproofs and occasionally a sleeping bag. Chatting, having fun with people I love, doing the thing I love, or was that ‘loved’.
Maybe I just need a ride, maybe that will re-set my mind which has defaulted to ‘give up’. There’s the rub, until I can shake this bug which encased my lungs in barbed wire and filled my legs with lead the bike lies redundant, unloved in it’s corner by the fire, with a flat tire and a coating of dust. Yes dust. It’s only been a few weeks but my mind feels like lungs underwater and I’m looking at the list of things entered and curling into a ball of disinterest and dread.
Summer will return soon enough and you’ll get out and pedal and re-set your mind.
I’m beginning to wonder if fate/karma/kismet/whatever has a plan for us.
Between the events, the weather is fine (okay, some of last winter notwithstanding) but when they hit, the weather goes doolally.
The plan is for us to stop punishing ourselves and have fun, by putting us off the events.
It’s for our own good, honest.
When you find your reset button, can you tell me? I can’t find mine at the moment……………
My name is Nicky and I’ve not ridden a bicycle for 15days.
Reset – peeled back my finger nails, looked under my eyelids & I still can’t find it.. Still sick, still fed up… can’t afford a new (waterproof) tent either.
My name is Simon and I haven’t ridden a bicycle for 12 days.
I can’t find my reset button either. Kind of bored of grey skies, pissing rain and gale force wind.
I can’t afford a small, lightweight tent to go on a little bicycle tour either.
I might give up cycling and take up running.
9 days here but that should be rectified tomorrow night. Tired and a bit of a cold so thought the rest would be useful. Now have a very tidy Utility room to go along with the reasonably (for me) tidy garage though.
My name is Grant and I have it too good.
Last week I rode 6 days out of 7 and in spite of recent events, my love of 2 wheels remains.
That said, I still need a reboot…..to shake things up, get out of the T.R.A.I.N.I.N.G. mindset (at least for a couple of weeks!) and remind me that there are alternatives to MTB………
Simon if you take up running I will personally remove your testicles & big toes with a butter knife. You are the wrong shape(not that there’s anything wrong with your shape) you already have bad knees and a duff back.. need I say more?
Tom there’s plenty to be done here if you need to sate your tidying desires.
Grant I’m happy for you (really that’s not sarcasm) alternatives how about just riding for fun on a cross bike or something.
I’m still sick, slightly less sick but not healthy enough to ride a bike & I’m quite fed up.
A butter knife? Well as long as it’s sharp