As win-on lines go it’s not exactly subtle – if you’re sporting a Fortitude Valley, St Kilda, Fyshwick, Kings Cross frame of mind. The thing of it is, if you accept such an offer in Timor, it’ll have less to do with copious amounts of alcohol and seedy hotel room than it will with an actual bicycle, numerous hills and a mushroom omelette on the foreshore.
And so it has been for the past two weekends that I’ve found myself labouring up hills and then hurtling down them. It’s sweet, in a way, that a more competent cyclist might see fit to take me adventuring with them when I am clearly not in their league fitness or skill-wise. I am, I now foolishly admit, I am apparently in their league when it comes to insanity. Their madness lies in the way they chose arduous paths, mere tracks of gravel and mud with gradients comparable to the black diamond ski runs of Europe. My madness lies in agreeing to join them!
Of course, since I am training for “The Tour” I am compelled to do so, to push myself to something akin to a limit and then attempt to exceed it. I’m not doing too badly. I time each ride and so far I don’t think I haven’t improved on a time . . . though since I was seriously slow when I started that isn’t exactly a boast I’ll exclaim from a ridge-top.
Still, I might venture to confess that I’ve been bitten by the bug. The days I don’t get to ride seem slothful. That my timetable was going to mean only one week-day ride sent me spiralling into a dilemma of whether or not to throw in the teaching towel and just ride my way to mid-September. Fortunately my boss finally accepted my argument that I was, in fact, not the best teacher for one of the classes – well, if he didn’t accept it, he decided keeping me happy was a better option than three months of looks that might just kill, and him just about to become a father, my piercing stare was apparently not worth the risk. Now I have three out of five mornings when I can ride.
On those days I can ride, I don’t actually start work until 3:30. If I organise myself and am able to extract myself from sleep at around 5am and be on the road by 6:30, that’s at least seven riding hours. I can be doing mini Tours from now until the actual event!
Oh joy! Oh bliss. Oh God I am so not a morning person trying to remould myself into not only a person who gets up almost before the roosters crow, but into one that forces food down her napping gullet and steps onto a bike. It’s the price I am willing to pay to get my little mitts on an official tour de Timor t-shirt and knicks combo. Oh won’t I be the smart one.
Probably a broke one too. Cycling, it seems, is not “all about the bike”, sorry Lance, even you know this is not true. It’s about the gadgets that you can’t possibly ride without – the odometer that measures distance travelled, current speed, average speed; the heart-rate monitor that will tell you you’re doing it easy despite every muscle in your body screaming that you’re doing it tough; the transition lenses sunglasses that mean you won’t get bugs in your eyes whether you’re out there at 5am or 5pm; the goos and gels that mean you can carry little packets of goop rather than a backpack of bananas, passionfruit, peanut butter sandwiches and muesli bars; oh and how could I forget, the light, something that can illuminate potholes and idiot Un drivers intent on overtaking on narrow blind curves (I do not jest. Just last week, I stopped and stared one such beast down, until he got off my side of the road.)
Seriously though, this cycling business is massively addictive – and a beautiful way to see Timor. Any takers? Come on! I’ll buy you breakfast afterwards!
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