B.A.S.E.

Building Aerobic System Endurance

Beating All Spring Entrants

Brag About Souplesse Enhancements

Break After Season's End

Bring Along Something to Eat

Beer and Alcoholic Spirits Encouraged

Blowy And Showery Everywhere

Branches And Sharps Endemic

Boring And Slow Excursions

Best Avoid Steep Escarpments

Begin Another Sodding Exercise

Believe Another Scientific Experiment

Buy Another Set of Everything

Bright Afternoons, Starry Evenings

Better Alongside Someone Else

Begin Again to Surprise Everyone

On Irrational Proprietary Feelings

Day on day and year on year

Night and morn and eve,

I ride on in from there to here,

Because here my bike I leave

It's not special, that space of mine

Under tree, by the stand,

And it's not that I wish to whine,

But there's history there, between me and land

That's the spot for which I aim,

Where my charge is secure,

And though I cannot leave my name,

I leave something else for sure

So if on that loop of steel you see

A lock that seems forgot,

Please roll on by and think of me

And please don't nick my spot.

The Le Mans of Knockhill

It's been a long night.

The pits echo with the whirr of turbo trainers and rollers, and murmured syllables in front of the screen tracking the results. The computer tells me that the air temperature has dropped to three degrees - colder in here than out there - and I am wearing almost everything I have as I gently spin my legs back into action.

Gloves on, buff on. I change my hat so quickly that the draft perceptibly cools my head. That's not the worst part, though. The worst part is always the jersey - switching out the fleece, the coat, for a layer of polyester, a rain jacket, and a gilet. No, wait, that's not the worst. The worst is dragging myself out of my sleeping bag, fetid now with the constantly-replaced sweat, prizing my eyes open to start this whole cycle again. The changing. The warm-up. The rolling out into the pin-pricked night to roll back and forth up the pit lane as I wait for that mini sun that is Jim's light.

But I do it anyway. I do it because I just checked my watch, and I know it's time to start. I start now, because I need to be there for Jim. Jim goes out, time and time again, because he knows Andy is counting on him being there. And time after time, Andy is right there when I need him. No question, no consideration that things would ever be otherwise.

That is why I peel back the sleeping bag.

The transfer of the wrist-band "baton" is getting slower now, but with lap times lengthening the changeover is less critical. Better safe than searching.

It's a smile and a wave from the Enable girls, then a hop over the drain at the end of the pit lane and out onto the track, zero to thirty miles an hour in a hundred metres. The first right hander is taken flat-out and pedalling, the apex long memorized. Then it's down into the sweeping left. The more I put on, the more I'll have to scrub off after though, so I drop my right leg and swoop through, holding the left edge of the track as I come into turn three. There's a floodlight here, and a car parked to highlight the apex with its beams, but I cautiously drop the speed back to below 30 to avoid running wide on the exit. Punching out the other side, it's up to 32 as I'm slingshotted up the following slope, taking the straight line through the chicane.

It's the hardest part of the circuit, the drag up through the next corner. I pass solo riders, now into the mentally destructive, metabolism-crippling early morning hours that require a stern will and infinite patience to crank your way through. I say hello, but it is muffled by the buff.

All weight onto legs as I wrench around the right-hander onto the back straight. It would be suicidal if I was doing more than 8 or 9 laps, but with these short stints, I can't hold back too much.

The headwind is vicious now, and I'm in the drops and as flat-backed as I can go, but spinning lightly. By this point I need more air than I can draw through the buff, and drop it off my nose, the sharp shock of it like cut crystal. My light reflects off highlights on legswarmers that piston in front of me, then slide off to one side.

I take the sharp inside line through the hairpin as the strongest rider from Fife showed me. It's one of the fastest ways to get around, but, more importantly, if you've picked up any hangers-on with no strength left, you can drop them here instantly. It's cruel, but every lap counts.

The buffer is already considerable, but we're only just over half-way. I won't feel comfortable until the last hour, when the caffeine I've pumped direct into my stomach lining has pulled out some of my fastest half hours so far as the morning mist burns off and I celebrate my final outing on the track by stripping down to shorts and a jersey and trying to beat Beaumont's three minute lap. I don't make it, but it doesn't matter. John and Nicola are there cheering me on, and so is everyone else, and we've done it. I pull in to give Andy the glory of bringing it home, the adrenaline still coursing through my veins. We pulled out almost 20 miles on our nearest competitors, and led from start to finish.

That a three-man team could win through 24 hours of racing versus four-men teams is surprising, and that we could do it so thoroughly is astonishing, but, truth be told, we won because we had no weak riders. None of us were as fresh as us at our best, but, similarly, none of us was significantly slower than the others. So we kept it up, lap after lap, rarely letting others pass whilst putting the other teams further into deficit when they fielded weaker riders.

We also had great support, John and Nicola paying us a visit when it mattered most, and making us as comfortable as guys spending thirty out of every ninety minutes flying around a track in the dark could be.

Most importantly, we had motivation. Friends and family had kindly donated over £1300 to Enable Scotland, the charity the event was in aid of, on the basis that we were going to ride our hearts out and, yes, win. As soon as I heard of the event, I knew we had the riders to win it, and we proved that.

We'll be back next year, to break the record.

Our record.

Crashing out and in

I wonder if there's ever been a time where I'd have been happy with 8th.

Probably not.

The South West Scotland Cycling Project's 4th race of the season took place this weekend, down around Dalbeattie, which, in common with all SWSCP races, is virtually impossible to get to via public transport. I was grateful, then, of the lift from Jim, one of the five club members to make the trip, making it our most gregarious race ever. Since we all finished, I suppose it was also our most successful, and the race could certainly be painted in a positive light. Then again, with crashes involving two of us, and riders getting dropped, it could also be painted in colours more closely attributed to Munch's 'Scream'. Indeed, it was a tale of two races. Here they are.

Race One: A dark day in Hell.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. The rain and clouds should have moved away in the early morning, leaving clean, sticky roads. They weren't supposed to linger, to smother the dank dolmens of Galloway and oppress the steel sea, as riders rolled eyes and wheels in an industrial car park, wondering if we were going to get any dry races this season.

The roll-out, when it came, was blisteringly quick, only hurrying the descent into carnage. Taking my customary position near the centre of the road, I let myself drift too far back, wary as I was of crossing the centreline on such an unknown route, and with dire warnings from the commissaires. In such a position, I could see the pack compress and swerve as rider after rider stopped dead, even on descents, parting the spandex sea with a raised fist of frustration as another sharp splintered through a tread.

The first crash was uphill, on a straight. After checking that Jim was alright, enough was enough and jumped hard, a lead group of about 20 forming out of the debris. It was another mile before the second crash, on flat road with good visibility. As the riders at the front of the pack binned it, the rider in front of me drifted to the right, into the fray. Yelling with dismay, as I realised the deceleration had put me into overlap, I had no choice but to go with him until he hit the verge and took me down.

Bloodied down my left side, I was back on my bike in a handful of seconds, and regretting it in a couple of seconds more as I wrenched my left shifter back into position and found the lever jammed like a compound fracture forty five degrees off the vertical. Rear brake control was still possible, but only from the hoods. At least I was stuck in the big ring.

The descent took far too long, but it allowed a small group of four to form - myself, my club mate Graham, and two Classic Racing Team riders. The pack were in view, but pegging them back would take some work.

We worked.

To my dismay, whenever the first CRT  rider came by, though, we slowed, and his team-mate left him too long before taking up the pace. A few miles down the road, we had no choice but to drop him, and Graham. We needed to make it to the back of the cars.

Three private vehicles were caught behind the comissaire's car, and with a massive burst of effort I was finally able to latch onto the recirculation zone of the last of them. At last, a chance to relax, get my breath back before working our way up.

Not a chance.

The car drove with all the smooth purpose of a man deciding whether to chop off his own arm or foot, dropping back, then booting towards the queue again. I sprinted almost into the rear bumper time and time again, before finally having the breath to jump around the outside.

Race Two: An instinct for speed.

The comissaire pulled out and let us through on the inside, where we were welcomed back into the bosom of the pack and invited to rest. A break had already gone up the road, and I was in no condition to pin it back, so I let what happen unfold.

There were periods where no-one spoke at all; where the sun broke through and the roads claimed no further victims. We worked, we rode quickly, but we were past fighting, and I had nothing to prove. The bloody streak on my elbow showed that.

As we entered our final lap, Edinburgh Road Club tried to put a few riders up the road, and worried that they might be strong enough to get away, I made the jump. As soon as I completed my first turn, though, it was clear that we weren't going anywhere, and I relaxed as the pack reeled us back in. They launched a counter-attack that was more faint than feint, and I settled in for the minor sprint. For all I knew, Andy could have still be up the road.

Coming over the hill for the final time, I began to become anxious. Knowing the strength of the rider I had bridged back to the group with, I stuck his wheel as he brought himself to the front.

A mile to go, riders popping off the front and getting pegged back. I'm not panicking, just watching. A rider in blue comes past - not fast enough to get away, just fast enough that he wants to be in the front 3 riders as we see the line. That's fine. I follow him up and sit, middle of the road, second wheel back, as we enter the final kilometre.

Last corner now. It's a draggy left-hander. I know the finish line, three hundred metres down a slight slope. It's early to go, but no-one can see the line. No-one's ready.

I sprint.

Slightly over the centre-line, I allow myself to drift back into lane as the music of dismayed shouts echoes behind my wheel. I have just ruined ten riders' day.

A hundred metres to go, and I start to get worried. The commissaire's car is on the line. On it. I'm sprinting towards it. If he doesn't move, I'm going to hit it.

The hesitation is enough to let a rider slip round on my right. I lunge five metres too early, and roll over the line virtually collapsing from the effort.

I reflect on the best sprint I have ever performed; my growing instinct for positioning, for timing. I am happy with my determination - my stubborness in telling myself "you haven't suffered this much just to give up now" as we chased on, as I prepared and sprinted and picked up 3 regional points.

The cost of the race was high. Jim broke his Garmin. I repaired my shifter with resin, my shorts and jersey with needle and thread, and my mitts were beyond repair. I can't even remember the issue that Andy had.

Was it worth it? I can't say. The race happened as it did. It cannot have happened any other way. Am I happy with the way I raced? Yes. Not conceitedly so, and I know I still need to improve my descending, and I could have been more forgiving when working to get back to the cars, but, overall, yes. Am I happy with the way some other riders raced? No. But in crashing and recovering, I found myself working with other riders in a way that far exceeded the one-eye-one-the-prize cynicism of a breakaway.

Do I still love racing? That's the only question that needs to be asked. The answer?

Well, sometimes, I think, one needs to draw a line.

Because I want to be first over it.

Backdated - Negative racing and the EKRR

By now, most of Britain will have seen or heard about the disappointing failure of the British men's road squad to bring home a gold, and will be aware, on some level, that this was brought about by a number of other countries 'racing 'negatively' or 'against' GB. It was surprising  to see so little help from Germany, and GB made a big mistake in keeping to their initial tactics when O' Grady went up the road - if the Aussies had needed a sprint finish, they would have been powerful allies to have.

I'll pull back now from the armchair speculation, and get to my point - if such negative racing can prevail when the stakes are so high, what happens when the stakes are low?

So to the East Kilbride Road Race.

It was your standard 50 miles cat 4 race - 3 laps around the Stewarton course. The weather, on par for the summer so far, promised to be disruptive, and most of the chat beforehand was on how waterproof we needed to be.

The lead-out behind the neutral car was a mess of grabbed brakes and surges, with riders' heads down and peaks low as the rain and road spray miasmed ahead of us. Once the car accelerated away, the peleton rushed to stretch its legs up the first climb to white loch, the groups splitting, as ever, under the influence of gravity. I plonked myself neatly in the back third of the lead group as it chased down a breakaway pair, to see how things would unfold.

We rolled pleasantly to the A77, and then stopped. There was no other way to put it. With a slight, but not forbidding, headwind, no-one was willing to put in any work.

I wasn't either, but, then, I wasn't willing to sit at this pace, either. Too many fresh legs would make my life difficult in the final - I would only excel against a similarly tired field. So I did the only thing I could in the situation. I attacked.

In retrospect, this was stupid. As a matter of fact, at the time, it was stupid. It was completely against plan. I am not a flatland rider. I have relatively poor power to drag, especially when compared to power to weight. A flat road, into a headwind, is never a great place to attack, and yet there I went.

Even this makes it sound more premeditated than it was. This is getting so far off track now that in a few paragraphs I'll undoubtedly have to yank the handbrake and pull a u-ey, but, since accidentally getting into breakaways was a recurring theme of the day, I'll go into it in more detail. Here was the actual thought process:

Seriously? 15mph? Now? Sod this.

I rode up on the outside of the group, aiming to pull for a bit, and spotting a solo rider up the road.

You know what, why should I work for these lazy gits?

I put in a tiny bit of extra pace, and instead of pulling in at the head of the line, I ride up, and up, and up onto the soloist's wheel.

Well, that was easy - oh. He's just a kid. We'll never hold out two and a half laps. Well, since I'm up here, might as well do a bit of work...

After far too long, and after picking up a few other vaguely-interested break men, the real break went by. This one was going places, and I charged to try and bridge, all too aware that I was towing three other guys. I got to the wheel, but that was it. Spent. There was no way I was going to be able to keep that pace. I apologised to the guys on my wheel and sat up, but they were either too bushed themselves or didn't get the message, and didn't come around. So we let them go, and the bunch came back.

I played with them on the hill, aware that the KOM points would go to the break. Again, I accidentally popped off the front, but at least had the good sense this time to sit up and fall back. I would need the bunch to chase down this break. If only they'd start working...

They didn't, so I did. In the end, it was probably only half a dozen disparate riders who did any real work in that race; frequently left dangling on the front of the pack as no-one would come around. I was furious by the last lap - 'what are we, racing for second?'. Again, I messed around with the bunch on the hill, sitting up and tootling past the front-runners who were attacking the line as it it were the finish. Again, I found myself in a break, which I went with until the clunch road, but it was a half-hearted affair. I wanted to use the bunch to bring our man back.

I shouldn't have been so foolish.

We didn't get our man, and, exhausted by my chasing efforts, I didn't have enough for the last sprint hill and creaked up at the back of the pack. So it goes.