Skip to main content

Rouleur

Imagine for a second that I am a cyclist on the final stage of The Vuelta a Bolivia.  I have climbed to the summit of 4,496 metres above sea level, through the high plains of Altiplano, Lake Titicaca and finally La Paz.  It is the highest and arguably the most challenging tour on the cycling calendar.  When I first arrived, the locals had told me in hand expressions and broken English that the summit climb would make my lungs scream.  This morning, I saw Padre Perez anoint every ambulance with holy water.  Such is its intensity, I’m told he does it every morning during the tour.  I know the task ahead, but knowing this did little to settle my nerves.  The apprehension mostly leaves me when I’m on the road.  All I can do now is focus on the game plan and the wheel of the man in front.  This is the final stage.  For all the pain a rider has to push through on a climb at altitude, we always hope the final ascent is the sweetest - that is, the ascent to a podium finish.

I was at the centre of the peloton during a slight descent.  We were as snug as a jigsaw as we slipped through the humidity.  We were very tightly packed; so much so that it felt like a symphony, or the opening and closing of a hand, but I’ve learnt not be distracted by the ostensible togetherness of a leading group. Everyone is hushed, everyone is thinking.  Then, suddenly, a slip.  Everyone’s worst fear is realised: a water bottle is dropped near the front.  I imagine a scattering, like a swathe of starlings who have just been spooked, suddenly out of rhythm with one another.  I glimpse it as it falls near the front.  The atmosphere within the pack tenses; it is a mass brace of professionals in the acceptance of an impending crash.

Imagine I am this rider watching as the bottle falls in front of me.  And you are all of the following. 

You are the way the bottle bounces,
and the way the other riders in front of me react to it in my favour,
and the split second gap that allows me to ride around the crush and tangle,
and the patch after patch after patch of ungrazed skin,
and the right, instinctive choice,
and the podium place,
and the lack of fear for next year. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Samsa & Shabeezi

Samsa was now a human.  He’d recently become a human after his architect decided to put a human heart in him and give him feelings.  The five litres of blood that now pumped around his body warmed him up.  It made for incredible nose bleeds, spasms, cramps and bruising, to name o nly a small fraction of the symptoms, but his architect assured him that it would all be worth it and that he'd feel normal very soon.  He didn't know what normal was, but he knew it wasn't puking and shitting and bleeding all over the place for the first two months and then just feeling terrible for several weeks after that.  Human life is agony, he thought, but he trusted the process.  One day, a little over twelve weeks after the operation, he woke up from his first good night's sleep and was able to open the curtains without the light splitting his skull in two.  Samsa had known Shabeezi before she became a human woman.   All they had done was fight.   Samsa especially liked doing flying
Post a Comment
Read more

When I Needed a Winter Project, I Turned to Dylan Thomas - a Tommy & Moon Story

Before the snow came the smell of cinnamon. I wanted to track it all the way back to its source, to see who gave it flight. I imagine a woman, seventy-five, making herself a cappuccino next to an open window. The air is cold and sharp but she needs a quick blast of late autumn’s best before she gets out with the whippet. Wisp is looking at her from her basket, scanning for indications from mum that her walk is coming. Don’t worry, Wisp: walkies is imminent - but then a song comes on the radio that she hasn’t heard in fifty years. The Serge Gainsbourg ballad throws her into a deep dream-state, a reverie that takes her all the way back to Paris. She walks to the cupboard to find the cinnamon shaker, brushing shoulders with actors and actresses who’d worked with Godard and Truffaut and Antonioni. She remembers the time she once saw Jane Birkin at a party and witnessed first-hand the effect her beauty had on all the men in the room. I was two miles away from home, running at an easy, stead
Post a Comment
Read more

An Expert Analysis of Michael Fassbender's Running Style From the Film 'Shame'

Tom Wiggins: What are your first impressions of Michael Fassbender/Brandon's running style? Paul Whittaker: He's running nice, smooth and relaxed. He seems like he has a good amount of fitness and he is running well within himself in terms of pace.   TW: What improvements could he make to his running style? PW: The main improvement I'd make is his foot plant.  He lands heel first and this causes a 'breaking' effect when travelling forwards.  If he landed on his mid-foot/forefoot, this would be a much better for impact stress and propulsion going forward into the next running stride. TW: Regarding his speed, how many minutes per mile is he running? PW : I would say he is running approx 7-7.30 minutes per mile. TW:   What do you make of his stride lengths?  Is he overstriding/understriding? PW:  The actor is definitely overstriding in this clip.  It would help if his feet landed underneath and below his centre of gravity. TW: What's his
Post a Comment
Read more