I did a cycling time trial at the weekend.
You may know this discipline because of Bradley Wiggins, or the skinsuits that are even tighter than usual, or the helmets with a long tail, or the bikes slender enough to slice through concrete. Wiggins is one of the best in the world, although not as good as the Swiss powerhouse Fabian Cancellara or the German metronome Tony Martin. Back among the ranks of the mad amateurs, some of us ride these things because they're there. (I was going to write "for fun" but that's so far from the truth.) My pal Richard the bike shop owner has a specialist time trial bike worth thousands, but said the other day that he hates it because every time he rides it he knows he will suffer.
The French call it contre le montre and that is exactly true. Each entrant starts, rides and finishes alone, with only a pounding heartbeat and ticking clock for company. Sometimes (in my case often) a later starter may sail past but in essence it's a battle between man and the passage of time. Like life itself, then.
I'm told that time trials can become addictive, the quest for a personal best leading people to extremes. Perhaps it is like the search for the elixir of youth: a battle to turn back the gradual decay of age. Here is some of the knowledge I have accumulated:
1. To improve your personal best, train hard.
2. When you've trained hard, train some more.
3. After you've done that, spend a few grand on an air-slicing frame and disc wheels and get used to riding in a flat-forward position that would give most people sciatica.
4. Some courses are faster than others. If you really want to beat your PB, find one that's flat, has nice tarmac (not the claggy stuff in Kent) and isn't windy. This may mean driving dozens, or even hundreds, of miles every weekend in search of the perfect conditions. That's OK, as long as you shave off a second or two.
As to tactics for an individual event...
1. Ride the first half flat out. Then ride the second half flat out.
2. If you're sick after crossing the finishing line, that's OK: it's a sign you've given everything.
3. If you're sick before crossing the finishing line, that's bad: it's a waste of energy. And it makes a mess of your kit.
4. If at any point during the TT you don't think you're about to die, you aren't trying hard enough.
5. Acceptable reasons for putting in a slow time are: puncture, major mechanical (for example, chain snapped, handlebars fell off, wheel rims combusted under fierce braking).
6. Unacceptable reasons for not completing the course include: it was a bit chilly, my legs hurt, it was raining, I was out on the beer last night.
7. Acceptable reasons for not completing the course are: death, RTA.
8. If you are overtaken by an old lady on a shopper bike, time trials aren't for you. But you must still finish the course.
You might be wondering how I got on. It was not so much chilly as downright freezing and my legs hurt; but I hadn't been on the beer and suffered only a minor mechanical, so I beat my personal best. And it was only a 50-mile round trip.
Monday, 26 March 2012
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Blowing smoke
I see the good burghers of Top Gear are in trouble again. Not Jeremy Clarkson this time, but James May, for a fabricated sequence in which he's blocked in traffic by a bunch of learner drivers whilst trying to road-test a classic Ferrari. It turns out this was actually filmed more than two years ago and it was instructors, not learners, driving the cars. Was anyone surprised?
I have long been a fan of Top Gear but who still takes it seriously? As far as I can see, it's a sitcom. Any resemblance to a motoring programme past or present is purely coincidental. The presenters have become parodies of themselves: the brash, opinionated head of the household; the young, preening one; and the slow, arts-loving boffin. Even their hairstyles play along: Clarkson is clearly a man stuck in the 70s, May is a free thinker and doesn't care who knows it, Hammond could advertise grooming products. All this is blended with the petrolhead view of cars as representing freedom, far detached from the tax-motorists-till-they-bleed reality of modern Britain. Speed is king, which is why the testosterone-overloaded threesome often head to the open roads of mainland Europe to let rip in shiny supercars - that, and the consequent suntans, and possibly the opportunity to mock their own Britishness and their hosts' foreignness.
Some of the scripting is utterly brilliant. Give a medal to the man (somehow I don't think it was a woman) who wrote the lines by which Stig was introduced each week. And the imagination that lies behind some of the trio's adventures, is right up there with some of the great sitcom scenarios. The cross-channel challenge was excellent, so to the attempt to cross the Bering Sea. James May attaching a caravan to a hot air balloon? Genius. Richard Hammond building his own steam train replacement? I loved it.
My problem is that the programme too often crosses the line into clear "that's made up" territory. I haven't seen the driving lesson episode - it's among a backlog of recordings on my digital box - but recently Hammond and Clarkson filmed themselves directing the second unit of the film The Sweeney. They blew up a mobile home, destroyed several cars, argued about the finer points of traction control, crudely edited the rushes into a ridiculous chase scene (and plugged the film). They also met Ray Winstone and he had no idea who Hammond was. This is a man who, as a recent Pointless question highlighted, was The Star in a Reasonably Priced Car not so long ago. He was thus revealed as an actor, acting. This does beg the question: how many of the other "unwitting participants" in Top Gear are following instructions? Was the impressive train stunt in the India special completely fabricated? Is any of it real? I suspect the answer is that, like many great (and some dire) comedies it is improvised to a loose script, not spontaneous and uncontrolled as they would have us believe.
James May sells us a vision of freedom and ends up constrained, as part of a humorous construct? That seems an apt metaphor for Top Gear itself. Stop thinking so deeply about it, people; just sit back and enjoy the insults and the tyre smoke.
I have long been a fan of Top Gear but who still takes it seriously? As far as I can see, it's a sitcom. Any resemblance to a motoring programme past or present is purely coincidental. The presenters have become parodies of themselves: the brash, opinionated head of the household; the young, preening one; and the slow, arts-loving boffin. Even their hairstyles play along: Clarkson is clearly a man stuck in the 70s, May is a free thinker and doesn't care who knows it, Hammond could advertise grooming products. All this is blended with the petrolhead view of cars as representing freedom, far detached from the tax-motorists-till-they-bleed reality of modern Britain. Speed is king, which is why the testosterone-overloaded threesome often head to the open roads of mainland Europe to let rip in shiny supercars - that, and the consequent suntans, and possibly the opportunity to mock their own Britishness and their hosts' foreignness.
Some of the scripting is utterly brilliant. Give a medal to the man (somehow I don't think it was a woman) who wrote the lines by which Stig was introduced each week. And the imagination that lies behind some of the trio's adventures, is right up there with some of the great sitcom scenarios. The cross-channel challenge was excellent, so to the attempt to cross the Bering Sea. James May attaching a caravan to a hot air balloon? Genius. Richard Hammond building his own steam train replacement? I loved it.
My problem is that the programme too often crosses the line into clear "that's made up" territory. I haven't seen the driving lesson episode - it's among a backlog of recordings on my digital box - but recently Hammond and Clarkson filmed themselves directing the second unit of the film The Sweeney. They blew up a mobile home, destroyed several cars, argued about the finer points of traction control, crudely edited the rushes into a ridiculous chase scene (and plugged the film). They also met Ray Winstone and he had no idea who Hammond was. This is a man who, as a recent Pointless question highlighted, was The Star in a Reasonably Priced Car not so long ago. He was thus revealed as an actor, acting. This does beg the question: how many of the other "unwitting participants" in Top Gear are following instructions? Was the impressive train stunt in the India special completely fabricated? Is any of it real? I suspect the answer is that, like many great (and some dire) comedies it is improvised to a loose script, not spontaneous and uncontrolled as they would have us believe.
James May sells us a vision of freedom and ends up constrained, as part of a humorous construct? That seems an apt metaphor for Top Gear itself. Stop thinking so deeply about it, people; just sit back and enjoy the insults and the tyre smoke.
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