You are here: home » blogs » Seven days ago…
Seven days ago…
by Simon Richardson | 20/03/09
Seven days ago it was pushing 40 degrees, even at night, and as I lay there at one o’clock in the morning bathed in sweat and with one hand permanently fixed to a luke warm bidon, I swore to myself that I would never complain about the rain and cold again.
But here I am, one week later, and if not complaining, then I’m certainly a little aggrieved. Such has been the extent of my early season foreign sunshine that when I saw the pouring rain this morning, my denial led me out without any kind of wet weather plan because it would surely have to stop soon.
Nope, four hours later, washing cow shit and grit off my previously shiny bike I can attest to the fact that it didn’t stop raining. Indeed, I would swear that I even felt a new kind of rain today, one with so many drops per square inch that when riding over 40kph it was impossible to open my eyes. I believe in the North they call it “wet rain”.
But these conditions are real bike riding. There’s nothing heroic about hot weather. No one has ever gone down in cycling folklore for winning a particularly warm race. No image has ever endured the test of time because the rider looks a bit sweaty. Nope, the classic photos of Hampsten on the Gavia, Hinault winning Liege in a whiteout or Tchmil floating through Roubaix mud, these are snapshots of true heroics, where legends are made. And it’s just as well, because something has to make dank muddy Somerset lanes appealing day after day.
