Riding with the Big Boys

Activity: Sunday club training ride
Distance: 100.69km
Total ascent: 754m
Time: 4 hours including one coffee stop, one visit to Ballater bike shop, one chat to a dog walker and two stops to take photos. (edited: Apparently riding for 3hrs 19mins)
Choons: Skindred  - Electric Avenue (thanks Toby!) and Gabriella Cilmi - On a mission


I havent posted in a few days as the Manflu turned into Proper Flu and I was forced to retreat to bed on thursday. However that was, I guess, the fever breaking and I've been feeling a good bit better every day since.

So what to tell you? I was working all week and yesterday in the Bike Shop. We began pimping Bob (my Hardtail) on Friday during an unusually quiet period. When Bob came out of a well known cycle chain store some um....[counts]....3 years ago...he cost £700. For £700 then, you got bog standard gear, bog standard forks and bog standard wheel and tyres. But I knew nothing of bikes then and he looked cool. And, lets be honest here, the guy in the store was so gorgeous he could have told me a goldfish was great for extreeeeeme (dude) mountainbiking and I would have believed him.

Although I've since learnt that he was slightly exaggerating Bobs offroad capabilities - Ten under the Ben? Suuurrrre, no problem - I'm a sentimental fool and as Bob and I have had many adventures together and he's been places only his playboy full sus or posh hardtail cousins would usually dare to go and lived, I swore I'd stand by him instead of swapping him out (£700 now will get you a lot more for your money that it used to) for a new one. He has a good frame - worth blinging - however, I'm also realistic and though I would love to bling him with Deore XT and £500 forks, the fact he will,  late next year, be joined (not replaced) by a brother who is already several pounds lighter and much better spec prevents me from being too silly.

So, over the past couple days (going in early and finishing late) off have come the mechanical disc/death brakes, the bottom mech, the rotors, the shifters and the 8 speed cassette & chain. Oh, and an inch each side off his handlebars which were too wide for me. On has gone Deore LX (a level down from XT and designed for XC) bottom mech and shifters, a 9 speed cassette and, as Bike Boss described them when he took Bob out for a test drive, "bluddy'ellthey'rekeen!!" hydraulic disc brakes (with 180mm rotors back and front). I also bought him a new wireless computer and some SPD's. Next to come are new lighter wheels and I'm going for tubeless this time as now I have Bella, I don't need to go on road with Bob at all except in winter and therefore can keep a set of decent offroad tyres on him (well it'll be a certain combo). After that a new matching chainset and a slightly better pair of forks with remote lock out and I will leave him at that. Possibly....

So very little riding this week due to Deathy Bug except the one way commute on Bob earlier in the week. However I made up some miles today after being invited to join the Big Boys for the first time on their usual training run to Ballater. I call them The Big Boys with the schoolyard in mind - they're not actually big. They're whippetlike. You know the kind - those who are just so good at stuff that you're in awe of them and stare from the opposite, geeky side of the schoolyard and dream of being able to do what they do. The Big Boys are seriously, seriously, seriously fast and fit including Bike Boss. Anyhoo...like a fool, I accepted. Please bear in mind that I am one month into roadbiking and come from a mountainbiking background. A positively sedate one at that. I like to pottle along and then have A Point to my journey. Like climbing a hill or something. So hurtling along and mostly uphill in a tightly formed group with strict rules about no halfwheeling and remembering to take ones turn at the front and keep the specified distance from the bike in front and be expected to keep ones lungs firmly inside ones chest while trying to understand that there is No Point to this other than to get fit enough to go faster uphill is not natural to me. After 10 miles of heart attack inducing hill and pace, I dropped back and waved them on. No way on gods earth could I keep that breakneck speed up over the distance and so I just carried on at my own pace. What a bloody gorgeous run along the South Deeside road over the hills and along the river though. To be honest, I thought the lads would have long since left Ballater by the time I arrived but as I stood at Dan's bike shop in the square, Bike Boss appeared..


You STAR! he yelled
Pardon?
We thought you had turned back!!! 

Me? Give in? Not even if my arse was to be worn away to a bleeding stump on my razor-like race saddle (which it is but hey, who needs to sit down?)



He hauled me back to the coffee shop where the rest of them were and I had a scone and coffee ordered for me (gentlemen! hurrah!) before we all set off for the race home along the not-so-hilly North Deeside road - I kept up this time AND took my turn at the front AND managed to keep my lungs inside. I am further convinced that Cake and/or Scones are the secret to road cycling. Our group split at Dinnet with half going off towards their homes on Donside vis the Hill of Doom and the rest of us heading to Banchory, and in my case beyond.

I'm now going to fit the new 'puter to Bob and smear my bottom in Sudocrem.