Riding to the gym yesterday evening, I spy a kid, maybe fourteen with blond hair down to his arse and a German WW2-style helmet, mono-ing his BMXer the length of the block along the footpath. As I overtake I suggest he might go faster on two wheels.
In the length of the next block he shoots past me down the centre of the highway, still on one wheel, and speeds away.
“Serves me right,” I tell him as he recedes into the distance.
This morning I’m at the velodrome before six thirty, expecting to have the stadium to myself. But a trim figure with bright flashing tail-light and another halfway up her back is already doing circuits. Is there anything more alluring than a cyclist with a thick plait dangling out of her helmet? I think not.
I whiz around for an hour. I think, according to The Program, I’m supposed to be keeping a high cadence in a low gear and maintaining a moderate heart rate. So I pedal at 85rpm and 126bpm. I cover 31kms at 28.8kph.
Daylight saving pisses me off big time. Nothing to do with discombobulated cows or faded curtains. It discriminates against the morning classes—pastry cooks, dog walkers, cyclists—in favour of the less deserving—beach lollers, window shoppers, and alfresco bon viveurs. We have to do things in the dark while the hedonists get the light.
We’re not halfway to the autumn equinox and it’s barely light enough to be on the road at 6:30. It is, of course, really 5:30, but your average slugabed wouldn’t know.
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