‘Yeah, good, isn’t it! Got it sent over from the States.’
And with that, off I set to get a margin on the man with thighs like granite-filled sandbags. Very quickly Bri cruised up alongside. Arriving smoothly and silently with threatening intent, like a sleek Zeppelin. We rode on for a while together with Bri looking at me and shaking his head gently as he issued the occasional ‘Sheesh!’ By now, I was also shaking my head, but from side to side as I tried to keep up with him.
Unsurprisingly, we ended up going our separate ways. He disappeared up a mountain, while I decided to take an easier route. It was still pretty hilly, but I was happy spinning along through the countryside and little villages. The road kicked up and naturally my pace slowed. Then, as I ploughed up through a village surrounded by fig groves, my troubles started.
What struck me was the way folk looked at me and stirred from their relaxed state, becoming tense. Men stood up and told their kids to go indoors. As I struggled up the modest incline in the heat of the late afternoon, one house called out to the next to warn neighbours of my approach. I was now being greeted by men and women at the edge of their land with hissing sounds and what were clearly insults. They were getting quite animated! I pushed on.
Out the other side of a village, the road I was on simply petered out into a dirt track that was too rough for my road bike. This, of course, meant I had to turn back. Oh dear.
I was about 200m (656ft) clear of the top of the village and down below me the road was filling with my friends. I stopped in a moment of would-be Clint Eastwood cool and cleaned my glasses as I pondered my fate through squinting eyes. I was going to have to go for it. Specs on and head down, I grabbed the bars like a track cyclist and braced myself. I could imagine the start gate at the velodrome about to release me. Everyone in the road below stopped too. As the dust around their feet struggled to settle in the orange twilight, there was a brief staredown. I tensed. In my head I heard the starter countdown: ‘Booop, booop, booop, beep!’ I was off.
As soon as I began my run, the crowd immediately started theirs.
I picked up pace quickly with some of the slickest gear changes I’ve ever done. Cool as a cucumber, I was about to be met with . . . figs. Lots of figs. A figgy blizzard indeed.
As I got within about 50m (165ft), I was going at around 60km/h (37mph) and I was looking good. But not for long.
The first rotten fig caught me on my collarbone and exploded up the right side of my face. The sweet jammy smell was a counterpoint to the verbal bile being issued my way. This was a cue to everyone to let loose. The crowd numbered no more than 40, but their hit rate was impressive. As my vision was gone in seconds thanks to three headshots, I naturally slowed dramatically. I can report that clincher brakes struggle with fig jam. Coming to a juddering halt, I pulled off my specs. Thankfully, the mood had changed and everyone was now laughing uproariously. I smiled just in time to see a kid on his dad’s shoulders tip a boxful of purple fruit grenades over me. I waddled through them. Clipped in and rode away to the sound of an entire village in wild celebration.
Ten minutes down the road, Brian pulled up alongside me. ‘What the f--k happened to you?’
Waving a couple of wasps away, I told him. ‘. . . and they just f--kin’ pelted me! For no good reason whatsoever!’
‘It’s a bloody Muslim country, idiot. Spam is a pork product, you dickhead.’
‘Ah! Let’s get the hell out of here.’
Food Fights
Racing is about power and delivery.
In my view, Formula 1 racing is largely about the car. In cycling, it’s about the man. Sure, the bike comes into the equation, but it’s the man numbers that matter.
A good engine and aero package is vital. In motorsport, this is about light alloy power units and bodywork. In cycling, it is the rider himself who provides these elements. Now, as we all know, if you get the fuelling wrong for any engine, it’s likely to go pop! Let’s ponder this.
A rider struggles to get 6,000 calories into his body to cope with the physical torment of a regular racing day. Such are the demands of cycling for four hours and more at a pace that, even in cruise mode, would see off even the best club riders after 20 minutes. Fuelling such a feat of endurance takes dedication to ingestion. And sometimes indigestion.
Getting prepped wrong brings on the knock, where energy levels collapse – as do, sometimes, the riders themselves. This physical demise can happen with dramatic speed, and even the best riders in the world can suddenly come close to fainting and begin weaving across the road. As soon as these earliest signs present themselves, there is not much time to act. The body can short-circuit without the power derived from food and its internal resources. Get your feed wrong and, at best, you are going to have a losing run. At worst, you can end up in hospital.
Feeding regularly, then, is important and the timing of it vital for success. Make a mistake, and you are going nowhere. But this constant intake has its issues – not the least being how to get it down if you really don’t fancy it.
Cyclists are fussy. It’s what they do well. All of them.
Food is one element you have to have ticked close to the top of the To Do list. But liking what is going into your tum certainly helps the