Welcome to the club!

I blame all of this on my brother in law, well I have to blame somebody for looking like an overweight Michelin man squeezed into a lycra outfit that’s been sized up wrong looking at all the unsightly bulges, oh dear, this is not a pretty sight! Chris, an already converted MAMIL who impressed me not just with his ever growing covert bike collection that his wife knew nothing about but also his loss of weight, fighting off the dreaded beer belly that he had been developing nicely over the year or so that I had come to know him. He also impressed me with the fact that recently he had cycled from Bristol to London, LONDON, what, you have to be kidding me, that’s over 100 miles, on a push bike……… little did I know.

I had to do something to get fit, now into my 50’s and with an ever expanding waist line that had sneakily crept up on me over the last few years, I needed a way to shed some weight. Running, nope, knees knackered, Gym, tried it, boring. There I was though, 97.5kg of belly that needed to go.  I’ve always been pretty active and have enjoyed various sports over the years, mountain biking, used to love it but the thought of getting covered in crap again just didn’t appeal anymore despite having one in the garage, well at least I thought I had one somewhere. Rock climbing also featured for quite a few years with some great climbing being done in the Wye Valley and Spain. Thing was I’d stacked so much weight on that hauling myself up a 100m rock face was going to be out of the question, not sure the wall would stand up to it. There was also a departure into Sky Diving and a licence gained in Spain to legally jump out of perfectly good aircraft. Again lots of adrenaline but it doesn’t take much effort to jump out of a plane. The latest interest was a foray into Paragliding, a great thing to do, to fly like the birds but not particularly energetic apart from the initial run off a perfectly good hillside, or the walk back up said hillside if you cocked up and had to land down the bottom. Most of the time I would spend sat on a hillside and not being able to fly, wind’s too strong, not strong enough, off to the North/South/East/West, as I said a great sport when you can actually do it. No, I like the idea of this cycling malarkey, you can do it when you want, you don’t rely on anyone else to do it, and most importantly, I can buy gadgets. I love shiny new gadgets, must be my inner magpie, and there’s loads of them to collect, all nice and sparkly. So that’s settled than, road cycling it is. I had clearance from my financial administrator (wife) to go ahead but nothing too expensive, indeed it seems that £1000 is actually not expensive in cycling terms, what on earth! I hadn’t ridden a road bike since I was 16 when I became old enough to ride motorbikes, ok well a moped, with a basket on the front, but at least I didn’t need to pedal anymore. It’s all changed though since the days of my trusty Carlton Giro, in pink. I did love that bike, my Gran bought it for me when I was about 12 and I used to cycle it everywhere, miles and miles I would go, 60 miles in a day to go and see her in Tewkesbury when I was in my young teens. This new world though, carbon this, lycra that, heart monitors, why do I need one of those, is it there to warn me moments before I peg it, Garmin’s, Strava, clipless pedals, hang on, technical overload warning…….

I set my budget of £1000 thinking I should be able to get something half decent for that and started doing some research. I soon found a nice looking Felt Z5 at a reduced end of season price, next year’s model has a different colour scheme so I could save £500 as a stripe will be in a slightly different place. Seemed like a good bike according to some reviews so yes, I’ll have that one please. A troll round the local bike shops and some stretchy gear was also bought, although as I had blown my budget on the bike I had to keep the price down. My brother in law suggested some rather expensive Swiss made lycra shorts, ‘how much’, that’s a 5^th of the price of the bike. £200 quid on some shorts, you must be bonkers, look at these, £15 ha ha, look what I saved, I’m clever.

C'mon chubby, get pedalling!

A week later and there’s me, all kitted up, new shiny bike on the drive, all the gear with not much of an idea although come on, it’s only riding a bike, I’ve done that, it’s easy isn’t it! Strava started and off we go. Ooh, its fast, and wobbly, and the bars are low, oh me back, oh my ass, at that point I was still on my drive! I had planned to do a loop around some local lanes with three hills involved, well ok hill-lets, alright slight rises in the road. I had only ridden about a half mile up through the local high street and down another road when I encountered the first of a new species of human, the anti-cycling getoutofmyf*****gwayI’mgonnakillyou psychopathic motorist. I plainly had a right of way under a narrow bridge, but not according the person driving the aged green Vauxhall Vectra who vindictively raced towards me and passed me under the bridge doing around 40mph, forcing me to take serious avoiding action and missing me by just a couple of inches. Blimey, he must have seen me I thought whilst I gathered myself, waving impolitely at him, perhaps I should consider the mountain bike again. Still, 10 minutes later and I was at the foot of the first hill, I had to gee myself up before tackling it and considered an energy gel. I thought it might help me defy gravity but also thought that perhaps I should go a little further before diving into the gel collection I was carrying in my back jersey pockets. I got up it, just, and then promptly needed a 10-minute rest. My heart was pounding and it really dawned on me how unfit I had become, and there was me thinking this would be easy, all this go faster lycra stuff and a light bike, err, that will be no then. After a few more km’s and another rest I tackled the second hill and amazingly got up it, I was well happy although on the verge of vomiting and needed another rest to let the moment pass. Downhill now, that’s more like it and one last small hill to conquer. On my way up two proper cyclists came past and seeing my physical state, did I look that bad, asked if I was ok. Err yes, ‘pant’, my ‘phew’ first time out, ‘gasp’, and they were gone effortlessly up the hill with a friendly ‘good luck’.

I got home, 27km in 1 hour 26 minutes, 178m of climbing and I was properly done, knackered but absolutely elated and totally hooked. I loved it more than I could have imagined, even the hills, even the taste of sick in my mouth with all the effort. I wanted to be like the two guys that came flying by, I wanted to pedal up hills without even breaking a sweat, I wanted to be a Strava champion. I didn’t have a fitness or training plan apart from creating some routes that one day I may be able to manage so who knew what would be next, apart from getting out and riding whenever I could. I’m in, officially a MAMIL and a proud one at that.