Dive Aid Blog

Well I never, the impossible has happened and all through a little tinkering. Daryl's not just keeping up with me, he's shooting ahead.

A two inch raising of his saddle has led to a significant raising of his game. Previously, it seems, he was giving himself sore quads through pushing at completely the wrong pedal point. What a moron. Still, you know what they say - you can choose your friends but you can't choose who's going to do the 1000-mile trek from the north of Scotland with you.

It reminds me of a change I made in my own particular game. Whilst I have to admit sadly that it's been a long time since I had any "how's your father", I will say that a small change I made in my approach made a big difference. I took it out of my hand and put it in someone else. No, no! In order to make the whole thing last a bit longer, I started thinking of an old boss of mine. No kidding, she was so monumentally ugly - and she really made an effort bless her - that the mere memory of her face meant I could immediately double my time. I'm up to 30 seconds now.

Daryl put in a hard spurt midway through the run today but reached his peak too early. We'd been delayed in Eaton Bray by the rain. Owing to the soaking we got on Monday, we took refuge in a bus shelter when it started hammering it down and nearly caught the number 61. I got off the road the moment I heard thunder. It simply doesn't do to be attached to moving metal when there's lightning around, and given the piercings in my private areas I really don't want thousands of volts to enter my body that way.

After a brief respite we carried on, Daryl staying on my back wheel with ease now. We went up to Dunstable and headed down into Totternhoe against the wind.

With a wail of "Let's set the speed camera off"(I believe it's calibrated to 25mph) Daryl went hard for his target. He cycled past me at a high rate of knots... and completely wore himself out by the time he got there. Not wishing to blow my own horn (yeah, right) I kept some in the bank, hammered it at just the right moment and got flashed. You see Daryl, it's all about the timing.

Time to head off to work now but not before I make one final observstion. I've noticed a marked lack of comments on these articles. I was hoping for far more anti-Daryl invective (the only thing I've had is that he's not the porky cyclist I make him out to be from a bloke who drives a silver Clio) from other people besides myself so please feel free to click on "comments" below this write-up. TTFN