Dive Aid Blog

Daryl's gone missing. The last time I saw him I was coveting his 100% waterproof running jacket shortly before we parted on the Aylesbury bypass. Yet again I was soaked to the skin (my feet were freezing) cold and miserable. My back light had broken in the rain and Daryl was light-hearted and smiling. My crappy nylon top clung to my crap-covered skin. Daryl went off down the bypass and I pounded some more tarmac through the villages.

I'd just made it back to what I thought was the safety of my lane when, Bang!! I hit a pothole with both wheels. Bloody thing was obscured by the rain. I'd phoned the council about these nearly 2 weeks ago. A torrent of abuse from me diffused into the torrent from above.

My back light lay smashed on the floor now, next to the treacherous pothole. More abuse. I got back on the bike. The rear tyre had been holed and the inner tube sliced. O Joy!

After a far more heroic and hilly ride home, Daryl chose to reward himself with retail therapy. It proved to be his undoing. Needing to relieve himself in a well-known department store he stepped onto a just-washed floor with no warning signs and went sizeable bottom over man-boob. He now has a strange bump on his collar bone and his right arm in a sling. Worse still he can't train so yet again the onus falls on me. The boy is such a let down! Rapateeti, come back to dadeeeeee!!!!!

So it's off into the hail, wind, rain, dirt and ubiquitous horsedung for me again. At least I hope it's horse...

This event is raising money to help families in Dahab cope with their loss. It takes place on Monday 19th June at Joe Public's music lounge (underneath Habitat) A fundraising gig featuring 3 of Bristol's finest bands, plus DJ's. Tickets are £5.00 on the door or from the Bristol Ticket Shop.

For further details, please see the Dive-aid Flyer.

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

The joy that is training for the "end-to-end" run continues. Today we had our first taste of the British summer - rain and bucket loads of it.

I didn't notice it at first. Daryl, aka South Park's Cartman, was berating me on the grounds that the articles I write for Dive Aid are one-sided. Of course they are you hapless gimp! Now, if you find any way of putting stuff on this website you're welcome to redress the balance.

In all truth my ire wasn't directed at slimboy fat Daryl today at all. Several of our road and pavement sharers were unappreciative of our efforts and give him his due Daryl was today "the Englishman who climbed a mountain and came down a hill" or however that goes.

Not that he didn't deserve a bit of piss-taking. My dad had to pull tight the gear cable that Daryl snapped on the spare bike in order for me to fasten it. The poor old boy with his arthritic hands, it was like wire cutting through cheese (or it would have been if he hadn't wrapped the cable round a wooden block). Shame on Daryl!

So we set out in the rain and Mother Nature chose the first 30 minutes of the ride to sling everything wet at us that she had in her arsenal. It was a deluge. I'd put on my lairy tights and fluorescent top in anticipation of just such an occurrence and Daryl hadn't.

We only had an hour to train as Daryl had to take his new puppy to the vets for its shots - brilliant excuse. We headed up Whipsnade hill, which I thought we could do with a following wind. I was wrong. It is very steep and I suffered heart palpitations as I waited at the top for Daryl. Walking his bike up the hill in the pouring rain, I realised I'd rarely, if ever, seen a more pathetic creature. Cars drove past us, splashing us without a care as now the road was covered and the camber had produced a mini-torrent that ran fast downhill, taking debris with it.

We made it up to the top of the Downs, the other way this time, without further incident and Daryl acquitted himself very well on the climb. By the time we reached Totternhoe and Eaton Bray, however, we could barely recognise the roads as the ones we'd cycled only 45 minutes before. Giant puddles stretching right across them obscured potholes, but luckily our bikes discovered each and every one of them.

Then, as we cycled through the largest puddle by far, a git in a silver Clio (on his mobile phone no less) floored his accelerator and tanked it, throwing a wave of water at each of us that any surfer would have been proud to ride. Wanker. Sodden became saturated and to add insult to injury a pedestrian in Eaton Bray made no attempt to cover up her laughter at my tights. Less than a mile from the house Daryl took the lead again in what has now become his customary not-sprint finish.

We got home. Poured rainwater out of our shoes and discussed what we'd like to do to the driver of the silver Clio. Then Daryl got me to inspect his dirty pants.

Whose bottom is this?

Answers on a postcard to the "It's Guy Venner's Bum Competition", c/o Dive Aid.

I'm trying to enjoy a restless snooze. I dreamt that Daryl and I were just arriving in Landsend (which Daryl thinks is in Essex, the halfwit). He had a broad grin on his face and as my eyes take in the rest of his corpulent body I realise he's been wearing a pink tutu for the last 9 days on the road.

"Aaargh!" I wake up with a start, realising I've just missed Home and Away. It's my favourite soap opera.

Speaking of soap I realise I smell and I'm absolutely knackered. That training run was a toughie and I've got to make sure my legs are up to this evening's salsa class. I have a bootie like J-Lo's and 8pm is when I'm going to shake it.

We were worried about the wind today. It was blowing hard from the west. Not exactly gale force but certainly gusting up to about 35mph. I started the run heading straight into it and then from the time we hit Tring it was either blowing at our backs or across us. Having led most of the way, carving a path heroically through the wind for 33 miles, (2 miles to go) I was glad when Daryl cycled ahead of me selflessly to "give me a break". Well done him. Only 23 miles too late! It turned out he'd swallowed a fly and was experiencing a protein buzz.

"Just tell me if it's left or right," he shouted back. Left was straight into someone's garden wall so right (and the road) would have to do. We made it to the main Leighton Buzzard to Hemel Hempstead road by which time the "Deezer" would know where he was going as he has to travel down it to get to my place.

"You know which way we're going now don't you?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's left here, isn't it."

"It's right Daryl."

"Oh. Right. Er, yeah."

And so it was that the day's training run - the longest so far at 1 hour 45 minutes - ended; with me gazing from behind at my mate's very hairy legs and shorts that were stuck right up his sweaty bum crack.

We'd had an epiphany of sorts on the road though. We, well I, only knew which way to go because I live in the area and cycle these routes regularly. I want to keep off A and B roads to avoid cars tearing past us (most offputting) so how on earth are we going to manage that in the wastelands of Scotland. They eat Englishmen up there. Something to do with Braveheart I think.

Time to get ready for Salsa. Now where's that gold larmee outfit with the taffeta cuffs. Sure I left it around here somewhere.

Daryl is a "class A" c*nt.

Excuse the language. He's paid £15 for a Trek road bike. £15!! It's every bit as good as mine - not the one he broke - and he paid £200 less than me.

I wasn't happy to hear that so I made him pay dearly this session, although I notice that he didn't shag his own bike today.

We cycled through a large swarm of big, black flying insects that seemed to come from a B Grade 1950s horror film. And sweated lots.

Every day's a gift!

I'm not happy with Daryl!

Granted, he's a very nice chap, with a lovely wife and a gorgeous little girl (don't you hate losers like that?) Aged only 25 he's a mere snip of a lad and is in full health but he's just managed to do what I've never done in 10 years. He's broken my bike.

This bike and I go way back to my time courting Greek ladies (well, one) whilst lecturing at the University of Nottingham. It brings to mind some of the happiest days of my life - until the cow jilted me!

The trouble started as we were pedalling hard for the top of Dunstable Downs. The wind was against us and the road was very steep indeed. Suddenly I heard worrying noises from Daryl behind me. He started panting, then hawking up gobs of phlegm. Within seconds he was groaning loudly "Aaaah, ooooh!" It got louder and louder until I thought he was going into cardiac arrest - we were only 15 minutes into the training run.

"Euuurrrrgh, aaaaahhhhh!" He continued. It actually sounded like he was making love to my bike. My bike! My pride and joy. The only thing I still have that reminds me of Ioanna Palaiologu.

"Do you need a condom with that?" I shouted back helpfully but Daryl was in no mood to reply, apparently.

"God no! God!" No? I decided to let him carry on for a while and to check he was alive at the top of the hill.

Mercifully he had a pulse, albeit an extremely fast one, and we pedalled gently down the other side. I got into a tuck, enjoying the descent but had to slow down to let "Daryl The Snail" catch up. And why was he velocity-challenged? He'd snapped the gear cable. Sorry, my gear cable. On my bike. The only thing that still reminds me of... well, you get the idea. We carried on. Slowly.

We arrived back at Chateau Venner about 15 minutes later than planned, my spare bike, like its rider, a limping wreck.

We planned to meet again on the 17th. This time Daryl would have his own bike.

Guy is busy training up for the cycle trip with my mate Daryl - who is not fit!!

Further entries to follow soon!