Tickled pink by gruelling Giro charms
‘The look’ scares me.
The two words in question are ‘Gran Fondo’.
As in, “What time do you think you’ll be back at tomorrow?”
“It might be later than normal.”
“Why will you be later?”
“We’re training for the gran fondo.”
Cue ‘the look.’ What, I hear you ask, is the Gran Fondo? Well, it’s a bike ride. To be more specific, it’s a very long bike ride.
The gran fondo we were training for, otherwise known as the Big Italian Bike Ride, took place just last Sunday.
The event provided ordinary cyclists with the chance to cover this Saturday’s stage of the Giro d’Italia, all 140 miles of it.
To the weekend warriors I cycle with, any journey that distance usually requires a suitcase, not a bike.
On a Saturday morning, our departure time, or partenza as it’s now called, is about 9am. We normally ride for about 50 or 60 miles. Naturally, there is a café stop. Depending on the quality of the arguments, we would sometimes spend as long in the café as we do on the bikes. But on a standard outing, everyone is back for about 1pm.
The gran fondo changed all that. To successfully negotiate 140 miles, we had to increase the mileage. Our starting time moved to 6.30am. But we also finished later. On one memorable day when ‘The Man with the Hammer’ paid a visit to a member of our group, we didn’t get home until nearly 4pm.
The popularity of cycling, and the manner in which the Giro has captured public imagination, was demonstrated by how fast The Big Italian Bike Ride was sold out.
Organised by The Pioneer Group, the event wasn’t advertised. A facebook page was the only publicity tool. The initial entry limit was set at 1,000 cyclists. Those places were snapped up in three days. When another 200 places were released, they were gone in 55 minutes. In the end, 1,400 people signed up for one of the three distances that were on offer, the Corto (53 miles), the Medio Fondo (84 miles) and the Gran Fondo (140 miles).
A total of 650 cyclists opted to test themselves on the route which the 22 teams taking part in the Giro d’Italia will cover at the weekend.
Given we don’t live that far from the Antrim coast, a lot of our training rides were on the route. Starting in south Derry, we’d ride to Portstewart, hug the coastline to Cushendall then return home via the Glens of Antrim.
And that is my only quibble with the route for Stage Two. How or why the event organisers chose to leave out the Glens of Antrim is utterly baffling. The climb through Glenarrif, the Queen of the Glens, is utterly spectacular. Never mind Ireland, the scenery on that road ranks with any tourist hot spot in the world.
A bike route, designed to promote tourism, which includes the scenic delights of Ballymena, Ballymoney, Antrim and Larne but skips Glenarrif is hard to figure. But that’s an aside.
On our training rides, I got the chance to enjoy the splendour of the North Antrim coast. Hopefully, if the weather gods are kind, those dramatic views will be beamed across the globe on Saturday.
Last Sunday, however, I barely noticed a field.
Nicolas Roche once admitted that he rarely sees the stunning countryside that often surrounds the professional peloton. Anyone who has ridden in a group will appreciate that point. For the bulk of the time, you’re staring at another man’s lycra-clad buttocks. Mostly, your entire focus is centred on staying as close to his back wheel as possible, but not getting so close that you end up crashing and causing mass carnage.
Cycling in a small group is more relaxed and requires less concentration. On our training rides, the average speed was about 16.5mph. On Sunday, we set off in a group of 50.
At one stage on the Antrim Road, we were doing 24mph. For those unfamiliar with that particular terrain, the Antrim Road is an incline.
My cycling comrades and I were concerned. Going much faster than our normal speed, we had good reason to be nervous. In cycling parlance, we were burning matches. And once all your matches are burnt, it’s game over.
You shut down. Your legs cease to function. The broom wagon beckons.
Fortunately, we also knew that such bursts of speed are standard practice among rank amateurs. It’s the adrenaline. For the first three miles, everyone thinks they are Lance Armstrong riding on a vat of EPO. Then reality sets in.
Sunday was no different. By Glengormley, there was a collective realisation that our primary fuel was porridge and toast. The average speed settled down to 19mph.
To us, that’s still pretty quick. And yet, compared to the professionals, we were only tootering.
When Mark Cavendish won a flat, 123-mile stage in the 2012 Giro d’Italia, the average speed of the leading bunch was 28mph.
On a personal note, I managed to maintain my mind-blowing average speed of 19.4 mph until we reached the Bla Hole, a long drag outside Whitehead. The professionals will whiz over it. I didn’t.
Caught at the back of the group, a gap opened up. By the time I reached the top of the climb, the leading bunch was already 400 metres down the road. I tried to bridge the gap.
Amazed at my progress during the previous 130 miles, somewhere along the line I lost sight of my limitations. Riding as hard as I possibly could, I tried to catch up with the bunch.
All of a sudden, I thought I was Eddy Merckx. Pounding on the pedals, I rode like a man possessed. Yes, I was tired. And yes, I felt a bit drained. But no matter. Once I caught them, and got the shelter, I would be grand.
But I never caught them. After three miles of hard, fruitless chasing, I was no closer. In Carrickfergus, I was hit with a large dose of painful reality. I realised that I wasn’t Eddy Merckx. My reincarnation lasted about five minutes. Worse again, I’d burnt all my matches. And like that — bang — I was gone. My legs stopped working.
I looked at the speedometer — 133 miles. The last seven miles were a torment. A cyclist, who looked like he was going to the shops for a message, went past me like Joey Dunlop. I reckon he was doing about 12mph.
Luckily, my Calvary didn’t last long. Not long after crossing the finishing line at the Odyssey, I was sitting in a booth in an American style diner waiting for a burger, chips and coke.
The pain was soon forgotten. While it would be great to be able to ride like a professional cyclist, I wouldn’t want to eat like one.
As for those six-hour training rides, the words ‘Gran’ and ‘Fondo’ will not be mentioned in our house for a long, long time.
