You know what makes me sick ?

I mean puke down the front of your (or my) shirt sick.

The sort of sick where you see it or hear it and the vomit comes jetting out.

Four things.

Calendars with pictures of kittens
Men who wear sandles without socks.
People who put clothes on dogs (Don’t blame the dog)
And SOFT RACES!!!!

Any race you do should bring on physical trauma so great that hallucination or permanent psychological damage are likely. Otherwise you are wasting time, air, food, space and your life because YOU ARE NOT HARD.

Let me give you an example. The new World Team Time Trial Championship. (sorry…vomited…had to clean keyboard).

Seriously only 50 km! Six to start, four delicate flowers to finish! If it is not too much trouble of course. This is symptomatic of the SOFTNESS of modern bike riders and race “organizers”. (Vomited again…don’t remember eating corn……..Oh well)

I remember being on the “C” team for the South Craxton Amateur Wheelmen (read as hardmen). One Hundred Kilometres. Four real MEN! (only if you finish)

We started last. (Bribed the chief comm…..wanted to know the time to beat).

The wind was picking up and a few spits of rain greeted the first to leave, by the time we got going it was a gusting 40kph cross wind with heavy rain. 1 bottle. No food. No support van. Just us.

For the first 35k I struggled a bit. Turns out that I had not noticed that when I put my 177.5mm time trial cranks on I tightened them too far. End result was that my inner ring, that I was never going to use anyway, was rubbing on the frame. So after I rubbed the 44 teeth off on the frame( Yes Mary,44 teeth on a real inner ring) I really got going.

I felt sorry for the turn marshall when the hail started but not sorry for the wilting flowers who pulled out of the race when lightning felled a power pole near the finish line turn.

So out we went again for the second lap and it dawned on me that we were the only team left. All we had to do was finish and gold was ours!

Shouted out a brief “You alright mate?” when we saw the ambos working on the turn marshall.

The wind turned around just after we did and was block headwind all the way home. I realized that I had not changed my seat height when I changed cranks. Lucky it was so cold I could not feel the two giant friction wounds I developed. 

With 10 k to go we lost Sandy Davidson to a deep creek crossing but three of us made it back.

Club Champions. Never saw Sandy again. Kept his medal for him though.

"We lost Sandy Davidson to a deep creek crossing but three of us made it back."

ABOUT THE CRANK BY JOHN CASKEY

The Crank is the embodiment of archetypal cranky veteran bike riders, whose worn out bike riding stories are embellished each time they are recounted. Hard as nails The Crank is a devious scoundrel who rides roughshod over anyone who has the misfortune to meet him. This Crank story by John Caskey.