Performative Helmet Wearing

 Yes, just what every cycling blog needs- the traditional helmet debate! 

Actually I am hoping to avoid going down the well-travelled route normally found on Road.cc and  other sites- where these types of posts are designed, like their "Close Miss of the Day" videos to keep visitors engaging even when there is no actual cycling happening. These simply result in the exact same people, making the exact same points and getting bent out of shape. Most sensible folks tend to stay well clear but there are always those folk who can't help themselves. I did jump in early to such a debate in 2015 on Road.cc where I tried to save everyone the time by predicting and summarising all the points that would be made, which was well received by those who were fed up with what is the cycling equivalent of Goodwin's Law, but due to the unique, world-beating tech used on that site, it has been next to impossible to simply search for my previous posts and re-share here. (Apologies for veering off into a critique of Road.cc- that will be a post for another day).

Anyway, what has prompted this dipping of a toe into the world of libertarian toddler tantrums versus those who think helmets have magical protection powers? Has the University of Bath Research which showed that wearing a helmet means drivers actually conduct more dangerous passes been updated? Has another pro been quoted either in or out of context when asked about skid lids? Has Chris Broadman caused controversy by riding a bike on TV without one, where he rightly states helmet-wearing isn't even in the Top Ten of things to keep cyclists safe? 

Actually it was the more performative approach to helmet use that inspired this article. What do I mean by this? Basically that helmet use has become so fetishised and taken on a symbology that, in my mind, over-estimates their effectiveness and in some cases this use actually makes them more dangerous. I will come back to that second part later but my thoughts around the first element really came to the fore a few days ago. I was walking near the local public park, which has well delinated cycle lanes and I saw an older couple on a tricycle built for two. It was lovely to see since they could make their way around the lakes at their own pace together. It was a robust machine and safer than a bike since they obviously won't fall off if they stop pedalling- and in fact as a stable platform it was safer even than walking since they didn't need any semblance of balance at all. However they were both wearing helmets which struck me as odd. They wouldn't wear them walking the same route yet they would be more likely to come a cropper by tripping and falling than coming off thier trike. What they were doing was probably the safest version of cycling possible, yet were better protected than someone descending Alpe d'Huez. 

So what is the problem with that you may ask? It is no skin off your nose what they chose to do- and I agree to a point. But what they were doing unconsciously was adding a perception of danger that didn't exist. And that leads to wider misconceptions among the general populace as to what bike helmets are for, and what they can do. Let's not forget- normally the first question a lot of people ask when they hear about a bike accident isn't how did the infrastructure or actions of the driver contribute to it? It is "Were they wearing a helmet?" as if that is all that is required to keep us safe, and if a helmet is not used then the cyclist was basically to blame, no matter the circumstances.

The second aspect of performative helmet wearing falls into the category of simply slapping it on your head- after all, as long as you are wearing one, right? But I lose count of the number of folk on bikes with their helmet sitting at a jaunty angle and too loose- in fact it looks like more of a balancing act to keep it on their head. Now Tao Geoghan Hart and Primoz Roglic may have rocked that look (to be fair to Primoz only once during that fateful 2020 Tour de France stage 20 TT; Tao seems to embrace it on a more regular basis) but an ill-fitting helmet isn't just reducing its effectiveness- in some cases it actually makes the situation more dangerous. A badly fitted or poorly-secured helmet can result in the head and neck being twisted or pulled in a direction that can add to injury in the result of a tumble- in some cases the rider would have been better off without anything at all. People who wear their helmets in this fashion clearly assume that they aren't going to come off, but still feel the need to wear one- whether this is societal pressure or they have bought into the "magic-plastic-Noddy-hat-that-staves-off-all-evil" mindset isn't always clear.

So this isn't an anti- or pro-helmet screed. Like most normal people my opinion is simple- while I don't agree with compulsory wearing and am very much aware of their limitations, I still wear one. It isn't going to stop an  unskilled rushing 4x4 , distracted tired HGV or plain ignorant taxi driver ending a ride prematurely and permanently but I may be thankful if I can't clip out when coming to a stop some time.  But rest assured I will sure as hell make sure the helmet fits and is securely fastened, and if there is a shared trike in my future then a retro casquette with sufficent luft will be atop my head instead!

How Long Can We Continue to Ignore the Trend of Problematic Sponsors?

Every fan knows cycling's funding model has always been dependent on sponsors- so much so that entire teams change their names depending on who is signing the cheques which can be confusing for those used to other sports. After all while Newton Heath became Manchester United in the 1900s, things have been pretty consistent for almost 120 years. Now explain how Reynolds is Banesto is Illes Balears is Caisse d'Eparge is Movistar, or how Lotto-Soudal become Lotto-Fixall for Paris-Nice and then revert back again. Net App? Don't you mean Bora Hansgrohe? And while Fignon did change the ownership model back with Systeme U, the pre-eminence of sponsors hasn't changed. 

There was some controversy in the past when Magni persuaded Nivea to sponsor his team, generally held to be the first time a funder from outside the sport was able to come on board, although something similar had happened at the Vuelta before this more famous example. That caused waves then and you can't help but give a wry smile when reading about how much of an issue that is, whereas today the general assumption seems to be that people simply don't care where the money is coming from. 

This really came into focus for me over the past few days. Out of the final GC podium in the 2021 Giro, the sponsors behind the teams of first and second place also pop up in the most recent issue of Private Eye. INEOS for their usual greenwashing in relation to their impact on the environment ( never mind the fact the addition of "Grenadiers" is to promote another un-needed addition to the list of items desired by selfish middle-class parents and those type of men who never got over the military fixation that most of us moved past by the time puberty had ended). And let's not forget the Murdoch connection with their previous sponsors.

 Bahrain made their regular appearance in the magazine due to their human rights abuses and Tory ex-ministers cosying up to them (in this case Alan Duncan).  The Bahrian Wikipedia entry includes this:

'The period between 1975 and 1999 known as the "State Security Law Era", saw wide range of human rights violations including arbitrary arrests, detention without trial, torture and forced exile.^[183][184] After the Emir Hamad Al Khalifa (now king) succeeded his father Isa Al Khalifa in 1999, he introduced wide reforms and human rights improved significantly.^[185] These moves were described by Amnesty International as representing a "historic period of human rights".^[107]

Human rights conditions started to decline by 2007 when torture began to be employed again.^[186] In 2011, Human Rights Watch described the country's human rights situation as "dismal".'

 

And of course bully-in-chief in the UK Home Office makes an appearance (Priti Patel's links to Bahrain Torturer) . 

Even third place in the Giro doesn't come with clean hands- while Bike Exchange may seem safe enough let's not forget that initially the team was Orica-Greenedge; while the latter part of the name was simply a placeholder, the headliner is an Australian mining company, again with the associated environmental impact.

Further down the peloton we also have Astana, Israel Start Up and UAE, again not without their political controversies.

The UCI , ASO and RCS in the process of "mondialisation" have also found themselves  willing facilitators in allowing the sport to find itself in an awkward position. The Jerusalem start of the Giro in 2018 and the pressure needed before the 2021 UEC European Track Championships were eventually taken away from Belarus were portrayed as using the sport as a unifier as opposed to validating certain actions. I'm not going to get into the rights or wrongs on this here but the issue always comes down to those who say sport isn't about politics, which is pure bullshit- everything is about politics, and those that use this argument are either extremely niave or, more likely,  are happy enough with the status quo and generally don't want to improve things for people who aren't them.

So yes the sport needs investment to stay alive- but then actual people need certain sponsors to take responsibilty to allow them to literally stay alive. In a world with so much information and high levels of awareness around how certain countries and international corporations are screwing over the most vulnerable, how much longer are cycling fans going to feel comfortable with our need to see the best men and women racing bikes overriding our basic human empathy and care? As more and more populist right wing regimes go from strength to strength and the Overton Window has been pushed so far that Boris Johnson can emerge from situations, that for  anyone with common decency should have resulted in the end of their political career,  with increased support my sad conclusion is that many people are just going to feel perfectly okay with this. So how long before BAE or other weapons manufacturers decide to fund a team? What about Team Oath Keepers or QAnon CC? As it stands really Qhubeka Assos are probably the most ethical team and prove that such a set up can exist (albeit with a struggle), so what can be done to attract a higher quality of sponsor for many of the other teams?  Maybe, just maybe the UCI could put more of an emphasis on this with this now the important isses of the supertuck, sock height and bidon disposal rules have been put to rest.

Book Review: Icons: My Inspiration. My Motivation. My Obsession. by Bradley Wiggins and Herbie Sykes; 2018, HarperCollins

 

 

 

For someone who likes to portray himself as an iconoclast, it may seem strange for Bradley Wiggins to be involved in such a project. However his love for cycling, its history, protagonists, pageantry and traditions is well know and is an interesting angle to come at in thiswork. While he looks at riders from through the years who inspired him to take up what was an unfashionable sport in Britain at the time, it is part history lesson, part-autobiography.

It is well illustrated with items from his own collections, genuine jerseys worn by those who he writes about and with some interesting photos. Each rider has his own chapter (no room for Beryl Burton, which as Wiggins was essentially a time trialist who lost enough weight to stick with the climbers, is a big omission,although I suppose we can't define other folks heroes for them). The inclusion of Armstrong raised some hackles at the time but, on the flip side we can't say that the Texan didn't have an impact. Whether we like it or not he was a part of our history and it would be more dangerous to pretend he didn't exist and write him out totally. It is also where Wiggins (helped by Herbie Sykes) is able to reflect on his own experiences and how these are mirrored by the lives of the riders he is ostensibly discussing. This allows him to avoid having to deal with some of the more unsavoury episodes some of these people were involved in, normally using the formula "rider x had a difficult time on this Tour, which reminds me of when y happened to me".

In many cases Wiggins is very clear about how he liked winning the Tour but didn't like being a Tour winner, with all of the issues that caused him. There is also some insight into Froome's actions on that 2012 Tour, that while interesting, allow for more distractions away from things he may not want to talk about in regards his subjects.

In fact there are often entire chapters where the rider meant to be the topic of discussion is only mentioned at the start and the end, with the main section being about Wiggins himself.  In effect this is almost an autobiography in disguise.

However the whole package does reflect the contradictions within Wiggins himself. On one hand he wants to present himself as the perennial outsider (being a cyclist from an early age, the influence of his father and mother, growing up in an age when soccer was the mainstay of sport), but on the other he still plays up the laddish persona  that so many males adopt to try and fit in with some perceived notion of this is what men do. He even mentions that his favourite photo of all is Nencini having a cigarette after winning the Tour (never mind that Nencini died of cancer at 50)- the sort of stuff that really looks like someone trying hard to be cool,  and as I mentioned in the beginning, an iconoclast (though how much of a laddish outsider you can be with the three letters "S", "I" and "R" in front of your name is up for debate).  He wants to be seen at the centre of his sport in one way but also wants to retreat from this as well.  No matter what persona he tries to adopt, this book appears to be Wiggins is still trying to find out who he is and while on the surface the main focus is supposedly on the other riders featured, behind it all is a man who is still tryign to shape an image that he can be comfortable in.

It's a Gift?

So racing in 2021, has gotten off to a flying start with plenty to talk about even before La Primavera. A combination of exciting young riders and the underlying feeling that any race could be the last for a while, as Coronavirus still looms large in the background, means there is no thought given to "racing for training" or easing yourself back in. Many riders were victims through no fault of their own, being out of contract at the end of the compressed 2020 session and had very few opportunities to actually put themselves in the shop window. Teams folding, merging and less sponsorship money all around means that many have been going right from the gun this year in case the worst happens and things grind to a halt. Hopefully this isn't as inevitable as Richie Porte crashing out of a race but it will shape races for the near future.

However among the many talking points, an old carnard raised its head over the last two days of Paris-Nice. On the Saturday, Gino Mader looked to be heading for the win after being last man standing (or at least pedalling) from the break, only for Roglic to catch and pass him so close to the line, he could almost smell the fresh paint. This then lead to debates as to whether Roglic should have "gifted" Mader the win and an appeal back to some golden era where the unwritten rules were respected. Except those folk who insisted that Roglic should have let Mader stick his arms up in celebration rather than frustration would be hard-pushed to exactly identify when this fabled period actually was. Tales of the past- Merckx, Bobet, Gaul, Anquetil all the way back to Garin highlight the chicanery and out-and-out cheating that was de rigeur. Armstrong "gifting" Pantani the Ventoux stage in the 2000 TdF only acted to infuriate them both- Pantani because he felt patronised, Armstrong because he felt El Pirata wouldn't kiss his backside in gratitude. That isn't to say it hasn't happened in the past, but normally it is when a GC contender and stage-hunter work together and stay away.

It is also worth noting that this was Paris-Nice, a race that has been won by only a few seconds on many occasions. One tyre change could be the difference between wearing Yellow on the last podium and trying to look on the brightside that at least you don't have to wait about for the ceremony so you can get away home a lot quicker. Those extra seconds initially looked like a useful buffer on the Sunday when Roglic became a vicitm of the curse of Gary Imlach, who had been saying on the ITV 4 highlights since stage 2 that the Slovenian's victory was more or less assured. He came off just before the cameras were rolling and looked battered. It later turned out one of his injuries had been a dislocated shoulder, which he had popped back in before continuing. It doesn't take a genius to work out that these injuries probably had a role to play in the next, also unseen, crash. So followed a long, lonely but ultimatley futile chase back, that resulted in a somewhat sheepish-looking Schachmann on the podium top step instead.

Inevitably this lead to the usual graceful social media posts about "karma biting Rolgic", as one poster on the INRNG blog put it, for not allowing Mader to win the previous day. It would of course have be interesting to see what these same posters would have written if it had been Porte or Geoghan Hart who had been in his place. Yet again a lot of folk were trying to inject soccer triablism and exceptionalism into cycling fandom, basically saying that Roglic deserved the pain he suffered simply because he did his job the previous day- which was to try and win the race.  A bit like sunlit uplands of the 1950s or the glory of the British Empire, these appeals to a time that only exists in the minds of the hard-of-thinking (unfortunately all too common), this mythology can only undermine the reality that is the present. Don't get me wrong, there are some traditions and sportsmanship that exists in cycling that I like to see- the handshakes in the breakaway just before it is swallowed up by the peloton, or the previously mentioned example where a GC rider allows a breakaway companion to take a stage. However to wish and celebrate actual phyiscal harm to one of the most talented riders in years because of some misplaced identification with a notion that never really existed is low, and more in keeping with the sort of soccer supporter who feels justified in assaulting someone else for the crime of liking a different team. Saying all of this I do have a question- are any bookies taking bets on Roglic wearing yellow into Paris on the 18th July and still mananging to lose it before the 3km to go banner?

Book Review- Reckless- The Life and Times of Luis Ocana- Alasdair Fotheringham, 2014 (Bloomsbury)

 

 

 

 

 For a lot of cycling fans, Ocana seems to only feature because of how he lost the 1971 Tour de France, and how his eventual victory in 1973 was down to Merckx absence. Instead Fotheringham allows us to see there was much more to this man who was one of the few to actually challenge the dominance of The Cannibal. At one level he was complex, but at the basic level he had two modes- full on or off. Even the question of his nationality is open to debate-Spanish? French? a Spanish Frenchman or a French Spaniard?

There is a lot more to Ocana than the famous crash that robbed him of almost certain victory in 1971 at the Tour. His disregard of cycling tactics and reliance on pure power may have shortened his career, but if you are superstitious and believe in bad luck then it is fair to say that Ocana had much more than his fair share, although in some cases he did more to contribute to his own downfalls than simple bad fortune.

This is well written and deals with Ocana's death in a sensitive way, and while at times your heart can't help but feel for the man, the recklessness that provides the book with its central theme does give the impression that he was the architect of a lot of his own issues, and leaves the reader thinking that if Ocana could just have lifted the foot of the accelerator occasionally (both figuratively and, in relation to his many car crashes in reality) his career and life may have been happier. After all while his personality provides cycling fans with exciting stories of panache, we need to remember that this came with a personal cost to a real individual.

Book Review- The Need for the Bike- Paul Fournel

I picked this up having read Fournel's part-biography, part- poetic character study of Anquetil earlier in the year having been engrossed and enchanted by the richness of language and the deep understanding of Maitre Jacques. So I was keen to see how he would follow this up, and I was not to be disappointed.

This book is made up of short (often between 2 and 4 pages long) reflections on what it is to be a cyclist and the experience of riding a bike whether in a race, a Sunday morning group ride or a solitary commute around Paris and everything in between. It is no surprise that, taking Fournel's role as a philosopher, writer and poet, the descriptions are beautifully realised, but really it is his role- or his actual identity- as a cyclist that overrides (no pun intended) all. My favourite writing on cycling all seems to stem from France (Jean Bobet's "Tomorrow We Ride" for example) and this is another beautiful combination of French literary panache and the nation's deeply embedded love of the bike. Time and again, reading through the book, I was struck by how Fournel was able to put onto paper the conscious and unconscious thoughts and experiences that seem universal to anyone who has ever thrown their leg over a saddle. There are moments of recognition, and moments of revelation, where you suddenly see in front of you thoughts you didn't know you had but are revealed like an epiphany as you turn a page.

I cannot recommend this work highly enough, and it certainly puts a lot of poorer writing about cycling (certain Team Sky/ INEOS riders and their "auto" biographies with the emphasis on pub crawls, I am looking at you!) into the shade. I hark back to David Coventry's "The Invisible Mile" where beautifully crafted individual sentences on their own are not enough to add to an intellectual and creatively interesting whole, and am very relieved to see that Fournel is a worthy addition alongside the names of Krabbé and Bobet in the canon of cycling writing.

Lap the Lough 2019 - The Return...

Some background...

When I first started this blog it was mainly off the back of an interesting year in procycling, where so much had happened that worthy stories and memories were hidden by more recent and equally headline grabbing ones and I wanted to simply use this space to aid my recall. It may have deviated from that, primarily due to my irregular approach to adding to it, but I feel this post may hark back to that initial aim as a personal aide memoire. 

So what has this got to do with Lap the Lough? Well, every year between 2011 and 2016 I was on my laptop as the 31st December clicked over to the 1st Jan, which is when LtL entries would go live. I would invariably go for the option with jersey and sign up, knowing I had a full 8 months to prepare.  However, starting with 2017, something changed. I took a bit longer than usual to decide to sign up. Then, after I did, I was asked to go on a training course in Dublin that same weekend, which while, it would have had me home on Saturday night, gave me an excuse not to do it. The following year I didn't even sign up at all- how did I go from uber-fan to "meh"?  

It was probably a combination of things, some personal and some to do with the event itself.  Redundancy from a job I had done for 10 years, helping build a project up to punching above its weight, meant motivation was lacking for a while, even after I found a new job. I also had a volunteering role that reduced time on the bike, But primarily it was the route change in 2016 that did it for me- normally, due to the flat nature of the parcours, if real life did get in the way, you could still make your way around. However the move to Dungannon meant a long climb into the town for the last 2 miles that was a real morale buster- to my mind LtL has always been about people who wanted to do big miles, since every other sportive was focussed on the mountain goats. It was great to have one that was not about smart-arse organisers trying to put a "sting-in-the-tail". While not adverse to the odd bit of vertical (after all the Billy Kerr, Tour of the Orchard County, ABC Sportive and Causeway Coast all have sizeable lumps), LtL was primarily for the person who wanted a challenge but wasn't necessarily a club rider.  Having to stop for a brief rest on the climb in 2016 less than a mile from the finish wasn't great for the old self -esteem. So for the next two years I stayed away.

However 2019 dawned with, initially, a stirring of old interests. LtL announced a new start/finish in the Moy, and I wanted to do some more fundraising. In an attempt to convert a spark into a fire (if not a conflagration), I found old habits dying hard, so at the start of January I clicked on the early bird offer.

 The 2019 Experience...
So how did 2019 shape up for me? Firstly I need to be clear- (caution- a wee bit of foreshadowing!)- nothing I mention is the fault of the organisers. They do a fantastic job setting up and running a very complicated event particularly when you have to work with humans (and let's be honest if the last few years in politics have shown anything it is that there are many more eejits than we may have initially believed possible). However I knew within 15 minutes of starting my ride with 2,499 of my closest friends that my LtL hiatus will probably be re-instated.

Is this the face of a man having an enjoyable day?

• The Start 

         LtL always have the good sense to stagger start times- it isn't the most sensible thing to fire off 2,500 cyclists of varied ability and aims onto narrow country roads at once. The faster riders go off first (those who average 18mph+), followed by the medium folk (14-17 mph- my category) then the slower groups. In theory this cuts down on too many incidents with faster riders trying to push through and get past denser crowds at the start and also allows for solo riders to hopefully find themselves in a group who can ride together at the same speed. 
However, human nature being what it is, and peoples inability to  read email instructions or ability to assume they don't apply to them, means the middle groups tend to have club riders who were too late for their start slots, and too-eager tootlers starting together with us. The end result meant that my bunch of about 15 saw a group of fellas tearing off the road ahead of me and another group with flat-barred bikes and t-shirts dropping behind leaving me on my own- I knew then a long day was going to get even longer.

•  Group Riding Skills (or lack thereoff) 

This isn't a new issue for LtL though it seems to be one that affects it more than other sportives I have taken part in- probably because of the unique nature of the event that makes it attractive beyond the usual target groups. So-much-so I crafted my own take on the Velominati Rules specifically for sportives . While the groups seemed to fragment earlier this year meaning actual close-pack riding was limited, there was still a severe lack of awareness among many of the participants about what was going on around them. Warnings weren't called or passed back, people would turn to look at the person next to them to have conversations (nb it is possible to chat to other people while riding or driving within having to maintain eye contact) and overall just no recognition that events like this can throw Newton's third law of motion into disarray- for in a peloton, every action has a much larger as opposed to equal reaction.  In fact Sunday's event had me questioning some other fundamentals of physics- for example the conservation of momentum. On a number of occasions I was behind some groups on a descent and could see the road going upwards straight away. Rather than try and build up speed and use that to get up the hill, those at the front pootled along, preventing those of us behind getting the extra assistance from gravity before it turned against us. The accordion effect in cycling isn't simply limited to the work of the late Yvette Horner.

There were also two contrasting other groups, each of whom caused their own problems. One were those who were inconsistent in their riding- I would try and sit in with them, prepared to take a turn, but they couldn't hold their line, were inconsistent and dive-bombed each other on corners, while seemingly being oblivious to overtaking motor vehicles. In this case I ended up using more precious energy because it was safer to get away from them and ride on my own. Having to choose between riding in unsteady groups and getting a bit of shelter, or sitting on my own in a headwind for 39 miles on the way back was not a nice choice to have to make.

Conversely the other issue were the disciplined club groups. They were intent on drilling it in pacelines. That was fine if they started with the other clubfolk, but on too many occasions they came up from behind overtaking slower people and not always taking into consideration the conditions when doing so. I lost count of the number of potholes I was nearly forced into as a club come steaming past just as I was about to move out around them.  
As an example- the route covers some of my local roads so I knew that around an approaching blind bend lay a sudden, steep hill and I began to adjust my cadence and gear selection appropriately. Just at that a club group came thundering past, only to almost come to a dead stop as they suddenly met the hill. Not only did they struggle to get into the proper gears, this caused those of us behind to lose our rhythm and suddenly it became a bottleneck.  

• The most hateful stretch...

Again, this seems like an opportune moment to re-emphasise that none of these issues are the fault of the organisers- they are at the mercy of individual's own decision making processes and personalities when it comes to how they ride. They are also limited in relation to topography- if your event is based on the premise of circumnavigating a geographical feature then options can be restricted. So that leads on to what, for each year, has been the most horrible stretch of the parcours. That is from the lunch stop in Clotworthy House to the far side of Randalstown.  By the time most of us reach Antrim, traffic is busy. Leaving the grounds, just as your legs are getting used to going around in circles again after a short break, you are immediately trust onto a busy A-road with really grippy asphalt, and drivers who seem to have an aversion to putting any of their wheels over the white line to overtake. It is constant traffic and then over a roundabout  before heading into Randalstown. Then we begin a long, draggy climb which seems to have been very badly patched  after some roadworks to make it that more difficult. As soon as the climbing stops we are on to narrow roads, which would normally be fine to ride, but when you have impatient drivers, fed up being held up with scattered cyclists, using any amount of space to squeeze past (this year I was actually touched by a car overtaking me at the narrowest point of the road) any relief is soon lost. It is also about then that we pick up the cross-headwind that will be pushing against us the whole way back.

• Take Me Home, Country Roads...

This has been touched on under some of the other headings but was important enough to justify its own section in relation to my experiences. Over the past couple of years the roads around the Loughshore seem to be deteriorating quite badly and repairs seem to have been contracted out to Les Amis de Paris-Roubaix. While car drivers will only notice the worst of it, from a cycling perspective, especially in groups (and extra-especially with groups who don't always call out warnings),  it is very clear on a bike. There are potholes, collapsed edges, roughed up or sunken asphalt and other obstacles that I don't remember from as little as two years ago. This. added to poor group riding, makes the event even more tiring than it should be.

In Summary...
I am aware that this reads like one long whinge fest- however to bring it back to my point in the opening paragraph (while you ask why I just couldn't do that in the second paragraph to save you reading through the rest)- this blog was supposed to help me remember cycling related stuff and I now have one thing I need to be reminded of . And it is simply this- when the registrations go live again in January I can look back on this and remind myself the event probably isn't for me any more.

 Yes, I have some responsibility in that my training wasn't what it should be, but as noted above- sometimes real life has an ability to intrude on the best of plans. But even in years where I haven't been as active on the bike I enjoyed at least parts of it- this year I found the whole day unenjoyable from the start. When asked by a work colleague how I got on, I described the last 40 miles as being like a "dark night of the soul". A wee bit overdramatic perhaps but when you find you're asking yourself where the easiest place to give your wife directions to come pick you up  is, particularly in an event you once knocked off in less than 4 hours and 50 minutes one year, it doesn't sit well. Yes I completed it, but rather than pride it is annoyance that I did it so badly. Was it the physical or mental aspect that made it most difficult? Had I already convinced myself in the run up that I was going to struggle and it became self-fulfilling? I kept thinking about the training I hadn't done as opposed to the training I had and really the fact that people were so generous in their donations was the main thing that dragged me to the line.

So congratulations are due to many people- those who organised the event and also to those who took part, especially for the first time and with limited experience and made it around. Feedback on the LtL FB page is very positive and maybe it is only because I spent the whole day on my own (normally not an issue for a socially awkward individual like me!) rather than with a group that I was so aware of the other things listed above.  But on reflection I have to face up to the fact that LtL is no longer for me and will be looking back on this in about 5 months when the temptation to sign up for 2020 hits again.

I will end on two things- firstly  special thanks to all my sponsors- you were all very, very generous and that was the one thing that keep those pedals turning- I raised over £400 for Craigavon Samaritans and that money (while well-earned!) will go to great use.

Secondly, if you are thinking of signing up for an event next year and haven't done one before then don't let my moaning put you off- I have gone to great pains to highlight that Lap the Lough is a genuinely great initiative and don't want to put anyone off doing it.