Fair Weather Cyclists

Let me be clear. We're all entitled to use the roads, provided we do so with care and consideration for others. A bit of common courtesy combined with the observance of some relatively simple rules and regulations should ensure we all get to and from our destinations safely. Yes, there will be incidents and accidents to quote Paul Simon, but these, while inevitable are thankfully relatively rare given the volume of traffic out there. Be aware, be cautious, think of others.

You see? I'm a fair-minded, thoughtful individual with liberal, John Stuart Mill 'harm principle' sympathies when it comes to road use. Which is why, when I say what I'm about to say, you might wonder whether I'm losing it a bit. It's just that...well, you fair weather cyclists get on my effing tits. You've got no right to be out there with your gleaming, un-corroded, winter-shy bicycles clogging up the roads and all available lampposts and cycle stands as soon as the bloody sun comes out. I mean, there's me, come rain or shine, snow or frost, slogging my way into town every day - and I never miss, ever - nose running, eyes raw, fingers sopping and solid, risking my life on all manner of slippery and treacherous road surface, often in the dark, attaching and detaching lights, scrabbling into useless rainwear at every squall, choking on fog, coddling inside layers that are never quite enough...just so you can come along in late May, all virtuous in your tee-shirts and idiotic shorts, and claim the roads for yourselves. Well it's not right, is it? They're mine.

And you - yes you - on your Boris Bike, trundling around, thinking you're something special, never signalling, chatting to your mates as you ride four abreast, stopping to take in the scenery, bloody-well enjoying your little cycle in the sun, whilst wilfully ignoring the essential tenets of daily city centre cycling - you need to buck up. Here's the code. Learn it:
1) Always go through red lights (if safe to do so - you're on a bloody bike, f'Chrissakes)
2) Always go the wrong way up one way streets (if safe to do so - you're on a bloody bike, f'Chrissakes)
3) Shout at and shock idiotic pedestrians who don't look because they're on their mobile phones (safe or otherwise NB you may legally clip them on a shoulder or knee)
4) Scream at and remonstrate with bus drivers when they try and kill you (because they can't really answer back with passengers on board and professional restrictions and whatnot)
5) Kill - literally kill, if at all possible - white van drivers because they are trying to kill you (pre-emptive, self preservation principle)
6) Remove taxi drivers' wing mirrors at every opportunity with a violent swing of the hand (they're taxi drivers - doesn't matter; and they deserve it for past and future mis-deeds)
7) Have at your disposal a pithy string of epithets to hurl at swerving, mindless drivers on phones, fiddling with radios etc (my personal favourite: 'I've got two little girls who want to see their Dad at home tonight, not visit him in hospital because some cu*t thinks his phone call is more important than fucking looking where he's going' - admittedly, this is clumsy and lengthy and only works when, by some miracle, I've caught up with the miscreant at the next lights and his window is open and he's not fucking enormous and shaven-headed.)

So where was I? Oh yes. You, on your Boris Bike, indeed all of you fair weather dawdlers - this is what we hardened cyclists are all about. It's not a playground out there. Get with the programme or get off our roads. And stop taking our parking spaces. I mean it.

Ok. Off my chest. I think I need a nice cup of cocoa and a Digestive.

Reflections On Being Suddenly Slim

So here I am, 20 years an unreconstructed, unapologetic fat bastard, suddenly slim. Ok, slim-ish. It's all relative. I've lost 2 and a half stone, but then I was ridiculously heavy to start with. I was a man I no longer  recognised, a man I caught unwittingly in a coffee shop mirror and instantly dismissed as a corpulent pig. That was the turning point, really. If that was what I saw when I wasn't sucking in my cheeks to ready myself for my reflection, it was what everyone else saw.

A word or two on how I got here. Simple, really. No forensic calorie-counting, no fads, no crazy fitness regimes. The key? I've just stopped the bi-weekly loading of the mega-sized carrier bags they give the greedy chocoholics in the 99p Shop.Without that evil sugar/fat abomination hanging about the house demanding to be scoffed, I'm having to make my own fun. Walnut anyone?

Here's the regime: I eat dinner late so breakfast is not the first thing on my mind when I wake up - it's easily skipped; lunch might be a bit of popcorn, a yoghurt, some fruit; a snack when I get home (granola, nuts, pretzels) followed later by the kind of evening meal in which I've always specialised  - anything that takes less than 3 minutes to make. Chicken soup (powder + hot water + boil it + vermicelli = done) followed by a few slices of toast and jam or a chicken stir-fry, if I'm feeling all Jamie Oliver, or - pushing the boat out here - a baked potato with some packet roast chicken and microwaved beans. Dessert is a yoghurt, tons of fruit, tea (copious) and maybe a packet of Polos as a treat. I know it sounds grim, but I honestly haven't suffered or yearned. And now I'm where I want to be, I can have decent meal out or a lump of chocolate if I fancy. The key is moderation.

Here's an interesting tale (if you're pissed or on something); it was my birthday a few weeks ago so all bets were off. I hit the sweet shop, hard, and gorged on Boost, Caramac, Maltesers and Tooty-Fruities, but - this was the funny thing - I didn't particularly enjoy it. Me, Fatboy The Sweet Gorger. Would you credit that? Just felt sick, actually. I think they call it -'re-educating' your stomach, or some such shit.

And one other thing; I cycle a minimum of 14 miles a day, but then I've been doing that for 20 years. Combined with sensible eating, it helps the weight fall off, whereas if it's done only to feel virtuous and excuse the relentless stuffing of one's face every night, it helps not a jot. 

Clothes don't look crap on me any more. My last blog was obviously a cry for help. I'd reached the point where jeans, no matter how capacious, looked appalling, like I was trying to squeeze two legs into each leg-hole, and shirts needed to be XXXL to even resemble something made to be worn by humans. I can now go into shops and stick on a pair of 34 inch-waisters (I'm nearer 32 now - I know!) and they look ok. I was nudging 40 inches and, honestly, you don't want anyone to see you flipping those babies off a hanger and sneaking into a fitting room. The other bonus here is that the clothes I was squeezing into a few months ago now hang off me, something I still enjoy demonstrating to my children who, sadly, don't give a flying fuck. Yes, Dad, you've lost weight. Big. Deal. Oh yeah, by the way, I crashed the car.

One other bonus is that there's less weight going through my tortured knees. Now, people who know me will know that I rarely talk about my 9 knee operations, the constant pain, the swelling, the clicking, the sheer, unalloyed misery. Oy, you shouldn't know from it. I still can't play tennis and a return to the ski slopes would probably be inadvisable, but there's been a definite improvement, as you might expect given that the equivalent of 9 stone has been removed from the load going through them when I walk, 18 when (if) I run. 

Turns out I have cheekbones! Who knew? They sort of jut out and create little shadows on my cheeks. Is that normal? And hip-bones and shoulder blades and a spine...which hurt when I move about in the bath. And - stop me if this is too much information - I felt a hard lump when I was washing my bottom the other day. No, not a tumour, silly (although I'm of an age when...let's not think about that). No, it was my coccyx. Who put that there? I've also, apparently, reduced the risk of heart disease and diabetes, made myself less prone to debilitating asthma attacks and, best of all, removed all trace of the corrosive bouts of indigestion I used to suffer every day despite 24 Rennies and a couple of Omeprazole (a dosage that should neutralise Sulphuric Acid). 

But there's a downside. Suddenly, I look my age. Which might not sound bad, but everyone used to comment on how much younger I looked as a fatso. Well of course they did; I had 26 gallons of natural collagen filling the wrinkles, smoothing the skin. Not any more. It's Wrinkle City up there, but a small price to pay. I even had an insane, thin man's number 3 haircut to complement my now slender face - it looked absolutely fucking horrible (got carried away with the slim thing, I think) and am grateful to still have a thatch capable of  consigning such catastrophic hubris to memory, given time.

So, there you go. I'd be happy to counsel anyone seeking to do what I've done. Call me smug, call me obnoxiously gloaty (I may be less so shortly, given that Xmas is approaching, which might yet wreck everything; the fat, greedy boy lurks just under the surface - I can hear him), but feel free to contact me, if only to allow me to crow a bit more.

Why Do All Clothes Look Shit On Me?

I could probably answer that question in one short sentence: because I'm fat. But that would be to oversimplify things and I'm here now so I'm going to wax for a bit. And, let's be honest, if I left it there, you might accuse me of implying that you can't look good in anything if you're fat. This, of course, would be arrant nonsense. Many larger people manage to pull it off: George Melly, a proper pudd'n if ever I saw one, always looked elegant in his baggy flannels and floppy hat; there's an overweight woman who runs our local tea shop and she looks fantastic; Oprah's never too shabby. Vanessa Feltz...sorry, bad example (this is what is known as a cheap shot - it doesn't make me proud, but it's staying). Oh, and let's not forget, there are plenty of skinny bastards who look shit, aren't there?

I'm not going to waste time on the fat v thin debate here - yes we all know there are societal pressures, that obesity (and ultra-skinniness) can be unhealthy, that prejudice and bullying can be rooted in something as trivial as body shape. No, I want to keep this as superficial, shallow and egocentric as possible. I merely want to establish the reason I look so shit in everything, and being fat is right up there.

Fatness, of course, is a relative term. In many people's eyes, I'm not. 5' 10" and 15 stone 9 suggests otherwise, I'll grant you, but I'm very square-shouldered, unusually broad and don't have an especially chubby face nor a pot belly, so I carry it reasonably well. But as soon as I slip into Gap jeans - Easy, Straight, Boot, you name it - I look like a man harbouring Elvis and his fatter twin brother down either leg. My thighs are heavy and my knees buckle inwards due, in part, to ruined, arthritic joints, and my legs always look like a pair of mutant slugs having weird 'X' shaped sex in a sack . Lest you think this is a Gap-based issue, I've tried Next, Hennes, M & S and more. They don't make jeans for people like me. Or trousers. Or shorts. Underpants? Just about.

Then there's shirts. I've tried them all; tees, V-necks, button-ups, button-downs, Grandfather tops. I dunno. I just look shit. I adhere religiously to the 'black is slimming' trope, but to no avail. In fairness, I've got a better chance of looking semi-presentable in a shirt than any pair of trousers, but it's a fine margin. So why? Short neck? That probably doesn't help. No waist? A problem. Lack of definition around the torso? Yeah, ok, you don't have to get offensive mate.

Maybe I need to employ the services of one of those people who just know which clothes work with which shape. It might be painful, I might have to accept certain limitations, but at least I won't look shit. That or lose some weight. People, I have been dieting for a week and lost 6 pounds. So maybe I should hang on before getting Gok Wan over. It might save me a lot of money and the gruesome misery...of having Gok Wan over.      

The Miracle

I've been sicker than many a sick dog over the last week, though on the upside, my previous virus, which lasted a mere nine weeks, had been well and truly out of my system for almost five days before this new thing started, so I've had a really good spell of near-health lasting almost a week. Musn't grumble, eh?

So, here's what I wanted to talk about. One evening last week, just before the icy Armageddon wreaked its chaos - how will we cope, by the way? - I was about to make my ascent up Archway Road on my trusty, middle-of-the-range Pinnacle bicycle. It's a bastard, that hill, a precipitous gradient close to vertical. I'm 51, you know, and asthmatic, and I've got exceptionally dodgy knees, and I've been a little above my fighting weight for a while now (47 years) yet I am forced into daily combat with this demon if I am to make it back to the sanctuary of my Muswell Hill manor.

Now, as any regular cyclist will attest, there is no such thing as a following wind. It doesn't exist. It's a chimera. Cycle round a roundabout, a full 360, and the gale will be in your face all the way round, battering you, pummelling the flesh on your face, ripping your hair from its very roots. All the way round. You hear me? It's nature at its most taunting and vindictive. And if there's a bit of rain in the air - with its spiteful shards and needles which pock and slice, opening little wounds to the flesh and spirit that may never heal - God help you.

So, anyway, there I was, rounding the grim dereliction of Archway Roundabout, bracing myself for the routine double whammy - wind-against plus vertical ascent - when a gust, no more, lifted me, driving me onwards and upwards on gossamer wings towards the brief, free-wheeling relief of Muswell Hill Road, my aching, ageing legs suddenly spared, my bronchial, wheezing lungs in unexpected oxygen-credit. It was like God's arm around my shoulder, forgiving me all my cycling sins (ok, I go on the pavement sometimes and ignore the odd - and even - red light). And, in that brief, epiphanic moment, I questioned my violent atheism for the first time in thirty years.

Course, it only lasted five seconds. A sleet-speckled tornado opened its jaws and pummelled my soul, mocking my natural lack of aerodynamics, my physical decrepitude, my fleeting belief in another way, and forced me to cycle through treacle as I searched for a gear that didn't exist.

Hey, cycling's fun, isn't it? Thinking of creating a blog all about its myriad joys - I've got a million stories. I mean, there are zillions of cycling nerds out there. Maybe someone will actually read the fucker.