As Joey Tempest once said in one of the finer moments of mid-80s glam rock, “it’s the final countdown”. Although he was singing about lift-off into a new space odyssey (very Cold War) I’m sure most of us on the TdF are now increasingly feeling the same trepidation and excitement from the impending step into the unknown with only one month to go – minus that ludicrous hair of course.
This week my eldest daughter Ella, aged 11, made it absolutely and painfully clear how old Cress and I are in her eyes. Flicking through the TV channels absent-mindedly on Tuesday evening, we stopped on BBC2 which was showing a collection of Top of the Pops performances through the 1980s, starting with the New Romantics style(?!) of Duran Duran and ending with the birth of House/Dance like Ride on Time by Black Box. As we meandered along this nostalgic journey through our adolescence, Ella walked in to watch/listen – she managed a couple of minutes of tortured tolerance before expressing her absolute disgust at what she was hearing and seeing – looking like she’d just swallowed a t-spoon of salt, it was all “what is this awful music?”, “you didn’t actually listen to this, did you?”, “they can’t even sing” and “surely people didn’t wear clothes like that did they?”, followed by “pleeeaase can we turn over, it’s making me feel ill…” Having subjected ourselves to the likes of Fergal Sharkey, Bros, Wham, Dead or Alive, Europe, T’Pau, Mel & Kim, Tiffany, The Communards and the manufactured pop of Stock Aitken and Waterman (yes, Kylie & Jason), together with all-white jeans and white woolly jumpers, we had to admit she had a point. It all looked very very dated, which I suppose it is. I had always thought that dancing to 1980s music was impossible, until the House scene emerged at the end of the decade, but was reassured to see that everyone danced with that awful sway in those days. The 1980s really was a dark decade for the dancefloor, sandwiched inbetween the awesome 60s rock’n’roll, 70s disco and 90s dance/club music. Had to laugh when Chris de Burgh sang Lady in Red, typically the last song played at all those ‘balls’ we went to in our teens, which represented the evening’s last chance to get up close to the girl you’d been dying to snog all night. Happy days!
Sunday was the last organised TdF ride before the off, and there was a decent turn-out of 22 riders at the meeting point outside Dorking. I cycled down there and totally mistimed it, arriving about an hour early – an hour of sleep wasted, but it was nice to see the sun rising over Box Hill in the early hours – and it was warmish when the sun was out. We had a good ride from there down to Brighton and back, the only unpleasant part coming on the climb up to the top of South Downs – not because of the gradient in itself, but because as we hit the lower slopes a long procession of about 50 2-stroke mopeds streamed past us, put-putting filthy smoke directly into our path. This was made worse by Steve shouting “don’t let them get away” – red rag to a bull, so I chased them uphill at over 20mph – obviously I was gasping for air after several hundred metres, but only succeeded in inhaling blue oily fumes instead. Not pleasant. We had a very cold lunch on Brighton seafront before heading back to Dorking. Amazing the improvement there’s been in most people’s riding since the start of the year – obviously everyone’s training has paid off. My ride, including to the start and back to London totalled over 120 miles - and while not at an electric pace it felt reassuringly comfortable.
Just a quick word for the pros doing the Giro – if you ever thought they were a bunch of mollycoddled prima-donnas, think again. Saturday’s stage was incredible: the French/Belgians have the ‘Pave’ to test bike handling skills – unbelievably uncomfortable at best, treacherous in the wet. Lesser known, but just as challenging, the Italians have ‘Strada Bianchi’, which are white gravel roads. And it was raining on Saturday, so the white gravel roads quickly turned to slippery rivers of brown mud – and the riders quickly turned to brown mud too, so much so you couldn’t even see the team strips. Unsurprisingly the former mountain-bike riders and cyclo-cross riders faired the best with their better bike-handling. Tough, cold day in the saddle. Chapeau (or whatever they say in Italian!)
Weekly totals
Commute – 102 miles
Other rides – 123 miles
Funds raised to date £2093.
This week my eldest daughter Ella, aged 11, made it absolutely and painfully clear how old Cress and I are in her eyes. Flicking through the TV channels absent-mindedly on Tuesday evening, we stopped on BBC2 which was showing a collection of Top of the Pops performances through the 1980s, starting with the New Romantics style(?!) of Duran Duran and ending with the birth of House/Dance like Ride on Time by Black Box. As we meandered along this nostalgic journey through our adolescence, Ella walked in to watch/listen – she managed a couple of minutes of tortured tolerance before expressing her absolute disgust at what she was hearing and seeing – looking like she’d just swallowed a t-spoon of salt, it was all “what is this awful music?”, “you didn’t actually listen to this, did you?”, “they can’t even sing” and “surely people didn’t wear clothes like that did they?”, followed by “pleeeaase can we turn over, it’s making me feel ill…” Having subjected ourselves to the likes of Fergal Sharkey, Bros, Wham, Dead or Alive, Europe, T’Pau, Mel & Kim, Tiffany, The Communards and the manufactured pop of Stock Aitken and Waterman (yes, Kylie & Jason), together with all-white jeans and white woolly jumpers, we had to admit she had a point. It all looked very very dated, which I suppose it is. I had always thought that dancing to 1980s music was impossible, until the House scene emerged at the end of the decade, but was reassured to see that everyone danced with that awful sway in those days. The 1980s really was a dark decade for the dancefloor, sandwiched inbetween the awesome 60s rock’n’roll, 70s disco and 90s dance/club music. Had to laugh when Chris de Burgh sang Lady in Red, typically the last song played at all those ‘balls’ we went to in our teens, which represented the evening’s last chance to get up close to the girl you’d been dying to snog all night. Happy days!
Sunday was the last organised TdF ride before the off, and there was a decent turn-out of 22 riders at the meeting point outside Dorking. I cycled down there and totally mistimed it, arriving about an hour early – an hour of sleep wasted, but it was nice to see the sun rising over Box Hill in the early hours – and it was warmish when the sun was out. We had a good ride from there down to Brighton and back, the only unpleasant part coming on the climb up to the top of South Downs – not because of the gradient in itself, but because as we hit the lower slopes a long procession of about 50 2-stroke mopeds streamed past us, put-putting filthy smoke directly into our path. This was made worse by Steve shouting “don’t let them get away” – red rag to a bull, so I chased them uphill at over 20mph – obviously I was gasping for air after several hundred metres, but only succeeded in inhaling blue oily fumes instead. Not pleasant. We had a very cold lunch on Brighton seafront before heading back to Dorking. Amazing the improvement there’s been in most people’s riding since the start of the year – obviously everyone’s training has paid off. My ride, including to the start and back to London totalled over 120 miles - and while not at an electric pace it felt reassuringly comfortable.
Just a quick word for the pros doing the Giro – if you ever thought they were a bunch of mollycoddled prima-donnas, think again. Saturday’s stage was incredible: the French/Belgians have the ‘Pave’ to test bike handling skills – unbelievably uncomfortable at best, treacherous in the wet. Lesser known, but just as challenging, the Italians have ‘Strada Bianchi’, which are white gravel roads. And it was raining on Saturday, so the white gravel roads quickly turned to slippery rivers of brown mud – and the riders quickly turned to brown mud too, so much so you couldn’t even see the team strips. Unsurprisingly the former mountain-bike riders and cyclo-cross riders faired the best with their better bike-handling. Tough, cold day in the saddle. Chapeau (or whatever they say in Italian!)
Weekly totals
Commute – 102 miles
Other rides – 123 miles
Funds raised to date £2093.
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