Another one bites the dust

Well my testicles for sure have gone.  They've been ground up and have frittered out through my leg holes as a fine brown hairy dust which pirouetted in the wind as I cycled along.  Fine stuff like something you might find inside of your vacuum bag if you had a very dusty carpet - and a very hairy dog.  Yes I've been out again on another monstrous ride and having decided to do so I called in at a small convenience store in Stockton on the Forest to stock up.  The shop only has two short aisles lit with dim fluorescent tubes and long life foodstuff on the shelves.  It doesn't get used that often.  

The old boy, a rather nice quirky gent who looks to be 90 but is probably nearer 60, sells emergency foodstuffs to the locals who can't be arsed to ride their gas guzzling mopeds the 4 miles or so to ASDA.  We chat a fair bit about his love of vintage motorcycles and about the bicycle scrap heap outside of his shop.  They're all donations that he works on in his spare time which he sells on and then gives the cash to charity.  A proper good bloke.  

He enviously eyes Koga.  I guess he's into fat girls.  Anyway in the chat about the bikes out front and all things with two wheels he says, 'so where are you going today'.  'Malton', says I with confidence, 'then across to Easingwold and back to York'.  He freezes like a rabbit in headlights and lets out a short 'Oh!'.  You know, one of them short intakes of breath followed by a long pause.  I see the cogs turning.  You, a rather rotund biker riding a tank is gonna do that I hear him thinking!  And being that there's not a bad bone in his body he just smiles, turns around, waves, wishes me well and disappears back into the cave.  

Talking about dogs, well there I was thinking that Balloon Dog had also been done in.  But not so.

Towards the end of the ride I'm sat at a crossroad on a bench masticating in Coxwold nursing my swollen bits (fnar!).  A damsel in distress walked around the corner.  There I was dressed in a bright yellow cycling jacket with the mule of a bike at the side of me; both of us panting and dripping with sweat and with balloon knees after a hard 50 miles or so playing in the Howardian Hills with about another 25 plus miles to go to get home.  

She politely asked if I knew where the cafe was cos she thought I was a 'local'.  I don't know!  For sure the sign on the wall above my head said that the cafe was somewhere off to my right.  Open to 6pm it said and as it was just after 5 there was not a lot of time left to get something to eat.  

We chat for the next 5, perhaps 10 minutes about how beautiful this part of Yorkshire is (grammar error left in for folk who get annoyed by such things).  About how she's visiting from Norfolk to be at a friends birthday party and how, if the cafe cannot be found or if closed, what her options might be to eat that evening.  As I'd just completed a tour of Yorkshire's most famous Abbeys which included Kirkham Priory amongst others then the Abbey Inn at Byland was just up the road and if no good there, then there would be a selection of pubs in Easingwold all doing food, 'about 5 miles away'.  

We were getting on rather well I thought.  Somewhere in that conversation I felt Balloon Dog jump out of his basket and run towards her.  Straining at the leash as he pushed his nose in the general direction of Norfolk.  Poor thing, it's been a fair while since he's been petted but no, not today boy, cos as per many occasions in my life I again didn't press the subject about a potential meeting again.  To show her the best places in Yorkshire you know.  Which for your information does not include the inside of my bedroom.  That for sure is right at the bottom of the list.  Very bottom.  And I'm talking about snakes' arses here.  

And so we went our different ways. 

I've written before about my life.  How it possibly resembles a plate of spaghetti with me sucking on a pasta thread with multiple strand crossings in a tomatoey mix.  Some of which could have turned out to be major crossroads in my life.  Some that could have taken me to places that were never envisaged at the start.  A bit like today's ride out.  Which has taken me over 70 miles because I decided to take the high road home.   Yeah.  Bloody idiot.

Click here to see a map of the ride out. 

Also here and here for maps of the ride to Barton on Humber across the bridge and back a few days beforehand with Brad the Lad.  Here's some photo's too.  I'm the one on the right :-)

I convince myself that I'm doing all of this for a very good reason.  Now that the JOGLE thing is only 3 weeks away I wanted to see if my legs could now handle 70 plus miles mainly in the hills (tick); to check that I could sleep OK after the ride (tick); and, that my legs felt ready to go again the next day.  Yes they did (tick!).  All of this is a good sign.  Of course they were slightly sore and creaky the next day.  Even though my knees are full of ground up bone, my legs still had plenty of energy and were ready to go.  

Balloon Dog and Ma Boys - you know the Chuckle Brothers - and Hairy Melon are also now in the groove.  I have callouses in places where the sun never shines.  My bum skin is hard and leathery in all the wrong places, off of which you could strike a light with a damp match.  My knees, you know, Ma Boy and Our Lass have stopped sticking sharp implements into their bedroom walls and ceilings and being that I learn't shedloads from the JOGLE thing in 2018 were no longer going to sleep whilst crying into their duvets every night.  Well they daren't anyway in rooms full of ground up bone dust.  Sets like concrete when wet you know which only makes me walk like a Baboon with itchy piles as it drags its arse across the veldt after a hard days ride.    

So why do I do this?  Why do I tour cycle?  Historically I've given many reasons.  Saying it's because I love it and because it helps me control my Type 2 diabetes whilst I eat shedloads of bread.  And so on..  Hmmm.  Well yes to those reasons but in reality they’re not the main ones...

Simply, I'm doing my best to cling on to my youth. 

So many things are now no more.  I only have the dregs of the tomato sauce and a few spaghetti strands still on my plate having gorged myself on all that has been carbohydrate rich throughout my life.  And I've enjoyed every morsel of it.  I jam the edge of the plate into my mouth and wander the fork of destiny across the pearlescent smooth bare rock as I continue to hunt for and shovel in the remains of the meal.  As I suck on the edge of the plate I'm becoming desperate for more.  

Cycling is just one of the few remaining meatballs on my plate that I plan to savour and suck on forever.  As I grapple on the ground trying to hold on to the greasy pig of my youth I think of others who's plates sadly have already run dry.  Of many folk which include mum and dad.  Of Barry and Tony from my team when I worked in BT, both of whom just didn't have a big enough portion.  And there's no joke in that.   

And if you've been watching the news there is a special lady on it right now.  Deborah James, who is well past thinking about holding on to her youth.  It's the latter days of her life.  Having suffered with bowel cancer for the last 6 years and now at a point where her body can no longer continue the treatment.  There's nothing more she nor anyone else can do.  She has proper brought a raging flow of tears to my wind weary eyes.   Such a powerful young woman with such a bubbly personality and a beautiful smile.  

When I did the LEJOG thing in 2018 I raised £2000 for charity.  £1000 to the RNLI and £1000 to CRUK.   

This time I was planning to be selfish.  To claw at my withering youth and not asking this time for any charity for this one was for me.  But no.  Here I am once again about to set off on a magical journey still with more life ahead of me.  Without anything major to grumble about.  Yes there may be troubles ahead including concrete dust in my knees and other parts of my body and plenty of pain to look forward to one day.  But absolutely nothing compared to the smash you in the face harsh countdown clock which cannot be stopped and where every second matters for some.

So I'm gonna write out far and wide.  To ask folk to donate to her charity.  To give something, even a penny if that's all they can afford, as anything given by anyone will help make a difference.  Me, I need nothing.  I still have my health if not my youth and will extract huge rewards from the ride.

With your help we might together be able to have some fun and generate (and write about) some more core memories whilst riding on the JOGLE thing.

But also help other folk in some way who will be significantly suffering more than my knees ever could on the 1000 mile ride down the UK.  

Tomorrow is a drive to Kent.  For the 3 day practice ride with London Alan from Brighton to Herne Bay along the Sussex and Kent coastlines.  

Mainly for me to check that my new pair of testicles, which were fitted last night, are up to the job.  

Ciao for now.