3 weeks to go dudes! 3 weeks!

My good god what a ride! Fantastic swoopy singletrack and glorious endless downhill runs. Wake up Crawford, I rode out for a full on training ride today – 70 miles, just me, Dark Phoenix Steed and Amy’s IPod, as I have lost mine.

Training recently has taken a blow, as my customers have, quite rightly, demanded my time more so I am spending more weekdays away from home. Consequently I am missing Amy and the kids, and having to take a whole day at the weekend to train is taking its toll on my dear wife.

She is with them 6 days out of 7, and I can barely manage 1.

Still only 3 weeks to go until the big day, and to be truthful, your humble narrator can’t wait until it is over. Every cycle I do is measured, and analysed for speed and distance. I worry about farting around on jumps and heading over to Whiteways singletrack because I should be putting the XC (cross country) mileage in, but I enjoy singletrack and jumps, I don’t much enjoy XC. Not anymore, and especially not after today.

After summoning what little energy I had this morning to get out of bed, and after procrastinating, breakfast, some more procrastinating and realising had no spare inner tubes – I set off for the mission of doing as close to 70 miles as I could. Why 70? Well it’s 70% of the overall distance, and I am pretty convinced that I can find the extra 30% from adrenaline and general pigheadedness, which, I might add I have in great abundance, just ask Amy. In fact ask anyone or talk to my kids for 2 minutes and you’ll see that it runs deep in the Crawford-Small line.

Anyway, I passed by Quest bike shop to pick up some tubes and pissed myself and the slack jawed teens ogling the new Saturday girl. Who is very nice and suggested that on a long cycle I may want to try some Clif Orange Shot Bloks. Why not I thought, give em a whirl.

After further procrastination I finally left tar macadam for dirt and headed for the SDW, a few slight detours and little bit of getting lost I got to the SDW about 10AM and put my head down. I found it quite difficult to get the old Quadracep pistons going, it takes me about a 10 miles to get going but soon I was churning out the miles aiming for about 35 before I turned around and headed back.

It was pretty uneventful on the 35 miles out from Worthing, I was pleasantly surprised that Amy’s IPod didn’t churn out the expected endless stream of Pop shite. Instead I was treated to some Stevie Wonder, The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Foo’s…all good high BPM stuff. OK there was the occasional Take That tune, but I was in a good mood. Funny thing; when I got home I congratulated Amy on her musical selection, she replied;

“I have Chemical Brothers on my Ipod?”

You lost the cool points love.

Anyway, I hit an almighty wall at 35 miles dead on, my legs just ground to a halt. Even a full pack of Jelly Babies could stir them into life, I just ran out of energy. I was surprised, because usually I, like the true Stallion that I am, can go on for hours.

What was I to do? God bless new Saturday Girl – the Shot Bloks to the rescue!!! 75mg of caffine and some Electrolyte and the Quad pistons were back. And pretty bloody powerful to! So we shot of towards home, and this is where it gets interesting (or not depending on your point of view).

Ramblers top tip. When walking on the South Downs please remember to spread yourselves out across the entire trail at every opportunity. This will ensure confrontation, especially with the knackered but caffine fuelled hyper MTB’er who wants to get past.

Honestly, this steeeuuuupid bint just wouldn’t move, despite my best “Excuse me, do you mind if I get past?” I was raised to be polite, even to bints. I assumed that she was actually deaf, so I thought that I’ll get a bit closer and try again. She hears me this time and steps INTO the bike pushing me up against a fence, causing a slight elbow injury.

She compounds this with a big mistake. Obstinacy. Slight tangent here but I generally don’t get on with our older generation, as I find them pompous and rude. Its like when you hit 60 you suddenly change from moderate to hardline, from Democrat to Republican, from a sound bloke into a total arse.

Anyway, she says “you should have a bell?”, now from anyone aged 59 or under an apology would be delivered and an insincere enquiry as to my condition. No, not this old bag, it’s now my fault that she walked into me.

Being all caffine charged I considered going all Mike Tyson and knocking her out, but settled for “No I don’t have a bell, but do you not have a brain? You stupid cow”.

That would do.

The rest of the ride went ok, and I returned weary after 7 odd hrs of sheer tedium. Riding XC on your tod is very boring.