The art of crashing

Of the many abiding memories of this year’s Giro d’Italia, none will likely linger longer than that of Steven Kruijswijk careering into a bank of packed snow just a few turns down the Colle dell’Agnello. Heartbreaking arse over proverbial tit.

Fortunately the pink jersey came away from it with nothing worse - nor better - than a fractured rib, was able to start the next day and ended up finishing a creditable fourth overall. Nonetheless it was, in all probability, the moment he lost the race. Whether he would have lost it later that day or at some point on the next anyway I’m not inclined to speculate. If you want an analysis of the racing there are a better places for you to turn: the neighbours’ cat, for example.

Still, while I might not call myself an expert on the sport of cycling, one thing about which I am increasingly becoming an authority is crashing.

Partly because I’ve watched a lot of them. While many decry the replays and would prefer the broadcasters didn’t show them at all, I must confess - to borrow a phrase from the Cycling Podcast’s Ciro Scognamiglio - to putting them on repeat.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t enjoy them. While sadism-slash-voyeurism perhaps, subconsciously, comes into it, consciously the fascination has more to do with the desire to analyse - to detect - precisely what happened and why. A crash, like a sprint finish, is a moment of drama in a bike race where so much happens in such a short a time that a true understanding can only be reached through slow-motion study.

In Kruijswijk’s case it took me as many at least fifteen replays to spot the split-second when it all goes wrong: a wobble of the rear wheel your only clue to his inability to decide how to deliver himself through the bend. Once you see that you can imagine that he neither had enough confidence in his brakes or braking ability to permit him to take it tightly, nor in his tyres or bike handling to carry the extra speed, turn more aggressively and go wider. Either option, had he taken it, might have led him to crash anyway, but the failure to take any at all meant a powdery wipeout was all but inevitable.

Of course it’s much simpler to get to the bottom of an accident with no other party involved than even the middle of one which takes place within a fast, furious fleet of racing cyclists. A bunch crash is, if you’ll forgive the over-the-top analogy (but cycling not-so-secretly likes those, doesn’t it?), like a nuclear explosion: if you’re on top of it there’s no hope at all but, depending on the magnitude, even someone on its periphery can end up being impacted by the shockwave. Take the one which occurred on stage three of last year’s Tour de France which ended up taking out about thirty-five riders including the yellow jersey-wearing Fabian Cancellara. The carnage continues for about seven seconds with means that, given they’re travelling at approximately 55kph, the last rider to fall could have been as far as 107 metres back when the chain reaction of calamity began. Try untangling that on a single viewing at normal speed.

Harder still is when you’re actually involved in the incident and don’t have the benefit of front, rear and overhead television angles. The closest thing to actual evidence is any damage to your bike and the location and nature of any injuries. How many riders are caught up in it versus how many escape will give you an idea of where (on the road and in the bunch) it happened. Beyond that you’re reliant on an unreliable memory severely tainted by the certainty that it could not possibly have been your fault.

Although I’ve never been at the centre of such a crash, or responsible for a detonation, on more than one occasion I’ve found myself peripherally impacted. One memorable close call came in a category four criterium at the Lee Valley road circuit last summer. Hot days seem to bring out the mad dogs and I spotted this guy as early as the neutralised first lap. Riding right in the middle, he was twitching all over the place, taking about twelve different lines through every corner, completely oblivious of all around. I was very conscious of him, though, and committed to keeping as much lateral distance as possible between us while trying to push up the pack ahead of him.

I didn’t make it far enough up, though. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpse a flash of wheel being clipped, which is when, as the saying goes, all hell breaks loose. Visually and audibly it’s chaos, as riders go down left and right, ahead and behind. Metal scrapes carbon hits tarmac. I feel myself shunted from the right rear, a domino effect three or four long, but manage to stay upright. The next thing I’m aware of is the taste of adrenalin, as some semblance of survival instinct kicks in and almost immediately all I’m concerned with is not losing touch with the bunch. On the road concern for your fellow rider is paramount but in a race, even one as insignificant as this, with the riders ahead speeding away I don’t even look around. Feeling no resistance in the pedal it quickly becomes apparent that the light t-boning I received was enough to take my chain off and while I get it back on again fairly swiftly, it’s not enough. By the time I’m up to speed the pack of thirty-ish is half a lap - six hundred metres or so - ahead, and while I’m able to keep them there, on my own I’m unable to claw my way back. On the way back round I pass the four or five riders worst affected by the crash limping away from the scene, shooting daggers at the one I think - I know - caused it.

At least, I think that’s what happened.

Slaying The Dragon

In issue 10 we look at sportive rides, focusing on two in particular: the small and family-run Puncheur in Sussex and the really rather large and corporately managed Dragon Ride in Wales.

We’ve ridden the Puncheur before so it seemed only fair to balance things out by tackling the Dragon Ride last weekend. It’s one thing to speak to a ride organiser but you can’t get a true flavour of an event without actually taking part. Well, that was our excuse anyway.

Having interviewed ride organiser Rob Hillman, we knew the Dragon was a complicated logistical operation that costs £200,000 and requires year-round effort to stage successfully. So we expected a slick, well-organised event with ample food, good signage and excellent mechanical and medical support. We were confident that the event team would manage to send all 5,000 riders in the right direction without too much delay and that the route would be challenging but picturesque.

We weren’t disappointed on any of those fronts. But these are all practical details. What they don’t tell you is how beautiful the Rhondda Valley looks on a sunny Sunday morning as you make your way north from the start at Margam Country Park near Port Talbot, how uplifting it feels to crest the first climb of the day at Bwlch and then soar down the other side with hundreds of other grinning riders. They don’t tell you about the little flutter you feel in your stomach as you start the Devil’s Elbow, a tough climb made all the more tough by the fact that you can see riders winding up the hill high over your head as you approach the first hairpin. They don’t prepare you for the breath-taking views from the top of the hill near Trecastle, nor for the kindness and encouragement expressed by pretty much everyone whose paths you cross – from motorists held up by the ride to horse riders to the little kids handing out plastic cups of water in Neath, just when you start to think the ride – and the climbing – will never end.

The Gran Fondo route is 230km long and involves 3,600 metres of climbing and if that’s not tough enough for you (and it was more than tough enough for us) there’s the Dragon Devil route that takes the distance past the 300km mark and the climbing up to 4,800 metres. It’s an epic ride, whichever route you choose, but it’s this successful marriage of hard, efficient management work and the much less manageable, less definable delights of the region that make it something really special. We will be back.

Into the heart of darkness

“My undercarriage is ruined, my hands are numb and I can’t remember my own name.” So says one of the riders in the London-Edinburgh-London ultra-Audax from 2013 in a new film about the ride due for release on 1 June.

Why would anyone want to cycle 1400km in five days? It’s a very odd thing to do. The pain, exhaustion and jeopardy these riders put themselves through is pretty extreme. It’s the kind of ride that any cyclist would love to be able to say they’d done but very few would actually want to go through it.

Every cycling breed is represented in this excellent documentary, from Strava segment bashers on their carbon race bikes to innocent newbies who have no idea what they’ve taken on, and wizened old ultra-distance riders with steely eyed determination and trusty tourers.

Every rider has their own reason for attempting this ridiculous distance. Some are raising money for charities close to their heart. Some are negotiating mid-life crises. One was simply celebrating the fact that he was still alive following a quadruple bypass operation.

Together they go off rather too quickly in high spirits under sunny skies. And together they cycle into the heart of darkness, losing their sense of time and place and even self as they push deeper and deeper into their reserves to beat the broom wagon.

They pedal relentlessly on through breath-taking scenery and dreary cityscapes, trying to snatch minutes of sleep before they slip into unconsciousness in the saddle through sheer exhaustion.

It’s a great watch – and made all the more fun because the 2017 event is already fully booked up so there’s no danger of being sucked into the madness, however inspired you might be by it (and you will be inspired, trust us on that one).

You can see a trailer for the London Edinburgh London official documentary here https://vimeo.com/ondemand/londonedinburghlondon/137386687. The kind folk at MadeGood.films, who produced the documentary, have offered Simpson readers a 10% discount code. All you have to do is enter the code 'lelpresale' at checkout, or follow this link https://vimeo.com/r/1HL2/x/QXBFY1ljM3 before 1 June.

Chalk lines and village halls

It was all very British. Sat in a village hall car park at an hour when most folk were still in bed sleeping off the excesses of a good Saturday night, two bikes wrapped in blankets on the folded seats behind us as we watched other competitors arrive. Outside the hall stood two men, one with a clipboard the other measuring the distance of a complete crank rotation between two chalked lines. Any bike travelling more than 18 feet 8 1/4 inches was instantly disqualified. We had entered the world of medium geared time trialling. It felt like a mysterious closed society - the stuff of secret handshakes and whispered conversations.

This is the underbelly of British club cycling - an honest down-to-earth, grass roots event that sits a million light years from the glamour of televised Grand Tours. The fundamental principles might have been the same but the execution was very different.

Having passed the measurement requirement we signed on. Now we had passed the point of no return. We were committed. Our countdown with destiny (and the stopwatch) had begun.

However well you prepare, there's always those unknown factors, those niggly little things that float around in your head before the off. We lined up in a narrow lane leading to a farmer's field, everyone in sequence with the numbers pinned to our backs. No digital LED countdown, no start ramp just a line chalked on the road and man with a clipboard and stopwatch. A 25 mile TT had seemed a good idea at the time of entering. It didn't anymore. Having refused the starter's push in favour of a self-propelled start, the race of truth had begun.

You soon reach top speed on a single speed bike; the secret, as in any time trial, is maintaining it. It took eight painful miles to regulate breathing, settle down and find a rhythm. As soon as the halfway roundabout came into view we knew we were homeward bound. This elation was immediately soured by a sequence of repeated mechanical failures - on three separate occasions the chain jumped the rear sprocket. Without a team car in sight (dream on punter!) it was time to get our hands dirty. The ignoble sight of a cyclist, bike upturned by the side of the road wrestling a jammed chain signified us kissing goodbye to any semblance of a decent finishing time.

Needless to say we completed the event way down the field but we weren't last and our appetite to give it another go is keen. We have unfinished business.

Do You Remember The First Time?

I don’t remember the first time I ever rode a bicycle, sadly, but I do remember the first time I ever rode a bicycle in London. My trusty teenage steed had been heartbreakingly stolen from outside a pub in Brighton, where I was at university, but fortunately my mum’s contents insurance had come through with a replacement.

My destination was Angel, to meet a girl. The exact date escapes me but it must have been around this time of year because it was the middle of term, and she was struggling with a seasonal cold. In what remains, probably, the most romantic gesture I have ever made I carried with me a sachet of Lemsip, intending to present her with a steaming, medicinal mug of it when she arrived.  

But this isn’t about her - although maybe it is a bit - so back to biking.

In the age of GPS we take that little flashing dot for granted, but this was a simpler time so stowed in my back pocket, alongside the Lemsip, was an A to Z. Until that day I had only ever needed a few of its pages, covering five or six square miles at most, always pretty central, around tourist traps and taverns. Yet barely a few pedal revolutions into my journey I recall revelling in how much more of the map I was marking, as the unfathomably expansive urban landscape shrank to nothing beneath my wheels.

My mind’s eye can still make out the facades of stations as I zipped by: in the leafy west Warwick Avenue, Maida Vale and St John’s Wood, all disappearing into my dust no sooner than they were stumbled upon. A miniature Leslie Green architectural tour was next as I sailed by the oxblood red facades of Chalk Farm, parks Belsize and Tufnell, then Archway before turning south along Holloway Road. I surely took the wrong exit off Highbury Corner at least once before finishing with a triumphant dash down Upper Street.

Although it didn’t work out with the girl, boy did me and cycling make a good couple. In less than an hour I had seen more of London than in twenty years and, no longer confined by bus routes, tube maps and timetables, my sense of this city was completely transformed. I could go where I wanted, when I wanted, for nothing.

In the decade since I have built up my own mental map of London, filling in gaps one trip at a time. As such, although I don’t think I know this city better than anyone else but I do know it better than I otherwise would. I have crossed the river a thousand joyful times over every bridge from Putney to the Tower. I have broken a wrist, a leg, suffered cuts and scrapes, and survived more near misses than I can count. I have texted my mum approximately 376 times to reassure her that I’ve made it home in one piece.

The point, of this unforgivably London-centric ramble, is that with construction seemingly everywhere forcing road users big and small into an ever narrower space - plus y’know Winter - many a by-bike commuter seems to be of the view that this is as hard as it’s ever been. Even the most “half full” of you might feel like London is, at best, going through an “always darkest before the dawn” period. Tough it out, you tell yourself, keep calm and... some old bollocks.

And to a certain extent I agree: It's not always easy, at times it’s downright grim. But it's always, ALWAYS, better than the alternative. Battling through the cold and rain is always better than facing the soot, sweat and invisible horrors carried by other people on the tube. The odd hop on the pavement or swerve for safety is always better than staring down from the top deck of the bus at an endless traffic jam, knowing the best you can do is email into work to say you'll be late. Getting into furious swearing matches with cab drivers who don’t feel obliged to acknowledge that yes, you do in fact have a right to physical mass, is better than being forcing your way onto a train that was designed for a tenth of the people on it.

Every time I feel like giving up on this city I think back to the first day I rode a bike here. As a child I had only ever seen them as playthings, but that was the day I awoke to their potential to liberate and empower, to allow a country boy like me not just to live here, but to truly feel alive.