Throwback Thursday – Beautiful Losers

By Matt Letch

I’ve taken other people competing very seriously and mostly to heart. All the while I’ve looked at them as some sort of mountain bike sub-species, in a kind of ‘Well, you can’t kill them but they should at least be sterilised’ way. As a liberal I understand their right to exist to but it doesn’t mean I want to read the Observer with them.

It’s an awful conundrum for someone who has enjoyed riding events but without really having an ounce of racer spirit in him. I know that without people who want to puke for fun or ride with their torsos laid flat along the top tube there’d be no events for me.

 I’ll happily let you winch past me up the next hill whilst I wonder who did the music for the Dirty Harry movies and unfocus for the next 20 minutes of pedaling ahead.

I’ve taken part in 24 hour events, 12 hour night races and a quite a few enduros, such as the Dyfi Enduro. If I was going to place myself at all it would be a solid last third of the pack and while I’ll buzz your back wheel on the descent to get past you, I’ll happily let you winch past me up the next hill whilst I wonder who did the music for the Dirty Harry movies and unfocus for the next 20 minutes of pedaling ahead.

In the early Noughties when I ran a bike shop I made a bunch of new friends. One of them (to me) was the archetypal racer type; let’s call him Mike. All smooth legs and a list of comparative component weights in his head, far too long a stem and could get pissed on two pints. Strangely we seemed to get on, his hand-wringing fervour for racing and training even started to taint me. Sometimes I’d even give chase uphill after him!

The first Dusk ‘til Dawn was an August bank holiday and we decided to race as a team of four. I concerned myself that we had enough beers and chilli for the evening and maybe something to inhale if the night got boring. My bike was an On-One singlespeed with huge riser bars and some equally un-Thetford tyres (probably IRC Missiles or something.) There was so little thought in its build that I’m pretty sure most 5in full suspension bikes weighed less than it. Basically it was my all-round bike at the time and something that could be left to rust somewhere in-between rides as is common of a lot of bike shop workers.

I’m fairly sure that two of the other members of my team were equally as vague about the evening; a kind of ‘See how we get on, but no pressure’ vibe.

Mike was a very different character. From his tent I could hear some kind of rock music, it may have been ‘Eye of the Tiger’ – if not it will have been from a band named after a large landmass.With a snarl he left his tent. A striking figure in a blue team kit with two twists of tissue paper coming out of his nose, which turned out to be soaked in Olbas oil.

Next he jumped on his trainer (we’d wondered what the second bike was for) and readied himself for battle with the night, Mike had bravely offered to ride first, or perhaps realised no one else was going to offer, and we weren’t going to complain.

As the race started, Mike was off like a rocket in the first ten at least and seemed to be somewhere around that at the midway point, he then disappeared and we waited and waited and waited. Some time later he appeared. His ‘tyres’ (see ribbed condoms) which were, yes, incredibly light and yes, rolled so well, also seemed to be frightened to hold air in when they were in woods at night time. His apologies and genuine shame at letting the team down were met with endless piss-taking of him and his freaky racer ways, and an odd-couple friendship was born.

The funny thing was, I couldn’t work out why he’d like me. I’d turn up to ride late and hungover with an inappropriate bike and Mike would patiently wait while I dragged myself along. I did the Test Valley event with him the same year and rode it on that same On-One (In ‘04, being a luddite and a masochist was the THING).That event was painfully slow for me and hard going, so god knows what it was like for him while he waited for me. Where he was organised, I was chaos. Where his bike was silent, mine was fingernails down a blackboard. It was me that forgot shoes or helmets or a Camelbak and it was me that kept him waiting.

In 2004 we did the Dyfi ‘together’ as well. After four hours or so of grovelling, I pulled back into the start/finish car park, Mike was there with a pint waiting and a big congratulatory hug as well. After dismounting and doing the standard post-ride readjustment of my reproductive organs, we sat there chatting the chat, discussing the route and waiting for other friends to come in with a line of beers ready. Our apparently different approaches to this bit of our life suddenly didn’t seem so far away; we were just approaching it from where we were comfortable. I had an image as slacker to keep up and he had one to be a racer boy that he had to live by too.

The last people that day were a female pair who were out for something like six hours. Mike was the first one up to them cheer them as rain started to fall.

“I can’t imagine that.” he said.

“Imagine what?”

“Sticking it out for six hours. It must have been so much harder than my race.”

And that said it all really. His legs had burned, my legs had burned, I’m pretty sure we both whooped on the same down hills, just at different times and I’m pretty sure that last team in did too. We’re just a body-wax and a turbo trainer apart.