My friend will keep riding with the 20mph group, even if it bankrupts him

I don’t often compare myself to Joseph Stalin, but occasionally I feel I must. In 1928 Stalin instituted the first five-year plan for developing the Soviet economy. He set tractor production targets and launched a propaganda offensive to encourage the workers The five-year plan was completed in four years. It was at a considerable human cost, but very little of that was to Uncle Joe himself. Every subsequent five-year plan had to be completed in four years, or he literally had people shot.

I have a regular two-hour training ride. It takes about an hour and fifty minutes. I might not have myself shot if it took two hours to do it, but I’d certainly be a little ashamed of myself.

I was reminded of things like this when a friend called by last week to chat about the performance improvements he might see from some equipment upgrades. He needs to keep up with his preferred club-run, the race-training one which averages about 20 mph, but he finds that’s a little faster than he’s comfortable with these days.

“How about going on the 18 mph ride?” I asked. “It would be about £5,000 cheaper, and you might meet a better class of person?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

He’s simply not an 18 mph personality. There was a time when he’d have ridden at 20 mph if it killed him. Now he’ll ride at 20 mph if it bankrupts him. Such is age and wisdom.

What I enjoy about typical 20 mph club rides is that they’re full of ageing racers frantically upgrading to keep up. It’s a pointless arms race that must warm your heart if you are, let’s say, Mr Pinarello or Great Uncle Specialized. The riders may be getting less fit (in a lot of areas the core of any club ride is getting older) but the ride will keep doing 20 mph. Someday there will be 22 mph rides, and if I ran a major bicycle company I would sponsor them.

As someone who likes a time trial, I’m lucky. I know more than most about credit card aerodynamics. Every time I ride a local time trial, I know how much time I could have saved with all manner of equipment upgrades. But it’s one of the joys of racing against the watch that I don’t actually have to buy any of them.

I can just subtract the appropriate time from my result. If I cover the course in 20 minutes, I knock off the 52 seconds that I know I could buy, and just explain this correction to anyone less than 52 seconds in front of me. My result is as the God of Performance intended, and I still have the money as the God of Meanness intended.

In a time trial this sort-of works. But in a group ride, it doesn’t. You can shout after the vanishing bunch if you like: “If I bought that wheelset I’d still be on the back! If I’d upgraded the bike as well I’d have dropped the lot of you!” But you still get left behind, or worse, waited for. Your options are shopping or, perhaps more sensibly, better training. Or even just dialling down your expectations.

Or you can go a whole other way. A different friend last year messaged to ask if I knew anything about concealed electric motors. I told him I knew about a lot of rumours and one confirmed case, and that there are one or two systems that YouTubers used to create dodgy bikes.

“Can you give me any links to the systems?” he replied. “It’s getting to be a struggle keeping up with the faster club run. Oh, and I don’t suppose you were going to, but don’t tell anyone.”

Stalin would have been proud. He’d probably have made him minister for sport.

Great Inventions of Cycling: The Cycling Holiday

Cycling holidays started early. Men with moustaches and penny-farthings went on manly tours with other men. They drank ale, sang songs, and regularly fell off their machines and were laughed at by their companions. It was a certain sort of “holiday” for a certain sort of chap.

The true cycling holiday didn’t really take off until the 1890s, when the upper classes became terribly fond of taking their machines to “the Continent” by train and steamer, frequently accompanied by a bicycle groom (yes, really) to protect them from the baggage handlers.

Once there they would tootle around a bit, then come home and write about it in one of the posh cycling magazines. Susan, Countess of Malmesbury, wrote just such an account of a tour in the Netherlands for the Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes. It is concerned

largely with the primitive nature of the Dutch (the clogs!), and the time she fell off on some tramlines because she was confused about riding on the wrong side of the road.

The modern cycling holiday is not really very different. It has been democratised somewhat by cheap flights, and the grooms have gone, but it’s still about the pleasures of the open air, and riding on the wrong side of the road.

By the way, the original chaps’ version of the cycling holiday still exists. It’s just been re-christened as a “training camp”.

Dear Doc

I was unlucky enough to crash a few weeks ago on a wet corner. I was quite beaten up, and a mate took me to A&E.

When at last I was seen, the doctor said, “What happened to you?”

Since I was lying there in full bike kit with my helmet on the trolley, it seemed like a stupid question so I said, “I was windsurfing.”

“So let me guess,” said the doctor, “you were windsurfing three abreast chatting to your mates and holding up a supertanker when the captain ran out of patience and ran you off the sea? I hope you were wearing a lifejacket.”

I didn’t really like the stereotyping, but I also accept that I asked for it.

James from Swansea