Some riders joined us on the road, they'd clearly been sent by God just to annoy my friend Bernard

I was out for a ride recently with my friend Bernard. At one point we saw two riders up ahead, whom we gradually overhauled. As we drew alongside we said hello.

“Do you mind if we join you?” one of them asked.

“Yes, we would mind,” said Bernard. And with a potential life-long friendship successfully snuffed out at its very inception, we went upon our separate ways.

I believe my friend was thinking back to a similar incident some time ago – probably before the pandemic. We were out together with a couple of other friends making a very nice four-up. Four is an excellent number of riders for a group ride – you can always see ahead, you can keep the changes going nicely.

You don’t get lost because the front riders were too far away to hear directions, and you don’t have to remember a whole heap of names or pretend to be interested in some guy named Matt who works in an engineering job you don’t understand. It’s just nice.

On that occasion we met another four riders, who asked if they could jump on. Hemmed in by social protocol, we said yes.

Now, they were, I’m sure, a nice enough group of people. But the combination didn’t work. For a start, with eight, you need much more cooperation. These guys didn’t point out potholes, for instance. They just shouted; “Hole!”, which would have been something, except that they shouted it like they were playing the Yellow Car game – they called out holes in the opposite lane, and holes in laybys. They did it with an almost infectious air of joy, but it wasn’t much help if you wanted to keep your wheels in one piece.

They were strangers to a straight line. They would get out of the saddle and kick the wheel back towards you with no notice. They’d crowd you into the gutter like a Belgian in a crosswind. They’d jump through to the front and then slow down. It was like they’d been sent by God on a special mission to annoy Bernard.

He spent the first twenty minutes trying to get them to do it his way. When that didn’t work, he announced that we were going to turn off at the next junction.

“Hey, that’s cool my man, we’ll go that way too,” they said.

Next time Bernie and I were at the back, he muttered, “Would it be too much to attack them on the next climb?”

I said I thought it probably was. But I said I’d be happy to go to the front and ride up it at my best 400 watts. I did. All that happened was we dropped Bernard. Everyone waited for him.

His next tactic was sneakier. When our original group was at the back he indicated silently that we should take the next left. We quietly turned off and the rest continued straight ahead.

“Brilliant,” said Bernard. “Does anyone know where this road goes?”

All it did was gradually veer right so that it looped back to the original road. When we got there we were just in time to re-join the others. They looked a little surprised, but they didn’t say anything.

The final insult was that when we got back towards Cambridge, Bernard was still trying to sort his leadout for the signpost sprint when one of the others declared victory. Turns out they liked to sprint to the 40 mph speed limit sign, not the city boundary sign.

“Hey, guys, good riding,” one of them said. “We should do that again sometime.”

“That would be great,” I said, with zero conviction.

“How about today, week? Newnham Corner at six,” one of them said.

“OK,” I said, with no intention of going.

But Bernard did turn up, to offer instruction. Afterwards I asked him how it had gone.

“They didn’t turn up,” he said.

Great inventions of cycling: Pickle juice

In recent seasons, a feature that crops up towards the end of many races has been the sight of riders drinking from very tiny bottles and pulling a face of revulsion. What they are doing is drinking pickle juice. Hence the revulsion. This supposedly prevents muscle cramp. It does not do this by any of the mechanisms you would expect, like replacing electrolytes. It does it simply because it tastes vile, and it has its recent roots in work by Nobel Prize laureate Rod McKinnon.

What the research indicates is that cramp happens in some people because when they’re tired, the signals from the central nervous system that control muscular contraction and relaxation become erratic. The muscle gets told to contract, and doesn’t get told to relax again.

The revolting taste of pickle juice produces a neural response at the back of the throat that acts to dampen down the activity of the neurons and reduce the Cramping contractions.

It’s not even necessary to swallow the juice – which is probably just as well. You just need to be revolted by it. The effect on cramp is usually almost instant – certainly much faster than if the stomach was involved.

There is evidence that other revolting tasting substances might do the same thing – mustard, say, or quinine, or maybe even that rotted herring thing that Norwegians eat. Unfortunately, if you’d rather someone made a version that tastes nicer, you might be in for a long wait.