The stress-free way to deal with a major technical issue on your bike, is to ignore it

I was out for a ride with my friend Bernard last week. We took a route that neither of us had taken for years, with rolling hills, a lot of very quiet lanes, high hedges and overhanging trees. It was the perfect terrain for making potholes.

And the trees meant they were very hard to see. And the hills made sure that on a descent you could build up enough speed to hit them really, really hard. The one I hit nearly threw me off - I just about managed to catch myself, and then managed to stop safely with a front-wheel puncture.

I stopped and fixed it, while Bernard ate a flapjack and deflected all attempts to start a conversation about how his new little electric pump worked and how much faster than a manual pump it might be. When I was finished, he said, "Did you check the rim for cracks?"
"It's fine," I said.
"Well, that was quite a..."
"It's fine!"

Of course, I didn't check. And I didn't check for the very simple reason that carbon rims are rather expensive to replace, and also because I needed something to ride home on. This is not what a rational, risk-management-aware rider would do, or even a rider with a source of free wheels and a readily available lift.

But this was no different from the denial that most of us engage in, most of the time: "I haven't really got slower as I've got older at all, I just don't have the constant need to prove myself anymore." "I don't think that's tendonitis - it'll wear off if I keep riding." And, "I'm sure that rim isn't cracked. Modern carbon is really tough." Look at it this way. If the rim isn't damaged and I don't check, I'm fine.

If the rim isn't damaged, and I do check, I'm in exactly the same position but I've taken quite a risk checking. That will be stressful, and modern life is stressful enough already. If the rim is cracked and I do check, that means I'll know about it and have to spend a fortune on replacing it. If it's cracked and I don't check, then I'm going to die horribly, and surely if I'm dead it's all the same, really?

The stress-free way is to ignore it. And anyway, we don't know for absolute certain that carbon can't heal itself. I heal all the time, and I'm much less sophisticated than my bike - even a court assessing compensation in the aftermath of both of us being mown down by a pickup truck would think so. There is another factor in this, which is Bernard. As you may be aware, he takes pleasure in the discomfort of others.

So if we look at all of this from his point of view, we get more scenarios to consider. If he tells me to check it, and I do and find it's actually fine, well to be honest he was still right to tell me to check. So that remains one-nil to him. If he tells me to check and I do and it's cracked, well that's the disaster scenario if you're me.

I'll have to fork out for a replacement, and Bernard will not just have been right, he'll be able to make wild claims about saving my life. And trust me, your life being saved by Bernard is exactly the sort of thing that makes life not worth living. If he tells me to check it and I ignore him, at least I've won that one. I may, as a direct result, die, but at least I'll die with dignity, with pride, and very slightly richer.

HOW TO... TAKE AN INTEREST IN THINGS THAT AREN'T CYCLING

All too often in life, you will find yourself trapped in a conversation with someone who wants to talk about something other than, say, the Giro d'Italia. They might not want to talk about cycling at all. You can make things easier for yourself by translating into cycling. Say you've been summoned to talk to your child's teacher about the fact your child is copying all of their homework from other children and denying it.

Simple. Just imagine your child is a bike rider sneakily hanging onto the team car, the rest of the class is the peloton, and the teacher is the head UCI commissaire. A 200 Swiss franc fine and relegation to the back of the day's stage is the appropriate punishment and you're going to have to accept it. Who is cooking supper? That's just a case of who is going back to the team car for bottles, so the answer is just whoever is worse placed on GC.

Oddly, the hardest thing to translate into cycling is other sports. Try coming up with a breakaway-versus-the-peloton-at-10km-to-go metaphor to explain football, for example. The only solution in these cases is just to keep talking about bikes till the cricket or football fan gives up. You were probably going to do that anyway.

Dear Doc

Word reaches me of two riders who were spectating at the Tour of Britain last year. They went by bike, and proudly wearing their Ineos Grenadiers kit. Only after the stage had finished did something occur to them.

The most direct route from the finish area to the hotel that the team were staying in went up a narrow lane, on a steepish climb. So they waited part way up the climb until an Ineos team car came into view, complete with a roof rack full of bikes. They then rode up the hill in front of it, taking up enough width to keep the car just behind them, with a mate taking a picture of them doing it.

A photo that they now use to demonstrate to the credulous that they once rode for the team.