The Giro de South Manchester, stage 453

I am cycling through the university precinct when I notice a bearded, studious-looking gentleman of advanced middle age travelling along the same route. He is employing the pedalling-so-slowly-it-looks-like-he-should-fall-off method beloved of bearded, studious-looking gentlemen the world over, and looks as if at any moment he may pull out a pipe from his back pocket. Despite this laid-back approach, the fellow is travelling at a fair pace: as we reach Wilmslow Road he pulls effortlessly out of sight and I don’t catch him up until we both have to stop at the lights after Whitworth Park. When they turn green he is off again, just as languidly as before, absent-mindedly turning the pedals once every minute or so and possibly even humming softly to himself as he goes, but maintaining a breakneck speed through the leafy streets of Victoria Park, with me travelling breathlessly in his wake.

I resolve to make a better effort to keep up (we appear to be both heading for the same part of town) and begin pedalling just a little faster, then with more determination, and finally absolutely furiously in the style of a Tour de France time triallist. This frantic exertion is just enough to keep my opponent within sight, but just I am marshalling my energies for a last desperate onslaught through the punishing one-in-forty degree ascent through Birchfields Park the bearded man, apparently quite oblivious to the fact he has been involved in a hotly-contested ‘etage’ of the Giro de South Manchester for the last 15 minutes, takes a right turn where I need to take a left. I catch a last glimpse of him as he dissappears, languidly and at 45mph, into one of the more genteel corners of Rusholme. He is wearing a pair of grey slacks and a sensible checked shirt, and neither is touched by even a bead of sweat.

Who was this mysteriously fast bearded man? As I struggle, defeated and bedraggled, through the last stretch of my route to Levenshulme (in the absence of competing cyclists it has stopped being an ‘etage’ of the Giro de South Manchester and has returned to being just the dreary, everyday ride home through the Birchfields council estate) I come up with a theory for his effortless superiority. Clearly it was the innocent-looking grey slacks; they must in fact be cycling superpants designed in a top-secret Belgian laboratory, and impregnated with a banned steroid capable of entering the bloodstream though the leg-pores of middle-aged college lecturers and transforming them into world-beating pedalling machines capable of demolishing the Alpe d’Huez as if it was a particularly flat part of suburban Rotterdam.

Yes, that is it! (I exclaim out loud to the bemusement of an elderly lady walking her dog). Clearly, the bearded man was a doped-up-drug-cheat-cycling-commuter-scoundrel of the worst kind. Well, it is either that (I hear you say), or the bearded man has gears on his bike and is not afraid to use them, while I may look the part, with my expensive gleaming mountain bike and my lycra 'Credit Agricole' team jersey bought off the internet and my snazzy black and yellow tracksuit bottoms, but that will be to no avail if I insist on avoiding the 'big' third wheel for reasons known only to myself (but probably related to some kind of childhood psychological trauma involving a chopper bike and the number 12 bus to Two Ball Lonnen), and instead continue to pedal furiously along to no great effect in the small gears while being routinely overtaken by pensioners and old ladies walking their dogs.

Well! You are entitled to your opinion. But I like using the small gears if it is all the same to you, and anyway I am sticking to my Belgian legwear theory, thank you very much. Now then, where do I get a hold of some of those doped-up grey slacks?

Comments

[Paul]

You can get most things on ebay if you search hard enough.

Thanks for the link mate.

[Courtney Gidts]

I've managed to save up roughly $37268 in my bank account, but I'm not sure if I should buy a house or not. Do you think the market is stable or do you think that home prices will decrease by a lot?