Pelecon

Who am I kidding?

As I sit looking at another bike on another website. Considering where to divert my pre-tax cash on to the latest Cycle to Works scheme voucher. I begin to wonder.

Do I actually like riding a bike?

Or, do I just like watching people ride their bikes. Their gleaming sponsor’s branded machines. Speeding through the rolling countryside. A helicopter hangs low against the heat of European spring and summer. Capturing every sinew bursting to cross the line first.

I love professional cycling. Inject it into my veins in a UCI approved and WADA appropriate fashion. I’ll take the grand tours for what they are — Team Ineso’s one shot at glory. However, I love the classics—person and machine against the kilometres, the cobbles, and the gradients.

I say, person — as there is more to professional cycling that just testosterone. Legal or otherwise.

The problem is that it is much like the Wimbledon Effect. Two weeks of rain-dodging sport translating into increased tennis racket sales. The same too for cycling.

As Mathieu van der Poel saw off his Strade Bianche rivals to mount the slopes of Siena whilst outputting more power than a nation of kettles at half time in a world cup match. My first thought turned to the idea of a new bike.

As if my brain, my stupid brain, had seen something in the Olympian that I also had in me.

I laugh now, even thinking about it. I will still look. Still trying to find the right bike to suit my needs. Maybe one of those pedals you put in front of the sofa to aid circulation in later years. Clipless, naturally.

Off now to look at yet more bikes. Yet more pre-taxed dreams to sit in storage somewhere.