Lonely Hearts - The Truth Revealed

First of all, just to the right here you can now see a little counter which shows you how many kilometres I've cycled since records began. Next target is that by Sunday it will say at least 850.

Meanwhile, I have still been lazy. In the absence of doing any road work, I've been trying to find people from along my route to give me some advice about which places to see and where to avoid. This has basically involved joining lots of forums and penpal sites and while there are lots of fun people out there you have to beware of a few. They have their own code but today I can reveal it to you. Let's look at the ladies first. What they say and then what that means!

40-ish ---- 50

Athletic---- Flat-chested

Average looking---- Ugly

Emotionally secure---- On prescription drugs

Free spirit---- On illegal drugs

Fun ---- Irritating

Outgoing ---- Loud and irritating

Passionate---- Argumentative, loud and irritating

Open-minded ---- Desperate

Professional---- Bitch

Romantic---- Only looks good in dim lighting

Rubinesque---- Grossly overweight

Looking for a soulmate---- Stalker

And beware ladies, there are a few things you should know about men:

40-ish---- 52, looking for a 25 year old

Athletic---- I have a Sky subscription

Average looking---- Hairy ears, nose and back

Good Looking---- Arrogant

Free spirit---- Will sleep with your friends

Huggable teddy bear---- Overweight, excess body hair

Mature---- Immature

Physically fit ---- Able to walk

Spiritual ---- Went to church once

However, if by some strange miracle you ever find a "normal" person to go out with you have to know that people of the opposite gender speak a different language. While I have succesfully used Google translate to speak to lots of people, they have yet to update the gender version. So here's a few tips. Again, what ladies say first:

We need = I want

It's your decision= I think it's clear what I want

Do what you want = You'll pay for this

I'm not upset = I'm upset

Nothing's wrong = Something's wrong

You're very attentive tonight = Is sex all you think about

Do you love me? = I want something expensive

How much do you love me? = I've made a really expensive mistake

Yes = No

No = No

Maybe = No

I'm sorry = You'll be sorry

I don't want to talk about it = You wait until I have enough evidence

Do I look fat in this dress = Shall we have a row?

No, pizza is fine = cheap bastard

Of course, men are much more straightforward creatures:

I'm hungry = I'm hungry

I'm bored = I'm bored

I'm tired = I'm tired

Do you want a massage? = Can I grope you?

Nice dress! = Nice cleavage!

Do you want to go to the cinema? = I'd like to have sex with you

Can I take you out for dinner? = I'd like to have sex with you

Can I call you sometime = I'd like to have sex with you

Would you like to dance? = I'd like to have sex with you

I love you = Let's have sex now

What's wrong? = What meaningless self-inflicted psychological trauma are you going through now?

What girl? = Of course I saw her

I like that one = Just buy anything and let's go home

I'm not sure that blouse and skirt go together = I'm gay

How do I compare with your other boyfriends? = How big is my penis?

Scare Tactics, Top Gear and Mamils

One thing I found this week was that there is a word for people like me and that word is 'MAMIL'. Like the marvelous YUPPIE and WAG, these acronyms have been coined by journalists with nothing better to do. A MAMIL is a middle-aged man in lycra, and while I have not yet bought any lycra, and my middle-age does not begin for another 303 days, I like the word. I am proud to be a MAMIL. You can read about MAMILs on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10965608 .

So where are the MAMILs coming from? I suppose that as time goes by you start to look back and wonder why you haven't made your mark on the world, or, if you have, why your mark is so small that nobody can see it. By the time Alexander The Great was my age he'd been dead for six years. And so the irresistible urge to be more than mundane cannot be ignored. After all, who can look back on their life and say 'Yes, I have done something truly epic.'

It will shortly be time to embark upon today's lengthy outing, but before I depart I thought I would just share with you some of the exciting things I have discovered in the last few days. First of all, I was sent a clip from a US show called Scare Tactics. It really is worth watching.

Also, anyone in the UK who watched Top Gear will have seen Hammond racing two skidoos in Sweden. This was filmed at a resort called Riksgränsen. This resort is the northernmost ski resort in the world. Anywhere further north than this is simply too cold for a winter holiday. We'll be starting 250km to the north. I'm starting to feel like the spiritual heir to Captain Scott.

And now, off I go.

No Cycling Means More Time For My Scandinavian Friends

Yes dear friends, I am afraid I have been rather naughty this week and have not put foot to pedal since Sunday. In fact, I doubt I will be cycling at all until the weekend. "What's that?" I hear you cry. "Can our heroic hero's heroism have deserted him". Fear not, for I am neither faint-hearted nor floundering but I am babysitting. Until the kids go back to school next week I am fated to remain housebound except for the weekends and, possibly, a few hours tomorrow. My opportunity to get out tonight was thwarted by a new student who is also going to be doing a bit of thwarting on other nights.

I have, however, made contact with lots of friendly Vikings who are kindly reading this rubbish. If you look at the bottom of the page you will see my snazzy new counter which reveals that I am a big hit in Estonia and also popular in Finland. How cool is that? I'm also expecting an influx of Latvians and Lithuanians shortly so excuse me if there is a lot of Nordic written tonight. Incidently, my favourite Norwegian friend has a fantastic blog at http://trollieska.blogspot.com/ which I highly recommend. It's in Norwegian so I've no idea what it's about but I understood some of the pictures.

So Finland, Odotan vierailevat. Oma suosikki henkilö Helsingissä on Aki Riihilahti, kerro hänelle olen tulossa. Seriously, I'm originally from South London so he might know me:-). And Estonia, Täname väga vastuste ei ütle ülejäänud Läänemerel, kuid te olete nüüd mu lemmik Balti riigis. I mean that most sincerely. For Latvia. Izaicinājums. Ar pirmo septembri, jums ir vairāk karogi apakšā blog nekā Igaunijā? Bet piesargāties, Lietuva ir tāda pati problēma. Lithuania get the same message, Iššūkis. Iki rugsėjo pirmąją bus jums daugiau vėliavomis, nei Estija blogas apačioje? Bet saugokitės, Latvija yra ta pati problema.

OK, enough with Google translator. I must admit it's slightly bizarre. When this blog started there were absolutely no plans to write half of it in foreign but there you go. So what to do now that there is no cycling this week? Well I've been looking at the route so how about some of that? We start in Tromso which, according to my Norwegian friends, is cold. Also, I've been warned that in Norway there is a culture of drinking heavily. Tromso is therefore full of snow and beer which means it is quite possibly the town upon which heaven was based. I can't wait to get there. From there we go south to Olsborg. According to Wikipedia, Olsborg has "a grocery store, gas station, guest lounge and several small shops." It also used to have a bus stop but this has been moved to Moen. Several hundred people live there. I haven't yet decided whether or not we should spend a few days there. Then on to Narvik which has one of the most northerly golf courses in the world. If anyone can think of a way I can carry a full set of clubs on my bike, please let me know. Although given the stunning lack of response to my requests for you to invent a comfortable saddle or small, invisible engine, it looks like we might need to give the golf a miss.

Surely, This Is Hell

I really wanted to write a message to Finland today, but yesterday's horror story is too long, so bear with me Helsinki, I will talk to you soon.

I went a long way yesterday. A very long way. A very long way indeed. I'm not sure how far and that's due to a combination of things, all of which are entirely Maciek's fault, but it was somewhere between 60km and 65km. What did Maciek do wrong? The first thing was to not look at his speedometer gadget before we started so we didn't know how far we'd gone. The second was slightly more surreal. For reasons that I still do not fully understand, he took us off the comfortable, level tarmac and onto tracks, forests, beaches and quicksand which, unsurprisingly, do not feature on Googlemaps. Welcome to the world of what some call 'off-road-biking', others 'extreme-biking' and to what I have dubbed 'What-the-hell-are-we-doing-here-biking'.

It started off when we took a slight detour to get to the village of Sucha. A forest road, in the process of being resurfaced, provided bumps and opportunities to avoid tree stumps. The road out of Sucha was even more entertaining. It had been split into two parts to give travellers an interesting choice of surfaces. On the left were cobbles, but not the uniform, flat cobbles of a Salford terrace's back alley. No, these were random stones ranging from the size of a fist to the size of breeze blocks. Another innovative process was to dump them haphazardly and allow them to settle in four inches of mud rather than attempting to provide any semblance of a flat surface. Needless to say, I chose the other side of the road. Which was four inches of mud.

Soon though, the road surface dilemma was a thing of the past as we left any pretence of roads and headed into the forest. Bouncing happily over logs, pits and occasional wildlife we made our way to a lake and stopped for a rest. Now I understand why people like to take rests when exercising but ever since I passed thirty a rest has only ever provided my muscles and joints with the opportunity to stiffen up so this was not the best idea for me. 45 minutes later we set off again with parts of me creaking and an exciting new road surface; sand. Now for some reason I seemed to sink much further into the sand the the rest of our jolly troupe. I think my bike is made of lead. Anyway, whatever the reason the sand was horribly difficult so after a while I was overjoyed to see tarmac again even if it was only a brief respite on our way to the main desert.

It was a desert. I know certain other people will claim it was a slightly sandy track through a forest but I was there. We crossed the desert with the promise of something to see on the other side and there was. It was a big tree. I had a photo of me taken next to the big tree, got bitten by fierce mosquitoes and headed back to the lake for another opportunity to allow my limbs to seize up.

Finally, eventually, it was time to head home. I'd been stiffened, bitten and shaken. My elbows were loose and one of my hips had come undone. I'd ridden on sand, mud, tracks, random aggregate and ploughed fields and at last it was time to go home. Remember where I live? Oh yes, on the top of the mountain. Isn't cycling fun?

Back On The Road Again

This week has seen a distinct lack of cycling activity, although on the plus side I now have some Norwegian friends, which is always handy. More about that later.

After my efforts on Monday (which I still find hard to believe) I spent Tuesday packing, Wednesday and Thursday driving home and Friday unpacking before getting back in the saddle for a gentle 20km this morning. Sadly, my memory was not deceiving me and I do indeed live on the top of a small mountain. This means the first 10km was rather pleasant and refreshing while the second 10km was one long, slow uphill battle. Poor Adam saw me close to home and must have wondered why I looked like a slightly over-ripe, sweaty tomato.

On to Norwegian friends. I found an excellent free penpal site and am busy contacting anyone who lives on our route in order to make them read this blog. That's a lot of penpals and while most of them ignore me and a few of the teenagers have probably contacted the police, there are some positive responses. The big benefit of this is that I have had some quite interesting exchanges with various Scandinavians and Norway has now almost overtaken the USA in terms of readers with Sweden close behind. I have also found someone keen to accompany us for part of the way and a young lady who thinks I must be in good shape. I agreed with her wholeheartedly because, as I pointed out, round is a good shape.
 
I've already catered for Norway with Google translate but for the Swedes, Hej, välkommen till min värld.* I have to say I am reluctant to keep greeting people in their native tongue after the abusive comment I got from Anonymous from Belgium. I sincerely believe I am one of the few people in history to be mocked by a Belgian.
 
*Hello. Welcome to my world.

Monstrously Epic

There is clearly only one way to begin today's missive and that is with a burst of gleeful, almost manical, laughter. In an impressive time of two hours and 17 minutes this morning I managed to cover the not inconsiderable distance of 50 kilometres and 34 metres. I will not pretend this monumental achievement came without a price. Like Forrest Gump I have a serious wound in my butt-tock and the consequence of extra time spent pedalling in the sun is a nose and cheeks the colour and texture of over-ripe strawberries. However, I am now 100% confident that I have the craggy physique required to travel 120km in a single day. With a little extra polish I'm sure this can become the finely sculpted physique neccessary to repeat the feat fifty times in two months.

TOP TIP

Lorry, coach and HGV drivers - Your prehistoric diesel engine, overloaded chassis and agressive, own-the-road driving style means you can be heard at least 100 metres away. It is consequently unneccessary for you to use any energy warning cyclists of your presence with a long, loud blast of your airhorn when you are 15 bloody inches behind them.



I leave you with a piece of sad news which I hope will not cause you, gentle reader, to do anything foolish. I have no further plans to cycle this week because early Wednesday morning I will begin the long journey home, arriving Thursday night. This means there will probably be no more blogging until the weekend. I hope and pray you find some other meaningless drivel to entertain you until then.

Arrividerci.

And Now For Something Completely Different

BIG JOKE

Bit of a mixed bag today. First of all, a joke. Three pieces of string walk into a bar. The first string says to the other two, "Sit down boys, I'll get these in," and he goes to the bar. "Three pints please," he says to the barman. "Are you a piece of string?" asks the barman, "Yes," replies the string. "Sorry, we don't serve string in here." So the string goes back to his friends and says "We'll have to go, they don't serve string here." "Hang on," says the second string, "It's probably just you. Don't worry, I'll get these in." So he goes to the bar and says "Three pints please." "Are you a piece of string?" asks the barman, "Yes," replies the string. "Sorry, we don't serve string in here." says the barman. Despondent, the string walks back to his friends. "Come on," he says, "We best find another pub." Then the third string says "Let me have a go first." So he ties himself up, ruffles his hair, walks to the bar and says "Three pints please." "Are you a piece of string?" asks the barman, "No," replies the string, "I'm a frayed knot!"

I'VE BEEN BADLY LET DOWN

Yes, Simon The Brave is not taking this seriously enough. Here I am slogging my guts out every morning in preparation (I did 138km this week) and I thought Simon might be doing something. Maybe not training every morning, maybe not cutting back on his hedonistic lifestyle, maybe not even thinking about diet but at the very least trying to find small, lightweight tents or something. Guess what I saw on facebook today? Apparently, Simon now likes the website 'Clubbing In Zielona Gora'.

THINGS YOU SHOULDN'T DO WHILE CYCLING
(Number one in a series of probably one)

Get caught behind the binmen. Particularly in 35 degree heat. It was only half a mile but the stench!

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BLOG POSTS

Well, not 80, this is my 28th entry, but I can now add Belgium and Cyprus to the list of nations my blog has been read from. To the Belgian, merci de votre visite, revenez bientôt!* As for the Cypriot, assuming it's not Jason, Ελπίζω να σας άρεσε το blog, σας βλέπω στη Σπάρτη!** If it was Jason then Υπάρχουν περισσότερες πιθανότητες να μου πάρει τη Σπάρτη από ό, τι των γλάρων πάρει προωθούνται. And you can translate that yourself!





*Thanks for visiting, come back again soon!
**I hope you enjoyed the blog, see you in Sparta!

Eat Yourself Fitter

First of all, after Tuesday I was literally swamped with a request for the article about middle-aged men riding bicycles so here it is: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1301626/Mid-life-crisis-Middle-aged-men-buying-BIKES-sportscars.html I find it hard to believe anyone is really interested whether Billy Zane rides a bike or not so I can only assume someone wants to check if I am making it up.

Anyway, on to today's musings. In order to increase my endurance I've been thinking about diet, energy food and healthy eating so yesterday I decided to scoff four Mars bars and see if I felt fitter and stronger. While gorging myself embarking upon this serious piece of research I discovered something remarkable. Mars bars in Italy taste far better than in England. The chocolate was considerably richer and more flavoursome and this is apparently due to food regulation. The UK is far more lax on things like this than the rest of Europe and as a result the chocolate is nowhere near as tasty. If a UK Mars bar were to be sold in Italy its limited cocoa content and high sugar levels mean it would have to be classified as "jam" and in Belgium, where they take their chocolate seriously, it could only be marketed as "building material".

Having eaten my health food, and after a month of cycling, surely I must be fitter and capable of far more, so why does it only occasionally feel like this? I still feel worn out after the first two hundred metres yet I can now tackle really steep hills. (Mountains really, but modesty prevents me from saying so outside brackets). On Monday I think I'll see just how far I can go. As a one off I think I'll go for 50km.

Setting The Trend

I noticed something interesting today while I was perusing the Daily Mail website. (Note to Gosia: Most people look at websites. Some people read websites. I peruse websites and that's what makes me such an outstanding English teacher.) Anyway, back to the Daily Mail. In the fine tradition of lazy, half-baked journalism they seem to have stumbled upon my blog and turned it into a full length feature. In today's paper it states that the 21st century male seeking to recapture his youth no longer buys a Porsche or has an affair with his secretary. According to the Mail a sure sign of a mid-life crisis is when a middle-aged man takes up cycling. If you read the story you will see that where I lead the likes of Guy Richie and Billy Zane follw.

Meanwhile, my Twitter campaign for celebrity backing has ground to an unspectacular halt for two reasons. Firstly, having only a limited time left in Italy I refuse to waste it begging the likes of Eamonn Holmes and Andi Peters to give me a tweet. Secondly, celebs only seem interested in backing 'trendy' charities. I've lost count of the times they mention AIDS, Africa or animals so I'm backing off until I have time to photoshop a squaddie holding a cute, HIV positive baby meercat.

Now pass the sambuca!

Cycling Off Into The Sunset

I sat down this morning to report on another weeks efforts and when I totted up the distance I was horrified to find that it was only 87km, less than last week. Well call me an obstinate, bull-headed, stubborn old fool but we can't have that, so I broke my Sunday rule. However, my poorly legs and lie-in meant I couldn't make up 40km this morning so I ended up doing an hour this morning and then snatching back the last missing miles as the sun went down. This week, 127km, substantial pain and a brief moment of self-doubt. I remember the last time that happened back in 1998.

Next week could be interrupted by the long road trip home but I haven't yet decided whether to go or to wait for the following week. If my legs start aching again I could decide the car is mightier than the bike. If not I'll be aiming to beat 130km. At the moment I've done about 400km in 4 weeks which means at my current level of fitness I could do my trip in just over a year. God, I've got a big mouth!

Lazy Days

As you probably guessed, I didn't actually do 50km on Wednesday. I opted to have a day off, managing to convince myself that the football on Tuesday night was sufficient to cover my laziness. It was a tough call but I settled on inactivity after agonizing over the decision for an Italian second. What's that? You don't know what an Italian second is? It's the time between the light changing to green and the second car in line blasting his horn.

Back to the bike. I fully intended to resume on Thursday but I have to admit that this heartfelt desire was curtailed by a further string of injuries. First I somehow sliced a chunk off the top of my thumb while opening a rather vicious cardboard box, and then later I slammed my leg into a rock full of sea urchins while swimming. I don't know how I do these things but Thursday was another rest day.

I eventually got back in the saddle this morning and managed a gentle 11k. Let's hope I'm still alive to improve on that tomorrow.

Broken

Well I suppose it was only ever going to end in tears. 30km on Monday was hard work, 30km yesterday really hurt and an hour and a half of 5-a-side football last night has finished me off. With the terrifying growth of certain thigh muscles plus the tight hamstrings I thought a game of football would give me a chance to exercise the rest of my body. I was right, but only if you replace the word 'exercise' with 'seriously damage'.

I think I've managed to hide the full extent of the problem, mainly because I'm limping equally in both legs. Both my ankles have fused, my right calf is tighter than Rod Stewart and I've got no skin left on my left knee. My hamstrings are trying to figure out a way to claim asylum in someone else's legs and my groin muscles refuse to let me walk in anything other than a Charlie Chaplin shuffle. Apart from that I'm fine as long as I don't try to either stand up or sit down.

My dad says it's because I'm getting old but that's rubbish. I am old. What I'm getting is older. Anyway, all I have to do now is decide how far to go today. Is 50km too far, do you think?

An Over-Confident Dinosaur

A nice relaxing Sunday with no bike saw me wake up this morning refreshed, relaxed and raring to go. Last week I did 20km a day so I had to decide how far to go this week. 22km? 24? 25? Of course not. Being a grade one prat I decided to go for 30km a day.

I can tell you that I was regretting my bravado after about 200 metres. I know I wrote last week about cycling into the wind, but I think it needs to be mentioned again. The wind was so strong that I needed to work the gears EVEN WHEN I WAS CYCLING DOWNHILL!! For God's sake, if it's hard work cycling downhill then something is seriously wrong!

Another slightly disturbing side effect I have noticed is muscle development. I'd like to take you back to your childhood. Remember the Asterix books? In the Twelve Tasks Of Asterix one of the tasks is to throw a javelin further than Versus the Persian, olympic javelin champion. Versus has a skinny little left arm and a massively over-developed right arm. Well the same thing is happening to me. I've noticed that my thighs are starting to expand. All the football I've played over the years means they were already generous but now they are starting to look bizzare. With my tree trunk legs, overhanging belly and scrawny arms I look like a minature T-Rex on a bike. If my jaw were slightly more elongated then my path every morning would be cleared by hordes of screaming civilians.

I think I might need to work on my upper body strength when I get home.