My First Great Bike Excursion

Going on a turbo for your bike has its pros. If you’re on it for four-six hours has a lot of cons too. That said, when the outside is cold enough for a Polar Bear to feel comfortable, it’s way more comfy to stay inside. I must say, that aversion to the outside was doubled down on due to my being terrified to hit the road. After all, I could barely ride the thing with the cleats around my cul-de-sac. Going at in on the open road felt like insanity personified. At the same time, since I’m doing an Ironman in a few months, it seems like insanity was already on the menu, so I can’t say it’s outside my to-do list. Getting comfortable on the road seems to be a good idea if you’re going to cycle on … the road, and for about eight hours. For that reason, I waited until the sun had barely nudged its way upwards (and the sky was still more black than bright), and did the thirty minutes of preparation you need to get a functioning bike (yeah, cycling isn’t as easy as running).

The trip started great. I keeled over on the bike (again) due to the cleats but I was smart enough to have put on gloves before I did, so I still had my skin attached everywhere (though my right knee still took a pounding on the tarmac). I also only fell over once, which is a new record. After getting back up again, I awkwardly began peddling flat with my cleats to get a smudge of momentum that would stop me from falling over again. It took me about thirty seconds to get my feet clipped in but in they were. I almost immediately had to take them off again as I got to the main road. It was early in the weekend morning but I hit that tarmac thinking I was one wrong move from death. My legs were still waking up as I took the uphill route to the more barren rural areas … but first I had to take a very particular route.

Hannahstown Hill leads to one of Belfast’s Airports (yes, we somehow have two airports despite only having about 300,000 people). The problem is that Hannahstown Hill is so long and steep that I’ve genuinely been concerned going up the hill in my car. If the hill was any steeper, it would be a sheer drop. That’s where I had to go over. I’d kept the thought of what I was going to do out of my mind because then I might have gotten second thoughts. But when I reached the hill (after already having gone uphill for a while), it was like climbing Mount Doom. I got into least resistance immediately, but I couldn’t even see the end of the hill for several minutes. My lungs and heart angrily berated me as I gasped up every step. I’ve never gone up a hill as tough as Hannahstown - thankfully, I’ve gotten a lot better at climbing hills. With snail’s pace cadence, motivational cussing and constantly reminding myself ‘Hey Michael - remember how you felt you were going to die after the spinathlon? Well, you lived and its still not that painful!’, I staggered my way to the top of the hill several minutes after I started. Miraculously, I didn’t stop once - though I may not have started again if I did.

I was now so high up that rain and fog was beginning to descend on me in the early morning, where my only company were the odd impatient car and cows. Somehow, the hills kept coming, and I had to keep on going up and up. By now, the aero-position was out the window; I couldn’t see more than twenty feet in front of me - I’m going safety-first. I could barely even recognise where I was going because it was so foggy. I just hoped that in going straight the whole time, it would all eventually pay off by me just turning around. I stumbled my way through the clouds and dew on the wet roads until finally … it got flatter … and then it got downhill … and then it got steep …

From staggering up, I was now hurtling down hills so fast I was keeping up with the cars on necks of road under the national speed limit. The wind was screaming in my ears - I was screaming whenever I hit a pot-hole for more embarrassing reasons - and my body was finally rejuvenated. By now, I felt like I could just keep going and going. Ah downhill, my sweet friend. My legs finally had their rest while the wheels did all the work in bringing me down. As I looked around the trees and houses of the rural areas, all of which I recognised, I was struck by how much more personal and real they felt when on a bike compared to when one drives past them in a car. They feel like they are in your reach, a part of your world, and not a painting or world detached to you. I was watching a Ted Talk that made this same point, but I’d never truly known what it meant until then.

I kept on going, past a roundabout - jeekers, those will always be scary - past Crumlin - which looks a lot better up close too, though I'm sure Crumliners will agree with me - and right up to Lough Neigh. With some worry about getting lost (I’d never come so far away from home on a bike before), or perhaps I just had an easily imaginable geographical location with which I could brag with, I settled down and turned back. One thing I can say for sure is that those cleats and I will have many episodes yet. I began turning back, by now starting to realise, “Oh, the cars are really starting to come out now …”

And they were. Cars were roaring past me, beeping horns in a hopefully altruistic fashion as I went straight into the mountain headwinds. I’m sure many cyclists have come to love wet, foggy headwinds from gigantic trucks blasting past you, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet. Then I had yet another realisation. “Oh - that big downhill segment is now all going to be uphill”. Lowest resistance returned his friendly visage to begin battle. This segment had once been so easy to do that my pedals were loose while in maximum resistance. Here? Even lowest resistance sent electric shocks through my body, and with my losing feeling in my fingers due to the cold despite the gloves, it was hard even knowing if you were holding the gears at all. But ultimately, knowing that I had survived Hannahstown, I knew I could survive this. I climbed back into the clouds and was greeted by my familiar bovine friends.

I was nearly done. Time to go back downhill, down Hannahstown after having gone up it in such a brutal fashion. After the world and his wife drove past me, I was finally able to turn into the drop. I say drop because it was the most terrifying thirty seconds of my life. If I had the brakes on any tighter, it would be a dead stop, but I was absolutely hurtling to the bottom of the hill. One bad pothole and I would be obliterated. Aero bars? Not in your life. I’d spent all day looking forward to that sweet downhill - now I pleaded with God to end it. Mercifully, I reached the bottom of the hill and I was still alive. With a beautiful blessing of adrenaline that took an hour to rub off, I cycled another five minutes to reach home.

Where I later did another two and a half hours on the turbo.

I was covered in muck, the bike even more so, but I was glad. My pristine cleats looked like they had gone through a war or two. I’d never cycled outside on the road for so long before, certainly not with the cleats. It felt liberating to hit the great open trails and hammer away at it. My legs certainly felt it after that hammering. I’ll never have to worry about another hill in my life if I survived Hannahstown. So perhaps the six hour turbo will be a thing of the past. For now, it may be a story of the weekend cycle past Lough Neigh … and the weekly Hannahstown Hill double Near-Death-Experience, one from exhaustion and the other from fear.