Phoenix Cycling Club
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A VET'S LIFE
(thoughts of a veteran cyclist)
How it began
I really blame Dave Kane. As a keen runner who used cycle to work, I’d meet the Kane gang every morning on their way in from Newtownards. It was easy to recognise them not because of their bright lycra gear but due to the five mile traffic jam behind them. I innocently called into his shop one day to enquire whether my chain was worn. He seemed to overreact a bit just because he couldn’t find the chain under caked mud and grease as he enquired when I last renewed it. I was a bit taken aback as the bike was only five years old and was oiled regularly three times a year. Join a club? Kaner’s advice - try Phoenix (meaning we don’t want nerds with cycle clips and Department of Agriculture wellies in Northern!).
I haven’t looked forward since then.
Training
A few Phoenix club runs and I was hooked. Jimmy Higgin’s non-stop nagging made me feel at home (sorry Mary) while the metallic clangs as riders hit the deck sounded just like my daughters attempts to demolish everything within those four walls that the Halifax Building Society calls home.
I soon discovered that there are two types of cyclist - those who take their bikes out to train seriously as soon as their New Years hangovers fade and the others who talk about it in the pub (loudly when there are women around) to their mates or anyone else who’ll listen. The first group are easily spotted as their usual comment is "Haven’t been on the bike since last month". My usual reply is "Well at least your twin brother’s putting the miles in. Saw him out on the same bike as yours every evening for the past fortnight! The latter group use a form of interval training where the interval between training sessions is normally six months.
Myself? - I’m the organised type. Every New Years Day, or the first of February if I’ve had a good Christmas, I make out a wall chart and diary, buy coloured marker pens and sticky labels and plot my years training , aiming to peak by mid-May and maintain this until the end of the season. Unhappily I never seem to peak until October and one of my hardest sessions is destroying the wall chart in November! This year I realised the importance of being mentally prepared but didn’t take account of the fact that my will has no power either. I’ve now decided to spend the winter doing mind exercises (thinking of Demi Moore and titanium frames). By January I’ll be at ease with the notion of five hard sessions a week (that’s where Demi Moore comes in) and of never tasting another pint of Guinness, good fry or tin of biscuits.
My training programme has been modified slightly over the years. Out on training runs I used to do speed work by chasing lorries but later found that tractors were a better option. Now I’m content to sprint after electric milkfloats (near the end of their run when the batteries are flat) or on bad days joggers! I also intend to adopt a scientific approach and use the Self Analysis System for cyclists used to great effect by Simon Devlin, Joe Mooney, Gerry McConvey, Brendan McCourt, Peter Stewart, Tony Dalton and Brendan Hinds. This method of evaluating fitness levels requires the rider to score himself on power, climbing ability and racing. A bit of a snag here is the advice is to spend 50% of training time on weaknesses - with no strengths how am I going to find the 150% time?
Another aspect I must concentrate on is the important issue of fluid intake. A case in point here is big John Whitby who this year cut back seriously on his black rum. The result? Four places lower in the club league and beaten on the hillclimb by Finbar O’Kane! Jim Figgerty (Hegarty) had the right idea. Ten pints and he managed to catch a cop car - unfortunately instead of overtaking he decided to ram it up the back!
Of course I would never have got to where I am today (at home, injured) without all the tips from my clubmates. How could I ever forget Da McCann’s shouted advice on bike control as I headed for the tarmac at 30 mph on the Ballinderry circuit. Another factor in my success is the club runs. Long tough runs fifty two weeks of the year although most club members only claim 51 as they can’t remember the jugging run. On arriving home I find the best aid to recovery is an intravenous drip followed by five bananas (black to annoy Jimmy). When I’m fit to talk later in the afternoon I usually try to impress the wife and daughters about what a tough bunch we are - how far we went, how fast and so on. Their normal reply is that men should experience childbirth. But I still contend that anyone who has followed the Boot up the turnpike or on the drag up from Saintfield after over four hours on the road knows all about pain. Pat Campbell RIP - you are badly missed in the club. I especially remember Pat as he was marshalling on the last junction of the only race I ever won or am likely to win - the Vets at Carryduff ‘96.
Racing
I was eventually persuaded to enter my first race (by Eamonn Burns, John McConnell and Eddie Rafter who were fed up coming in last). There was a bit of confusion at sign-on; what Cat are you says Billy Smith. I’m not a cat I replied although I’ve operated on a few of them in my day. £2 in the kitty he says - another problem, Kaner has all my money. The race passed in a blur as did all the other riders - well all except Tommy Lamb who wheezed his way round (should change his brand of fags!) and remained stuck to our (Brendan Ellis’s, John Cole’s and mine) back wheels until the line came in sight - and I thought that only Lazarus rose from the dead!.
Here I go again on the start line of another Wednesday night Phoenix club race. How do I know - well, I’m on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere surrounded by forty guys (sorry Mary Stewart for the purposes of this article you’re one of us) all whining about their medical problems (on antibiotics, bad cold, sore throat, sprained Achilles, no sex drive etc.!). Besides, this can’t be the outpatients of the City Hospital as we’re suffocating under the onslaught of a mixture of smells - fear, BO, WD40 and deep heat liniment! Furthermore I’m surrounded by bronzed superlean self-obsessed muscle-bound fitness types all shouting encouragement to Simon Devlin, Denis Cormican, Peter Stewart, Jim Dill and Donal Cormican - why can’t the cyclists look like these supporters? After two laps, as my legs turn to rubber and I start to froth at the mouth like a rabid hyena, I wonder what could be more enjoyable than this; well I could be swimming across a river chased by crocodiles, or have toothache in all my teeth at once or maybe even experience childbirth.
Anyway soon its all behind me as I drive up that last tortuous hill with granddad McCann glued to my back wheel and an anthem of swear words from further back as Stevie McDonald and Pearce Burns realise they shouldn’t have let us go.
But the problem with cycling is how it creates total amnesia. As soon as we cross the line everyone talks excitedly about how good the race was etc. when what they really mean is - ‘all I need is a decent burial’. But at least nobody ever discusses the results any more. There used be endless arguments about placings with guys who finished alongside me clamouring that they were fifth, sixth or whatever. They should realise that I’m on a par with the weather - consistently bad ! But all these young testosterone soaked pedallers say nothing now as they’re too embarrassed to admit to their girlfriends/wives that the guy who crossed the line in front was over 60 - McCann again!
Time Trialling
If you’re the technical type this branch of the sport is for you. I’ve spent 2 hours every Sunday night for the past year in the Hatfield discussing nothing else with my clubmates but women and time trialling –not together or come to think of it not even afterwards! Anyone who’s stretched out over tri-bars for over an hour and bounced along on tyres at 150psi knows what its like to be the sensitive type! Numb from the experience we tend to talk theory and have now devised a really simple way to break the hour. All you have to do is pedal at a constant 90rpm on 53 by 15 drive and you’re there. Why didn’t I think of that before instead of listening to Martin Birney talk about oxygen levels on a wet day?
The Future
Come to think of it I love this cycling - well watching it on Eurosport anyway and writing about it with a bottle of wine nearby. Where next? As more and more cyclists age into the Veterans category I’m convinced that the only way to sort the sorry mess out is to introduce an EC slaughter policy in the same way as they do for old cows. And with my experience, for a small fee I’m prepared to act as a consultant. I’d do anything to clear the roads of all those obsessive knobbly kneed underweight carbon fibre geriatrics who ramble on continuously about the Gorey 3-day of 1967 or how they used to ride to Dungannon, race for six hours, get pissed and ride back to Belfast in time for an orgy on Cavehill. I don’t understand it at all as anybody who knows Barney Hughes or Billy Smith will realise they can’t even remember what they did last week never mind 1967.
As for me you’ll realise by now that I’m well qualified to write articles like this as I’m an expert on the sport. I’ve talked to the men who know; men who’ve ridden the RAS, who’ve cycled in France and raced in Dungannon, even if all this happened when the rest of us were gainfully occupied indulging in wine, women and fags. So if I’m not chucked out of the club, I’ll probably continue to slog around the roads of Antrim, Armagh and Down in the good company of the Phoenix bunch shouting ‘where are we now Barney?’ and ‘is this the right road’ as he points out the architectural history to the latest recruit. And just remember its not my fault - its Kaners!
Keep ‘er lit’ lads.
Brendan (Alex Zulle) McCartan
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