Gambling on ... surviving Christmas

There was a time when Christmas cycling activities were social gatherings in country hostelries. Ghost stories were told around a log fire and everyone rode home, with blobs of white dynamo light on the trees, leaving wheelmarks in the snow.
Not any more they don’t, for Christmas has become very competitive in recent years. If the three Wise Men came now they would be lined out into the wind and in the spirit of the manger there would be some subtle robe-pulling.
The longer racing season, basic winter miles, cyclo-cross, Christmas time trials and road events take us through the festive season with limited opportunity for protracted celebrating. Oh, yes, there are still the odd spectacular binges, but it doesn’t amount to a full scale Yuletide like they used to make. Now the suffering and enjoyment are so close together you can’t see the join.
If you are the new competitive breed you will not want vital energy sapped before Christmas For example, shopping is very laborious and heavy work, rally painful to the calves, and should be left to the wife, girl friend or mum. By all means make a list for your shopper, but don’t be too fussy, because whatever you send people they will already have three of them. Really, the whole swop around is only a means of exchanging paper and string.
At the same time, remember your tame shopper is likely to be in the big league as far as buying you a present is concerned, so broad hints about needing tubulars should hit the target. If the girl friend is a new acquisition, then show her a tubular, because otherwise you may well get a couple of small-wheel inner tubes.
This pre-Yuletide period is also that in which the decorations are put up, so again, a little task for the ladies. However, if trapped into the job, then bring back one of those synthetic silver ones that fit in a cylinder and can be rooted out of the roof for years.
Enquire when the tree and room are being decorated and ensure you are out that evening. If all deceit fails and you are cornered into helping, then my tip is watch out for glass balls. They roll about all over the place, and if you jump off a chair on to one in your stockinged feet, then you could be out of the game until the following September.
In fact, chair-climbing to put paper chains up is too much for the dedicated thoroughbred thighs of a cyclist. That also goes for getting them down, when in addition to your gear-changing fingers will be cut and bleeding from prising out drawing pins.
Avoid small bulbous tree lights, for they never work and can absorb three valuable training nights. Fool with these and you can black out half the county. Even worse, they could fuse you permanently to the national grid.
There is a tendency for relations to assume that because you’re an athlete you are just the chap for blowing up balloons. What they don’t appreciate is that gasping for air in a race is completely opposite to repeatedly emptying lungs into rubber bags until they become transparent. You will probably get a wicked headache, a hacking cough and shell-shock from having balloons exploding up your nose. For every ten balloons your racing career will be shortened by a season.
The adroit racing man will also avoid the nervous tension and painful piggy-backing of children’s parties. These are the functions in which ceilings are covered in jelly and kids are sick on the carpet. Unless you hide everything they will pocket your medals, put jam on your tourist trial certificates and get into the cycle shed. A trained mechanic could not remedy in a month the damage a small boy can do in five minutes.
Adult parties are also dangerous for the competitive type, because you can get the wrong side of too much alcohol just keeping up with the others, which means you’ll do a personal worst in that important race. Office and works parties are also tricky because that pert little typist looks even better under the mistletoe or in what little light gets into the brush cupboard. Very nice at the time, but just as you are leaving for the Christmas ‘10’ a big bloke will come to the door and punch your face in.
Christmas is supposed to be when families get together. It is also when relatives talk about other relatives unable to be present. Try some cycling talk and you will just get a huge pool of silence. Just when you want to get into an aggressive Engers mood for a race the jolly kinsfolk will be working relays on the conversation with the latest news of their bad backs and weight problems.
You may feel all my gratuitous advice is out of keeping with your proper seasonal spirit. If so, I’ll see you down the pub.

1 December 2009