Easy As Riding Up A Hill.
by: Angharad
part:339

Simon was only off for a few days before he had to go back to make the bank money. Things were relatively tight due to the mess in the financial markets. He’d said before he left, “Things really are bad Cathy, we may have to start making economies.” I thought this meant they were going to dispose of me as their ecology adviser, but it didn’t. “We’ll have to make do with lumpfish not beluga.”

“Lumpfish what?” I asked in honest confusion.

“Oh, Cathy, you’ve just destroyed my joke.”

“I have no idea what you are on about.” Sometimes he worried me, now was one of them.

“Caviar, old girl, lumpfish is for any old peasant, we patricians eat beluga.”

“Don’t you know, old boy.” I added in my snottiest accent.

“Now, now, grammar school girl–don’t get all uppity!”

I felt my eyes narrow, I knew he was just messing about but it was beginning to annoy me. “Look here fatboy, Lard Cameron, when you can beat me on a bike, I’ll listen to your cultural arrogance with all it’s anachronistic relevance on modern life–until then, shove it!”

“Them’s fightin’ words Miss Ellie,” he said in a very poor Osark accent.

“Are yuh calling me out?” I drawled at him.

“Yeah, I’s callin’ ya out?”

“Bikes at twenny miles, y’all?” I said back to him.

“Huh, I don’t ‘ave much chance, do I, with an inferior machine.”

“Go ahead and get something better, I’ll still whomp yer arse!”

“I might jes’ do that!”

“Say goodbye to yer lumpfish, then, ‘cos a carbon framed bike is gonna cost yuh a grand or two.”

“Dear lady, I know how much they cost, I bought you one, remember?”

“Oh I remember, old sport, that’s the one which is going to prove what a lardy-cake you are.”

“When is this going to happen?” he asked.

Whenever you are ready, sweetums,” I smiled at him. “Next week, next month, whenever; I care not one little jot!”

“In two weeks hence,” he said firmly, obviously calculating feverishly how many hours practice he could get by then.

“Word of advice, it’s all about cadence,” I offered.

“Never mind trying to put me off with your jargon, I shall speak to my personal trainer.”

“Ooh, get you! I shall simply carry on my training regime, see you at the start line in two weeks, wherever that is?”

“You choose dear lady, and prepare to be destroyed.”

“Words are cheap, Little Lard Fauntleroy.”

“You want to put some money on it?”

“You know I don’t bet, Simon. Gambling is a tax on stupidity.”

“Chicken!”

“Call me all the names you like, I shall take solace in simply beating you, that is reward enough.” Especially if it stops the silly names.

“Very well, two weeks then.”

“Very good, I’ll work out an interesting route.”

I knew exactly where we were going, up the steepest hill I could find, and I knew where to locate one. As soon as he was gone, I was out on the bike to get as much hill training in as I could.

I was sweating, my breathing was ragged and I felt like chucking up my breakfast. What I didn’t feel like doing was any more of this hill! It had got steeper, I was sure of that. I kept at my task and crawled up the slope which formed part of the downs. At the top, I nearly fell off my bike as my legs were so tired. They were like jelly, yet at the same time felt stiff. They were burning, too, or the muscles in them were. Two weeks of this and I’d spontaneously combust!

At the same time part of me was pleased that I was trying to get back to something approaching fitness. I knew that oestrogens do not help with muscle development, but I couldn’t stop taking them. Simon therefore had an advantage in the muscle game. However, women do compete quite well in endurance sports.

Over the next week, my climbing did improve a bit. It wasn’t as spectacular as before and then it wasn’t brilliant. Maybe Simon was going to win? It spurred me on and I trained for four hours a day for week two, an hour’s climbing and three for distance. My legs were beginning to firm up, no great muscle definition, but then being a woman, I didn’t really want to look as if I had Chris Hoy’s legs. Mind you, his speed would have been helpful.

The day before the race, as had happened every day since the challenge, Simon phoned to try and wind me up. It didn’t work because I reckoned I still probably had the edge. I’d also lost about five pounds in weight and my waist was an inch smaller, sadly, my bust was also smaller.

Simon said he was, half a stone lighter and his body was purring like a Jaguar engine. That was fine with me, mine was accelerating like a 911, but he wasn’t going to know that until tomorrow. He said he was on the way to the gym, I was sorting my washing–no training today, just a little run around the block with Kiki.

We arranged to meet at the university leisure and sports facility, where we could both park. I knew he would turn up with a top of the range bike, I just hoped he couldn’t ride it. I unloaded the Ruby from my rack and checked the tyres and brakes. She was in fine fettle.

Simon arrived at the car park and took off the S-works Tarmac SL. I was in understandable awe. “That bike was developed for Tom Boonen,” I told him.

“Yeah, and ridden by Petacchi, I know, I’ve seen the ads.”

“It’s a lovely bit of kit, pity about the rider,” I said dismissively as I walked back to my own bike.

I checked the items in my tiny saddle bag, some basic tools and a spare tube. I didn’t see Simon with any sort of repair kit on his bike. I slid the mini pump into the pocket of my cycling shirt. The weather looked quite good and I wouldn’t need the jacket I’d been wearing. I took it off to reveal the team GB skins.

A small group of bystanders could see something was going down and hung about for the off. I showed Simon the route and he nodded his recognition of it. I also thought he winced a little when he remembered the gradient. We would do a circular ride so the trip down the hill should be a bit faster than the ascent, that would be his advantage, he was heavier. Mine was in the climb.

I did ten minutes of stretches and bends Simon watched and waited. Then we shook hands and mounted our steeds. His was absolutely stunningly beautiful and mine was pretty good too, but the Tarmac is something special.

He shot off like a rocket against my more sedate start. I wondered if he planned some sort of treachery, like being pulled along by a car or paced by a motorbike. But a mile further on, he was two hundred yards ahead and staying there.

On the first bit of a hill, I began to close on him, my lighter weight telling. As we headed out towards the downs, he was definitely slowing. I hadn’t pushed it, the object was to keep something in the tank for the major climb and for any sort of sprint home.

He pulled away again on a slight downhill and I began to wind up, clicking up a gear and getting ready for the major challenge. As we started the hill, he was still about two hundred yards ahead and I was beginning to hope I hadn’t underestimated him. He was as red as his shirt when I pulled level with him and he was panting like a very warm dog.

I was also pretty warm, and my breathing was hard, but better than his. I pulled past him and on up the hill. He was in too high a gear, I had tried to warn him, I was spinning in bottom on the twenty eight ring.

Over the top, I had a lead of probably a hundred yards, not as much as I’d hoped. I cranked up on the descent and half way down was doing about fifty miles an hour, I kept pedalling, cranking up the gears into the eleven ring. I prayed I wouldn’t need to brake, because the bike wouldn’t have a chance.

Somehow the gods of cycling heard me, and I reached the bottom a lot quicker than I’d gone up, overtaking three cars in the process. That in itself is pretty hairy, they’re not looking for a bicycle to come past them except in slow moving traffic.

I knew that Simon would be absolutely flying down the hill, and prayed for his safety too. I wanted to beat him, not kill him. The return was a blur as I rode in a higher gear than I usually did. I was easily meeting racing standards, zinging along at twenty five miles an hour, darting in and out of traffic hoping that no one opened a door on me.

In about an hour from the start, I flew into the driveway to the car park, I was doing thirty as I pulled past the cars and applied the brakes. As I turned towards the entrance, I saw Simon hurtling down the drive. He had improved beyond recognition, maybe it was the bike after all?

I got off and took a long draught of my water bottle. He stopped his bike and nearly collapsed. Some man who’d been watching ran to grab him. Later, I learned it was his personal trainer. I parked up my bike and my jellied legs carried me over to Simon. He was still in respiratory distress. The trainer bloke pulled out an oxygen cylinder from his car and we sat Simon down with the mask on his face.

“That was some ride, young lady,” said the trainer who introduced himself as Ken.

“Thanks, I’m astonished at Simon’s improvement. Two weeks ago, I could have gone home and had lunch before he finished.”

“Sadly, two weeks wasn’t enough to complete the job of training him, but we did improve him a bit.”

“A bit! Wow, what an understatement! If you’d had him any longer, he’d have beaten me.”

“I don’t know, I suspect you’ve been hill training?”

“A bit, why?”

“I had someone watching the hill, both up and down. You did exceptionally well on both. Keep it up and that Great Britain shirt might be official.”

“I don’t have time, much as I’d like to ride better,” I also don’t want the fuss that would occur as soon as my name cropped up, certainly not before my gender recognition thingy.

Simon recovered and followed me back to Tom’s. We parked up, he had a long cold drink and fell asleep. I went for a shower and then started the washing–as they say, a woman’s work is never done!