The foraging habits of a middle-aged man in lycra

Some would call me A-type, but I’m more of an aspirational B, and today, my bike looks faster than I am in the pre-dawn gloom. Thousands of dollars reshaped into a red-black carbon-fibred, electronically-shifted wonder of inertial physics. Slick tyres pumped, gears oiled, seat positioned perfectly to accommodate my pre-ectomorph body, it lurches forward even as my right foot clips in. The driveway is disappearing beneath me as I struggle to lock to the second pedal.

This morning I pre-empted my alarm, shuffling to the bathroom even before my sleep-numb toes registered the floor-boards. Vacuum-packed into a cycling bib, my lumps and bulges had faced up to blunt reckoning., motivating and dispiriting in turn. The profile of an over-laundered emergency-twenty-dollar-bill ruffled a sleeve zip, but otherwise, every edge was smoothed, down to the legs I began shaving after reading a cycling trade magazine weeks back.

And so I ride. An easy gear and high cadence bring me through the first few heritage-housed blocks and on to the high street, a red-brick and sandstone facaded direct shot out of town. A gear change and my quadriceps warm to the challenge, drawing on my lungs for deeper breaths. My brain begins to calm with that contradictory stillness which only sustained movement can bring.

I ride, because my Garmin wearable tells me to complete an 85km base session before breakfast. I ride, because whimsy has me hoping my mid-life cells will rejuvenate in the crosswinds. I ride, because the critical voices on internal jury duty are biased toward the fitter me that hides better than they do. I ride, because my wife and kids occasionally lift signs at my age-group races. I ride, because a deer locked eyes with me on this very road six months ago and neither of us was scared. I ride, because if I don’t get this done, an app designed by an out-of-shape software developer who subsists on micro-dosing and Cheetos will tell me I’m currently ‘detraining’.

I ride, because tomorrow is the day I do my swimming training.

OK. Maybe I’m a B-plus.

Bryson Thomas