GENTLEMAN OF THE ROAD

When cycling goes big, it leaves me cold. The Tour de France in Yorkshire. Not interested. Too many crowds. Likewise York's new cycling circuit. Just too many people.
But there are parts of the sport which still appeal, still carry on in an utterly amateurish way, unattended by all except a hardcore of participants and followers. Twelve hour time trials, for example. It turns out that the roads around us are a regular course for these events. Regular, as in once a year. Today was that day. I enjoyed the coloured vests, the empty jawed scowls of the exhausted riders coming towards the end of their allotted time, the sometimes painfully slow progress at the end of such a marathon.

I passed the spectacle feeling lifted by its obscure, un commercial appeal.

Then I came upon the man under the tree. He was away from the main course, and laid out full length in the grass under a tree. He was clearly a participant - number 68, in fact. There was no one around and at first I drove right by. Then something made me stop and reverse the car.

"Are you all right?" I called.

"Er, not too bad..." a shaky voice. "Just needed a bit of shade under this tree." Slightly slurred words.

I was grateful he was alive, but this looked like a case of what cyclists call "the bonk" or "the knock". The running equivalent is the wall in marathons.

"Do you need anything? Food? Drink? Do you want me to call someone?"

"Bit thirsty. Couldn't eat anything. Think I'd be sick."

"Would some apple juice do you?"

"Yes please."

He drank nearly a litre, which I'd filled into his bottle.

Some colour returned to his face.

"Did you do the twelve hour?" I asked.

"No. Just the hundred. Was just making my way back to race HQ. Felt a bit rotten."

"OK now?"

"Yes. Bless you."

He meant it.