Cycling Weekly — February 08, 2018

Photos: Alamy, Mike Prior

Last laugh

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Hutch

Dr

Whisper it: the Doc likes running.

Just not as much as paying big

bucks to regress to childhood

s you may recall, I’ve

taken to adding a bit of

running to my cycling.

And I’m going to make a horrifying

admission — I quite like running.

Not as much as cycling, clearly,

or as much as eating a Cadbury’s

Flake in the bath, but there is

something meditative and slightly

mindless about it that’s missing

from cycling, where there is quite a

bit of time tied up in concentrating

on not getting yourself all dead.

But if you mention running on

social media, several hundred

people tell you off for it. “Is your

bike broken?” “What were you

trying to escape from?” and

“Cyclo-cross? Et tu Hutch?” are

just the printable replies.

There is complete unanimity.

Cycling is better than running.

The question is, why?

It might be the edgy feel that

comes from cycling’s sometimes

shady past and present. Perhaps

we like to think that we have our

place on the fringes of a dark,

noir-ish underworld? At last the

asthma inhalers that were nothing

but a source of bullying at school

have become the weapon of choice

for people who are not afraid to

walk the menacing back streets

alone. We can name 15 different

steroids without hesitation or

repetition, and identify a user of

human growth hormone at 20

paces. (Clue — grotesque jawbone

growth means he’ll be fl ossing his

teeth with a dressing gown cord.)

Or maybe it’s nothing that

sinister. It could be just the

delightfully enormous expense

involved in cycling. As we

know from the Cycling Weekly

product tests, the more expensive

something is, the better it is. A

pair of running shoes costs about

£100. But you can spend anything

up to £10,000 on a fl ash road

bike, which means that cycling

is 100 times better than running.

Actually you’ll still need to spend

at least £100 on a pair of shoes, so

that makes it 101 times better.

Or do we somehow enjoy the

bloody inconvenience? A runner

going on holiday can travel with

hand luggage. A cyclist going on

holiday will need at least a 20kg

baggage allowance, and horse-

grade tranquillisers to cope with

the stress of looking through

the aeroplane window before

departure and seeing Gatwick’s

beefi est baggage handlers

performing the dance of the

carbon splinters on their bike bag.

Not to mention the forbearance

required to never complain

about this horror to their family

at any point of the subsequent

bike-less holiday. It’s nice to be

able to so easily demonstrate our

commitment to our hobby.

Another possible attraction

is that cycling offers the chance

to join a despised minority, the

sort you normally have to be

born into. As a cyclist all you

have to do is go about your

lawful, Highway-Code compliant

You may have noticed the proposal to ban cyclists

from the A63 near Hull, the stretch of dual carriageway

that forms the fastest 10-mile time trial course in the

country. Time triallists are up in arms, and have been

encouraged by CTT to register objections to the plans.

Highways England will only take objections

sent by post to their offi ce in Leeds. No electronic

communications are accepted. And frankly, given that

there are numerous time trial races that to this day

can’t be entered online, but require a paper form, a

cheque, an envelope and a stamp, you’d have to say

that the one group of people you shouldn’t be taking

on in a letter-writing campaign is the time triallists.

We know where

the post boxes are,

and we know how

to use them.

Acts of Cycling Stupidity

Running won’t drain your

wallet but be prepared to

bleed on social media...

For testers,

Royal Mail still

trumps email

60 | February 8, 2018 | Cycling Weekly