It's not about the bike....

The bigman is slowly evolving from mild mannered former banker into Lance Armstrong.

I hung on in the slipstream today breathing through anything that would pass air as my lungs gasped to keep up with the express train in front. He was relentless. The climb up Knockhill is blazoned in my memory as he flew up, on the big ring of the madone, seemingly effortlessly and with space in the tank.

The bigman also has a big heart and he kindly slowed on a number of occasions to let me grab the slipstream every time I fell off the train. It was a truly inspiring climb. Made me wish I'd been doing more spinning recently!

It's fair to say that the bigman is in excellent shape at the moment and the training regime has really paid off. So post cycle I reflected on the pace and strength that the bigman has managed to develop. Obviously, it can't be down to all the dedicated training he's been doing and effort in recent trips to the gym so I racked my brain to work out the secret behind the phenomenon. I suppose it should have been obvious without thought but I think I've cracked it. He cleans his bike after every trip. I worked out that the significant weight advantage that this creates gives him a massive advantage on hills.

Having worked this out, I took my own bike out this afternoon and gave it good clean, oiled and greased bits and packed it away for the weekend. This work will rewarded as I too glide up hills passing less clean, slow bikes.


Now I'm guessing this genius solution will be tested on our planned 60 miler on Saturday but in the meantime it gives me a crumb of hope until I have to think of something else on Saturday!

Whilst cleaning the Trek, I noticed that my recently acquired racing tyres had a huge hole in the back tyre. I suspect that a big blow out is imminent so back to the online store Wiggle to see what deals they have on tyres.

So, I suppose, Lance is right, it's not about the bike it's about how clean you keep it!