Part 1 - A Brief History of Cycling
Hello again dear reader, how’s it going? Let me introduce José, my physiotherapist. Well, he’s actually a model called Eddie Rodriguez, but his physical resemblance to José is uncanny, the same chiselled features, the same gelled hair and full beard, and those incredible green-blue eyes, so startling and unusual in a Spaniard. But why the introduction, I hear you ask? Well, it’s a universally acknowledged truth that the older you get, the more time you seem to spend in doctors’ waiting rooms. Not wishing to be an exception, I’ve done my best to support the medical profession this year one way and another, and young José is a particularly pleasant part of that tale. A tale of two halves, of cause and effect. In Part 1, a tragicomic story, we will be in the company of some young lycra-clad cyclists as I explain how I came to require José’s services in the first place. In Part 2, a regular BDSM Bromance, we will see more of José/Eddie as we enter the erotic world of the physiotherapy clinic. Now there’s something to look forward to; José’s getting excited already!
In my last but one post about Córdoba, I mentioned that Partner and I were going on to Zuheros afterwards. It is fast becoming our favourite country retreat, away from the hurly-burly of the coast. We intended to do some cycling whilst we were there, enjoying the rugged scenery as we exercised our equally rugged masculinity – you know the sort of thing. A testosterone-fuelled dream, man and machine against the wilderness, proof that we were still young in mind and body. Well, that’s how I envisioned it.
But pride comes before a fall, and this sort of dream rarely comes true. Getting older is not necessarily getting wiser! So please read on as I recount my Brief History of Cycling:
Partner had not been on a bike for more than 30 years. The last time he rode they still looked like this! The bike, not Partner . . . oh, I don’t know though!
Partner’s previous bike was actually a great heavy beast called an ‘Esmeralda’, a strange name for any man’s bike, let alone his! Black, with gold coach lines, and that curious name writ large in golden script. It (she?) sped down hills by sheer brute force and a love of gravity, but it baulked at the slightest incline, and would have to be ‘walked-up’, just like an old cow coming in at milking time. Partner, who I have to tell you is something of a Luddite with all things mechanical, had trouble with three gears back then. How was he going to manage some 36-gear options on a mountain bike? I should have seen the warning signs then, but the dream had blinded me.
I was last on a bike some eleven years ago, just before we came to Spain. The first bike I ever bought myself was the grandly titled Raleigh Hercules Balmoral, when I was about 15. I think it cost just under £30. I had saved up the money over a year from my weekend job at the village butchers. A wonderful deep maroon colour, it had three speeds befitting it’s name, slow, stately and unhurried! But it safely delivered me to school during the week, and delivered the meat at weekends!
Next was a Peugeot racing bike that I had in my air force days, a thoroughbred. Bright yellow, lots of gears, about 18 I think, sexy handlebars, and very fast! It saw me through my operational tours in Scotland and Cornwall, but I sold it when I was posted to London –I thought the car was safer!
My last bike was an anonymous mountain bike from Halfords. Metallic pale (gay) blue, with even more gears, and just right for the woodland tracks and country lanes around my Wiltshire home. I fitted a generously proportioned gel-filled seat to match my own expanding one!
Modern sports and hybrid bikes are very different from the bikes of our youth. In my day, the saddle was set at a height where one foot could touch the ground. The handlebars were set at the same height, so you could comfortably see the road ahead. This photo illustrates how things have changed, concentrate on the bike here!
The seat is now set very high, whilst the handlebars are set much lower. This geometry, I have reliably been informed by a young lycra-clad man of my acquaintance, enables the greatest amount of thrust from your (waxed) thighs to be transmitted to the pedals, by maximising the extension of your (shaved) legs whilst pedalling. It also affords a fine view of your front wheel. If you want to see the road, you have to crick your neck! Ah, progress, isn’t it wonderful!
And that seat! In my day, bikes had broad leather seats, padded with horse hair and containing a set of stout coil-springs, rather like a Gentleman’s club chair. The family jewels were thus kept safe from attack by the potholes and cobbled streets of Merrie Olde Englande. However, these modern seats look more like something that should be inserted into your ass, rather than sat on by it! This is all well and good providing you don’t suffer from . . . Piles of modern cyclists now forget about the seat and simply wiggle their asses in the air, which I find much more enjoyable!
With such a pedigree, I approached the first day’s riding with a certain assuredness. Partner just smiled, weakly. The hotel in Zuheros keeps a number of mountain bikes for hire, since cycling is such a popular pastime along the disused railway track nearby, so we selected a couple of suitable steeds, and after a few height adjustments, set off in fine spirits. The weather was just right, slightly overcast, not too hot. The glorious countryside of La Subbética beckoned. The dream was about to be fulfilled.
They say once you’ve learnt to ride a bicycle, you never forget. ‘They’ haven’t met Partner. I should have known something was amiss when he walked his bike up the track to the old railway line. But it was deeply rutted and I assumed he wanted to start on the flat. He did get going eventually, after I helped him onto his seat, and gave him a push start, but he didn’t get very far, his feet and hands had quickly developed a total lack of co-ordination! So we stopped whilst I gave him some ‘advice’ on technique, and tried again. This time he had forgotten how to steer, and another impromptu lesson ensued. “Don’t worry” I said, trying to sound cheerful through gritted teeth, “it’s a railway track, pretty much straight and flat.” Even so, his progress remained painfully slow.
Keen to get back to my dream, I left him to it and sped off, the wind in my face and sun on my back. Ah, this was the life! I came back and found him still on his bike, but clinging to a fence, like someone who had just found the last lifebuoy on the Titanic. I raised an enquiring eyebrow, “What now?” He explained that he had found it the best way to stop because he wasn’t sure which brake to use first! We hadn’t been out for an hour yet, and already I could tell he would soon be getting hotelsick. We had three days here and I was determined that they would be spent cycling. So I coaxed him along, offering encouragement and heaping praise for the simplest manoeuvre. Slowly, he began to remember the rudiments, and we made it into the next town for a well earned coffee and sandwich – Partner didn’t carry provisions in his rucksack, that was my job! Somehow we managed another couple of hours, I would race ahead and explore the trails leading off into the surrounding hills, then every so often come back to check on his progress and tell him of what lay ahead . I was thoroughly enjoying myself.
Partner, however, was becoming less than enthusiastic, and rather than push him beyond his comfort zone, I suggested we head back to the hotel. And it was only then, when I got off in the hotel courtyard, that the pain hit me. That bike seat hadn’t looked too uncomfortable, yet there was now a sharp, nagging sensation in that most private of areas, and my left kneecap felt as if it had parted company from the rest of the joint. “Oh dear”, I whimpered, “I think I need to lie down.” That evening I could barely walk as I took Lulu for her constitutional. Any further cycling was out of the question, and we cancelled the bikes for the next day. Partner was, I suspect, secretly relieved. After a good soak in the bath and numerous painkillers – mostly gin-based – I managed some very gentle walking over the next couple of days as we relaxed rather than exercised. But I couldn’t help feeling envious whenever a muscular cyclist flashed past, for my dream had ended. And now my body was telling me something – “Visit the doctor when you get back”, it said. And so I did.
The pain in my soft spot proved to be a hitherto unknown problem, exacerbated by the riding. That particular tale is more suited to retelling in the Journal of Medical Science, rather than the Blue Truck, but suffice it to say that it required two operations that neatly bracketed Christmas last year. Thank you, Santa!
I was more hopeful about the knee and thought it would recover naturally given sufficient time. However, it gradually got worse, and eventually needed strapping up. After further visits to the doctors and hospital, an MRI scan showed thinning of the cartilage both on thigh bone and the kneecap. A programme of physiotherapy was prescribed, which is where young José comes in. Funnily enough, I had joked with Russ beforehand about getting a handsome young physiotherapist to massage me – well how lucky was I?
Next week in Part 2, I find myself surrounded by attractive men, whilst José puts his hands up my shorts, and makes an old man very happy! Don’t miss it!
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