It started at UniSA then moved on up Norton Summit where a few people got a bit ahead of themselves and tried to break the time trial record before realising there were still 85 ks to go. There's always a few in a group.
Then we undulated through various parts of the hills, through small towns and larger towns to Lobethal. The volunteers who kept up the banana replenishment rate, the water stations and the other fuels were a blessing. Fantastic people putting up with sweaty and tired and sunburnt riders when they could be elsewhere in the hills on such a lovely day.
Then it was back towards town with the spectre of Corkscrew Rd looming.
Anyone who doesnt follow professional cycling or is bored by it, play some elevator music in your heads for a bit. I will say when you can start reading again.
So it was a descent towards Corkscrew Rd and the peloton was bunched up but poised like a coiled spring ready to launch. The tight left hander showed itself on my left and I jumped out and made an attack and got some free space as I chopped away at the road, out of the saddle. I heard the roun, roun, roun of bike tires turning hard behind me. I chanced a look back and saw two boys in black pursuing me. Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome were pounding the pedals trying to bridge the gap. Cadel Evans was behind them but he was struggling to pull back time. Matty Goss had given it a crack, but he's no good in the mountains, we all know that.
We fell into a holding pattern, me dancing on the pedals and the British lads sweating it up and gasping in my slipstream. They were not helping a bit. I held that pace while the gradient crept up to and past 15%, then 18%. then it flattened out and they thought they'd pull a move together.
Nearing the top I had them, I changed onto the big chainring and sailed past them and gapped them by the summit. I'd pulled the polka dot jersey off of the shoulders of the great, five times King of the Mountain Richard Virenque who inexplicably had come out of his eight and a half year retirement to compete in a charity fundraiser with Wiggins et al.
The descent along the Montacute Rd was all mine. I tore up the asphalt, flicking it into the eyes of anyone pursuing. I took corners on the ragged edge. Wiggins and Froome were spent, they'd redlined it on the climb and were in energy debt.
I was on my way to winning the thing. But, just like him, Fabian Cancellara pipped me at the post to win another one day classic. I would have finished third but Peter Sagan was too busy trying to pinch the backsides of any female he could see on the street.
**Now you can turn off the elevator music and read.**
I sincerely apologise to anybody who thought that last anecdote about the Ride for Pain was true. I know, a lot of you would have been taken in and it was unfair of me to take advantage of your trust. The reality is that the Corkscrew climb was 2.4 kilometres and took me just over twenty minutes and every time I tried to get out of the saddle I felt my hamstrings about to cramp so I did the whole thing sitting. I am tired and my head is sore and I am pretty sure I am dehydrated and I have never eaten so much and still been hungry. On the plus side, my head is the only part of me that hurts.
There were some motivational phrases and stats about chronic pain on the climb up Corkscrew, as if we would have the energy to move and focus our eyes to read them. Given the physics-defying slowness with which I was ascending I was able to catch one or two. The one that caught me was this: enough pain medication is consumed each year to get us to the moon and back. Twice.
Now, I am fairly sure that is not a play on the hallucinogenic qualities of some of the opioid class of medication. So one can only assume two things.
Assumption 1
That the profits to big pharma and little pharma and streetcorner pharma from analgesia consumptyion that they could pay for x number of people to fly to the moon and back, twice. Each year. The exact number of people this could be is not defined at all, leaving assumption 2 as the most likely.Assumption 2
That is that the number of pills consumed when laid end to end in some form of construction leading towards the moon would stretch far enough to get to the moon and back and you could construct a second one, presumable out of hubris. Now had they done their ABC sketch comedy program research they would have known that Shaun Micallef debunked the possibly of a bridge between earth and the moon made out of bread, and /or stale toast. Stale toast, at least in my mind is a much stronger construction material that tiny little pressed packages of powder.
And what would the earth to moon analgesia bridge accomplish anyway? Assuming it could actually be constructed. And reinforced enough to withstand people trampling across it, indeed up it. Because there is little point constructing a bridge to the moon that runs parallel to earth's surface.
That would be insane.
And the thing could only be feasibly used for its intended function, as an earth to moon bridge, not analgesia for those in pain, once a month. This bridge would reach its intended destination when the moon's orbit carried it back to that exact spot again. Of course, four bridges could be constructed as there would be no need to have a bridge that has a path to the moon and then one back again unless you presumed such heavy traffic that you would need a two way street.
That would be ridiculous.
So assuming light traffic at least in the early stages, at four points along the earth's surface you could construct an analgesic span that someone could scale to reach the moon and then wait for a few days until the moon reached the next bridge so the person could scale down it. This is impractical because the oxygen requirements alone would subvert the usefulness of the bridge. A rocket has only just made the trip to the international space station in six hours, let alone the moon which takes days with the power of hydrogen propulsion. Abseiling would take an incredible amount of time more. At least three days. More.
This whole idea of a trip to the moon and back balanced on a thin rope of pain killing tablets is absurd.
But that is an awful lot of pain killers isnt it?
Back to the ride. The positives.
Sure I groan like an old man with a fresh knee replacement whenever I get out of a chair. And yes I could sleep for at least eight hours if my children would let me. But to those of you who donated, you contributed at least $620 to chronic pain research (as of Thursday April 4th). I, and the researchers it will go to, thank you.
Tom
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