Artcyclescotland

one
bug-bites = sleepless nights: ah! such a tender expression: if only I could have hacked my legs off at the knees with a cleaver …

two
We saw Maybole three times; a lot for a Friday night. The road, split open by frost, hugged the coastline through the fields at Turnberry; already harvested, packed into bug-black pork pies and neatly arranged around the edges of the shorn fields: a landscape and language outwith my experience: Pinmerry, Kirkoswald, Crossraguel Abbey, Pinmore, Pinwherry, Glenhapple, Minnigaff, Kirroughtree … by the Cree.
three
Just the best pre-race evening meal ever.

four
Van + adrenalin + bug-tiredness = sleepless night
five
Meeting Aidan again after what must be 3-4 years. We paired at my first “10 Under the Ben” with the team name of ‘Cheese and Onion’! but never settled on who was what …

six
Lap One, and my turn to go first—neither LC or I had ridden here before (which was—in addition to topping-up our reservoirs of self-harm, misery, agony and a Calvinist world-view that subscribes to the authority of, “God made the back for burden”—one of the few sensible reasons for entering this event) so this was going to be fast and blind; “fast” understood in all its heaving and panting relativity.
seven
My attachment to the colour gold was revealed to me: it’s to do with corduroy, and a women’s agricultural tug-of-war. Oh! the hell and honey that is sweet singletrack!
eight
Steve—who pitched next to us and shared the easy-up—rode solo in the Sen Vets and completed 8 laps … missed top spot on the podium by 4 seconds! … nonetheless, numero uno!
nine
laps: good numbers; and our best performance to date. (See reference to self-harm, misery etc., at six: The report card reads: “… can do better”).
ten
Paul—Perth Camera’s—solo’s in the Sen’s, completes 10 laps, places 4th.

I listened to the rain falling on the roof of the van as we fell asleep, thinking of all the places where water collects and flows.