The Measure of Success

As promised yesterday, today started with thinking about Claire Lomas' challenge to cycle 400 miles around the country.  My second thought was something about "warm bed, duvet, cat," as I drifted back into my slumbers.  To say I didn't feel like cycling to work this morning would be the understatement of the year and I was quite happy to stay in bed all day, never mind the consequences.  Then James put Ozzy the cat on me and Ozzy dutifully purred in my ear until I eventually hauled myself (and the cat) out of bed and down the stairs.

Ozzy, the feline alarm clock

Even though the sun was shining, I really wasn't interested, but I thought of Claire's drive and told myself to just get on with it.  I made the mistake of asking James to put my panniers on the Beeblemobile for me as I was having difficulty - the result was that I had to redo it once we'd got outside because he'd only done up about half of the straps ("It'll stay on, won't it?") and had put them on lopsided ("I put it on where I could get it on!"), which would cause them to foul the pedals.

Yet again, the traffic was particularly heavy on Wightman Road, which I've now decided is my second least favourite part of the journey, but we made it onto the list-topping Endymion Road and I made it up the hill without keeling over or having to stop at the top.  Once we were through the park, we went through the usual rigmarole of James just making it across the pedestrian crossing (on foot, of course) with the green man, and me having to wait for the next cycle of the lights to get across.

We overtook a bus and, in my excitement, I forgot that immediately after the bus there was a hill.  Having overtaken the bus, I had to then carry on going pretty quickly to keep in front of it.  James was very impressed with my hill climb.  So was I.  Newington Green was also busy today, and full of buses.  Once we'd got through, we carried on down towards the City and about two-thirds of the way to the turn off for Shoreditch Park, I had a bit of an incident.  I had taken the whole of the Newington Green area in second gear (of three) on my front ring and needed to change into third for the faster, straighter stretch we had joined.  As it was downhill, I had no problem in changing, but I must have done so just as I went over a blip in the road and not one, but both of my feet came off the pedals.  Bizarrely, I didn't particularly panic, partly because I knew that to do so would be suicide and partly because I knew that the driver behind me knew I was there as we'd been overtaking each other fairly consistently for about half a mile in the heavy traffic.

I was teetering on the edge.  I was balancing precariously with my feet away from the pedals (to prevent them from getting caught and causing me to be hurled over the handlebars).  I had choices - I could swerve off to the side and hope I didn't fall off as I braked (but this depended on there being a space on my left, which there wasn't, and on me having enough control over which direction I was going in, which I wasn't convinced about) or I could carry on, hope I didn't either fall off or get hit by the car behind and try to get my feet back on the pedals.  I chose the latter and it worked.  I raised my hand in apology to the driver, and then I panicked and felt the tears pricking my eyes.  "Don't bl**dy cry, you sap," I uttered under my breath.

James, blissfully unaware that I had had this experience, was ahead of me and slowed down as he arrived in Shoreditch Park so that I could catch him up.  As I drew alongside him he said, "You're doing well today!"  I don't think he expected the mildly hysterical response he got.  "No I'm bl**dy not, my feet came off and there were cars and I nearly fell off and I couldn't find the pedals and I nearly fell off and there were cars and things and stuff" (or something along those lines).  "But did you fall off?"  "No."  "So you did well, didn't you?"

My office mate and I have had a couple of discussions in the last couple of weeks, not all cycling related, about how success is only measured by the parameters one sets for it.  We've come to the conclusion that all of the things we've done to date (and, touch wood, will do) are successful if the measure of success is that no-one died as a result.  Therefore, I can conclude, wholeheartedly, that in spite of nearly falling off, my journey to work was entirely successful.