A while ago, two friends of mine decided that they would run
the Paris Marathon. Deciding that it would be fun to spend the weekend in Paris
and give them some support on their road-bashing around the streets of the French
capital, my friends and I decided to go along too. As it turns out, only one of
the pair (Fred) will run the marathon, with the other (Simon), having dropped
out due to a knee injury, now joining the rest of us in a purely
touristic/cheerleading capacity.
Now, I have many friends who cycle and are quite happy to punish
themselves on roads across the planet astride a bike. My friend Alice, however,
is not one of them. I mean her no disrespect by this – it’s just that she isn’t
a cyclist. Her most common interaction with cycling of any kind was, until
recently, some commuting in London on Boris Bikes. You
know the ones: built like tanks, Barclays-liveried, conveyors of tourists.
Alice rowed for much of her time at university so she doesn’t have weak legs,
but she is the last person who I would expect to dip their toes into the world
of cycling, especially given her derision of various pieces of my outlandish
cycling attire.
