By now you would have realised that we have a variety of characters in the group. As our current Sknobs Racing Champion, The Nutcracker has a reputation of being heartless and unable to sympathize with weaker riders. He means well and has a heart of gold - but ask for the pace to ease off and you will be met with a cool glare and simple "let's ride".
So imagine the anticipation in the group this morning when the Nutcracker sent the following Whatsapp message yesterday:
"I'm not comfortable with the complacency that seems to have crept into this group since the Cycle Tour.
MTB at 05h30 tomorrow.
Call me a usurper. See if I care."
Well throw down the law and the gauntlet why don't you? Easy Tiger....
The Oracle normally makes the call in terms of what code we ride etc - but evidently Cracker was having none of this "shits and giggles" approach any longer.
And so we arrived this morning. En mass. Awaiting the dreaded course outline that the Cracker had obviously been scheming over the entire evening.
The Oracle had pushed especially hard on his "2-dump strategy" so he was light and ready. Gavin C didn't even arrive he was so terrified of what was going to happen! (Mind you, the Other Gavin also didn't pitch! Yellow Gavin Syndrome?) Timmy had left his warm bed and pregnant wife in fear of the Crackers Wrath.
For those of us there (about 10 riders) there were nervous jokes circulating around. We waited for the Cracker......
But he didn't pitch. We waited. And still no sign of the sadist.
So we quickly set off on one of our routes - a 20km loop into Table Mountain with about 600m climbing.
When we got back to the gym, the following sheepish message was there to greet us on our phones:
"Sorry all. Crackberry alarm misfired this am. Rather disconcerting getting an extra 30 min sleep".
Well Sleeping Beauty, next time double check your alarm before you declare war! We all know you're about to embark on your 5th Epic - perhaps you can sleep in on Day 3? We hear its a real Bitch.
The Nutcracker this morning - whilst we were all riding.
