Too Long on the Road
3rd February 2001		How to know that you've been on the road with 'Human Power Round The World' for too long 1. Weekends are a distant memory and have long since been referred to as rest days. 2. Weekend/Rest Day activities are as follows: - Cleaning chain - Washing spare T-Shirt - Checking email desperately for evidence of an exceptionally wealthy sponsor - shaving (boys and girl) - avoiding bicycle like the plague - eating as much food as budget can afford 3. "What shall I wear today" is not a question that passes through your mind very often. If cycling then wear blue/grey cycling top and lycra shorts, if not then wear Lowe Alpine T-Shirt and Lowe Alpine trousers. 3a. Smart Dress means Lowe Alpine T-Shirt and Lowe Alpine trousers. 4. Planning out your day is done as follows: "Right guys, shall we do a thirty, a thirty, and then two twenties?" 5. You can estimate cycling speed to within one kilometre per hour without a speedometer 6. Your mind can conceivably, and very annoyingly, get stuck on 'The Venga Boys - We like to Party' for several weeks at a time. 7. Washing your teeth in the street is normal behaviour 8. You are actually quite proud of the performance of your last set of Schwalbe tyres that lasted for almost ten thousand kilometres - and you don't care who you tell. 9. You refer to a ride of more than a hundred and sixty kilometres as "A Man's Day" 10. A crazy night on the beers means drinking two tiny Australian 'stubbies' and half way through the third falling into a loud snoring and deep sleep, to be woken only by a creeping wet sensation on your trousers. 11. Exclaiming 'Well...it's quite warm today' means that it's almost forty celsius. 12. 'The Alien', 'The Loners', 'Netting', 'Piesie', 'The Book Club', 'Paneer Management Skills', 'Now-I-gave-you-a-tenner' and 'Hello-Kitty' are all permissible and proper English words or phrases in common usage, which require no further explanation. 13. Drinking six or seven litres of foul tasting water in a day is not an unusual occurance, and in fact is generally encouraged. 14. You get rather too excited about the prospect of a well stocked cold drinks fridge in a roadside petrol station. 15. Your main sources of humour will revolve around the following areas: - Tim being slightly heavier than the rest of us and carrying too much paraphanalia in his rear panniers, and having a washkit the size of Berkshire. - Scrivs eating too much red meat and cycling too fast. - Andrew having bad shorts (also previously hair and beard combination) and being too fond of eating. - Richard taking too many pictures of small children, and shouting at other team members - Dean being unavoidably attracted to clothes and salt and vinegar crisp shops. - Gary being old and exhibiting playboy tendancies. - Nickers coming from Scotland, having difficulties pronouncing the word 'foive'. 16. Finally, you will complain at regular intervals that you are knackered, dehydrated, sunburned and have irreversible chronic deformation of the gluteus maximus'