Our bikes are still an important part of our egos and we take pride in knowing that we are now and undoubtedly the oldest people at the St Helens outdoor race track…also the slowest and worst dressed but we take pride in whipping the smart-alec eight or nine year olds in a short spurt of former glories. Our 3,000 km bike hike down the East Coast of Australia probably stands as our high point of cycling.
Our motto became, “Old age, dirty tricks and cunning will usually win a short bike race.” We take comfort in knowing we have learned a crafty way to defeat young cyclists who are all dressed up in the latest and most expensive clobber with the most expensive carbon fibre bikes, replete with the recent automatic fifty-speed shifting system.
Like a spider, we wait at a traffic light just about to change and appear to be fumbling with the gears. Young bucks come sidling up, sniveling at the two oldies who can’t keep their gears engaged. My job is to keep them absorbed with useless chatter asking nonsense bike questions like what goo they use in their tires to stop punctures.
Just as the light is about to turn green the challenge is hurled. I have to admit that right here Joan quits as she does not have the foolish drive for success that I have. I think it’s called gonads. “Bet I can rip you off in a quick dash,” says I as I spurt forward in my already properly shifted gear. Young bucks are always taken by surprise and become chagrined and irritated. I leap ahead while they are busy accepting the challenge by the ‘Really Old Guy with the Grey Beard’. They are always in the wrong gear. For the first sixty or so metres I am far ahead. Then I stop! They come thundering by and I shout my now well rehearsed one-liner, “You should be ashamed, all you did was beat an eighty-year old man, I thought you guys were athletes!” They know they have been ‘had’ and humorously shout back imprecatory barbs. The adage is proven: “Always bet on old age and guile as old age, deceit and cunning will eventually win!”
Joan is no angel and no stranger to old age cunning. She looks simple and sweet…and she is; and she loves to win. We were biking in Japan and moving quickly up a long, steep mountain incline. 100 metres ahead were two huge and burly Americans, obviously marines as we were close to a military base. It was a simple matter of physics. Joan is small, had a very good bike, was in excellent shape and wanted to show off. They were over 75 kilos and their bikes were pretty ordinary. “Lets rip ‘em off Buck…” I knew what was next. We stood on our peddles and shifted into our best mountain climbing gear.
About twenty metres behind the marines Joan shouted, “Watch out you two marines, two Australians are about to beat you to the mountain top!” We shot past. Being marines they took the challenge. The marine “Can Do” attitude also implies that they cannot be beaten. Within forty metres they shot by…whistling the Marine Hymn.
Joan grunted, “Never mind, they can never keep up that pace. We’ll catch them in a couple hundred metres.”
Sure as her word, the two tough leather necks were losing their drive and soon we darted past them. It was Joan’s taunt that was so memorable. As we moved past, with Joan in the lead, as they walked their bikes, Joan taunted, “What’s wrong sonnies? can’t you keep up to a couple of old timers from Australia? We’ll wait for you at the top.”
And we did. We still communicate with one of them, twenty years later.
Old age, dirty tricks and cunning works! Bet on it!
