Shown up by the children
During the summer holidays the girls have done, let’s say, not very much exercise. Their claims that walking around the shops or dancing at parties count as exercise are not very convincing.
So after a couple of glases of wine I had a bright idea. OK I said, I’ll see how quickly I can cycle one kilometre on the exercise bike, then come up with a time for you to achieve – and I’ll give you 10 euros when you do.
I thought this was pretty smart, and would have both of them training hard during the next couple of weeks (the exercise bike is in front of the television so convincing them isn’t so difficult as you’d think).
Anyway, I chose a suitably hard gear and went storming away – managing a ‘standing start’ kilometre in one minute 45 seconds. Based on this I set a time of two minutes 30 seconds for them to get the 10 euros.
Well, with no practice or training at all, youngest daughter took just over one minute 30 seconds and elder daughter a bit faster than that. That is, for that one minute they were cycling at 40 kilometres an hour (not quite the same as measuring real outdoor cycling speed, but not completely different). This is roughly Tour de France speed.
So they both beat me by quite a margin, never mind making allowances for the fact I cycle most days while they play on Nintendo DS or on the internet. I can blame the alcohol but in truth I tried again the next day and was better, but not a lot better.
What I hadn’t appreciated was that young folk can turn their legs so fast! Although they used an easy gear they could both whizz their legs around at least 50% faster than I can. It would have made a great training video.
So now they are back partying and shopping, I’m back out cycling, and they take enormous pleasure in telling everyone they can cycle faster than me, and reminding me I owe them 10 euros.