Saturday, January 13, 2007

Clippety-clop, some cyclists shop

Ah yea, they’re back. Cyclists. Great pelotons of Germans aping Jan Ullrich or Erik Zabel. Clip-clop, clip-clop; the supermarkets are alive with the sound of cycling foot furniture - a Holy Grail of horse-hoof coconut-shell karaoke heading for the bananas and the Ritter Sport*.

And shouting. Yes, shouting. On the roads. Shouting. They must have got it from the Mallorcans.

“Achtung, Horst, hier kommt ein grosser Lastwagen. Achtung ... AARRGHH.”

Well, that’s not quite how it happens, but you probably get the picture; three-abreast cyclists, one dirty great lorry, one dirty great lorry’s horn. More shouting. “Arschloch, Arschloch.”

And what do you know, the cycling season has barely even begun. Oh to be in Mallorca now that the cycling spring has Vorsprung durch Rad-Technik.

Not that any infringements of two-wheel road usage are likely to be stamped on by Trafico, especially not at present as they seem to be conducting some form of work-to-rule. All about pay apparently. And this also at a time when new set speed traps are to be introduced on main roads from Palma - one such road being that to Inca, which presumably means the motorway. The deal with the speed traps is that they are to be placed at particularly bad black spots. Five of them.

Fifty, maybe. Five hundred even. Five? Make a well-known phrase or saying involving the following words: wind, the, in, plus the gerund form of the verb to piss.

Mind you, bloody marvellous weather for cycling. Marvellous weather - pretty much - for lying on the beach. Staggeringly good at the moment. It won’t last, I’m telling you, it won’t last. Come the end of the month. Just like the last two years.

* As a footnote, one of the German slogans for Ritter Sport is “Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut.” Literally - square-shaped, practical, good. Surely only the Germans could come up with a promotion for a chocolate that stresses functionality.

No comments: