HEADWINDS AND HINDQUARTERS

On the cycle again in Puerto Madryn, this time out to the sealion colony at Punta Lomas. It’s a 30 kilometre round trip and by all accounts a snack for a couple of finely tuned athletes like Alan and myself. Of course, we weren’t taking into account local conditions, which on the outbound leg consisted of a steady upward incline into a 16-knot wind on a track varying between gravel and shale. Unfavourable, particularly the road surface which rather perversely managed to reduce traction while also increasing friction.

My Uncle Bob, a former club cyclist back in South Australia, still competes in triathlons alongside my Mum and Dad. Mum does the swim, Dad the run and Bob grinds out the cycle leg.

Now, leading up to these triathlons Uncle Bob has a tradition of expressing concern about the possibility of strong headwinds. On a number of occasions he has pointed out that conditions will be much tougher for the pedal man if a gusting northerly or bitter southwester picks up while he’s out on the course. His concerns are raised with such frequency that, Mum, Dad and Bob’s wife, Aunty Helen, have started making fun of his preoccupation with barometric conditions and tease him mercilessly about it.

The teasing has become such a long-established feature of their triathlons that Mum, Dad and Aunty Helen have developed a headwind rating system with which to more effectively mock Uncle Bob. It is called the “Bobfactor”, with a slight zephyr of breeze rated a “Bobfactor” of one and hurricane-force winds earning the maximum “Bobfactor” rating of ten.

It is now standard practice within my family to rate all wind conditions using the “Bobfactor” and to make pointed references to Uncle Bob success or otherwise in combating whatever prevailing weather conditions we are discussing at the time.

Well Bob, I can only apologise on behalf of my chortling parents. Your concerns regarding the headwinds are entirely legitimate. I have now experienced “Bobfactor 6” and frankly, that’ll do me.

Not that the prevailing weather conditions were the only handicap we were called on to overcome. You can’t cycle hub-deep through loose gravel and shifting sands without one or two mechanical problems becoming evident.

Fortunately, Alan Hook is a mechanically minded chap. A motor enthusiast, he’s broken vehicles down and successfully reassembled their constituent parts. He can name the parts of engines and knows what they do. He can bleed a brake-line in a way that doesn’t end with the car informally parked-up in a shop front window. He loves gears and front differentials – positively lives for turning engines. Give him a cog and a chain and a mechanical failure to sort and he’s Larry.

So, he was absolutely delirious on the way out to Punta Lomas when the gears on his bike started shifting in an unpredictable and entirely unsolicited way. Delirium grew to ecstasy as his chain skipped the cogs and became lodged between the wheel hub and the spokes. Twice.

By the time his front tyre went flat, with me some 800m ahead and in full possession of the tool kit, he had just about reached the seventh stage of enlightenment. Fortunately for me, nothing else went wrong. Otherwise I’d have had to build him a shrine and start a religion.

In fact, Alan’s impending achievement of Nirvana may not be that far off given that his strange, almost mystic allure to Brazil’s animal life forms seems to have gained traction south of the border too.

Suffering that flat tyre and no doubt bothered by the fact the only means of repairing it was freewheeling down the far side of yonder hill, Alan found himself sharing his frustration with a stately little guanaco.

Unsure of its intentions, Alan was disinclined to immediately offer the hand of friendship to an animal of uncertain temperament and physical prowess. Sadly, my return with the repair kit ensured that the true potential of the relationship was not fully explored.

We will never know what might have been.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson