“Reckon your dad is sending us up every valley off the Rhein,” Lor opined as we rode piano along the Sayntal towards Isenburg.
“Could be worse, we could be doing repeats up that dead end,” I countered.
“Wasn’t complaining,” she quickly mentioned.

In truth these long, river chasing climbs can be a bit of a drag but Dad thinks they’ll help in Spain in a couple of weeks.

“Change!” Tal as road captain called out.

You know the score, Lor and me moved sidewise allowing Sal and Gret to move to the lead, we in turn filtered back to the rear. With seven of us there was always going to be an odd one on the back so instead of rejoining with Laura, I pulled in next to Claire. Yeah Dad’s got us split in two groups by gender which I don’t mind too much, the lads usually want to talk about boring stuff like gears or football, at least we get more sensible conversation without them.

“Mand says your going on holiday next week,” Claire prompted.
“Sort of,” I agreed.
“Sort of?”
“Some girls from school are going camping.”
“In tents?”
“I think that's the idea,” I agreed.
“Recht!” Gret called out, almost as one we moved to avoid the pothole or whatever.
“Your Dad hasn’t said anything about not being here.”
“Probably cos he will be.”
“You’re going on your own?”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “its not like I’ll be alone is it?”
“Aren’t there any adults going?”
“Depends how you define adult, Anna’s seventeen, I think one of her friends is like eighteen.”
“My parents would never let me go without someone's parents being there.”
“I guess its kind of normal here.”
“Any boys going?”
“Course not, why would we want boys along?”
“Well I guess you do have a boyfriend but while the cats away,” she hinted.
“Its not that sort of trip,” I replied to cover my sudden fluster.

Or is it? To be honest everyone's been espousing the no rules, no timetable stuff, free swimming at the camp site, maybe a bit of partying without parental restrictions but is there more that’s gone unsaid? In theory I’m not against some random snogging if there are any lads around but are the others going with higher expectations?

A toot from Caro in the minibus behind put us on the right road in Isenburg, leaving the B road behind and joining a smaller road as we continued up through the trees that give the Westerwald its name.

“You going on holiday this year?”
“Apart from being here for the summer?”
“You know what I mean, something without bikes.”
“The rest of the family went to Greece a couple of weeks ago, Dad was talking about Florida at half term.”
“Nice, any occasion?”
“Libby’s birthday, she’s ten in November.”
“I think I went to the flicks.”
“Tell me about it, I got a new dress but she’s dad’s little angel and I guess they have supported my racing for a few years, going to races, buying bike stuff and all that.”
“When you put it like that,” I agreed.

The valleys across the river aren’t exactly straight but they twist about in a lazy way amid vineyards and farms. On this side you’re lucky if there’s two hundred metres without a turn, little sign of life other than a shooting tower where the trees meet the few bits of riverside meadow. In fact nearly ten kilometres and two more changes passed before the next village after which it opened out but the trees were never far away.

“Easy Gab,” Tal called up.
I checked my speed, I’d been guilty of coming through faster instead of just maintaining current speed.
“Soz,” I called back as Claire settled back alongside me.

You couldn’t call our ascent so far steep but as we approached the A3 autobahn the road levelled and lost the tiny twists and turns as we rode between fields of corn and meadows populated with equines. At Selters we changed direction and picked up the road down to Montabaur across the more populated and rolling countryside of the Siegen plain. I was now alongside Mand in our train as we took the opportunity to take on board some calories now we were on a wider road.

We re-crossed the autobahn as well as the new ICE1 line shortly before entering Montabaur. Things got a little messy as we transited the town but we successfully navigated to the B49, the road back to the Rhein. Caro came alongside on the first stretch of dual carriageway.

“Okay ladies, time to pick things up, in pairs, twenty second sprints, three sets.”
“Urgh,” someone complained.
I agreed the sentiment, these sessions are well knackering.
“I can make it four Laura,” Caro hinted.
“Er no, three’s fine,” Lo answered.
“Okay, Gabs, you’re on your own for this.”
Joy.

With our numbers it meant that in theory at least we had a minute between efforts, sprint, rest, sprint, rest, sprint, rest – all over in five minutes which was okay as far as it goes but Caro then had everyone do a set solo before we got a breather. The road was going generally downwards through more trees and our abuser ‘suggested’ we pick up the pace a bit from a steady thirty K to something closer to forty. So of course we then had to do the sprint from the back thing around the Neuhäusel bypass.

“Right, free for all to the Horchheim sign, we’ll reconvene at the Aral garage okay?”
“By the traffic lights?” I confirmed.
“You’ve got it, now be careful, go.”

Its a wide road all the way down to Koblenz, no sharp turns, some of the ramps are fairly steep, there’s overtaking restrictions in a couple of places but on a bike, on a warm dry evening in midsummer with little traffic about – well wheeeee, ten kilometres of fun! Mand was first away, hotly pursued by Sal, they got a couple of tens of metres away and hovered there for a bit before Gret had a bash and dragged the rest of us up to them. And so it continued for the next four or five kilometres.

I bade my time, not using too much energy to keep with the others, even amongst the girls I’m still the littlest so I get maximum shelter which just about offsets any mass I’m giving away. I checked which sprocket I was in, just one more to go, the computer was showing us to be hovering just over fifty K – well its worth a go. Snick, the shift was almost soundless but the whoosh of my tyres as I accelerated past the others sounded like a klaxon.

There was enough gradient for me to carry the extra speed further than I thought before I got into a tuck – well they’ll either catch me or not. The readout showed increasing speed, fifty nine, sixty, sixty one – oh I know it doesn’t sound much but on a bike, gripping the road with two square centimetres of rubber its quite exciting. Ahead I could see the end of the trees and the road starting to tilt more steeply.

Pedalling was doing nothing extra now so I reduced my effort to a slower rotation just for the gyroscopic effect. Sixty five, seven, eight, seventy one – yee-ha, I picked my line and let the bike run, one thing you don’t want to do is make any sudden changes to direction at this speed. And then things got exciting.

One second I was picking my line through the sweeping left hander, the next I was in trouble as the bike started to shimmy. If you’ve never been in this situation you won’t fully appreciate what starts going through your mind. Oh I’ve had it before once or twice, a bit of a wobble, hold tight, slow up and its over but I’m doing over seventy kph and this is no longer a little wobble.

I need to lose speed but touch the brakes and I’ll be off quicker than a quick thing, I grabbed the bars tightly as the bike started to kick about more violently. I wanted to close my eyes but I still need to see where I’m headed. At one point I thought it was all over, I was still going forward quickly but the front wheel wasn’t pointing forward, first one way then the other, this is going to be messy.

My mind was closed to everything beyond just holding on. It might’ve been a lessening of the gradient or just my gentle feathering of the back brake but whatever it was, the bike was wobbling less. I dared to imagine I’d live through the experience, relaxing the tension I hadn’t realised I was holding in my body as I slowed back below seventy, below sixty.

The bike was still doing a bit of a boogie even as I freewheeled down below fifty, using my body as an air brake. Phew, I DO NOT want to repeat that, ever! I turned the pedals again and the remaining wobbling declined, disappeared just as I passed the yellow board announcing my entry into Horchheim.

As I rolled down to the filling station my mind was telling me I should be wetting myself, shaking like a leaf, my ticker pounding like a hammer in my chest. But weirdly there was none of that, a strange calm if anything, my brain cells seemingly more interested in what caused the incident and just how I managed to emerge intact. I didn’t dwell on the latter long, just the fact I had was enough for my curiosity!

I pulled onto the forecourt thinking a stiff drink would be nice right about now, of course that wasn’t going to happen so once I had feet on terra firma I took a long drag on my bidon.

“Where’d you get to?” Tal asked a couple of minutes later as she joined me ahead of the rest of the flock.
“I used the BSB.”
“BSB?”
“Bond Super Boost,” I advised.
“That was some descent,” Sal put in joining us, “I got sixty five on that steep bit.”
“Seventy,” Mand cheerfully added.
“Same here,” Tal admitted.
“What’d you get Gabs?”
“Dunno.”
“Well look then,” Lor encouraged.
I sort of didn’t want to know but Gret leant over and cycled through the readouts before taking a deep breath, “eighty five.”
“How much?” Claire queried.

Yep, that coulda been very messy indeed.

It was a bit of a 3D puzzle getting seven bikes and their riders in the minibus for the drive back to the BC house but we managed it. The original plan was for us to ride all the way but that would take another hour and wouldn’t do anything but add length to our session.

“You're looking very thoughtful kiddo,” Dad suggested as we crossed the Rhein on the way home.
“Just thinking about something earlier.”
“Oh?”

Did I want to share the experience? They say a trouble shared is halved but does that apply in this case?

“I er had a bit of an incident dropping down to Koblenz.”
“What sort of incident?” he queried.
“Some speed wobble.”
“It happens,” he allowed.
“This was like a mega wobble Dad, I thought I was gonna crash, messily.”
“Do I want to hear more?”
“I was doing like eighty five K.”
“Yep, messy yet here you are in one piece.”
“I don’t know how Dad, I didn’t know what to do.”
“Sometimes you out run the wobble, losing speed carefully is usually good, is the bike okay?”
“Seems to be, it was bucking about all over mind.”
“I’ll give it a good going over anyhow, put your mind at rest.”
“I’d be happier if I knew what caused it.”
“Could be anything,” he posed, “road surface, passing truck, gust of wind.”
“Caused what?” de Vreen sleepily queried from behind us.

Maddy Bell © 13.11.2017