The hardpack gravel beneath my wheels was passing slowly, so slowly. Cranking over my bottom gear at a painful 50rpm and fatigued beyond coherent speech, I looked through the passing stones and waited for this, the penultimate climb of the day, to be over.
“I reckon it’d do us good to walk out to the pub for food tonight,” said my ride partner Owen Rogers breezily, as he span his enviably low bottom gear up the gravelly slope. My reply was non-committal. Cryptic, even: “Uh.” My face didn’t give much away either, apart from the slack jaw and wide eyes of a village idiot. Those with a particular talent for reading features might have inferred a deep-seated desire for the whole thing to please be over.
