It was about 3am on the Saturday morning, closing in on 36 hours of pedalling, when things started to get interesting. The finer points are sketchy, but It was me and another guy, I remember that much. We were in the wilds of Kent, riding through a claustrophobic section of bridlepath, a sunken holloway lit by the powerful lumens of our lights. I started to flag and signalled for my riding companion to rein in the pace – he had been gunning it for many kilometres now and I was beginning to wonder where he’d got his legs from. “Hey, wait, I’m falling off the back here!” He ignored me and kept riding, fast. I pressed the issue: “Mate, I’ll let you go, this is too hot for me.” Still nothing.
I got out of the saddle and chased him down to within a few feet of his rear wheel. In a rather bizarre sequence of events, my riding companion then proceeded to fragment into countless tiny particles and dissolve into the night sky. With that, he was gone. Either this guy really wasn’t in the mood for a chat or I was hallucinating. I stopped my bike and slapped myself hard across the face. Coming-to from some kind of reverie, I deduced that my erstwhile riding companion had never existed. I was alone in the darkness with a brain working as effectively as a thrice-used teabag. And things weren’t about to improve...
