Vicious cycle

My arse collapsed, finally, as I creaked past Feldbach station. “No more”, it implored. “No more, you bastard.”

And so the plan to cycle the 69 circumferential kilometres of Lake Zurich fizzled out, like a fag end tossed into a puddle, precisely two thirds of the way through.

Forty-six of these clicking, biting blighters had drilled their way into my lower legs and wriggled upwards, filling my underpants. But I couldn’t squeeze kilometre 47 in anywhere.

Until 15 minutes before setting off, I had no idea I’d be spending last Sunday afternoon chasing this doomed errand. It was while wading through the furthest recesses of a neglected wardrobe that I came across a carrier bag containing my bicycle pump and helmet. At last. I’d been seeking these items for months. Had any pre-discovery plans existed, they would have ceased at that moment. Within a few minutes I was in the basement, pummelling air into the tyres of the trusty, rusty Trek hybrid. Ten minutes later, painted with sunblock and reloaded with iced tea, malt loaf and hard boiled eggs, I was coasting down the hill to the lake.

The weather forecast was promising a damp afternoon, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The sun was on full beam.

There isn’t much more to tell. I rotated my feet for a while, eventually reaching Burkiplatz, the southern tip of Zurich city abutting the lake. It’s here that the lake steamers come and go, loading and unloading their cargoes of excitable tourists. I sat awhile, alongside that clock made of cacti, watching the squealing crowds. Then I recoated myself in sunblock, and relaunched.

This was about 16 kilometres in, and my backside was already showing its tender side. Soon it was becoming hard to sit on the saddle at all. I stopped again, this time to distribute items from my rucksack round the bike – camera, pump, toolkit – in the hope that this would take some pressure off my throbbing buttocks.

It seemed to work for a while, but by the time I’d reached Meilen, another 15 km or so down the line, directly across the lake from Horgen, I was seriously considering yielding to the screaming arse. But I continued, hoping the psychological ointment of being past halfway would push its analgesic magic further down my quivering torso.

Alas, no. I ground out another grim 10 kilometres or so, but that was that. The medieval outline of Rapperswil, the fourth base on this circuit, was clearly visible against the start of the Alps at the far end of the lake — but I couldn’t quite make it.  A shame, as my legs and cardio-vascular infrastructure seemed in good enough shape to make it round. All I need is a more leathery backside. When I was at school we used to toughen our conkers by dunking them in vinegar and sticking them in the oven for half an hour. Hmm.  I wonder…

But for now, I was left to creep into Feldbach station, with this tale between my legs.

Man and machine were hauled onto the next train back to Meilen, and from there, onto the ferry for the final leg across the lake, towards home. Despite seeing the Meilen ferry gliding across the lake every time I glance up from this desk, I’d not actually been on it since we moved here. Up on the viewing deck, scanning the hill above Horgen, trying to locate our apartment, was unsettling. I was no longer the microbiologist peering through the lens, but the amoeba, wriggling on the petri dish. Crikey.

Back home, I quickly repaired myself. The judicious application of Vaseline to some areas, and beer to others, did the job nicely.

The round-the-lake trip remains a very do-able target over the next few weeks.