Saturday, 3 October

Saturday, 3 October

I was enlisted this morning as one of the vehicle support drivers in the charity cycling event I have come to call, ‘The Amazing Race’. It’s real name is ‘Suits on Bikes’. These suits are a group of guys who to participate, have to come up with a sizeable pile just to be allowed to ride up and down the Alps on bicycles. Being that they are entrepreneurs, all of the money has been harvested from well-wishers. This particular ride the proceeds will be going to help build a school in Romania. Ian, my actual driver, arrived on time and we set out to find the support vehicle currently following the riders. Our first task, subtitled, ‘Lost in the Alps’ was to rendezvous (French for tear out your hair in frustration, throw the GPS out the window and finally dance a Highland Fling in joy because the other vehicle has been and sighted and there are still a few hours of daylight left. At the pre-arranged, within 50 kms or so, meeting point, a pinprick on the Swiss map known as, St. Georges de OffenhooterFreutuchlostenner, we met Gabrielle McLeish. Gaby, who was the current vehicle support group driver and two of her sons, Alec and Max, had things to do and with a sigh of relief that Ian had found the riders, she quickly traded vehicles with us and departed.

We hopped aboard, keeping the boys with us; they were scheduled to join the ride near the end of the race, and had their bikes on the back. We caught up with the lead bunch of riders and after a bit of a briefing from Alistair McLeish we stopped and waited for the rear group to catch up to us. With nothing much to do but admire the quaint town or ville we had halted at, took two minutes, the boys decided to feed the horses in the field across the road. Since Ian had become the designated babysitter for Alec and Max, this job suddenly became a challenge on par with of one of the twelve labours of Hercules. To give him a great deal of credit –after all, any day now, he’ll become a father- he took to the task with an almost effortless nonchalance. Any traces of tentativeness invisible to most, but glaringly blatant to those of us more experienced Dads, I could see that he’ll develop into one of those natural fathers, probably somewhere around their twelfth child. After much to-ing and fro-ing between the two groups of riders, we took a break with the rear group, who’s concept of riding through the lunch hour without a crust of bread bordered on mutiny. They unloaded their athletic rations of sushi and wine and we had lunch by a canal. After gobbling and sluicing they saddled up and we were off again. At another small town, Pleurisy-by-Montagnard-with-Nobypass, we unloaded the boys and their bikes and banged off to get to the finish line before them. The end of the road was Alistair and Gaby’s home and waiting for us was showers and beer. Having been riding with Ian all day and the only perspiration I had leaked being cold sweat, I settled for the beer. All kidding aside, I was amazed at what the guys in ‘Suits on Bikes’ had accomplished. I don’t know how much money they raised, but they did it on their day off and covered at least 85 kms. Well done! Suits on Bikes!