ON THE RUN

The Argus Pick and Pay Cycle tour is a gruelling race around Cape Town which is the longest of its kind in the world. This is one man's (and his rather strange friend, Ted's) attempt to grab the Limelight, if only for a few seconds. Here's a snippit:

"Ted later said he went into the straw bales because a lively young blonde lifted her top as he went past. Rubbish, I said. You were imagining things. Besides, having grown up in Durban, Ted never quite lost the old Zulu custom of riding in a zigzag pattern."

ON THE RUN - By Ben Trovato (posted without permission, hope he doesn't mind.)

I never intended to enter the Argus/Pick 'Pay Cycle Tour, but by Friday I was so sick and tired of these people taking over our restaurants and filling our brothels that I decided to teach them a lesson.

I approached neighbour Ted with the plan and he was up for it from the start. Right away he wanted to know what drugs we would be taking. Not so fast, I said. First we have to get to the finish line. Ted seemed disappointed and mumbled something about stable doors and horses, but he misunderstood me.

Studying the route was key to winning the race. Eventually, after much poring over maps and pouring of beers, we found what we were looking for. A convenient cul-de-sac leading off Queens Road in Sea Point. All we had to do was find a couple of bicycles. With so many in town, it wasn't that difficult. In fact, it took us less than an hour of driving around Bantry Bay with a bobejaan spanner to acquire a couple of fine-looking bright red racing bikes.

Sunday morning found me and Ted lying low in the cul-de-sac arguing about strategy. Narco-loading is vital for racers such as us. Essentially, we are sprinters. And jumping into the race two hours after the official start is not as easy as it sounds. The pack leaders swooping into Sea Point are usually in an ugly mood and timing is everything.

Even though our race would only be 3.5kms long, it was essential to be prepared. Ted had brought along two plastic bottles, one filled with white wine and the other with red. He said this was in case we changed our minds at the last minute and decided to jump into the race on the other side of the mountain, where people drink red wine. He was saving the white for Green Point. I had one of those cunning little backpacks
designed to hold a litre bottle of pre-mixed Jose Cuervo and orange juice. A plastic tube ran from the bottle to my mouth.

Ted wanted to take two Dexedrines to get his heart rate up and a Seconal to bring it down. He said that with a fluctuating pulse and arrhythmic heartbeat, he would be unbeatable. His symptoms sounded more like a cardiac arrest to me, but I had more important things to worry about. I had a dope muffin the size of a soccer ball in my backpack but I knew if I wolfed that thing down, there was a very good chance that the frontrunners would suspect something as I raced past them laughing at nothing and talking to nobody. The alternative was the bankie full of stale magic mushrooms that I bought years ago from a dishevelled shaman who was hanging around the entrance to Stonehenge trying to get a lift back to Putney. In the end, I opted for a mouthful of each and told Ted to get ready. He swallowed his dexies and within a minute was pacing anxiously up and down the parking lot, babbling incessantly and gnawing the insides of his mouth to a bloody pulp. It wasn't a pretty sight.

There is no doubt that drugs make any race a lot more exciting. For one, they help dissolve all those awkward social barriers that prevent you from openly taunting your opponents. Steroids, needless to say, are the worst kind of drugs you can take. They do absolutely nothing for your mind and I, for one, applaud sports administrators for banning this scourge.

Unfortunately, we had left it too late to buy Day-Glo orange lycra shirts so the night before, Ted and I produced a couple of hand-painted outfits that looked virtually identical to the real thing. All we needed
to complete the ensemble was a couple of sponsors each. I chose Armscor and the Arthur Murray School of Dancing, while Ted opted for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance and the SA Police Service.

I dredged up a pair of stretchy floral shorts from the back of Brenda's underwear drawer (dear God, I hope they were shorts) while Ted had to make do with a baggy pair of paint-stained khaki Bermudas. I almost pulled out of the race because he looked so old-fashioned and frumpy. What about you, he said, snorting loudly. I asked him about the snorting but he quickly denied having been at the Bolivian marching powder.

Before I left the house I caught a glimpse of myself in Brenda's full-length mirror. Something was missing. At first I couldn't work out what it was. I had everything the modern cyclist could possibly need - bright shirt, stupid shoes, funny helmet, drugs, alcohol, tight pants. Tight pants! That's what was missing. I quickly rolled up a pair of socks and rammed them down the front. Much better. Now I looked like a real sportsman.

So it was with heads full of amphetamines, depressants, psilocybin, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and tequila that we found ourselves lurching out of the cul-de-sac as the first of the bunch came swarming past just after 8.15am. They were far too busy sweating and grunting to even notice us. We were half way to Green Point when Ted gave the signal to make our move. Much later he told that this was, in fact, not the signal. How was I to know? Narco-loading is great for sprints, but one of the side effects is that you see and hear things that might not altogether exist.

Ted later said he went into the straw bales because a lively young blonde lifted her top as he went past. Rubbish, I said. You were imagining things. Besides, having grown up in Durban, Ted never quite lost the old Zulu custom of riding in a zigzag pattern.

Anyway, the upshot is that I held back until we were opposite the Green Point tennis courts and then I made my spurt. In retrospect, I spurted way too soon. When I got home and told Brenda, she made a rattling sound in the back of her throat as if she was laughing, and said: "That's the Ben I know."

After holding the lead between the second and third set of traffic lights on Beach Road, the pack charged past me. Even a woman overtook me. Later, while drinking imported beer to counter the effects of the post-race high, I told Ted how a muscle-bound lesbian had beaten me to the finish. He looked at me with a dazed expression and said: "It's not about the dyke."

Well, it's all history now. The madness has moved on, leaving behind more chafed crotches and sore bottoms than you might find in the whole of Sydney on the last night of the Mardis Gras.