How I Accidentally Fell In Love With Road Cycling: a personal memoir by Kenny the Nuthatch

As a regular reader I’ve noticed the real dedication to cycling that the leaders at Owl Towers demonstrate, both in terms of track work and the longer road races. Until this summer I was a total sceptic when it came to road cycling, but having previously gone hopelessly crazy for velodrome experiences I knew I wasn’t immune to the appeal of wheels. The ongoing exploits of Victoria Pendleton (and now a large roster of pretty ladycyclists) can’t have undermined the popular appeal of the keirin and the omnium, either, to some parts of the crowd.

However, things like the Tour de France didn’t do much for me. It all just seemed like a lot of skinny men in coloured clothes riding a breathtakingly long way on a bike. But that was before I became trapped in the theatre, tactics and teamwork that characterises this kind of racing. Who were the domestiques? Why did the person who won the most stages not necessarily win the race? Why are there donkeys wearing polka dot jerseys in that field in Provence?

This year, by dint of nothing else being on television one Sunday when it was raining, I tuned into the Tour. I knew vaguely that some British cyclists were doing quite well, but given it was Stage 5 or something I assumed there would be time for someone Belgian to sneak up on the inside and nick it from our boys long before the end. Well, from that point on it was constantly on my mind. I learned that friends are everything in a cycle race, because they’re prepared to completely sacrifice their own races for your sake (voici les domestiques). I learned that looking like you’re winning doesn’t mean that you’re actually winning (tête de la course; poursuivants; groupe maillot jaune). I learned that tactics can change in the blink of an eye. And I learned that good conduct is generally rewarded, and that cheats rarely prosper. This was like test match cricket, Formula One and chess all moulded into one.

As the weeks of the Tour ticked by, my wife and I would genuinely rush home from work to watch the stage highlights. If we’d got wind of something, via Twitter or the BBC, that Vincenzo Nibali or Cadel Evans had experienced some sort of a problem, we rushed home even quicker to see how this affected the overall standings. We were wowed by Peter Sagan’s unlikely skills on the hills (sprint points and King of the Mountains points) and yelled for the Slovenian if it became clear that Mark Cavendish was too far back on a stage. I learned all about the personal history of American-but-Dutch-sounding Tejay van Garderen and was genuinely amazed by the emotion of Pierre Rolland and his team when Rolland won for France on Bastille Day. Suddenly, yet progressively, I finally understood why this daft spectacle was so brilliant. The colours, the cars, the fans, the enthusiasm, the speed, and all the time these scrawny chaps, legs pumping, eating energy gel and drinking isotonic pineapple juice, forcing themselves up yet another mountain, through yet another town. It was fantastic.

And then Bradley Wiggins won, drew the raffle numbers on the Champs-Elysées and it was all over. Until the Olympics, when I watched the men’s road race on someone else’s jerky iPhone footage inside the City of Coventry stadium and screamed Lizzie Armitstead home in the rain sat in my in-laws front room, all of us gathered to watch these incredible athletes. Surely this was it, until the Tour came round again next year?

No – another Sunday, and another poor TV night settles us in front of the team time trial at the Vuelta a Espana. A race I’d never heard of. And here we are once more, thrilling to some of the same chaps all over again and finding new pantomime villains to boo (I’m looking at you, Alberto Contador, and your ludicrously named Saxobank-Tinkoff Bank team). It gets under your skin, road racing, and even though there is no way on Earth I’m getting on a bicycle to follow in their tracks, I will fight to watch Froome, Roche, even Contador as they thrash their way through Spain. See you in the Pyrenees – I’m the one in the Lotto-Belisol shirt next to the small woman cheering Omega-Pharma-Quickstep for no clear reason.

SPECIAL REPORT: Olympic archery!

Here at Sporting Owl towers, we're trying our very best to keep you abreast of all the action at London 2012.

To that end, we've rounded up the finest writers in the universe and gently cajoled them into reporting back on a range of Olympic sports. In the first of what we hope will be a regular series, here's Kenny the Nuthatch's exclusive and inimitable take on the archery at Lord's.

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So, buoyed by the support of Owl Towers, off I went at Ludicrous O’Clock last Friday morning to Lord’s for the first session of the last day of the men’s archery competition. No-one should arrive at Lord’s at 7:30 in the morning unless they’re playing, and even then that’s a bit debatable. No matter – one of St. John’s Wood’s finest almond croissants in my belly and a short queue to get into the venue. Much banter between Gamesmakers (hello you purple wonderhumans) and into the security queue.  Suddenly perturbed by a soldier from western Scotland asking me in broad Glaswegian to put ‘watches and belts, pal’ into the scanner. Briefly concerned that I am so tired I’ve accidentally ended up in Finland. Thankfully not. Into Lord’s (I know what it looks like) but concerned that half the audience are doing their trousers up given that armed Scotsmen made us all hand over our waist support.

A cup of Olympic Fairtrade coffee (terrible, but better than the slop served at the ‘City of Coventry Stadium’) and then off to find my seat. A nice Gamesmaker points me towards the stand that has been erected on the infield at Lord’s, then I wander across the turf (holiest of all cricketing places, can’t normally get on the field for all the money on Earth, and I’m just titting around on it) and climb very high to my seat.

And then, after the stands fill and a large Korean and Chinese contingent arrive, some archery occurs. It’s pretty rapid, with a match scoring system based on 2 points for having the higher score after 3 arrows each, or 1 point each if scores are tied after 3 arrows. If, after 5 sets, the scores are equal, it comes down to a shoot-off: each archer fires 1 arrow, the one with the highest score wins. Suddenest of sudden death. Though not as sudden as death could have been for the Gamesmakers whose job it is to meander back to the archers with arrows that have been pulled from the targets. Dimly wander in the wrong direction and it’s William Tell O’Clock. Bummer.

Great Britain’s Larry Godfrey (the Kevin Pietersen of archery) shot first, went to a shoot-off and was sadly beaten by an earnest, pleasant man from somewhere east of the Olympic Park (I forget where). Then lots of matches happened very, very fast. Great Australian lad lost gallantly on the last arrow of normal time, then came back after and met all the fans. He was awesome and deserves our support. The 15-year old Moldovan chap who is the future of archery, apparently, was sadly beaten by a slightly overweight Korean gentleman who looked rather embarrassed to have won. Essentially I came away thinking that archery was peculiarly marvellous, but thinking that IOC kimchi rolls would have sold in substantial quantities in the Lord’s catering stands.

To come, a very short introduction to basketball and my gibbering wonder-drool at the utter WONDER of the Olympic Park in Stratford, together with my active concern for a Dizzee Rascal lookalike who continually exhorted me to MAKE SOME NOOIIIIISSSSSSEEEEE. But that’s for another day...