The Noob Ride

Winter is finally here in the United Arab Emirates, which means beautiful riding weather at last. Riding here in the summer is best compared to setting up your bike on a turbo in a steam room, and to be honest that, combined with work commitments, have kept me indoors since April. In fact, the last time I went on a long Friday ride (Friday being our Sunday here) is nearly a year ago. Questions were beginning to be asked by my triathlon relay team. Questions such as "why are you so bloody slow this year you old git?" So that, combined with successful entry into next year's Etape du Tour, meant it was time to take action. The alarm was set for 4 a.m., and a suitably secluded road near the Abu Dhabi - Dubai border selected.



This isn't quite the world's longest straight road, but after riding 50 km without a single bend you wouldn't know it, or care. No matter, perfect to burn off some calories and get the miles in, with a few short, gentle 7% climbs over the dunes. Time for a nice gentle 100 km ride, home in time for breakfast and an afternoon kip. It was a beautiful morning, 15-20 degrees and not a breath of wind.


Then, 70 km into my planned 100 km ride, I noticed something very strange. A gaggle (peloton is too orderly a description) of cyclists joining from a road on my left. Yes, I'd inadvertently stumbled upon the notorious Dubai noob ride. If you are a noob yourself, you might want to stop reading now. If you're not sure, or if you just want to avoid noobs (recommended), here's a heads up:

• Noobs always wear helmets with a peak. I can think of no logical reason why a helmet was ever designed with a peak. I guess it's a tribal thing like roadies' shaved legs, or mountain bikers' body piercings. Noobs wear peaked helmets because other noobs wear peaked helmets and that's just the way of it.
• Noobs always wear Camelbaks with as many pipe type thingys as possible hanging out the side.
  
• Noobs always form as many small groups as possible rather than riding in a peloton. The aim of each of these groups appears to be to take up as much road space as possible, thus causing maximum inconvenience to other, faster road traffic. Specifically me in this case.
• Noobs' bikes of choice are either a) Scott, b) Trek, or c) anything outrageously expensive, such as the Colnago Ferrari I saw being pushed up one of the aforementioned 7% rises.
• Noobs always ride Shimano. Peasants.
• Tri bars are always to be fitted on a noob ride, but only used when riding in close proximity to others, never when riding on your own.
  
• Noobs are generally at least 30 kg overweight, which they compensate for by saving weight on things like food, inner tubes, or a pump. And if another one of them ever flags me down again to borrow my pump I'll insert it somewhere Mr Silca never designed it for.
• Noobs are generally MAMILs (middle aged men in lycra). And fat (did I mention that already?)
• A shoulder mounted mp3 player is de rigeur on a noob ride. Which explains the helmet, cos they're going to need it.
• Noob-ettes always wear floral pink sleeveless cycling tops, then complain loudly about gender stereotyping to anyone who isn't listening to their shoulder mounted mp3 player.
• Noob rides are always either 'sponsored' rides, usually 'against cancer' (please, someone tell me - how do you 'ride against cancer'?) or 'practice' for a sponsored ride. As far as I can tell, this just means you pay for the privilege of riding your bike on the open road.
  

In short, these people are a plague, and here I was, 70 km into my 100 km ride, trying my best to pass a gaggle of hundreds of the things.

And this is when the true horror of my situation struck me.

Since they were on a 'sponsored' ride, they were following a set course of - gasp - 80 kms. Which meant their turnaround point was another 40 kms along nearly-the world's-longest-straight-road. To complete my already over ambitious 100 km ride, I had planned to turn around in another 10 km - but that would make me 'the guy who took the shortcut' - a shame I could not live with. Not only that, if I turned at their turnaround point to avoid being 'the guy who took the shortcut', I would a) end up doing a leg breaking 160 km, and b) probably TURN INTO A NOOB MYSELF AS I RODE THE SAME COURSE! A lifetime of peaked helmets, camelbaks, and Shimano equipped Scott bikes seemed to stretch out ahead of me.

So there was really only one thing to do - ride past their turnaround point to demonstrate my unquestionable athletic superiority, turn around and ride/crawl/hitch-hike back, resulting in an ill advised 180 km ride.

Fortunately I survived this near death brush with the noobs, and eventually made it home with very sore legs to find an invite for a meltdown eat all you can Thanksgiving lunch. And someone learnt to never, ever invite a man who's ridden 180 kms to 'eat all you can'.