Happy people on bikes. What’s not to like?

Well…

EVERYTHING!

Watch the video and watch the three presenters from website BikeRadar smile their way through the Dirty Reiver 2021 gravel race. Now read my report on the exact same race with almost the exact same bike: Dirty Reiver.

I hate them and their happy faces. I couldn’t sit down for a week!

When we used to work in offices it was easy to buy swim/bike/run gear without anyone knowing. A parcel would arrive, it could be opened before you got home, and no one would know that you’ve just bought another pair of trainers.

However, during the pandemic, we no longer get deliveries at work.

Or, to be more accurate, I still get deliveries from work but work has now become my home. And, instead of reception wondering why I get so many round boxes shaped like a tyre, I have my wife asking if I’m getting another delivery instead?

But she’s not complaining about the number of deliveries. She’s desperate for more. That’s because she’s discovered that when the online retailer, Wiggle, sends a parcel, it also includes a wee bag of Haribo sweets.

No sooner do I start to open a parcel before she’s ripping it out of my hands and tearing it open like a lion and a bag of Hula Hoops (assuming lions like Hoops).

“Where it is?” She says.

“What,” I ask.

“You know what,” she says, “the good stuff!”

I think she’s addicted and I think Wiggle know this and that’s why they send a bag of Haribo with each order. They might as well send crack cocaine, it would get the same reaction.

“Where’s my baggy?!”

I tried to search online to see if there was an official reason for why Wiggle includes a bag of sweets but all I could find were complaints.

I’ve never had any problems with missing Haribo, however, having read the comments, I have bought a spare packet, just in case. I would hate to think what would happen if my wife didn’t find a Haribo the next time a parcel arrives.

There are many, many strange genres on YouTube. If you want to watch someone take new shoes out of a box then just search for “unboxing” and you’ll find a million videos of people taking their trainers out of a box. If you want to watch someone whisper into a microphone then welcome to the world of ASMR and a million videos of people being really, really quiet.

My favourite genre of YouTube video is a bit more specialist. I like the genre known as “Man Goes For A Walk And Then Takes A Photo”. In the UK, photographers like James Popsys and Nigel Danson are great at this – every week they release a video where they walk somewhere and then take a photo. It’s not a complicated plot to follow. Usually, they’ll explain why they’re taking the photo but most of the time, it’s just an excuse to see various mountains and woodlands around the UK.

If you want to get started in this exciting sub-genre of filming then I highly recommend this week’s video: Hiking The Length of Skye by Thomas Heaton. Heaton is a great presenter and filmmaker who, earlier this year, walked the length of Skye while taking photos. To say any more would be to spoil the surprise that… there is no more to it than that. He walks a bit. He takes a photo. He walks some more. But it’s a very enjoyable two part video that shows off Skye’s spectacular scenery.

No running this week. Instead a woman is asking: “Big man with the glasses?”

“Yes,” I say.

A big sigh and the woman, who has just taken our PCR COVID tests says, for what seems not the first time. 

“You won’t get your results tonight, you’ll get them within 72 hours.”

We’re in a car park beside Toryglen football pitches. There’s a small tent and a couple of people walking around in yellow hi-viz and face masks. It’s not very clinical.

When we drove drive in. I put on a mask and rolled down the window. 

“Please put it most of the way up,” says the volunteer at the entrance, making sure not to come near our now open window.

I do. 

“Higher,” they say.

I leave an inch. 

“Perfect,” they say before they try to pass through two test kits in plastic bags. The gap is so small and the bags so big that it’s like watching someone try and coax an elephant to limbo.

“If you pull the car up, read the instructions, follow them and then put on your hazard lights to let me know when you’re done.”

It sounds straightforward but in practice it feels like we’re dogging. Or setting up a illicit boxing fight. We’re not the only car in the car park. Nor the only one thinking we need to leave some space between us and the next car meaning that every car is circled, everyone is looking into every other car and every couple of minutes emergency lights flash until a man approaches the window.  

“There is bound to be someone somewhere who’s made the mistake of starting to strip,” I say.

“NWAH, MAAW, NNAHFFFGGHH,” says Mrs TwinBikeRun, who has a cotton bud down her throat.

“That was disgusting,” she says when she takes it out. 

“BAAAWWWWWKKKKK,” I say, retching after touching my tonsils with the bud. 

“Three more times,” says Mrs E. 

“BBOOOOKKKKEEEE, BBAAAWWWK, BBBBAAAARRRFFFF. Done.”

“Now you have to stick up your nose too,” says Mrs E.

“The same end?”

“Yes.”

Now I do feel sick. But I stick my phlegm speckled throat swab up my nostril too and circle it 10 times. “I don’t know if I have COVID but I might get laryngitis of the nostrils,” I say.

“You might get a new friend if you keep those hazards on too,” says Mrs E as someone approaches. A large man with glasses.

“You’ll the results later tonight,” he says as he makes sure we close our plastic bags containing the samples correctly. “Just drop them off on your way out.”

Which we do only to find that we would have got better information if he’d actually been a dogger as the woman at the exit tells us the man with glasses doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

LATER

We don’t get our results but Mrs TwinBikeRun’s parents, who were also pinged and tested at the same time in a different location, receive confirmation that they tested negative.

I text Iain TwinBikeRun to tell him we’re still self-isolating until we hear more. He says: “That’s because it takes longer when you also test positive for syphilis.”

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