Martyn Brunt on the importance of the mid-ride café stop

Nooooooooo! Sorry to begin this column with a wail of despair but I have just discovered that my favourite café has closed.

To make matters worse, I only discovered it had closed halfway into a training ride, meaning I had to cycle 40 miles home not only in a forlorn state of mind, but with empty guts and only one miserable energy gel to sustain me.

As a result, I had a hunger knock 15 miles from my house, grovelled the final few kilometres to my door, lurched through it and collapsed onto my settee before sleeping like a knackered spaniel all afternoon.

Inspiration to all

Now, I know you’re a harsh crowd and are no doubt scoffing about how ill-prepared I was to go off on an 80-mile ride with insufficient food, and failing to allow for the fact that my favourite café might not be open.

But I like to think my inability to perform even the basic tasks of triathlon inspires everyone around me.

Anyway my temporary discomfort is a mere trifle compared to the catastrophe of my favourite caff closing its doors for good. It was the best thing about this particular training ride – in fact, I’d go so far as to say it was the only reason I did the bloody route.

The prospect of slogging up some of those hills without the reward of beans on toast and a cup of tea means I probably won’t go that way again.

A good café is hard to find

I don’t know about where you live, but a good café can be hard to find around these parts.

There are plenty of them, but not all of them welcome gangs of sweaty cyclists arriving en masse, piling their bikes up in a big metal mass next to the entrance, and clacking their way up to the counter to demolish the cake stand.

None of them has gone so far as to issue an outright ban on cyclists, but in typically British fashion they know how to make you know you’re not really welcome.

Café stops have made me the mediocre triathlete I am today

This is particularly true of cafés in garden centres where staff are evidently concerned for the welfare of the genteel, Barbour-jacket-wearing clientele as they sip daringly-priced lattes between pot-plant purchases.

That said we don’t do ourselves any favours, and a gang of snot-caked, middle-aged cyclists sprawled at tables with legs akimbo and unzipped jerseys would put most people off their quail eggs and avocado.

Range of fare

One of the things I liked about my favourite café, apart from the fact that they didn’t seem to mind any of the above behaviour, was the range of fare catered for both types of cyclists.

In my experience, cyclists fall into two basic categories – sweet or savoury. On the sweet side are the cake-and-hot-chocolate merchants, who will hoover up slices of lemon drizzle the size of an aero helmet.

While among the savouries it’s guaranteed to be something bread-based. I’m strictly a beans-on-toast man, the only exception being when I’m on training camp in Majorca where I order ‘baguette de queso y te con leche por favor’ – literally the only Spanish I know.

However, it seems that an occasional squadron of cyclists swooping down out of the sun and eating the entire contents of their kitchen wasn’t enough to sustain the West Midlands’ number-one eatery who have closed because of rising rent and energy prices, and I shall mourn the loss for evermore.

Beware the blackberries

There are other rides I do which take me to other cafés, and I shall cherish those even more now, perhaps even stretching to a second cup of tea to help with the soaring gas bills. And despite the fact that means I’ll inevitably have to leap off my bike and hotfoot it behind a hedge on the way home.

Remember kids, never eat blackberries that have grown next to field gates because they’ve inevitably been watered by desperate cyclists.

I know that some of the more 
goal-orientated athletes among you probably shun café stops but heaving round 80-plus miles with nothing more than an energy bar and a drink that tastes like a Glade plug-in isn’t my idea of fun.

Café stops have made me the mediocre triathlete I am today, and I shall continue to power my legs via the medium of beans on toast no matter what people say. I never listen to the people who say I’m no good. They’re right of course, but I never listen to them.

Illustration: Daniel Seex