As someone who tried their best to follow cycling in the early 70's via the small print of the classified sports results where you could check whether Barry Hoban was still in 47th place or not and by how far Eddy Merckx had won yesterday's stage in the Tour de France and then wait to see my dad's copy of Cycling Weekly, it is absurd that now one can hardly step foot in the office without hearing people talking about bike racing. I'm in favour of it, it's a fine and wonderful (and sometimes drug-addled) thing but I've said before what I see Simon Armitage has said recently, that if poetry was popular and everybody did it, perhaps he -and I -wouldn't.
I did my cycling when it was very much a minority sport and I'm hoping that poetry can remain a misunderstood secret.
If anybody fancies a game of quoits, let me know.
