Thoughts From A Small Office

It was 7.00am this morning when my Blackberry sprang to life, the tune I know so well came ringing out of the speaker, my early morning alarm call. I laid for a while, thinking how easy it would be to stay curled up in a warm bed, but I soon snapped out of that train of thought and jumped to my feet. I walked across to the window and peered out into the early morning gloom, low cloud hung down the valley, and it looked to be raining. I pulled on my winter cycling clothes, put on my cycling shoes, dug out an extra pair of gloves and a woolly hat and headed down to the basement to get the bike out.

Once I'd got myself well wrapped up, filled a water bottle and sprayed the bike chain with lubricant I opened the door and went out into the yard here.. the rain was heavier than I had thought, much heavier. It was pouring straight down and it was very cold. A couple of hops with a foot in one peddle, swing the other leg over the bike then settle into the saddle and off down the lane to meet up with the guys who I ride with.

The group was a little thin on the ground this morning, only three of us instead of the usual five or six but we cracked a few jokes as we rode around in circles, warming up ready for the off. We set off into the rain, a cold wind whipped up and sprayed the icy rain into our faces, I pulled the mask up over my nose to keep the air warm around my face, fumbled to pull the zipper up on my windproof jacket, settled into the saddle and began to crank the peddles. It was going to take some warming up this morning.

The first four miles of the ride is along the canal path so it's a case of steering round the puddles and getting into the rhythm, getting the muscles warm and loosening up. This is usually done as we ride along chatting, but this morning there wasn't much chatting amongst us because you had to get your head down and just do it. We'd not been riding for five minutes and we were already soaked, there wasn't another soul around.. no joggers, no dog walkers, nobody. At the two mile point the river comes into view, the water was very high and the path that runs along side it was under water, it was a bleak landscape, what were we doing out on a morning like this ?

We crossed over the bridge at the four mile point and out onto the open road, the road twists and turns for a while and then the valley opens out before us, the wind picked up and the rain came down heavier but there's no point thinking about that. I upped the pace, it would have been better to sit at the back of the group and take shelter from the elements but I decided to go up and ride off the front. My fingers were already starting to numb as I clicked up through the gears, Campagnolo, Italian engineering, they shift so smoothly, never miss a click, the riding was getting easier now and I started to get in tune with the bike, we started to eat into the miles.

We ride through a town after nine miles, right through the town centre, and as we rode up the main street I noticed the Christmas lights strung across the street above me. They weren't lit, they just hung there, grey strings of lights and decorations, and a Christmas tree in the square at the top of the street. There was nothing festive in this display, no twinkling lights burning, nothing to light up the gloom and lift the spirits slightly, just a few people scurrying to work in the stores and car headlights illuminating the wet roads.. and my toes were now starting to hurt from the cold and wet.

But the tempo was high now, the miles were flying by as we rode out towards our halfway point. The road is long and wide, virtually zero traffic, I was breathing easy and started to hammer the pedals, blocking out the pain and discomfort from my mind. To my right, a train sped along the elevated track as it passes through the flood plain in the valley bottom, the fields were flooded and had turned into small lakes, clouds clung to the steep hillsides on either side of me. It was getting brighter and the rain had eased slightly.

We normally stop for a chat at the halfway mark, fourteen miles under our belts and turning for home, but not this morning, no sense in hanging around so we carried on. It was best to keep moving, keep peddling, try to keep warm. And so we did, back towards home but still stopping for a coffee at the market in the last town before ours.

The market square was crammed with stalls this morning, a Christmas tree stood in the middle and the market stalls were set around it. The market traders were busy setting out their stalls for the day, wrapped up against the cold, not many customers around but it was still early in the day. The lady at the coffee stand was surprised to see us, she didn't think we'd be out this morning but she was pleased to see us none the less. She very kindly poured our coffee, added milk and sugar then brought it across to where we were stood.. shivering. We didn't stay as long as we usually do, we had a quick chat with some of the traders and then back on the bikes to head for home.

The last few miles this morning should have been a breeze but because I was so cold, my feet were really hurting and my fingers were numb, I was finding it difficult to ride properly and stay in tune with the bike. My mind was wandering, thinking of home and getting warm, instead of paying attention to the surface conditions, and when riding at speed this is not a good frame of mind to be in. Concentration is key, you have to stay switched on... this morning I didn't.

In the last mile there is a narrow paved section that's raised slightly above the track we ride on, it's nothing much, I've crossed it a thousand times and more. As you approach it you have to raise yourself out of the saddle to ride out the bump. I don't know what I was doing, I barely remember approaching it. I knew it was there but I didn't react and rise out of the saddle, I just sat there and peddled over it.
Big mistake to make in the wet.

Without any warning at all the bike shot from under me, it was horizontal before I realised what was going on, all I remember is seeing the ground rapidly approaching and, for a split second, the water from the canal looming into my line of vision. Then bang.. I hit the deck with a real smack. Instinctively I released my foot from the peddle clips, curled myself into the fall to protect the bike, why do I do that ?.. and landed heavily on my right thigh and elbow, stopping a couple of feet from the waters edge. But I felt no pain, probably because I was numb from the cold, so I quickly picked up the bike, checked it over, remounted and rode on. Of course there was a man and his two children walking by as it happened (isn't there always an audience ?).. but all three of them politely walked past without laughing, although I suspect they laughed themselves sore once I'd ridden off. I'd have done the same so no complaints here.

And so I arrived back home, covered in mud, knee ripped out of my cycling leggings and to cap it all off, no skin on my right knee, a bruised right ankle and a slightly swollen right elbow.. not to mention an aching backside. As I sit here typing I am being constantly reminded of my early morning tumble by a dull ache in my rear end, but other than that I'm more or less unscathed, apart from a bit of blood soaking through the knee of my jogging pants. You're never to old to make mistakes and learn to pay attention at all times.

So, that's the story of my rather eventful morning, a morning that saw me get soaked to the skin, get freezing cold, and then a crash for my grand finale.

Cycling, do I still love it ?.. you bet I do, and I'll be back out next week come rain, hail or sunshine. Saturday mornings just wouldn't be the same without it.

I've just been flicking through some of the online newspapers this afternoon, looking at nothing in particular, but I started to read one story about the national debt of Great Britain. I say started to read because I never got to the end of it, I became slightly confused by it because it never really made it clear just how big that debt is. All that I could work out is that maybe the figure is in the trillions.

Now, I shall state here and now that I am neither a statistician, a mathematician, an economist, a city trader or, thank goodness.. a politician. But what I can say is that neither do I consider myself to be stupid. I can find my way around a balance sheet if required, I know how to use a computer, drive a car, make myself understood in a few foreign countries, calculate my weekly budget,... and even how to blog! In other words, I'm pretty much the same as anyone else in these modern times, except for the fact that I do not, can not, get my head around what a trillion actually is... and, I suspect, neither can many of the rest of us. This may well include you yourself, and I might ask you, dear reader.. "do you care?" .. do I care ? Well, maybe we should. So stick with me for a while here, don't glaze over, humour me, and I may just be able to put things in perspective for you, as regards the magic 'trillion'..

I've been doing a little research here on your behalf, and for myself, to try and give you some idea of what a trillion actually is. The results of this painstaking, in depth and tireless research left me sitting with my jaw dropped into my coffee cup. I was, quite frankly, stunned at the enormity of this twelve zeros' number.. the one that politicians trot out in conversation as though it were a small amount of money that we bet on a horse to win, and it lost... "guys, it's only a trillion"

So now, down to the details of my findings, which I have cobbled together after scouring various, but respectable websites... are you ready ?.. then I'll begin.

There are apparently two different kinds of trillion, the US trillion and the UK trillion, but there is now a basic agreement that a trillion is a thousand billion and a billion is a thousand million.. got that ?.. no ?.. then we'll carry on.

Try this. If you were to click your fingers once every second for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would take you 12 days to reach the first million, 120 days of non stop clicking to reach 10 million, and 1,200 days to get to 100 million.. that's just over three years. After clicking away for 32 years you would reach your first billion clicks... then, and this is the really good bit.. to reach a trillion you would have click, non stop, for 32,000 years... yes, that's right... thirty two thousand years !! ... are you still with me, or have you fallen off your chair ?

To put this figure, a trillion, into some kind of size scale is like thinking of something the size of a credit card as a million, and standing it alongside a mountain which is 1,344 metres/4,406 ft high, the mountain would represent a trillion... or, if you spent money at a unit rate of 25,000 a day (choose your own currency) how long do you reckon it would take to spend a trillion ?.. any answers ? well I'll tell you, it would take 109,000 years.

Here's another statistic.. a tightly-packed stack of $100 bills, totalling $1 million, would be about 4 feet/1.2m high.. $1 billion would be 4,000 feet/1,219m high, and a stack of $100 bills totalling $1 trillion would be a staggering 789 miles/1,270km high, that's the equivalent of 144 Mt. Everests stacked one on top of the other. Have you glazed over yet ?.. because there's more.

If you put a trillion, one dollar bills end to end to form a chain from the earth to the moon you could do it 200 times.. and a trillion one dollar bills laid end to end would almost reach from the earth to the sun. And now my personal favourite. Imagine a military jet flying at the speed of sound, and as it flew along it reeled out a roll of dollar bills behind it, how long before the reel of dollar bills ran out.. remember it's flying at the speed of sound... well, it would have to fly for 14 years for the roll of bills to run out.
Can you imagine that ?

Okay, that's enough statistics for any brain to cope with, but you see my point.
Even after reading all of that, twice or more, I still cannot really comprehend a trillion. It makes it easier to understand the true scale of it, but in the end the number is just too huge to take in, and so we don't try to, and the politicians and economists know that.

So which ever country you dwell in, the next time you're watching the TV news and they trot out a news item telling you about your country's national debt and it's in the trillions, just prick your ears up and pay attention for a moment, and cast your mind back to this scintillating and awesomely informative blog post... then, like me.. you'll probably be non the wiser.
But it will make you think, won't it ?.. like "how the hell are we ever going to pay that off ?"..
or words to that effect.

To end this I'd like to thank About.com, the BBC, and 100777.com for the information required to put together this literary masterpiece, I shall be forever in their debt...
if you'll pardon the pun.