The rule of three

Cyclists in general tend to be a pretty superstitious bunch . In the dressing room before a race it is not unusual to see a kit bag being turned upside down with all of the contents being emptied out onto the floor . This is followed by a chaotic rummaging followed by a last resort plea of ‘did anyone see a red sock anywhere ? ‘ or something similar .

Now the cause of this consternation is not just an attempt to be colour coordinated , although this may be of secondary concern , but this sock may be half of a lucky pair . Perhaps last year in this race whilst wearing the pair of red socks their owner had won or had a high placing thus raising them up to the status of ‘ my lucky socks ‘ . If the socks remain unpaired their owners race is surely over before it begins .

Another superstition is that of the rule of three . That is whereby if something happens once it is sure to happen again twice more . If you puncture whilst out training someone will surely say ‘ they run in threes ‘ and sure enough 50 % of the time you will puncture  twice more within a week or two or maybe less . Now weather this is pure coincidence or a mathematical probability or even a psychological reaction who knows , but it does happen .

Last week Geoff McNamara had a definite power of three experience .

On Monday afternoon whilst driving from Clonmel to Kilkenny he found the roads to be quite slippy . Whilst moving along in a line of traffic just past Callan someone up ahead braked suddenly . This had a domino effect back along but Geoff was happy to come to  a stop just over a foot from the car in front . However the car behind him wasn’t quite so fortunate and ran into the back of him doing considerable damage to his car . But at least no one was hurt  .

Then on Tuesday afternoon he was in the shop showing us some photos of his car and a quotation which deemed it to be a write off . He left the shop to go look at some other cars in the local Mazda garage . Having had a Peugeot 406 he took another 406 for a test drive down the Waterford road . He pulled in just past Newtownanner school to have a look at the tyres etc. As he was leaning down looking at the rear passenger tyre he heard a fast approaching screeching sound . Being well used to reacting to crashes on the bike he leaped back into the ditch . This leap saved his life as another car ploughed into the parked Peugeot that Geoff was driving and did enough damage to write it off . Two in one week .

But the story doesn’t end there .

On Thursday morning whilst out with training with Ray , Geoff  completed his power of three experience .  Just past the beehive on the Newcastle road the two lads were approaching a small bridge when on a slippery patch of road Geoffs’ bike went from under him . Itlaunched itself across the road and planted Geoff in the ditch . Luckily . Just then a car came around the bend and drove straight over Geoffs’ front wheel . Had it been the other way round it could have had fatal consequences . However he got up without a scratch and was back on the bike with a replacement wheel within half an hour .

Whether it was a cat with nine lives or bad  ( or possibly some very good ) luck running in threes Geoff surly had an experience of The power of three last week !

Barry

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