Nathan Evington

Nathan Evington
28/02/77 - 03/11/07

About Nathan


Nathan, was a big chap in more ways than one. He was always to be found at the centre of the action, telling it exactly as it was – loudly!

In fact, Nathan was in such a hurry to make his impact on the world, he arrived on a cold February morning 8 weeks early. He was so premature that he spent his first month in hospital, and at the time was one of the youngest babies in Hedon Road hospital to survive!

Cycling played a huge part in Nathan’s life. He loved the film American Flyers and watched it many times. In it, there is a scene where the main character does the "torture test" which involved running on a treadmill for as long as possible before ending the test by hitting the "chicken" switch. After Nathan’s diagnosis of cardiomyopathy in 2004, he was actually quite excited to discover that he would be required to do his own "torture test" and spent a good deal of time psyching himself up for a good performance. In fact, he was so determined that it was ultimately the doctor, his Mum and the technician who had to drag him off, as Nathan refused to give in himself.

Cycling also revealed Nathan’s talent for remembering facts and figures. He was our very own walking cycling encyclopaedia. He loved to test his friends and show off his knowledge, and he was always the person you would want on your pub quiz team.

Nathan was determined to live life to the full, and unbeknown to his Mum he began playing in a football team a few years ago. The cat was out of the bag when a new football trophy took pride of place on the mantelpiece one evening. Nathan was very proud of himself and his team-mates, although I am reliably informed that Nathan was valued more for his enthusiastic participation, rather than his football talents – which led to his shots on goal just missing the target – 100% of the time!

Nathan was the life and soul of any party and loved to dance. He would always take to the dance floor first, and was quite happy to dance alone. However, his infectious enthusiasm always encouraged others to join him.

Nathan was a kind man, and always generous to a fault – on the benefit of his Mum and brother. He had a very special sense of humour – one he shared with his brother – and left his mark on everyone he met.


Sunday, 18 May 2008

Aberdeenshire's bad enough...

Two rides for me this week - didn't get to commute to work 'cos I was out at various sites this week.

So, I sneaked out on Friday morning for the first ride. Only had a couple of hours so I thought for a test I'd do an unofficial 25 mile time trial on the relatively flat South Deeside Road. I checked out the course profile - it's similar to that of the Driffield 25, with just one kick about half way down the out leg. Weather conditions were good - time was 1:11:54, ave 20.8. Was pretty pleased with this considering this was with no time-trial-esque prep; no tri-bars etc... Spent an 1:05:00 with my pulse above 165. It should have been the whole distance but I got a touch of cramp in the left buttock about 18 miles in...

Today I tried to find a hillier version of last week's ride. Managed to find another 500' of climbs which made it tougher going. Nothing quite Alpine standards though! Route profile below:

7 main climbs today - 5800' total (1770m). The steepest of them was climb 3, which averages 7.5% for 1 mile - same length as Nunburnholme but slightly less steep. The highest climb (the sixth of the day) was about 600' of climbing over 3 miles, which is a decent length for having to get into a proper climbing rythmn, but I think only works out at ~3.5% gradient, so is nowhere near as steep as even the shallowest climb we'll face in August.

Season firsts for the week include:
* doing a time trial (albeit an unofficial one with only me competing...),
* Being an English numpty and forgetting that the Aberdeen Summer started and finished last week - so having gone out in shorts and without a water-proof I got rained and hailstoned on from the start of climb 2 to the end of the third descent...

The temperature barely broke double figures all day here today, and a stiff northerly wind helped keep the average down; this and the fact that I didn't take enough calories on and ran out of steam after the last big climb, so when I should have been flying along I was instead crawling and waiting for the GO gels to kick in... Despite this... 72 miles were covered at an average of 17.4mph. Not a bad day's "work!"

Probably a slack weekend next week 'cos I'll either have a champange hang-over or a whiskey depending on how the Tiger's fair on Saturaday...

More from beyond 'up North' next week. Cheers. Col.
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