Long after the legs have ceased to be jelly, the pursuiter’s cough has faded, and the forearms, bruised from leaning hard into the bars, have lost that mysterious pain, long after then the hurt of loss will burn deep in the Coglioni heart. Where did it all go wrong? Did we not exchange enough emails about pedals, saddle height, warm-up technique and power-to-speed conversion algorithms? Was Cookie just plain soft? Did Babel waste too much breath debating Madonna knows what with the pit crew? Was Bif to blame for enjoying the pain too much and forgetting to pedal as fast possible? Had O’Dirty left one too many questions unasked by not ascertaining the simple fact that cadence equals distance on these blasted spin machines? Did Spunker pull one too many faces? Or did the cycling gods desert us for the mere folly of riding bikes that go nowhere?

In the end faithful reader the agonising, the gutting, the pathetic fact is we fell 0.1 km short of what should have been an easy victory. Though this was compensated for somewhat by unexpectedly winning the prize as the most-fundraisingest team, it will take more than the $200 bar tab received as a prize to wash away the pain.

It all began a short fortnight earlier when Coglioni responded from various corners of IBM and beyond to put together a team of five to participate in the JDRF Spin to Cure Diabetes. Despite some attempts by the Dark Side to take advantage of Spunker junior’s imminent arrival and poach riders here and there we held firm to form a team comprising O’Dirty (DS and team captain), Babel, Bif, Cookie and Spunker.

We were all a little intimidated by the fundraising aspect but ably lead by O’Dirty we soon had our little thermometer bubbling up towards the $2000 target. In fact our illustrious leader did so well that he eventually rose to the top of the Perth leader board, no doubt dragged up by some of the wheels he passed along the way. (And I should note for readers following the JDRF link above that O’Dirty only slipped into second place when cheeky Condo from the Dark Side bumped himself into first place after the time limit had passed with a bit of gratuitous self-sponsorship.)

In between harrassing friends and colleagues for donations we debated tactics, researched pedal and cleat options and contemplated doing a spin session as preparation. Though that seemed like madness and dangerously close to cheating by training, we would come to rue our failure to organise it. I did manage a session on O’Dirty’s magneto-trainer, which only served to reinforce the obvious conclusion that eight minutes of eyeballs-out was going to hurt.

By the time race day arrived I was sick with adrenalin and had to head to the event early as I was no longer able to focus on work. Cookie was so excited he fell over coming down the hill from West Perth. The sight and sound that greeted us on arrival was not quite what I had expected, though in retrospect it probably should have been. Under a marquee huddled away from the wild weather in the Central Park atrium eight Keiser M3 spin bikes were arranged in a semi-circle on a small stage. On each bike a contestant from one of the teams in the first bracket was spinning away. Doof music was blairing out as a besuited DJ Bronia danced enthusiastically in a corner despite the hour and the greyness of the day. At the centre of the semi-circle a bemuscled spin-meister screached instructions at his captive audience of eight-minute bitches. It was really quite hard to work out just whose drinks had been spiked…

Some semblance of un-surreality returned when O’Dirty, Cookie, Spunker and Babel arrived. Having registered there was little to do except watch our hapless predecessors on the stage as they were harangued in turn by muscle-man and his female counterpart who can be best described with Winston Smith’s timeless phrase as “pneumatic”. Meanwhile Crash showed up to see what he would get for his donation, no doubt also hoping for Golden Goolies points as a reward for his support. He would be disappointed on at least one front…

At last it was time for the second bracket to start. Cookie was first up and we reminded him several times not to break the bike. He was soon toiling away head down, the loud music and noise from the crowd masking any complaints emanating from man or machine. By the time his eight minutes was up Cookie had left a small puddle of sweat on the floor in spite of the cold conditions. Having apparently produced enough power to run a small town for several days we were then shocked to find the machine claimed he’d only ridden 4.4 km.

Earnest discussions were entered into while Babel prepared for his ride during the three minutes allowed for changeover. We quickly came to the only conclusion that made any sense: power output was irrelevant and only cadence mattered when it came to racking up the kilometres. Word was quickly passed to Babel and we stood back nervously awaiting the outcome of our hastily revised strategy. On-stage Babel entered into earnest conversation with the pit crew as he pedaled away. I only found out after the event that Cookie had indeed busted the bike and no amount of fiddling with gear lever would get anything other than “1″ to appear on the display. Despite this distraction a healthy 5.2 km had been recorded.

Now it was my turn and no sooner had I mounted the strange contraption than I has hussled off to an idle machine on the other side of the stage. Ignorant of the problem Babel had encountered this left me flustered and confused by the display. Was it right that it went blank just before the start? Maybe it wasn’t even on? Just then the spin-meister walked past and advised me start on about 10, a crucial prod to my ego as during the brief warm-up I’d found 11 or 12 felt about right.

Then we were off, and I was soon busy negotiating the transition from sprint start to steady hard effort. I fiddled with the gear lever and found it difficult to settle on a level as 10 felt too easy, 12 perhaps a touch too hard and 11 elusive. Now I was transfixed by the sound of air rushing out of my mouth as I transpired with improbable efficiency, and the world closed in around me, numbing the spin-meister’s cries and the roar of crowd and music to white noise. I was forgetting the conclusion we’d come to and the crucial instructions passed to Babel at the last minute. Meanwhile the power figures had me hypnotised - steady at 350 watts seemed damned impressive but could I keep it up? You see how badly I fell for the devil’s fruit… Well in my defence, it should be hard, shouldn’t it?

After a while Babel came by and told me Cookie had observed that the lady next to me, who appeared to be on a downhill ride through the park on a Sunday afternoon, legs spinning with effortless elegance, was in fact not next to me but a few hundred metres up the road. This time ego came to my rescue and snapped me out of my power fixation, but it was too little too late. The eight minutes ended strangely quickly, while paradoxically the last two minutes dragged on forever. My pit crew had given me hope at some point by telling me 5.0 km would be enough to put us in the lead and while that had seemed attainable I fell short by a prophetic 0.1 km.

O’Dirty was up next and for reasons unknown was back on the bike used by Cookie and Babel. Not surprisingly I remember little of his suffering as I was too busy recovering from my own. But the numbers tell the story and he rode a captain’s ride, leading the way just as he had done with the fundraising, stopping the odometer at 5.3 km. This turned out to be the equal second-best effort in Perth.

Spunker was our anchorman simply because with Spunker Junior’s arrival imminent it seemed best to keep the last spot open for Cookie to double up if required. As it turned out Spunker’s mind was clearly on the impending birth and he ran through a gallery of contraction expressions for the rapt crowd. The spin-mistress was in charge again and his nickname obviously tickled her (typing carefully here) fancy as she called out personal encouragement several times. This was enough to distract the young chap from his paternal duties and spur him on to a fine total of 5.2 km.

But in the end it was not enough. The self-styled “spin kings” racked up 25.1 km without raising a sweat and we were left to ponder our mistakes. But all was not lost. While we were surprise losers in the style stakes for “best-dressed” we equally surprisingly took out the award for highest fundraisers and the excellent prize that went with it. And this despite The Doctor apparently making a donation to the wrong IBM team.

Be warned dear reader that while serious high-cadence training is still a way off, research has already begun for our 2010 campaign…