A Day Where Idiots Get Wet?

I stood looking out of the window at the drizzle and trees blowing horizontal, not a gentle autumnal sway but blown at worrying angles, as if there is rope tied to the end of each branch trying to pull the entire tree from its roots hastily in a northerly direction.
Procrastination coupled with a hint of laziness means the end of my 5-hour endurance ride will be cutting it fine with the sun setting. Kit is on, food and drink prepared, all that is left is shoes and overshoes. Overshoes, simple yet fantastic bit of kit. I own numerous pairs varying from socks with untidy cut-outs for the cleats, to a fancy fluro yellow neoprene number, as well as an old windproof pair with faded logos of a previous team. Today is not the day for any of those, today is when those lacking the dedication opt for a day off, a day when only the true cyclists are out getting battered by the elements, cold, wet, tired, if it ain’t raining, you ain’t training. True warriors upon their wheeled steeds ready to do battle with mother nature herself, a truly noble endeavour, but not even the bravest of Lycra clad knights want wet feet, so I opted for a pair of Velotoze overshoes, only comparable to a swimming cap for your feet. I put my leg warmers over the top of the overshoes so that the rubber is against my skin. This way the water cannot soak down the leg warmer and into the sock, the undoing of many a quality overshoe. You can have the best overshoe in the world but if the water is coming in via your tights you will get cold and wet feet!
Usually the hardest battle of the day is starting the ride, but even on the grimmest of days, if the ride is going to be wet, the hardest of battles is with the Velotoze themselves. I have heard horror stories of torn muscles and strained biceps while attempting to put these on. Is having warm feet really worth the torture, risk of injury and the humiliation of attempting to put these on in front of other people?
After some light air boxing and pacing up and down to Eye of The Tiger, I sat myself down, mentally prepared to face the rubbery foe. An intense battle ensued with my parents sipping tea asking how can it take so long to get ready to ride, my dad repeating the quote I have heard far too often, “it is like getting a ship ready for sea”. A long and intense battle ensued, with such intensity that only Quentin Tarantino would have been capable of creating the on-screen adaption.
With one overshoe on and secured, I took a breather before continuing the battle. The second overshoe put up less of a fight, probably because it just saw its partner vanquished, beaten into foot shaped submission, it put up so little of a fight that I managed to tear the material with my thumb, a feat of strength I didn’t know my arms could produce. You could say I won, but at what cost…….? Roughly £15. The Velotoze were now rendered useless, a gaping hole, a wound left for the elements to do their cold bidding. In a strange way, I felt devastated about my overshoe, a hated necessity to many winter rides. A strange sense of Stockholm Syndrome washed over me.
There I was, sat in disbelief, staring at my overshoe mangled and punctured out of shape. My next thought was to how cold and wet my feet were to be in about 30 minutes time. As the structures of my mental state begin to collapse, my parents continued sipping their tea oblivious to the surrounding trauma, they just don’t get it. I resided myself to my soaked sock fate and headed for the door, a day when champions are made…or idiots get wet!