The Good Friday meeting at Herne Hill is more than a bike race, it's a gathering of the clans. My father raced there before the war, I raced there in the eighties -- I dragged my son along as soon as he could see over the perimeter fence.
There's something reassuringly traditional about the day -- the same faces, the same stalls, the same comissaires (I'm sure one or two of them rang a bell at my Dad and they were probably getting on a bit even then).
And the same mad optimism that leads British families to sit out gales and hailstones on Bank Holiday beaches around the country in the belief that "it'll clear up in a minute", also pervades SE24.
The forecast was for thunderous showers. The skies were lead grey and it had been raining for most of the morning, but still a good crowd turned up to watch the top quality international field. They stayed despite the disruption caused by the frequent soakings, and the clear fact that the weather was only going to get worse.
The pilots of the mighty Thunderbird motorpace bikes huddled disconsolately -- in their back-to-front leathers and ridiculous helmets -- sheltering from the rain in the shipping containers in the car-park, and one of them even tried a few tentative laps, supposedly to help dry the track but really just to keep the crowd amused.
I bumped into an old racing colleague who said the banking was like an ice-rink - he'd eased off coming off a turn and his back wheel had locked solid.
Eventually, even the most optimistic of us agreed to call it a day. As always, I went home with a motley collection of unnecessary cycling accessories -- yet another Campagnolo cap, five Continental innertubes and a set of MKS rat-traps for my son's fixed.
We'll be back next year. Pray for sun.
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