The Last Look…
Posted by Colin Lambert. Last updated: June 24, 2025
Something very different this week – charity, cycling and suffering!
Some of you will know that FX industry stalwart Al Crane is undertaking quite some challenge in riding the Tour de France route one week ahead of the race, he’s doing it for charity, details here, and we thought it would be fun, and worthy, to invest a little of The Full FX’s hard-earned in a challenge for Al, based around The Suffer Index.
For those of you that don’t know, Al support Spuds, I apologise, Spurs I think it is, and I don’t. This makes it tricky for a West Ham fan such as myself, because it has already been a tough few weeks thanks to his team winning a European trophy – frankly the last thing I need is my good friend triumphantly cycling around France and taking all the kudos for raising funds for a worthy cause.
However, through gritted teeth I admit, the cause is worth supporting, and as someone who loves watching pro cycling (but hasn’t ridden a bike for 20 years!), Al and I (well as with the riding, he’s done most of the work) have come up with a metric – the aforementioned Suffer Index (see below).
Let’s be blunt, I am not paying a Spurs fan to have a nice gentle ride around one of the most beautiful countries in the world, probably stopping for a Cappuccino and pastry along the way, I want to see pain! Therefore, we have agreed that on his nice pedal around the rolling hills of France I will begrudgingly pay him AUD 0.10 per suffer point. This includes, I might note, a ride up the Champs Élysées in the July sunshine – who gets paid for doing that???
My real interest comes in the mountains, where pain is a rider’s companion. There are five stages with a Suffer Score over 300, which sounds bad (in recent TdFs the first pro over the top has taken between 40 minutes and an hour to climb) and for those, I figure he has earned a bit more so (I want pictures BTW), we are backing him at AUD 1 per suffer point.
Hopefully, and I genuinely mean this, he will avoid rock faces (something with which he is sadly familiar), and, equally hopefully he completes what would be a truly great achievement. There is time, naturally, to still support him – might I suggest that Arsenal fans join me in focusing on the level of suffering, while fellow Spurs fans sponsor the “tourist rides” (or the rest days)? – using the link at the start of this column.
Normal service will resume for this column next week – last week promoted quite a response so we may have to revisit a few points made there, but in the meantime, good luck Al Crane!
