Month: January 2008

The Wizard of Ug.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road RidingLeave a comment

This morning, a wintery wolf stalked our house while trying to blow it down. On incautiously stepping outside into the gloom, I was immediately slammed back against the door, throwing a shape best described as “involuntary star jump“. A swiftly hosted internal meeting was won over by a strong claim, by my enlarged frightened gland, that a cheeky crosswind topping 30 knots was not ideal cycling weather.

Swapping barn keys for car keys confirmed this concern as a ton of grippy metal was tossed about in the manner of a frisky salad. The whole “pass me the red shoes and call me Dorothy” experience was ratcheted up beyond surreal when an expensive suit hiding a tiny brain opened up an umbrella. His instinctive – if largely suicidal – reaction to a squally rain shower instantly transported my imagination to tales of tornado collected Texan cows being windily transported to the next state.

Well, if this fella was lucky, he’d touch down somewhere in the next county. If not, Belgium.

Honestly, what next – the Von Trapp family aurally eulogising over the harmonics of some Nazi filled Austrian hills? Sadly this was a fable too far and the only sounds were those of second hand tinny iPods, plus the twig like snapping of New Year Resolutions.

Steeling myself for tornado alley – London Style – I mentally trimmed my sails and adjusted my helmet to a piratically jaunty angle. And for what? The result was anticlimactic in more ways that one. I wheeled out into what could, at the fibbing end of charity, be called a stiff breeze. This is just another reason why London is rubbish – it can’t even do bad weather properly.

It can do murder though. Those drivers living with the disappointment of not receiving that dead cyclist for Christmas, had stuck one as priority one on their New Year’s list. My boredom with commuting has begun to breed a dangerous mindset; so when some fucknugget ambles across three lanes – one of which I was legitimately using – I am about <---- far from just smashing right into him. Because - and I really do mean this - because it’d teach the knob-bracket a bloody good lesson.

And tonight a taxi indicated, using that orchestral favourite of horn arranged for vigorous hand gesture, that a cyclist’s proper position is – both socially and geographically – in the gutter. He tested his theory with a deadly side swipe which I avoided using weary commuting autopilot. But sufficiently vexed by his actions, a feeling of irritation occupied my mind for the mile and a half it took to catch up with him.

At which point, I politely requested his immediate attention with a brisk tap on the window. I followed that up with a spitting line of invective which, had it been anywhere close to a proper sentence, would have gone something like “No Dickweed, my proper position is in front of you flicking the finger just like this” “Oh and you’re a total C**T”

I’ve got to get out of this city before it kills me.

Dead Cars Society.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

I hate Autumn* because it brings with it a slow death to life and light. Three months of decay and dark aren’t even the worst part – that special place in my heart is reserved for the million car drivers who cherish the idea of a dead cyclist for Christmas.

And then we have the chronologically inaccurate “shortest day” or the slightly more caftan “Winter Solstice“. It brings with it a false dawn, which continues to creep into the day for a couple more weeks, and not much else.

Follow that up with a week long period of things unwanted; presents, relatives and marketing confused with sales. This is a once in a year opportunity to get both fatter and poorer while a recent Honours crony cackles – dragon like – on their hoard. Only smugger and with slightly more arrogance.

So they call this the festive season. And if giving is better than receiving, I’m bloody delighted to dispense with the whole arse of a thing for another year. And as giving segues into giving up, then we’re starting 2008 with slightly less cars.

As I’ve alluded to Autumn is traditionally a dying time. Dead leaves fall to the ground, dead cats get buried underground except for Schrodinger’s of course. That animal, in my considerable experience, is neither alive or dead – rather extremely pissed off and ready for a frenzied kill.

Anyway, it seems the positive karma of adding ever more new frames to Al’s pantheon of benign insanity, has had a negative effect on other household transport. Specifically Carol’s car which, after ten years of constant abuse, has finally succumbed in a mechanically mirrored biorhythm of the long stiff mog. Small stuff started to go wrong before, one day, it emitted neither light nor sound regardless of the brutal electric shock treatment of the jump leads.

Anyway it’s suffered enough so we’re going to put it out of its’ misery and, until we’re safely back from New Zealand, we’ll be doing with just the one. This means more testicle shrivelling commuting for me, which is absolutely fine as it is about time I rediscovered my “Inner Notherner“. I’ve been far to nice to people lately, and I’m worried this may have set false expectations.

But come March, our new car buying strategy will be based on a continuing sexual innuendo purchasing approach. After the Wanga, we have a Jazz. Great little car, and I’ve already asked Carol if she would like a big pink one. Although the metaphor breaks down – a little – once I’d enquired if it’d take six inches of bulging frame in the rear.

* Yes I know it is officially winter. What of it? Accuracy is hardly the bedrock of the hedgehog is it? I’ve been cogitating. As in old-cogitating.

I’m sure I recognise that bike.

On By PhotoIn Other stuffLeave a comment
Swinley Jan 08 (7 of 7), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Up the road is an odd institution where you can rent a dog for day. Let me quickly clarify this, it is for the specific purpose of walking it rather than any illicit acts with a hair trimmer, gaffa tape and a vacuum cleaner.

That’s a premium service which costs considerably more, especially if you’ve had previous history with the centre’s hamsters.

Anyway my friend Jason, who has admitted to hardly any acts of bestiality (but he is from New Zealand and – come on – it’s like a Welsh leisure centre out there), fancied a go with the a Prince Albert (I had to look that up – honestly – why would you want to to be pierced there?)*

The DMR is already being abused somewhere in Oxford by a mate who had all the skills but none of the bike. A bit Ying and Yang when you consider my multi-wheeled collection. However, this was a short-term one ride loan which clearly gave Jason license to thrash it in a way I found quite perturbing.

“I must ride it like that” I lied as he cleared off at a rate of knots not significantly distanced from bloody quick. Me and Roger gave chase and – because I’d craftily removed the granny ring (don’t just don’t okay) from his gear selection options – we caught him when the trails turned to “arrrghh that hurts”

And since Nigel managed to retain close formation with his pedals this time and the sun was shining, we shredded some warm mud for a short while before attacking lunch with significantly more fervour. Bits of the trails were still frozen, a significant chunk were giving us a big wet brown experience (I just can’t stop myself now), but there was still enough shoulder-dropping carvage to bring far more smiles that the mere miles would suggest. One second we’d be doing a middle aged housing conversation, before dropping it like a Premier League manager and getting on with the real stuff of life. If it’s this fantastic in winter, how bloody great is it going to be once it dries out?

I’ll never tire or riding bikes even when a short winter’s day is gone between prep-ing, driving, faffing, riding, cake-ing, driving, cleaning, beering. I may, at some point, tire of writing about it for which I’m sure you’d all be immensely grateful.

* Crossing your legs and eyes at this point is an entirely appropriate response. I cannot imagine the horror of Airport Security once you’ve decided spearing your cock might me an amusing way to spend a couple of hours.

I was just riding along…

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography1 Comment
Afan Dec 2007 (1 of 7), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

..considerably slower than Andy. By the time I had arrived at the scene, the narrative of the crash had already moved on from slip-oh shit-wheel-rock-abandon ship-roll-check body parts-examine bike-buggeration. Having groaned up the Whytes Level climb on a mission for a long winters ride, Andy whooped off into the twisties, found the exact lack of traction provided by forest mud and rammed his front wheel sideways into a pointy rock. And himself down the trail, his sky-ground-sky journey punctuated by stumps and groans.

It seems impossible that we could beat our awesome effort of last year. And yet, here we were a nats nadger from 2008 – having driven 170 dark and windy miles – and five minutes into the first descent, we’re a man down. And down he went as well, carrying what I came to quickly think of as “the remains” thousands of vertical feet that deliver significantly more fun by wheel. Obviously given the choice between supporting our slightly battered friend in a band of brothers we’re all in this together style, or dismissing him with a sketchy wave and a “see ya later“, we gave him all the rush that a bum would offer an annoying, overstaying in-law.

And, of course – aside from the muddy misery of a new section which appears to have been designed specifically to suck the enjoyment from riding – we had a rather wonderful time as Andy trudged back downhill muttering choice curses to the bitch Godess of Mountain Biking. My fellow splitter – Nigel – was riding like the wind, flowing with irritating ease through bends and over jumps. I was more riding with the kind of wind that only a dietary switch to bran products could ease. This – annexed to a lame excuse of flat pedals only occasionally troubled by cold feet – was the only reason I was languishing some days behind after each section.

But while Nig was admiring the scenery and possibly engaging in a spot of sheep worrying, I was having enormous fun being bullied by a long travel hardtail that eats this sort of terrain for breakfast, and then demands seconds and thirds way after your body is crying out for a post lunch power nap. After a day of this, my shoulders ached, my wrists exhibited a weakness possibly occasioned by a 24 hour wanking competition, my thighs burned, I had a bad case of hardtail arse and my neck couldn’t even manage a truncated nod to articulation.

Even my teeth hurt. And I was walking like an old man having recently been surprised by a very large horse. Still after salving my wounds with beer and my ego with thoughts of being a bit less rubbish, a rush round Cwmcarn broke our long journey home. As Andy sat forlornly in the car, Nig ripped up the climb while I merely tore a strip off my legs for hawking their energy. Downhill they clung on like the rest of me as eyeballs, roughed up by fast, rocky trails, were added to the list of hurty bits.

Between many incidents of just about failing to crash, there was much imagined railing of singletrack and more real world death-gripping of bars. Occasionally I’d see Nigel sweeping imperiously down the trail, but each time I’d convinced myself I may be reeling him in, he’d dance on the pedals and his lighter-than-air Titanium steed would bunch and then accelerate at a speed barely under escape velocity.

And then a tiredness that can only be partially explained by physical exertion rolls over you, and left me lolling in a chair when I should have been making up for abandoning the family. There is a hollowness that aches to be back out there on the trails, punching the bike into a turn and feeling the tyres bite as centripetal force flings you out the other side. You have to come back, to adjust to the mundane world of not riding, to banish the selfishness of being an obsessive cyclist. And that’s hard.

That said, you can reflect on some wonderful views when you’re not absolutely sure what’s coming next. Sadly most of them are inside your head – a collage of possible futures each of them spiked with that heady concoction of fear and joy.

Perspective is the thing I guess, so on that note I’ll wish all the readers of this continuing nonsense a Happy New Year.

No Years Resolutions.

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

What’s different about one day in the year? If you’d wanted to give up smoking, then the morning after a Marlboro mainlining session would have suggested itself as the ideal time. Same for alcohol, chocolate, goat molestation and Internet obsessions. In fact, a proper bender involving all of these sins could trigger a monk like abstinence of the whole bloody shebang.

And yet it it’ll all be radically free salads and pointless Gym membership for, oh, about a week before paper resolutions are crisped by the fiery power of anti-commitment.

This year – as for every year since I stopped kidding myself I was going to play on the wing for England – I’m promising nothing but to laugh at other people failing.

So my non resolutions include:

1. I am not joining a Gym.*
2. I am not going to ride every day.
3. I am not giving up alcohol.
4. In fact, I am not giving up anything that I enjoy doing.
5. In terms of avoiding needling people, puncturing pomposity, refusing to accept dumb rules and lampooning anything regardless of correctness, political or otherwise – see 4:

Like anyone with more ambition than a spoon, there are many things I’d love to do as I rumble into my fifth decade. But writing it all down and sticking it on a wall, so come this time next year it can mock me with its’ complete not doneness? That way lies madness or at least a very depressing end to 2008.

I’m as goal focussed as the next man, woman or hedgehog. But I’m a bit more tactical so while some of you will be planning great things, I shall go in search of another drink.

So come on then, what have you promised yourself?

* Any organisation that has a business model which assumes 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of it’s customers won’t turn up has my admiration. But not my money.

One speed, many problems

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding6 Comments

Stalking the netherworld is an immortal two wheeled beast. This mythical bicycle has crushed a million pedal revolutions, pushed back borders through seasonal campaigns and tramped thousands of miles with nary a mechanical glitch. And where the fabric of reality is thin, causality dictates that this phantom shade must take a form in the physical world.

Stripped of everything useful, pared back to minimalist engineering and unleashed on a unwitting global audience through the shadowy power of marketing, this free rolling allegory has a label, a name triumphantly proclaimed whenever muddy mountain bikers meet. It’s called a Singlespeed but beware innocent readers – it should be thought of as one gear but with many, many problems.

And back in the real world. the Wanga has just been on the receiving end of two hours maintenance and some blubbing. The paint has either fallen off or been defaced by some interesting looking hieroglyphics scarred in by muddy shorts or – because the paint is basically anorexic – passing shrubbery. The rear wheel has a bend like a boxer’s nose and the entire bike is guilty of removing a ton of Chiltern topsoil without permission.

All this after just one ride.

But what a ride it was. Even before we started the assembledge of unridden frame and manflu’d rider took on multiple whining personalities. Firstly the build flung together new brakes, juddery wheel and a chain line best described as “ah fuck it, close enough” – all of this under the influence of a holistic building approach that favours hammers over patience. Next up the rider has barely slept for three days and eaten even less frequently. The stomach bug that was going round has more gone through and out both ends. Banging at the door and demanding satisfaction were trail conditions, that have gone from hard to soft faster than an octogenarian deprived of his Viagra.

Trapped in this searchlight of disasters, it should be no surprise that barely ten minutes had passed before it all began to go wrong. The first climb exposed my mechanical incompetence as the complex rear dropout arrangement drove the rear wheel into the seatstay. On the downside, this meant hopping off, inverting the bike and struggling with allen keys of multiple width to put it back on the straight and narrow. On the upside, this was good practice for the subsequent five times the problem surfaced.

So as the bike took on a teenage personality and refused to leave its’ room, the rest of the riding package modulated on an empathetic wavelength, as snot streamed earthwards and lungs refused to fire. The mud was also becoming a little perturbing as a thaw injected previously frozen trails with a stash of trapped water. Riding downhill became a Hobson’s choice of two options; either pedal in the manner of modern waterwheel or, fall off.

It was at this grim point when I received a puncture from the Gods of Fate. Who are known for hating singlespeeders mainly on the grounds of their inane smugness. And while I have some time for that in general times, it seemed a little harsh to poke holes in both of my tyres at the same time. Bastards.

On the fourth attempt to make the rear wheel point in the same direction as the front, I couldn’t help noticing a rain of paint by torchlight. So while I was initially worried about losing paint on the chainstay, this was soon alleviated by huge swathes of previously glossy frame covering splitting with the host personality. I’m assuming this is a California thing, where paint is thinly added by a small child only recently graduated from colouring in stick men.

It really felt as if I was riding with multiple personalities – all of them pissed off at being dragged out on such a grim evening. Pulling them all through the gloop was a trial to be honest and as the mud turned tyres to slicks, my thoughts turned to summer. Or Prozac because one of the two was going to need to be on hand before I tried this again.

I expect you may have become conditioned, at this point, for me to extol the joy of conquering adversity. The sheer pride in getting through a ride like this, the banked karma of riding when it’s shit, and the joy is just getting out and riding whenever you can. But it wasn’t like that at all – it was just bloody awful and undeniably crap.

This morning picked over the remains. Last time I saw so many chips it had a fish served with them. I could cover it with tape but I’d end up insulating the entire bike. The whole idea of singlespeeds is that they are supposed to work in all conditions, with not so much as a spanner wielded. And that, by travelling through such conditions, the general patina will be that of extremely shonky.

As Meatloaf nearly said, one out of two ain’t bad.