“I used to ride bicycles” lamented a wistful octogenarian braced heavily by a walking stick.  She was regarding our modern mountain bikes with a combination of confusion and regret as we pulled them from their parking spots.

With already 30km ridden and 900 metres climbed, neither Steve nor I could pass for “young bucks”*,  as lunch stiffened middle aged hips graunchily articulated over dropped saddles.

The difference though – defined by the age gap – is the size of your world. Shrinking rapidly as physical and mental facilities decline;  many more memory outposts than new places to discover.  Earlier that day we’d congratulated ourselves on sacking off screens on the inside for a vibrant landscape of ripening spring lushness.  There’s a quote about a life being more about decisions you’ve made over the things you’ve achieved, and right then I hoped that old lady didn’t regret any of hers.

We certainly weren’t troubled by any feeling of self doubt. Which was a change after my first new bike ride back in the valley had not been incident free. When a rock strike decapitated a tubeless valve before its trajectory zeroed in on the mech-of-future-financial-peril.

Which spent the remainder of the ride so heavily concussed it was reduced to delivering gear ratios apparently bracketed by the Fibonacci sequence. It took a broken multi tool, a read of the manual and significant occupational therapy, in the safety of Matt’s garage, to return it to working operation. Apparently at least half of the issue could absolutely be placed sulkily at the door of the idiot who originally installed it. A door that shall remain closed and we shall not speak of it again.

Back in my shed, the £100 Invisiframe kit was very much firing the starting gun for an expensive divorce, but Carol is so much better at doing shit she doesn’t want to than, erm, someone else. As ever her work ethic and low tolerance for poor results played the lead role in four hours of my life we’ll never get back. My role was more that of occasional useful idiot. Still with frame protection and mudguard fitted, I no longer felt I was playing outside without any trousers.

Not a moment too soon as rock strikes were a recurring feature of our wildly ambitious plan to ride from deep in the Yat, over a big hill marked “The Kymin” round what is considered a decent all day loop, before climbing back over another big hill in time for tea and medals.

Firstly tho a lovely meander along the Wye riverbank into Monmouth. Apparently it’s rained but the dusty dirt suggests otherwise.  Up over the Kymin which is always the kind of climb that 32-51 gear ratios are made for, before a blast down “Mini Molini” which was steep, crumbly dry and dispatched with nary a dab. An excellent start to the day and already nearly 400m of pointy bits bagged.

Bluebells and garlic are in bloom. Not quite fully awesome yet, but enough to stir the soul and gladden the heart 😉 Really tho, experiencing the visual and olfaction Forest in spring marks the unofficial start of prime riding season. Every year it makes me so bloody glad I don’t live in a city.

Riding the main loop out to Tintern we were confident in our navigational abilities as we’ve both ridden it many times**. Confidence not so much misplaced as properly lost without a phone signal and potentially in need of a helicopter rescue. Reframing our directional confusion as new route finding, we did stumble upon a cracking descent with a view of the Severn provided entirely by the high level of exposure.

Back on track, two descents between us and a late lunch. Winter storms have channelled deep grooves and surfaced loose rock on both. One of which saw me fail to exit behind Steve instead slamming my “good” shoulder into, what can only be described as, a trench. Feel the force Luke. I certainly bloody did with that shoulder adding itself to my list of niggling injuries. Suggest it gets in the queue.

98% man, 2% sandstone. Smiling through the pain. Lunch was calling and were keen to answer its siren call.

Riding out of Tintern is where we came in. Criss crossing our inbound route is only a few kilometres away but plenty of climbing meters. Steve had set a target of 1500m total climbing which is frankly ridiculous. Anything over a thousand*** is considered a good day out, and in the last week I’ve already subjected my bitching legs to a 1225 and a 1300.

Hence the big hill on the way back. Up to our favourite Staunton haunts where a plethora of fantastic trails drop you back into the valley bottom. Need to get there first which involves a cheeky run down the Cleddon falls footpath. Late in the day and we meet no-one- it’s noticeably quiet a day before the Easter holidays so we easily secure a table at The Boat for a Recovery Pint.

Much needed as my legs are ready to walk off*** in disgust of potential further abuse. Other body parts aren’t far behind but 30 minutes of a non saddle sit, vitamin D and aforementioned complex carbs in liquid form and we’re good, well maybe average, to go.

It wasn’t that bad. I mean it wasn’t good and I’d been dreading the climb as it’s way too familiar. But thirty minutes later we ran out of hill with around 1350 climbed metres on the clock. Gruntingly gained, easily spent with a flat out run to the river which with a Beer-on-Board and happy new bike vibes being nothing short of fantastic.

Back over the bridge and in sight of rides end, a final dithering over much watched metrics had us winching up the steepest sodding climb on this side of the valley. 1500m was a climb too far, but we were only 50 short and that’s in my top 15 since doing the Strava thing back in 2013. Life in the old dog yet.

Upside of all that up was it opened up the last pitch of a favourite steep descent. You can probably see how relieved I was not to spin the body parts/ground roulette so close to the end of the ride.

58km, 1450m of climbing, mild abrasions and a stiff shoulder. These are the things we can measure. All the other stuff – the important stuff – we cannot and should not. That short lunchtime conversation has stayed with me. The regret of not being able to do something you love.  Pretty much felt like the luckiest fella alive after that.

Oh and the first pic. Still got it, I tell myself. Even if I can’t remember where I put it most of the time 🙂

*old fucks? A far more accurate description 🙂

**and, in my case, forgotten almost everything about it.

***Known as a “Clang”. As in “we have Clanged, can we now please go to the pub?”

****quite slowly, and probably not very far.

I know, those pedals. An absolute travesty suggesting punishment for such aesthetic criminality would involve a locked room plastered in Pantone colours with a terse sign explaining “there are colours and there are shades, learn the difference”.

Learning lessons is not one of my core strengths. As identified early in my academic career, a kind appraisal of ability was summarised thus: “slow but sure” as in slow to learn and sure to forget. This failing continues to manifest in ever more perplexing ways. Take for example the ShedOfDreams as of 11th April.

That snapshot of insanity has TWO bikes out of shot. One being another trail bike very similar to the all-types-of-green-machine in the foreground*. Had I forgotten, that in the thicket of bicycles, were a couple very much aligned in terms of geometry, suspension travel and intended use?

I had not. Nor can I  blame increasingly cerebral confusion** for this stacking of expensive trinkets in an increasingly crowded space.  I can however revert to type and blame someone else. That person is my old friend Olli who was part of a fantastic bunch of humans designing and building Gillette’s global wide area network back in the late 1990s. Pre-internet when plug and play was more incompatible junk and command line hacking.  Good times and good friends who’ve stayed so long after the project was done.

But mostly virtually. So when Olli pinged me over Christmas wondering if I fancied catching up in the real world for a ride, I was all over that like a cheap suit hatching plans for four days of epic UK riding once the seasons ratcheted from cold and wet to warm and dusty.

As with all plans I’m involved with, things escalated quickly. Ending with a reciprocal ride visiting Olli and his family.  Further escalation saw Carol and I embarking on a 1000 mile roadtrip across three countries.***

Meeting up at Olli’s place, we were introduced to his lovely family, and a box marked “Propain” that had the makings of a trail bike I’d been lusting after for many years. Brexit made that pretty much unaffordable, so I pivoted to a strategy best described as “some light smuggling“.  Again time to move on.

Building the bike I was initially confused by the elven sorcery that is electronic shifting. Honestly, I fully expected a pointy eared survivor of Helms Deep to pop out of the box incanting appropriate spells.  No such materialisation occurred- instead I was left with the thick wad of materials accompanying the bike. Obviously I ignored those and instead called in 2nd line support. Carol did an excellent job unfucking my ham fisted assembly attempts, and gently walked me away from the hammer. We were good to go.

Olli’s local trails are right behind his house. Sadly he lives shadow deep in the valley so it was a 300 metre climb to get us started. It didn’t stop me marvelling how light the new bike was, and how much fun was to be had randomly pressing non haptic pads and all sorts of mechanical stuff happening a metre away at the rear mech without a cable being involved.

First trail, cautious was the watchword. Rubbish would be another one. Way too much going on with new bike, new trails and Olli disappearing at quite the rapid rate. Regrouping at the fireroad, I had just enough breath left to wonder if this “blue” trail might be light red. Based on my ability to understand colour, probably not.

The trail network here is impressive. Superbly built and fantastically maintained by a community of like minded MTBers. We rode blues, red and blacks and I loved them all. Mostly tho not because of riding a new bike, more riding with an old mate under sunny skies. That never gets old.

There is even a restaurant at the top of the hill. Rammed at the weekends apparently, but mercifully quiet on a skive-y Wednesday. We headed back down the valley. on another superbly involving  trail, where my confidence in the new bike outstripped my ability and it was touch and go whether I’d  impact and stop, but somehow we wrestled things back under control.  Lesson learned? Probably not.

Heading back up the other side of the valley we crested the 1000m of climbing and kept going. Absolutely worth it for another banging trail before heading home for beer, medals and a burger about the size of my head.

Next day the clouds clamped chilly conditions to ground level. We headed out 30 mins to another ride location that – after some funky chicken warming up on exiting the van – had adrenaline shots lined up on every feature.  My legs weren’t keen but once we had gravity weighing in the backpacks, multi kilometre trails were hosting entirely inappropriate middle aged whooping.

That’s me rocking my standard “Hidden Badger, Naked Terror” stance. Bike was great tho. Different enough to the other ones to make me consider thinning out the herd some time this summer. There’s probably another 1000 words extolling the positives and ignoring the negatives of adding a copy of something I already have, but you’ve read that crap before. And it’s still the same bullshit.

Instead let’s talk about the value of friendships. The taking of chances. The grasping the nettle, the shunning of the ordinary. Sure riding bikes is always good, but renewing bonds stretched a little after 20 years was so much better. I only hope we can give Olli the same experience when he’s here in a couple of months.

That’s on us then. We have the trails, now making sacrifices to the weather gods.

Until then we’ll have good time memories. And a new bike. Not sure it gets much better than that.

*Can we move on from the pedals. It was a needs must situation which I very much regret especially after showcasing the new bike to the local ride crew. No quarter was given 🙂

**Really. Standing in front of things wondering what I’m doing there is now a daily occurrence.

***We had a whole bunch of fun. Shall be doing that again.