Author: Alex

Good Lord, a post!

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

Hello and welcome back. As you’d expect after a fantastic weekend weatherwise, the hedgehog is going to reverberate to the sound of photo inspired ego bumping. Here are three to be going along with.

The first shows Jason in Brechfa forest deep in the middle of Wales. A fun trail if loose enough in its top surface to engender a similar looseness in the bowel regions.

The second is at Afan (near Port Talbot) showing firstly the wind farm and secondly a stationary bike that pretty much matched my average over the weekend. More of my mincing later.

Finally, one of Andy playing silly buggers when he’s old enough to know better. I was going to have a go only to find the sun was incorrectly aligned with Venus. Bugger πŸ˜‰

If you’ve really nothing to do, lots more will be posted in here including two shots of me entitled “my life as a dwarf” and “What are you doing with that can of Stella?“.

Worth waiting for I’m sure you’ll agree. But wait you will as work I must πŸ˜‰

That’s what the world needs…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

… more pink bikes. I can see my kids riding these in a few years time. The first is a good effort especially the tassels which, I’m sure you’ll agree, add a certain class.

Now that's pink!

This however is properly done, any pinker and it’d be offered as an official barbie accessory.

And that is even pinker!

Stolen from this thread on SingletrackWorld.

For a couple of seconds last week, I was possibly taking myself too seriously. Normal service is resumed. When I get a minute, I’ve a fascinating theory to share with you regarding the best way to wee into a compost bin.

Do you have a few days to spare?

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

If so, I can recommend Tower Defense which will happily suck around a week from your life assuming you don’t have an addictive personality. Otherwise write off the rest of the year. It’s deceptively simple, but really quite fiendishly hard once you skip the easy level.
From Hand Drawn Games

Build a maze to slow down the “creeps” so you can blast them with your heavy ordinance. The tactics are around maze building, consolidated or distributed armament, placement of air towers and priority of upgrade. I played it about ten times at which point it tripped my talent/boredom threshold. My wife, however, is gunning for the top of the leader board.

Originally recommended by notorious crank breaker Jon over at Samuri who, as an IT geek like myself, has probably already reprogrammed his company firewalls to stop employees wasting their time. But as everyone knows, special access privileges come with network administration. Honestly, it’s the least someone doing that job deserves!

Spam

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Site Stuff4 Comments

In a period of less than four days, 534 different spam sites have attempted to prosecute their – frankly – shady products on the hedgehog, and all those who read her. For any of those with both chromosomes, around 532 would not have been of any interest whatsoever unless your beloved has requested a penis extension for his birthday. Of the other two, one offered a low rate interest loan from the bank of bqrwwallsiizx.com and the second promised that with just a single click, high resolution photos of Britney Spears would be available to me. “In every position you can imagine and some you can’t” allegedly and I’m quoting verbatim here.

You would clearly have to have the brainpower of a special needs haddock to even consider clicking on one of those links, and yet some people must because Spam’s random, scattergun approach is apparently successful. However, it firms up a couple of lingering suspicions I’ve had; 1/ It takes all sorts and 2/the web is primarily an electronic wank factory.

I feel quite proud to prod its’ vice ridden underbody with the occasional spike of the hedgehog. And yet, looking back over eighteen months, it appears I am not entirely blameless in some glorious stereotyping and ill considered abuse. A brief scan of 300 odd posts informs that the following groups have been lampooned, sent up, randomly abused or held up for a brief baseless examination before being dropped for something more interesting.

Countries and their people; London and Londoners, the Welsh, the Scottish, the Irish, Belgium (a staggering 7 times), the French, the Germans and almost every other major European superstate. I believe Macedonia has so far escaped any ill considered angst but there is plenty of time. To prove I’m not merely a jingoistic anglophile, I’ve also taken the piss out of Australia and America a few times as well. And there is a special mention for Milton Keynes. Someone had to.

Vocations and Hobbies; Policemen, pretend policemen, politicians, doctors, washing machine manufacturers, call centres (to the power of irritated), traffic wardens, security guards (hmm a pattern emerges), airlines, car dealers, cricket, football, rugby, folding bicycles, normal bicycles, road biking, mountain biking, bowling, golf and darts.

General piss taking stereotypes; The Young. The Old. The Middle Aged. Women. Men. People who can’t decide which they are. Professional sportsmen and women. High earners. Low earners. Family types. Singles. Pensioners. DIY’rs. Road Cyclists. Track Cyclists. Mountain bikers. My friends. Me.

Special one off “I’ll get you Butler” category; Chiltern Railways.

And that’s just a happy subset. So far this catalogue of angst has properly pissed off a total of two people. The first was a post that made me laugh but was – on reflection – a little more cutting than intended. The second resulted in me pulling an entry which I’ve never done before and I’m unlikely to do again. And that’s all you’re getting on that one.

It made me think about words tho. Not the shit I write, but the real craftsmen and women who forge masterpieces on the anvil of a million words. Wordsmiths if you like; writers who use the same nouns, adjectives and verbs as the rest of us but craft them in such a way that shock, cheer, illuminate or illustrate. What they also have in common is raising such a strong emotional reaction, it leaves you wondering if you shouldn’t just stick to addressing letters.

For me, it’s Simon Barnes on sport, Joe Simpson on mountains, Stephen Ambrose on War and then Dickens, Huxley, Salinger and Laurie Lee painting landscapes in your head and peopling them with astonishing characters. I quite like Dick Francis too πŸ™‚ It’ll be different for you and quite right too although am I the only one that cannot get on with Shakespeare? It’s not the stories I have a problem with; it’s every time he was struggling to think of a word, he just made one up. I’ve been tirelessly campaigning to have “Moonscuttle” and “Gruntled” added to the OED but have been serially and snootily fobbed off.

So, for a moment of pretentious gazing of a hairy naval, I wondered about pickling the hedgehog once and for all and sending the old fella, with my best wishes, to a warm electronic burrow in the sky.

We’ll see.

April Fools…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding1 Comment

… the lot of us for believing barely past winters icy clutch, dry trails would abound, and the forests of the North Downs would reverberate the to the whoop, holler and occasional cry of pain from a happy mountain biker.

Here’s a spoof photo. You see, I can tell you that is from last Sunday but I know you won’t believe me.

I don’t have any decent ones to show you as that would tax my photoshop skills. Other lies include we traversed the ridgy Surrey Hills this way and that, diving off onto bar wide, secret singletrack and riding old favourites such as “barry knows best” and “telegraph road“. We were occasionally lost, mostly warm, adequately replete after a major raid on the Peaslake stores, and appropriatly refreshed after Marty supplied some post ride beer from the depths of Daisy the camper van.

In terms of lies, damn lies and statistics, the route was around twenty miles, ridden in a relaxed four hours with much stopping for a brief chat or a rather longer lie down, having breathlessly bested some of the tougher climbs. Marty brought his girlfriend along for only her second MTB ride, provided her with a heavy bike that was two sizes to big and swiftly introduced the concepts of terrifying bombholes about 20 seconds into the ride.

Amazingly she didn’t kill him afterwards but only because she was too tired. Fantastic effort tho and put some of us rather more experienced riders to shame. If I may, for one moment, remove my prism of cynicism, it is great to see someone else starting in the sport and seemingly getting the tiniest bit hooked.

It was all too good to last of course. The “sore throat of annoyance” upped the viral ante last night and now I have some kind of unspecified but quite miserable lurgey. And a sore throat πŸ˜‰

Perfect preparation for four days riding this weekend. Still it’s good to get the excuses banked early.

Happy Easter

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

An early Easter Bunny photo with a difference.

Happy Easter

Stolen from my friend Stu on the grounds that it is childish and a little bit naughty. So ideal food for the hedgehog then.

I’d just like to add, I don’t believe I have strayed onto the wrong side of the law this morning unless shouting at the kids and kicking the cat counts.

Smooth Criminal

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road Riding4 Comments

It is a bit of a stretch to pass yourself as a member of the hardened criminal classes if you are hurtling towards middle age, wear a suit to work and rarely dismember associates with an iron bar. Unless you’re a lawyer which, in the strangest of ironies, is practically a vocational criminal offense and yet provides the legal means to defend your colleagues. No wonder it’s known as being called to the bar.

But this morning, I too have stepped across the slippery line to become a law breaker. My route out of the station is a cheeky pavement sprint in the wrong direction on a short one way street. Blinking out stinging rain, my vision was filled by two yellow jacketed, importantly hatted members of the pretend police meaningfully pointing an arresting arm in my direction.

Please stop Sir, you’re in breach of the highway code the large, rotund one intoned in a voice clearly trained to strike fear into the heart of aforementioned desperate criminals. And please vacate you bicycle as well shouted the second slightly smaller but no less self important upgraded traffic warden.

Well dear readers, I did as anyone with a social conscience would β€œ I took a hard look at the consequences of my illegality and, after just a moments pause, put the hammer down and scarpered.

I was amazed, on glancing rearwards, to find them giving chase. Suddenly my charge sheet was reading assault with a light battery, followed by the involuntary homocide of two fat policeman, and further lengthened by leaving the scene of an accident (there was going to be one in a minute). At this rate I was looking at incarceration for almost, well, the rest of my life and Panorama would be running sobering documentaries in years to come on the Stone 1

Slightly less amazing was their swift realisation that two fat policemen are significantly slower than one desperate rider screaming You’ll never take me alive copper over his shoulder. The lights changed and I charged over the Marylebone Road in the style of a Thelma and Louse cliff side plunge.

And just to prove that I have now entered the seedy world of the habitual criminal, my status as Rebel Without A Decent Haircut was confirmed with a lawless shimmy past the startled security bloke guarding the firms’ car park entrance. I shot him with a nasty grin that may have lost some effect as I rapidly had to come to terms with an illegally parked van abandoned on my line.

Honestly, some people just think that the law doesn’t apply to them. Stringing ˜em up is all they understand with their terrorist traffic violations.

Hypocrisy is the new tolerance for 2007 β€œ you heard it here first.

POST EDIT: Ah I was going to write something on why I really can’t take pretend police seriously only to find I already had!

Look outside – it’s not dark :)

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff2 Comments

This winter, I have mainly been method acting “Lithuanian Lesbian” when faced with any of the following – Dark, Cold, Wet, Injury or Apathy. Last year, the joy of spring was almost unconfined as after five months of misery, warm light evenings were a welcome reward for slogging through a globally unwarmed season. I was fit, fast and generally miserable whereas this year I’ve ensued the first two and instead spent many dark hours channeling just the latter.

But having given myself a stern talking too, my lethargy is at an end and, assuming that my bikes don’t degrade into swarf or great floods don’t start a run on build-your-own-arks, I shall be making up for lost time, lost fitness and – in the case of mountain biking – lost smiles. It would be fantastic to add lost beers to that list but frankly these past few months have introduced hops and barley as a staple diet. Although properly balanced with chocolate and milkshakes so that’s most of the nutritional bases covered.

So taking Spring at it’s word, I uncoiled from a warm bed this morning to be immediately tested with freezing fog and a light drizzle. And regardless of the clock of lies, my body was sulkily explaining it was really 5:45am. I bypassed an instinctive grab for the car keys and clipped into unfamiliar pedals so annoying my semi sleeping form even more. Instead of the motorised route hard wired into cossetted muscles, I headed out in the opposite direction to a station alternate that offered more trains and – more importantly – a far superior coffee shop.

Three things immediately occured to me me – firstly I didn’t know what time the train went, secondly the current time was hidden under three layers of fuckmeitscold layers and finally the distance was nothing more than a vague memory. Visibility of thirty feet or less hardly helped as cold lungs bitched about the yomping pace demanded by an anxious brain. But the five and a half miles were dispatched in a chilly sixteen minutes, which expanded past twenty as unfamiliar cycle facilities befuddled my sleepy and un-caffeined self.

But time was well on my side and clutching a rather lovely large Latte and pristine newspaper, I strode righteously onto the platform agog at unfamiliar commuters and the odd hated folder. Still they hardly slowed the train down when dispatched onto the line with nothing more than an evil grin and muttered “get a proper bike, you trouser clipped gaylord“. Important to make the right impression I’ve always thought.

The train was lovely – all civilised tables and empty seats. The experience was further enhanced as it failed to stop at stations separated by a short dog walk or the cheery thirty minute halts that pass for an on time service on the Amersham line. Early days though, it’s still Chiltern Railways who have a hidden charter to drive all but the most sanguine passengers to suicide attempts.

So far so good but my childish anticipation of riding home in daylight were scuppered by an impromptu meeting in an off site location serving cool beverages. And the mad dash to catch the seven pm train was compromised attempting to hustle while in receipt of the weighty laptop of doom. Next time I’ll be a little more careful which box I tick when ordering said Windoze brick because the battery alone weighs the same as Croydon and could power said town for about it a week.

And because the railway company has abandoned its’ commitment to green issues, we cyclists now have around 20{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} less bike racks to save the planet with. So while my train was serenely steaming out of the station, I was running up and down the platform in a frustrated doubletake attempting to find a slot to safely abandon the bike. The satisfaction of finally crafting a coveted wall spot was somewhat mitigated by the next four departures heading off only to my old station.

But finally, I’m heading home in non sardined comfort watching the day turn to night hoping against hope that I remembered to charge my lights.

Sprung

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

That is what Spring has done although it is as swallows to summer, with warm, breezy days sandwiched between icy blasts and freezing rain. But warming rays have thawed out this less than hardy perennial and hacking over drying trails has replaced hibernation. Hacking coughs have also been a early season feature but I’m not one to make a big thing of it.

This is Steve Watlington Wakins recently harvested from retirement and showing old school style perfectly matching his retro bike and really rather advanced years.

Not quite as old and annoyingly fitter is Nigel who casts off winter sensibility for a bit of buggering about in Swinley Forest.

For me, it’s a case of scratching the crust off old memories of how to ride and what happens afterwards. Having crashed almost as many times as I’ve ridden this year, my downhill style has been likened to nervous lemming that has been damningly blighted with self awareness. You’re not getting me close to that cliff, no way, it looks bloody DANGEROUS.

Uphill, thankfully, nothing much has changed except I’m a little slower, a little more rubbish and a little readier with excuses pertaining to lost fitness, gained weight and some random mumbling around tyre pressures.

After the ride though, it’s the same glorious dichotomy of pain and pleasure. But I think of it as fitness pain and it is simply dulled with a quick beer or a strong brew. And either is very welcome as long as there is cake to follow. With the pain comes proper tiredness – not the kind of boring bone ache from , say, gardening – but smarting pain with an aggressive personality.

So try and run up the stairs and in it steps between your hind brain and leg muscles calling everyone out for an industrial dispute. I find it best to have a little rest until the Synapse Union and Dendrite Management have come to an accommodation. Yesterday, this took quite a few minutes and children rushed past many times, as I lay supine but marooned half way to the landing.

And the ˜Give me something to eat RIGHT NOW or I’m starting on this child’ hunger pangs are back as well. The kind of stomach wrenching non maskable interrupt that has you running β€œ okay limping quickly β€œ to the fridge and considering devouring an acre of raw broccoli.

It’s all good.

The dirty dozen of twelve riders seeking sunshine and singletrack are heading off to South Wales over the long Easter weekend. If I can shed about a stone, regain at least partial fitness and not succumb to any further undiagnosable illnesses, all will be well.