Author: Alex

End of an era.

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

Sometimes while you’re attempting to get on with your little life, something happens that makes you stop, take stock and wonder at the apparently ordinary. Stuff that reinforces the whoosh of time passing with such force it’s almost panic-attack scary, events which hard stop a status-quo that felt comfortably never ending, a couple of hours which shunts perception of what you think might be important onto a branch line and – for that brief time at least – instead a simple and rather melancholy cypher of the world stands front and centre.

It’s an innocent enough premise; the end of year school play which we’ve done before, but today was a little different. There would apparently be little fun on offer when paying to share a hot and humid village hall with a 100 excited and noisy kids* and their only slightly less manic parents. Locked in for 90 minutes with absolutely no chance of the large medicinal you’ve fervently self-prescribed, and viewing the whole shebang with a world weary intellectual snobbishness side-ordered with chore and boredom.

And that’s pretty disrespectful when you consider the entire school has forgone any real education since half term to learn a whole heap of songs, dialogue and dances. Yet I’ve been watching Verbal trying to hide behind scenery for six years; three times per annum she’d sweat over her one line before delivering it in a dull monotone while staring anywhere but the audience. And then run away.

Random has some “Dad Genes” going on and so can be seen mugging for all she is worth, but this is not her last time in primary school, she is not stepping up to a place where the difficult transition between child and adult takes place, it’s not the nine year old who is teetering on the precipice of puberty and all the confusion that this bring. And it seems Verbal realised all this in her own way, and found a way to stare stagefright right in the snozzle and still come out swinging.

First she was half of the dark undertaking duo – Snuffle and Rot – tendering to the recently deceased in the very Wild West town of Splodge City. She had some decent lines and delivered them with a level of confidence and timing little seen until tonight. The audience laughed, the kids fed off it and you’d have to have a heart of frozen lead not to melt a little when the tiny tots get up there and try and remember which way is right. Or wrong. It hardly matters.

The bigger children were ‘busting some moves’** while the plot unfolded with a certain predictability, some truly terribly corny jokes and much singing. I found myself genuinely engrossed by the whole thing; clearly huge amounts of work had been put in and the results were there to see. But we’d yet to see Verbal’s second character triumph.

Some of the more sophisticated of you out there may have witnessed powerful operatic performances by the world’s finest companys, been rocked and shocked by the best bands at a million watts or blown away by famous actors who command the largest stages, but I would contest that until you have seen “Lightening the Wonder Horse”, you have seen nothing.

It may only be a heavy cloth fabrication of a the heroin’s noble steed, but let me tell you it is impossible not to fall about in more than a little mirth when this two part equine wonder begins to dance. Okay I accept it’s not much of a speaking part but, even with parent’s understandable patronage of their own offspring, it not only stole the show, it galloped off with the bloody thing. No honestly – I guess you had to be there 😉

So that’s that then. Last performance of Year Six and they definitely knew it. It’s also apparent many, if not all, of them can do stuff now beyond the likes of us. Not just the youthful veneer protecting them from the significant possibility of ritual humiliation, but also the trust, friendship and fun of being a group of confident and joyful humans clearly having a ball with absolutely no fear of failure. It’s wasted on the buggers, frankly.

And while I lament the passing of time, the realism of understanding no longer will Verbal only orbit your world, the shock of how-the-fuck-did-six-years-go-so-quickly?, I’m more than a bit delighted she went out on a high. The whole lot of them deserved the rich accolades and adulation they received as the curtain called, but I’m left with something a little more personal.

A week or so ago, I was going on a bit about how horrible London was, how hot I’d been in my suit while closeted with the tunnel rats, how there could be no place other than the surface of the sun which could be less pleasant when Verbal brought me to a premature halt with “Yeah Dad, but if you really want hot, try being the inside of a horse“.

Fair point. Well made.

* The little one behind us would howl every time a soloist performed their song. I couldn’t help thinking he has a bright future as a music critic.

** apparently. So I’ve been told. I’ve no idea what this means.

I blame the singlespeeder.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding6 Comments

And if we blend in the Government of the day augmented with traffic wardens, estate agents and any person who volunteers to be on a committee, we have created a body onto which all the evils and ills of the world could be blamed.

Ready the Scorpion Pits and Bring Fresh Spiders I hear you cry, but even in the benevolent dictatorship much loved by the Hedgehog, first there must be a trial where evidence of misdeeds and character assassinations can be aired. I didn’t say it was going to be a fair trial.

The Wednesday FoD ride is become a confusing juxtaposition of slack and speed. Which I reversed by turning up early, before becoming increasingly lethargic. Whereas the riding widdle* rolled in at ever increasing intervals, with excuses ranging from forgetting what day it was to a total boycott of the Julian date system.

Now I had every reason to invoke faff-time what with the Cove maidening its’ reincarnation, no such latitude should be available to a man who has dispensed with his entire selection of gears. And yet, Adam appeared to be having significant car-park issues with his Inbred** resolved largely with rolls of gaffer tapes, and the occasional targeted trail tool wang.

Obviously I made jolly jest at his japery, and just as obviously he paid me back in spades. First tho a rude awakening “ of the arse mainly “ riding a single sprung end. Immediate and direct are good things when the front wheel is sniffing dusty trail, but less appealing when the rear attempts to insert the saddle up ones’ jacksey.

I stopped for a pointless fettle only to find I had been abandoned. I don’t think you need to be told which individual failed to pass on my need for a halt do you? In his defence, his knees may have been exploding, but this gave me little comfort in my increasingly desperate meanderings searching for riding pals, tell tale tyre tracks or a mobile phone signal.

I found the latter at exactly the time one of the Al-finding splinter groups called me up, established my location, listened to the confused silence after directing me back to the riding cluster, before hovering me up with more cheerfulness than I’d be exhibiting in his position.

There was some joshing around my under-developed sense of direction. I countered that it was developed just fine thanks, it’s just a bit rubbish. Anyway while I was happy to re-united with the fine fellows who’d spent 15 minutes chasing round the forest searching for me, I couldn’t help thinking the uni-cogged one was entirely responsible.

Split ˜em up and the do ˜em one at a time I could see him thinking. My imagination ran wild projecting a vision of a forest full of smashed derailers and severed limbs, as this advance guard of the one-geared Jihad carried out his dreadful night-work.

I was installed mid-pack and given stern warning not to wander off on my own again. A pack that snaked on some old-school trails skirting an enormous lake hidden by vegetation and some kind of invisibility field. Honestly, one minute there was nothing but trees and the next, some great bloody body of water looms in your field of vision. I fully expected to see some Athurian knight fetching a sword out of it.

Following on was a rooty trail needing pedalling to maintain motion. Puts the hard into hardtail that does, and watching the dual-spring boys riding away makes you appreciate just how damn good modern full-suss bikes are. Come the next big climb tho, the low weight, high power transfer of the Cove reels it back a bit.

But bikes “ mountain bikes especially “ are for riding downhill and a perfect example of such a trail now awaited. Two brilliant things happened down here, firstly I was reunited with the simpe joy of sorted hardtails nailing swoopy singletrack, and secondly the Singlespeeder fell off.

Adam looked a bit bemused at the cause of the accident. I was able to help him out by explaining that he had been unable to select the correct gear. What with him not having any. He may have laughed but I reckon when the rest of his alien tribe land, I’m first in line for the anal probe.

Light running out, we made hasty tracks onto Green Lane a peach of a trail arcing through head high vegetation. The super fast boys disappeared pretty quickly, as did any sense of where the trail went next as I found myself heading up the rest of the pack.

These fellas are also pretty rapid and I certainly couldn’t deal with ignominy of being passed by an injured man missing vital components, so head up, imbibe virtual bravery pills, let the bike do its’ thing. Which it did stunningly well even with my wide eyed twitchiness at the speed we were now travelling.

Ace. Not quite as ace was Steve’s short cut through a spiky part of the forest where he pretended there was a route. Clearly he’d been egged on by the Singlespeeder, or the mind control was beginning to take over.

It did at least take us to a trail I ACTUALLY HAD DONE BEFORE. Only in the wet and on one of my first visits to this MTB playground. It did seem to pass far quicker this time around, but maybe I am just thinking slower nowadays.

Properly going dark now***, we finished up on a rollercoaster of a track that you probably wouldn’t risk in the day. No better way to round off a great ride than some dusky trail poaching. Except possibly for beer which was on the agenda, but a 5am start meant I had to wearily decline.

But, I thought, probably time for a quick cold one when I get home. Except the fridge was empty of liquid therapy, and the only alcohol alternative was to make myself a Snowball. Not even I am that dependant.

No beer in our fridge? I know, it’s unheard of. Almost an impossibility. How could it be allowed to happen?

I blame the Singlespeeder 🙂

* What is the collective noun for a group of mountain bikers? I’ve always favoured Flange but could be persuaded on Gusset or even Trunion.

** This is a bicycle brand. Oh to be a fly on the wall during those marketing meetings. The hilarity eh?

*** I was going to use the phrase Those nights are drawing in but dare not say it out loud in our house. It tends to trigger a violent rolling pin reaction from Carol.

Back from the shed…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography7 Comments

… Last ride December 23 2009 in the snow and ice. And for Christmas the Cove was stripped bare of parts, with the remains stashed away in the dark reaches of the shed. Less than a month later, it nearly passed into new ownership until a brief burst of sanity sent it back to the guilty corner. The plan* = which stayed its’ eBay execution – was to all ride my other bikes to see if it that one would be missed.

This is such a dumb plan, because as a measure of ownership everything but the ST4 and road bike would be heading out the door. Only when the ST4 became an expensive tester for breaking strain of every component was the Pace dusted off. Until I broke that as well. The DMR is the perfect wheeled perch for riding with the kids, but its’ days of being flung off large jumps – with an abandon if not exactly wild then at least pretty feral – are long gone.

My mistake was to confuse mileage with usefulness. Sure logic may dictate that something that is not used and has a value should be off-loaded for whatever the market would pay, with a bonus of losing the guilt associated with hanging on to something that’s become a bit of an embarrassing shed-queen**.

However let us extend that hypothesis to only my immediate family. Such an approach would see us quickly assume eBay trader status and further require a fleet of skips to remove the roomfulls of crap we have collected through the power of “Project Magpie – two kids, tiny attention span, cheap plastic shit”.

So we’re not exactly starving, and selling bikes just because I am not riding them RIGHT NOW is clearly the ravings of a mad man or an accountant. And while the ST4 has been consistently brilliant, it’s also a bit fragile. Even with the decent winter riding we have here, it’s hard to imagine there would be much left other than bits of swarf and a large bill at the end of the next one. So getting the Cove built back up is a fantastic idea even if it is six months early.

Ahead of the game that’s me. No one has any idea what I’m doing most of the time. Least of all me. A careful study of that image will show a splash of old school Crankage hanging off a positively venerable Square Taper BB, bars, stem, seatpost, saddle and wheels reclaimed from the spares bin, a new set of forks brought forth by a Warranty triumph, with the remainder of important bits harvested from others’ unwanted cast offs.

I didn’t even finish building it because I have started to think of the bike shop in Ross as an extension of my own workshop only staffed by competent people such as Nick. I rolled in most of a chassis with a set of bleeding brakes that needed just that, and returned to fetch a fully working bike assembled without any obvious use of the large hammer much loved in my own builds.

Shall I be waiting to ride it until Winter? I shall not, because – even on a brief test ride – there is a certain directness and simplicity that is sure to offer much in the twisty forest tomorrow. And maybe on some other trails as well, where the utter sorted-ness of a full suspension bike could feel a little too much. But really it’s a crap conditions bike, although I do appreciate that a Titanium bike with decent stuff hanging off it is probably not everyone’s idea of the perfect winter bike.

“Get yourself a singlespeed and some rigid forks” they will shrill and I shall calmly reply “Much as I hate fixing stuff, I still want to be having fun when I’m out there. If I wanted the experience so loved by your sort, I’ll just buy myself a hair shirt and rub myself down with a ripe pineapple”. I find this generates enough confusion for me to run off before they can compose a ripost.

You see I look at this lot and don’t think “too many bikes, not enough difference between them, waste of money, etc, etc”. No I remember how much fun I’ve had on each and every one of them***, and – more importantly – how much MORE fun I’m going to have.

Starting tomorrow 🙂

* It’s not really a plan. It’s merely twisted logic on the endless roller-coaster of bike acquisition

** A job I feel I fulfil rather well myself.

*** Except the road bike. I’m not admitting to anything. That way lies waxing.

It’s not about the bike.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography3 Comments

And sometimes it is not about the rider either. Or more specifically not about me, as I had my socks well and truly blown off by Little Random and her cycling heroics today. My family – as befits a much put upon group herded around by one individual who is regularly as self centred as a tornado – have spent far too much time not enjoying doing not much while I do my stuff.

Examples include being abandoned in muddy fields while strangely dressed blokes ride round in circles, or suffering 50mph battering’s on remote hilltops while other men throw toy gliders into that wind, before collecting the remains in special bags.

But as I get a little older, I can not but help notice how much more grown up our own kids are on a seemingly daily basis. How long before their idea of a quality interaction with their parents is only in their capacity as personal bankers or 24 hour on-call taxi services?

They do seem remarkably well balanced considering the eccentricity of half their genes, and I cannot but feel proud of their achievements – large or small. Tomorrow sees one reading a rather fine poem to a worryingly large audience, while the other is straining kidfully to pass her first violin exam*

But it’s not really Dad’s stuff is it? And with Verbal confined to barracks until the nice man in the hospital gives her an all clear to, well, be a child again, there has been little in the way of family outings including bicycles.

Carol isn’t really bothered and – even with a superb new MTB hanging up – I feel Verbal may be edging some way along that same genealogical branch. Random however is more a chip off the old block except for her willingness to learn, stupendous progression and apparent lack of fear.

Random Ride - Haugh Woods July 2010 Random Ride - Haugh Woods July 2010

Today we packed two bikes, two camelbaks full of water and snacks, and one dumb mutt in the love-bus for some woody singletrack Dad’n’Daughter action. We’ve ridden in these woods a few times, but generally on the easier tracks and with much pushing uphill. And some falling off, getting off, getting cheesed off going the other way. This time around things were a little different.

Random Ride - Haugh Woods July 2010 Random Ride - Haugh Woods July 2010

Random rode everything put in front of her. Sometimes with a little bit of help, sometimes ignoring the trail completely and plunging into scratchy undergrowth, but all the time with a smile on her face. One of the reasons for her improvement is that she listens, and after playing back to me “Stand on the Pedals, stay off the brakes, look round corners and remember to breathe“, I just shut up and let her get on with it.

Random Ride - Haugh Woods July 2010 Random Ride - Haugh Woods July 2010

On some pretty tough trails especially riding a heavy-ish, rigid bike wearing your dad’s crash-hat** and no gloves. The latter two issues due entirely to my inability to prepare the kids for anything without Carol sweeping up behind me. Asked whether she wanted to try the easy or hard option, she constantly chose the knarly option giving her license to burst back into the house explaining how many injuries she’d sustained. Proud of them she was, that’s my girl!

Random Ride - Haugh Woods July 2010 Random Ride - Haugh Woods July 2010

We managed two hours before very tired legs and some bleeding called a halt to our fun. Probably 10k in total (about 20 for the dog who at least had the decency to look a bit knackered), 10 great sections of singletrack conquered, three quarters of the fireroad climbing done in the saddle, and huge improvements in just those two hours. Stuff she couldn’t ride three months ago, is now dispatched with a carefree “Yeah, that’s easy now“.

Random Ride - Haugh Woods July 2010 Random Ride - Haugh Woods July 2010

So today I chose to ride not with my friends ripping up buff trails in the forest, but with my offspring at not much speed and with much getting-on-and-off. And it was brilliant.

Only one problem, won’t be long before she’s better than me.

* Standing joke is we decided to buy this big (wreck of a) house specifically when both kids registered a strong interest in learning to play a noisy instrument. Still may need more sound insulation tho.

** That’s what it is. I use it for that very purpose all the time.

May we present..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography2 Comments

.. The “Alderly Edge”. That poor ST4 has the metallurgic equivalence to a lab-rat, with the innocent frame having ever more ridiculous components inflicted upon it. Those new wheels were also available in black, but I felt that such a colour combination lacked class. And continuing the mock mansion design motif, I am considering grafting some plastic graco-Roman plastic pillars onto the chainstays.

Tubeless as well – a tyre technology trillion-mile proven on anything motorised, but still swinging between mockery and explosion when fitted to a mountain bike. Especially if “el hamero” here is doing the fitting. But my boldness was rewarded by the reaction of the Ross Riding Widdle who spent barely ten minutes pointing and laughing as ‘Alds’ was proudly wheeled through the gamut of humiliation on route to another stonking FoD ride.

A ride, as my legs were keen to point out, starting barely 24 hours after a lighting attempt on the Malvern Summits had finished. And these Wednesday rides in the forest seem to have become rather more serious and speedy. And properly cheeky* with the evening bridleway stricture being properly enforced.

First tho, the “Campaign for the Unification of Nocturnal Trails “** (Western chapter) invoked the “Kinder Trespass” amendment bringing forth some serious nodding, waggling of fingers*** and sniffing of air to detect any upstream Forest Rangers. Satisfied, the rip-your-legs-off ride began at a furious pace which left me apathetic rather than angry. Resigned to a stint at the back, again I wondered if a lack of bar mounted illumination would come back to haunt me. What with most hauntings happening in the full dark.

We headed directly for Wales via a track with head high vegetation leaning inwards to rip skin open, before the rocky trail under-tyre took over the going-to-maim-you agenda. Proper steep and technical, invigoratingly gulley’d, off camber and packing a manslaughter charge in the wet. Good that I thought, and good too that my hashed together wheels were both round and still encased in tyre. Not that they were really needed as the next climb involved a proper carry over wooden steps and drainage ditches.

“You’d never get a horse up there” I thought as we trudged ever upwards on a cliff edge that may not have been an official bridleway. Topping out, a short tarmac haul ran perpendicular to a hamlet apparently full of very old people shouting at Mountain Bikers. “You can’t ride up that hill” they shakily denounced our passing and – you know what – they were absolutely right with a vertical climb having us off the bikes and onto our shoulders.

The views from the top were something else. Something else I wasn’t soon worrying about with a high speed chase on sinewy doubletrack demanding all my attention. Good, again, I mused but not sure it’s worth risking being shot for. At which point we started climbing again and my legs suggested if I was unable to find anyone with a shotgun, I should consider suicide rather than endure any more pain.

Now I have ridden a lot of singeltrack, most of it quite slowly, some of it upside down and while I’ve never “owned” a section of trail, I like to think I may have rented a few. And – like any heavily campaigned mountain biker – have compiled a list of top fives; best woody descents, scariest rocky horrors, fastest vertical plungers, adrenalin jumpies, most fun trail centres etc. It’s a pretty static list nowadays with entries from all of the premier riding spots that are unlikely to be topped.

Until tonight. When I’m dead and gone, I’ll fine someone younger to spread my ashes on this trail – as a final resting place it has no equal. At least a mile of perfect singeltrack, a gradient blended harmoniously between speed and braking, sweeping corners fast enough to frighten but open enough to flash through at a grin-inducing pace, line choices between quick and pumpy or straight and jumpy. Behind a lad riding a flat barred hardtail, it quickly became apparent how much of a talent compensator the ST4 is, but this bothers me not a jot.

Because flashing through the trees on sun hardened trails, skimming endless tree roots, demanding every more grip from squirming tyres and being rewarded with an experience that feels fast and looks smooth is something I cannot understand why anyone under the age of about 90 wouldn’t want to do. Every day. Sod our bloody stupid access laws, it should be on the statute book that this trail MUST be ridden by anyone who has a mountain bike.

And then, finally, I will have an answer to all those flat-earthers who cannot understand the mud, the madness, the bleeding, the broken stuff, the cost, the time, the effort, the how-can-you-be-bothered-when-it’s-shitting-it-down. This Is Why.

Out of the woods, and a path on the river’s edge confirmed we were somewhere below sea level. The five kilometre climb homewards was a juxtaposition of much elbows-out racing at the front and an old bloke at the back in ‘limp home mode‘ – turning the pedals in the easiest gear, but entirely unwilling to accelerate to anything beyond walking pace. Back into the forest, it wasn’t quite as dark as last week but still lights certainly would have helped.

As would not being completely cream-crackered. Chasing the fast boys on the ridge-top about did for me, and the tight twisty downhill finished was mostly wasted with my hanging on for grim death replacing any noticeable trail skills. A couple of crashes to other people is always cheering to a tired man, but it shows just how damn fast and on the edge these rides have become. Suits me, it won’t be long before we’re slogging through waist high mud in temperatures failing to trouble zero.

The car park was a happy place, with promises of something similar come Sunday. It’ll take me that long to recover based on my yawning and heavy legged performance yesterday. Good job I was at work eh? Still it does give me plenty of time to polish my new hoops because that level of design classic doesn’t come without some hard work.

* As cheeky as riding naked across the lawns of Buckingham Palace with a “Vive La Revolution” placard while shouting “We don’t want none of your stinking German inbreds here“. And possibly slightly more illegal.

** I shall leave you to work out the acronym we like to label this group with.

*** Don’t count them. Just don’t.

Start small and work down.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography4 Comments

That’s always been my motto when faced with anything even tainted with mild terror. Point me in the direction of a well stocked bar or groaning pudding trolley though and I immediately Go Large*. So when the motley Ross Night Ride Crew began enthusiastically planning some epic flirting with the Welsh Borders, I couldn’t help but remember exactly how long a previous daytime jaunt had taken. Sure we did get lost and spend a quality hour in mid ride quaffage, but – even barely past the longest day – I felt bringing lights was sporting a certain keenness my body was unable to match.

We wasted too much of that precious natural light with Olympic grade pontificating, faffing and debating route options going something like “Yeah, you know if we cut round the back of Six-Fingered Bob’s Dogging Spot – so neatly bypassing the Pheasant Shaggers – we’ll pop over dog-turd hill and slip into the back of Geoffrey’s wiggle“. To which the other revered route finders would respond with something like “But that misses a cheeky dart through Necrophilia valley and leaves us with no chance of sticking a fast one in Big Vera’s Tunnel”

I stand aside pondering if this is merely a mighty wheeze – Muddy Mornington Crescent for the new boy. Eventually some decision is made and for a happy five minutes I actually recognise where we are. But not where we might be going with a confusing mass of left-right-lefts onto trails shadowed by dense vegetation that scratched hard at my strimmer itch. At exactly the point when I became totally and irretrievably lost**, the route-finder generals too began the slow head-turning of the navigationally incapacitated.

I knew we were lost in so many ways when chief Route Finder and all round downhill-mentalist Gary asked me – Me for fucks sake, a man who can often be found lost wandering around his own house looking for the dishwasher – if I remembered where a tiny track, now covered in head high vegetation, may start. I mugged for a bit hoping to create an air of trail locating competence which was fatally exposed when said track appeared in exactly the opposite direction to which I was confidently pointing.

Great trail tho, tight and twisty then steep and deep in roots, fallen logs and – in Tim’s case – fallen riders. Top job he turned his wheel into a metal-y pretzel which Nick somehow made round again even after ignoring my suggestion to whip it out of the dropouts so to give room for a few of us to stamp on it. A brief period of collaboration broke out between the route finding factions leading us upwards before splinter groups again began whispering that if we’d wanted to get there we wouldn’t have started from here.

Not so much a tight-knit trail location committee, more a loose confederation of closely warring tribes. Amazingly we found Buckstone hill – although even our ascent to the very top again split the flat earthers from the there’s-a-trail-here-somewhere-pushers, and better still had a properly bonkers run down the multiple trail sections each one building on the last. It’s fast and open, then tight, then twisty, then tight again before a wall drop opens up a fantastic rock step closely followed by a natural table top. I remembered enough from last time to scare myself properly silly, so giving me ample excuse to mince out of the vertical roll down some of the younger/more stupid/less burdened by dependants and imagination rode off with irritating ease.

These trails are used by the boys from Dirt Magazine, so even the chicken runs are not lacking in terror for the under-skilled. Fun tho, and riding the ST4 (Pace last time) didn’t slow me down much, fear and proper wheel throwing looseness did that just fine. More singletrack, sufficiently remembered to get the ‘Jedi Speeder’ experience although, on reflection, maybe I’m at the age where I should be considering a stunt man for the difficult sections.

Ace as the night was turning out to be, it was still night clawing away at a dropping sun and sending us back homewards through a long doubletrack gradual climb enlivened by some proper views and the odd cow that looked to add “bike eating” to their list of achievements for the day. Mercifully un-chewed, we took another “Dave Special” over a style and upwards for reasons of a fine rocky descent that would have been even more thrilling had I been able to see any of it.

Luckily we were only 30 minutes or so from home. Less luckily most of this would be under the watchful gaze of a healthy forest well known for shutting out the light. Had their been any. A few riders peeled off home leaving six of us groping about and making new friends of the two enlightened ones. The last descent was properly funny but only because the two full on tank slappers I encountered due to a) very loose and dusty trail under wheel and b) not being able to see a) finishing with nothing more than 2 second slides which lasted about 2 days in my head.

Not learning – as usual – I nearly stacked it exactly 20 yards from the truck. Didn’t care much though because if I hadn’t been riding somewhere beyond the ragged edge, then I’d be sitting at home grumpily staring into the darkness and wondering if the excuses not to go ride were really good enough.

Talking to my mum tonight I was reminded of a cheesy phrase she used to send her three offspring into situations that generally ended up being rather rewarding: “In twenty years, you will regret the things you didn’t do far more than the ones you did”.

Sage advice. Right now, I can’t think of anything to top that.

* and assuming I can still stand, keep on going.

** Had they left me there, I would have been forced to throw myself in front of a car so ensuring an ambulance would take me to a place of safety. You don’t want to be outside, on your own and looking worried in the Forest at night-time. The breeze in the trees whistles “Duelling Banjo’s”

Diggit.

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

It has been made abundantly clear to me that I was fully consulted during the garden planning process. And yet, as part of my life strategy that – boiled down – is essentially blaming other people for everything, I beg to differ. Because I have wasted enough time, mucky spade in hand, to fully comprehend the horror that seven large flower-beds will bring.

Let me bring you with me here; if we exchange the couplet “flower bed” for “Weed Anarchy“, you begin to understand the futility in attempting to repel borders which are being over-run with an army of spikey green.

Somewhere in the dense jungle may be the expensive items we bought and carefully planted last year. But I’m not sure why we bothered, because if the long winter didn’t do for them, all sorts of unwanted aliens appear to be eating what’s left.

n the same way that life would be significantly fairer if lettuce had the taste and texture of sausages, weeds should not be allowed to grow faster than stuff you’d actually like to see. And if we don’t tackle the rampant little buggers soon,they’ll became terrifyingly rocky horror show and impervious to anything short of Napalm.

Happily, I am rarely allowed to weed unaccompanied, or at least supported by detailed drawings of what needs ripping outand what cost a fiver and was recently buried on purpose. I have worked hard on being this useless, honing my techniques and asking “This thing here… yes this one with the flower on it… it’s a weed, yes? No? Oh I’ll put it back then. Or what’s left of it anyway”.

Carol has done a brilliant job sorting it out although somewhat tired of spending days being “Woman with Trowel”. However our efforts have lessened our focus on the bottom half of the garden mostly lost to trampolines, a half completed Poultry Alcatraz, a dry pond and weeds that are bristlingly face high. Honestly, if I don’t get that Chicken run finished soon, I’ll have Kevin Whasthisname from Grand Designs turning up and doing a head shaking piece to camera.

Obviously I have a solution. And just as obviously it’s grounded in creating the most amount of carnage for the least amount of effort. Enter petrol based powertools – a friend’s strimmer is barely disguised as Lucifer’s motorised hell on earth. It even has a set of handlebars, which are probably designed to provide some form of control once the monster two stroke has spluttered noisily to life.

Largely pointless to be fair. Once it’s running so are you are an unwilling parter in a brutal, random and whirling tango . “Get the kids inside” I shouted over the cacophony of an unsilenced engine on full throttle* while fronting up to inch width nasties giving me the leafball**

The next twenty minutes were lost to a swathe cutting circuit of the garden scattering weeds, grass, plants and the odd fence post amok. Nothing could withstand the whirling death of the brushcutter including my now numbed hands and bleeding ears. I couldn’t stop tho, locked into a grisly dance with anything organic and having the temerity to sprout unasked.

A juddering stop revealed that such actions quickly drain a full tank of petrol, and a quick personal inventory had me laughing out loud at my now “greened up” complexion. Surveying my work, it was hard to independently assert that this part of our garden actually looked any better. One thing no-one could deny though, it was certainly lower.

One half cocked job completed, it was time to beef up the vegetable plot or “Insect Buffet” as I like to think of it. I can almost hear the stamping of impatient tiny feet and twitching of hungry proboscis as we carefully plant a whole raft of leafy goodness. I take a long hard look at natures’ bounty before reconciling myself to a chewed up wasteland some time in the near future. Maybe their is some work for the strimmer here on the insect harvesting front.

Still keen to do something strimmery, disappointment was the chief emotion as my plea to use this somewhat blunt instrument in a surgical strike capacity is firmly turned down. While I backed my ability to sorts the weeds from the daffs, Carol felt my strimming talents could be used elsewhere. Anywhere really even if that meant barely controlled destruction some five miles down the road.

“No I don’t need the car, I’ll strim my way there” I cried. In the pantheon of manly powertools, this rates pretty close to the top, above the whacker plate but possibly still below the jackhammer. Apparently chainsaws are even better, but – let’s be honest about my abilities here – it’d be fun until someone lost a limb. Or a head.

Both Carol and I like gardens. We just don’t like maintaining them which makes me feel that – lovely as it is – the block paving approach didn’t receive sufficient consideration at the design stage. Still, at least it gives me the opportunity to tinker with more oily engines, and I’ve yet to rule out a nuclear upgrade.

* Really this is a proper bloke’s toy. It doesn’t really need a throttle. Unless it has a special “go to 11” setting.

** like an eyeball, only somehow more sinister

No Mountains, not much Mayhem.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography4 Comments

In fact I’d shoot for “Lumpy Slackness” to best describe my own take on the OSMM 24 hour mountain bike race held just down the road from here. Every year I make a special effort to attend while adhering to a firm committment not to get involved with any of that riding nonsense. I mean why would you? Ace riding on the doorstep, almost none of it encircled by a private deer park filled with desperate IT middle managers* properly hurting themselves to secure 321st place.

No I grooved a well worn record of scouring the vast campsite for familiar faces, stashing away any freebies before adjourning barwards to watch the start. This time I had family and mad mutt in tow so had to answer some slightly uncomfortable questions regarding my non participation. Straying away from bare faced lying for a change, instead I employed displacement tactics pointing out everything that was wrong with a thousand people crammed into a localised methane cloud waiting for the start.

After saving my cheers for the slowest, oddly shaped and fully paid up members of “Team Chubb-a-Lubb”, a navigationally challenged rendezvous with some old friends reminded me of a vague promise to ride an entire lap in exchange for beer. Thankfully my carefully studied slackness had ensured a ride-readiness state scoring about zero what with no bike, no riding clobber and a pair of wellington boots** which sadly merely postponed the horror until the following day.

But this is a team which would present Team Hardcore Loafing as a race-tuned, podium chasing professional outfit. So in keeping with the sleepy ethos, I turned up late only to shockingly discover a member of the team WAS OUT ON THE COURSE. Not to worry, a more than ample excuse for a sit and chat in the sunshine. That’s the fella out doing a lap I’m talking about who had located a grassy bank much to his liking, and passed a convivial half hour chatting with the real – if somewhat bemused – racers.

Eventually Tim found sufficient energy to roll back to Apathy Central and sent me on my way with a stern admonishment not to get back too early. The final member of the team was engaged in a full on race simulation and couldn’t be disturbed for at least an hour. Or revived really since he was entirely unmoving other than some jowly snoring. I rolled onto the course in a unique position of being entirely fresh and light limbed, while every other poor bugger had travelled 21 and 1/2 hours into a place where pain and suffering live.

This is what fitness must feel like. I easily out-climbed the heavy legged, dusty and weary riders who were turning slow circles in tiny gears or – more frequently – getting off and having a walk. On enquiring how they were doing, most would bang out a pained grimace declaring “Six laps in and this bastard is the last one” before trying to reconcile my fresh faced pace, body shape and entirely inappropriate bicycle. “You?” they’d ask with some incredulation “Yeah, last lap for me too, be glad to get it done” I’d reply in shared companionship.

I didn’t feel it necessary to add that this was my first and indeed only lap. Important not to over-communicate when people are under such obvious mental strain. So back to the course which I fully expected to but shit, boring and unchallenging. The first section didn’t do much to dispel such a hypothesis with rutted, tight scalextric weaving pointless between trees. No wonder everyone looks a bit miserable I pondered as riders pulled aside to let me pass.

I did feel like a bit of a fraud, but this was easily offset by the shallow joy I took from it. But I stopped thinking about that as the course suddenly became properly interesting. Some lovely, steep rutted descents, a few singletrack climbs, a more than pleasant flowy ribbon of hardpacked dirt that had me chasing fast riders and passing them before considering why they might be slowing down. The one disadvantage of my uni-lap strategy was that everything around the next corner was a total mystery. Which partially explains a couple of off-course transgressions and a eyes wide shut brush with one of the innocent marshalls.

So course was pretty good, quite challenging in places, brutal for multi-lappers with a halfway round campsite sashay leading to a climb that started tough and kept on giving. The end of which we were rewarded with another sinewy wiggle through the trees, doubly enjoyed after some proper racer elbowed past without so much as a “Out of my way Underling” at the entrance. I challenged him to show some bloody politeness next time to which I didn’t even receive the expected finger. Now I don’t mind being stuffed by those with proper riding skills, but that’s just disrespectful.

Fuck. Slack Mode off. Race Face On. Catching him was easier than expected although not due to any fantastic riding on my part, more because he was, well, a bit shit really. Race-Car on the straights, pedestrian in the corners. Hard to know if his concentration was broken my the sound of my Northern up-his-chuffness offering such pithy snippets as “Did you steal that race kit?” and “You don’t deserve that bike, you’re too fucking slow to ride it“.

This went on for a couple of happy minutes. As we hit the fireroad, I beamed my best smile and innocently asked if he’d enjoyed that previous section as much as I had. Not a word, nothing, he merely vibrated a bit and spun off with the demeaner of an angry hamster stuck in a washing machine. Ace, only one lap and I still managed to properly irritate a cock with a self-important complex. Mission accomplished I think.

Everyone else was lovely. Tired but feeling – quite rightly – pretty damn heroic. Tough course in the dry and had the rain come, most people probably would have left. But in the continued sunshine, we finished on a proper old school fast grass-track descent that had even us clipped-in riders, clipping out moto style. I even managed a reasonably styling jump over a lip where the photographer was apparently lurking. I’m sure his published image will clash poorly with that in my mind’s eye.

Arriving back in just under an hour, my reward was a nice cold beer and the chance to wave in the finishers come 2pm. I did feel slightly cheeky accepting the “riders medal” especially as some nutty singlespeed solo riders sprinted past the start/finish pylon in order to get another lap in. Aliens, the lot of them. Not for us, our laps were so few as to be designated “DNF” 🙂 More Did Not Start really.

But this is exactly the way to treat such events. It’s not a race strategy because we’re not racing, but as a fine way of passing a weekend with old friends with some bike riding thrown in, it’s hard to beat. However next year I’m aiming for a stretch target.

Two laps.

* Ahem.

** For the first time in epochs Mayhem was dry and warm***, but having endured the great floods of 2008 and 2009, there was NO WAY I was trusting some dodgy forecast.

*** Except for Saturday night which was frigging chilly apparently to the point where some neshers went home. FFS not even I’d do that.

Time.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Road Riding2 Comments

Slippery little bugger isn’t it? I am fairly sure that last week it was still snowing and mostly dark, and yet here we are with the longest day barely a weekend away. This would be enough to make me grumpy as we contemplate the depressing slide into Autumn, but time has stolen more than my Spring, it’s bogged off with most of the days since as well.

I blame working for a living. Really chews up your days and eats into the light, warm nights when you really should be a) riding your bike b) drinking beer outside c) repelling the triffid invasion by deploying petrol based weaponry. And then quickly slipping back into b). I seem to be stuck with d) which involves a fairly fully time job augmented by wasting time I don’t have doing other peoples.

You may legitimately ask what they are doing instead, and you would not be alone but I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer. For which I may have to mix work and home life by implementing c) during office hours when a particularly trying situation needs resolving.

I did manage a monster end to end Malvern ride this week which started on one of the longest days of the year but still finished in darkness. The entire gamut of hills were either summited or sneakily bypassed including my favourite rocky horror tearing down 700 feet of steep bouldery ribbon before finishing on a superb rock step drop off. Right in between these two items of loveliness are a set of narrow yet very steep steps which puckered me up in all the wrong ways.

But these too were dispatched with nothing more than a clenched bottom and tightly closed eyes, before declaring to anyone who’d listen that a) it was really easy and b) no thanks I’ll not be doing them again*. Only at 9:30 and at the furthest outreach from our start did we begin to wonder how one of the riding flange was getting home un-crashed without a set of lights to his name. We did our best with a bypass of significant pointy ridge through the use of an “evening bridleway”, and a quick scoot through darkening woods to a final climb over Midsummer.

Where our brave – if foolhardy – pal was now shrouded entirely in darkness. What with it being 10:30pm. Some 100m below was his car and safety – between us and that were a second set of leafy woods letting almost none of the not very much light through. He wasn’t keen to be the meat in a Lumen Sandwich so hung onto the back of us enlightened ones and mystifyingly made his way down using the little known skill of “bark brail“.

Brilliant, brilliant ride. 1100m ish and 30ks. All that trudging through winter makes sense on an epic like that.

Sports Day topped the domestic billing today, but – predictably – I missed one child losing quite often and the other broken one watching on. But I still arrived in time for lunch and left with no phone, no watch, no gps, no water (oops) but a brief time window and a fast road bike. Just headed out in a random direction and rode until my legs were shot and my head was clear. As good as the other night, for all the wrong reasons.

Mountain Mayhem this weekend. I’ll pop in to have a laugh, and personally verify that this could be the first event in living memory where monsoons have now sunk the trails below the water table. Good luck to any nutters participating – I have been offered a cheeky lap on a slack team but any free time I have this weekend will be spent with a glass in my hand. Or possible one in each.

* Lists you see, under pressure I revert to type. Surprised I’m not accompanying this lunchtime post with a couple of beers.

Vlad The Impaler.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

Not a nice bloke at all. Famous in the 15th century for significant carnage and, well, general impaling. Also referred to as “Dracula“, “Ivan Lendl“*and now a mate of mine called “Geoff“. Or Geoff The Impaler as he clearly has a direct dynastic link to Mr “no time for a trial, run ’em through with cold steel” himself.

Today was designated for chucking toy gliders off big Welsh hills. Apparently it was also scheduled for a short – yet still spinally tapping an 11 on the boredom meter – visit to the local garden festival which I’d conveniently forgotten about**. Anyway after a brief yet tough negotiation on proxying child-care, I chucked a whole load of foam, wood and GRP into the love-bus and made haste to Wales.

Where, on trudging to the slope edge entirely encumbered by silly toys, three things became obvious. Firstly I’d forgotten to bring any food (although I do now have a tea flask which makes me feel about 123 years old), secondly the wind had decided to ply its blustery trade elsewhere, and thirdly my pathetic riding attempts from last night had seamlessly transmogrified into rubbish attempts at missing the ground.

After two “arrivals” which charitably could be called landings only because the model was amazingly available for re-use, I wisely kept the expensive moulded rocket entirely un-built on the grounds I’d also forgotten a large black bag to collect the remains. So a third fling of a glider entirely built (and oft repaired) by my own personal fists of ham, enter stage left a post modern Vlad who ruthlessly upstaged a piece of the 3-D world I had been previously minding my own business in.

The result – as any amateur engineering student will tell you – of a large heavy object hitting something rather light and flimsy will be an explosive energy transfer similar to a high velocity bullet splatting a melon. Descendant of Impaler flew on largely undamaged, while “just flying along” had an airborne rekit of his model with the fusalage plummeting vertically in the manner of a GM lawn dart, and the wing spinning away towards some hard bark.

Not much you can do at this point other than try not to blub. Some 150 feet below us were the remains, and it took a while to collect the various pieces. Amazingly – especially since I built it – the fuz was largely undamaged after its’ sub soil examination of the local peat and the wing has another crease which is merely an addition to the many other repairs. Like Mountain Biking buddies, the fellas were very supportive suggesting some kind of electronically operated bilge hook for the next encounter and also softened the blow by agreeing “that was your best landing today”.

Could’ve been worse, could’ve been the garden show. Still at least we stuffed the Aussies at Rugby and saw off the American Part Timers at cheeseball eh?

* for younger readers of the Hedgehog, Ivan “The Count” Lendl was a tennis player of some renown although much of his success was directly linked to a physical manifestation of Vlad himself. Opponents would regularly find themselves exciting eviscerated during changovers.

** Or if honestly was taking minutes, it would read “checked weather forecast, surely no one will risk holding an outdoor festival with a 10mph knob on Northerly with the prospect of stonking thermals later“. That’s the problem with honestly, it ruthlessly outs my inner geek.