Author: Alex

Filthy Rich

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, PhotographyLeave a comment

That’s pretty much how I was feeling when taking that photo. Which would seem a difficult mental equation considering the evidence; endless swathes of wet, mud to a depth which offered drowning as a real possibility, encroaching darkness and being quite properly lost. But I always find it really rather simple to solve: Bikes + Dirt = Happy Al. Hence my plan to make my personal World a better place snatching a ride between work ending and family stuff starting.

It didn’t start well. I was gritting my teeth on the first road climb soon to be picking detritus out of them, as my choice of mudguard* failed to prevent tarmac shrapnel fired by water tracers blasting me at high speed. Inevitably this wetness extended to an all over moist experience which at least prepared me well for when tarmac switched to trail. The woods here share none of the porous geology found in the Malverns. Instead they hold rain in a thick clay soup, making them largely off limits for MTBing during any prolonged wet spell.

This “Red Death” sets in about October and hangs around past Easter. There are – for the adventurous rider – some lovely dryish trails** but these are mostly lost in a delta of mud fed by rivers of gloop. I’ve seen terrible thing happen to great tracks when over-ridden during shitty conditions, so my approach is always to head straight down the centre regardless of any wheel swallowing puddles.

This served me well until I attempted to pedal or steer. Pedalling immediately drove the rear wheel sideways, and any attempts at cornering boldness immediately led to the kind of catastrophic oversteer where the front wheel ends pointing back at you. Or at least it would be, were you not now lying winded on a handy stump laughing your tits off. I dusted off the old cerebral CD cabinet and loaded up the forgotten “Chiltern Hills” riding skills to see if five years of falling off there would be in any way useful.

It was in a nudgy-nurdly approach to making progress. The fantastic ST4 was largely pointless as when it’s this wet – you’d be as quick on a shopping trolley. But that is not the point here; love the Malverns as I do for their all year riding, their steeps, their proper mountain-lite ness, woody singletrack still feels like home. And even when it’s under about four inches of mud, there’s still fun to be had switching drift for grip and sideways movement for speed.

90 minutes was all the time I had, which included a total of eight pot-holed road miles miles to reach the woods. Talking of totals, the scores on the now darkened doors were not terribly impressive. 13 Miles with a smidge over a 1000 feet of climbing. That distance in the Malverns, and you’re half way up Everest.

But it was brilliant fun, and entirely fitting in with my goal of doing something silly every day. Which may go some way to explain why tomorrow 5am will see me getting up to drive sixty miles to Birmingham in order to get a train to London. When ones leaves about the same time as the one from just up the road.

That’s not silly, that’s on the mentally unstable side of bonkers.

* None. Bought one of those fancy RaceGuard ones. But the clearance under the Reba fork arch is, well, Californian.

** Where the horses haven’t been. Clearly most horse riders are illiterate as the “Please Don’t Ride in these woods” are generally ignored.

Mud in your ice.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, PhotographyLeave a comment

As trail conditions go, a sprinkling of fresh white stuff covering a crunchy layer of corn snow atop a bed of mid winter mud doesn’t trigger an enthusiastic “Let’s Ride” response to a 7am Alarm call. Except today when two of your five tomorrows include 18 hour London Returns and a whole week of shitty looking weather.

We kept to the South side of the Malverns with the high ridges and peaks being properly deep in snow. This still didn’t make our passage easy as every climb had to be forced through the greasiness and energy sappin g slippiness of trail wide mud. Which you only found as tyres broke through a thin crust of snow on the fourth day of a freeze/unfreeze cycle.

Malvern Ride - Feb 2010 Malvern Ride - Feb 2010

I’m fairly bored of snow. Only our last descent was on the right side of conditions nirvana with hardpacked snow on firm trails. The rest of a rather weedy sounding 10k loop had to be hard earned with granny ring gurning, and significant pushing. Downhill was pretty exciting to be fair, with fantastic levels of grip being attained right up until the point when there wasn’t any. At all. I’ll be going straight on then regardless of the spiky vegetation blocking my way.

Malvern Ride - Feb 2010 Malvern Ride - Feb 2010

Momentum was truly your friend – my old mud riding memories surfaced from years of Chiltern Winter* allowing be to blaze a stinky trail over half frozen stutter bumps and endless draggy slush. It was more fun that is sounds, especially as we had the hills to ourselves and most of our tracks were the first ones.

Malvern Ride - Feb 2010 Malvern Ride - Feb 2010

A final climb up a quickly renamed “Mist-Summer” found us finally on harder tracks where pedalling brought a proper forwards, rather than sideways, reward. A brief stop at the top ratified our choice to stay away from the high places with wind driven snow making riding difficult and a bit dangerous. Off the top we went, carefully on the narrow, snowy tracks and then faster – sometimes unintentionally – through the steep, muddy tree section.

Malvern Ride - Feb 2010 Malvern Ride - Feb 2010

A comedically heroic snow spraying plunge back to Hollybush brought forth icy tears and big grins.

Malvern Ride - Feb 2010

If I’m still loving riding so much in these conditions, what’s it going to be like when it’s dry, dusty, fast and warm? I’ll hardly be able to sleep 🙂

* And Spring. And Autumn. And Summer as well on too many occasions.

Long Term Weather Forecast.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, PhotographyLeave a comment

Four words to strike terror into the heart of any committed fair weather fairy/hardy mountain biker despite the heuristic proof that they are nothing more than Electronic Wizardry looking out of a virtual window, before making something up. So when, four days ago, a flutter of net pidginary cemented a Welsh trail centre rendezvous despite dire warnings of frozen fire and sleety brimstone, we rightly expected at worst cold and clear, and at best – well – Spring.

As usual, the prevailing weather conditions had nothing whatsoever to do with the Met Office’s finest lying machine, and everything to do with my utterance of the “S” word while being lightly warmed under sunny skies on a Devon beach some two days earlier. So it was a disappointment – if not a surprise – to find myself driving through a wall of snow some two valleys upstream from CwmCarn this morning. My riding Pal – who shared the last proper winter experience and the birth of the grim-o-meter – was running late, leaving me ample time to sulk in the car park as a volley of small arms fire was unleashed on the truck.

No way that was merely rain. Nothing as soft as H20 can create a racket quite that hard and so devastatingly depressing. Here we were then; in a never-ending winter, at ground zero of a rain event that can surely only end in flooding , and awaiting Nigel “the weather Jonah” Parker. As we’ve said so many times before “What could possibly go wrong?”

Not much actually. On the upside, waterproofs were exactly that, gears shifted, suspension reliably bonged up and down, tyres kept us in touch with the trail and brakes stopped us flying off it. On the downside, it was a bit wet and muddy. There is a rather snooty stance, generally dispensed bravely from behind an Internet keyboard, that trail centres are identikit scalextric tracks – the domain of the poseurs and poorly skilled, somehow unworthy of proper riders. And you know, under the pompous bullshit, there’s a nugget of truth there especially if you are surrounded with such helpful MTB geography as I am.

But not today, five minutes into the first climb we were both immersed in splashing through puddles and searching for grip. Experts in the former, rather less successful locating the latter leading both of us to wonder if today was “National Can’t Ride for Shit Day“. Really didn’t matter as all though as we crested the snowline and made fresh tracks for the summit. We’d be following five or six tyre indents since mud gave way to the white stuff, but come the first descent, fresh tracks were ours.

This was properly atmospheric riding, snow tamping down all noise except the hiss of our tyres, low lying trees brushing clothes and depositing freshies in your helmet*, and the trail lost under a carpet of late winter. Neither of us have ever ridden that descent quite so slowly nor been quite so close to a whole range of interesting accidents. Slowly it dawned on me, that your best UK rides are invariably undertaken in less than perfect conditions. And this is a good thing, because who would want dust and firm trails all year round eh?**

Something else began to nudge my hindbrain as well, and that was simply the ST4 is one brilliant bike. I’ve ridden CwmCarn on a range of MTB’s from short travel singlespeed through ever more exotic hardtails, and a slew of full suspension bikes. And one section in particular has always found them out – the exposed ridge hanging over the valley and made up of fast chutes, exposed turns and a whole bunch of pointy shaped rocks. Hardtails are hard work here as a few bits are pedally and all of it is pretty bouncy. Full Suss bikes don’t snap out of the bends, and feel a bit too magic carpet for the trail. Singlespeeds are just silly.

But the ST4 is not like any of those. It encourages pumping the trail**, taking more aggressive lines and being rather too brave carving through the turns. It’s differently great because you cease to think about the bike and what it can and you can’t do. You just ride and grin and ride and ride and grin some more until the world becomes a better place. You can’t explain why, but you don’t care much about that either. At the trails’ end, I was a little disappointed to see Nig only 50 yards behind on his hardtail. He did however have the decency to look proper bolloxed.

The homeward trail has been groomed and improved to deal with those who confuse braking with turning, and those of us who’ve *ahem* ridden off the edge after failing to bridge the gap between confidence and skill over the little jumps. Nig and I went at it line astern, fully dialled in to the level of grip and estatic in the knowledge that there is nothing but downhill hoonery between us and a huge mug of tea.

It didn’t last long enough, but it lasted long enough to validate why riding is always better than not riding. To reinforce the truth that is dicking about with your friends beats sitting around bemoaning the bloody British Weather. To make me wonder if it’ll always be like this, or whether one day I’ll accept middle age, living between the lines, lose the incredulation of my peers who pityingly ask whether it’s time to increase your medication, find stuff people find important is important to me, conform to social norms, stop breaking the washing machine, that kind of thing.

But laughing at Nig with his full body mud pack – the signature look for a Winter Mountain Biker – and having another head full of fantastic memories, I think it’s pretty sodding unlikely for a while yet.

Suits me.

* This is not rude. It was, however, exceptionally cold.

** Okay, okay fair enough but you’d need to share it with a bunch of Californians’. Hah, that’s shut you up.

*** No this isn’t rude either but it’s huge fun, and you can do it standing up so….

I’ve got a note from my mum

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

Which means I shouldn’t have to go to work. MouseLung(tm) has taken residence which makes daily tasks including de-icing the car, walking up stairs or aggressive typing a trigger for a swipe on the Ventalin. Asthma is a bugger, especially when you think you have it licked. Then once or twice a year, back it comes and you feel your early year fitness disappearing. Annoying, damn right.

More annoying is this breathless event has co-incided with a dump of work stuff I’m thinking of as vocational snow. It has come unannounced from the sky, landed entirely on my head, stopping me doing what I want to be doing, and if any more falls, there’s going to be an INCIDENT. Which may involve nail-y sticks and war cries.

Again perfectly timed as we’re off on Hols for a few days to see if the dog can eat my Brothers’ house in Devon. Four people who’ve lived with the dog for eighteen months think this is pretty unlikely, one who has not is insistent that he fully expects the stairs to be gone by morning. Suits me, I can’t run up them anyway.

Anyway, this made me laugh. Not entirely work safe.

Oh I changed the site theme again, not much point really as 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of hits come from RSS Feeds. I might place some nekkid ladies on here as a reward for the traditionalists who have yet to harness the power of google reader 😉

That was the weekend that was..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, PhotographyLeave a comment

… great, super, marvellous. All things which singularly and together fail to describe the undeniable shitness of the days following. Waiting for the snot to stop, most grumpy here was merely going to post a flickr link and a bookmark to a similar ride two years back.

Yet while many of the photos and some of the riders may look the same, a few hundred planetary rotations has changed quite a lot of other stuff. The trails for a start, a number are showing some real signs of wear and widening which can be attributed to a couple of shit summers, and some crappy riding mostly on the brakes. Certainly Sunday brought out many wheeled trail users and a bit of snow, whereas Saturday we had all to ourselves except for a wind that reduced expensive winter gear to dayglo marketing.

Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010 Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010

We were also lost significantly more often. I blame Nigel who made two bad decisions before we’d even begun; firstly he (was) volunteered to be Responsible Individual With The Map, before compounding that mistake by immediately installing me as his navigational second. His rationale was sound enough – no one else had ever been here before, but there are years of bloody history for yours truly exhibiting the map reading skills of a blind goldfish with a lemming complex.

Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010 Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010

Immediate geographical discord saw me head off one way while Nig made a confident start at 180 degrees to my track. Re-united after a spot of desperate “just our little joke fellas” mugging, legs still upset at being stripped of warm trousers, were instructed to turn endless circles to make progress along and then up Holford Coombe. Here it became apparent which masochistic bastards had been suffering trench-willy for the previous month, and which of our little riding flange had been somewhat more distracted by the pleasures of a sofa.

For all my gloating over early season form, the first crash still stapled itself to my leg as an optimistic stream line choice into resulted in a face-planting punt over the bars followed by a hard bash with sharp metally bike parts. Bleeding heroically from a calf wound, I wound up the steepening trail in sweaty hubris only to find myself largely alone, although this was due in some part by a head start triggered by five other blokes pissing themselves laughing.

Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010 Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010

The trail was a cheeky combination of mud, frozen mud and other assorted wetness. I was loving it, others less so especially Brian who unwisely introduced himself to a month of sloth and SPD’s at the same time. Still more height was gained – and occasionally lost when Nig failed to understand my checking the map and pointing confidently were in no way connected – until we’d banked enough for a guiltless withdrawal at the gravity machine. WeaCoombe always makes me smile, if only for the slight schoolboy humour of its’ name, although laughing was not the primary emotion once tyre swallowing divots threatened to buck me from my full suspension steed.

Talent compensators are all well and good assuming you have some talent to start with. Elliot – young lad, great bike handling skills, you know the sort, lovely blokes and yet damn annoying with their effortless riding, blew past riding a mate’s bike one size too small, while still having sufficient mental capacity to check if I was having some sort of problem. Certainly was, and it was entirely ego based so I set about chasing the young buck* which inevitably ended with a bunch of excellent excuses and a 20 second gap. Still there was climbing to be done now which was less gloaty than it should have been as “it’s easier to be fit that to be brave” as my younger self incessantly reminded me.

Next up Smiths. Not quite where I thought it was although I passed off being prematurely trailheaded with a lofty “yeah well for those that know this knarly flat bit is actually the start donchaknow?“. My reward was to be sent down second chasing Elliot in a manner best thought of as life threatening. Smiths is strange, it’s so fast and open at the top, you enter the trees off the brakes pretending not to remember what happens next. “Yeah there’s some rocks but hey they’re not that bad, we’ll keep the speed up and float over ’em Collective Style“. And that works for a while until you hit a section clearly composed of gravestones begat from the last silly buggers to try that.

I reviewed my options; braking on wet rock seemed to offer nothing but a close up view of something pointy, steering away was largely pointless as to my left, rock, to my right more rock, hanging on for grim death then? Yes? Okay, it’s worked many times before. And it worked again, although my squeeky shout to upcoming walkers spoke of a man having recently imbued a pint of adrenalin. Through the water splash though, the singeltrack is worth dying for, really even when a little muddy and soggy, it’s the perfect combination of flowing corners and lofty lumps. Yeah ace trail, shitty granny ring climb out although I attained my high water mark on this time round.

Still had to get off and push and a bit of inspired map reading condemned the accused (“You don’t like climbing much do you?“) to 20 minutes of strange uphillness that looked flat but felt vertical. Mutiny temporarily averted by a promise of stonking trail all downhill to a late pub lunch, thing were looking properly up, until the we got lost going down and found ourselves on a 200 yard wide grassy motorway at bugger all gradient and faced by a bastard head wind.

Nige and I reviewed the map only to realise we’d taken a wrong turn. Rather than admit to that, we waved the boys off towards what those filled with negative thoughts may have considered a cliff face and hoped for the best. And it was; the best that is dropping into fast contour hugging singletrack before steepening further through rocky switchbacks then firing us out onto a wooded, rooty trail high about the sunken trail we’d been heading for. Two trails became one with a proper root step to flat interfacing with an airy satisfying second of silence before great suspension hit rocky track. Perfect, let’s go to the pub.

Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010 Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010

We stayed there a while because the climb out of Bicknoller is not something any person with no history of mental health would leave a warm fire to toil up. But the cars were two valleys away and winter light is soon winter dark, so up we went in various states of groaning and thousand yards stares. It would be inappropriate for me to document exactly who was first up. By quite a few minutes. Or to discuss exactly how motivational “One day you’ll laugh about this climb, but today YOU ARE WEAK” actually is.

Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010 Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010

Some fine gurning later, we were off home via a quick traverse and some inspired map reading by Nig with absolutely no support from me. Sturt Coombe would also excite the schoolboy with its’ lush curves and hidden depths**, and excited us rather older gentlemen as well. A great way to finish and by this time I was absolutely sure that the ST4 was a bike that is going to take me to all sorts of interesting places. It’s not a blast through anything bike or a magic carpet ride suspension miracle, but it’s something way better than both of those. I’m can just catch sight of how bloody good it is with my riding peripheral vision. Get a decent rider on one of these and they’d fly. And then disappear.

Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010 Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010

As we had too after splashing through streams and dirtying cars with mud splattered clothing. The mud splattered grins lasted longer even after cleaning ourselves up and depopulating the local pubs of dark beer and sweet things. I even took the fellas to a cherished local’s pub where a fight was just breaking out. I think they enjoyed that.

Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010 Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010

Next day a mechanical, excuses and pressing engagements saw three of us getting lost ON THE WAY to the car park we were heading for. Admitting defeat I broke man-law and asked a nice lady for trail directions. Which ensured we rode some more frozen trails and had a mince on the downhill course. I love the Quantocks for serving up superb trails and stunning views in a really quite tiny package of land. It’s 100 miles door to door and that’s not far enough away to stop me coming back a few more times this year.

Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010 Quantock Hills Ride - Jan 2010

I love it for one more thing as well; the memories of some great mates and some brilliant riding. You know I suddenly don’t feel so bad anymore.

* no really. I meant to type that. It’s a family show.

** I lied about the family show bit.

The Grim-O-Meter.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Road RidingLeave a comment

This is my unofficial measurement of unpleasantness when bicycles meet rain, dark, wind, cold and mechanical catastrophe. So a 1 would represent a light sprinkle of mid-summer rain cascading over an un-jacketed rider, thereby souring an otherwise delightful experience of tanning and pedalling. Whereas a 10 would be the archetypal “dark and stormy night” attempting to fix a puncture with no tubes, a busted pump and bloodied thumbs while being frequently deluged by passing HGVs.

This morning was a strong six. Dark. Check. Early. Check. Wet. Check. Mechanical. Oh yes. After 30 minutes of sustained fettling, the screeching mudguard of doom now emits a piercing howl rather than a dull scratch. Ratcheting up the GOM score was some unrelenting rain triggered, as I moved the bike from indoors to outdoors, from an apparently clear sky.

A little music tends to ease the passage from night to day, but my MP3 player lay abandoned where I’d placed it charging the night before in a location impossible to miss at 6am. That’s an area of my commute that needs some work, as does about half of the road surface which is either pot-holed, subsiding or entirely missing. The only joy of mid winter riding stems from darkness hiding an ever more pretzled wheel set.

So whereas last weekend I strode the quantocks as a cycling collusus* stomping up climbs and gloating over early season form, this week has been payback. Firstly a Malverns night ride shortened first by apathy and secondly by sleet. My legs were fine, but the shop steward of the brain demanded a one-out-all-out withdrawal of labour.

We still poked a big pointy hole on the upside of 2,000 feet of vertical climbing, but sticky trails, too much great riding lately and a shared sense of can’t-be-arsed saw us lowside it home to avoid all the really hurty bits.

And we weren’t alone. At least not quite. Two weeks ago, I was lamenting the burgeoning flange of riders on my hills. But Tuesday saw just us and another pair who were talking a hell of a game in terms of a peak bagging epic** trudging through the plasticine trails, and sliding about in a generally not-very-good-at-cycling manner.

The signs of post Christmas apathy are all around. The fug of a microwaved pasty has already replaced the smell of fresh lettuce in our office. On the train – come summer – we struggle to position six bikes in a space for barely three. But this week there’s been just the one, with the rider receiving pitying looks from fellow passengers.

I know what they were thinking “Nice bike, shame he had to sell his car to buy it, because well you wouldn’t got out in THAT by choice. Or maybe he’s a nutter“. February is always a bastard month, not quite close enough to spring for light and warmth to permeate the times when I ride, nor far enough into the season to motivate yourself that this is training for summer events.

No month 2 is a slog. And there aren’t many of us still doing it. But great riding gear, fast road bikes and a level of bloody mindedness not to let this unheralded fitness slip shall keep me going. Although I expect the Grim-O-Meter to take a beating for the next few weeks.

* Other people who were actually there may have a different – and less glowing – opinion.

** But based on the physical evidence of them blowing it out of their arse on a flat section, I’m thinking they were fibbing. A lot.

I only work here.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

Well only if the much heralded “Be extremely Charitable to Verbs Day” had finally dawned. We’ve a long and proud history on the Hedgehog of documenting* that the British Service Industry is as much an oxymoron as “A night of song and entertainment with Les Dennis“.

The Car Park/Large Note Depository abutting our offices installed a shiny line of mutli-currency payment machines where one can part with a weeks’ wages for the pleasure of parking your car for an hour, and descending stairwells smelling of old tramps and fresh piss. The only obvious wet-wear** in this electronic package is a lonely soul hutted out of harms way and surrounded by a million monitors, which he cheerfully ignores as your homeward transport is being car jacked.

Except not tonight. A snaking, shivering and vibrationally angry queue trod a menacing line to his armoured window. The reason soon became clear – a total systems crash had left the normally chirpy machines dark and silent. Occasionally one flickered fireflying desperate commuters to its’ blinking screen only to accept their ticket but reject their payment. These poor deluded types then attempted to rejoin the now epic queue from whence they’d left. Ranks were closed and cold shoulders turned to indicate the only place for such technology believers was right at the back.

The much chastised attendant was having to ring through every credit card transaction as the cashless economy foundered on the rocks of the minimum wage. From my place mid-queue I idly calculated that five minutes per ticket processed had me standing in an every more grumpy crowd for about 45 minutes. At which point it went properly dark and started snowing. Briefly a rumour circulated that if you had the right change, a combination of two machines and some Fibonacci key sequence may stamp your exit card, but most of us were far too savvy to fall for that queue jumping trick.***

At this point, a second attendant began to police the rank informing us all the ticket machines weren’t working, and – more importantly – how this wasn’t his fault. Bored, I engaged the fella in conversation:

“So tell me, how can all the machines fail at the same time” / “Dunno Mate”

“Isn’t there some kind of backup, fail safe, that kind of thing” / “Dunno Mate”

“Do you know when it might be fixed” / “Dunno Mate”

“Have you asked?” / [receive look of intense trade unionism] “I only work here Mate”

Time passed. Skies turned to black. Feet turned to ice. Brummies turn to near violence. My turn at the booth ended with a brief round of applause, as I was holding real currency and thereby short-cutting the approval process by five minutes. Even exhibiting the first signs of hypothermia I retained sufficient mental collateral not to ask for a receipt. Because I have other things to do this year.

My exit from the centre of this EMP strike was briefly halted by a third “parking operative” stopping me splintering the barrier movie style, by inserting his rather over-fed girth between me and the slot where tickets open Hell’s Portal to the Hagley Road.

“What’s up” I asked innocently “Got to check your ticket”

“But the exit machine is working now isn’t it?” / “Yes”

“So why are you having to check my ticket? That’s stupid” / “Dunno”

“Did you ask?” / “Just doing my…..”

Let me stop you there I thought. Here’s some advice tho, if you’re ever lucky enough to exit via the second exit from the Broad Street car park in Birmingham and you notice a rather lumpy sleeping policeman, you ain’t see me right?

It is become increasingly clear to me, I am the only sane man amongst a bunch of lunatics. It’s like The Matrix with no red pill.

* Or if today was instead “stop poncing about with fancy words” we’d probably have to admit to Moaning.

** I’ve been hanging out with programmers for far too long “Yeah sorry chief, got to net myself some realtime in the blueroom to interface wth the wetwear” which roughly translates as “I’m off outside for a smoke and a bag of chips”

*** In the olden days, we would have RELISHED this. People would have joined the queue merely in the spirit of enquiry. World’s gone to shit, I blame the Internet.

I was so angry..

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

… I wrote a letter. Yes that’ll show ’em. ’em being eON the purveyor of not enough electricity and excuses. We survived last winter on convection heaters and wearing eight layers of clothing. All the time soothed by various identikit representatives from eON that, as the fiasco was entirely their fault and they’d cocked up fixing it not once, not twice but THREE times, they would pay for the eye watering costs of running five 3kw carbon unfriendly heaters.

A year on, and nothing has happened. Well I say nothing, from our end we’ve been polite, considerate and diffident asking for the occasional update on when we might be repaid. The latest email from the jobsworth from engineering this morning denied all knowledge of any agreement, and wondered if he could fob us off with a different department. Attractive as that solution was, instead I went for the nuclear option creating this email and copying it to the head of public relations and the managing director.

I don’t expect they’ll ever pay, but hey I feel better.

”

Dear smartypants,

Your recent email is nothing more than another wasted effort to resolve this problem. eON have shown a total lack of ownership, clarity and urgency to resolve a problem ENTIRELY of their own making. eON further have clear and documented liability in failing to provide us with sufficient power to run our heating system.

The convection heaters were a tactical solution to keep our young family warm during the winter. As parents, the health and well being of our children is of course our primary concern. Whereas eON’s primary concern should be the rather more simple supply of electricity. It really shouldn’t be that difficult, nor should it have dragged on FOR ANOTHER YEAR in which eON have failed to deliver on their promises, comedically failed to sort out our account and attempted to wheedle out of their responsibilities. All this time we’ve been paying for electricity eON had promised to reimburse is for.

You clearly are not interested in us as a customer. You have many others, and I am sure we are nothing more than a difficult issue that you don’t want to deal with. From our perspective however, we are powerless in our attempts to seek closure to a very upsetting and financially crippling set of circumstances that ARE ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT. We are staggered that you offer nothing but lame excuses, and even those have to be dragged out after weeks of silence. Did anyone ever make clear to eON that their customers are kind of an important tenet of their business model?

So here’s some news. We’re not going away. We’re not going to be fobbed off, beaten down by your apathy and excuses, re-directed to someone else who will waste our time. We’ve made our case patiently and politely and you’ve responded cravenly and inconsistently. It is pointless to try and convince you of the justness of our case, although any outside review body would clearly see it as absolutely watertight. Therefore three options present:

1) Pay us the money you promised. Within thirty days.

2) Provide us with someone in your organisation who has authority to resolve this. That person clearly isn’t you. Failing that, we’ll start with the MD.

3) Do nothing (I’m guessing from the history of this fiasco this will be your default position) in which case we’ll opt for OfGen and the local press who I’m sure will be delighted to cover a human interest story where “ as usual “ faceless corporations ride roughshod over poor consumers.

You may take from the e-mail that we are angry and frustrated. And you may feel insulted by the tone. Please understand we really didn’t want to go for the Nuclear option, but you’ve left us with no option. eON have “ for over a year “ failed on their obligations to serve us as a customer. And the only people suffering in this time are us. So we have every right to be irritated with both you and your firm.

Please advise us of your response.

”

Do I sound angry? I hope so, I certainly felt fairly vexed while I was writing it.

Bottle it

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, PhotographyLeave a comment

That’s what I’d like to do with that light. And then uncork a bit every time there is misery or unpleasantness. Because it would remind me of just what a brilliant weekend we had in the Quantocks.

Far too tired to write about it now, but it followed the well ridden path of navigational folly, not very motivational encouragement, ocean-emptying fish and chip portions, beer – natch – and some fantastic winter riding with a top crew of riding buddies.

I don’t know many things really, but I do know this. I don’t want to go to work tomorrow – I want to go out and ride my bike instead.

It’s probably an urban myth, but..

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

.. wouldn’t it be great if it were true.

”

If you’ve ever worked for a boss that reacts before getting the facts and thinking things through, you will love this story…..

Arcelor-Mittal Steel, feeling it was time for a shake-up, hired a new CEO and he was determined to rid the company of all slackers.

On a tour of the facilities, the new CEO noticed a guy leaning against a wall. The room was full of workers and he wanted to let them know that he meant business. He walked up to the guy at the wall and asked, ‘How much money do you make a week?’

A little surprised, the young man looked at him and replied, ‘I make about $400 a week. Why?’

The CEO then handed the guy $1,600 in cash and screamed, ‘Here’s four weeks’ pay, now GET OUT and don’t come back!’ The guy left without saying a word to the CEO.

Feeling pretty good about himself, the CEO looked around the room and asked, ‘Does anyone want to tell me what that goof-ball did here? ‘

From across the room came a voice, ËœPizza delivery guy from Domino’s.’

”

That’s it from me for a couple of days. Very early tomorrow morning, I hope to be sober enough to drive the 100 miles south to open up a couple of riding days in the lovely Quantock Hills. Not been there for a couple of years, and in those years my exposure to steep, pointy hills has increased 100{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2}. I still expect piss poor performance though, because my mate Jas turns up here later and he’s cracked the knack of getting me drunk* on almost every occasion we get together.

When I explained that we had a hard start at 0-fuckme700 hours, and old greybeard here needed some proper undrunken sleep, so let’s make it a quiet one eh, his response didn’t convince me I’d secured his agreement.

He was still laughing when I put the phone down.

* By simply asking “Another beer Al, you’ve only had 11″