Author: Alex

It had to happen :(

On By AlexIn Bikes7 Comments

I’ve been in denial about it. Displaced the horror of the situation by pretending that probability theory may be looking the other way. Ignored the signs, or should I say grim portents. But really, deep down I knew that eventually this sad – nay tragic – day would fall upon us.

What can this event be I hear you cry? The Hedgehog Ringmaster losing his vocational status of “grudgingly employed“? Worse, far worse. A plague of genetically modified potatoes rising up from their soily graves and falling, locust like, on innocent people and property? I wish it were so, when compared to the uncleanliness of what I am about to share.

A long time reader, and someone I’ve been proud to call a mate for many years has GONE AND BOUGHT A BROMPTON. Yes dear readers, a man who bestrides the MTB world as cycling colossus -having earned his wheeled spurs riding fast and furious* – has traded it all in for the unworldly wrongness of Lucifer’s folder.

I cannot bring myself to name him. In case whatever infection he has clearly been infected spreads through the power of electrons. But let me just say, that only earlier this year he was chastising us all for not finding places where he could rip downhill on his VP-Free.

And now a Brompton. And probably cycling clips, a beard, hemp clothing and an unhealthy interest in calculating mortgage compound interest. It’s all downhill now** my friend, illicit subscription in “Which Folder“, Titanium Hinge Upgrades, Dynamo’s and the sharing of cheery hellos with others who’ve fallen under the spell of that bastard union between a shopping trolley and a blind welder amped up on crack.

It’s a sad, sad day here at the Hedgehog. I feel like holding a wake. Instead I shall be holding a glass later and toasting my dear departed buddy whose gone over to the “other side” 🙁

* and often upside down and lost in the trees.

** unless you’re on Satan’s Scaffold in which case I’d be inclined to carry it on the grounds it’s safer and quicker.

Interrupt Driven

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

There are many scientific studies postulating the theory that men cannot multi-task. I am here to tell you today they are absolutely right. But you can keep your expensive research and large group studies, because they are not needed to illustrate this essential truth. All that is required is to ask a bloke to perform a simple task, and then continue to interrupt him until he explodes.

All that stood between me and something far more interesting was schlepping a few barrowloads of earth from one end of the garden to the other. I was ignorant of the logic behind such soil redistribution, but happily so – engaged in that manly, physical act of the rude mechanical.

However I had barely turned my spade in anger, before being informed my selection of soil was from the wrong pile. Since our garden currently has the landscaped aspect of a set from “attack of the giant killer voles“, this is an easy mistake to make. So moving onto a second pile of brownish, parched dry, rock hard ground – that looked EXACTLY THE SAME as the one I’d be shooed away from – I applied some pent up energy to the job.

Half way through the first barrow, no.1 daughter sidles up and wonders if progress can be made on the “Menace Sledge“. A quick review of the languished project signals some creative work required before further painting can commence. Verbal is dispatched to the barn to do her worst with a roll of masking tape and a copy of my last appraisal.*

Barely a further spade had been turned before no.2 child demands some bike based action. Grumpily downing tools, I release the ickle pink one – steady – from its’ hooked prison, furnish Random with gloves and helmet and wheel her out into the garden.

Believing now that nothing can divert me from my primary task, I attack the pile with gusto only to be told that in fact it is stones that we need, not soil. So – grumbling darkly – I upend the soil back from whence it came and begin to replace it with rocks strewn into our garden’s moonscape. On presenting these, I find they are the wrong type of stone.

Beginning to sizzle gently, I am not even allowed to correct my mistake because suddenly a sledgehammer, some nails, long bits of wood and an owl** were now gazumped onto the critical path. Now as a bloke, I can deal with multiple tasks, but only in serial form. Whereas this kind of multi-threaded scenario turns me into a cross between a headless chicken and one of the extras from the movie Scanners.

Finally I’m back where I belong on the barrow. For about two seconds before Verbal wants me to approve the paint template – which I hurriedly do -before declaring that she’s been promised a pound if she washes Carol’s car. Fine, just get on with it. Oh you can’t? No, because muggins here is suddenly 2nd Helper assigned to hosepipe duties.

Deep sweary sigh. Drop Spade. Find hosepipe. Find bucket. Fill Bucket. Send child to turn on hosepipe. Stomp around garden looking for spraying attachment. Receive admonishment regarding lack of correct soil/rock/hammer/owl. Begin to rotate on spot in manner of organic drill turned up to 11.

At which point smallest child demands some satisfaction on bike related problem. Deciding this is a job only I can do and so be freed from minutiae of family life, grab spanners and skulk in workshop cursing the non linear world I live in. Fix bike, feel the happy, blokey glow of finishing something before being drawn back outside by sound of swearing.

Verbal is one of only two people in the world who can make Carol swear publicly***. She’s a bright kid, but sometimes has the legendary stubbornness of a mule crossed with a camel. Convinced she cannot actually turn the hose off – having turned it on some ten minutes earlier – a cross garden debate ensues focusing on exactly which way anti clockwise is.

The last couplet went something like this: Wails” I don’t have a watch” Shouts: “Oh for FUCKS SAKE“. I decide to step in before social services to, only to find myself involved in another maelstrom of requests. I very nearly put both kids in the barrow, threw the bike on top, chucked in the hammer, nails and wood, filled the lot up with dead birds and wheel them outside to the cry of “FOR GOD’S SAKE I AM A BLOKE, ARE YOU TRYING TO DRIVE ME MENTAL?”

I remember watching those endless sitcoms where hen-pecked middle aged men would listen wearily to the incessant requests from their spouse, and answer only “Yes Dear“. I used to think this was spineless and stupid. Now I’m seeing it as some kind of coping strategy.

I did eventually – in case you’re even slightly interested – finish the task I’d started some hours before. At which point I locked myself in the barn and muttered my way through some pointless tasks. All of which I lined up behind a large mug of tea and in an order that could be quickly and simply worked through. At no point did I think “tell you what, I’ll put this bolt down and go and refelt the roof“.

I’m coming to the conclusion that men, like life, are simple. It’s the women that make things complicated. My next step is to try and explain this to them, for which I’ll need to understand them first. I’m 42 years old, and I’ve no idea where to start on that one.

* it got off lightly. I had it earmarked for chicken shitting duties.

** I made that up. But I wouldn’t have been surprised if such a request had been followed by “Oh come on, I’ve TOLD you why we need the owl loads of times”

*** Obviously I am the other one.

This is not my fault!

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding8 Comments

I know, I know it never is. But this time, It really isn’t. After giving up the opportunity for two great rides this weekend, so as to have a go at this “proper parenting” phenomenon I’ve heard about, it became clear my pesky kids continue to sprout upwards in the manner of a certain pantomime beanstalk.

A woodsy ride – in which I must say both offspring showed the kind of skilled riding and lack of blubbing that suggests a paternity check may be in order – demonstrated Random’s 20 inch wheels have turned her into a BMX monster, and lanky Verbal is now too talk for the 24inch upgrade she’s been riding for a while.

So in that well trodden upgrade shuffle, Random is happy to have her sister’s cast off, and off to the shops we go for a new full size one. My purchasing rationale is based on frame size, engineering quality, component options and other such important stuff. Verbal cares not for such things, and wants only for it to be black. Or red. Or preferably both.

Frankly the options are bewildering, and I’m a bit out of the game since my pantheon of never ending new frames came to a dead stop last year. I’m over all that you see, have everything I need, no marketing guy is getting one over me. Oh no.

And then I saw that frame and started making excuses. Love hardtails, but the old lower back is giving me a bit of grief. Short travel full suss would do almost everything for me now, since the big away trips to scary places look unlikely to be repeated. A spot of middle age cosseting would not seem unreasonable for a man whose feeling a bit Bike-Mojo-Lite lately.

And then do them in custom colours. But like I say this isn’t my fault, I wasn’t looking for a new frame and I certainly won’t be buying one. I think we can look at my unblemished history in this area, and all agree on that at least.

The menace sledge

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

A few points of order before we start. The sledge in question is not finished, so descriptive language and a few choice lies shall paint the pictures that this post is so sorely lacking. And before you ask, with understandable incredulation, why I am sweating over a hot powertool on a beautiful, warm blue sky day entirely lacking in snow, let me shunt your line of questioning onto the branch marked “Children”.

I’m not sure I’ve ever owned a proper sledge. Even back in the middle ages when I was a lad and six foot snowdrifts mocked global warming for at least three months a year, winter sliding was done on old tyres, black bags and other random stuff nailed together*

Although my dad made us a sledge once. Being both a proper Yorkshireman and half decent engineer, he acquired a pair of two inch thick metal runners and grafted on top a downhill tank with no time for that sissy-Santa look of graceful arcs and elegant lines. No, this long slung snow shark combined ship thick steel with no nonsense 4×4 hardwood, topped off with Boadicea tribute outrunners that’d reduce a shop sled to splinters without any discernible loss of velocity.

It was properly mental. Obviously we called it “Killer” and it became the terror of the local slopes, with at least five confirmed kills and a number of additional blood injuries to be taken into consideration. In our defence, even with three kids on board, steering was all but impossible, and once it had ruddered onto the hill’s fall line nothing could stop it. We should have renamed it “The Lumberjack“.

I know it outlasted our childhood, and can only assume it was finally destroyed in a controlled explosion after it ate through a log cabin or something. Anyway these are the kind of design cues that stay with a boy, so when Verbal announced she’d like a “Menace Sledge“, I was soon on the hunt for a couple of bridge supports to get us started.

Two things went wrong immediately. Firstly I left Verbal responsible for the design process which eventually spat out two paint cans, a not very scale drawing on the back of an envelope and a hopeful smile**. Secondly I’m not half the engineer my old man was, and the only thing I’ve built of note in the last twenty years is a wobbly workshop table. And I’d not be keen to race that downhill.

Did this deter us? It did not. We did, however, lose the envelope so dropped back to the standard “rapid prototyping” model which sees me manically powersaw random lengths of wood, which Verbal attempts to create something sledge like with the offcuts. It’ll not be a surprise to you, that this has led to some compromises.

Firstly the track is too narrow, the ski(wheel?)base too short and the seat too high. It’s built from project off cuts which are neither square nor light. It’s also been hand finished by a girl who’s never had a spray can in her hand before. Being a “Dennis The Menace” tribute, the colours are red and black, and the best I can say of the brooding carcus before me is it resembles the cleaning up operation after a pretty heavy crucifixion.

Assuming it ever hits the slopes, I’m fairly sure things shall not improve. Although I’ll chamfer*** the skis so it doesn’t pitch our first born head first into a nearby snowbank, I’m don’t feel this is necessarily a good thing. Because if it ever does reach a fast slither, there will be no way to steer it, or – and some would say this is even more important – to stop it. I expect it to be both insanely fast and desperately twitchy based on the weight/materials/geometry.

In fact, it may well be the first equipment in the entire history of winter sports to be fitted with an airbag. Still three months to refine the design before the ignominy of the inevitable rubbishness of its’ first run.

Tell you one thing though, I’ll not be testing it.

* for about as long as it took to say “no, you have the first go, I know exactly how it was built”. Generally five seconds was reckoned to be the median time for such creations to return to their component parts. Funny for us builders, relatively terrifying and occasionally limb breaking for the maiden pilots.

** In our family, this passes as a pretty qualified design brief.

*** A fine woodworking term, someone demeaned when it is being performed with a jigsaw.

Winning.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road Riding2 Comments

I’ve largely given up on winning, although even that phraseology hints of some podium chasing form in some long past phase of my life. Loose vowels I’m afraid*, in that other than a brief dalliance with that cock-munching class who confused winning with counting money, and a much re-lived 13rd place in my first proper MTB race, I’ve always been closer to the back than the middle**

So tonight when under-commuted legs met over-sized hill, grumpy sighs and wheezy rasps charted my glacial progress into a stiff headwind – cheekily flipped 180 degrees since battering me this morning. So distracted by the world being against me, I was very nearly blown into the roadside vegetation by a pristine roadie flying by like a homesick angel.

Let us pause to examine this cycling mismatch before the inevitable excuses begin. My tarmac conqueror was a vision in white from his Sidi Road shoes through tight Lycra sponsored ensemble topped out by a£200 peakless helmet. His bike – and that word completely fails to describe the engineering miracle reeling in the horizon at frictionless speeds – was somehow even whiter, draped in expensive componentry, and sporting a set of tyres so thin I honestly thought they’d been pencilled onto the rim.

Now allow the eye of disdain pass over a rather grungy middle aged man bedecked in a flappy set of paint stained shorts, a careworn top of dubious vintage, a£20 helmet much repaired with packing tape and shoes clearly stolen from slumbering tramp. The bike was a perfect match, tired from many campaigns, heavy and made heavier by commuting accoutrements, held back by tyres knobbly and wide. On top of this rather unedifying spectacle was the legendary commuting sack, now divested of the emergency badger, but still the unhappy receptacle for the weighty laptop of doom.

“Give up now” I thought. Preserve the few remaining strands of dignity by feigning a mechanical or hacking an arm off with a rusty multi-tool. I am sufficiently self aware in my old age to understand the frustrating dichotomy of ambition gapped by ability. And I know enough about bikes to realise that Mr. Shaven-Legged-Sculpted-Thighs was going to hand me my arse on a plate if temerity became my watchword.

And yet. And yet the last vestige of an overworked competitive gland fired up some anger and demanded death or glory. Death then probably as I snicked a couple of gears, took in a huge breath and went commuter racing for the first time in 18 months. And you know, I’d forgotten how to do it because a determined effort saw me close the gap to a blissful draughting distance where everything just got a whole load easier.

But it felt like cheating. And that’s odd because I like cheating. Always preferred it to hard work on the grounds it leaves more time for beer. Never really been troubled by feelings of guilt when looking for angles and bending the rules. Tonight though, it seemed the wrong time to die wondering and somehow losing worthily trumped winning ugly.

No idea if he knew I was there. He certainly did two seconds later as I waved like the Queen I can be while pulling along side. Duck like, all was serene where it could be seen, down below the legs were piston pumping at a rate that’d have Scotty chucking a big one regarding Dylitherium crystals. The next 45 seconds were horrible. Proper going to be sick, going to explode, going to just die right here horrible.

I dared not look round as I was already spent and even the sight of the cycling Jesus right behind me could not have spurred me on. Best I could have managed would have been a hearty pebble dashing of his lovely team gear with a rather fine pie I’d inauspiciously downed a few hours earlier. So tired now, my default position of cheating seemed a good place to skulk back too. What with the alternative being A&E.

Although my turn off was some 300 yards distant, I came off the drops, passed the momentum baton to the freewheel and ripped off a Rimmer-Like Signalling Salute. If he comes back on the inside, that’s okay I reasoned. It’s fine, I’ve still won. In my own head anyway. But he didn’t, he was MILES back, miles I tell you, honestly sweeping away onto a new course, I almost had to stop so I could barrack him remorsely as his humourless form finally swept pass.

Rationally there’s an explanation. He may have had all the gear but I’m not sure he had an idea what to do with it. His level of spring chicken-ness was similar to mine from what I could determine of a face squashed between expensive clothing. I have to accept that maybe he wasn’t very good, and the very act of overtaking yours hedghoggingly had left him without the physical wit to respond.

But you know what? Don’t give a flying fuck about that. Don’t care one jot. No difference to me if he was a thousand years old. I won, he lost. Oldest game in the word and Christ I cannot tell you how good that felt.

Shallow? Like a tea spoon. That’s me 🙂

* I blame loose bowels from last week leaving me vocationally undernourished, but I can see that’s information you’d rather I’d not shared. That’s the hedgehog for you, we’re all shop front and tackle out round here.

** Feel free to insert your own sexual innuendo here. I’ve done it for you far too many times, it’s about someone else showed their smutty credentials.

The hedgehog is ill.

On By AlexIn Site Stuff3 Comments

And since not even I am prepared to take a laptop into the smallest room, then nothing is getting written until whatever nastiness that has set up camp in my small intestine, finally gets flushed out.

It’s a good four chapter experience so far.

H’mm, I feel the next chapter coming on 🙁

Small is beautiful

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

No, this is an excuse for the size, or otherwise, of certain manly parts. Although having ridden my little ol’ jump bike on some not really trails at all today, I believe I may be searching the Internet for some bigger ones anyway,

Those of you not on the strongest of medication may have noticed that photo is composed to a skewed horizon. I’d like to say that’s exactly how I planned the shot, and it has much to do with accentuating the angle of the bike, the verticality of the little rock, the bigness of the sky. It’d be an artistic untruth though because iit is the result of an photographic technique known as “desperately trying to fit everything in”.

Size again you see. Maybe it does matter. Certainly did on this wall.

Malverns September 2009 Malverns September 2009

I looked at that in a very manly fashion, while some random XC whippets embarrassed the entire MTB genre by repeatedly riding down a couple of steps in a manner that’d mince you straight onto Strictly Come Dancing. Anyway after a few looks and a run in, I ran out of bottle and went to look for less scary things.

None of which were on offer on the final run of the day. On the upside, it was all downhill which – after much winching up the ol’ DMR on flats and a rear axle pedalling position – was a relief. Also in need of relief was my arse, ruined by a cheap saddle I never expected to sit on much, so standing up on wobbly muscles trumped lowering the throbbing chaffed appendage back onto that torturous perch.

The trail down was barely discernible, dropping steeply between still high bracket and gorse. When it did finally open out to something that might once have been a path, the improvement in visibility was mitigated by the loose yet fat rock garden that created an experience best thought of as a pinball game caught in a washing machine.

The DMR was a lot of fun though. Easy to get the scarred buttocks way over the back wheel, the small frame giving it fantastic maneuverability and the big forks ploughing through when my fear based dithering threatened to pop us into the undergrowth. It’s so unlike the Cove – more brutal, more direct, sharp angles forcing weight over the fork, pushing elbows out and grins higher.

All the parts on it are old or second hand or cheap, the frame cost buttons and it’s entirely the wrong bike for – well – most things really. But it has one feature that cannot be fashioned from fancy metals or accessorised bling. It made me feel about 12 years old again.

And that’s becoming important. More important than supposed progression or fitness or riding in new places. Because it’s become apparent to me that flying gliders on a slope – obsessive and much fun as it is – seems to be a an old mans’ game.

I’m not ready for that yet. I want to be twelve again. Best reason to ride a bike? You becha.

Alcohol dependancy

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

Breaking my own avowed radio silence this evening, I was again rendered dashboard thumping with rage as two idiots vigorously debated both sides of the wrong argument. Representing academia was a stern doctor type grouping alcohol advertising and drink related illness as Satan’s killer cocktail. Smarming from the sidelines sloped a suit declaring that£800 million pounds a year bought the drinks company’s nothing but brand awareness.

They are both wrong, but that’s largely irrelevant because the whole argument is dumb. And here’s why – we have lost the ability to apply perspective to any discussion. Rational analysis has been sidelined by the non listening classes preaching at the extremes of the argument, before packaging 30 seconds of doom mongering for our sound-bite generation.

There is no respect for the other view, no attempt to persuade or influence, no chance of listening or even educating; no it’s just preachy bollocks that assumes the audience is unable or unwilling to weigh up subtle nunances, and then let them decide how they’d like to live their lives.

If we draw a straight line from cigarettes kill through alcohol kills, then let’s spear obesity with that linear progression shall we? Obesity must kill more people than alcohol, put more strain on hospitals and lose more hours of the working year. So come one, be properly radical ban all food advertising as well. No scrap that, go a bit further – because clearly we cannot be fucking trusted with anything – take all the food off the shelves and let the state decide what we eat.

Where’s the downside? Okay we’ll all be eating gruel three times a day and the Flora London Marathon’ll be looking for a sponsor, but we can switch funding from people dying by their own hand to keeping them hanging on a few more years thanks to our caring government.

And what pisses me off even more is it is just bad science. A recent report linked bowel cancer with Ham by correlating what people ate with confirmed cases of the disease. What it totally failed to account for whether these same people drank a gallon of wine a night, smoked themselves wheezy or shoved a live rat up their arse.

You cannot airily make a link – as our tweed jacketed chum did earlier – that every alcohol measure you imbibe is another irretrievable step to cancer, nor can you brush off an 80{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} increase in alcohol sales in fifteen years as insufficient data to spot a trend. But you can have an informed debate, and then let people make their own bloody minds up.

I despair sometimes I really do. You know what? I’m going to have a beer.

No Shit Sherlock.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

I should have ridden in today for many reasons. One of them being I would not have been forced to suffer the unending tripe of breakfast radio shows. Hunting around my normal Radio 4 frequency – having had my fill or terrorists and public service cuts – BBC Hereford and Worcester promised much in terms of mindless music and pointless chat to speed me through the early morning traffic.

But it couldn’t even manage that. The dopey presenter regaled the torpid (it was v. early) listener with a story of how teachers had identified the “naughtiest children by their names“. On reading this list, I was struck by a number of blindingly obvious facts, and one major concern.

1) All the naughty kids read out spookily correlated with the most popular children’s names since the year 2000. One could persuasively argue that the probability of a child called “Jack” being a bit cheeky has a slightly higher statistical possibility than one named Murgatroid.

2) I thought teachers were busy. Why would you spend one second creating this list? It’s not only very bad mathematics for a educational establishment, it’s probably also got paranoid parents flooding the deed pole help line.

3) How the hell have Brooklyn, Dwayne and Jade crept into the top 10 most popular names?

I know this stuff shouldn’t bother me. I appreciate that intellectual rigour has been superseded by look-at-me statistics and poor science, but surely even dead air is better than spouting such bloody nonsense?

On my return trip, my listening experience will be the aurial delight of road noise.