Author: Alex

That was the ride that wasn’t

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding4 Comments

I am sat inside, looking outside at some of the finest man made trails in the UK, and wondering if this is how the end starts. Death by a thousand cuts of a hobby turned obsession which has consumed me for seven fantastic years. And whatever it has taken in time, money and broken bones, it’s more than given back in joy, friendship and the life affirming knowledge of being not quite like you.

But not now.

Shards of weak sunshine reflect on my empty coffee cup; the only thing stopping me riding are a couple of muscle movements, and a battalion of experienced trackers to hunt down my motivation. I exchange shrugs with my riding buddy, and begin to wonder what I’m doing here.

I do know how I got here. A week of riding in an increasing wet and wild country, suffering from a dampness than never fades, and a feeling of unfairness that the sun has taken its’ holiday at the same time as we chose to cruise down a thousand miles of much anticipated road trip.

So I’m pretty well bike dialled, unseasonably fit and physically ready to unhook the bike from the trailer and go pump free drugs into my watery veins. Mentally though, I’m shot away, betrayed by a shallow plan to head south early in a desperate attempt to jump through a weather window.

The idea of a quick blast round a favourite trail today, and a slightly longer version tomorrow was always at the mercy of encroaching apathy. My Satnav had been pointing home since the compass switched directions, and our car park ticket spanned just an hour. We were still sitting here, but really I have already left.

We exchange another shrug as a mud encrusted mountain biker drips past, and years of friendship preclude the need for much debate. I suggest beers at mine, he takes the bait and before we can change our minds, we’re heading hard south having picked up the virtual hitchhiker of regret in the back seat.

I dropped Mr. Regret off at Penrith – representing a nasty feeling that maybe I was running away from something so I was glad to be rid of it. Who was he to ask if I shouldn’t have just got on with it? What place was it of his to decry my credentials as a proper mountain biker? I drowned him out with the stereo playback of my kids’ shrieks at their dad being home early.

And ok I didn’t ride the next weekend, but we had the new pup and a stalking cold finally had me in its’ grip. Sure the weekend after than was also bike free, but I had so much to do, places to go with the family, be a proper dad, stop treating everything else as any other business. Paint a door, Trampoline with the kids, talk properly to my wife without incessant watch checking.

So be like just about everyone else then. But that’s okay because the midweek night ride has my name on it, and I’m not going to welch out on my friends. But I do, and the weekend after that as well. I’m okay I think but cannot bare to look at the raft of unused bicycles slowly gathering dust in the corner.

I ignore the stacks of unread bike magazines, surf away from MTB forums that now hold no interest, and spend exactly no time or money fixing stuff that is broken. Until finally I haul my apathetic arse into the hills with the expectation that nothing will be the same, climbs too long, loops too far, extra bits not worth the faff, everyone getting it except for me.

The weather conspired to deliver yet more hill clamping rain, and twenty knot winds. My bike had failed to self heal so gears crunched, chains slipped and brakes squealed. Neither had three weeks off on a pie’n’beer diet turned me into a riding God. Cod maybe as the rain cascaded off summits searching for a fast way to rivers far below, tyres slipped and mud spat off spiteful trails.

I should have hated it. And as I drove to the start point I really did wonder whether this was an intelligent way for a married man on the wrong side of forty to spend his time. And you know what, it isn’t and that is exactly the point. I drove home with rain pouring through an open window, the CD blasting out some eighties embarrassment, and ol’ gray beard here shouting it out to the rooftops.

I was in the departure lounge, with a one way ticket to middle age for a while there. But I’ve pulled back. For now.

There’s a plethora of magazine articles filled with the self loathing deceit of those having lost their riding mojo. Yet I suffered so much more, in the same way that your first teenage heartbreak is a million times worse than any other human from here back to pre-history. It wasn’t giving up riding that was really messing with my head, it was the 3am terror of what the hell I was going to fill the resulting mountain bike hole with.

But I know it’s going to happen now. Not at 41, maybe not at 45 but I can’t see the pain/reward threshold going much further than that. I will never stop riding until my legs give out, but the visceral joy of hurling mountain bikes down steep slopes clearly has a limited shelf life.

And you know what, I’m fine with that. Because, until that day, I am going to enjoy every bloody moment.

Strapathy

On By AlexIn Other stuff8 Comments

Another new word is squeezed out from the grumbling backside of the hedgehog. It’s not rude although phonetically it could be. But in the same way that ‘Stiction’ is a clever coming together of Sticky and Friction, Strapathy combines Strategy and Apathy to describe an approach to life of not doing much at all.

Not the case with work unfortunately, but my riding motivation has ground to the kind of halt that can only be shifted by explosives. Post Scotland, I’ve found many and varied better things to do including looking out of the window at the rain, sitting in front of the computer while it’s raining, and watching the talking heads on TV discussing the flooding. I believe my lack of interest may be linked to the fact that, only this morning, I was strolling on the banks of Lake Tallet. A vast expanse of water created in our garden/car park by four solid days or torrential downpours.

But it’s more that that, I really can’t be arsed at all. And that’s a bit of a worry as at no point in the last six years have I missed three consecutive weeks of riding. Until September 2008, and unless I can drag m sorry butt out this evening, it’s hard to see where that’ll end. Summer 2009 maybe? Depends if we have one.

In the meantime I’ve updated the bike page which took a while, and the choice cuts of hedgehog which didn’t.

Even that was only slightly more interesting than surfing for “Labrador sleeping pills“. Apathy is Strategy, you know it makes sense.

Dog Tired.

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography2 Comments

Flickr Image

Rules, rules bloody rules. Everywhere you look; don’t do that, don’t touch this and leave them alone. And that’s just a quick synopsis of sexual disease literature; once we allow the eye of angst to rove into the land of puppy, it’s all you must not let your dog run, don’t let him turn round too quickly, keep him off those lethal polished floors and, if you don’t wish him to spontaneously combust, don’t even think about the mildest smidgen of exercise until at least two days after his last meal.

And then we move onto don’t play rough, stop him jumping, don’t make a fuss when you’ve been away and never, ever hit him. Some of it makes sense as you’re going to ruin a lovely friendship with the postman if 30kg’s of in-flight dog t-bones him at a full gallop. But my Grandad’s dog lived off scraps from the dinner table, and was simply disciplined by a size 10 mining boot up the fundament.

I don’t remember taking him to the dog psychologist or finding my granddad hand wringing by the suggestion he may have created an environment for ‘early onset separation anxiety’. And if the new media doesn’t get you with its’ do good forums and virtual hippy hounds, then the big square tube offers up ‘Dog Borstal’ and ‘The Dog Whisperer“. Closest my Mum’s dad ever got to that was “Oi, leave that alone tha cheeky bugger!” BOOT/YELP “Now, get in tha bloody kennel you scabby sod”

The problem is pets – and especially dogs – sometimes seem to offer a kind of child substitute. They are treated like little humans and so anthropomorphically laden with child like emotions. And while dogs view the world as a simple mix of other dogs, and things that are probably just funny shaped dogs, they themselves need to be characterised as a widdle of simple mental levers topped off by a waggy tail.

Once you realise they’re greedy, opportunistic food obsessed quadrapeds accesorised by the full set of soulful eyes, wet snout and flappy ears – all encased in the kind of smell which suggests a sprout convention setting up in your garden, you’re ready to take on the mantle of pack leader. Almost. Except for the sleeping bit. You see puppies sleep whenever they’re not eating their food, eating your furniture or giving you the “not me pal, you must have fed the other fella” look. But once you want to get some of that zzz action, then they’re wide awake and wondering noisily why you’ve abandoned them.

It starts with a bark, then a whine, then a noise suggesting the pup is painfully performing a solo Heimlich manoeuvre. You’ve not really lived until that’s been going on most of the night. One hour Friday night, two hours Saturday night including a 2am emergency wee session, and about the same on Sunday convinced us that maybe the controlled crying technique we’d tried doesn’t work for puppies. I’d tried almost everything else, bit of comforting, stern words, scooby snacks and mildly abrasing my forehead against a passing wall. None of it was working and he was just getting worse.

Carol took her turn and returned to the sound of doggy silence. Only in the morning did I discover she’d lost patience and metered out some swift justice with the rolled up newspaper. The way we were feeling, it’s a good job there wasn’t a gun in the house. I remember thinking “I’m really too old for this deja-vu baby experience, and I’m betting you wouldn’t get this shit with a rabbit“. But we’re through it now* using the two big guns of dog ownership – tough love and food bribery.

He’s not going to be a puppy much longer, certainly if you consider that on size grounds alone. Murf is quite a bright cookie (bit of a worry for me, I was quite enjoying the not dumbest family member status) although he is the world’s slowest retriever. He’ll fetch stuff alright but it might be an hour later. Or the next day. So we’ve given up on all the do gooding advice, and going with let the puppy be a puppy. And if he’s really naughty, then fetch me the Sunday Times with all the supplements.

How do I know so much? Well I just made it up, and fully expect to have my own prime time TV series by the years’ end. Working title is “For F*cks sake, stop mincing about and just boot it up the arse”

* Please by writing this, let IT BE TRUE.

As wet as an otter’s pocket?

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography4 Comments

Flickr Image

A simile long on description and short on ambiguity. But today, I must add the rider – wetter. Three years ago, the government were granting extraction licenses, by the hundred, to ensure the water companies could honour their dividend promises. And in that irritating pious way of theirs, then telling the rest of us to throw the hosepipe away as global warming was here to stay. And so it is, but the meteorological effects are somewhat different to advertised. if the last two summers’ set any sort of precedent.

And there is a certain irony that the same volume of poorly planned housing was contributing to parched aquifers are now being desperately sandbagged, as the greedy stupidity of building on flood plains is lapping against the public conscience. As a trivial aside, it also makes for bloody awful mountain biking as a bunch of 24 hour walking races have graphically demonstrated this year.

Floods September 08Floods September 08

Today we have too much water in the ground, and a surfeit on top as well. 50mm of fast rain finds no space in the geological inn, and instead squats in river form on what used to be roads. With typical British planning, half the population refuses to leave the house, while a significant proportion of the remainder are washed downriver. Not me though, because – in line with a history of compensating a lack of talent with expensive equipment – the on roader of some softness was delivered in the middle of a period of extreme wet. I like to categorise this never ending rain using the simple term “summer”

Which somewhat scuppered my plans of a detailed inspection, focussing on Internet here-say of potentially explosive parts. Instead a mechanically inclined friend braved the weather to pull, push and prod various parts while I made him a nice cup of tea. Because, clearly what he needed right then was a bit more liquid. I could have done with a proper drink tho, as we transferred a suitcase of electronic cash to a bloke I’ve never met.

We celebrated our own personal credit crunch by taking an old fashioned drive in the country. Which was by this time essentially underwater with steams of hill washed clay accelerating down any and every back road. I engaged 4WD, gripped the steering wheel tightly, and made sail for some unmapped region of Herefordshire tracks and abandoned tarmac. When the car is as wide as the road and the edges even higher, you know this is the fated time to meet 40 feet of lost lorry coming the other way. But the X-Trail ignored my rubbishness and ploughed up muddy steeps, surfed through sill height water, and splashed gloriously through fords edged by abandoned cars.

Floods September 08Floods September 08

I’d have been troubled significantly in the Honda. Especially if I’d wanted to sell it any time soon. Still that’s old news, the family has dismissed the loyal old retainer citing more space, bigger windows, easily scratched plastics (“Hey Dad, I’ve signed my name“) and the transient joy of the new. Even the pup loves it – no really I took his territory marking to signify his pleasure at yet another place he can piss with wild abandon.

Tomorrow I’m affixing a tow rope and a sign offering a five pound tow out service. Then for a laugh, I’m going to lobby my MP for a hosepipe ban.

Don’t believe everything your read

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway. Remember my glib bravado detailing a car aquisition strategy executed on a browser and in a pint glass? Well it seems I possibly should have possibly prodded the tender underbelly of the used car forums before diving headlong into a pool of 4×4 ownership. This is what happens when vague ideas are exchanged for hard cash in less than a week.

Act in haste, repent at leisure eh? Hindsight is a wonderful thing unless it’s happening to someone else. Anyway first the good news, the Honda of Total Reliability is already in a state of transitional ownership. Assuming I don’t tree-wrap in on the way to the station tomorrow, that’ll be about it for me and the trusty old metal steed. I sort of feel bad about it, but – to put it into perspective – it’s nowhere as bad as selling a bike.

The X-Trail should turn up on Friday and if the stories are correct, I’ll be able to see it steaming over the horizon from about three miles away. The problem you see is not the engine, which is properly Japanese but the Turbo which isn’t. When Nissan were Datsun, they were also broke and close to the wall, which can be the only possible reason they agreed to let Renault buy a stake. So while the lumpy diesel chunders away happy under the bonnet, the Turbo attempts to run away as fast as it can. All I can say is Thank Christ it wasn’t a German engine otherwise the turbo would probably have retreated into the boot to form a Vichy government.

It’ll be fine. What do these so called owners know? Self Aggrandisment and Self Importance are two of the Cornerstones of the skewed values of the Internet. I can find you a fantastic example of that right here, right now 🙂 I’m sure really I’ll be untroubled by anything more vexing than putting a bit more petrol in and closing my eyes when signing the cheque for the tax disc.

And the dog is going to love it. In fact, if he doesn’t stop vigourously waking up at 6am in the morning, he’ll be living in it 😉

I told you I was ill

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

From Boing Boing

Spike Milligan’s famous epitaph – he and I are kindred spirits in our frustration that others cannot see how really sick we are. In fact, the only significant difference between the departed Goon and I, is that he is already dead. And the way I’m feeling, it could only be a matter of time before I too pass over to the other side.

This viral infection of Al picked Friday afternoon to host itself inside my head. My ears are blocked, my nose is leaking and my hair hurts. I appreciate the latter isn’t much of a medical condition when you consider my limited thatch. but the combination of symptomatic grimness is making my life a misery. And, of course, those around me.

Although, being properly British, I have suffered in near silence and announced – with some sniffy dignity – to Carol yesterday evening that my affairs were all in order, and she and the children would be well provided for if I did not make it through the night.

Frankly I was disappointed with her reply. She refuses to accept that my early onset bubonic plague is anything more than a stiff cold. I am putting it down to a belated response to Scottish moistness, and an allergic reaction to car salesmen.

So now I’m bored, and searching through the archives found this wonderful device sent by my friend James who is tuned in to some of the more bizarre offerings of the Internet. It has some relevance as my request for a petrol lawnmower has been firmly rejected by the financial committee.

The argument went something like “You don’t need a a lawnmower, we don’t have any grass” / “Yes but we will and it’d go nicely with that pond vacuum I was looking at”. At this point, it became clear that my Thelma and Louise style stampede through many and varied expensive shopping options has flagged up some concerns to those who understand both incomings and outgoings.

Therefore, I expect my credit cards to be confiscated and replaced by a weekly allowance of pocket money. And since I’m sat here wired into a million ways to fritter away the children’s future, that probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.

You see, I can’t help looking at that picture and thinking “H’mm, a little more fork travel, a titanium frame and a new chain wouldn’t cost much, and just think of the performance benefits“. I blame the drugs, they are foul tasting placebo’s dreamed up by marketing men who play on our consumer society weaknesses.

Slakes

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography2 Comments

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A beguiling combination of a country and a county that roll out the rocky welcome mat to vertically challenged mountain bikers everywhere. I had every intention of weaving the five strands of riding days into a cosy rug of photographs, lies and tales of extensive manliness.

Scotland 2008 MTB (13 of 99) Scotland 2008 MTB (12 of 99)
But a few pages of serial narrative can be easily summarised into get up, check weather, grumpily select galoshes, consume huge breakfast as a buffer to imminent dampness, fettle bikes, dig deep for any dry kit, force wrinkled feet into damp socks, wait for weather break and then go ride.

Scotland 2008 MTB (15 of 99) Scotland 2008 MTB (23 of 99)

Splash, smile, dismount in comedic fashion, mudspit(tm), slither about like a snake on alcopops, and retire to any establishment that has a roof and a huge cake portion policy. Abuse washing machines of B&B before heading out for any evening meal that promised not to poison you. A certain establishment in Castle Douglas promised just this, but poisoned us anyway.
Scotland 2008 MTB (30 of 99) Scotland 2008 MTB (37 of 99)

Actually we never got wet from the sky down while we were out riding. But there was sufficient H20 from the ground up, that mud raining on your head wasn’t an infrequent experience.

Scotland 2008 MTB (49 of 99) Scotland 2008 MTB (45 of 99)

The riding was fantastic and varied from the big views, huge climbs and monster rocks of the south lakes to the groomed singletrack of the trail centres mixed with a big ride over General Wade’s military road, and a blast over the laugh-out-loud rocky funbags of Laggan Wolftrax.

Scotland 2008 MTB (60 of 99) Scotland 2008 MTB (64 of 99)
When we weren’t riding or trying to find Australians to bait*, sometime was admittedly spent trying to find agreeable beer in pubs where no-one was fighting. This proved to be a bit of a challenge which saw my birthday drinks squibbing out damply about 11pm. But as a man to whom 40 has been and gone, my reward was a nice cup of hot tea and a stroke of some new slippers.

Scotland 2008 MTB (69 of 99) Scotland 2008 MTB (70 of 99)

Heading north was a superb experience – I have never crossed any latitude so close to a pole, except at 38,000 feet with a G&T in my hand. The scenery became wilder, the riding more epic and the burgers both cow sized and staggeringly cheap.

Scotland 2008 MTB (78 of 99) Scotland 2008 MTB (83 of 99)
And apart from not seeing the sun for the best part of a week and two never ending climbs competing for the “I’m the biggest bastard” award, there were few downsides, which considering great friends, plentiful beer and pretending to be accomplished on expensive springy appendages, how could that not be the case?
Scotland 2008 MTB (89 of 99) Scotland 2008 MTB (99 of 99)

Next year though, maybe some other country deserves out patronage. Possibly somewhere with more than four days of sunlight per annum.

* Nigel and I agreed that if Team GB came 68th in the medal table we wouldn’t care. As long as Australia were 69th.

Puppy Explosion

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

This is not a lazy metaphor for a primed four leg canine revoking it’s UXB status at the epicentre of our family. No, it perfectly describes the scene awaiting our 6:30am arrival in a kitchen full of frantic hound, and the aftermath of an incident which channel 5 would title “When stomachs go bad“.

It was hard to see where the sick stopped and the dog started, as the hoovermurf* showed his appreciation by smearing his barf stained flanks against my mostly bare flesh. Cold sick delivered by mad twirling dog is not something I ever wish to repeat at 6:30 in the morning. Or, to be more precise, ever.

Having removed excited pup, puke dripping cage and a sleeping mat that was now merely a repository for everything dog-voided, we found exactly where the sick stopped. Obviously the chunder was well represented in a blast zone around his cage, but to find it sprayed half way up the wall and splattered on an innocent pan some five foot distant came as an eyebrow raising surprise.

I will admit that my recent joy of finally crossing the threshold of dog ownership was slightly tempered by washing down a shivering puppy in the pissing rain, clothed only in a sick stained dressing gown. Still at the other end of the shitty stick was Carol armed with only a mop, bucket and nose peg to reclaim a room which resembled the arse end of some particularly hard core squatters.

You can’t blame the dog of course. Well you can, but I guess he wasn’t too thrilled to be sleeping in his own excrement either. And he was properly ill, as was demonstrated by a full on barf-athon which lasted until we saw first blood and then the emergency vet. To prove he wasn’t kidding, he was sick on her as well which provoked a needle full of antibiotics and a bill within a couple of beers of three digits.

I was properly worried for a while. Remember when your kids were babies where the default state of mild terror swerves between a conviction that all this crying must mean meningitis, and holding a mirror under their nose to check they’re still breathing once they’re finally silent?

It’s like that only with more barking although baby shit is definitely smellier than dog poo. No it is, try it for yourself if you don’t believe me. The problem with small mammals is they’re basically a finely balanced chemical reaction suspended in an open ended tube. And once you start chucking duckweed, socks, small stones and grass into that combusion chamber, it’s no surprise to find the walls pebble dashed.

He’s alright now of course. Well actually he’s a bit more than that, and has already been accorded the status of full family member. He’s quite bright for a lab apparently which means he’s not quite terminally stupid. Educationally sub normal definitely, stupidly affectionate, desperate to please and certifiably bonkers.

Still I reckon maybe I’m the dumb one here**. There’s something in a lifestyle that spends 20{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of its time playing, eating and checking out the nutritional content of rocks, and the other 80{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of the time sleeping.

Yeah, that’s a dog’s life I could get used to.

* A recently discovered mutant species created by splicing a vacumn cleaner to a set of dog parts.

** Thank you for those silent words of support.

The time has come to get properly wet.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff, Photography6 Comments

Flickr Image

Here’s a picture of what summer looks like. It is from the other side of the world, and taken some six months ago. I still have about a 1000 pictures from that holiday to review, consider, photoshop and then toss in the virtual dustbin. Still it does remind me that some parts of the planet have seasons other than “cold rain“, “chilly hail” “3 month cloud” and “warmer rain with storms”

My drive up north tomorrow is showing as a day that could – if one were tending to the exceeding charitable – be classified as sort of summery. The first day we’re out riding however has Metcheck excited over the prospect of three inches of rain, a cloudbase of zero and a maximum temperature of ten degrees. Which sets the tone for the rest of the week.

So rather than sulk about it, I’ve packed everything that is marketed as even slightly waterproof. I intend to utilise these garments in the well known layering system of wearing everything at the same time. The downside is my car is absolutely packed to the gunwales (apposite term) with stuff and my airy promise to add a person, bike and luggage to the return trip may play out as “Right Andy, it’s you or your bike”

I have also managed to fit in an emergency haircut which ensures I don’t break the first rule of birthday drinks and pick up anything sharp “for a laugh” after many beers. Carol tells me my crown isn’t getting any bigger but this is somewhat offset by the retreating wave of folicles in front of it. I no longer need a hair style or even a combover – really my options are limited to a wig or a hat.

Assuming I can remember how to swim and my liver survives some serial action from the alcohol drip, I’ll be back in a week to tell of mighty epics and life threateneing situations while humming the theme from “The Man From Atlantis“.

Wish me luck, I’m going in.

Beer.. or ride… or Beer… or

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff2 Comments

Not generally a difficult choice. If the sun is shining then beer somehow tastes even better after a pre-dinner sharpener of dirt and sweat. If it’s raining then proceed straight to beer never passing waterproofs, motivation or mud. If, however, your summer is full of moistness and your head desperate for the outside room, even a dodgy forecast and an unbroken line of brooding clouds won’t keep you inside.

But maybe it should. Especially if you forget your rain jacket. Not once, but twice with the second effort irritating me to the point of offering the BBC website a new weather mnemonic known simply as “October“.

My worthy, if navigationally flawed, attempt to link two great woods with something other than boring tarmac has taken on the mantle of an epic voyage. Columbus may has mistaken a few warm islands in the Caribbean for the West Indian coast, but that is nothing, NOTHING I tell you to my aimless wanderings around the Herefordshire countryside.

I have be so lost that a prominent hill positively identified with a major geographical outcrop on my map, turned out to be exactly 180 degrees behind me. Angry shaken fists at distant farmers for sowing crops over little used footpaths were replaced by embarrassed waves, as it became apparent I was carving a wheeled wake over private land. I’ve been scratched, bitten, flayed by spiteful thorns at various times during the last four rides and rained on every time.

The final straw was Monday’s voyage of non discovery where, after thirty minutes of hiding in a wood waiting for the rain to subside below the pain barrier, a dispirited splash back home on hissing, soaked blacktop was rewarded by the sun peeping from behind the now vanishing clouds as I wrung out my socks.

Still every cloud has – apart from about four inches of rain – a silver lining as my map is now nothing more than slightly crinkly water. I don’t suppose this will hinder my route finding in the slightest.

I promised myself that this was the year I would stop bitching about stuff beyond my control. Which at a mere three days before my forty first birthday seems to include about everything.

Specifically though, I was hoping for a sanguinity of middle age where politicians, solicitors, estate agents, voxpox wankers on the radio, Suduko, traffic and, of course, anyone owning a folding bicycle would merely be laughed off in the great game of life.

Failed. Miserable. About to be older, balder and fatter no doubt. So rather than face up to any of that, I’m off to Scotland for our annual “damp midge” tour of some proper mountains. The forecast fully meets my new criteria for “October” which suggests alot of drinking will take place, while expensive mountain bikes remain unmolested by an outside full of horrid.

I just hope no-one tries to wear a PVC dress again this year. I’m barely past the waking up screaming stage from the last time around.