Category: Mountain Bike Riding

The sheer unadultrued pleasure of a mud enema and frozen testicles in a sport than burns money at a similar rate to a small African country.

Mud in your eye…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

… and in every other orifice as well. Think about that for a moment, while I confirm it was EVERY orifice be it covered with clothing or not. A festival of mud laid out the sloppy stuff front, centre, up, down, in and out of every bodily crevice I had inadvertently placed in the line of fire. This was not – as some of my more pervy* readers may hope – an introduction to the Malvern Hills Dogging Experience**

No the reason for my homage to a swamp monster was a ride in Haugh woods that left me 75{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} man, 25{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} slurry. Reasons abound for such muckiness ranging from a month of rain where summer should have been, and some careful harvesting of trees using nothing more than multi tracked twenty ton earth movers.

Tim – a recent innocent comet gravitationally pulled into the slightly bizarre, often drunk orbit of Planet Hedgehog – was regaling us with stories of how, under this foot of oozing nastiness, fantastic singletrack was desperate to get out. After two hours, so were we having destroyed my legs, a very expensive wheel and most of a previously pristine drivetrain.

On the upside, it wasn’t my wheel and the “Chiltern Experience” was rapidly put behind us as an old friend turned up with an even older bottle of Brandy. That ended as well as expected, and put paid to a navigationally challenged attack on the Long Mynd planned for the following day.

My riding pals have known me long enough to interpret “fellas, one thing, I’ve no idea where the fuck the start point is, never mind the route, my GPS is merely LCD candy ,and the only available map marks this region as ‘here be dragons‘” as a cry for help. In that vein they helped themselves to more alcohol and a drunken plan hatched a slightly less epic Malvern Hill Romp.

Which was – and I’m going to appeal to the common man here – fucking fantastic. It didn’t start well with hangovers, faffing and car parks full of red socks. But once 10 minutes away from the sour faced, ski-pole*** mountain bike haters, we bagged a large number of peaks stopping only to inhale vast quantities of cake and the occasional funny turn.

Some of these were my rubbish route finding, some my friends’ need to have a little lie down until Fantasia stopped playing behind his eyes. He’s not been riding much, but I was in awe of his riding approach which was to start slow and maintain that same pace for four hours plus. Not for him some ego straining push for the front – well not until I outed the cake from my Camelbak anyway.

It was ace though, still winter muddy but warm and not the Flanders experience suffered the day before. So impressed was I with the utter bloody joy of bicycles, I rocketed out of bed at 6am this morning to ride another one to work. The rain didn’t stop me, although an absence of four weeks’ commuting nearly did. So disappointed with my energy levels on the way back, I decided the best thing would be to extend the ride up the huge sodding hill summiting at the radio mast.

Nearly needed that to signal for help and possibly an ambulance. Eight minutes out of the saddle with a few hundred feet of sweaty grind, before switching gradients to a bonkers flat out descent into the valley bottom on a bike with shit brakes, thin tyres skidding over damp mud and a pilot wondering what the hell he might do for kicks when he can’t do this.

Got home. Got dog. Got kids who wanted to ride their bikes. Got another bike out and rode that with them. Well you would wouldn’t you? First day back at work was rubbish but sandwiched between wheels, I think I’ll do it again tomorrow.

* Based on what I know, that’s all of you. Except for my mum who is currently disconnected from the Internet due to youngest son’s complete failure to remotely troubleshoot a broken wireless connection. I shall be sending her up my special hammer in short course to remedy the problem once and for all.

** Which is the second highest search vector to this site. The first being “sex with hedgehogs“. I wish I were making that up.

*** “Are these the lower slopes of the Alps?” / “No” / “Then WTF?“

Rush Hour

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography4 Comments

I have one hour. Exactly sixty minutes to switch life modes, exchange drudgery and bug eyed stress for stolen pleasure. It doesn’t matter why or when – only that the clock is ticking, and I need to feel fast air in my lungs, dirt under my tyres, joy in my heart. I have to go and ride my bike.

First of too many problems is the dearth of any proper good muddy stuff from our door. Sure with the Malverns on one side, and the Forest of Dean on the other, I am only a short drive from stonking trails, and not much further to the wilds of Wales. But there isn’t time for trailers, parking and faffing when you’re a mere hour from needing to be back here.

The very local woods offer nothing other than an excuse to lose the dog in the overgrown footpaths. Head a little further out and a huge expanse of forestry should roll out a million trails, but it doesn’t because of too many horses, to few bikes, too little traffic and my apathy based exploring routine. I’ve driven out there a few times, and come back disappointed vowing to carry on next time to stuff I know is good.

Much of this is because I’m a rubbish explorer, no sense of direction, and yet blessed with a gift to divine rubbish tracks. If you’re in the market for a six foot wide ruined trail full of horses hooves, red Herefordshire mud, viscous shrubbery and a dark heart from which there is no obvious escape, I’m your womble.*

So it’s a bit crap for mountain bikes, and I’m completely unable to find any of this mythical singletrack I’ve heard talked about. But it’s close, 3.3 miles and that’s less than 15 minutes to a man who has 3 week unridden legs, and the need to unwind a million wrongs visited upon him.

Big Ring. Stand up. Ignore wheezing lungs and unexercised muscles. Forget that road riding is dull, blot out the threatening clouds and incessant headwind – there are many things worse that this and most of them are inside.

I’m still attacking everything when I first hit the dirt, diving under the trees on a trail I’ve jealously eyed up on numerous dog walks. Which already goes against the plan of riding just 4 known tracks to the valley bottom and then sprinting home on the fireroad.

But every mountain biker has a Pavlovian attraction for snaky singletrack, and it’s not long before I’m clearing deadwood from a little used trail and thinking happy thoughts on improvements if only I’d remembered my spade. But time doesn’t stop, and neither can I – sweating a bit now – switching to a favourite rooty trail that’s way drier than expected and twice as much fun.

God I’d forgotten how great this is. And it has nothing to do with the bike. Oh sure, the Cove is perfectly balanced, razor sharp without being twitchy, taut without being painfully stiff, fast without being fragile but that’s not what matters right now. Because right now I’m not inside with a pile of work, or outside trying to make sense of ongoing house devastation.

No time to gloat, time to ride, pick another trail and spend minutes I don’t have trying to jump a rooty set. Twice I cock it up, so go for a dumb brakes off approach that ends as well as you can probably imagine. Still, since I was lying down, this seemed a perfect time to break out a lunchtime energy bar and surreptitiously check e-mail. No Signal? That’s fate. Time to go.

Not enough of that to ride a cheeky trail around the lake. Walked loads of time with dog and family, it’s root strewn, off camber, damp today and sure to be rubbish. But I ride it anyway, and it’s bloody brilliant of course – not as it offers some kind of singletrack nirvana, or great speed but because I shouldn’t be here, and nobody else is.

Flick of the wrist shows bad numbers so I quit while I’m just a little behind my rush hour schedule. But not so fast that I cannot mentally mark a myriad of possible trails which peep enticingly from behind summer growth.

My hour is nearly up and some cad has laid an extra mile of tarmac between my fading legs and the demands of being a grown up. The headwind has even strengthened** but a main road short cut deemed to be less risky than the hilly back roads*** bought me enough time to make a sub sixty possible.

Being two minutes late didn’t matter unless you’re the type of person who stokes his competitive gland every time bikes are involved. So that’s me on a final charge which brought the house into view, and a moto style entry over the frictionless pea shingle impressed exactly one person. And that person read 59:48 on their stopwatch.

Don’t get me wrong – the trails aren’t fantastic, at no point did I carve successive corners or jump some monstrous double. The bike and I are splattered with smelly mud, every exposed limb has been brutally slashed by vegetation with attitude, nothing has changed here other than an Inbox close to explosion, and it’s just started to piss it down again.

But I don’t care. Because for a while there I forgot just how bloody great mountain bikes are. That’ll not happen again.

* Remember Womble’s picked their names by blinding pinning a map. If I were really a womble my name would be “For Fuck’s sake, the map is over there, that’s my HAND”

** Out and Back on the same road. Both into a headwind. Ask any cyclist, they’ll tell you this is always the case. We don’t know why but when we find out someone is in for a bloody hard time.

*** Risk assessment went something like “may get run over by a mad trucker heading to Ross, but almost certain heart attack if I have to go up there“

Kids Play

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography2 Comments

Let’s be honest here – there is a bit of Competitive Dad inside all of us. And for some that’s because they had Competitive Dad outside for all their formative years, and never really worked out how to stop. Not for me, my old fella wasn’t so much hands off as completely disinterested. Which is something of a reason why I vacillate between total commitment and tired apathy with my own offspring.

But the parent I’ve never wanted to be is that one screaming from the sidelines, desperately striving to put the Victory into Vicarious. There’s always a positive stop between my frankly pervy love of mountain biking and forcing my kids to try and share something of that. Good reasons abound – they’re girls, they’re (still) not that big, MTB’ing is a tough sport, and they have variously preferred scooters, ex-board, walking and – well – anything else really when I’ve punted a spot of weekend dirt riding.

Today one of them mined the giggle-lode I so cherish, while the rest of the family had a damn fine go, before retiring slightly scared. Random (8, bonkers, untouched by reality) demonstrated a level of focus that made me wonder about alien abduction. She piloted her little 20inch Spesh Hardrock down trails the big boys ride, and showed a level of bravery making me wonder again – this time about adoption.

That’s not her in the photo. Verbal shares her Mum’s terror of hills and my oft repeated maxim that “your brakes control the speed, not the hill” failed to unlock tight muscle or deflate the scary gland. But she had a proper try even though it was apparent the only thing more scared in the entire forest was probably Carol.

Who – having narrowly avoided plunging into a dangerous ditch – rode bridges she hated, survived downhill trails that offered nothing but fear, and a truly, scary off camber bend that gives me the heebies before retiring with eldest daughter to the safety of the fireroads. I was properly proud of them for giving it a go without the hint of a whinge, and riding stuff that was clearly shitting-the-bed scary.

My kids don’t ride much and I don’t push them to do so. I’m always amazed how quickly they pick it up again, and while I was picking up my lovely old Kona having helped Random over a nasty log bridge, it became apparent she wasn’t going to stop. A cocktail of roots, dips and little drops were mastered with nothing more than youthful bravado and a happy chuckle.

I watched her ride it – having stopped talking since she clearly needed no coaching – with a lump in my throat. Where do they learn that shit? Even when she was properly gorse bushed at the trail end, she just picked herself up and got on with it. Well sort of, I had to push her home but she’s desperate to get out again. I may have found myself a sleeper 🙂

On returning home, the hound was walked by bicycle and suddenly these two wheeled transportation devices are the best thing since… the last great thing, but I’m happy with that. We then jumped our fence and went exploring in the stream at the bottom of the garden. Which was way more fun that it probably sounds.

There are times when kids are bloody difficult. Anyone who tells you different is on strong medication or telling lies. This was not one of those days.

Hedgehog Service Broadcasting

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

We don’t do requests on the ‘hog. Mainly because we don’t get any. But, if we did, we wouldn’t because we put the Hedgey into Edgy. Clear? Good.

However, a shout out needs to go to all round good eggs, riding pals and confirmed 24 hour nutters Jezz and Ian who are competing in this years Mountain Mayhem. It’s just round the corner at Eastnor Castle and I shall be playing to me strengths, by pitching up with a pitcher of beer tomorrow night, and applying some liquid therapy to those riding in ever decreasing circles.

I popped up there pre-race start and it’s a) a bloody huge event and b) bone dry with a good forecast. Which is a bit of a relief after last year*, when the best way to complete a lap was by helicopter.

Ian is riding a very light race bike he has RUINED by removing all but one gear and any vestiges of suspension. Jezz has foolishly packed mud tyres, and therefore inadvertently invoked “Hailstorm’s Law”. Honestly I don’t know why he didn’t just travel to Chile with a butterfly and let it flap it’s wings. Next thing, tornados in Swindon**

Anyway, best of British to the pair of them. Nutters they may be, but they are hedgehog reading nutters. And – as we’ve said before – that’s a SPECIAL type of nutter.

* and almost every one before that. The term “European Monsoon” seems lost on race organisers.

** Inspired piece of Meterological urban planning that.

That’s just wrong.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding1 Comment

Pretty much sums up my thinking, as I solved the mystery of why the British Army can’t source sufficient body armour for the front line troops. Because we’ve nicked it all, and were variously unpacking it, dusting it down and strapping it on at a trail centre car park.

When I say we, I am referring to weekend biking warriors in general and not me specifically. Because after giving my knee a repeated percussive workout at CLIC 2008, it became clear that my body was pretty well healed, and any perceived protection was addressing the wrong organ. The mountain biking part of my brain needed armouring up and a bit of a cuddle, while acting Mr. Plastic Fantastic was merely other limb placebo.

There’s a good argument for body armour, but it’s not the lame one trotted by those who confuse adrenalin with danger. And we’ll be back to that, but first this – the right time to strap yourself in a shock proof cocoon is when you think you’re going to hurt yourself. Back at Chicksands when multiple feet of whistling air separated squidy organs from hard ground is a good example. As was giving it some humpy on the downhill course at CwmCarn.

Here the body untalented – into which I absolutely place myself – quite rightly try and balance the risk/reward gig by piling plastic on the “staying alive” side of the seesaw. I crashed so many times back at Chicky which that was fine because I left my comfort zone in the car, and forced myself to try stuff that was beyond my meagre ability. That armour has the scars of those rough campaigns – full face helmet dented, leg pads in natty lion-savaged motif, pressure suit compressed where otherwise my spine would have been.

But trail centres are purpose built to roll out thrills without any spills. There are no walkers to cross your path with danger, no unseen obstacles to pitch you eyeball first onto a pointy rock, no trails apparently hewn by spiteful Gods trying to kill you. In short, much fun, bugger all risk. And the facile argument which runs “I can’t afford to hurt myself, I have to go to work on Monday, I have a family” misses the point completely.

Points really. Here’s the first; Mountain Biking is dangerous, Christ I should know having been hospitalised twice, and bruised a million times*. But if it wasn’t a bit spicy, we just wouldn’t do it. Sorry but we just wouldn’t – we’d ride the Sustrans, head out onto broad leafy cycle paths, squeeze into roadie tops and pound out the miles, but we would not risk possible and permanent injury whizzing between trees and banging over rocks.

So if you don’t want to get hurt, the solution seems to be body armour. But it’s not a solution, well it is but it is looking for a problem that doesn’t exist. I found the best way to avoid crashing was to slow down a bit. Radical I know, but riding at 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of whatever ability you have has many benefits, some subtle, some less so.

You don’t crash for a start – that’s a big one. You’ll still take risks but they’re calculated and the important part is you don’t think you’re going to crash. And when you back off, interesting stuff starts to happen as panic braking and desperate pedalling give way to looking further ahead and using the trail. And with that comes smoothness, and with smoothness comes speed.

It’s a beautiful thing, man. Seriously this became clear I was chasing a super smooth friend of mine at CwmCarn a few months ago. There’s a section before the last climb which has little gradient but more than compensates with a river of flowing left-right-left bends. I’ve always enjoyed it, but following someone who can clearly ride a bit, you begin to realise that to be fast, the most important skill is to think fast.

And when you’re thinking of better lines with faster choices, there is no time left to think of crashing. You don’t need body armour because it’s going to slow you down, both in thoughts and in deeds. Don’t get me wrong, it absolutely has its place, but trail centres aren’t any of those.

And last night, riding with the same friend, we were ragging down some local cheeky trails into the deepening gloom. These are MY trails, and I know them well enough to take a few risks, but not too many. Only twice did I open the taps and go beyond 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2}, and both of those shot me full of adrenalin and full on fear.

The rest of the time, we were having a bloody fantastic time, by not crashing. And by not thinking about crashing. That’s my problem with body armour – it’s not an ego thing, or a macho thing, or an image thing, It’s an attitude thing.

I could be wrong. But – let’s face it – that’s pretty unlikely 🙂

* This could be because I’m rubbish. I concede that point. Before you make it!

Margins

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding4 Comments

Of all the senses, smell short circuits synapses with such breathtaking speed it sometimes does just that – rewinding the minds eye to a vision of something so joltingly real it pushes the physical world away. For some fresh cut grass triggers a memory of long – and long ago – carefree summers, others will walk into their kids’ classroom, and be instantly transported back thirty years into a world of short trousers and tall teachers.

For me it’s the smell of warm gravel. Rubbish you say, gravel doesn’t have a smell – ah but it does if you’ve ever given it a proper nasal examination from close quarters. My approach was a high velocity, low level pass- ramming gravel up a nostril until it was piled sufficiently high to create a never-to-be-forgotten mental bookmark.

It didn’t really register at the time, because all my organic processing was being diverted to having a large accident. And while the memory of flint slicing my knee directed my riding bravery for far too long, that was much more about a sense of fear rather than the smell of it.

Until now. The weekly night ride split my brain neatly between then and now with a sensory throwback of scrabbling tyres hunting for grip on smooth granite marbles. The malevolent sound these mini Grim Reapers hissed sat somewhere between an analytical explanation of fat tyres on loose rock, and an imagined disaster movie with me being nothing more than a painful passenger.

You see the thing that pissed me off more than anything back in 2006 was my stupidity in ignoring a stand-out warning of what was to come. I’d had some proper wiggly feedback through the bars on the corner before, but I pushed it just as hard anyway into the subsequent gravelly arc.

And paid for such bravery with first a month off the bike, and then two years when riding became so much of a chore I so nearly packed it up for good. So last night put the Vu back in Deja after I’d spent most of the ride letting air of the tyres so carefully inflated some time earlier hunting for some grip. I was riding the big bike for a change, and that change made for so much silly fun, so much more downhill speed, and so little purchase on big fat 2.5inch tyres better suited for proper sized rocks in the Peak District.

The start of an accident inevitably comes near the end of the ride when reflexes are not quite as sharp as confidence is high. We ride a fantastic ridge which funnels into a steep, loose gulley, guarded by a natural berm that shoots you wide of the tyre sucking danger of the eroded centre. Instead you stay high, stay off the brakes, push out over a tree root before committing to a properly shaley left hander.

Fail to make it and you’re in the quarry, get it wrong and rapid, full body exfoliation awaits. Get it right though and you’re pumped out at high speed, grab a chunk of usefully located bank and ping off into something a little flatter and safer. It’s ace, but loose and looser than ever with weeks of nothing falling in there other than the occasional mountain biker.

I entered that berm at a speed entirely inappropriate for a man of my limited skill, which unsurprisingly compressed the next few seconds into a mental riot of terror, acceptance, amazement and relief. I avoided the root by simple dint of ploughing into the gulley. My tyres felt it was important to bring the absolute abscence of any grip whatsoever to my attention by starting to slide in a manner worrying reminisant of a long stay in hospital.

I caught the first slide with stiffly frightened muscle memory, but by now the only manner by which I could be classed as “in control” was still being on the bike. While this was going on, that left hander loomed tight and fast and my options narrowed to nothing. Had to stuff it in, had to push the bar, had to find time to pray it wasn’t going down.

The slide was properly mental. In so many ways of that word, as I could hear the echo of a bike crashing groundwards, the shhhhhsssshing noise of fast gravel at ear level and the sound of body bounce. Yet it didn’t happen, and I still don’t know why. In the same way I still cannot understand how I lost a different bike in a similar corner, but with a younger God of Fate looking on.

Margins. That’s what this is about. Two situations, starting the same, finishing entirely differently. It’s made me think about the accident again but in a good way. Because for every crash that smashes you up and leaves you wondering if it’s bloody well worth it, there are a hundred mirrors that you don’t hold up for proper examination.

So I know this time I got lucky. But what I’ve worked out is that I’ve been sodding lucky so many times before. Only when you understand the margins do you finally comprehend the massive deficit of risk to reward than mountain biking serves up every time you go out and ride.

I’m feeling pretty damn good about that.

Compassion Fatigue

On By AlexIn Bikes, Clic-24, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography1 Comment

The Eighties were dreadful for so many reasons*, but even in that decade of pompous absurdity that phrase shines like a beacon of stupidity. Some quiff in a sleeve-rolled suit would wring their hands to a backdrop of starving African kids, and piously declare that the country had “compassion fatigue“.

No it bloody had not. The ones who could see further than their own self-importance measured by cars, cash, being a fuckwit that kind of thing continued to give what they could, while everyone else – from governments down to those believing AIDS was a solution made excuses.

The problem wasn’t people not caring, it was the explosion of the global coverage of dreadful poverty set against a pot that wasn’t getting any bigger. None of this was helped by a Western approach that patronised rather than listened, gave the money to the wrong people, and were somehow surprised when the misery continued after the cameras left.

I remember this making me quite angry at the time, and – even nearly twenty years on – the dying embers of when the world was black and white still burn a little. Good job as it was about the only thing keeping me going, as the rain charged in one way and my motivation slunk off in the other.

Neil (Organiser, all round top man, poor bugger whose wife died last year from Cancer) told me that while all the entries had been sold, only around 2/3rds of the riders had turned up. I have no issue with serious athletes using the CLIC24 as perfect training for the upcoming 24 hour race season. But what does piss me off is when they can’t be bothered to earn their sponsorship** because the weather is a bit shit.

And shit it was. I arrived early enough to sound out the perfect pitch at the foot of the big camping field. Perfect in terms of being well drained and flat, also geographically spot on for funnelling freezing winds into the nether regions of team “hardcore loafing“. After Nig and I had done our damnest to be fatter piggies than the hog roast, the temperature had dropped to the point of “is it me or is it fucking winter?”

We gave up with outside and cracked a middle aged bottle inside the back of my truck. A truck full of many things, which now included red wine stains. but sadly not my lights***. At least it was warm although I cannot imagine what our neighbours thought of a ton and a half of metal rocking in the stiffening wind. Honestly it was nothing more than “to you, to me, can I just stretch that leg out,? okay Dave you can come in now but you’ll need to leave at least one arm outside”

Last year Dave cleverly avoided the first lap by inflicting£200 work of crank based damage on his bike. We all joked that this time around no one could possibly trump that. But come a morning punctuated by squally showers and clamped in ball freezing cold, Jason put the Hardcore into Loafing by completely failing to turn up AT ALL.

CLIC24 - 2009 (9 of 26) CLIC24 - 2009 (7 of 26)

Dave was so stunned by this ballsy race craft, he barely objected to being sent out first although – in the spirit of loafers everywhere – we turned up ten minutes late for the start, even after arriving some sixteen hours before. We’re all understandably proud of that.

CLIC24 - 2009 (2 of 26) CLIC24 - 2009 (11 of 26)

The clock ticked on, the rain sheeted down, blue sky occasionally appeared before being distainfully swept away by a stormy wind in league with the God of Precipitation. Dave’s course report was largely irrelevant since Nig and I were instead checking out the state of his bike. Brown and Wet were the key indicators of trail condiitons and that’s never a good combination in almost any life experience.

CLIC24 - 2009 (14 of 26) CLIC24 - 2009 (20 of 26)

Jason joined us half way through the next lap, showing a worrying confidence in the future performance of his lovely new Titanium hardtail. Worrying as I’d built it three days before utilising the experimental technique of fitting everything with the largest hammer. Still it looked okay and with 14k of mud, rocks, stream crossings, fast descents and gurning climbs, what could go wrong eh?

I worried a bit for him as a displacement activity during my first lap. Because as quick as the course was drying out, fat rainclouds threatened to submerse it under the water table. And when those clouds did explode, the next fifteen minutes of my life were the ideal preparation for reincarnation as a trout. I was beyond wet and had entered that transcendental state known to riders everywhere as “four quick beers, a warm shower, B&B and a hot meal and I may live”

My team mates were waiting for me in the transition area. Well waiting to laugh anyway, which is the kind of team spirit that sustains us during the bad times. Of which , we were about to have another as a fierce gust dispatched the gazebo in a scream of tortured metal and extreme flappage. I watched Nig and Jas embodying this extreme flappage from the inside of the truck.

CLIC24 - 2009 (3 of 26) CLIC24 - 2009 (17 of 26)

Revenge is a wonderful thing. Still to ensure that team spirit wasn’t affected I made sure my laughing and pointing were delivered in a motivating and positive manner. From there until enough was more than enough, we greased our way round an every more comedic course, between hiding from the wind in any location pedalling food and beer.

Three things stand out; the brilliant organisation, the fantastic atmosphere even when it’s pretty miserable, and a whole bunch of riders on the course trying their first event. I lost count of the number of low cost bikes with nervous riders trying their best to stay onboard in increasingly difficult conditions. And when I came out in admiration they were giving it their all, that’s where we came in with compassion fatigue.

Everyone out on that course had a story to tell, a scary moment, a grin at the silly mud, a determined expression on the never ending fire road, a look of satisfaction on completing the lap and a smile at the shared sillyness of what we were doing. Oh sure, there are those occasional aliens who enjoy this kind of thing, but I’m not one of them and neither were any of the people I spoke too.

CLIC24 - 2009 (18 of 26) CLIC24 - 2009 (19 of 26)

But they carried on because they’d promised to earn sponsorship for CLIC Sargent, and I was very proud to be riding with them. It was hard enough when you’ve ridden a bit, it must have been bloody dreadful if this was one of your first experiences trying proper MTB off road. But I couldn’t help thinking about those who couldn’t be arsed, who decided being dry and war was better than being co-located with a moral conscience

Sorry if I’m going on a bit, I didn’t realise how much it pissed me off until I sat down to write this. It is not as if we did a million laps like the hero soloists or serious teams. But we gave it a good go, and while it wasn’t really fun, the worse times were not while you were out on the course. I quit after a dawn lap as I really wanted to be there when Verbal opened her presents, and the morning downpour doused what little motivational fire I had left.

Not Nig tho, he was kitted up and ready to go as I squelshed back in. And one lap in the seemingly unending rain and cold deterred him not at all. As we were herding flywaway tents into wet cars, he set off on a seconds lap clearly having imbued madness by a process of trail based osmosis. Although when he finally gave up, my suspicion is his tactic had been merely to lie face down in the mud for an hour before riding back to the start.

CLIC24 - 2009 (23 of 26) CLIC24 - 2009 (22 of 26)

He denies it, but I think the pictures tell the true story.

So that was CLIC24:2009. Bottom line is it’s upwards of£30,000 to a charity that clearly invests every penny it receives in making tragically shortened young lives as good as they can be. And somehow giving parents who are doomed to outlive their children, a reason to go on. I cannot imagine what that must be like, but while I can still turn a pedal, I’m bloody determined to make sure they have my support.

Talk to those people about compassion fatigue. I have a feeling they might not get it.

* if you were there, you’ll know what I mean. If not google “puffball skirts”, “Athena posters” and “everyone being a dickhead”

** Assuming they had any. And assuming they didn’t just collect it whether they rode it or not. I know this isn’t a perfect argument. but I was having it at 5am in the freezing bloody cold, and I wasn’t thinking entirely straight.

*** Or so I thought. I found them in the muddy sweepings of a forgotten spares box this evening. A serving of double numpty with a side order of dimwit for Mr. Leigh please.

CLIC24: 2009 – 24 hours of wet.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Clic-24, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography3 Comments

That is a picture of the 15:35 unscheduled departure of the “Team Hardcore Loafing” Gazebo. It was last seen heading towards Bridgwater, traveling at thirty knots and still accelerating.

More on this, and many other references to “cold”, “windy”, “Muddy” and “generally unpleasant” when I can properly use my fingers again. Chill Blains in mid May? You betcha!

Let us not forget what this is all about though. CLIC24 supports CLIC-Sargent and that makes a weekend of extended misery absolutely worthwhile. And, for the first time ever, my fitness outstripped my motivation – so setting the high water mark for my ability to go back out again onto the storm tossed course.

The organisation was superb, the food and beer tent fantastic, the number of “recreational” riders a real joy to see – let’s hope the conditions don’t put them off cycling forever – and the general ‘vibe’ properly not racey laid back.

Sure the weather was shit, and waiting around for the next lap became a study of chilly tedium, but my team mates were – again – properly ace, and the course held up remarkably well until the last few hours. At which point, islands of trail would occasionally protrude into the fast flowing, ten mile stream.

More soonish… until then I’m just glad to be unbroken, dry, warm and having full use of my legs. Oh and relaxing in the glorious knowledge I’ve turned down Mayhem, Bristol Bikefest and SITS again this year 🙂

Firsts

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

Thursday’s ride was had more firsts than a swotty set of University finalists holding incriminating pictures of their examiner pleasuring frisky llamas* Most of them were good, taking this long to find time to write something less so. When I get a spare moment, I’ll be off to the shed with this scribbled drawing and an illicit feed from the substation, so getting started on the time machine.

First of firsts was a ride that started and finished without lights. That’s not to say it was actually still daylight as we peered through technical dark around 9pm. One of the lesser known side effects of testosterone is “Carrot Vision” enabling those of the dangly genitalia to dismiss artificial trail illumination as “something that a girl might need” until the first victim fails to distinguish between dark space and dark tree.

It’s worth stating here that Carrot Vision works only at top speed, and the gift of organic night vision shall be dispelled with the briefest grab of the “scared-now” bar mounted levers. Second first was a dab-less climb of “THE BASTARD“. A hill that is thought by some to be the stiffest lung buster in all the Malverns. I don’t know about that, but for me it’s the first time I’ve managed the fifteen minute nose-stem gurn without finding an excuse to lie on the trailside until I can remember my name.

I shall be returning to the subject of the Bastard in a post all of it’s own. Fully deserved and guaranteed to get a sympathetic nod from any rider whose looked at the distance between their current location and an apparently unscalable peak and cried “Oh Fuck, you are joking aren’t you?”

First amongst equals was a brakeless descent of the old** defensive ditch which has both vertiginous drops and a flat out gully. It’s always a tad moist, ready to wash away your front wheel and leave you wondering what to do with quite a lot of speed mostly being scrubbed off by your face.

But flat out is so much fun, we had to go and try it again, passing the local unsmiling cycling club who seemed to have forgotten how bloody lucky we are to have this kind of riding on our doorstep. Apparently they don’t “do” this descent because it loses too much height. What? Isn’t that why you climb in the first place?

Anyway we left these aliens, and I was staggered that I was able to do so, since I’ve done not to much riding in the last month what with every decreasing slices of spare time, and the dodgy knee to boot. I’m giving up healthy eating – instead just going for the rubbish vacuum packed “Big Breakfast” sandwich which sustained me the whole way round.

Last of the firsts was the realisation that it’s barely a month to the longest day. How can this be? The police should stop investigating whether the Daily Torygraph can categorise all MP’s as “self important twats fiddling their expenses“*** and go after the big crimes. I’ll be onto the local station first thing tomorrow asking them to find out EXACTLY who has stolen the first half of 2009.

CLIC next weekend. I’m not scared. Much.

* Worked for me 🙂

** Proper old. Iron age. Men wearing furry dresses, women sporting latest “Bone Hair” quiff and decent chance of being killed in all manner of interesting ways on a daily basis.

*** I’m summarising here, but that seems pretty much the conclusion you have to come to.

Who said the Germans don’t have a sense of fun?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography3 Comments

From Big-Col’s blogspot. Worth a look for some fantastic MTB images.

I do like the way he’s decided to ratchet up the danger by performing this nose wheelie right on the outside of the trail. A trail that clearly has breached the risk/reward barrier in the direction of certain death.

I wouldn’t even want to walk that trail. Never mind ride it. And the prospect of grabbing a whole handful of front brake with the likely result of pitching you headlong into space just makes me go “arrrrrghhhhhh”

Germans you see. Not the full pound. Or possibly Euro.