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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Pace 405 XCAM (3 of 7), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Like Thelma and Louise, Laurel and Hardy, Keith and Orville – there’s a partnership going on here and we’re both bringing different stuff to the party.

The bike is bonkers fast, silly committed in the twisties and barely out of a straight jacket when pointed down steep hills. I am annoyed at myself for lacking a third bravery testicle, irritated that I’m never going to get near the limit, and bloody annoyed that I broke my other bike.

After a couple of Cwmcarn laps, the bike was dusty and I was sweaty and smiling. Downhill it is a devil chuntering on your shoulder “faster, faster, FASTER YOU LESBIAN“. I did my best until a third run at the final descent dispatched me giggling into the shrubbery. Can’t blame the steering for that, because the wheels had somehow left the ground.

Uphill,life is more pedestrian and that’s about the speed I was climbing. Bit fat tyres, biffer on top and the fat frankinfork out front ruins the credentials of this lightweight frame. But it’s comfy, the view was quite lovely, the sun was warm and point that fork down the mountain and it becomes a barely guided missile.

Honestly I think that bike would be faster if I just hooked myself behind on a skateboard. I am going to have so much fun in Scotland although I may die horribly being flung off the side of a Munro-light. Still it’s the way I’d want to go.

Anyway it is apposite that a working bicycle is mine to stroke because the other one reacted extremely badly to a simple change of a gear cable. The chain was so miffed by this act of pointless maintenance it now wraps itself wound a very expensive titanium chainstay whenever I try something radical. Like changing gear.

I have no idea why this happened. I have tried eating the offending tool in a mature 40 year old response to the problem. That didn’t work and there is a tense standoff between the recalcitrant bike in one corner and big ‘ammered Al in the other.

I expect it’ll be fine when Carol has a proper look at it 😉

Moving on Friday. Or declaring martial law, firing up the scorpion pits and exposing any solicitor to the real consequences of handing over their ridiculous bill.

I think we may need an extra order of spiders.

Pace 405 , originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Before the furniture police banned any personalisation of your “hotdesking workspace”, two fading truisms were taped to almost every desk. The first sets out the chair based human capital appliance – or employee as we old timers like to call ourselves – work ethic: “I can complete one task every day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn’t looking good either“. The other astutely observed “When you’re arse deep in hungry alligators, it’s sometimes hard to remember your plan was to clean up the swamp”

It is the second to which we must turn the eye of angst to, but not before staking my claim as the Olympic representative for the single minded pursuit of but one task per day. On a good day that is. Assuming there is nothing interesting happening outside the window.

I would have happily tossed* myself in the alligator’s maw at exactly 8:03PM last night. Surrounded by broken tools, cast off spare parts and a mixed collection of sizable hammers, my frazzlement sparked a sweary outburst ending in “why the f*** do I f***ing bother with this f**king s**t?”

A good question yet some distance away from the aura of tranquility and peace in which the build began. But things went wrong right from the start; the curious design of this fine Yorkshire frame sees the rear brake hose seemingly routing via Harrogate. A visit to a bike shop promised a swift solution, but delivered only lies and outrageously expensive options. Then the cranks didn’t fit because some copy monkey failed to notice the difference between the numbers 68 and 73.

Easy mistake to make I suppose. Especially when compared to forging an wheel dropout that was about 2mm narrower that the axle that was supposed to drop in. Undeterred I harvested the big file and – under strict instructions to ensure an adult was present – handed it over to Carol. Who filed away with a technique and patience that couldn’t be further than my only contribution: “for God’s sake woman, watch what you’re doing with that and don’t file my new bloody frame”

Flushed with success, we swiftly moved onto the scary proposition of lopping a few inches off the steerer tube. For those of you uninitiated in the dark arts of bicycle maintenance, this involves a pipe cutter, a£300 box fresh fork and a very deep breath. Fifteen minutes later, I’d broken the cutter, the record for a sentence with the most occurrences of the work bollocks, and a hacksaw blade.

The steerer remained resolutely uncut although badly mutilated. A good lawyer might have got me off with ABH but it took a bad Al to complete the job, somewhat lengthened by having to remove the stem with that well known Zen technique of twatting it with the biggest hammer.

When I say I completed the job, Carol returned from dealing with abandoned children, ignored my whining, took control of the cutting tools and lopped off the right length pretty close to square. How that woman didn’t then take the same approach to my testicles, as my whinging ratcheted up to near hysteria, shall form one of the many tenets of her future Cannonisation.

The tools were then gently prized from my bloodied hands, as further spannering was suspended for fear of an Al being denonated in an uncontrolled explosion. There is still much to do in terms of general tweakery, cable installation – featuring the frustrated tears of indexing hell – and complex suspension jiggery-pokery. I fully expect this to be completed in the same mixture of inner peace and outer accomplishment that has defined the build so far.

Alligator steaks all round then.

* Steady.

That will be a face plant – Latin name body-pummeler rock slasher – found in great numbers where soil conditions include abrasive rock, rubbish riding and a higher than normal incidence of Al.

Passing naturalists exclaimed “By Jove is that a greater bruised Alex, nestling perfectly between a sharp outcrop and muddy stream bed? Not often you see them with their legs still wiggling. Get the camera out”

And all this crashing about in the hard edged undergrowth after the first day had gone so well. Great swathes of the Peak District being mowed by the wavy lines of rumbling tyres, huge cakes disappearing at the speed of indigestion, and endless climbs bridging the distance between the two.

Even better, it was not even one of my own bikes getting a custom attrition paint job from high speed rock strikes. I didn’t have anything to ride you see*, SX lost in storage, Hummer akin to taking a toothpick to a gunfight, Canzo too pink to be allowed into Yorkshire. So I borrowed one, and it was lovely.

Except for the fork which had the structural integrity and lateral stiffness of a wilting lettuce. And the brakes which worked long enough to get me out of the shop. And the chain which fell off a lot. But hey it was a hard working demo which someone else had to clean and mend, once I’d sort of wrecked it.

Sort of would have been absolutely had the 15 seconds not quite falling off ended as it should. It’s the only time I’ve ever clipped both sides of a gate – held open by my wide mouthed riding buddies – as the plunging buckero of man and bike was hurled down the hillside by angry gravity.

Still four times over the bars the next day was a price almost worth paying for tweaking the nose of terror. If the terrain was any more technical, it would come with a four inch manual and a nine year old boy to explain how to make it work. The Andys** whooped along it with all the trouble of men attempting a single flight of stairs. The same trails dispatched me into a dark, sweaty place where bikes don’t clear rocks, corners cannot be turned and steep bits must be walked.

At one point – the point being where my head was yet again wedged into a painful rock sandwich – my sense of humour was declared missing in action. Presumed dead. The final descent cheered me up with it’s lack of near death experiences and bumpy swoopiness.

What cheered me up even more was finding my cash had gone the same way as my sense of humour and I was forced to sponge off two card carrying Yorkshiremen. Honestly you should their faces on receipt of a receipt of a loan request for one pound – it was as if I’d asked for first go with the whippet.

Two last thoughts.

1) It’s summer right? At what point did gales and driving rain replace sunshine and wispy clouds?
2) I liked that new bike very much indeed. It may be the bike page is facing a radical overhaul.

* Not QUITE true. But close enough for it failing to be prosecuted for lack of evidence.

** Strange Northern Tribe. Can float over impossibly difficult trails while discussing the pro’s and con’s of whippet ownership.***

*** Pros: Any port in a storm. Not bad eating. Cons: Bit smelly, no fold back teeth.

Two blokes we met while riding up and over these steep sided and overly managed hills. The first took exception to our polite entreaties to get past, by denouncing all cyclists as trail eroding scum who’d serve the country better by throwing themselves under the nearest lorry. Or something like that; I must confess to stopping listening when I realised he wasn’t either.

The second was an old boy who very gently chastised us for riding on a path we probably shouldn’t have ,been but finished up with “I wouldn’t worry about it, nobody will care really”. And for the remaining 99{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of our ride, he was absolutely right. I have no intention of getting into the access issues around these closely guarded nuggets of great trails*, other than to say, there seems to be enough for everyone and much of it is fun on a mountain bike.

We did seem to climb alot tho. My GPS sprouted** some nonsense about 3000 feet of uppage with some corresponding smile cracking trails heading back into Malvern. However, the first one we found could have been named “extreme exposure” although I felt my alternate title of “aarrgghh I have fallen down a 45 degree slope” was a little more accurate. Two rolls and a suicidal grab of a passing – and accelerating – bike generated more than enough interest for one set of pants I can tell you.

And the fall wasn’t because I was all rubbish and clipped in; no, rather I was checking out the view, and congratulating myself on all things West of the South East. One of those things was the lush rolling landscape into which I plunged – head first – to better investigate the phrase “terminal velocity“.

It’s not just the stuff you can see that is different here. There are other clues as well; the non ironic Wurzels tribute band at the School Fete, the strange popularity of Welly Throwing and the complete lack of any justification required to tuck into a barrel of Cider. At the local pub, there is one bloke who doesn’t seem to have moved during the three times we’ve been in there. Either he’s dead or very, very drunk.

Tomorrow I start commuting again using a proper vehicle to sandwich the train journey. Which means, according to my personal rainometer(tm), I’d better go and harvest the waterproofs.

* Because I didn’t sign up to any charter and I really don’t understand what all the fuss is about. What’s wrong with: ne polite, be sensible, be sensitive to other trail users and get on with it?

** And as part of my new found sensitivity, other vegetables are available. I’ve no problem with the concept of Broccoli taking on some verb action. Just as long as I am not required to eat any of the Devil’s testicles.

.. so am I. More when I’m less distracted by beer and food. In summary:

Weather: Damn Hot. A bit too damn hot really.
Course: Last descent and singletrack great. Rest of it made up of mainly grass – both upwards and downwards. Plus some road. So, erm…
Organisation: Fantastic.
Post Ride Food: Rubbish. Veg Curry? I WANT THE BACK END OF A RECENTLY DEAD COW IN A BUN!
74k course details: No idea, sloped off, like the wuss I am, and did 48k variant.
Other riders: Occasionally amusing, generally pedestrian downhill. I’m not quick but they were glacial.
Doing it again: No.