… I started night riding again. But much of my non participation is easily parcelled into the excuse that ‘it’s about time‘ just as well. My feasting of late summer turned into a rain-swelled riding famine come adark, wet but mostly working autumn. Stupidly early starts, endless late finishes and far too much of our fine capital* in between.

Two weeks ago we floundered about in the fog looking for familiar trails and – for me – my lost fitness and motivation both sucked dry by too many liquid evenings staring out into dark, rainy skies. A work/life balance pivoted by other peoples deadlines and trying to be the perfect new boy.

It was fine and everything, but thelistlessness of that evening foreshadowed an overburdened immune system gradually succumbing to a new medical condition best thought of as ‘flanmoo‘** rendering me pretty much incapable of any physical activity over and above having a little moan. It passed eventually so time to get back out there.

It’d been dark quite a while whenthe car beeped an ice warning on my way into the hills. Some effort of will required to remove oneself from the warm embrace of a heated cage to go play in the real world. Very much worth it tho, as within five minutes astounding technical modern fabrics and a rather more ancient vascular system upped the internal temperature gauge to ‘moderately toasty‘

Until I needed a tree stopor – as I like to think of it – ‘wee is just warmth leaving the body‘ about five minutes in. No matter much more climbing to turn up the heat before a couple of sketchy descents where the gloriously dry trails were occasionally hidden under 20 yards of mud. Experience has taught me that the best approach to such conditions is to relax, point the bike in the general direction of safety and stick Newton in the driving seat.

Dry trails are the result of Nature’s hairdryer which was blowing at 30 knots plus on the tops, as we pedalled downhill into the wind and sailed splendidly on the ups. But it tool me the best part of an hour to remember exactly night riding works. Before that everything felt awkward and closed in even with amazing optics blazing 1000s of lumens for miles up front. Really you need to disengage most of you peripheral vision and make bloody sure you look where you want to go, because if you start focussing your brain on a ‘show me that rock‘ game, there’s only going to be one outcome.

That said, it’s brilliant fun knowing there’s no walker ambling round the next corner or a awkwardlyplaced conservator marking time at the start of your favourite cheeky trail. And on a clear night like this, there are views all the way to Birmingham and amusingly bugger all lit up the other way towards Wales. The valley is full of smoking chimneys drafting the expired breath of the time-expired humans who believe they’re on the right side of their insulated walls.

We had a minute where that ^^ image was captured and for about the millionth time I found myself entirely at peace with the world whenriding bikes with my friends. Life feels really very complex sometimes until you suddenlyget hit with a ‘this is why‘ moment. Christ why can’t we bottle that, and take a sipevery time the real world intrudes into what should be a pretty simple operating condition?

Pretention over and shivering a bit, we headed up one more time – straining into a headwind – to ritually tap the trig point before turning round and blasting downhill pushed alongby wind and laughter. Loose rocks, steep pitches, decent sized drops moon backlit in silhouette allflowing underfast rotating wheels. Stuff of life this.

Just once more into the fray, we cried slurry rather than Harry as the dryconditions deteriorated into sticky, tyre filling mud rendering them entirely useless for anything other than sliding about in a mildly comedic fashion. It’s a night for flat pedals with much tripod-ing of corners and last minute saves. And it’s a night for giggling like a ten year old, messing about outside under this natural planetarium and wondering why the hell this ever seemed difficult.

Motivation is a strange thing. I rode tonight because it really was about time and choosing how to fill it. But it was still a stretch to remove insufficiently motivated arse from warm sofa. And yet 30 minutes later, it’s basically undistllled joy and adrenaline spikes.

There’ll be some shit rides this winter. At night and in the semi-perpetual darkness which passes as daylight during December, January and February. But for every one of those there will be many, many more of these.

For six weeks I have made decisions about what’s important, and I have chosen poorly. Tonight reminds me why I need to make bloody sure this doesn’t become a bad habit I can’t break. Roll on next Tuesday.

* to clarify – if the irony doesn’t leap off the page – how the fuck does that place even work? It’s like the matrix without the red pill.

** A spoonerism of ‘manflu‘ with exactly the same symptoms except no one else notices or shows any sympathy. Even when the snotty patient is flopped on the sofa idly wondering if ‘he should go towards the light‘

In a time best thought of thedistant past I wrote an article on the practice of Yoga and why it’s not entirely relevant for the approximate half of the population whose idea of self-reflection is scratching their bollocks in a post modernist fashion.

The past is a different country; they speak differently there which somewhat explains my current mild obsession with stretching muscles without lifting weights in a long term goal of flexibilityand a rather shorter one of standing up in the morning without clicking, creaking and exposing the kind of noises provoking the neighbours to call the RSPCA*

Not Yoga tho. I’m just too much bloke and not enough lentil. Pilates is a bit differentwith Carol and my youngest who cheats with longer arms and a body not ravaged by age, injury and abuse. She’s not idea how lucky she is right now. And obviously there’s no point in explaining such a thing to those having never known any different.

Which bring me nicely to trail centres. It pains me to realise than my extreme antiquity shields the truth of the young and innocent failing to understand that winter is actually a quest of the worthy snorting mud and mainlining an arse of liquid crack while pretending they might be enjoying themselves.

Which is absolutely fine for the hair-shitred amongst us. There’s a certain purity in endless death marches under slashing rain skies on trails once fast and hard but now basically under the water table. You feel fantastic. Afterwards. During the ride? Not so much. Bit this is proper four season mountain biking. There is no wimping out or whimpering. Others may be weak but you are strong in the face of drudgery, broken transmission and inevitably broken spirit.

Two weeks ago we broke ranks and headed for Wales to ride nothing but trail centres. The distant wild hills called and we gave them a nostalgic wave before forgoing navigation for stump based arrow and armoured trails. 3 Days, 3 trails and if I’m admitting a guilty secret it was nothing short of magnificent.

We were lucky with the weather which when you’re deep into North Wales in late October suggests you’ve not been hailed on. The rain came but by the time it was pissing down we were ensconced in a Halloween theme pub entertained by a band mostly differentiated by one man playing every instrument from guitar to accordion and the other wearing a pumpkin on his head**

Returning to the kind of climatic conditions November brings spiked my motivation to ride in such a way, I entirely failed to fetch the bike from the barn for the first time in a planetary rotation. The thought of slogging through muddy natural trails had the appeal of crushingone love spuds in a sharply contoured drawer.

Night rides came as did the rain and my non attendance passed but the shitty weather turned up in my stead. Eventually tho the need to ride trumps the inertia of wondering if it’s worth it. Circumstances predicated a two hour window at Swinley Forest where i’d cut my singletrack teeth many years ago and has recently been upgraded to a proper trail centre.

Hmm. Based on traffic and politics, all the heritage trails have closed notices stapled to trees whereas the new blue and red runs are vigorously signposted and marketed. And they are absolutely fine displacing the lack of elevation with seemingly endless switchbacks though pine forests and the occasional 30 second non pedally descent.

Something is missing tho. I slipped out of the matrix and headed out on vaguely remembered trails now marked illicit They were full of puddles, slick roots and unsustainable cambers. And I loved them more for that. I’d rather splash through something like that than dissolve brake pads on a cipher for a much loved trail.

This isn’t me having a pop at trail centres. Nor that the demands on somewhere like Swinley drove a hard decision between something official and nothing at all. Nor am I am denigrating the joy of 4 season trails perfectly designed for mass traffic and shit weather. Not at all, come Sunday I’ll be back at another one.

I guess it’s something a little more nuanced. My plan to ride Swinley was simply the displacement of a head full of much stuff to be done. Perspective guaranteed, to do listsaxed, real-lifte(tm) reasserting itself. Everything I get riding a mountain bike. And I got none of it switching back on scalexric tracks and wondering if this is how the end starts.

Sure the blood was arterially pumping. The trails snaked out in all sorts of interesting directions. The bike was willing and ready. But the rider had a head full of angst entirely failing to me wound out by the cycle of pedalling. It was okay, fine, sort of good but it wasn’t quite enough.

I love trail centres. If they are in Wales. Or Scotland. I get that but the idea of building a centre in a place where 25km delivers 200m of elevation you’ve got to think what the hell is the point. The point is of course political – too many riders chasing illegal trails on someone elses land. Armoured trails are the answer.

I feel we’re probably asking the wrong question.

* because no sound like that which resonates through a wall can be in any way human and must suggest bad things are being inflicted on innocent pets.

** this is North Wales and such things pass as entertainment.

Not the kind of high places populated by the supposedly elite and inappropriately privileged. My proximity with those social groups could only take one of two possible forms; either serving the drinks, or laying about myself with the rough end of a Chesterfield*

The kind of rarified atmosphere I have shared with my proper friends are to be found in riding above the tree lines, desperately seeking shelter on bleak summits or carrying bikes towards distant peaks. Companionship forged under endless skies surveying people-less vistas. No fair weather friends here “ these individuals take one look at sub-zero snow being flung at the window before grinning. The unspoken ˜are we riding?’ question never needs to be asked.

Nige is one of those people. We’ve been often wet, mostly lost and endlessly cold in all sorts of situations containing mild peril. So I could not pass up the opportunity to bypass social convention regarding family gatherings, instead rocking up in a muddy Surrey Hills car park to ride with my old pal.

To find Nige, I first had to navigate through the thicket of ˜#soenduro’ bikes and pilots mostly strapped to the back of new-plate Audi’s. If there’s ever any doubt where all the worlds suppliers of carbon weave and orange paint has disappeared to, I can divulge the exact epicentre of the prime suspects.

Me and the Nigester were rocking heritage wheels (him 26, me 29), well campaigned gear and “ in his case “ straight steerer tubes and non bolt through rear ends. Amazing the whole thing didn’t explode on exit from his car as would be the expectation set by keyboard-warrior MTB Forums.

We headed up hill unscathed other than Nige blowing a bit on the not unreasonable grounds his riding has been curtailed by a proper job and family commitments – a set of circumstances entirely missing from my previous three months. The ˜All-Mountain-Rigs’ were nowhere in sight as we crested the summit of the Peaslake Alps revealing a rather pretty panorama marred only by its lack of altitude and evidence of mass population. It’s nice and everything but it’s not a proper hill.

It is however absolutely stuffed with brilliant trails criss-crossing the limited vertical in all manner of interesting and thrilling ways. Firstly Yoghurt Pots poked my singletrack synapsus with nicely crafted berms and dips. The expected mud remained mostly missing for all the time it took to drop into the next rather more natural trail.

A plethora of off camber roots “ polished from much use and slick from recent rain “ awaited our giggling and tripod efforts to ride them with any aplomb. Nig did rather better than me which entirely failed to prevent a big grin as we dropped onto a fireroad climb hauling us back to Telegraph Road.

I’ve never ridden this trail in the dry. And today was no different. What changed was my ability to dispatch the corners with the kind of middle-aged wildish abandon I’d long forgotten, for which my day with Tony is a gift that keeps on giving.

We hitched ourselves onto a ten minute pleasant climb back to where we started. Opening up the iconic Barry Knows Best trail much revered in these parts. And with good reason, being fast, flowy, bone dry and perfectly sculptured.

Which fails to explain why we both stacked on it. There’s a bond with your proper MTB mates which is broken when you can’t hear their front tyre nudging your rear mech. Having had a shit load of fun chucking myself into perfect berms and over entirely non terrifying jumps, I encountered a well upholstered man straining in the vanguard of an activity best thought of as ˜Rocking Green and Orange while perambulating extremely slowly‘. Backing off, I mentally backed up and checked my six for an expected Nige.

He wasn’t there and I wasn’t either having given away concentration, peripheral vision and the middle of the trail. Result being my 1 ride old Magnesium pedal ** stabbing an innocent stump with the predictable result of a previously well balanced rider leaving the office through the front door. Luckily a tree was right there to prevent any gentle deceleration. I greeted my arboreal friend by simply punching it with a soon to be swollen hand.

Moments later, and bleeding profusely, I wiggled most things and found them working if a little sore. Damage Control reported a sternum suffering a Mr Scaramanga Third Nipple due to dragging a bar from my belly button to where shaving stops, but such minor injuries didn’t stop me from staggering upright and checking the bike.

Which was fine other than a couple of rotated components quickly fixed but still in a timescale that should have seen a fast Nige flashing past. No flashing. No Nige. Just as my next action was a determined limp up the trail to check for body parts, he rolled slowly into view.

Proper crash on the only vaguely technical section. Whereas I’d merely hugged a tree, he’d failed to commit and suffered the inevitable consequence of riding a steep drop on his head. Brain undamaged, ribs bruised, wrist sore, we leisure cycled to the tea stop*** for sugar based recuperation.

Flapjack imbibed, we avoided the soft option of giving up and headed up Winterfold Hill for more frolics on brilliant trails clearly beefed up since my last visit some four years ago. We even got lost for a while which was nostalgia brought right up to date.

A final drop to the car park on ˜SuperNova’ had me reconsidering the lazy categorization of these trails. Sure there’s more money than riding ability but that’s the same anywhere. And we watched some proper fast riders who bucked the stereotype. There’s some brilliant trails here, and some brilliant riders. I’m not sure it’s a standard deviation, but as a guest on someone else’s patch it was bloody fantastic.

And then I had a beer with an old friend. Said it before, say it again: riding is half of where you are and half of who you are with.

Good day. Won’t leave it so long next time.

* Sofa or Lord. Either would suit my faux-socialist credentials.

** The industrial casting process for magnesium is essentially waiting for something to catch fire. I expect my examples were thrown from a burning building.

*** achieving 4102 from 4309 of Strava times. I’m strangely proud of that.

A simple question elicitingvisceralresponses, when the virtual thumb is thrown out intothe big tent of the mountain biking community. For those who still despise trail centres, the promise of pedal free riding representsthe absolute nadir of missing the point, plots long lost, shortcuts easily found and an evolutionary branch clearly mutated from the authentic origins of riding over the rough stuff.

That’s the joy of democracy right there. The rest of us exhibit Pavlovian responses onthe arrival of the uplift truck. There’s something important about the ghettoisation of mountain biking – herding previous free spirits into fenced off enclosures, driven by sheepdog arrows and exchanging natural wonders for sculpted safety.

But its’ not as important as accepting the landscape of mountain biking is changing. And changing for the better.

Bike parks aren’t trail centres. They make no excuses for a pay-to-play business model. Whereas trail centres hide maintenance* behind car parking fees, organisations like Bike Park Wales charge a price per entry and one for each uplift. They also understand this brings a responsibility to build ever more interesting trails while limiting numbers trashing what they have right now. Having met a couple of the people who run it, they absolutely get this doctrine.

Which doesn’t defuse the ticking time bomb of those who assert we’re giving away the crown jewels of land access, and entirely failing to stick it to the man. What – for me – they miss are two things; firstly bike parks are an outlier of mountain biking – fun for eight hours but you wouldn’t want to do it every day, and secondly they are corralling a whole generation of new mountain bikers who couldn’t give a rats arse for a nice XC loop.

We’re losing to the roadies. Olympic and tour success have transformed our local bike shops to selling the alleged joy of the tarmac. Market economics play to a model whichsells at least 10 skinny tyred bike to every knobbly one. Bike Parks don’t fix that, but bloody hell they make you feel sorry for the poor buggers playing with the traffic.

Twice in the last month I’ve motored the sub hour drive to Bike Park Wales – once in fantastic late summer sunshine and the other time in the pissing rain. And both times it was nothing short of adrenaline pumped giggling, interspersed with viewing 400 metre climbs from the misted windows of the uplift van.

The trails are brilliant because they are so diverse. It’s not all meat-headed downhill runs requiring large bikes and rather larger testicles. The runs are graded perfectly for progression and the hill is big enough to guarantee 7-10 minutes of fun on trails absolutely designed for modern mountain bikes.

And that terrain drops you into natural feeling wooded sections and over natural rock gardens. It’s all superbly armoured against the weather, but not styled as a homage to a BMX track. It’s full of technical challenges you can safely hit fast or slow, there’s progression everywhere from the carving blues through the steeper reds and some frankly terrifying blacks.

At the end of which you roll out onto a jump line which gets bigger with your confidence and finishes where the uplift starts. Where you will see a few individuals who believe£5 represents a poor return compared to climbing 45 minutes up a fire-road. That’s missing the point so hard, they need counselling.

I quite like riding uphill. I get earning your turns. I stay fit and work hard at it because getting to high places generally requires a bit of effort and bloody mindedness. But in an artificial environment where pedalling is negated by a superbly efficient motorised service, I’ve not the slightest interest in doing something that’s pretty much part of my mountain biking world for 50 weeks a year.

Railing the top blue section before dropping in to the notorious ‘rim dinger’ on my quite brilliant Nukeproof Mega, and rattling through two minutes of big rocks and endless berms, thenbeing deposited back at a towed trailer taking me back to do it all again is simply a fantastic way to spend a day.

I understand it’s not for everybody. I get that, but what I fail to understand is the disdain in which such places are held by those who’ve self-labelled themselves as ‘proper mountain bikers’. Sorry, that’s bollocks – I’ve been lucky enough to ride in many countries in all kinds of conditions and occasionally in states of mild peril. And I still love bike parks like this.

We have to progress somewhere at the same speed as the bikes get ever more capable. We cannot ignore the ageing demographic of the mountain biking community. If the future of this are people that aren’t like us, then we probably need to let that slide. Watching the indestructible kids throwing massive shapes on the jump lines just made me smile.

Because that’s one less roadie. One less footballer. One less sat in front of a computer like this one. One more of us, one less of them. Bike Parks do not represent the ghettoisation of mountain biking, they point at a part of its future. But not all of it.

Let’s not confuse progress with the disruptionof the current state. This is not the time for luddites smashing the Spinning Jennys. If you fear for authenticy, remember this: riding mountain bikes is always bloody fantastic. it’s an attitude not a location. It’s neither defined about how you get up or get down. It’s mostly about themany pointsin between.

We should cherish that. Go get a lift, I promise it will rock your mountain biking world.

* and sometimes not too well. Grants make trails but they don’t fund maintenance. Nothing sadder than a trail centre abandoned because of neglect and erosion.

Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick, Tat, Tat, Tat, Woooarrrwwwn. I give you one of the greatest riffs ever to come from an electric guitar.** I’ve loved that track for more years than I care to remember, and listening back to it today, it rather splendidly summed up my the now fading summer.

It’s easy to lament the onset of Autumn. I should know because I do soevery year slouching ever more depressed as dead leaves carpet the trails, hardpack turns to mush, temperatures plummet and the mud comes up.

October marks five months of drudgery. From now until somewhere near eternity, every ride will notch another dirty protest, something expensive will fail or break with eyewateringly expensive frequency, but still most of what falls off will be you.

Your quest to the warm indoors will be stayed by a toll-gatebucket demanding payment of your moat like riding gear. Everything vaguely bike related will be brown except your toes and fingers which shallbe bloodless and blue.

Marvellous. That’ll wile away those long winter nights. But there’s something else to think aboutinstead; anendless loop of a brilliant summer. With most of Spring to be considered as well. After rain which started in December and stopped only after most of the country was to be found underwater, the trails amazingly dried under weak April sunshine.

And we rode and rode, revelling on dry lines raising themselves above the zombie mud.*** finding grip where forever there had been none, being able to recognise the colour of our bikes from sight rather than memory. But Christ it had been a long time coming – I remember one March Sunday ride hiding under the car tailgate as another freezing hailstorm lashed the Forest and thinking ‘You know what, I need an inside hobby‘.

May was a disappointment. Let’s not spare the lash here. I spent much of that month on it, waiting for Winter’s rain rebranded as Spring to receive a shovefrom the stuttering Jet Stream and get with the sunshine programme. But when the season ratchet finally turned. we were fit and ready to make the most of it.

There’s so much to treasure. That first short sleeved ride lasting for ever before terminating in the pub with us drinking well earned cold ones- sunnies on – under cloudless skies. Sun burned all over the place and running out of excuses to try new and scary stuff because the trails were endlessly perfect. Even when it rained, we didn’t care because soon the sun rebooted the weather firmly back to summer.

We probably should have travelled more. Aside from a couple of trail centre raids. we lapped up favourite dusty singletrack and explored the new stuff popping up all over the Forest. Rode all over the Malvern Hills at times when walkers were asleep or post-lunch comatose. Played a bit of rambler slalom which is a guilty pleasure. Sometimes it’s hard to leave when it’s so damnedgood where you are.

Then the French Alps for a week of the most simply outstanding riding with all the people who I’d most want to share it with. Ticked off the Passport De Soleil this time in the dry, and threw big bikes at bigger mountains without any long term injuries other than the long suffering liver.

Even sneaked a ride in Whister on the almost mythical trails there in almost unbearable heat. Came back to rain but so desperate to ride I didn’t care. Then perfect symmetry between failing to look for another job and rain failing to fall from the sky. 500+ of mountain biking kilometres in September on empty trails still configured for summer.

Could it get better? It could indeed. A trip to see Tony reminded me of what fast felt like, and I’ve loved every ride since even as the hardpack begins to melt under Autumn rains.

I’ve loved riding mountain bikes in 2014 so far. If anything more than ever.Sure, I’ve had a bunch of stupid crashes but ended up fitter and maybe a little bit faster than this time last year. We’ve got plans, so many plans on what happens next – and if that’s a Thomas-likerailing against the dying of the light, I’m entirely comfortable with that.

So bring it on. Your rain. Your cold. Your shitty trails. Your broken washing machines. Your motivation killers. Your “Who’d ride in this crap” challenges. I’ve a bank full of summer memories and a plan for when the solstice tips back in our favour. Until then I’ll take every ride as it comes.

And there will be spikes of enjoyment. Frozen rides perfectly lit undera big moon. Smoke pouring from those safely cosseted in front of snug fires, mistakenly under the impression they’re on the right side of the walls. Massive mud slides held with a deft hip flick or panicked wrench, dark beer on dark night and the almost inestimable feeling of not being quite like everyone else.

The time mountain biking becomes a three season sport, I officially lose. It’s not going to be this year. The boys of summer may have gone, but the grizzled old veterans of Autumn and Winter are layering up ready to go.

* Yes, fully appreciate this is at best stretching a metaphor and at worst a lie, but if Don Henley can sing it when he’s the wrong side of 50, I feel we’re in good company.

** You may disagree. I suggest you spend some time on the Internet. They’ll be some nutters with whom you can find common ground.

*** Sucks the life out of you. Potentially bloody and dangerous.