Category: Bikes

Tens of thousands of words and the odd blurred picture of fast moving vegetation rehashing one of two tenuous threads. Spliced together using random punctuation and alcohol.

Start small and work down.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography4 Comments

That’s always been my motto when faced with anything even tainted with mild terror. Point me in the direction of a well stocked bar or groaning pudding trolley though and I immediately Go Large*. So when the motley Ross Night Ride Crew began enthusiastically planning some epic flirting with the Welsh Borders, I couldn’t help but remember exactly how long a previous daytime jaunt had taken. Sure we did get lost and spend a quality hour in mid ride quaffage, but – even barely past the longest day – I felt bringing lights was sporting a certain keenness my body was unable to match.

We wasted too much of that precious natural light with Olympic grade pontificating, faffing and debating route options going something like “Yeah, you know if we cut round the back of Six-Fingered Bob’s Dogging Spot – so neatly bypassing the Pheasant Shaggers – we’ll pop over dog-turd hill and slip into the back of Geoffrey’s wiggle“. To which the other revered route finders would respond with something like “But that misses a cheeky dart through Necrophilia valley and leaves us with no chance of sticking a fast one in Big Vera’s Tunnel”

I stand aside pondering if this is merely a mighty wheeze – Muddy Mornington Crescent for the new boy. Eventually some decision is made and for a happy five minutes I actually recognise where we are. But not where we might be going with a confusing mass of left-right-lefts onto trails shadowed by dense vegetation that scratched hard at my strimmer itch. At exactly the point when I became totally and irretrievably lost**, the route-finder generals too began the slow head-turning of the navigationally incapacitated.

I knew we were lost in so many ways when chief Route Finder and all round downhill-mentalist Gary asked me – Me for fucks sake, a man who can often be found lost wandering around his own house looking for the dishwasher – if I remembered where a tiny track, now covered in head high vegetation, may start. I mugged for a bit hoping to create an air of trail locating competence which was fatally exposed when said track appeared in exactly the opposite direction to which I was confidently pointing.

Great trail tho, tight and twisty then steep and deep in roots, fallen logs and – in Tim’s case – fallen riders. Top job he turned his wheel into a metal-y pretzel which Nick somehow made round again even after ignoring my suggestion to whip it out of the dropouts so to give room for a few of us to stamp on it. A brief period of collaboration broke out between the route finding factions leading us upwards before splinter groups again began whispering that if we’d wanted to get there we wouldn’t have started from here.

Not so much a tight-knit trail location committee, more a loose confederation of closely warring tribes. Amazingly we found Buckstone hill – although even our ascent to the very top again split the flat earthers from the there’s-a-trail-here-somewhere-pushers, and better still had a properly bonkers run down the multiple trail sections each one building on the last. It’s fast and open, then tight, then twisty, then tight again before a wall drop opens up a fantastic rock step closely followed by a natural table top. I remembered enough from last time to scare myself properly silly, so giving me ample excuse to mince out of the vertical roll down some of the younger/more stupid/less burdened by dependants and imagination rode off with irritating ease.

These trails are used by the boys from Dirt Magazine, so even the chicken runs are not lacking in terror for the under-skilled. Fun tho, and riding the ST4 (Pace last time) didn’t slow me down much, fear and proper wheel throwing looseness did that just fine. More singletrack, sufficiently remembered to get the ‘Jedi Speeder’ experience although, on reflection, maybe I’m at the age where I should be considering a stunt man for the difficult sections.

Ace as the night was turning out to be, it was still night clawing away at a dropping sun and sending us back homewards through a long doubletrack gradual climb enlivened by some proper views and the odd cow that looked to add “bike eating” to their list of achievements for the day. Mercifully un-chewed, we took another “Dave Special” over a style and upwards for reasons of a fine rocky descent that would have been even more thrilling had I been able to see any of it.

Luckily we were only 30 minutes or so from home. Less luckily most of this would be under the watchful gaze of a healthy forest well known for shutting out the light. Had their been any. A few riders peeled off home leaving six of us groping about and making new friends of the two enlightened ones. The last descent was properly funny but only because the two full on tank slappers I encountered due to a) very loose and dusty trail under wheel and b) not being able to see a) finishing with nothing more than 2 second slides which lasted about 2 days in my head.

Not learning – as usual – I nearly stacked it exactly 20 yards from the truck. Didn’t care much though because if I hadn’t been riding somewhere beyond the ragged edge, then I’d be sitting at home grumpily staring into the darkness and wondering if the excuses not to go ride were really good enough.

Talking to my mum tonight I was reminded of a cheesy phrase she used to send her three offspring into situations that generally ended up being rather rewarding: “In twenty years, you will regret the things you didn’t do far more than the ones you did”.

Sage advice. Right now, I can’t think of anything to top that.

* and assuming I can still stand, keep on going.

** Had they left me there, I would have been forced to throw myself in front of a car so ensuring an ambulance would take me to a place of safety. You don’t want to be outside, on your own and looking worried in the Forest at night-time. The breeze in the trees whistles “Duelling Banjo’s”

No Mountains, not much Mayhem.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography4 Comments

In fact I’d shoot for “Lumpy Slackness” to best describe my own take on the OSMM 24 hour mountain bike race held just down the road from here. Every year I make a special effort to attend while adhering to a firm committment not to get involved with any of that riding nonsense. I mean why would you? Ace riding on the doorstep, almost none of it encircled by a private deer park filled with desperate IT middle managers* properly hurting themselves to secure 321st place.

No I grooved a well worn record of scouring the vast campsite for familiar faces, stashing away any freebies before adjourning barwards to watch the start. This time I had family and mad mutt in tow so had to answer some slightly uncomfortable questions regarding my non participation. Straying away from bare faced lying for a change, instead I employed displacement tactics pointing out everything that was wrong with a thousand people crammed into a localised methane cloud waiting for the start.

After saving my cheers for the slowest, oddly shaped and fully paid up members of “Team Chubb-a-Lubb”, a navigationally challenged rendezvous with some old friends reminded me of a vague promise to ride an entire lap in exchange for beer. Thankfully my carefully studied slackness had ensured a ride-readiness state scoring about zero what with no bike, no riding clobber and a pair of wellington boots** which sadly merely postponed the horror until the following day.

But this is a team which would present Team Hardcore Loafing as a race-tuned, podium chasing professional outfit. So in keeping with the sleepy ethos, I turned up late only to shockingly discover a member of the team WAS OUT ON THE COURSE. Not to worry, a more than ample excuse for a sit and chat in the sunshine. That’s the fella out doing a lap I’m talking about who had located a grassy bank much to his liking, and passed a convivial half hour chatting with the real – if somewhat bemused – racers.

Eventually Tim found sufficient energy to roll back to Apathy Central and sent me on my way with a stern admonishment not to get back too early. The final member of the team was engaged in a full on race simulation and couldn’t be disturbed for at least an hour. Or revived really since he was entirely unmoving other than some jowly snoring. I rolled onto the course in a unique position of being entirely fresh and light limbed, while every other poor bugger had travelled 21 and 1/2 hours into a place where pain and suffering live.

This is what fitness must feel like. I easily out-climbed the heavy legged, dusty and weary riders who were turning slow circles in tiny gears or – more frequently – getting off and having a walk. On enquiring how they were doing, most would bang out a pained grimace declaring “Six laps in and this bastard is the last one” before trying to reconcile my fresh faced pace, body shape and entirely inappropriate bicycle. “You?” they’d ask with some incredulation “Yeah, last lap for me too, be glad to get it done” I’d reply in shared companionship.

I didn’t feel it necessary to add that this was my first and indeed only lap. Important not to over-communicate when people are under such obvious mental strain. So back to the course which I fully expected to but shit, boring and unchallenging. The first section didn’t do much to dispel such a hypothesis with rutted, tight scalextric weaving pointless between trees. No wonder everyone looks a bit miserable I pondered as riders pulled aside to let me pass.

I did feel like a bit of a fraud, but this was easily offset by the shallow joy I took from it. But I stopped thinking about that as the course suddenly became properly interesting. Some lovely, steep rutted descents, a few singletrack climbs, a more than pleasant flowy ribbon of hardpacked dirt that had me chasing fast riders and passing them before considering why they might be slowing down. The one disadvantage of my uni-lap strategy was that everything around the next corner was a total mystery. Which partially explains a couple of off-course transgressions and a eyes wide shut brush with one of the innocent marshalls.

So course was pretty good, quite challenging in places, brutal for multi-lappers with a halfway round campsite sashay leading to a climb that started tough and kept on giving. The end of which we were rewarded with another sinewy wiggle through the trees, doubly enjoyed after some proper racer elbowed past without so much as a “Out of my way Underling” at the entrance. I challenged him to show some bloody politeness next time to which I didn’t even receive the expected finger. Now I don’t mind being stuffed by those with proper riding skills, but that’s just disrespectful.

Fuck. Slack Mode off. Race Face On. Catching him was easier than expected although not due to any fantastic riding on my part, more because he was, well, a bit shit really. Race-Car on the straights, pedestrian in the corners. Hard to know if his concentration was broken my the sound of my Northern up-his-chuffness offering such pithy snippets as “Did you steal that race kit?” and “You don’t deserve that bike, you’re too fucking slow to ride it“.

This went on for a couple of happy minutes. As we hit the fireroad, I beamed my best smile and innocently asked if he’d enjoyed that previous section as much as I had. Not a word, nothing, he merely vibrated a bit and spun off with the demeaner of an angry hamster stuck in a washing machine. Ace, only one lap and I still managed to properly irritate a cock with a self-important complex. Mission accomplished I think.

Everyone else was lovely. Tired but feeling – quite rightly – pretty damn heroic. Tough course in the dry and had the rain come, most people probably would have left. But in the continued sunshine, we finished on a proper old school fast grass-track descent that had even us clipped-in riders, clipping out moto style. I even managed a reasonably styling jump over a lip where the photographer was apparently lurking. I’m sure his published image will clash poorly with that in my mind’s eye.

Arriving back in just under an hour, my reward was a nice cold beer and the chance to wave in the finishers come 2pm. I did feel slightly cheeky accepting the “riders medal” especially as some nutty singlespeed solo riders sprinted past the start/finish pylon in order to get another lap in. Aliens, the lot of them. Not for us, our laps were so few as to be designated “DNF” 🙂 More Did Not Start really.

But this is exactly the way to treat such events. It’s not a race strategy because we’re not racing, but as a fine way of passing a weekend with old friends with some bike riding thrown in, it’s hard to beat. However next year I’m aiming for a stretch target.

Two laps.

* Ahem.

** For the first time in epochs Mayhem was dry and warm***, but having endured the great floods of 2008 and 2009, there was NO WAY I was trusting some dodgy forecast.

*** Except for Saturday night which was frigging chilly apparently to the point where some neshers went home. FFS not even I’d do that.

Time.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Road Riding2 Comments

Slippery little bugger isn’t it? I am fairly sure that last week it was still snowing and mostly dark, and yet here we are with the longest day barely a weekend away. This would be enough to make me grumpy as we contemplate the depressing slide into Autumn, but time has stolen more than my Spring, it’s bogged off with most of the days since as well.

I blame working for a living. Really chews up your days and eats into the light, warm nights when you really should be a) riding your bike b) drinking beer outside c) repelling the triffid invasion by deploying petrol based weaponry. And then quickly slipping back into b). I seem to be stuck with d) which involves a fairly fully time job augmented by wasting time I don’t have doing other peoples.

You may legitimately ask what they are doing instead, and you would not be alone but I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer. For which I may have to mix work and home life by implementing c) during office hours when a particularly trying situation needs resolving.

I did manage a monster end to end Malvern ride this week which started on one of the longest days of the year but still finished in darkness. The entire gamut of hills were either summited or sneakily bypassed including my favourite rocky horror tearing down 700 feet of steep bouldery ribbon before finishing on a superb rock step drop off. Right in between these two items of loveliness are a set of narrow yet very steep steps which puckered me up in all the wrong ways.

But these too were dispatched with nothing more than a clenched bottom and tightly closed eyes, before declaring to anyone who’d listen that a) it was really easy and b) no thanks I’ll not be doing them again*. Only at 9:30 and at the furthest outreach from our start did we begin to wonder how one of the riding flange was getting home un-crashed without a set of lights to his name. We did our best with a bypass of significant pointy ridge through the use of an “evening bridleway”, and a quick scoot through darkening woods to a final climb over Midsummer.

Where our brave – if foolhardy – pal was now shrouded entirely in darkness. What with it being 10:30pm. Some 100m below was his car and safety – between us and that were a second set of leafy woods letting almost none of the not very much light through. He wasn’t keen to be the meat in a Lumen Sandwich so hung onto the back of us enlightened ones and mystifyingly made his way down using the little known skill of “bark brail“.

Brilliant, brilliant ride. 1100m ish and 30ks. All that trudging through winter makes sense on an epic like that.

Sports Day topped the domestic billing today, but – predictably – I missed one child losing quite often and the other broken one watching on. But I still arrived in time for lunch and left with no phone, no watch, no gps, no water (oops) but a brief time window and a fast road bike. Just headed out in a random direction and rode until my legs were shot and my head was clear. As good as the other night, for all the wrong reasons.

Mountain Mayhem this weekend. I’ll pop in to have a laugh, and personally verify that this could be the first event in living memory where monsoons have now sunk the trails below the water table. Good luck to any nutters participating – I have been offered a cheeky lap on a slack team but any free time I have this weekend will be spent with a glass in my hand. Or possible one in each.

* Lists you see, under pressure I revert to type. Surprised I’m not accompanying this lunchtime post with a couple of beers.

Four out of six ain’t bad

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding5 Comments

As Meatloaf may once have crooned if he could count past 5*. I appear to have died and been transported to Singletrack heaven with 100 kilometres of the wiggly stuff squeezed into less than a week. Ascent and, more importantly, descent has reached five imperial figures which is exactly half of what I managed all of last month.

But these numbers mean nothing without context. In this rather lovely – if confused – country we live in, every dry spell is vigorously mainlined by MTB junkies getting their rocks off on dusty trails under sunny skies. And for those of us who refuse to accept this is a three season sport, all that winter drudgery is rewarded with fast legs and an unquenchable thirst to go do it all again. And again.

Four rides, three locations, one simple idea to bank happy memories against future wet and miserable. We rolled into the Forest twice this week, and it rolled lush singletrack right back. It might not have the elevation of the Malverns, not the stupendous panoramic views, but bloody hell it’s somewhere beyond fun and into a place that surely cannot be legal. And yet a Malvern ride some 24 hours later reminded me how damn lucky we are to live between this two MTB environs.

A bit cheeky, trails that come alive in the evenings when the walkers have rambled off, perfect blue sky and visibility half way to Russia. A final descent into the setting sun with many metres bagged and ready to be unleashed in a duet with gravity. That’ll stay with me for some time, as will fast laps of CwmCarn – a trail centre 45 minutes from my house and a chosen testing ground for new bikes**

I know its’ secrets well enough to show Martin a clean pair of wheels on the first lap – feeling fit and pretty fast. Big Sandwich and Life Saving Cup Of Tea later, then it’s pretty much even as Martin hustles his big forked hardtail line astern to my brilliant – if fragile – ST4. I can forgive that bike anything because it is so natural to ride. Don’t think, just do. Don’t brake, just trust . This sometimes leads to Don’t look, just hope but how damn alive do you feel when all that is going on?

The last descent at CwmCarn has been properly breathed on by the trail pixies and now it is a kilometre of giggly awesomeness. I can hear Martin’s fat tyre scrabbling right up my chuff so abandon fast and smooth for ragged and dangerous. There is nothing wrong with such an approach assuming you’re still trail side up, which I very nearly wasn’t. Very Nearly is more than okay because it takes you to a place where you want to speak at a hundred miles and hour, but you cannot actually get any words out. I find pointing helps.

The only thing that scares me now is how long will it be before I’m too old to do this any more, maybe too broken, or too tired to ride in the winter, or too worried about mashing myself up. Just too damn crocked and decrepit. The worrying thing is – right now – I am as fit as I’ve ever been and riding at a pace that feels reasonably brisk. Probably all down hill from here then. Hope so, sounds like it might be an uplift 🙂

* Our mutt appears to have some musical talent as lead hound for Mad Murf and the Howlers. Current album “Where’s my breakfast” includes such classics as “Is there any more?”, “That was disappointingly small” and “How long till dinner?“. The difficult second album has stalled at the concept stage with only a working title “I’ve eaten the cat, what’s next?”

** There have been a few.

Somedays’ you’re the slugger…

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

.. somedays’ you’re the ball. In life, and much more when bikes become involved, I have tended to “The Ball”. Occasional glimpses of what the Slugger might look like have rarely occurred – and then only from the position of “The Ball“. Today I observed my two of my friends riding rather splendidly, while my own contribution to this riding ensemble was a proper sky-ground-sky event not experienced for many moons.

If we were to assume the mantle of the three cycling musketeers, Tim and Martin could fight over temporary custody of “Athos” and “Porthos” whereas I – of course – would rightfully claim the title of Dead-loss. It started well with enough with nearly a kilometre passing under tyre before I became hopelessly lost. For a while we thrashed through sunken trails with me looking worried, and the GPS demanding I turned right back at Reykjavik.

Eventually I passed off this navigational blunder as the new MTB Sub-Niche of “All Forest Extreme Power XC Exploring”, and introduced the clan to the “Mushroom Trail”* designed by nature to put the “hard” into “Hardtail” – machine gun firing off camber roots at single sprung cannon fodder.

I am very fond of my ST4, at times like this possibly rather more than is normal for a bunch of non organic tubes, but rooty, pedally singletrack is a lovely watch from a full suspension bike. We found much more of this in the next two hours, some of it actually on purpose but my random meanderings did have a final destination in mind.

Forest of Dean - May 2010 Forest of Dean - May 2010

The famed “Dowies” singletrack is hewn by a single man with a motorbike and way too much spare time. Forestry keep logging it, he keeps rebuilding it – multiple trails snaking down a steep slope, littered with fat roots, berms, jumps and general MTB gigglyness. If you can be smooth, you can be fast but that requires good trail knowledge, better skills and a whole world of self belief built around the grip of your front tyre.

Tim went first, me after using a few previous trips to hang pretty close to his rear wheel. This felt pretty good, not too scary, a salutary lesson on how damn far you can lean a well sorted mountain bike finishing with a mild buffing of an ego. “1:50 is the best time down there Tim” I offered as we winched back up for another go. What I didn’t know was Tim was going to have a crack at that time, what I should have known is there is absolutely no way I’d be able to stay with him.

I must have misheard “Ragged = Fast” because actually “Ragged = Slow = Crash” is what it must have meant. Ragged also means all that skills-shit which seems to work pretty well is given a slap by Ego as he barges uninvited into the driving seat. Ego thinks he’s fast but he’s so busy looking at himself, he rarely bothers looking up at the trail. As Tim disappeared at an alarming rate, I responded with a casing of a big-ish jump that – with Mr. Rational in charge – had been nothing but a bit of fun.

Now Disaster joined the race. He’d nearly caught me on three previous occasions, but this time changed tactics instead hanging about with Mr. Crash at the next corner. I turned up mostly out of control hard on the brakes, eyes on the front wheel, ego catatonic at the wheel. If I’d committed to the bend, I might have made it but I never gave myself that chance, hitting a big root square on with my head – think Tortoise being offered a juicy lettuce leaf – far over the bars, and not such much a passenger as an accident looking for somewhere exciting to happen.

The crash went on for a while. Over the bars and into the forest which was unpleasantly akin to being beaten with sharp sticks. Eventually the sky stopped flipping but I felt – since I was lying down – it’d be a damn fine idea to maintain that pose until my heart rate dropped below a million. Martin turned up looking as concerned as a man can while pissing himself laughing, and we determined other than a somewhat clarty elbow, the only real damage was to Mr. Ego who’d slunk off and left the scene of the accident.

I quite like crashing without properly hurting myself. It’s a bit like drinking without adding a hangover to your morning challenges. The high water mark of my ability is such that even a brilliant bike and dusty, dry trails cannot compensate sufficiently for ego-stoked bravado. I know exactly why the crash happened which is fine, because that doesn’t stop you being silly again. Possibly just a bit less silly.

Forest of Dean - May 2010 Forest of Dean - May 2010

Great ride tho; end of the bluebells, start of the summer. bonkers fast trails, fit feeling legs and a bike that was both superb to ride and – refreshingly – unbroken come tea and medals. If I could keep my aspirations in check, I might be sort of okay at this mountain biking thing. Maybe being the ball isn’t such a bad thing after all.

* Not quite true. Martin found it, having never been here before. The word that comes to mind here is “portent”.

Just lie there..

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsense2 Comments

… and tell me about your mother. Freud* was an odd bugger, of that there is no doubt, but less well known is the awesome nuttiness of his contemporary Carl Jung who – after a somewhat public falling out with his fellow couch-man – embarked on a project to categorise each and every one of us into a personality bucket. All of which he apparently achieved without assuming a default position of an Oedipus complex.

At which point, everyone who was anyone** ignored his dry and dusty research, instead flocking to the Freudmesiter and blaming their parents for everything. Frankly, that man has much to answer for based on the feedback I get from my own kids. Anyway, post war and with a bunch of people needing jobs that didn’t involve killing people, the US government funded a Mother/Daughter combination to resurrect Jung’s theories to be applied to the modern workplace.

Myers and Briggs have stalked vocational spaces ever since with their carefully cloistered sixteen boxes of people types explaining why some of us – when presented with an audience – feel the irrepressible urge to moon while others are found hiding in cupboards. As part of a “group grope” management bonding thing, one of the many delights included completing a questionnaire which, carefully analysed, would inform exactly what kind of nutter you are.

Not being terrible self aware, but having been repeatedly – and tediously – harranged for being too impulsive/too noisy/too direct/too just bloody annoying, it wasn’t exactly a cosmic shock to find what passes as my personality is essentially keen to party, especially if it’s a party where the centre of attention is forever me. What did somewhat prick my balloon of carefully crafted amusement and cynicism was the probable reason for my obsession with lists.

I don’t do lists; I love lists, love them in the way of the incurably OCD. Mere collections of tasks are nowhere near enough; firstly we weave in sub-lists, create lists of lists, assign priority stars, stab linkages, arrows and – I am quite proud of this -mark the first item in BLOCK CAPITALS “Complete To-Do List”. When you’ve written “Find Dog” on a notepad, while said dog is probably playing with the traffic, it is absolutely clear that organisation and structure are mainstays of your life.

Except they’re not. My aspiration goals may be neatly documented but they are never completed. Frustration lies between those two points, especially if you have the ability to understand what needs to be done, but are far too lazy to actually do it. Yet I cannot sit down with a beer and a book in the garden, if the supporting chair has a weed in my slumped eye-line. The reluctant conclusion from all this is that my basic slackness is infected with a work ethic itself inkly verbalised in lists.

Because if I every finish this list, and that list, and the list I wrote at 2am while wide awake trying to order chaos, then I will be free to finally sit down, do fuck all and not feel guilty about it. Waste time without obsessing that it IS a waste of time, stop making changes because they represent a new start, give up on it trying for perfect and accept that good enough generally is. What I may have learned is that list is never going to be done, so I may as well try being a normal person to see how that feels.

Carol’s pretty normal – with the exception she had a rather large blind spot in terms of suitable husbands – and I was pretty damn sure her personality was pegged by my five minute skim of some fifty years of research. And I was mostly right, except for the tiny assumption that she loved planning, lists – natch – being organised and helping organise, sorting stuff out and getting things done right now. It appears I was 100{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} wrong there, which may explain some issues of domestic disharmony in the last fifteen years.

Slow learner, that’s me. There is no point profiling the kids as they are perfectly attuned to any personality trait most effective in annoying their parents. And don’t think by changing the rules that this will in any way wrong foot them, because they adapt way quicker than us old fuckers. And the dog is essentially mad so he’s not getting done unless there’s some hidden category involving a mental type entirely predicated on stealing food, chasing the cat, and – in a perfect world – combining the two.

You cannot read too much into this shit, because we’re all different, yes? We don’t fit into virtual boxes dreamt up by people who apply statistical rigour to something so organically random it cannot be so simply categorised. But for all of that, it doesn’t stop it being mildly interesting if only to make you question just why mainlining the arsehole motherlode comes so naturally. So this weekend I shall organise nothing, my listing notebook shall remain unopened, I’ll let the spontaneous genie back out of the bottle and refuse to accept life will end if that door isn’t painted.

Beer for breakfast then.
* Sigmund. Not Clement although of the two, I felt old Clemmie was slightly more bonkers at the end

** Although by this time they’d been convinced they were somebody else. Probably a Pharaoh, unlikely to be a turn-of-the-domini street sweeper. I wonder what that is?

Two weeks ago..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding3 Comments

… my commute started at an decidedly un-spring-line 2.3 degrees under cloudy skies. Less than half a month later, someone has sneakily relocated the entire UK to the Equator.

This seemed an ideal time to go ride a bike up very big Welsh hills which offered no shade, but almost unrelenting climbing. The temperature now was 28.5 degrees. At one point, I am fairly sure I was on fire. For reasons best understood if you’re nose down in a decent bottle of chilled white, I was press-ganged into attending the CRC MTB Marathon Series at Bullith Wells.

Yes, after saying I’d never do another one, and forgoing what I know would have been a properly fantastic FoD ride, I found myself amongst the weekend tribe of proper race bikes and no body fat. I fitted right in as you can well imagine.

It wasn’t as bad as the HONC, only being half as long. It did manage to pack in the thick end of 5000 feet of climbing in a mere 52ks which hurt especially since you were being basically charbroiled on endless moorland climbs. My preparation for such a tough day out was essentially zero. Since it was 9pm the night before and I was a bit squiffy, the best I could hope for was to load a working bike into the truck and lob in a few MTB accessories.

Water I remembered, sun tan lotion I didn’t. Good job I have this full thatch to protect me from badger stripes eh? Because they’d look STUPID. Even my knees are sunburnt. Of the 1000 riders – some of whom were doing the proper race distances to whomI tip my virtual hat – most were very friendly, many were terrifyingly quick uphill, a decent handful showed capability the other way round and the rest were, well, a bit shit really.

I’m fairly sure the swathe of people I managed to overtake uphill were out for the long haul, although downhill I’m not sure what their excuses were. One lad, on a£3,500 six inch full suspension bike, was clearly carrying out a practical experiment of exactly how slow it is possible to ride if you are presented with a difficult technical challenge such as a small tree root. I think I might have used a naughty word (or three) when I finally passed him.

The ST4 was great. A bit broken though with my middle ring becoming unavailable for use some 30ks in,* and a horrible click-per-pedal-revolution torture that had me pining for Elvis Costello or some other stuck soundtrack in my head. My investigation is postponed because the frame is too hot to touch, and I’m in post-ride hydration therapy. Just waiting for the fridge to cool me down my next pint of sports-tested fluid.

In other news, the dog has gone into hiding what with being big, black and furry. Not an ideal combination when the sun is cracking the patio stones. All the garden, so carefully planted last year, has either died in the frosts or been crisped during this hot spell. A few remaining sad looking specimens clearly are expecting something like an asteroid strike to finish them off. Verbal appears to be on the mend if the reduced volume of painkillers is any guide, and little Random is, as ever, away with the fairies.

Apparently it’s going to cool down 10 degrees and rain come Wednesday. I’ll expect snow then should I?

* I blame a lack of assos cream.

Today’s stupid photograph.

On By AlexIn Bikes, PhotographyLeave a comment

Where did I find this do I hear you ask? London, of course where all the nutters live.

This bastard love-child of an£100 Apollo special and a lucky dip into a scrap pile is clearly designed for people to lazy too pedal, or too stupid to realise they’ve been seen from a long way off. Can you imagine trying to pedal that when the battery runs out (about two minutes after full charge I’d wager)

That particular cell type has a little-known feature where over-charging leads to significant explosion. It’d be a kindness, really.

Anyway I need to tell you more about the “breakage contigen” which has now spread into members of my immediate family. And if I don’t write what happened in Exmoor soon, I’ll have to make the whole thing up. Rather than just about half of it as normal.

More of this soon, but first: Chilled Medicine, double dose.

That can’t be right.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff3 Comments

That post title could cover so many different wrongs; one of those would be refusing to vote in what is probably the most important election since I first proudly presented my voting card back in Yorkshire. Largely pointless really as the Conservative candidate was hunted down and eaten – a just reward for the temerity of attempting to explain ‘rich people stuff’ to a bunch of flat caps, who considered ownership of a whippet and an outside toilet a rather vulgar show of wealth.

Alison Yoghurt – Liberal – survived because “well she’s just a daft lass in a hand knitted cardigan with a wide ranging policy portfolio essentially honed down to being nice to kittens“, the emerging greens had no chance in a town where coal was forever king, so basically you voted for the dribbling nutter with the novelty hat or the Labour candidate. Often this was the same person.

Amusingly, while South Herefordshire constituency is a tight two way fight between Blue and Yellow, up here in the rarefied air of Ledbury (4 Deli shops in a town of about 19 people), the Conservative candidate (and probably land owner of every single voter) has been returned UNINTERRUPTED SINCE 1926. The majority seems to actually outstrip the registered electorate of the ward and, so confident is the fella in blue, we’ve not received even a token leaflet. Carol has collected – and pointedly – placed campaign literature from the, frankly, desperate other political options in easy reach of my desultory browsing.

I’ve had a look from the rational perspective of a cyclist and beerist, and find none of them fire any enthusiasm for much other than cracking open a bottle. But vote I must, if only to silence the tedious “No Vote, No Voice” refrain from bloody worthies and Guardian readers. I’d rather point them to www.voterpower.org.uk while shouting “1926, 22,00 Majority, tell me again that big idea about democracy“. Churchill had it right, and I’m sure he’d have given proportional representation the kind of short shrift that anyone who wants to be in charge traditionally has.

And he may have been right again, because I can give you only one example in the whole of history where the output of a committee has been genuinely brilliant. Yep aside from the American Declaration of Independence*, it’s all been politicised fudgery, spin and lost opportunities. I’m still of the opinion that the country would benefit from locking all the party leaders in a room, equipping each with a sharp sword and the last man standing gets to run the country.

Either than or install me as a benevolent dictator – let’s face it, at least I’d sort out those with pointless dogs and caravans. Plus anyone with marketing in their title would be either leaving the country or enjoying the company of a thousand scorpions. See, I’m not even single issue.

So I think a spoiled ballet shall register my disgust and weariness at a political class with noses in the trough and heads up their arse. It’s still a private booth isn’t it? That’ll do just fine.

Hmm, that was meant to be a single pithy paragraph. It appears I was slightly more irritated than I first thought. Anyway invoking a bit more Churchill and continuing the theme of extreme irritation, I have made a proper effort to Keep Buggering On regardless of the fact that the mechanical fairies stalk me still. Yesterday I broke something else – Rockshox make a fork that is the suspension equivalent of a Toyota HiLux. Not terribly sophisticated, bit weighty, aesthetically stunted, but with unchallenged reliability in the harshest of conditions.

I was making this very point to my friend Mike, extolling the robustness and performance of a component which I’d never even considered servicing** and yet was still providing unflinching service. When will I ever learn? Twenty seconds later 140mm of plush travel became 30mm of undamped bonginess followed by a hard wrist-jarring stop. The noise of various parts crashing into each other in an increasing cacophony of brokenness can be simply described as “expensive“.

My attempts to fix it by beating it to death with mile after mile of rocky descent proved unsuccessful. So as part of the revolving door policy I now have with my local bike shop, I offered up the offending items to Nick the mechanic while enquiring if he’d fixed my ST4 yet. He had not but only because I’d failed to furnish him with all the parts needed to do so. So I have a bike and a half being repaired, a bill that will probably have some negative effect on the country’s structural deficit, and no space left to write about what a great Exmoor ride we had.

More of that soon. Until then I’ll be desperately searching the pamphlets for some nugget regarding a grant for Cyclists recently inheriting a Jonah complex.

* and even this was more about taxes and whinging about perceived wrongs, the bit about freedom and the rights of the individual was a bit of an afterthought.

** as it was working. And if I’d serviced it, it wouldn’t be working at all. In fact, I would have probably thrown a blanket over the remains in honour of the tdead.

“Go and play outside”

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

A familiar refrain from when I was young, and one passed down a generation to berate my own children. And wanting to set a positive example, I abandoned what’s left of my bicycle collection this weekend, to spend it outside sometimes in the rain and mainly in the cold.

Still it wouldn’t be a proper Bank Holiday would it, without hail? Such are the vagaries of the British Weather, that on one day I dug a massive trench, and the next I emptied a moat of a similar size. The new Chicken run is not yet “out of the ground” with thin cross-hashed wire ready to be installed some 12 inches below mud level. With all the other anti-fox precautions we’re taking, it’s tempting to just get a couple of machine guns in really to finish it off.

The poor chickens will think they’ve entered some kind of Poultry Alcatraz

I have managed to cobble enough of a bike together to ensure my extra days holiday will be spent riding in Exmoor rather than staring moodily out of the window. There is tremendous pleasure to be taken in doing something your really enjoy in the happy knowledge all your friends are at work. It does mean getting up as early as if I was trudging into the office, but I’ll be heading due South the a truck full of car and a switched off mobile phone. And even the forecast looks promising.

Something’ll go wrong, it generally does. Not today I took my toys to a big hill in Wales and spent a happy part of the day throwing them off it. That one isn’t mine as I’m the shivering wreck behind the lens wondering if I can borrow a sheep to keep warm*. Fun tho and my new rather expensive, somewhat fragile and eyeball twitching fast flying toy managed a whole number of flights and landings where it was then available for re-use. This has not always been the case.

If I remember I’ll take a camera tomorrow to show you what a great time I had. If I forget to post any pictures, be assured I’m still having a great time 🙂

* Not for anything else. Whatever you’ve heard. Nothing was ever proved.