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.

It had to happen :(

On By AlexIn Bikes7 Comments

I’ve been in denial about it. Displaced the horror of the situation by pretending that probability theory may be looking the other way. Ignored the signs, or should I say grim portents. But really, deep down I knew that eventually this sad – nay tragic – day would fall upon us.

What can this event be I hear you cry? The Hedgehog Ringmaster losing his vocational status of “grudgingly employed“? Worse, far worse. A plague of genetically modified potatoes rising up from their soily graves and falling, locust like, on innocent people and property? I wish it were so, when compared to the uncleanliness of what I am about to share.

A long time reader, and someone I’ve been proud to call a mate for many years has GONE AND BOUGHT A BROMPTON. Yes dear readers, a man who bestrides the MTB world as cycling colossus -having earned his wheeled spurs riding fast and furious* – has traded it all in for the unworldly wrongness of Lucifer’s folder.

I cannot bring myself to name him. In case whatever infection he has clearly been infected spreads through the power of electrons. But let me just say, that only earlier this year he was chastising us all for not finding places where he could rip downhill on his VP-Free.

And now a Brompton. And probably cycling clips, a beard, hemp clothing and an unhealthy interest in calculating mortgage compound interest. It’s all downhill now** my friend, illicit subscription in “Which Folder“, Titanium Hinge Upgrades, Dynamo’s and the sharing of cheery hellos with others who’ve fallen under the spell of that bastard union between a shopping trolley and a blind welder amped up on crack.

It’s a sad, sad day here at the Hedgehog. I feel like holding a wake. Instead I shall be holding a glass later and toasting my dear departed buddy whose gone over to the “other side” 🙁

* and often upside down and lost in the trees.

** unless you’re on Satan’s Scaffold in which case I’d be inclined to carry it on the grounds it’s safer and quicker.

This is not my fault!

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding8 Comments

I know, I know it never is. But this time, It really isn’t. After giving up the opportunity for two great rides this weekend, so as to have a go at this “proper parenting” phenomenon I’ve heard about, it became clear my pesky kids continue to sprout upwards in the manner of a certain pantomime beanstalk.

A woodsy ride – in which I must say both offspring showed the kind of skilled riding and lack of blubbing that suggests a paternity check may be in order – demonstrated Random’s 20 inch wheels have turned her into a BMX monster, and lanky Verbal is now too talk for the 24inch upgrade she’s been riding for a while.

So in that well trodden upgrade shuffle, Random is happy to have her sister’s cast off, and off to the shops we go for a new full size one. My purchasing rationale is based on frame size, engineering quality, component options and other such important stuff. Verbal cares not for such things, and wants only for it to be black. Or red. Or preferably both.

Frankly the options are bewildering, and I’m a bit out of the game since my pantheon of never ending new frames came to a dead stop last year. I’m over all that you see, have everything I need, no marketing guy is getting one over me. Oh no.

And then I saw that frame and started making excuses. Love hardtails, but the old lower back is giving me a bit of grief. Short travel full suss would do almost everything for me now, since the big away trips to scary places look unlikely to be repeated. A spot of middle age cosseting would not seem unreasonable for a man whose feeling a bit Bike-Mojo-Lite lately.

And then do them in custom colours. But like I say this isn’t my fault, I wasn’t looking for a new frame and I certainly won’t be buying one. I think we can look at my unblemished history in this area, and all agree on that at least.

Winning.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road Riding2 Comments

I’ve largely given up on winning, although even that phraseology hints of some podium chasing form in some long past phase of my life. Loose vowels I’m afraid*, in that other than a brief dalliance with that cock-munching class who confused winning with counting money, and a much re-lived 13rd place in my first proper MTB race, I’ve always been closer to the back than the middle**

So tonight when under-commuted legs met over-sized hill, grumpy sighs and wheezy rasps charted my glacial progress into a stiff headwind – cheekily flipped 180 degrees since battering me this morning. So distracted by the world being against me, I was very nearly blown into the roadside vegetation by a pristine roadie flying by like a homesick angel.

Let us pause to examine this cycling mismatch before the inevitable excuses begin. My tarmac conqueror was a vision in white from his Sidi Road shoes through tight Lycra sponsored ensemble topped out by a£200 peakless helmet. His bike – and that word completely fails to describe the engineering miracle reeling in the horizon at frictionless speeds – was somehow even whiter, draped in expensive componentry, and sporting a set of tyres so thin I honestly thought they’d been pencilled onto the rim.

Now allow the eye of disdain pass over a rather grungy middle aged man bedecked in a flappy set of paint stained shorts, a careworn top of dubious vintage, a£20 helmet much repaired with packing tape and shoes clearly stolen from slumbering tramp. The bike was a perfect match, tired from many campaigns, heavy and made heavier by commuting accoutrements, held back by tyres knobbly and wide. On top of this rather unedifying spectacle was the legendary commuting sack, now divested of the emergency badger, but still the unhappy receptacle for the weighty laptop of doom.

“Give up now” I thought. Preserve the few remaining strands of dignity by feigning a mechanical or hacking an arm off with a rusty multi-tool. I am sufficiently self aware in my old age to understand the frustrating dichotomy of ambition gapped by ability. And I know enough about bikes to realise that Mr. Shaven-Legged-Sculpted-Thighs was going to hand me my arse on a plate if temerity became my watchword.

And yet. And yet the last vestige of an overworked competitive gland fired up some anger and demanded death or glory. Death then probably as I snicked a couple of gears, took in a huge breath and went commuter racing for the first time in 18 months. And you know, I’d forgotten how to do it because a determined effort saw me close the gap to a blissful draughting distance where everything just got a whole load easier.

But it felt like cheating. And that’s odd because I like cheating. Always preferred it to hard work on the grounds it leaves more time for beer. Never really been troubled by feelings of guilt when looking for angles and bending the rules. Tonight though, it seemed the wrong time to die wondering and somehow losing worthily trumped winning ugly.

No idea if he knew I was there. He certainly did two seconds later as I waved like the Queen I can be while pulling along side. Duck like, all was serene where it could be seen, down below the legs were piston pumping at a rate that’d have Scotty chucking a big one regarding Dylitherium crystals. The next 45 seconds were horrible. Proper going to be sick, going to explode, going to just die right here horrible.

I dared not look round as I was already spent and even the sight of the cycling Jesus right behind me could not have spurred me on. Best I could have managed would have been a hearty pebble dashing of his lovely team gear with a rather fine pie I’d inauspiciously downed a few hours earlier. So tired now, my default position of cheating seemed a good place to skulk back too. What with the alternative being A&E.

Although my turn off was some 300 yards distant, I came off the drops, passed the momentum baton to the freewheel and ripped off a Rimmer-Like Signalling Salute. If he comes back on the inside, that’s okay I reasoned. It’s fine, I’ve still won. In my own head anyway. But he didn’t, he was MILES back, miles I tell you, honestly sweeping away onto a new course, I almost had to stop so I could barrack him remorsely as his humourless form finally swept pass.

Rationally there’s an explanation. He may have had all the gear but I’m not sure he had an idea what to do with it. His level of spring chicken-ness was similar to mine from what I could determine of a face squashed between expensive clothing. I have to accept that maybe he wasn’t very good, and the very act of overtaking yours hedghoggingly had left him without the physical wit to respond.

But you know what? Don’t give a flying fuck about that. Don’t care one jot. No difference to me if he was a thousand years old. I won, he lost. Oldest game in the word and Christ I cannot tell you how good that felt.

Shallow? Like a tea spoon. That’s me 🙂

* I blame loose bowels from last week leaving me vocationally undernourished, but I can see that’s information you’d rather I’d not shared. That’s the hedgehog for you, we’re all shop front and tackle out round here.

** Feel free to insert your own sexual innuendo here. I’ve done it for you far too many times, it’s about someone else showed their smutty credentials.

Small is beautiful

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

No, this is an excuse for the size, or otherwise, of certain manly parts. Although having ridden my little ol’ jump bike on some not really trails at all today, I believe I may be searching the Internet for some bigger ones anyway,

Those of you not on the strongest of medication may have noticed that photo is composed to a skewed horizon. I’d like to say that’s exactly how I planned the shot, and it has much to do with accentuating the angle of the bike, the verticality of the little rock, the bigness of the sky. It’d be an artistic untruth though because iit is the result of an photographic technique known as “desperately trying to fit everything in”.

Size again you see. Maybe it does matter. Certainly did on this wall.

Malverns September 2009 Malverns September 2009

I looked at that in a very manly fashion, while some random XC whippets embarrassed the entire MTB genre by repeatedly riding down a couple of steps in a manner that’d mince you straight onto Strictly Come Dancing. Anyway after a few looks and a run in, I ran out of bottle and went to look for less scary things.

None of which were on offer on the final run of the day. On the upside, it was all downhill which – after much winching up the ol’ DMR on flats and a rear axle pedalling position – was a relief. Also in need of relief was my arse, ruined by a cheap saddle I never expected to sit on much, so standing up on wobbly muscles trumped lowering the throbbing chaffed appendage back onto that torturous perch.

The trail down was barely discernible, dropping steeply between still high bracket and gorse. When it did finally open out to something that might once have been a path, the improvement in visibility was mitigated by the loose yet fat rock garden that created an experience best thought of as a pinball game caught in a washing machine.

The DMR was a lot of fun though. Easy to get the scarred buttocks way over the back wheel, the small frame giving it fantastic maneuverability and the big forks ploughing through when my fear based dithering threatened to pop us into the undergrowth. It’s so unlike the Cove – more brutal, more direct, sharp angles forcing weight over the fork, pushing elbows out and grins higher.

All the parts on it are old or second hand or cheap, the frame cost buttons and it’s entirely the wrong bike for – well – most things really. But it has one feature that cannot be fashioned from fancy metals or accessorised bling. It made me feel about 12 years old again.

And that’s becoming important. More important than supposed progression or fitness or riding in new places. Because it’s become apparent to me that flying gliders on a slope – obsessive and much fun as it is – seems to be a an old mans’ game.

I’m not ready for that yet. I want to be twelve again. Best reason to ride a bike? You becha.

Commuting rules..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road RidingLeave a comment

.. not when it’s raining it doesn’t. Nor am I postulating on the stuff that used to keep me exercised both mentally and physically. What I’m talking about here are the hard, inflexible rules hammered into any cyclist whose spent time on the road and in the rain. The kind of thing you get wrong just once, before it’s hard-wired into your cycling psyche.

Except when your daily commute becomes a weekly or bi monthly event. Then you forget and bad stuff happens.

It gets dark. Check your lights. Long day, shorter daylight demands some form of get-me-home illumination. Of the four lights generally festering in my bag, two didn’t work at all, one flashed briefly before a spectacular – if brief – fizzling death while the fourth offered a dim flashing facsimile of something that may prevent a tractor squashing you flat.

Carry spares of everything. Including batteries. It’s worth thinking of them as fitness ballast to cushion the disappointment of these also being flat. The day I removed one of my two spare tubes, guess how many punctures I ended up with? My MP3 player was then added to the ever increasing pile of non working electronic stuff. It felt like I was riding directly under my own personal Electro-Magnetic Pulse.

Ensure you always carry a waterproof. Oh how smug was I with my trusty Gortex pal nestling amongst all the other crap I cannot bring myself to jettison. That smugness lasted exactly the time it took to remember I’d failed to re-proof though laziness and meteorological delusion* The result was a small lake pooling at the elbows and wrists that gradually – but persistently – drained through to create a feeling of clammy damp.

Mudguards look a bit gay, but… they are a marked improvement on – say – flappy wet shorts rythmically slapping your thighs with each pedal stroke. It put me in mind of sharing a small, cold bath with a Bavarian Laderhosen fetishist who’d just done a line of speed. My shoes have the same porous qualities as string creating a small watersports park for Lemmings in my socks.

Don’t go offroad because it’ll be drier under the trees. It isn’t. Rather than a wet arse, I ended up with a sandy, wet arse and crazy pebble dashing from ankle to eyebrow. And a shouty bruise delivered by that tractionless combination of thin tyre and thick mud. I’m writing to the Forestry commission to demand satisfaction on the issue of who put that tree there as well.

Keep your tyres inflated. Because while there is a certain manly pleasure in rotating squashy rubber**, the downside is a tarmac faceplant caused by rapid deflation or geographical differences between tyre and rim.

All obvious stuff you would think. No more than common sense for the serious cyclist. And I too was thinking just that as spiteful rain lashed my unprotected form, my arse became increasingly exfoliated by a localised sandstorm, and my feet exhibited the first symptoms of trenchfoot.

Right at the point when I was considering lobbing the bike under a passing lorry and hitching home, the descending sun backlit hill hugging clouds and transformed the world into something Turner-Esque and rather splendid.

Deciding I could get no wetter, I headed upwards into the lightening gloom to find myself high above the house, close to twilight with no power in my lights, not much pressure in my tyres, and every inch of skin on the aquatic side of extremely soaked. The plunge home took in grass covered roads, slick, shale corners, blind bends and an immense amount of blinking.

Arrived alive, declared to disbelieving family how much I love bikes. Swapped cold water for warm and wetness outside for wine inside. Slackness on the riding front has happened again this August, and I had begun to worry that my long affair with all things two wheeled was coming to an end.

It seems not.

* It’s never rain that hard. It’s summer for Christ’s sake.

** It’s that mental image of the Bavarian. It’s got me thinking…

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?“

Staycation…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff5 Comments

… is usurping “stiction” as my favourite bridged bit of alliteration. This mix of “Stay” and “Vacation” is a timely reminder of what it means to be a Yorkshireman. “Ah well, tha knows, could’ve got to foreign parts, but they’ll speak funny and there’s nowt to be found of basic staples such as burnt-whippet-surprise*. Anyroad up, God’s country is right tha, so why would you want to risk bloody frenchies y’soft lad?”

So this week, surrounded as we are by sparkies, plumbers and the like – serious men sporting eared pencils under beetling brows – we’re holidaying right here at ground zero of the previously cherished budget. So far this has involved much the same activity as one would undertake somewhere rather more expensive, although I’ll concede with more floors, foreign parts

Swimming, cakes, exploring muddy forests, cake, swapping depressing rain for amusing films**, eating out, eating more cake, wine, sofa and TV following tired kids heading bedwards, and much more of the same tomorrow.

Which in a further cost cutting move, I’ve decided that£50+ for four of us to drown in the fast running Wye is money for nothing. I’ll merely re-cast one of the old baths into a makeshift kayak, and head off downstream onto what used to be the road outside. Stunning idea I thought, typically British man with own shed thinking outside the tub, and providing decent, low cost family entertainment.

Three pairs of rolling eyes tells me I am alone in my love of the idea – even the dog looked sceptical and he’ll try anything once. Honestly it’s not until you’ve seen a Labrador eat a spider – with apparent relish – that you realise quite how hungry they must be ALL THE TIME. He’s even had a nibble of one of my biking socks of doom which are essentially lethal to any land going mammal from ten feet or less.

Talking of bikes, of course there has to be some of that later in the week. Parental care morphs to parental abandonment as I attempt to impress a man I’ve never met with my riding skills. That’ll not take long then – probably all the time a crash-bang-wallop plunge down the vertical trails recently discovered on the scary side of the forest.

Assuming any sort of multi limbed survival, the next day is all mine to lead a glorious day long ride over the Long Mynd bathed in summer sunshine. Let’s examine that last sentence shall we for possible inaccuracies; basically it’s all of it – more likely I’ll be getting a few old friends lost in the rain for hours on end before a random trail source shall lead us to a pub. Where we shall stay.

Sounds good to me. The way things are going, we might rent out the garden to tourists 🙂

* in times of hardship, rat or ferret was substituted. The surprise wasn’t that it tasted like chicken, more it tasted like shit.

** Ice Age 3. Fully expected it to be a tired re-run of an exhausted franchise, but found myself giggling along with the kids. But the nut gag has really been done to death now.

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“

I need another weekend. Starting about now :(

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

Between six hours of fantastic – if endlessly moist – riding on Saturday, and some extreme chucking of gliders on Sunday, it’s been and gone in all the time needed to say “Weren’t you supposed to be painting?”.

Well I did some of that as well, and about a million other thing. What I’ve failed to do is sit down for more than five minutes, or prepare myself for a week full of difficult stuff. Ah well, never mind.

Should time allow, I have things to share – the first of which will be a rant about a bloke with a blacked out people carrier, a personal number plate and a “South Eastern” attitude that very nearly got him punched. Honestly, it’s like the badlands down there, everyone is completely MAD.

More soon… that’s a threat, not a promise 🙂