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.

I’ve killed the dog.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Other stuff, Photography1 Comment

Okay I haven’t but how the hell can that be comfortable? I tried lying like that – cementing the owner imitating pet myth – but quickly ran out of flexibility, dignity and limbs. We’ve been leaving the cage open over night and, aside from the daily loss of at least one wicker bin, he has so far failed to eat the furniture, cat or anything structural.

I feel he may be merely luring us into a false sense of security. One day we’ll sleepily fall downstairs* only to gasp aghast “Where is the ground floor? All I can see if one fat, sickly looking dog!”

Talking of fat, I’m merely filling until time and wine converge to bring forth the much awaited** missive on plumbing. It has a poem and everything. No, I know you can hardly wait either. But tonight, I abandoned this much stared at tube to go and ride my bike. Yes that’s right, riding it, not fixing it, hanging pointless bling off it, or staring at it with frankly worrying thoughts.

It’s thawed. Hard trails have disappeared under muck. Tyre trails snaked more sideways than straight on. Trees viscously reached out of the dark to deliver a barky headbutt. Nothing much was frozen, except for feet and noses. We lured in a newcomer with talk of an easy ride and almost no hills; and now he’s bruised and broken, but vowing to come back for more.

Top night all round really 🙂

* now Carol has removed the carpet which makes a “Headlong Plunge Fakie Bloodied Skull Finish” the descending move of choice.

** This might be classed as a phrase quite close to marketing. Which is the Dictionary Of The Hedgehog is the entry next to Painful Death.

You can be smooth, then fast…

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

… but you can never be fast, then smooth. Sage advice for almost any walk of life, but properly pertinent for those riding avoiding death. It was delivered as the single version of a truth by a man who was both, to another man who was neither. And since that day, I’ve spent quite some cash and a little less time looking for what happened between fast and stacked.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

The problem wasn’t a lack of bravery. That’s the default position of the riding hedgehog and it’s never really been the high water mark of speed, perceived or otherwise. No it was the constant fear of crashing on every single corner, the neural link between that and the brakes, the frustration of being left behind – again – by my riding pals, and the total lack of bloody enjoyment every time I went out.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

Get a grip I hear you say. And you’d be right because a second unquestionable truth is that once your front wheel is pointing in the right direction, most other stuff is merely distracting detail. Having lost that grip about half a second before ripping my knee open, it’s only taken me two and a half years to find it again.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

That and frozen hard trails at Afan, a year riding the same bike and so much grip that – short of taking the front wheel out and installing a melon – the corners would go as fast as your eyes can deal with. This proved to be jolly good fun, and most of it came together on the last trail I real remember riding properly on.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

To be fair, it wasn’t all one way Karma, two of the fellas received frostnip on a day colder enough to promise IceWilly(tm) later. Dave forgot most of his kit on the way down, and the rest of it before every ride. Andy’s lad made the near fatal mistake of chasing his dad, resulting in some quality learning time lying dazed some way away from his bike.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

Nige found that eight weeks, and one wedding is not the ideal training regime for hauling cold muscles up big hills, and Jason’s poor wardrobe decision left him with extreme chafing where no man should feel even the lightest of chafes. Still I had a great time, and would take frozen and hard over cold and sloppy* regardless of chill blaines in the nether regions.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

Last year we slopped about for two days trying to find some grip. This warm up to 2009** must be a sign that we’ve paid our cosmic debt, and a proper summer is merely a few months away. Probably means I’m due another huge stack then.

* Any situation. Every time 😉

** The whole new year nonsense can go and get stuffed with what’s left of the turkey as far as I’m concerned. I covered that off last year and nothing much has changed. Except getting a year closer to death. but hey let’s not start the year on that kind of downer.

Musings from 40,000 feet

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsenseLeave a comment

A little out of sequence but I thought it’d gone when I found a bit of the treasured memory stick hanging from the mouth of our dog. Luckily he only ate the lid. Seemed to quite enjoy it to. Anyway.. flying to South Africa (“Welcome to the Basket Case of the Word“), I wrote this:

I am sat here, alone, cynically observing advanced states of catatonia in airline supplied romper suits. They are all pissed of course, downed by measures that would stun a hearty donkey. And shrouded under duvets of the purest white that put me in mind of a legion of dead, fat, middle aged corporate warriors

I’m sober through a combination of a waiting hire car, and the enduring memory of an incident many years ago involving multiple bottles of wine, and nearly being turned back at American customs. So my ears are full of engine roar displacement music, and I’m left with eight hours of nothing to do but sneer at a plethora of business class worthies – each thinking they are more important than each other.

They are clearly more important than me. The whole experience from collection in a posh car driven by an old man with values slightly right of Genghis Kahn, to being whisked through security by a pretty women who knew my name feels like it should be happening to someone else. I’m mentally back on the train to a factor of about five – this is not my world, these are not my people, I don’t belong here.

The Virgin “upper class wing” – their words, never mine – describes this feeling in spades. It’s clearly been designed to a brief of “funky” and so split between zones of fun, work, chill out, and emergency haircuts. I’m about as close to Amish in spaces like this as you can get. Wandering about, waiting to be thrown out until I find something that looks visibly close to a bar.

Grabbing a beer served by two happy barmen who talk about their customers – between serving cocktails to the type of people who cannot demean themselves by looking their lessers in the eye – so we swap stories of arseholes, and watch the death throes of English Rugby on the big screen. They love their jobs to be fair, it’s good money and better to be away from the general bottle throwing population out in the public areas.

Having found some kindred spirits, I extend my shoulder chip to the sit down bar found on the plane. When everyone else has passed out, the cabin crew tell me that – even at a third full – all the profit in at this end of the plane, and everyone downstream in the cheap seas are nothing more than organic baggage.

I risk a non committal smile as a defence mechanism in the same way I’ve failed to kick off about my drivers’ “they come over here taking our jobs” rant a few hours earlier. For which there are many reasons, the sort of reserve the English feel allows dictators to invade sovereign countries, a weary acceptance that I’m not clever enough to make people see another side to an argument, and the guilt that comes with me pushing the firm to pay for me to fly this way.

People lampoon Billy Connolly with the dichotomy of his castles and working class welding stories. I feel a bit like that. I’m desperately proud of being brought up in a small house with a proper coal cellar, but still secretly love the trappings of the business traveller.

Bloody hell, that’s such a craven admission I think I’ll risk a beer. It’s that or I’m going to start poking sleepy passengers with an accusing finger and a demand to know where they get off being such dickheads.

Christmas Presents – Part 2 and 3

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

Part 2 you can see right there ^^. That photograph was supposed to depict the speed, excitement and frisson of danger that only a competitive game of Air Hockey can create. Sadly, it fails to do so which is a shame because – even our bargain basement example – is way more fun that a big fan, a swathe of MDF and two Mexican hats for a small dog should ever be.

The designer must have been provided with a strict brief “Think Cheap and remember we’ve got a warehouse full of black ash MDF that needs shifting“. I was transported back to 1983 on opening the box, and the whole thing has “least cost bidder” written all over it. However, this in no way affects the way it makes you giggle when playing it. I intend to get all protractor angly good at killer shots, and then start playing my friends for money.

Part 3 you cannot see as it’s under the desk and seeping a bit. My right leg has some crazy paving scarring from an accident I spent about twenty seconds trying to have last night. It was not even a big drop – less than two feet – but both the entry and exit are a bit nasty. My standard approach is to hit it as fast as I dare, so lessoning my inability to pop the front wheel at low speeds.

Last night I was following Jezz – wheel popper extraordinare – at a speed that was clearly going to require some input from me other than closing my eyes and hoping for the best. Sadly, my pre-lip gurn/lift and shift did nothing other than unclip my right foot from the pedal.

Things went downhill rather rapidly from there. The pedal whipped round and struck me a mighty blow on the calf, I pitched forward over the bars, and my left wrist rotated round those bars to almost point back at me, while waving a desperate warning. This was some way away from “stable and calm body position” experts purport is the least life threatening approach when you and the ground are no longer connected.

The landing* started with only two of my limbs attached to the bike and nearly finished there as well. Convinced the end was indeed nigh, I withdrew my head – turtle like – from beyond the stem and braced for impact. Crashing through some gorse bushes in a one legged, one armed buckaroo fashion distracted me from the unbelievable situation of still being wheels up and attached.

Eventually the cacophony of sound (bike, undergrowth, rider screaming) ended without anything damaged other than the bloody leg where we came in. Lying in the hospital after the big accident I had in 2006, I kept replaying the crash in my mind, specifically how I could have been so damn unlucky to smash myself up on such a benign trail.

Well last night Karma may well have been restored. And that seems the right note to sign off and wish all you sufferers of the hedgehog a very Merry** Christmas 🙂

* See previous post regarding the SuperCub. Landing is really underplaying exactly how fraught and bouncy things were at this time

** Oh yes. Starting about now. What d’ya mean it’s 9am? And your point is?

Gone !

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff3 Comments

1) The day with the shortest number of daylight hours. Pedants insist you describe it in this way because “it is not in any way shorter than any other day fnugh, perhumph*”. They also find this amusing, which is why many of us would like the shooting season to be extended to those whose goal in life is to tell you you’re wrong.

2) My hair. A pre-Christmas mow with the trimmer has finally answered a perennial question of “Which comes first the expanding crown or the receeding fringe?” The answer is both, and it now appears my bald pate is expanding ever skywards through what remains on the sides. In other hair related news, whispy gray folicles from every other orifice appear to be on the increase.

3) The number of rides that haven’t involved hub deep mud. A squelsh around the Wyre forest reintroduced me to chainsuck, unwanted sideways movement of tyres, a full body immersion experience enlivened by a hard pebble dashing from suspicious looking brown stuff, and 20 vigorous minutes with the hosepipe to find something even vaguely bike shaped.

4) Work. Until 2009, although only after three hours of purgatory on Saturday morning. My out of office reads something like “You poor sap still in the office eh? Stuff your email, I couldn’t care less frankly“. Well it doesn’t, but it would if I didn’t fancy a difficult meeting with Human Remains Resources.

5) My legs. After their feeble efforts to churn mud into dirt, they have adopted a mutinous position when presented with my idea for a quick ride today. But no matter, they’ll be flogged with the rest of me, since HONC is only three and a bit months away. and at least 4 kilos of Al needs to be gone before then as well!

So that’s me off riding then. Fortuantly there is a lovely real fire warmed pub that does the best Pork Scratching on the way back. Which is important as – like any honed athlete – I understand the importance of recovery food and rehydration.

* They all speak like that. Trust me I know, I work with accountants.

Lights are on but is anybody home?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

I have never been a huge fan of night riding. Some of this is my engorged lazy gene which goes all 70s shop steward when presented with a plan for dark, cold and wet. And, after five years of spending many unpleasent evenings disadvantaged by bicycle in the Chiltern Mudhills, my default position – between October and March – was hibernation.

And when I did venture out, my rubbish co-efficient was at least a double multiple of standard piss poor performance. I couldn’t see much, and when somehing big and robustly static loomed into view, I engaged target fixation and shoulder charged it. Between that, pedalling to make progress downhill, and steering rarely troubled by the position of the ‘bars, it was sort of, well, rubbish really.

This position was troubling to the Malvern Movement* who extolled the joy of those with “something of the night about them“, and promised an abundament of fun for those listing lycanthropy and bat worshipping in their list of hobbies. ALso, since this 45 sq/km of hillage is surrounded by a million trail users – many of them with red socks and humourless expressions – daytime riding can sometimes be nothing more than a physical and verbal slalom.

And yet I was nowhere near convinced because I know the truth of the myth behind disk brakes. They were in fact invented by a rider of the Chilterns whose ‘V’ brakes had reduced the rotation of his wheels to naught, his previously racey steed now weighed one hundred pounds**, and his very passage was nothing more than an illegal transit of national park moist soil.

It didn’t end well, last seen he was rocking quietly and sobbing gently, with crayoned designs cast around his unkempt self, and his only friend a bottle of DOT.4 from which he was carlelessly drinking. Yet after a few timid rides through the maw of a black night, I found barrelling through a shallow tunnel of light on the heart thumping side of invigorating.

So last night we celebrated the upcoming Winter Solstice with a great ride topped off with Sloe Gin and Mince Pies. The Malverns are nothing more than a glacial sponge so really reward four seasons riding, even if the cheekiness of woody evening bridleways sport a frisky combination of off-camber, slick roots and a gradient best described as plunging.

A topographical situation perfectly constructed for a trio of mildly inebriated mountain bikers missing a set of co-ordinated limbs – last seen upstream of “oh go on then, another swig won’t hurt“. It could have, but when my foot out moto sytle inevitably delivered more tree than trail, the giggling of a rapidly descending drunken idiot could be heard for miles around. Followed by the metally slither of the bike he had previously been riding.

Night riding now is something I am really going to miss when day time hours finally outnumbers those of the night, although dry, dusty and warm will be significantly more welcome. Unlikely but welcome.

In the meantime, I’m taking Snugtrousers(tm) out to play silly buggers in the dark, happy in the knowledge that very few other people are.

* Not a difficult bowel evacuation, more a bunch of very nice people I met off the Internet. Which has to be the first, and possibly a last time that could happen 😉

** Spookily, about what the bike was now worth as well after being ground away by the incessant Chiltern gloop.

DTFU*

On By AlexIn Bikes2 Comments
Ive just been done over by the big nasty Dogs
"I've just been done over by the big nasty Dogs"

That was my response to the dog’s expression as he slunk back in, having been put down in the mud by the bigger dogs. He’s such a wimp though, anything from an aggressive shrub upwards will have him lying down supine and looking to be loved, rather than duffed up.

Can’t imagine where he’s learned that behaviour from. Although it wasn’t in evidence during a terse conversation with a certain on line retailer. “Hello, Just wanted to congratulate you on a superb website, excellent prices, next day delivery and easy to contact customer support. Shame your picking system is a one armed blind bloke who breakfasts from a brown paper bag”

My new shiny forks arrived less than 24 hours after ordering. A triumph of logistics and navigation only slightly let down by them being entirely the wrong sort. And even a man with as much hammer-time as I can see no may to make this round peg fit a square hole. It would have been less vexing had I not gone to the trouble of RINGING THEM UP BEFORE I ORDERED TO AGREE THEY HAD THE RIGHT STOCK!

Now I’ve been forced to buy from a place who have no telephone support, an email reply service rated in epochs, and a chequered history of on time delivery. I fully expect to receive half an elephant wearing a Santa’s hat at a jaunty angle. In February. 2011.

I order myself ONE miserly present and all I receive is aggravation and excuses. It’s clearly not fair, and in that vein I shall be drowning my sorrows in about, oh, 3 hours. Day isn’t a complete right off then.

* Dog the F*ck up. The cannine variation of MTFU – a phrase seemingly used to describe any activity that does not involve ripping the head off something large and toothy, and then eating it raw.

Christmas Presents – Part 1

On By AlexIn Bikes3 Comments
80s inspired retro tinselling!
80s inspired retro tinselling!

With the Spreadsheet of Doom having been re-assigned to house rebuilding duties, it’s hard to know how much – or little we should at least consider that – I’ve spent on bikes lately. Not much is the suprising answer, although that must be placed into the context of the almost criminal approach to shiny-part-syndrome of which I’ve been guilty for far too many years.

Sure the Kona was new (to me) but many of the parts were recycled or some cast off from a kindred spirit (buy, procure excitement, open box, engage disappointment gland, sell for half price) and aside from consumables, it’s all been mostly quiet on the quite Western front.

Until today. Obviously the tinselling of the Cove is not really its’ real Christmas present. That’s akin to stuffing an orange into the stocking* on Christmas Eve and pretending that Santa has taken the rest of the year off. Only when the kids are googling for “adoption by nice parents” do you pony up with the pointless tat they’ve been listing for months.

Amusingly Random cannot quite see the dichotomy between the myth of Santa** dropping down the chimney and weeing on the mince pies, and the fact that certain boxes have been stashed way before the fat man cometh. Verbal on the other hand has a knowing smile and chastises her sister for being so gullible.

I deal with such conflict by a) telling them they are both wrong and b) if they don’t stop RIGHT THIS MINUTE, NO ONE IN THE HOUSE IS GETTING ANY PRESENTS. NADA. NOT ONE. OR ANY FOOD.

So far this has done the trick. Anyway the bike, well it’s sort of had some new forks and wheels ordered . And only because a) bolt through forks are much safer (and shinier) and b) the marketing blurb talks of increased sexiness and decreased girth.

Obviously I am no need of such things. But, you know, it’s always nice to have them in reserve.

* Now I know what you’re thinking. Or at least some of you. And I’d like you to stop as I’m about to introduce my children into this sentence 😉

** No he is not real. Don’t blame me if you didn’t know that. It’s all a marketing scam by Coca Cola anyway.

When wall rides go wrong

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

Silly, but made me laugh. And let’s face it when Christmas is nearly upon us, we need all the cheering up we can get. Looking out of the office window yesterday, I saw a procession of miserable looking brummies, huddled together for warmth. Either that, or they were engaging in some festive pickpocketing.

I’ll have a proper whinge later, but the traditional slacking off the week before celebrating some old joiner’s birthday has been upgraded to full on work and deadlines. I was going to find someone to complain to, before I realised that might be HR and you don’t want to be seen in their offices at the moment 😉

Well that didn’t go quite as planned…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding1 Comment

If a kind soul were to place me in a comfortable chair and administer a double measure of warming medicine, my response to the concerned question “What’s wrong?” would read something like

Most things. Not quite everything, but many grumpy intersects on a linear scale of increasing wrongness. Sometimes to understand why things are so rubbish right now, you must backtrack to the first point of “when stuff goes bad“.

The first trace of the element fuckup had clearly been hoovered up by the endo-Murph who then promptly exploded in the manner of his first day with us. Of course everything is bigger now, his stomach, his range and the volume of multi-coloured yawn to be founnd pebble dashed across most of the house.

This 5am wake up call provided me ample time to notice a gap where once a wheel stiffening spoke had once proudly stood. I had both a spare and the frankly unhinged tool to effect a repair, but the mechanical knowledge was lacking, and – even when faced down with cold, hard cash – the local bike shop was breathtakingly uninterested until about a week on Thursday.

Thankfully my far sighted policy of acquiring random bicycles harvested up a spare, and I was ready to drive myself all the way to Wales where some nice person would continue to do so for the rest of the day. So ready in fact, the bike was in the car, the full set of body and head protection was packed, and I’d gone all a bit OCD counting pedals and shoes.

A last check of emails showed the uplift service was anything but ready. In fact a state of cancellation had overcome it on the grounds it was too dangerous. HANG ON, I’ve been telling everyone how dangerous it is and – viz a viz -why I am so damn brave to go and ride it again. This held no truck with those driving vans on icy forest roads, and I was left with a chilly 8am dilemma.

One I hedged by using every 21st communication method to establish contact with Mike (my fellow downhiller for a day), all of which failed, and I was fresh out of pidgins. In the spirit of ‘fuck it, I’ve booked the day off, may as well go riding“, I carefully chucked the big boys collateral onto the floor to make way for xc stuff that was significantly more gay*

While all this was going on Mike was replying using the exact same talk-to-AL technologies I’d been bothering him with. Which would have worked extremely well had my dumbphone taken to doing what I’d paid it form rather than display a state of passiveness that convinced me it was actually working. Understandably Mike gave up, and I was left to a couple of solo laps of the Cwmcarn XC course.

Which was frozen solid, deserted, occasionally sleety, slightly more frequently cheekily icy on corner apex’s, and probably just what old snug-trousers(tm) needed. But not what I wanted, and even the magic of Titanium was beaten by the unforgiving ground. Although not as beaten up as the pilot who – after 20 miles of this – was suffering from cramp of everything including teeth.

So I didn’t get to go and pretend to be brave. I had to ride uphill and do so uite often. Many other small things were shittiest enough in frequency to to become big things. But on the upside I still got to ride my bike and didn’t have to go to work. Although time enough was left for me to service a set of working brakes that – after 3 hours – were ALMOST as good as when I’d started.

But there’s still a week of 2008 before Children’s holidays cull the riding season so if this sodding ice age would bugger off for 24 hours, I’ll be having it small on a mountain near me. You see while a lack of talent and a delusional complex may hold me back on the hill, bloody mindedness will damn well get me there.

* I’d like to point out the hedgehog is an equal opportunities annoyer. Sexual preference, colour, creed, religion or advanced animal husbandry techniques are all equal here. But I draw the line at trekkies, anyone using air quotes or ownership of folding bicycles. I mean all the hits are welcome, but a man must have some standards.