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.

Weather worries.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff3 Comments

I accept that my minute examination of the weather forecast is symptomatic of an accelerating slide into OCD. It is – along with Government policy, Public service organisations and Solicitor’s lunch hours – something which ratchets up my ire almost every day. And almost worse that that is my utter impotence to do anything about it.

Other than whinge. And, usefully, I am good at that.

Yesterday three forecasts united on an early Spring vision of clear skies and mid teen temperatures. Based on the divination of tea leaves that only the most expensive computer systems can get so terribly wrong, I was unsurprised* to set out on a night ride under a misty murk punctuated by a depressing drizzle.

As the clock struck seven, the little known ‘evening bridleway’ rule kicks in and trail poaching becomes the norm. Take away the horses hooves and the mud magically disappears leaving deep brown scars** through leafless trees. And exposed roots slick with rain which I confidently dispatched with less skill than bravado. Right up to the point when the abstract equation off camber + root + gravity – MTB tyre <> Grip switched to being alarmingly physical.

I tried to blame my tyres until it was pointed out that my friend Nige had blasted down the trail – accident free – on exactly the same make and model of rubber. I believe the correct terminology for my stack was “insufficiently skilled at the point of impact”

The rain stopped about exactly when we did. Roll on twelve hours and the veritable Beeb is calling for dirty clouds and incessant drizzle to welcome your Thursday morning commute. Ignoring the fact that history shows these besuited doom harbingers are nothing more than meteorological charlatans, I rain-jacketed up and headed out fully waterproofed.

Which, considering the glorious sunshine outside and my boiled in the bag persona inside the office, is a trifle galling. Allegedly this weekend will return us to the depths of winter, driving snow and gale force winds freezing the entire country in its’ icy grip. Well the wolf has cried once too many and I shall be resplendent in shorts and suncream.

And even if they are right and I am wrong, morally the victory shall me mine.

* but still grumpy.

** Soon to be red and bloody scars

Same Shit, different day

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road RidingLeave a comment

After five weeks of flatlining in stark relief of the big city biorhythms, my re-insertion into the matrix was about as blackly amusing as a coach crash of estate agents*. And my play at infusing each commute with a Buddha like sanguine ‘bring it down brother’ lasted all of about ten seconds. You see, I was completely up for finding my inner child until a BMW attempted to remove my inner spleen.

By the time realisation has dawned that bikes are nothing more than urban grouse to these chinless fuckwits, any semblance of remaining calm was swept away as a knee socked, short jeaned, surely ironic messenger type whistled past with his one fixed gear and look of benign constipation. I chased him down, marked my victory with an underarm spit, barnstormed  a dithering taxi before heading into the mean streets of central London.

A bendy-bus attempted decapitation, a motorbike introduced a new nano-measurement as he swept past my front wheel, a multitude of dumbfuck cyclists broke ever rule in the book and every second motorist attempted a citizen’s cull to effect swift justice. I chased a second fakinger-clone – my pursuit stalled by two red lights he ignored and a one sided argument with a white van who was mainlining traffic cockage. So knackered was I when finally straining past his sartorial stupidly, I was aerobically incapable of unleashing the carefully concocted vitriol.

Arriving at work, I was cynically unmoved by the carnage in the bike cage and the theft of my shower gel. But the firm never fails to surprise and disappoint when attempting to deliver marketing by the lowest cost bidder. Our new cycle facilities involve carrying the bike down two floors of metal steps, before collecting our clothing from a locker separated from the shower facilities by a sweaty trudge across the atrium of a spanking new building designed to impress our clients.

And then tramp back in work clothes but carrying grungy ride kit to be dispatched back to the lower floor locker. Sounds complicated? It’s even worse in operation – I asked for a map and some written instructions. And while the provision of a daily fresh towel, a shower in an environment entirely free from water borne diseases and a choice of complementary grooming products are to be applauded, such platitudes would have be delivered from a hospital bed.

Because the stairs leading from the loading dock down to the bike area are made of smooth, shiny metal. There is only a single possible result from an interface of damp shoe cleats and frictionless metal. And that is a fast, arse based descent with optional windmilling arms, finishing brokenly slammed against the back wall with a bike on your head.

Unless you ride down them which the preppy gym wrangler reckoned wasn’t possible, And for a few anxious moments – half way down – I was becoming persuaded to his viewpoint. It was all a bit eyeballs on stalks, fillings on edge and sphincter on full recoil during an unhappy period when flinging myself headlong into the rail was the only ‘innovative life saving move’ being offered up.

Still I am pretty sure it was with some aplomb that I shakingly unclipped and nonchalantly declared “Fucking hell, that nearly killed me – you want someone to have a look at those“

A little belatedly the security guard de-hutted himself and was angrily, adamant that no employee was allowed to ride down the stairs. How wrong he was. I think with careful planning an illegal plunge down the stairs, followed by a naked stroll across the atrium could end my career in two single steps.

Tempting.

* If a bevy of solicitors were journeying with them, all the better. Not that I am bitter or anything.

Karmic storms

On By PhotoIn Clic-24, Mountain Bike Riding, Other stuffLeave a comment
Muddy Cove, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Grab yourself a lentil and relax, as grassmud-hopper here enlightens you to the ways of karma. If one wishes to achieve meteorological karmic balance, one must first seek out the sub zero land of trench-knob, journey through the muddy foothills of component destruction and genuflect to the great God chain suck. Only then shall the trails of the righteous be paved with sun, dust and occasional sprinklings of cold beer.

And because the world is nothing more than an infinite flange of laziness, many of these footsteps of the cold, wet and un-initiated are being trod by yours bloody truly. You can keep your sheep-swool base layers – I have everything I need here with my hair shirt.

The most positive spin I can place upon yesterday’s ride was it was a small improvement on the week before. Not much, because the weather Gods have failed to flick the ‘Spring‘ lever leaving us with snow, hail, rain and freezing drizzle*. The car park was strewn with mud splats of portent, every car was brown as was every returning mountain biker. Except for a few which were blue and – apparently – unbreathing.

Three hours later I was a broken man but still alive. Those following the narrative may remember me citing a positive in a previous paragraph. That’s it. Both my riding chums – Nick and Dean – had apparently broken nothing, not even a light sweat. It is fair to say they are both fitter than me but, if one were being scrupulous in the use of ‘Fair’, so are almost all of my friends. Even those who have passed on to a better place.

Not the greatest accolade ever presented is it? ‘Cheers for the ride fellas, thanks for not leaving me to die, oh, and you’re both far healthier than some dead people I once knew’. A week ago Sunday, 90 minutes dispatched me to the same dark and hollow place, this time I managed twice that although not without some physical and mental consternation.

But I am going to keep at it; commuting through winterspring(tm), tossing myself recklessly** into pools of deep mud and spending a long weekend trudging up alpine climbs with only thin air for company***

But soon, I shall emerge from winters’ chrysalis and flaunt my faux fitness on trails which aren’t trying to consume you from the wheels up. Although looking at the long range weather forecast, what I am actually doing – right now – is practising for much, much more of the same.

I like to whinge about the weather. It makes me feel all patriotic and English.

* This is not the same as hail. As cold but lacking the viscosity to keep it from running into your previously warmed crevices.

** Which doesn’t bode well for the eyesight.

*** I may be underselling our Pyrenees trip in April. However, any fitness gained will be lost to the power of my willpower once the bar opens.

That’ll learn me

On By AlexIn Clic-24, Road Riding2 Comments

Sitting on an 500mph aeroplane going nowhere, I found myself idly musing if a man, still within binocular distance of not that old, should be growing breasts. Fantastically innovative as the human body is, the DNA chronology is clearly wrong in this case. Boys should grow breasts at the age of fourteen – such was our fascination as puberty took hold – and then we’d never have to leave the house. Bad for the bedsheets, good for millions of innocent women who don’t include teenage groping in their list of wants.

Whereas at 40, we have a spouse and the Internet for that kind of thing. And, because I was sandwiched between a family with about 50 kids, half of whom were screaming and the other half who were being noisily sick, I decided to extend my pondering to consequences. Of breasts, not children, I don’t like to think about the latter without a large drink in my hand.

With the CLIC-24 less than two months away – and I may need to start sponsoring myself to pretend I have more friends – I am determined not to put in a totally piss-poor performance. Considering my entire racing career consists of seven starts and two finishes, this is possibly an unrealistic aspiration.

So four days of Easter would be the ideal way to kick start my training regime. Although, ‘training’ to me is not based on any science; for example when I dismount – jelly legged from the bike – if I still retain the power of speech, then I clearly am not trying hard enough. And while I have a heart rate monitor I don’t understand and a training book I’ve never read, my total lack of mental discipline means training is just riding a lot and hurting.

Sadly plan A was scuppered by the kind of rain and sleet which so characterises British Bank Holidays. But a lack of Plan ‘B’ meant going out during a brief period of cold blue, clad only in thin shoes, roadie shorts and a late snatched waterproof. The first half of the ride was into a freezing headwind that rapidly escalated into a toe, body and hand-wind – all of which began to shiver.

My mind was elsewhere though, trying to judge whether the banks of threatening dark clouds were far enough away to allow a sneaky five mile extension. My decision to go for it was mocked by immediate rain upgrading soon to sizzling hail. Blue sky still lit the Chiltern hills a few miles away, but my personal hailstorm followed me all the way home.

Removing the lights and courier bag to gain speed still rated as a fine plan, ditching mudguards and waterproofs less so. Within two minutes, my arse was soaked, I had contracted “Trench-Willy“, my face was stung by shotgun pellets from the sky, and my feet had lost all form of motor control.

This went on for a very, very long time without any respite. It was sort of fun in a it’ll soon be over kind of way. I was significantly happier – standing naked in the barn – once I had stripped off the layers of soaking clothing. Sadly my feelings of warmth and worth were spiked by a caught reflection of white and floppy man boobs.

Still I can suck it in and, because I went out yesterday, I have every excuse not to go – Scott like – into the sleet and rain today. But I bet it’s not raining in New Zealand 🙁

It doesn’t add up.

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsense1 Comment

Politics and Hedgehog sit together as comfortably as a sadistic cat* and a feisty hamster, as ably proven by my previous bluster on politicians and their arrogance. And yet after a mere five minute immersion into the 24 hours news pool, I find myself again arguing passionately for a benevolent dictatorship.

The problem I have with yet more indirect taxation is that it comes with a smug veneer of social policy attached. And by doing so, perpetuates the myth that by taxing great swathes of the population, actual changes are going to be made in the way people live their lives.

And that is total bollocks.

It isn’t going to stop people drinking or smoking. It’s not going to fix the health problem of the middle class trudging home – after the longest working hours in europe – and downing a bottle of supermarket wine. Granted, it may divert the tiny disposable income of those in very low paid families away from useful stuff like food. But it won’t stop anyone who can afford eighty grand of sports car driving it away because there is an additional£1000 of tax, and yet it may keep older, more polluting cars on the road while the rest of us baulk at the ever increasing tax burden of buying new.

This kind of indirect taxation is nothing short of licensed theft. And it’s not fair because when it’s imposed on stuff 45 million people consume, it is almost completely biased against those on lower incomes. It doesn’t achieve anything except to shore up a level of financial incompetence, that could better manage the public finances by stuffing the tax receipts in a sock.

So I have an idea – let’s assume that these latest increases price most of us out of the market. So now we do exactly what the government is promoting – we abandon our nicatine habit, we drink water instead of beer, we make our own wine from nettles or shuttle cheap booze from French supermarkets. We don’t drive anywhere, everyone rides a bike or a donkey and we bloody well break the link between pious populism and actual economics.

Wouldn’t it be great to see the blood drain from the faces of those stuffed shirts when we actually do what they tell us? Then they’d be faced with the very real prospect of having to stop fighting other people’s wars, abandon fattening up their bloated departments with policies no one cars about, and get back to distributing wealth from the rich to the poor, and making the bloody trains run on time.

I’ve given myself dislexia by proxy irritation writing this**. Therefore all I can suggest is we allow this wave of impotant anger to wash over us and remain clam.

* How that failed to trigger the tautology filter I do no know.

** I have also turned into my Dad apparently.

Do you want to go Mountain Biking?

On By PhotoIn Mountain Bike Riding, Other stuff, Photography3 Comments
Gimboid, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

After calling the Vatican to confirm the Pope was still a Catholic, I hot-footed down to the bike hire store at Hanmer Springs and hired an “executive” MTB. For my extra $10, disc brakes accesorised a suspension fork that excelled at holding the front end up. It didn’t appear to offer any other damping functions other than emitting a howling click on encountering even the smallest bump.

On the upside, it was attached to a mountain bike and a morning of virgin, dustry trails – baked hard under a perfect blue sky – awaited my desperate-to-ride persona. For the next four hours, I was essentially lost – signage in NZ is generally fantastic due mainly to the fact there are only about 10 roads but the $1 map lacked a certain accuracy when measured against scale and terrain.

But the trails were mine alone and after some false starts, mappage faffage and a blatent “sorry, I’m a tourist” approach to some walking only routes, improvement was rapid. A couple of sketchy descents on commuter pedals only lightly gripped by knackered VANs, it became clear that stacking here would result in a slow lingering death by hungry sandfly.

So proceeding carefully in the manner of a man lacking both riding skills and spacial awareness, I was amazed to divine a dusty trail that smelt of woody singletrack. And for the next 7 kilometres it rolled out a bonaza of sculptered corners, rooty drops, a smattering of ohfuckme North Shore and limitless hand crafted berms.

Hero LineBeer

The local MTB group has clearly put a huge amount of work in, so it seemed a bit mean to only ride it once. I pushed half way back up, scared myself a couple more times before having to choose between another attempt at full speed or a beer.

Well, OBVIOUSLY, I went for beer.

Some people may brand my posting an MTB blog while on holiday a bit obsessive. So for the purposes of balance, here are some pictures of lakes and glaciers encountered on a moist walk to the Franz Joseph Glacier.

Franz Joseph GlacierPeters Pool

Anyway I’m off to take the local spring waters follwed closely by taking rather more of the local hop waters. Tomorrow we’re off to swim with seals although Random insists we’ll be in the water with eels. She is not – as I sort of remember from what feels like far away corporate speak – with the programme 😉

PS. Sorry for piss poor spelling. Running out of internet time and $10 buys two beers!

Chicks digs scars.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff11 Comments

I’m sorry to disappoint all you cultivating bloodied puncture wounds, but this statement is a a bit of a porker. Oozing with unpleasant substances, bad for your health and about as sexually attractive as venereal disease. So here’s the truth – chain rings dig scars as graphically demonstrated by the grizzly tattoo on my calf. In fact, the whole leg appears to have gone ten rounds with a lunatic armed with an industrial staple gun.

This was one of the only two downsides of a weekend ride under sunny skies on mostly dry trails. Obviously now we’re off to summer at the other side of the world, I care not if it buckets with hail and snow for the next three weeks. On thinking such pernicious thoughts, a brief glance at the Internet proxied weather tea leaves informed of pissing rain in New Zealand. This is either a meteorological blip during their otherwise fantastic summer, or the start of the monsoon season.

The second downside was more a downsize. Of a chain which mistook an innocent shift to the granny ring to instead somehow escape the front mech ,and wedge itself firmly betwixt crankset and chainstay. After some scratching of heads, dismantlement of the majority of the bike and some keen action on the chain tool, my 27 geared steed was reduced to a somewhat more humble 5.

I’m blaming a combination of Gimp-on-board(tm) cackhandness, rushed builds and bad karma from silently mocking my friends’ singlespeed a few minutes earlier. “Hah when it gets hilly, I shall unleash my vast array of easy pedalling ratios” I carelessly gloated.

But this loss of cogs hardly ruined the ride – the Cove is fantastic everywhere; light and quick uphill, terrifyingly competent in the twisties and nonchalantly banzai when heading downhill. My efforts to fall off were easily dealt with until a log based endo saw the spinning chainrings of doom harvest a few inches of skin.

A spot of beer focussed research selected the easy option of throwing some money at the problem. That’s fixing the thuggery of the chainset rather than the bleeding of the leg. Although you could hear the “Cry of the Lesser Haired Wuss” for many miles when bloodied stump hit hot bathwater.

It’s a keeper this one* and I really think the selection of rather lovely bicycles may be complete for some time to come**. This may be for the rather practical reason that our offer on “Cabbage-Land” has been accepted. I’ve no idea what this means, except that I am now funding the Devil’s lawyer and financier to complete the transaction.

This calls for a beer to reflect on what an interesting year it has been already, and to wonder of the experience that decamping to a county where only out of towners have 10 digit hands.

Well not really, I just fancy a beer 😉

* I can hear you laughing. And I’m ignoring you. But taking names come the revolution.

** And don’t chortle. It’s unbecoming.

Bought!

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography7 Comments
Hummer, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

On the nicest day of the year, I decided to abandon the family’s plea for some outdoor action, instead closeting myself in the barn to build this Titanium lovely. Ti is a frame material which has received much mullage from the experts-in-their-own head found on Internet forums. Apparently it is the silver bullet, the cookie-cutter, the pinnacle of the periodic table. That’s bollox obviously but didn’t stop me lusting after one for many years.

And years ago, I did have one but discarded it as a smelly kipper once it became apparent that exotic frame materials do not beget awesome trail skills. I know better of course now because this one was far more expensive – even second hand – so must be pretty damn begetting in dishing out those elusive inflamed wedding veg.

My friend Mike – who understands such things – tells me frame materials are largely irrelevant to how a bike rides. There is no inherent springiness of steel, stiffness of Alu or mythic ride quality associated with Titanium. And, of course he’s right but the PA and Wanga have gone, while this has taken their place. It’s already way better than the Voodoo because it has lots of gears. Which after some angst and shouting, I was able to wrest from their recalcitrant starting positions.

Mike also tells me this bike will last me for ever. Which – based on my bike rental approach – is interesting, if not entirely relevant. But tomorrow, on the anniversary of shoulder-gate, it’ll get clothed in the Emperor ‘s new mud. Of more interest to Carol is my direct return to the house without a diversion to Accident and Emergency.

Worshiping at the altar of Mong would have Consequences what with two weeks of camper van driving a mere week away. But I’m not sure I can ride any more slowly. Anyway a quick cheeky footpath test showed the bike to be both stiff and frisky.

So I’m thinking of calling it the “Penis“. Like rider, like bike eh?

Return of the rant

On By AlexIn Bikes9 Comments

Lordy, I am pissed off. In days gone by, I would have been well within my rights as an angry Englishman to go and shoot some Welsh*, follow that up with a ten course banquet – big on identifiable dead animal and small on cutlery – before launching into an all night carousing session with a dozen floozies of my choice.

Assuming I was Henry the VIII anyway. Instead my vocational bucket is overflowing with a million things all of which have the twin characteristics of a deadline sometime in the past and being – in my considered opinion – somebody else’s fucking problem. I used to love the sound of deadlines as they whooshed by whilst I merely ducked under the desk and refused to acknowledge their existence.

Still next years’ budget is taking shape but what fucking shape I do not know. Joining the dots of our financial planning process would very likely bring the duck billed platypus into being. Or the dodo. I can say no more, so amuse yourself for a moment while I attempt to beat the All-Bucks-Swearing record (muttering darkly category)

Somewhere between a million phone calls (if God had wanted us to have 10 simultaneous conversations, he would have specified decagon heads with an ear on each plane. Not voicemail. People should remember that. And be reminded with frequent beatings if necessary) and the ongoing non sale of the house, a Customer Service Representative** took a jolly tone with me. Apparently it was my lucky day because the mighty Honda would have failed its’ first MOT had they not had a tyre in stock. But not just a pneumatic tube with a few grooves in; on no, I now am the proud owner of a jewel encrusted rotating splendor.

Because one tyre CANNOT possibly cost that much. And, of course, it doesn’t if you’re not being held hostage by the robbing bastards hiding behind a neon sign and shiny showroom. I expect the chippy dog lobber was straight down to “Ron’s Remoulds” cashing in a few extra quid on MY tyre which’d miraculously sprouted an extra inch of tread. Their invoicing system was about ready to explode as reams of paper piled up to about waist height as the bill was printed out. The final total was displayed on an extra long strip to get all the zeros in.

It’s out of warranty now which is good as I’m out of cash. That’s the last time I’ll be darkening their towels again unless it’s under the cover of darkness and I’m acting suspiciously in the vicinity of the safe. With all this and trying to complete some airily promised camp site booking for NZ, it seemed the perfect time to engage on a spot of bike rationalisation.

What this has proven – quite unequivocally – is that I am a bloody idiot. Having adopted a slash and burn approach to my inbox, the remainder of the evening has been a difficult composite of spanners, swearing and sweat as I serially dismantled, packaged, lost bits, un-packaged, banged head on wall, had stern talk about use of hammer, repackaged, tidy and wept quietly in a corner.

I am getting pretty good at buying and selling bike bits. In volume anyway, if not in any measurable commercial terms. For example, the Wanga is standing me at about£50 a ride and it was a shit ride at that. The true worry out of all of this is not the dangerous H&S situation awaiting anyone viewing the barn with bike parts strewn, hung and abandoned in every corner, but the immutable fact that my bike total has been reduced by one.

Sunday night, downstream of half a bottle of wine this seemed a really good idea. This evening, with the barn pictorially describing the phrase “Blast Radius” and my level of irritation reaching danger level, I wonder if it was. I think it is way past the time to try and find the answer in the second half of that bottle.

* My choice of victim for some less than friendly arrowing is, in now way, based on the travesty of justice that was last weekend’s Rugby result. Oh no.

** Ian, suggest you start recruiting, there’s going to be a BIG increase in “Pitters” this month.

Folded over.

On By AlexIn BikesLeave a comment

That’s like being rolled over only with slightly more authority. My frequent tirades at the knit-your-own-hair folding bicycle* owners are well known to those grazing on the lower intellectual slopes of the hedgehog. So your surprise may even surpass mine, when it becomes clear I’ve almost befriended my sworn enemy.

It was with mounting horror that I found myself nodding sagely in the manner of “Well yes Hitler wasn’t such a bad lad really and you’ve got to admire the engineering might of the Panzer“, as el folderado waffled on some rambling cycle related discourse.

My normal response to anything as unhinged as an unhinged owner is to nod sagely as I push them in front of a speeding train. And this particular chap was so stereotypical of everything small wheeled, he was surely the original mould from which the entire unholy tribe were spawned.

He was resplendent in that fashion faux pas of a suit with bicycle clips. Devices I honestly believed were to prevent those of an incontinent nature soiling their shoes. He had a beard, but not just a beard – the kind of hairy growth you’d expect David Bellamy to be climbing OUT of. There were long forgotten foodstuffs in the spiky mass which attracted admiring – if horrified – glances as they were entering a carbonised state***.

Of course, he also had the hated hinged bolt attached to a child’s bike, 1990s mesh helmet and the official handbag these lunatics insist on placing directly over the front tyre. H’mm take 20inch wheels, separate handlebar and axle by a nautical mile, stir in a super steep head angle and garnish with 10lbs of lumpy manbag.

That’s Darwinism at play right there ladies and gentlemen. Turn sharply into to a corner and apex at the afterlife. Bonkers. And he was, bonkers that is but in a very hard to dislike sort of way. He struck up a conversation when he noticed my proper bike and a careful cold war sort of discussion followed. This is the tightrope of diplomacy, one false move or imagined slight from either side and BOOM, immediate escalation to DEFCON 1 and some pretty bloody hard stares to follow.

And possibly some aggressive prodding. But no, we parted warily with him not knowing how close to death he had come, and me worrying that my intolerance gland may be blocked. I mean talking to folders, next thing I’ll be inviting Tory candidates into my kitchen and sympathising that their sons have had to sell one of their Ferrari’s.

It’s a worry as I’m sure you can tell. So if he approaches me on Monday, I’m going to get a restraining order.

This is merely filler anyway as I’ve received FatLad’s (his definition not mine!) charity commission and the next post shall be an erudite and carefully researched thesis on “A theoretical discourse on the Norks of Weather Women”.

* It is with great grudgement** that the friendly accolade of a bicycle can be bestowed on Lucifer’s chariot. I prefer “pointless transport of the terminally stupid” to be more appropriate, but I’m trying to be inclusive here.

** Adjectival deritive of the verb “to grudge“, You heard it here first.

*** Not a cabonised country state such as Chernobyl. If I wanted a lame gag to lament what happens when you mix corrupt socialism with fatal radioactivity, I would have gone with “Don’t spend any time there, Chernobyl fall off“