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.

Compensator of all the talents

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, PhotographyLeave a comment
Chicksands December 07 (3), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

At first glance you may struggle to see the similarities between the Brown government and, the man with an unhealthy interest in stuffing the hedgehog with all the trimmings. But if you retune your mental radar to abstract and your belief systems to suspended then – just there – crackling under a random synapse is the faintest of links.

While ol’ grumpy has under his command a widdle of power-crazy, greedy incompetents with a similar intellectual depth as a tea spoon*, I have one of these. So while Gordo may believe he is – borg like – creating the perfect political hive, I am striving to be an average rider supported by the gussets of a fantastic bike.

And while the Government flounces around looking for someone to blame, the SX gets me out of trouble time and again. The plate size rotors are so good at resisting arrest, it would take the entire Metropolitan Police Service to stop them. Probably by emptying the contents of a assault rife into their metallurgy innocent DNA.

And while the bike cannot spin – well not with me on it – it can carve turns at angles of lean way beyond my gyroscopic boundaries. In terms of policy initiatives it proposes a transport plan of hooning off in a downhill direction, while encouraging the voters to hang on for grim death. Niche admittedly, but not without merit.

I can’t remember which sanctimonious wanker sound bited “We are at our best when we are at our boldest” but I have sneaking feeling there may be something in that. Standing astride a stationary bike on the run in to the drop that properly broke me earlier this year, I had the fear. I needed to break the voodoo, I had to get over the irrational terror of crashing again. I wanted to get it done and move on.

But still I stood waiting for the kind of support that doesn’t smile in your face and stab you in the back. And the bike whispered “You may not be much good but I’m pretty bloody fantastic. Just limpit the pedals, death grip the bars, look anywhere but down and hang on. You deal with the edge in your mind, and I’ll deal with the one down there. Come on, let’s roll”

So we rolled and it was all good. And the inter-galactic glow from being bloody terrified but doing it anywhere propelled us to the 4X course. Now I don’t think the stuffed shirts of No.10 have ever ridden a 4X track – I’m sure they tucked into a few 4 course meals – but really, they should. Obviously it’s configured for grommety DNA with Jeans, Hoodies and outrageous skils. But even they grudgingly admire us earth bound misfits – clumsy where they are smooth and scared where they are fearless – because “hey most people I know that are as old as you are already dead”

Driving home, with rock music cranked up to warranty invalidating volume, I couldn’t help pontificating on the not very abstract that riding bikes is fucking ace. Maybe Brown should have take the cabinet on a Chicksands team building exercise. Let’s face it, they couldn’t do much worse, and it’d give the rest of us a well earned laugh.

* This is known as “a Government of all the talents” with no implied irony.

Finger licking cold..

On By PhotoIn Bikes, PhotographyLeave a comment

See that picture? I took this – and the fact that my face had frozen – to mean that a night ride in the Chilterns would be cold, dry, fast and fun.

One out of four isn’t bad. A full report to follow but if the local ranger is poking his nose into what happened to a thousand tons of Chiltern topsoil, you ain’t seen me, right?

God, I’m going to need therapy.

Publish and be…

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

… a bit irritated.

This article appeared in Singletrackworld magazine. And while I’m all aglow with my words being inked onto real paper, they did rather butcher the photo. Buy the mag – and you should not because I’m in it, but because it is the best MTB mag on the UK market by far – and you’ll see a good size image printed on nice weighty paper. So far, so groovy – but all the contrast has been bled out of it leaving the colours flat and boring.

It’s kind of a lightly coloured monochrome. I’m only irritated because if you’re going to spend time improving the presentation of that article, surely it a higher return could have been made going after the words 😉

Guest Poster – Queen Charlotte Ride

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography4 Comments
Queen Charlotte Ride (NZ), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Last month my Inbox was full of blue sky and fantastic riding from the other side of the world. The photos were from my friend Doug Todd, and this is his report of the 100k event associated with those images.

I warn you now, there is much descriptive prose of glorious singletrack, super hot weather and miles of dust. If you don’t want to be reminded about exactly what summer is like, look away now. Otherwise over to Doug:

While many club members were enjoying a day out around Taupo, Mark Clansey, myself and 46 buddies from Vorb spent 2 days on fat tyres and plush suspension traversing the Queen Charlotte Walkway in the Marlborough Sounds. Vorb is NZ’s largest on-line cycling community (worth checking out at www.vorb.org.nz) and this ride is an annual event. The QCW is a shared access, mostly single-track trail across DOC and private land, one of the very precious few open to both walkers and Mountain Bikers. By foot it’s a 5-day trek, by bike it’s a tough but highly enjoyable 2-day ride.

Saturday Nov 24th dawned clear and calm and we were soon heading out by water taxi across the glassy waters of the Queen Charlotte Sound, bound for Ship’s Cove. Once off the boat, Ship’s Cove has one exit “ a 240 metre ascent, which is rarely ever ridden successfully as the average gradient is 1:3. Most of us walked the tough bits, and so 20 minutes later we summitted to spectacular views over the Queen Charlotte Sound. After a brief stop we tackled a pretty hairy descent back to sea-level, made more treacherous by DOC’s decision to improve the trail by loading it with gravel¦. Much mayhem ensued with tails of people sliding into the banks or off the edge into the bush. I’d fitted new carbon-ceramic brake pads the day before and they were literally smoking half-way down¦..

After a gentle climb back to 200-odd metres we then had another screaming descent into Furneaux Lodge. Quick recovery stop and then a 90-minute trek along the coastline with fabulous, technical singletrack to contend with. The water taxi collected us from Punga Lodge and we transferred back across Endeavour Bay for a night of tall tales and carousing at Furneaux.

Continue reading “Guest Poster – Queen Charlotte Ride” →

Morning blues

On By AlexIn Bikes, Pretentious nonsense, Road Riding5 Comments

Step carefully into the darkness. Grope for a frosty door guarding the entrance to the hard transport option. Shiver and fumble, with cold fingers, for riding gear. Add an extra layer and wheel out into the pre-dawn light. Clip in and fire shotgun audio – bang, bang – into the still of an icy world.

Crank carefully on white roads. Imagine a painful future through squirming tyres. Feel the freezing sizzle of 23c of slick on nature’s glass. Then, carefully risk upping the power needed to heat freezing extremities. Watch a crescent of fiery orange imperceptibly ascend over the low hills. Marvel as the layers of primary colours – reds and blues – push back the night.

Frozen water from autumnal storms forms winter crop circles. Long shadows are cast from bovinely stupid but contextually perfect cattle. Stop, dismount, abandon the bike to spiders busily icing Mandelbrot patterns. Marvel at this planetary show of fire and ice, until freezing hands and leaving trains drive you on.

Snick a couple of gears. Pity those unknowing stuck behind airbags and fiddling with heater controls. Sweep into the station and catch a little slide on untreated tarmac. Ignore the warmth of a stuffy waiting room. Grin at a hundred identical city coats and useless patent gloves.

Feel the morning blues. And reds – freezing fingers and hot blood mirror the colours of the sky. Stand on the platform now, savour the feelings of being warm and worthy. Remember why you ride a bike. Smile.

And as if by magic…

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Photography3 Comments
Voodoo Wanga, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

… the bike frame appeared. Well not actually appeared as Teleporting is still a young science. But an almost unheralded advantage of silly one geared bikes is how quick they are to build. I accept this doesn’t make up for their many disadvantages, but work with me here.

90 minutes from bare metal to beer medal. This included Helicopter tape that didn’t stick and a three bike brake bodge after some otherwise lovely 2nd hand stoppers were missing in action. Or possibly Acton from where they were sent.

Even a brief ride – in the pitch black that is wintry mid afternoon – revealed a frisky persona mated to a Tigger like springiness. Whereas the Love/Hate felt solid and all a bit GRRRRR, the Voodoo is all skippy and fleet of wheel. It’s light too 🙂 Still after the love/hate, fitting casters to the barn and pushing that would probably qualify for such a description.

Obviously, my level of riding skill transcends geometry, frame material and component choice. But now I can be rubbish in a fetching shade of red.

Downsides? Apart from missing 26 gears? The disc hose flays around the top tube as an angry python, for which a superglue solution awaits. And worryingly, the full complement of brackets, flanges and associated paraphernalia for full gear transformation are all present.

Which means conversion to a proper bicycle is possible come trails above the water table. Let’s not go there eh? Not while I’m still clinging onto this sacrificial testicle.

Wang! A…

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography3 Comments
Wang! A, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

.. noise heard as the slapping of the prudence ruler connects with the face of the monetary blind. The complexity of a chain of correlated transactions involving frames owned but not bought, a road train of wheels and sufficient brakes to stop the world, cannot be easily explained.

All I am prepared to say – until the lawyer from the Enron trial comes on shift – is that this financially neutral covenant dovetails perfectly with a bicycle purchasing policy that is far too clever for mere mortals to understand.

Including me. Although my head is still spinning from removing the three ride new* singlespeed freewheel from its threaded prison. Great design in that it affixes itself ever more firmly to the wheel every time your turn the pedal. Making it an absolutely bugger to remove – honestly it’d be quicker to wait the few millennia for the surrounding components to rust away.

I’ve never seen the vice flex before, as I hauled on the wheel in the manner of a hairpin facing bus driver before the advent of power steering. And when the workbench began to twitch, so did I with the world rapidly slipping from focus.

First rule of committed physical tasks – remember to breathe. Second rule, consider the effect of potential energy as – with a satisfying ‘paaatang‘ – the sprocket is freed with a final violent wrench. I found myself turning perfect circles in an increasing ripple of perambulation.

My ‘Dancing with the Wheels’ foxtrot came to a painful end as the radius of my spin intersected with a spikey workstand. Didn’t stop me performing a little encore running around the barn – freewheel held aloft – chanting “got you, you little bastard, who’s the daddy now?”

I am now faced with a choice. Stalk Ernie the Postie on Friday and rush the build knowing I’ll probably need to remove/sell/rehome about half the components or wait and do the job properly. Oh yeah, fridge some beers and set the grinder to stun, we’re going in.

In almost related news, we’re having a frank and open discussion around sizes of things. Carol wants me to have a smaller one that’s easier for her to manoeuvre, while I’m keen on something both longer, wider and with a bit more grunt.

Once I accept that Camper Vans for driving around New Zealand are not scaled up mountain bikes, I’m sure we’ll come round to her way of thinking.

* It’s important to distinguish between “old and worn out” and “new and knackered” because the former adheres to some quality standards whereas the latter satisfies the modern law of cheap, shit, useless; pick 3.

Hold the front page

On By AlexIn Bikes6 Comments

See that post down there? It out of date by exactly one bike. This absolutely is not my fault although any help you can offer to counter the argument “When we booked to go to NZ, you promised not to buy any more bikes” would be appreciated. Right now I’m going with “I forgot” but it’s a bit thin.

I am clearly a proper cod in need of battering. But – in my defense – I was about pay the fella who generously lent me Verty Heft some months ago. But, in a never to be repeated planetary alignment, the tractor beam that is Sideways Cycles pulled in my feebly resisting wallet with an offer that no sane man could refuse.

No sane man who doesn’t value his testicles anyway.

So when the option is between saving a few quid, making good on a deal with a mate and working a bit harder on the hills, against spunking/wasting/profligately hosing investing a small sum on a super light and frisky frame, predictably I capitulated.

I’m sure it’ll be fine though. I’ve asked Tim to package in the shape of an interesting Christmas present for Carol, bribed posty to sneak it round the back and popped round the local sports shop for a cricket box.

It’s going to be fine. Isn’t it? 😉

Measurement

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography, Pretentious nonsenseLeave a comment
Moto Parker, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

The earth may have turned seven times but not much has changed. Another idiotic charge into waterworld, another joust with tractionless roots, hub deep mud and all-body immersing puddles. Still stupid, still fantastic but it got me thinking about how we slice time.

Before global warming, we had 1976. No rain for approximately ever, creepy spires steepling skywards through a glassy Ladybower reservoir, baked earth, parched vegetation and – if you are 9 years old – just bloody fantastic. That summer never seemed to end; oh you sort of knew that at some far future point, a return to school awaited. But you didn’t care because every day was a voyage of discovery, finding stuff, making stuff, learning stuff, bonding friendships. And it felt like it would go on for ever.

That’s not how life works now. I measure stress levels by the weight of the bottle recycling and general job busyness by the increasingly frenzied scrawl, which is beginning to resemble an inky spider performing an operatic death scene.

It’s a far cry from living for the moment, greeting each day as an adventure that has yet to start, and dreaming of how tomorrow might be even better. Age may allegedly bring many things but long term memory is not one of them. Years coalesce into non sequential events, time compresses everything that is important into flickery thumbnails.

Here’s an example – what happened to the summer pf 2007? Except that we never had one. Good Metrological answer but it is not the one I was looking for. I accept the climate of this low lying windswept island is basically different temperatures of rain but that’s not the point.

So what is? Maybe nothing more than an realisation that there is nothing penultimate about this life. And this must be the hazy rationale to why saying Yes is suddenly very important. Yes to riding in all weathers, yes to reading with your kids, yes to finding time to have a beer with your mates, yes to stuff that is contextually stupid but life affirmingly brilliant.

And No too. 10 days without beer made the nights slow like summers of old but lordy how keen was I do say Yes to everything else. Although I accept I may have misinterpreted the amorous signals of next doors dog. I’m coming to a reluctant conclusion that alcohol – lovely as it is – is not a substitute for real life. A bit like computers, blogs and pointless internet surfing really.

It’s funny really – many people try and alter their personal history so they are venerated when they die. That bothers me not at all; all I want is to do everything today and then the same tomorrow and the day after that. I’m absolutely fine with mediocrity but it has to be mediocrity with style.

Look I’m over 40. This gives me rights to naval gaze occasionally 😉

Yes, Yes I know…

On By AlexIn Pretentious nonsense, Site StuffLeave a comment

… I promised to swear my through an accident which bothered me less for what happened to me, but way, way more on the way it was met by a total lack of humanity from those who put the ignore into ignorance. But I’m waiting to see if it may still have a slightly happy ending. Which’ll please my mum who – because all mothers support their kids even when they have forgotten why – reads the blog and finds the swearing a bit offensive.

It would please me too as the incident messed with my version of reality, to an extent that I wonder if I’ll ever properly understand it. And you can judge if this is merely pretentious overreaction when I finally get round to writing it up.

As for the many other articles airily promised, but never delivered, over the last two years, the 22 dusty items in my drafts folder should give you some idea of the chances they have of every electronically coming to life. Snowball and Hell come to mind. I like to think of it as harsh editorial standards but really I just can’t be arsed to finish them.

And there’s something else. In January, the Hedgehog will be limping into a frankly unbelievable third year. In that time there have been tears, occasional laughter and a string of rubbish photographs. And while my ability to carry on writing it is almost as infinite as your patience for reading it, there are things afoot. Or possibly apaw.

But I’m fairly certain – for a given value of certain – that we may have to pickle the old fella for a while. And it’s odd that I care because long ago, I convinced myself stuffing the ‘hog was written for the enjoyment of trying to be clever, rather than any reflected ego in all of you reading it.

Might have been kidding myself then. Anyway – even by my loquacious standards – I have rambled enough tonight. Fear not, I’ll provide a plethora of links to funny people who will amuse you for far longer than I can. And while you’re doing that, I’ll burrow on with the secret project to see if it can ever crawl out of the burrow.

And no, it’s not a collection of mixed metaphors. But thanks for asking.

EDIT: The reason this post was pulled a couple of times – for those utilising the magic of the RSS feed – was because I was concerned it was self referential BS. In face, I’m still pretty sure it is, but if we’re mixing those metaphors on the great decks of pretension, it seemed important to draw an electronic line in the sand. Or something. Right, glad that’s cleared it up 😉