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.

Commuting Mojo

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road Riding2 Comments

Somewhere is this crowded, dirty capital city, I lost my commuting mojo. I am continually losing stuff nowadays; keys, sunglasses, one glove, the plot – what Americans call “having a senior moment“. I like to think that, in fact, it is because my mind is too highly trained for the minutiae of life, and aside from being a wheeled Alvin Stardust, it’s not really much of a concern.

But this was different, it crept up on me starting with a certain listlessness before rapidly escalating to failing to race when challenged, and not hissing at Hinged Harry And His Bicycle Clips. I used to love commuting but it has been on the slide since that chastising incident involving the simultaneous awareness of a red light and an angry policeman. Lately I’ve been looking for excuses not to bother – even contemplating a return to the horrid tube.

Commuting without competing is boring – if I’m not racing, I’m trying to slash half a second off a virtual time trial or improve my trackstanding or some other such nonsense. And for competition, you need to have your muscles spiked with white hot anger, driven on by rage and sustained by a certain bloody mindedness.

Tonight, I suffered what I’m thinking of as a Samuri as this seems to happen to him on almost every ride. So dickhead roars past and immediately turns left, no signal, no chance of stopping. I slam on the binders and slam into his front wing, not hard enough to fall but scary enough to trigger a solid 30 seconds of invective to his many and varied shortcomings including the one in his trousers.

And then I realised lately I’d become a little craven when faced with the daily them and us conflicts. Feeling second class, first with big wagons, then taxis, then scooters and occasionally other cyclists. Not folders tho, it hadn’t plumbed those depths just yet. But not now, the righteous fire was well and truly lit. This nearly accident was a catalyst converter putting me smack bang back into the game. Pulling a few deep-breath-go-now moves felt good, as did sprinting between red lights, but still not running them.

I am seemingly alone in this nod to traffic deference. The police are handing out£30 penalty fines like sweets in the playground. But it’s more about crowd pleasing than deterrents. One guy tho particularly caught my attention; road bike, rucksack, lairy SPDs, half upholstered in Lycra and half in big hair. Any more “look at me” and he’d have been a ringer for Posh Spice.

He cruised through every light regardless of colour, traffic situation or pedestrians assuming a red light mean they could safely cross. My frustration was tempered by the internal radio being tuned to Top Gun “I’m not leaving my wingman” as twitching legs were desperate to give chase. The ying and yang of light sequencing gave him no obvious advantage and I finally caught him outside Queenies house. And I had a plan. Retuning to 5-Live football analogies and ludicrously comparing myself to the pint sized predator that is Michael Owen. Permanently injured, lost a bit of pace, written off by everyone and more than a little pissed off.

I got the jump with my microscopic knowledge of phasing and then slowed right down. Quick personality flip.

/Top Gun Mode on
“What are you doing”
“I’m slowing down”
“You’re doing WHAT?“*
Top Gun Mode off/

He cruised past like a smug Fozzy Bear with his skinny tyres and fat head, but like I said I had a plan; on the shoulder of the last defender, timing is everything. Curve out from the inside and sprint like a bastard giving it the big berries. He never saw me coming as I disdainfully, dispatched him into the top corner. He did see me go tho, as I cut inside a bus, sucked in elbows so not to clip the metal hedge and then skipped into the Hyde Park Traffic chaos during a five second red light amnesty.

That my frizzy friend is how you run a red light.

Somewhere is this crowded, dirty capital city, I lost my commuting mojo And somewhere in my head I found it.

* The ability to remember entire dialogue tracks from movies seen some fifteen years ago is a skill I feel I could have used more.

Is that really a trail bike?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography1 Comment

Peaks September 2007-52

A query oft posed by disbelieving strangers on viewing the chunky authority that is the SX Trail. Because the porky object in question (that’s the bike not me in case you were in any way confused there) is often propped against a handy dry stone wall, half way up a mountain-lite, the response is generally a slightly wheezy affirmative.

Yet if you’d asked this same deluded, yet loyal owner that very question about three pm on Sunday, the answer would have been a firm no. It was one of those rides where you’ve overestimated your ability and underestimated the hills. The weather was just starting to close in a little and we’re were running out of energy, enthusiasm and – if the weighed down, slow pace continued – light as well.

Peaks September - Dave Pic # 3Peaks September 2007-33

Derbyshire County Council should really install appropriate signage as you enter the hills “Welcome to the Peak District, where the local climb is 1 hour and five minutes“. Starting with hope at Hope, the first climb up the broken road to Mam Tor is about that before a plunge of insane rockiness down the boulder field of Chapel Gate. The lack of corners on a trail such as this is a welcome relief as you hang on for grim death and idly wonder which part of you would explode first, were you to be catapulted onto one of a million spiky rocks. Trying to actually steer the bike around this graveyard of stone would be a skill to far for me.

Peaks September 2007-32Peaks September 2007-22

And then more of the same for the next five hours, thirty three miles and five thousand five hundred feet of uphill slog and downhill lunacy. While woody singletrack is the drug of choice for many mountain bikers, plummeting down and through glacial eroded valleys and zig-zagging over rutted moorland is MTB Crystal Meth for others. I’m equally rubbish at both as demonstrated when my friend Tim came past on a hardtail. At the time, I was pedaling desperately to reach ramming speed but even so…. it’s not about the bike then.

Peaks September - Dave Pic # 2Peaks September - Dave Pic # 1

By late afternoon, we still had around an unlucky thirteen miles to go, much of it up and over sustained vertical geography including a road climb out of Hayfield that would be mildly unpleasant in a car. Turning off onto a dirt trail at last, it seemed we’d swapped dull tarmac for energy sapping wet grass. Hauling the SX around this kind of stuff can be a bit of a chore, but because it’s so ludicrously competent when cashing in gravity credits, I don’t really mind that much.

Peaks September 2007-54Peaks September 2007-51

The last descent back to Hope is the multi-pitched Cavedale. Starting grassy, quickly morphing to rifled ruts spinning you pinging over drops, before throwing up a rocky slip road to the lineless challenge that has me beaten every time. I nearly didn’t get there either with tired muscles failing to reign in whoopy over-exuberance and a drift to within an inch of a dry stone wall at ‘fuck me that’s going to hurt‘ speed came close to ending the ride early. And possibly quite badly.

Riding days like this strike a discordant harmony when compared to much of the rest of your life. Work, Family, Stuff is generally a compromise, give a little, take a little and – sometimes – bend over and receive one for the team. It’s all subtle posturing and decisions by consensus, but when you’re miles from bloody anywhere, that approach is going to get you nowhere fast and certainly not home.

Stripped of social niceties, you just have to get on with it. The good bits are better and the bad bits a little worse. Expanding your mental horizons while pushing hard on the cusp of the adrenaline/fear barrier is not place for crowd pleasing choices. But that’s a pretty good place to be and when I finally give up Mountain Biking, I don’t think anything will ever take its’ place.

Like painting the Forth Road Bridge..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Site StuffLeave a comment

… updating the bike page is a full time job. The Turner has gone up North but any hopes it had of being put out to a restful pasture are to be dashed. My friend Andy Shelley has added significantly burly hardware to ensure it survives the rigours of a weekly ragging around the Peak District. How the hell he’s made it weight 32lbs I do not know, unless the braking system has been upgraded with an anchor.

What few bikes I own are catalogued here

It’s a pretty poor collection now I’m sure you’ll agree.

We’re all doomed..

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography5 Comments

IMG_0928, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

.. in the words of Private Godfrey of Dad’s Army fame. Were we the only family who used to watch that back in the 80’s and play the “he’s dead”, “he’s definitely dead”, “are you sure he is dead?” during the title sequence?

Anyway, after Andy’s lament over soon to be muddy trails, I thought I’d cheer us all up with this picture of a typical Chiltern scene come about October.

A number of options present themselves at this point:

1. Don’t ride in winter and get fat.
2. Ride in winter and pretend you’re enjoying it
3. Do something else instead like extreme DIY or bog snorkelling
4. Move to somewhere sunny and dry.

4 is a fantasy, 3 is unlikely, 2 has proven to be beyond my mental capacity for suffering this last few years so it looks like 1 then.

I shall dust off the bigger trousers in readiness.

Old School

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding4 Comments

Chilterns September (14), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

My old friend Andy Hooper, latterly of these parts but recently relocated back to Gods County, rocked up for an XC ride after surviving the dustbowl of Chicksands yesterday.

Riding a loop of the trails we used to ride all the time, in perfect conditions with a good bunch of friends was a fine way to spend a Sunday morning.

I’m glad to note that excuses from 2003 were still deemed valid (“wrong trousers, poor fish breakfast, exploding shoe”) during a brief, yet terrifying pilgrimage to well named “pit of doom“. Andy rode it like a man having just spent two weeks in Canada (which spookily he had), the rest of us minced about and took pictures.

This was the inaugural ride of the almost comically beefed up PA and ,as expected, it is a pilotless tankbusting missile locked onto big stuff that I’m a bit too nesh to ride. Show it a brick wall and it’ll be stamping a tyre and demanding an all out frontal assault. Fab 🙂

We found some super shonky North Shore which was hardly worth the potential barbed wire testicle removal to ride, swooped down perfectly groomed, rooty singletrack and finished on a favourite descent which left legs shaking and grins firmly in place.

Sadly Andy couldn’t join us for the post ride BBQ but – in the spirit of shared companionship of many years – we ate his portion.

Super day. Top fella to go riding with 🙂

Work tomorrow 🙁

Nine 1/2 days*

On By AlexIn BikesLeave a comment

Yep, nearly ten days of serial riding – just like the film but with less Kim Bassinger but a similar amount of Aerobic effort.

If there has been another time when I’ve stretched sore hamstrings every morning for double digit days, then it must have occurred while under the influence of strong medication. 143 miles, five different bikes, four different counties but with only a single set of legs.

Much commuting and a Peaks trip made up most of it with the remainder coming from some later summer exploring in the mode of an enthusiastic boy scout. But with less woggle and worse map reading. And now I don’t want to break the cycle (that’s generally a maintenance task) and I wondering how many more days I can manage under sunny skies and a minimum of 45 minutes/5 miles to make it count.

For all of our supposed busy lives (“Time Poor” I heard the other day, it’s just more fucking marketing) most people should be able to manage that especially since it has such a positive effect on fitness, energy, moral outlook and a irresistible craving for Snickers (sorry Marathon) bars.

It feels like riding comes first and everything else comes second. Anymore of this and I’ll have to replace my office chair with a saddle. Although, if I am absolutely honest, it is not always that much fun especially when blacktop replaces late summer trail dirt. Stirring reluctant muscles at 6:30am is never easy because I know I’m just going to go out there and hurt myself for twenty five minutes. Then get on a train before doing it all again at the other end. I so wish that taking it easy was part of my riding make up but it just isn’t – it’s either 100{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2}, maxed out, flat out and gulping air like a dying fish or stopped.

I’m thinking of it as training for the terminally stupid.

And I’m tired everywhere. Yawning through the day and even finding a post ride stretch too much like hard work. All my riding gear needs washing, my mp3 player has cycled every song five times, most of my bikes need fixing and the ones that’ don’t need cleaning. And I can do all that if someone will just let me sleep for a day or so.

It feels good 🙂

Spookily close to 91/2 is the sixth anniversary of 911 which falls tomorrow. This seemed a perfect time to get on an aeroplane although it is to that most take-no-sides country, Switzerland. Common myths surrounding Switzerland include that they have no standing army, they have more languages than people and they top the European anality league by banning almost anything exciting.

At least one of those things is true, and all of them are more interesting that receiving a six hour demonstration of ton of expensive software talking to a telephone delivered in perfect English. By a man who has probably stashed a couple of mill of Nazi Gold in his perfectly groomed cellar. Oops, anyone know a good lawyer?

I shall return with tales of airport frustration and – if I can smuggle a small one in – a Milka cow.

* Yes I know it was 9 1/2 weeks but, mimicking the latest movie tradition, you’d need a stunt arse for that.

Roger The Pink Hedgehog

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography8 Comments
Voodoo 008, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

It’s built but it’s not finished. A dish of bodging and rushing spiced up by a side order of frustration is not not a palatable way to build a bike. Still having got this far and given it the round the bloke test, the following has come to light:

– The forks are a bit like my hosting server. Occasionally working, most of the time not, no one seems to know why.

– The rear brake needs bleeding. This process walks a well trodden path from me having a little bleed, then a big tantrum then a cuddle with the beer fridge. I cannot be calmed by even the most rational family members for many hours.

– The rear shock is an enigma. I found an instruction manual in German, but my attempts to translate it triggered an urge to invade my neighbours garden.

– There are apparently 27 gears in this configuration. I can select only 4, of which three make a noise not normally associated with longevity of drivetrain.

– It’s fast though, short chainstays mean sharp acceleration and it carves corners in a n”oh, we’re already round” kind. It feels like it should be great off road if someone cleverer than me can fix all the stuff I’ve broken.

And the best part of riding it in the hills is it may get muddy. I seem to be the only one who thinks pink is a good colour for a mountain bike.

EDIT: My friend Jay has come up with the perfect name for the pink poof as per the new title of this post. From now on, it shall be known by the acronym RTPG. Which – you must agree – sounds better than “yegads, whose is that pink horror?”

Ah they do…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding5 Comments

… do it in pink. I’m now the proud owner of a pink 18 incher, but with a mere three and a half of vertical travel. It’s part of a bike rationalisation strategy I’m calling “benign insanity“.

And, before anyone asks, I shall not be accesorising it by purchasing any further “light purple” components especially anything that may be thought of as a pink helmet.

And because I’d have to dig down to create a bat cave if this was a simple addition to the bikey herd, the old bull elephant has to be cast out. So anybody in the market for a previously enjoyed Turner 5-Spot, let me know.

Otherwise I’ll be forced to lie on fleabay.

Fantastic, a new bike…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Photography8 Comments

… only not for me. Verbal has visibly outgrown her 20inch mountain bike that was too big for her when we originally bought it. That’d be all of about 18 months ago. Luckily because we’ve learned that you merely rent stuff for kids between the ages of one and ten, there’s a complex recycling process essentially handing down previously enjoyed bikes from my ever expanding group of cycling friends.

This latest little stormer comes from my friend Steve whose own daughter had abandoned it in the shed, the minute she had entered secondary school. A few notes changed hands along with that most consistent of world weary parenting laments “honestly they never stick to anything for more than about ten minutes“. Driving it home, a thought occurred that we’ve essentially become a Borg like Specialized bicycle family with one for each of the normal family members and one for me from my menage of a thousand.

And because I have sufficient cycling passion for the entire street, it is not a big surprise that the kids have never been that bothered, but even they are not immune in the face of shiny new toys. We headed out to our very local ride spot which is a concrete oval, most of which gives a perfect view of a few hundred dead people. Which considering my accident to ride ratio, seems entirely appropriate.
Kids ride 012Kids ride 037

I though it may be too big. It wasn’t. I thought she might struggle to ride it. She didn’t. And during one catastrophic mix up of who was going which way she managed to ride it up a 5 inch curb. Which was pretty impressive although maybe a little less so when the alternative was throwing herself insouciantly into an existing six wheel pile up.

Random was going pretty well too. She gets apexes and doesn’t believe that at 6, she knows everything there is to know about riding bikes. Other family members under ten don’t share such an enlightened view of the world.
Kids ride 045Kids ride 033

I’m not a big fan of having my picture taken because it shakes my belief that a full thatched athlete is riding his bike like the champ he knows he is. However, Carol was having no truck with that and bounced the flash off the balding pate on far too many occasions.

Kids ride 036Kids ride 034

All my talk of high elbows, weight on the front end, stomp the outside pedal were met with much ridicule and misunderstanding. This is essentially how the world works when it’s three against one and you’re the one.

Kids ride 031Kids ride 037

Still another bike can never be a bad thing. Two things are left to be sorted out, firstly who is next in line for verbals’ now discarded one, and is it my turn for a new one next?

Do you do that in pink?

On By PhotoIn Bikes8 Comments
Voodo.jpg, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

I have kids and I’m pretty comfortable with my own sexuality. Rarely do I show any interest in shoes, handbags or anything closer to cosmetics than Tesco’s value underarm smelly.

And yet… and yet I find myself strangely drawn to this pink lovely on sale at Sideways Cycles (from where I stole the picture). Tim has, over the years, put up with much vacillation and the occasional U-Turn as I try to spend money in his shop.

And now he has this on sale. I nearly bought it a while ago. I don’t need it, I have almost no use for it whatsoever. After a recent ebay yard sale, my spares holding has been reduced to two semi slick yellow tyres and a cracked seat post. There is nowhere to put it nor any terrain close by to do it justice.

Right, glad I’ve cleared that up then. By simple dint of disconnecting my phone, eating my credit card and refusing to accept that this is the stonking deal of the year, I expect to remain on the boring yet non starving fiscal road of responsibility.

Nice tho isn’t it ?