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.

April Fools…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding1 Comment

… the lot of us for believing barely past winters icy clutch, dry trails would abound, and the forests of the North Downs would reverberate the to the whoop, holler and occasional cry of pain from a happy mountain biker.

Here’s a spoof photo. You see, I can tell you that is from last Sunday but I know you won’t believe me.

I don’t have any decent ones to show you as that would tax my photoshop skills. Other lies include we traversed the ridgy Surrey Hills this way and that, diving off onto bar wide, secret singletrack and riding old favourites such as “barry knows best” and “telegraph road“. We were occasionally lost, mostly warm, adequately replete after a major raid on the Peaslake stores, and appropriatly refreshed after Marty supplied some post ride beer from the depths of Daisy the camper van.

In terms of lies, damn lies and statistics, the route was around twenty miles, ridden in a relaxed four hours with much stopping for a brief chat or a rather longer lie down, having breathlessly bested some of the tougher climbs. Marty brought his girlfriend along for only her second MTB ride, provided her with a heavy bike that was two sizes to big and swiftly introduced the concepts of terrifying bombholes about 20 seconds into the ride.

Amazingly she didn’t kill him afterwards but only because she was too tired. Fantastic effort tho and put some of us rather more experienced riders to shame. If I may, for one moment, remove my prism of cynicism, it is great to see someone else starting in the sport and seemingly getting the tiniest bit hooked.

It was all too good to last of course. The “sore throat of annoyance” upped the viral ante last night and now I have some kind of unspecified but quite miserable lurgey. And a sore throat 😉

Perfect preparation for four days riding this weekend. Still it’s good to get the excuses banked early.

Smooth Criminal

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road Riding4 Comments

It is a bit of a stretch to pass yourself as a member of the hardened criminal classes if you are hurtling towards middle age, wear a suit to work and rarely dismember associates with an iron bar. Unless you’re a lawyer which, in the strangest of ironies, is practically a vocational criminal offense and yet provides the legal means to defend your colleagues. No wonder it’s known as being called to the bar.

But this morning, I too have stepped across the slippery line to become a law breaker. My route out of the station is a cheeky pavement sprint in the wrong direction on a short one way street. Blinking out stinging rain, my vision was filled by two yellow jacketed, importantly hatted members of the pretend police meaningfully pointing an arresting arm in my direction.

Please stop Sir, you’re in breach of the highway code the large, rotund one intoned in a voice clearly trained to strike fear into the heart of aforementioned desperate criminals. And please vacate you bicycle as well shouted the second slightly smaller but no less self important upgraded traffic warden.

Well dear readers, I did as anyone with a social conscience would “ I took a hard look at the consequences of my illegality and, after just a moments pause, put the hammer down and scarpered.

I was amazed, on glancing rearwards, to find them giving chase. Suddenly my charge sheet was reading assault with a light battery, followed by the involuntary homocide of two fat policeman, and further lengthened by leaving the scene of an accident (there was going to be one in a minute). At this rate I was looking at incarceration for almost, well, the rest of my life and Panorama would be running sobering documentaries in years to come on the Stone 1

Slightly less amazing was their swift realisation that two fat policemen are significantly slower than one desperate rider screaming You’ll never take me alive copper over his shoulder. The lights changed and I charged over the Marylebone Road in the style of a Thelma and Louse cliff side plunge.

And just to prove that I have now entered the seedy world of the habitual criminal, my status as Rebel Without A Decent Haircut was confirmed with a lawless shimmy past the startled security bloke guarding the firms’ car park entrance. I shot him with a nasty grin that may have lost some effect as I rapidly had to come to terms with an illegally parked van abandoned on my line.

Honestly, some people just think that the law doesn’t apply to them. Stringing ˜em up is all they understand with their terrorist traffic violations.

Hypocrisy is the new tolerance for 2007 “ you heard it here first.

POST EDIT: Ah I was going to write something on why I really can’t take pretend police seriously only to find I already had!

Look outside – it’s not dark :)

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff2 Comments

This winter, I have mainly been method acting “Lithuanian Lesbian” when faced with any of the following – Dark, Cold, Wet, Injury or Apathy. Last year, the joy of spring was almost unconfined as after five months of misery, warm light evenings were a welcome reward for slogging through a globally unwarmed season. I was fit, fast and generally miserable whereas this year I’ve ensued the first two and instead spent many dark hours channeling just the latter.

But having given myself a stern talking too, my lethargy is at an end and, assuming that my bikes don’t degrade into swarf or great floods don’t start a run on build-your-own-arks, I shall be making up for lost time, lost fitness and – in the case of mountain biking – lost smiles. It would be fantastic to add lost beers to that list but frankly these past few months have introduced hops and barley as a staple diet. Although properly balanced with chocolate and milkshakes so that’s most of the nutritional bases covered.

So taking Spring at it’s word, I uncoiled from a warm bed this morning to be immediately tested with freezing fog and a light drizzle. And regardless of the clock of lies, my body was sulkily explaining it was really 5:45am. I bypassed an instinctive grab for the car keys and clipped into unfamiliar pedals so annoying my semi sleeping form even more. Instead of the motorised route hard wired into cossetted muscles, I headed out in the opposite direction to a station alternate that offered more trains and – more importantly – a far superior coffee shop.

Three things immediately occured to me me – firstly I didn’t know what time the train went, secondly the current time was hidden under three layers of fuckmeitscold layers and finally the distance was nothing more than a vague memory. Visibility of thirty feet or less hardly helped as cold lungs bitched about the yomping pace demanded by an anxious brain. But the five and a half miles were dispatched in a chilly sixteen minutes, which expanded past twenty as unfamiliar cycle facilities befuddled my sleepy and un-caffeined self.

But time was well on my side and clutching a rather lovely large Latte and pristine newspaper, I strode righteously onto the platform agog at unfamiliar commuters and the odd hated folder. Still they hardly slowed the train down when dispatched onto the line with nothing more than an evil grin and muttered “get a proper bike, you trouser clipped gaylord“. Important to make the right impression I’ve always thought.

The train was lovely – all civilised tables and empty seats. The experience was further enhanced as it failed to stop at stations separated by a short dog walk or the cheery thirty minute halts that pass for an on time service on the Amersham line. Early days though, it’s still Chiltern Railways who have a hidden charter to drive all but the most sanguine passengers to suicide attempts.

So far so good but my childish anticipation of riding home in daylight were scuppered by an impromptu meeting in an off site location serving cool beverages. And the mad dash to catch the seven pm train was compromised attempting to hustle while in receipt of the weighty laptop of doom. Next time I’ll be a little more careful which box I tick when ordering said Windoze brick because the battery alone weighs the same as Croydon and could power said town for about it a week.

And because the railway company has abandoned its’ commitment to green issues, we cyclists now have around 20{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} less bike racks to save the planet with. So while my train was serenely steaming out of the station, I was running up and down the platform in a frustrated doubletake attempting to find a slot to safely abandon the bike. The satisfaction of finally crafting a coveted wall spot was somewhat mitigated by the next four departures heading off only to my old station.

But finally, I’m heading home in non sardined comfort watching the day turn to night hoping against hope that I remembered to charge my lights.

Sprung

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

That is what Spring has done although it is as swallows to summer, with warm, breezy days sandwiched between icy blasts and freezing rain. But warming rays have thawed out this less than hardy perennial and hacking over drying trails has replaced hibernation. Hacking coughs have also been a early season feature but I’m not one to make a big thing of it.

This is Steve Watlington Wakins recently harvested from retirement and showing old school style perfectly matching his retro bike and really rather advanced years.

Not quite as old and annoyingly fitter is Nigel who casts off winter sensibility for a bit of buggering about in Swinley Forest.

For me, it’s a case of scratching the crust off old memories of how to ride and what happens afterwards. Having crashed almost as many times as I’ve ridden this year, my downhill style has been likened to nervous lemming that has been damningly blighted with self awareness. You’re not getting me close to that cliff, no way, it looks bloody DANGEROUS.

Uphill, thankfully, nothing much has changed except I’m a little slower, a little more rubbish and a little readier with excuses pertaining to lost fitness, gained weight and some random mumbling around tyre pressures.

After the ride though, it’s the same glorious dichotomy of pain and pleasure. But I think of it as fitness pain and it is simply dulled with a quick beer or a strong brew. And either is very welcome as long as there is cake to follow. With the pain comes proper tiredness – not the kind of boring bone ache from , say, gardening – but smarting pain with an aggressive personality.

So try and run up the stairs and in it steps between your hind brain and leg muscles calling everyone out for an industrial dispute. I find it best to have a little rest until the Synapse Union and Dendrite Management have come to an accommodation. Yesterday, this took quite a few minutes and children rushed past many times, as I lay supine but marooned half way to the landing.

And the ˜Give me something to eat RIGHT NOW or I’m starting on this child’ hunger pangs are back as well. The kind of stomach wrenching non maskable interrupt that has you running “ okay limping quickly “ to the fridge and considering devouring an acre of raw broccoli.

It’s all good.

The dirty dozen of twelve riders seeking sunshine and singletrack are heading off to South Wales over the long Easter weekend. If I can shed about a stone, regain at least partial fitness and not succumb to any further undiagnosable illnesses, all will be well.

Budgetory issues..

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsense5 Comments

… now there was a couplet to strike terror into the heart of any freelance consultant. Fiscally, it didn’t get much worse than that unless the project sponsor was hit by the belated realisation that all your talk of stabilising event horizons or evangilising synergistic operating efficiencies was nothing more that total bollocks wrapped up in bullshit. It only ever got worse when your thin lipped accountant started nervously quoting sarbanes-oxley as you explained you’d bought a small yacht for the purposes of “business development“.

But even at our worst, which I grudgingly accept was on the euphemistic edge of dishonest, we were merely street magicians compared to Gorden “David Copperfied” Brown and his financial slights of hand. Politics rarely infect the hedgehog as it lacks the catharticism of other posts and leaves me wanting to throw the monitor into the local offices of the council. Plus, of course, I know bugger all about it although that is rarely a semantic leash to my random rabbit chasing doggedness.

But the porridge gobbler has gone too far this time. While one hand giveth, the other slaps you lightly about the face, joyfully explaining you’re screwed anyway. While I have absolutely no problem with a taxation system earnestly charting wealth redistribution through a sea of tax increases, I’ll be buggered if anyone is going to tell me that in some way it’s doing me a financial favour.

Personally I may more tax or I may pay a little less. Frankly, I don’t give a shit but I do care that a government that has crusaded as the bastion of public services appears to have spent everything while delivering very little. So while we’re laying off nurses and targets replace common sense, I’ve come up with a new idea. And I’m telling you because there is absolutely no bloody point in pretending that our vote offers some kind of representation.

How can 20,000 people, each driven by their own motives, imbue a power hungry arse to speak for them to an even greater power crazed circle, who themselves gave up listening about the same time the votes stopped being counted. This is not a party politics thing – they’re all as fucking bad as each other, they don’t care about your problem or your opinion but they certainly care about their own.

The US system as least acknowledges this and lets you vote directly for the President who may share some of your ideals such as bombing oil rich countries, or screwing the earth beyond the point of reconciliation. At least you know what you’re getting, rather than some pointless stuffed shirt asking anodyne questions about constituents that he cares only slightly less about that the bloke answering in the dispatch box.

They say the young are disenfranchised by politics. Good on them, maybe they see it for what it is.

Anyway, here’s my idea. In the same way that we receive good karma for sponsoring a goat or a cow in a country we once funded with slaves as the most profitable export, why not abolish some taxes and allow us to sponsor public servants? It’d be like The Sims but for real. I’ll sponsor two nurses in the local hospital and they can write me some reports on how many people didn’t die because someone cared about their welfare. I’d feel good, less people may suffer and it won’t cost the government a penny.

You see where this could go? We wouldn’t have to sponsor those public services that everyone accepts are either a total waste of time or a government revenue generator. Traffic Wardens – you can bugger off home for a start. Free Market economics with a social edge, I think it could be a winner.

I mean come on, we cannot really do any worse.

Morocco – the extras

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

I never did get round to cataloging the last two days of riding in Morocco. Not that I was doing much riding anyway. So here’s a pictorial story with a few words. I’d stick to the pictures if I were you. Day 3 started with a few kilometers descent on a surface best described as dusty ball bearings. Each corner was a mountain switchback which led to some fairly interesting “ohhhhshit” moments. I buggered my shoulder early on and was soon far behind and whinging.

I’ve no idea what Martyn is doing with that bike in the shot above but he’s clearly enjoying himself. I ended up back in the broom wagon which was a little scarier that riding. You really need a vehicle here that has a short wheelbase and a tight turning circle. It’s disconcerting looking over the edge to a thousand feet of vertical bugger all but after a while you sort of get used to it. If you close your eyes and take strong drugs.


I met the fellas for lunch and deciding riding was going to be more fun/less fatal than the landy, we set off on about 10k of dusty, loose fireroad that ended up being way more fun than it should have been. At this point I gave up again and so did a few of the others being faced with a huge climb. The road – and I’m using the word advisedly here – to our third night stop at a burbur lodge was fairly terrifying and I was glad of various but extensive medicinal products to dull the pain later that evening.

The last day was going to push the difficulty a bit and it started with a rocky, off camber singletrack strewn with huge boulders. Pretty technical all the way down to the village but WAY WAY safer than taking the landy back down that track of the night before. Some super steps near the trail end put paid to my riding for the weekend tho. A little too much vigour and a little too little shoulder recovery rended the arm pretty useless.

After another landy uplift, three from five (Nig had succumbed to some kind of major intestinal failure) set off on a huge traverse across the valley where vehicles cannot go. And sometimes bikes too as Jason tells of an incident when he flung himself off the trail and over a handy cliff. Somehow he only fell about ten feet and damaged himself not at all. If that had been me, they’d have been scraping me off the valley floor with a spatula.


Apparently it was a fantastic ride and one both Nigel and I are looking forward to doing next year when we go back. And we have to go back because it is a wonderful place to ride your bike and equally fantastic in terms of the people, culture and stunning scenery.

The trousers of truth

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road RidingLeave a comment

With the weather turning to the icy side of inclement and an early spring losing the heated battle with a late wintry cold front, it was time to out the Trousers Of Truth.

I’m becoming increasingly fascinated by trousers and their associated paraphernalia. Firstly a wardrobe miscalculation left me pantless, then some oik invaded my trouser storage space. But this is different, these leg warming garments have always been on the breathe in side of snug and with a 2007 history of serial non riding, I expected waistband closure issues. You cannot pass the Truthful Trousers off with water retention issues or big bones “ they are the arbiter of middle aged spread.

Last year, refusing to succumb to the bald fact that riding in the cold and pissing rain has a fun rating similar to ramming pencils up your nose, these troons became the Strides Of Smiles as my pre-season girth disappeared under seventy tough commuting miles a week. That is almost exactly the number I’ve ridden in total since Christmas so no one was more surprised than I when button closure was achieved without having to squeeze every last breath from my body.

Okay there was a bit of a seasonal overhang but nothing that a baggy thermal layer and the yellow jacket of stoutness couldn’t conceal. And it was a good choice because riding home tonight mirrored the sting in the tail of last year. First there was the sleety rain trying to be snow, aided and abetted by a 20mph headwind and once you’ve thrown a couple of frozen roadies into the mix, it was as close to proper riding as you can get on the roads.

The roadies had chosen fashion over form with their silly lycra and transparent sponsor waterproofs rendered laughable in the face of my totally waterproofed form. I stalked them up the Mall, taking a tow and waiting for my lungs to catch up with my ego. They belatedly did half way up the drag through Hyde park and I beasted them both in a leg pumping, bar wrenching pass chowing down on wet snow and planting a cold nose on the stem. This aerodynamic pose of the athletic idiot saw me pile on the power up to Marylebone though thickening snow and apparently blinded drivers.

One less than diffident tap on a wing mirror and an endorphined fuck off you wanker if you think you’re having THAT lane propelled me into the warmth of the station where tubey commuters were inadvertently scattered. They looked on my dripping and steaming form as late Victorians would have cautiously viewed the elephant man.

But I didn’t care because they’ll never get it and I’ll never get tired of it. Summer riding is ace but only because of days like this. I could still be an angry young man if I wasn’t so old and bollixed.

Arm the Pitt!

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff6 Comments

Great news in the Leigh household today and – if I may be so bold – for the wider world as well. Only a month after the stupid accident, I have successfully washed under my armpit. This simple matter of personal hygiene was a right old faff due to an inability to reach for the sky with the left arm. This meant rooting around in the hairy undergrowth – David Bellamy style – and attempting difficult inverted shower moves to rinse away the soap.

But now, other than a strangled ‘aaargghhh’, the armpit of doom has nowhere to hide. It was all a bit crusty in there but smelt good so I fed it to the kids just to be on the safe side. Although it would definitely have troubled a Geiger counter.

Okay I made some of that up. But not much. Still it makes a nice change to know why people have been avoiding me.

With the current rate of improvement, my shoulder may recover in time for me to sign the last will and testament. People I used to quite like insist on crowing, at great length, on how dry the trails are and the early return of dusty singletrack. In the olden days, I could have sent out my henchmen and had them killed. Society today dictates instead they receive an email with extreme shortness of shrift and a horses head in the post.

Still there’s always someone worse off that you. And from my friend Mike comes the ‘worlds leading meat processing manufacturer‘ to prove it. Jarvis Products is to pigs and cows what Bernard Matthews is to turkeys although with less bird flu. Browse the site to find such horrors as the “BS-1 Brain Sucker” and “LKE-1 Lung gun“. Other highlights include the “bung dropper” and a medieval looking device to make Lobster spaghetti.

I’d love to be a salesman for this company “Yes Bob, the new BS-1 whips out the brains and turns it into Pate at the rate of a hundred a minute. Combined with this months offer of 50{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} off the bung dropper, you’re looking at some high speed visceral action here“.

No wonder cows look so miserable.

Jon Gets Mad

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff2 Comments

I’m happy to plead guilty to raging against the misogyny of the average
car driver and his get off the road, you don’t pay any bloody road
tax nonsensical tirade. Normally a single digit response or the
removal of a wing mirror asserts my point of view but Jon (Samuri) has
put together a splendid rant against the motoring classes.

OOoh, I’ve finally decided to write a proper post about cars vs
cyclists. There’s so much anti-cyclist shite being gandered about
by the media and on the internet that I thought I’d do a bit of
research. To wit: your average anti-cyclist car driver (which in my
experience, is pretty much all of them [there you go, I stereotype
drivers, I’m as bad as them]), have a severe problem with
cyclists using *their* roads, seeing them as unsuccesful, dangerous,
aggressive law-breakers who just slow everyone down.

Cyclists should pay road tax (whatever the fuck that is), insurance, pass a test, stopjumping red lights and get off the fucking pavement. I’m not sure
which bothers me most to be honest, the quite sad fact that we’re
surrounded by so many idiots who rant away without ever bothering to
think about what they’re saying, or the fact that cyclists are
all grouped together, one cyclists rides like a cock, ergo they all
must be cocks.

I’m going to try to address each point in succession. This
argument is clearly as pointless as trying to collect wasps with a
spoon but it’ll make me feel a bit better

Read Jon’s arguments here and then maybe send him a drink or some calming music 🙂