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.

5 go mad in wales

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

That’s Frank, Jay, Jason, Nigel, Alex and Timmy the spare liver. We’ll be frolicking around in mid wales with lashings of ginger beer later. In between there may be some riding over glacial remains of high valleys, thousand year old peat bogs and recently crashed mountain bikers. It will look a little like this:

Dry Wales. Not tomorrow

Only not really because the forecast talks of other types of precipitational lashings which may raise the water table slightly over the height of the trails. Never mind, expensive waterproofs and medical insurance should cover most of the bases.

And we musn’t go down the “hidden mechanical, faked injury, tea and cake all day” riding denial, as the Antipodean in our midst has already spotted entire flocks of sheep dressed as,er, lambs and is worryingly excited over the prospect of meeting them.

If at the foot of a descent, there is no sign of him, I expect the following conversation to ensue: “Has Jason Crashed? Nah, he’s pulled”

Assuming there is some improvement in the weather and Jason’s not been arrested, we’ll be off here on Sunday:

Oooh.....

There may be some skills on show if any proper riders turn up, otherwise Photoshop offers the valid alternative.

Before we leave this evening, I need to fix my bike. It barely works now but history suggests, it’ll work even less once I’ve crafted deep wounds with edged power tools. Probably best to leave it alone.

They’re at it like rabbits.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding3 Comments

Well jumping bunnies anyway. Bunny Hops? Make sense? No? Never mind, only took me ten minutes to think it up.

I appear to have unwittingly signed up to a skills timeshare. Some poor sod has been saddled “ or possibly unsaddled “ with two weeks of crashing and excuses while first trackstands and now bunny-hops have been enjoying an autumnal holiday round my place. I’m concerned that soon he’s going to want those skills back.

However, in the meantime, I could best be described as insufferably smug. For veterans (and I thank you for your continued support in this ˜care in the electronic community‘ project) of this blog, you’ll be well familiar with the ground state of self parody. I like to get in there first so to speak, but also the crushing embarrassment of ever pretending I was any good at, well, anything rightly kills boasting at source. And yet this time a feeling of smugness remains; it’ll all end in tears of course, and probably injury, ridicule and humiliation at the feet of complete strangers. Well, that’s something to look forward to.

In the meant time – bunny-hops, a skill almost anyone with a bike and a single digit age has long perfected. Extremely useful for clearing obstacles such as curbs, logs and vertically challenged pedestrians. It’s only taken me a year to perfect, not one, but three special adaptations of the traditional style. On approaching the obstacle, either:

1: The front wheel remains stubbornly glued to pavement despite spirited grunting, whilst momentum speeds it effortlessly to hit the obstacle square on. The rider instantly dismounts frontwards to hit square concrete some painful distance away.

OR:

2: The front clears the obstacle leaving, this time, the rear to spend quality time at ground level. Inevitably this wheel clips the obstacle in a pacy, vertebrae crushing manner. See adaptation 1: for likely ending.

OR as happens most often:

3: The front rises, like an arthritic elephants trunk, to an epic six inches. A desperate forward lunge unweights the rear sufficiently for it to scrape over the obstacle. The bike then drops vertically hitting the ground to the sound of screaming components and ankles. Around 50{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of this adaptation finish with the rider lying on the pavement demanding hospitalisation for broken limbs.

This has become somewhat vexing so advice was sought from the anti-grav crowd; Get it up and keep it up” was offered and, while we’re good friends, this felt a little personal. But keep it up I must, so my bunny-hop Viagra was a pedal scooping arc joined by a committed spring backwards raising the front a frighteningly high distance from terra firma.

Once the wheel is scrabbling for the moon, a somewhat lewd rotation of wrists and a retraction of lower limbs unsticks the rear. If you like a righteous life, it will lift and you will fly.

New super light weight helmetRacing CarsThe curse of photoshop strikes againBrad. Too much better than me

Okay it’s not the 12 inch high obstacle I was aiming to clear; in fact it’s barely 9 inches and it’s been a while since I’ve been able to feel disappointed with that but, compared to playing urban concrete head tennis, it’s progress of a sort.

It as Arthur C. Clarke’s third law states Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic“. It feels magic, well until the morning brings a spasming back, blistered hands and aching shoulders. Practically identical symptoms to a night of of extreme and possibly illegal animal husbandry while some of the grunting is common.

So I think the irritated looking pedestrians got off quite lightly, considering. On that note tho, I am now officially a two trick pony.

Highway Robbery

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff1 Comment

Oh this is good. A graphical representation of how different modes of transport take up road space. Fella called Guy Chapman who makes the kind of rationale arguments I tend to summarise with “get stuffed you bloody idiot”
Clicky here

I still think the bus in the last photo would be duty bound to run over one of the cyclists tho.

He kind of wrote some good stuff about the standard cycling myths that get shouted out of outraged cagers’ windows most days. Saves me having to try and put it any better.

Still on the downside, he does have a bit of a dodgy tash.

The art of not falling over.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding1 Comment

An art “ you would have thought – as distanced from me as are crayoned scrawls to Monet. Recent history shows me on medication more often than on the bike, and frequent trips to the doctors, the hospital and the shrubbery do little to detract from this picture.

However, if at first you don’t succeed, merely redefine your success criteria. In this case rather than falling off at speed, I’ve seamlessly transplanted my skills to falling off more slowly. Remember my street riding experience being frustrated by an inability to enter the world of string and wires? A world where gravity is optional and graceful slow speed exits from high places end with the merest waft of a landing rear tyre. Not my world, I’m barely even a jealous orbiting moon.

Oh I can slam dunk a few bunnyhops before the inevitable pinchflat. I’ve been known to ride slowly off walls although heard is probably a better adjective. It’s like an aerobatic stall turn without the turn as my nose, navigating a heading due south, plunges groundwards to land at expensive dentistry. Saved only so many times by big forks and the power of chance “ it was time to shape up or, more likely, give up.

Good advice is something I find easy to ignore but in this case, the simple instruction to start small and work up made perfect sense. Although I’ve generally been a start small and work down kind of guy until now. The base of many gravitationally illegal moves is centred around balance, but since my inner ear only talks to my other balance centres through lawyers, I’ve favoured gyroscopic effect over stationary magic.

And yet the simplest balancing skill is the track stand; where your bike remains almost motionless at zero miles per hour. You’ve probably seen stationary bike couriers supping coffee and rolling fags while their bike sits under them like a favourite armchair. If you noticed a bloke rolling randomly forward and backward, grabbing first brakes then a legful of crank before falling into the gutter, then that was me. Thanks for your sardonic applause.

A very brave man, Trackstanding Falling over here. Very bad indeed.

First lesson, no brakes. Roll to a stop using a slope to still momentum and then engage 23rd century anti-grav. If that isn’t available, shove front wheel one way and hips (they mean arse, come on be honest here, it’s a big counterbalancing body part and should be used appropriately) the other. Rock gently forward and back on the pedals and marvel at staying level rather than crashing to ground level.

Obviously it took me a while. Well about 30 years since riding first entered my life but concentrating so hard on a monster 45 second trackstand, I didn’t notice a dog walking couple in awe of my skills. Until he uttered from about two feet away I wonder how he does that“. I was by this time chewing berries in the verge as my trials status came to an unplanned and abrupt end. They wandered away looking over their shoulder, proud to have been present at the inaugural fakie track stand to holly bush, extreme swearing to finish“

Flushed with success, a flowing coasting manual followed which promptly dumped me on my counterbalancing body part. That’s the problem with gravity, it waits for a moment of boastful overconfidence and hurls you onto your arse.

Life mirroring art? Life mirroring gravity more like.

What’s left?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding3 Comments

It’s a direction in which I cannot really turn.

Not sure if you’ve noticed but it’s pretty dark out there. Most of the time now it seems and the clocks have yet to as retarded as BST-1 actually is. Autumn is here, and with it final garden maintenance shackled to the ˜mower than will not die‘ stubbornly ripping up the lawn in a non collection style. What remained was about a ton of wet grass and nowhere to put it, offering up the joyless prospect of a long hard afternoon with a spikey rake.

Sod that, moss is the new lawn, I’m went riding instead. And since the Autumn Chilterns are twinned with a easterly valley centred around Passchendaele, the local trails are sliding around below a layer of bike eating mud. Thankfully these conditions don’t tend to extend beyond spring, or early summer at worst.

So a exciting trip to Bedfordshire with planned; now there’s a phrase you’re not likely to hear very often is it? Oooh Flitwick, Can we go? I really can’t wait, can we go now, please, pllleeaaasse�”. Only an inspired piece of urban planning involving a large uncontrolled explosion could improve the place. But in this flat land of dull, lies the cheery little hillock of Chicksands, a riding spot where woodwork rules the woods, air is the new ground and ambulances are on standby.

Last time out, a very large bike allied with a very small amount of bravery launched me over the log-drop. Since then, a small accident I may have mentioned, did rather more long term damage to my head than my knee. Cornering has been a problem exacerbated when the trail leans left, I tend to lean straight on instead, ploughing headlong into a waiting tree on the grounds it’ll probably be less painful. However many times I tell myself tree bad, corner good“, the message just isn’t getting home.

The only corners at Chicksands are generally bermed allowing even Mr. Timid here to corner by essentially riding into them. So all that time and effort headbutting trees has not been entirely wasted.

Tim and Brad on the dual slalomEarly flight leaves for FlitwicjJeans are the new shorts.

Continue reading “What’s left?” →

A question of degrees.

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsense7 Comments

At the arse end of four educationally untroubled years, I was surprisingly awarded a first class honours degree by half of one percent. My perennial roommate was a swotty top of our class and received a£50 merit prize. I received partial liver failure and a late night Snickers habit.

A year later, the polytechnic invited me back to address the undergraduates. Their less than subtle subtext was to convince their drunken charges that if only they’d stop fondling each other long enough, they’d realise a little bit of application now maketh a successful career.

My less subtle state of undress “ they really should have twigged my refusal to wear a suit or to provide a copy of my speech likely hid a fifth columnist “ directed a rambling monologue on life in the real world. It can “ and I’m sorry to report, it was “ summed up with a single piece of robust advice Have as much fun, sex and booze as you can now, as it’s properly miserable out here”. Surprisingly, I wasn’t invited back.

Continue reading “A question of degrees.” →

Cycle Show – Part ii

On By AlexIn BikesLeave a comment

In a doomed attempt to emulate those string and wire boys of earlier, a fun boy three of riders headed into deepest London for a street ride. We’d feasted on Shoreditch’s finest Chinese take-away, pontificated widely on appropriate tyre pressures and finally ran out of excuses to engage arse-gear.

After an early doors puncture, the vague yet plausible threat of molestation by roaming gangs and considerable performance anxiety brought on by thousands of pissed Londoners, a team decision mandated that we’d be having it small going on infinitesimal.

Still this hardly detracted from the fun of a two wheeled preamble through a balmy London evening. As a city of lights, it’s really properly impressive with major landmarks illuminating a night sky already brightened by a fat, full moon. Light spilled from every bar, streaks of significant wattage bounced off a clear sky whenever we passed something famous, but the pavements were dark and the pedestrians programmed random.

Wierd pavement, odd exposure Looks sandy Small wall, large photoshop

In search of something new, we inevitably paid return visits to old favourites; the ˜architected for MTB’ steps down to the millennium bridge, a dart around the South Bank and some barely defined concrete madness at the Tate Modern. We rode a few walls and sized up many more. But the press of a Saturday night crowd, interspersed with what felt like the entire Met, left us riding more but cleaning less.

Cheeky riding on the Mil Bridge A ghostly Brad Properly bridgey

After a final incident where about a hundred sozzled café dwellers were screaming for a concrete based injury, we cried enough and retired pubwards.

Only two downsides marred a fantastic day. Firstly Brad chose to emboss a perfect mirror of his DMR V12 pedal on my car door. Reasons currently unknown although brain fade and excessive Nurofen are high on the judging list.

Secondly, I’ve been unable to reconcile the quandary that is to retain a loving, long term and, most importantly, local relationship with my testicles against the chances of smuggling in a new frame under the cover of darkness.

I’ve been testing the ground under the barn and believe there’s potential for a BatCave arrangement. Pass me the shovel.

Cycle Show – Part i

On By AlexIn Bikes3 Comments

A long day of driving, walking and riding awaited with the London Cycle Show smack bang in the middle of it. I was raring to stop and full of beans only in that my digestive system rumbled ominously with the synthetic aftermath of a couple of bucketfuls of Heinz’s finest. That’d be the four pints of Whympler’s Old Peculiar then, which saved me the price of last nights dinner at the cost of an eye blurring hangover.

London traffic and my refusal to believe the SatNav “ e.g. I drove past here once in 1975 and it’s definitely up that street there even if it’s now bricked off “ made us late and the human millipede queue for tickets added frustration and more delay. Still, this did provide ample time to be essentially robbed, with a nice smile, at recognisable food outlets with unrecognisable prices. Just sign over the deeds to your house and sell a single child into white slavery and you can enjoy this stale, lamp hardened, baguette“. And I use to think only indirect taxation was licensed theft.

However, the event itself was great, acres of unattainable bling backed up by a trials show. Watching these small boys leap large gaps and landing perfectly on tyre width moist logs, was in no way spoiled by the knowledge that string and wires cunningly fabricate this illusion

First up, a spot of clique but entirely deserved back patting to Cy Turner “ he of Cotic bike design fame. Two new frames join the existing Soul and Roadrat, of which I own and rather enjoy both, an amped up hardcore brother for the Soul and a singlespeed bike so simple, he’s named it, er, Simple.

Simple SinglespeedB-FE. Hardcore SoulThe back end so to speak

Continue reading “Cycle Show – Part i” →

A beer? Do you want a breast with that?

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsenseLeave a comment

Titty Bars. Gentlemen’s clubs. Pole Dancing Emporiums. Call them what you will but, resident in every world capital, they harvest big bucks from a hardcore of men for whom the Internet is just a bit tame.

There’s a shared deceit around attendance motivation. It’s just a bit of fun“, The girls get paid well, what’s the problem�? and it’s no worse than downloading porn off the Internet“. Maybe, maybe not.

Prudish though this sounds, I really struggle with these places. On entry into the dim portal of watered down drinks and excited sweaty bodies, I turn instantly gay. The girls are, understandably as it’s a buyers’ market, incredibly beautiful, their tanned and lithe torsos’ standing on legs that finish somewhere close to their armpits. They’re all revealing outfits and seductive smiles at the start of a dance, with those outfits lasting all the time it takes for some guy to throw a twenty onto the stage. The smiles stay though, they are the money capacitor “ turn up the wattage and watch the cash flow in.

My problem with such places isn’t really that it’s degrading for both sexes, slightly seedy or horribly contrived. It’s the denial of a middle aged bloke rolling in cash and fat, truly believing that this Goddess of Beauty actually finds him witty and attractive. You just want to shout it’s a business transaction mate, flash the cash or she’ll be off to leech the next tragic victim“.

I sit and watch and feel like a fraud. When some vision of sex floats up and offers a private dance, you only need to nod faintly before the sales spiel clicks smoothly in and the rules of the game are explained. Twenty Dollars but no touching, kissing or knocking one out in front of me. Get frisky and the twenty stone hunk of bored beef in the corner will rip off your head and piss down the whole. I’m paraphrasing a little but the sense of the transaction should come across.

I never go. Others do and return with obvious enjoyment plastered across flushed faces. Dance follows dance, and soon it’s just Big Gay Al necking watery beer and wondering when excuses can deliver a hasty exit. The cold night air is fresh enough to wash away the stink of cigarettes and half formed sexual acts. It’s a bloody relief and again I tell myself this is absolutely the last time. Until the next time, anyway.

Okay I’m a prude. Because I can’t really enjoy the show, it seems apposite to preach a pious sermon instead. In reality, these places don’t do any harm, they’re serving a need of sorts and even offer up some amusing connotations such as the Businessman’s Lunch�?. What’s that then? Naked women starter, breast of inner thigh to follow and sweet nothings to finish“. But still a lingering sense of doubt remains.

Whereas obviously downloading porn off T’Internet and giving the old fella a vigorous rub in your own home is fine. Allegedly, not that you’d fine me doing treading the subtle line between public and private masturbation.

Not with Carol reading this blog anyway.