Pretty concise and snappy title eh? Yes I do have a life outside Mountain Biking. No, it’s no better written or researched.
Jaw-Dropping. I’ve worked with technology since wriggling out of short trousers, but this stuff amazes/terrifies me.
Anyone not getting some kind of matrix flashback/flashforward need to think a bit harder.
Be ace to get a couple of bigger ones and throw a few humans in there 🙂
Tucked away in doughy cerebral loaf are a number of passably articulate posts. They include the rather racy “we’re all cyborgs now“* requiring translation from a spidery scrawl- forced upon me by our continuing love/no love relationship with the Internet. Directly related is a spittle-flecked invective-fuelled open letter to Ian Livingston, apparently head gibbon at the gloriously incompetent BT. This sweary rant has the potential for a few laughs especially if you find pithy offering such as “what the fuck were they doing back there? engaging in a spot of unionised dwarf tossing” amusing.
It’ll make some kind of sense with a little context. Possibly not too much.
This is none of those things. The closest it comes to previous rambles is the shameful photologue** cataloguing the rambling pantheon of my bike collection. In that it dusts off some pre-digital photography, lampoons my many dodgy parts within the frame, and wistfully recollects halcyon days with a focus on jumpers-for-goalposts, respect-for-your-elders beer-at-a-pound-a-pint, rickets and the poorhouse.
Cast your mind back to 2002. A year – for me – much closer to 30 than 40. Still on the backslide of trying to save the world by depriving it of alcohol, and newly obsessed with two wheeled mud plugging. Beer and Bikes at the NEC MBUK show intersected with the Macmillan Cancer stand and a thirst for some new adventure.
And shitting in holes in the ground. And Dodging mosquito’s the size of sparrows. And eating terrible food. And suffering horribly with “the runs” that make every previous dose of diarrhoea seem nothing worse than cutting a noisy fart. And with all of that and more, it was an experience that I can feel/taste/smell/see as I write these words and look at those images. And it becomes evidently clear that we don’t get enough of those.
The sense of achievement as we hit the pacific – and then hit the bar twice as hard – is indescribable. And I’m not being semantically lazy here, especially since somehow I was the first one home, five minutes ahead of everyone else having gone a little mental in the last 30ks. Beer in hand, toes in the ocean, sun on my back, maelstrom in my head, it really did feel like being between two worlds. One that was new and fresh and impossibly exciting, against the old version that felt small and silly and a little bit hateful.
That trip taught me many things. How insanely fucked up the world was in terms of the have-lots and have-nothings. The way kids are the same the world over, every hopeful and always laughing. Unless the poor bastards were crawling about in the dirt and starving. The unfathomable greed of Western oil companies. The endless, wearisome corruption of governments and those who govern in their name. What a bloody disaster the deforestation of the rain forest was, but just how much was left.
It also taught that me stupidity has no limits, and neither does mankind. It made me grow up a bit and realise that black and white are merely shades of grey depending on who is doing the talking. That right and wrong don’t really exist, the best you can do is find a decent place to stand. So when watching only-slightly-grown-up kids shifting oil with their bare hands for $7 a day I thought that was terrible.
Until they explained that this was “proper money” and – while it may shorten their life by 30 years – it gave them access to western consumerable shit; playstations and the like. That shouldn’t make you sad, it makes you so bloody angry that we’ve got the poor fuckers coming and going. Then I came home, full of the righteous urge to do something about it.
I did. Forgot about it mostly. Maybe changed the way I looked at the world and that’s a good thing. And it started me writing properly. Which may not be. There’s 10,000+ words*** on my hard drive recording the whole trip; some building rants and right-on observations, while the rest appear to be documenting poo-pits and how shit tents are.
And because I’m stupidly busy leaving one job, and trying to work out what the fuck I might do next, I feel a few well chosen chapters could fill the gaping maw of vanity publishing.
Sod the content, smell the whiff.
* a concept explained to me by my friend Will. Will – be clear that’s the only namecheck you’re getting. Everything else written on the subject shall be unashamedly plagiarised.You should know my lawyer is so genetically close to a shark, he has suit-fins. Consider yourself warned 🙂
** Not a word? Must be. If not, damn well should be. Surely there’s money to be made here. And it’s better than “Chillax“. And less likely to get the speaker silenced with an axe.
*** You think I’m wordy now? Christ I shall introduce you to some of my back catalogue. That’ll make you a bit bloody grateful for my more recent personal sub-editing.
For over a decade, my obsession with cycling has known few- if any – financial, geographical or verbal boundaries. I’ve spent a whole lot of time and money buying, riding, writing and talking about bikes. It has been solely responsible for a circle of fantastic friends, deep holes where cash was buried, broken bones and frequent abandonment of work and family. I owe that obsession all of that, and it owes me nothing in return.
But I’ve never really worked out why. That’s because fast talking belies slow thinking. Sure there’s been navel gazing extremism, pretentious nonsense, occasional bouts of self-doubt, and boring repeats of wondering what comes next. Yet, rather than a laser focus on what’s important, it was more about a lighthouse illuminating new areas of interest – then chasing them down with very little method and much madness.
Take road bikes. They had no place in “Al’s Cycling World” – a place where every road was a singletrack, every climb opened up a perfect descent, a landscape chopped by distant peaks and filled with sun kissed valleys. Trails would end in cool bars filled with good friends and colder beer. Road bikes would be an irrelevance; at best a sporting challenge designed to break them in the most amusing manner.
But taking a fixed position on shifting sands is a silly game only zealots play. So you slide into thin tyres via most mountain bikes, then hybrids, then cheap commuters and onwards to the inevitable U-Turn. Last week saw me come full circle at the Dartmoor Classic. But only because of fitness ground out over multiple winters on mountain bikes. And that allows single minded and nasty competitiveness to turn you proud. And there is some visceral joy of bending the tarmac to your will.
Lightbulb moment. Loathing endurance events circling endless laps is as much about boredom as it is about not being good enough. It isn’t about the pain and suffering, it’s about the pain and suffering AND still losing. Losing places and hope and the will to live. No laps in my cycling world, we’ll be on the shoulder of a jagged peak spying miles of sinuous singletrack just over the summit.
Logic dictates then that riding a many lapped loop last night should bring on the same weary tedium. It’s unrelenting – hard and steep and shared with fit riders who make it harder still. Flick the bulb again; because now I’ve riding with my friends, having the craic between hastily drawn breaths and the competitiveness may be dulled by companionship, but it is absolutely still there.
That’s the root of it; trying to beat someone, even if it’s only yourself. I can’t get excited about 223rd place against 224th, but if it’s you and you’re half wheeling me and I can see the top then we’re racing. If I know you’re quicker on the next descent, I’m flicking shocks and snicking gears while you’re distracted. Just me and the risk of the going faster is balanced against the danger of consequences, against you there is no balance, no arguments, only getting there first.
Losing is fine too. Because next time / next week / next year I’ll get you back. And while that is the root, it’s not the whole damn cause. I never could understand gym-rats who admire their glistening form because it pleases them. Getting fit is a painful journey, my intent to stay there is entirely predicated on a) winning a bit more often and b) not having the mental strength to undertake that journey again. It’s a symptom of riding not the reason for doing it.
Last night was a perfect ride; it was full of happy stuff – gripolicious dry trails, good friends riding at the top of their game, nobody else on our hills, t-shirts, shorts, a setting sun and the confidence that everything under dusty tyres can be ridden just a little bit faster.
And it was. One of those rides where flow, speed and luck are joined at the point of lucky rider. You live for days like these. 20 desperate winter slogs are nothing when compared to one night of perfection. Aches, pains, broken bones, haemorrhaged bank accounts, guilt and selfishness are not even a price. Because if they were, you might stop for one second to consider if it was worth paying.
And I’ll never, ever get that from a road bike. That’s what I worked out. It’s taken me a while but I think I’ve got it now.
Cycling is in my blood. Mountain Biking is in my soul.
Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.
So the geeks will inherit the Earth eh? Or at least close it down/set fire to it/blow it up. I am considering how to make my own power source. Current ideas are harnessing methane potential of large Labrador or installing running machines and a big flywheel for use by children.
Other scary things include:
1) Dartmoor Classic on Sunday. Is Classic another word for “I’m going to hurt you mountain bike boy”?
2) Too damn busy to write anything.
3) Longest day has just gone. Can someone explain what happened to “Spring”. It seems like just yesterday when it was all dark/cold and miserable. Still we’ve that to look forward to now.
More soon. Soonish. Possibly not that soon.
I was doing so well. 4 rides in 4 days. Then I wasn’t doing so well. No rides in the following six. Some would call it tapering, those -with a working knowledge of my lazy gene – would call it absolutely right : rain stops play.
With work shuttling me all over the shop, when others could ride last week I could not. And when I could, I couldn’t be arsed. It’d was all for change this morning with a repeat of two weeks ago combing much needed miles in the legs and fab-a-dab-a-dosy singletrack in “the Yat”.
Except it rained And never stopped. The issue was tho when it started. 8am and I was poking about in the workshop looking for excuses. Rain hammered on the roof, so I answered with a text declaring a lack of impermeability and motivation. Text’d returned sometime later spoke of good times had by all which didn’t cheer me up at all.
Before which, my penance was to include the entire clan in a soggy dog walk through our local woods. A wood that Jess and I regularly have much fun swishing between trees on two wheels. For a mad moment I considered adding bike-age to our already considerable payload of kids, dog, wellies and sulking but a brief outbreak of sanity stayed my hand.
Instead we wandered the bike trails marvelling at the volume of unrelenting wet from upstairs and the slickness of anything unearthed from the puddle strewn ground. On a scale of “loving the experience”, the dog rated a hard 10, me a guilty 8, carol about a 6 due mainly to a lack of water repellent headgear and the offspring a number somewhere near Kelvin’s absolute zero.
Not riding did open up a window into which I transferred thirty odd photos from a time so ancient, not only was my hair brown but it was also mostly on my head. My lazy edit before publishing to a squillion bored wibbly viewers was mostly driven by a level of self awareness that is grounded in the sure knowledge that having people laugh at you is nearly as good as them laughing with you.
More of that soon, but if you really can’t wait to point and giggle, try my photostream.
Don’t expect much of a response from Mr. absence-of-anything-approaching-dignity here. I’ll be hauling woger wog up some steep hills in a desperate attempt to avoid the Lantern Rouge at the oh-God-It’s-So-Close Dartmoor 100.
Remember Winter? Cold, wet, dark and miserable?. The four seasonal horsemen of the apocalypse ride out from November through March before hibernating for the summer. Which is why we ride when it’s warm. dry, sunny and lovely. Yes?
No. I reckon those four cloak-billowing mounted dementers have their eye on summer. And like the fifth Beatle, someone forgot to tell “Windy” he’s not welcome. And not just because of the smell*
In about two weeks, I’ll be hauling my non-spent-much-time-on-a-saddle arse around and over this. Not the proper Man’s event to be fair, but still 120ks of hills, more hills, occasional cake, cocks on road bikes, rain and – of course, wind.
Headwind, chest-wind, toe-wind, all over wind experience. The bastard mix of a sprinkler powered by a Saturn-V rocket. For approximately ever. But this wind is not my excuse for doing absolutely no training whatsoever. My other excuse is generally I was too busy riding mountain bikes to waste time on tarmac, but no that’s not right either.
All winter I rode. Looked out of the window in the dark and calculated – from the sound of wet trees being smashed against car roofs – exactly what riding apparel would be appropriate for two hours battling my least favourite season. Then, ignoring all that, just wore everything I owned. Including a lifejacket.
But I still went. Most of the time it was fine, occasionally it was shit, but off-season fitness has a smug rating that’ll carry you past those who’ve given up, got fat, pre-moaned how hard it’ll be come BST. You plan for the worst and hope for the best. It’s an excellent strategy and has served me well.
Until April when all was lovely, dry and even sometimes light in the evening. Remember April? Part of a new summer that starts end of March, goes for six weeks before plunging into Autumn. You want proof? CLiC24, 2am, 2 degrees, 40 knot wind, May 16. It’s enough to encourage emigration. Not to France tho, it’s not that bad. Yet.
And since then, troughs of Atlantic lows have swept our unprotected Island with some rain, much wind and and a daily precipitation of can’t be arsed. “Bit Windy? Nah, don’t think I’ll bother” “Chance of Rain? Fuck that, it’s summer”, “Trip away? In June? Are you mad? Is drowning something you’re keen to experience?”
Stupid really. I’ve missed too many midweek rides with great excuses wrapped up in better lies. I don’t think it’s the dodgy elbow, it certainly isn’t a lack of fabulous trails to ride, nor is it my standard “can I be arsed lament” that gets blown away every time I actually can.
It’s none of those things. It isn’t even about bikes. Needs working out tho until which riding seems a bit less important that it was. That’s not funny, but it’s odd and it needs dealing with.
I am plotting with such vigour, I shall be purchasing a fluffy, white cat to stroke.
* Clearly re-incarnated from a wet Labrador.
But not flown. In fact, reposing on the lawn is likely to be the closest the poor woody bugger gets to a landing that doesn’t end in a deep analysis of the sub-soil. My bro and I destroyed the first one some *CRIKEY* 30 years ago* through multiple arrivals that were only charitably differentiated from crashing if all the bits could be found.
To offset my legendary flying skills, I thought it best to install a pilot both scale like and sanguine. Having found myself creatively compromised, I turned to the kids who delivered in spades.
Apparently Eric the abandoned-naked-doll Pilot flew well from the bedroom windows during innocent young girls’ games of “lob stuff at the lawnmower“. That was enough for me, and he’s been properly installed with pillow AND blanket. Looks pretty damn relaxed right now although that’s likely to change come first engagement with aviation.
Now she’s a fat old bird, that’s for sure. Statuesque I like to think, but even the most heroically partisan would struggle to call her pretty. The full size version attracted a legend that it generally landed before the flying tug that had hauled it aloft. This was due to a glide angle kindly compared to a brick or shot duck. Having flown the very same full size, I’m here to tell you that is no legend. Shot Brick more like.
Back to the micro version, it’s not exactly bristling with technology. Just two servos driving rudder (yaw) and elevator (pitch). For those not of an aerodynamic persuasion, what we’re saying here is the only thing that’ll get the big old bertha turning corners is if the builder hasn’t cacked up building the wings properly.
With me being the builder, you can guess at my confidence that, post chuck, it’ll merrily bulldoze downwind – occasionally wagging the capacious arse – before finishing in someone’s tele. Having come through the roof. And the first floor. Excellent, report back on that.
And delving into my other bag of excuses, the temptation of buying my way into talent has a pinnacle that looks something like this:
Pre-loved or not, that’s a shit load of cash to chuck into thin air. First couple of flights were packed with incident as it zoomed around the sky with indecent haste, leaving my thumbs some few hundred feet behind. Neither landing was great if I’m honest, with the better of the two being the one I couldn’t see once said flying cash disappeared behind the hill. Still intact tho, not quite sure how.
So switching back to something that goes very slowly and doesn’t turn round much is likely to be a bit of a challenge. Still based on how old apparently I now am, that’s probably some kind of metaphor.
* That can’t be right. Maybe now I’m so old, my memory is addled or the cerebral loaf has a wither in the mathematical deduction lobe. Whatever, it cannot be 30 years ago. Unless I was a couple of years old and chewing on the transmitter. Yeah, that’ll be it. Phew.
First a complaint. Surprising to hear this from a man who is so well adjusted to the rhythm of the world, and entirely tolerant of stupidity powered by marketing. But there it is “ well here it is actually: The next individual who feels to suffix their smugmail(tm) with some little ditty regarding the end device shall be consuming said smart device through one of two orifices.
With the aid of a spade if necessary. I care not if your latest missive has been sent from you iPhone or intentionally brief as spewed from thumb wielding Blackberry boredom. If email etiquette informed by the wielding of garden implements is unsuccessful, I shall be forced to launch a counter battery Please excuse the brevity, slate is bloody expensive and my chisel needs sharpening”
On the one hand, while my snoop cocking at the triviality of shiny-new-stuff technology is becoming increasingly vocal, I cannot but lust after the bastard love child of a tablet and netbook. You see I cannot “ and will not “ succumb to the crazy idea that£500 is a fine price to consume the web on a keyboard-less screen. And that position remains firm even after being shown exactly how clever an accelerometer is.
But…but…but.. that Asus* is one smart design. It’s like version 2 of a netbook “ another technology I never really understood, and there’s some cheap Dell shit sat in a drawer at home to show how easy it is to dismiss such hype right after you’ve spent real money on one – kind of funky and useful.
Any such purchase by a trend chaser such as I is doomed to determine a future already played out by such technological titans as Betamax and the Apple Newton. But it does have two things to recommend it: a) it’s not made by Apple who have turned smugness into a religion and therefore should be shunned by proper engineering types and b) it’s actual usable for something other than viewing web/games/norks** from funny angles.
There’s some hidden benefits as well. Firstly my dumbphone(tm) will probably commit suicide on seeing something four waves of technology downstream of its’ own digitally stunted world. This would be a good thing as, regardless of the limitless abuse I meter out to the bloody thing, it resolutely refuses to die.
Secondly my kids would think me cool for about ten seconds before realising it wasn’t an iPad. At which point it’d be chucked in the bucket of uncool dad which includes Mountain Bikes, ability to make horse in distress noises and inability to understand what the hell is going on in Dragonball Z***
It’s all a bit electronic fantasy tho as Carol will rightly value engineer any such purchase with a simple What’s it for?. And, because she is entirely immune to the power of marketing and bullshit, this leaves me little wriggle room other than it’s my birthday soon”
Still at my age, the money would probably better spent on a CAT scan 😉
* A name sniggeringly amusing until you mate it with the fourteen word product name/version which someone takes the gloss of its’ smuttiness.
** Taken from my old mate Steve’s description of how he spent one night with a bevy of drunk nurses. It’s is a derivative of nork snorkelling. Fairly sure you can work out the rest.
*** He’s dead Dad What the one running about and fighting? I’d be inclined to ask for a second opinion
An acronym to strike fear into the heart of any innocent attempting to pay for the privilege of wasting their own time. It’s not – as you might suspect – shorthand for It’s Virtually Rude or even I’m Very Rustrated*, but the rather more semantically challenging Interactive Voice Recognition.
Worked with these things a bit in what passes as my professional life. Fairly sure they’re designed specifically to ensure that a) you slam the phone down in righteous anger having pushed 1,3,7,6,3,2 waited for half an hour and then hit gjhfu97874 with your fist and been immediately disconnected and b) you enjoy a significant contribution to the non-customer-service service line profits by dint of a premium number.
Today, I’ve been lucky enough to batter through the electronic barriers to real people – who obviously don’t give a shit either but at least they answer back, albeit in monosyllabic grunts farmed from non-helpful scripts – in order to give them some of my money.
Firstly Vodafone. They have a “customer experience” system designed by a sadistic lunatic with a specialism in repetition. Dialled the access number, prodded my way through to “any other enquiry” – because you’ll always end up at the same place so no point shunting through multiple queues to get there – exiting the numeric maze by entering my mobile number.
I get Gary: “Can you tell me your mobile number please?” I explained I had just done so to his electronic IVR colleague. “We have to ask again” he tells me. But he can’t tell me why. I provide it so we move onto the address. Which one? Head Office, My Office, Home? Either, or, all apparently. No, still not sure why.
After a dull game of “no not that one, try again” we establish it’s the firms’ head office. “Do I know the post code?” Obviously not because I am not some kind of mnemonic memory man. “I need it before we can go on“. Don’t ask why, I did. It wasn’t a conversational branch finishing in an epiphany.
Apparently it’s for “Security Reasons“. All I’m going to do is Google it so it’s unlikely this would deter any thief with access to a) the Internet or b) an IQ of more than 11. This triggers a surly response from an increasingly grumpy Gary that this is not his fault, and – power crazed with the opportunity to deal some small minded smackdown – he refuses to proceed until I’ve pony’d up the six digit code.
I fail to do so. We agree to disagree. Up to the point when I mark him as a “script based monkey with the customer facing skills of a baseball bat“. I hang up before he does. So I win, right? Okay probably facing imminent phone cut off, especially as Vodafone – with staggering ironic timing – then called me asking for any feedback regarding their services.
Probably wished they hadn’t.
So flushed with failure, I attempt to wrest control of my administration nightmare with a multiple-no-choice assault on the DVLA. In a rare and welcome example of joined up Government, it seems my gurning passport photo can be seamlessly transferred to my driving license with nary a filled in form or extreme post office queuing all for the princely bribe of£20.
Except I can’t. The electronic form burped me out once it established a tiny discrepancy between names on the two documents. We’re not talking much here; Alex Leigh on one, Reisling J. Pineapple The Third on the other that kind of thing, but no amount of 20-year-IT-Man-and-Boy shouting at the screen garnered any progress.
So back to the hated IVR. Boredom ruined my first attempt with random button jabbing leaving me in some repeating cul-de-sac. For some low-rent entertainment, second time round I counted the number of menus, sub menus and options. I ran out of fingers just before I ran out of enthusiasm but was shocked from my increasing torpor by a human saying one thing and meaning something else entirely.
Try it next time you hear “Hello, how can I help?” have a proper listen to gain the real meaning which is “reading OK magazine, go and read the web site, call back if you’re still stuck, it won’t be me you speak too“. I explained in great detail the issue I’d had, how I’d tried to work around it, what options I’d considered and a proposal that would save me from a possible stabbing in Hereford Post Office.
For all my hard work, reasoned argument and lucid rationale I received a response from the best of the best that the DVLA can offer.
“No”.
IVR? I think it’s probably call centre short hand for “That half an hour of life you had? It’s ours ALL OURS MWWWAAAAHHHHH”
* I couldn’t think of an angry work starting with R. Rapscallioned? Rucked off?
Work done. Mostly. For a given value of mostly. And – come to think of it – work.
Riding done. Well a single jaunt back over the same trails that landed me in the dirt and then in the hospital. Managed to screw up enough courage to dispatch rocky obstacle of elbow bleed without pitching head first into a tree. Fantastic conditions, some diffidence. Hardly ridden at all in April, probably a bit too early to pretend I am tapering for Clic-24.
Fixing things. Done. Well some. ST4 needs some loving after my post-crash cursory inspection failed to pick up a gear cable attempting to wrest itself from the tumbling bike. Bodge got me past one ride, it wont’ last another. New Helmet with New Sizing apparently. My last four helmets in ten years have been from Giro. All have fitted me melon-like dome in size large. The latest incarnation is light, clever, airy and entirely suited to extremely large land mammals. Think elephant or rhino. If we are prepared to consider aquatic, does anyone know if whales browse eBay?
Packing. Not done. Not at all. Luckily Carol seems to have corralled food, tent, children and a vast quota of stuff. I thought we were going for three days. Maybe it was months? I dunno, what I do know is it is colder where we’re going to be sleeping in a thin draughty tent than it is here in a warm house. Apparently that’s proper camping. You come back burnt or frostbitten, there is no middle ground.
Windows. Done-ish. We have some new ones. Very nice they are too. Three tiny issues: 1) Only 2/3rds are fitted due to the house being built by a blind drunkard with only a hazy knowledge of straight lines and a buying strategy based on the cheapest tat available from anywhere. Poor bloody fitters have earned their tea times ten. The only straight thing in the whole process is their spirit level. Every other wall/floor/apparently flat surface is on the piss. 2) The rest of the windows now look really, really shit.* 3) We’ve run out of cash before we’ve run out of windows to replace.
Trailer. Done. Proper man now. Aged 43, I finally own a 6×4 metal trailer that will be absolutely vital for stuff. Stuff I’ve yet to fully explain to Carol, but let me tell you when that stuff comes along, I shall be in the vanguard of dealing with it, trailer firmly to the fore. Okay it’s missing a wheel (not a vital one, well probably not) and it’s certainly somewhere south of extremely pre-loved but it was cheaper and it’s metal. And manly. Oh yes, do not let there be even the slightest discussion on that.
Beer. Not done. Of the many and varied things on my to-do list that doesn’t even rate an entry. I shall enjoy that list an an entrée with Mr. Speckled Hen.
Back in three days. Or possibly three months.
* there’s a reason. They are. see point 1) re: purchasing strategy.
