Last day. Final trail. Fin. Relief was just one of a maelstrom of emotions crashing through my brain, before leaking out into a landscape framing an azure Mediterranean seascape against fractal sky reaching volcanic rock.

Let’s start there. La Palma should be considered less of an island and more a science experiment of shifting geography mostly on fire.  It nestles between European and African continents low on landmass but high on towering peaks. Glued to the window of the uplift van tho, it mostly presents like really shit CGI. Nothing real should look like this.

But it does and for keen Mountain Biker that offers a smorgasbord of riding opportunities easily differentiated by compass points. West and east are black landscapes clearly remodelled by the 2021 eruption of Cumbre Vieja. That volcano does not mess about, EIGHTY FIVE days of lava flow, 3000 buildings destroyed, 850 million Euro damage and relocating approximately 10% of the island population.

Still on the upside, pretty amazing place to ride 😉 North offers geology not entirely black and spiky whereas heading south has at least four different surface types on a single run from high spine to rocky coast.  With the odd bike park thrown in. It’s rather full on especially for the more mature rider with my abiding memory of the first day being “buffer overload” as my (very) nervous system attempted to triangulate a confusion of fairly pointy geography into stiff muscle movements priority configured to keep me rubber side up.

Jeez, this again Al? Overwrought hand ringing amplified by perceived danger. Haven’t we been here before? Certainly have but not for two years what with the “splatterbone incident” stuffing a slow healing fracture into my travel plans. Missed two riding trips and wasn’t sure about this one.

Slumped in the back of the van, a plethora of brilliant bikes rattling on the trailer behind, I fell back into my standard imposter refrain: “what the hell am I doing here? I don’t even want to be here. I’m definitely going to be useless, potentially miserable and probably injured“. I’m not sure how other people motivate themselves when faced with possible adversity, but this has always worked for me 😉

Or not. Spoiler alert, it was fine. More than fine. Bloody fantastic most of the time. And that’s against a backdrop of nothing being easy. The volcanic rock is fantastically grippy and terrifyingly abrasive. The gravel version is just terrifying. Hang off the back and hope for the best. The worst being a skin graft. Do not touch the front brake and really only attempt to steer if all other alternatives have been exhausted.

Hence this exchange at the bottom of a trail: “Alex, you appear to be bleeding copiously from your nose” / “Yes, well that’s because I rode through a tree” / “Why would you do that” / “The alternative was considerably worse. Do you have a dressing to hand? And maybe a restorative brandy?”

Oh but it’s all so good. Especially on one of those days when you focus only on what’s happening, not what might happen if one is at home to Mr Fuck Up. Do not associate with that man, he has no place here. Because this place is just magical.

Rodrigo – our guide – would often laconically describe the next trail as “a bit tricky” or – and it’s important to pay attention here – ‘ride the right of the rock garden, because the left side…. well just ride the right side“, Right, right it is then, fucking hell is that boulder strewn dry waterfall the right line? How bloody bad is the left? Don’t look, just ride and follow. Do not stop, do not prevaricate, do not allocate ever decreasingly brain capacity to uncertain futures. Just get in the tow and out of the way of your bike.

Steep and technical, harder to split than electrons and protons, it never got much easier but the probability machine in my brain tilted the odds as we rode deep into the week*. Top of an obstacle, deep breath in, whisper the mantra “not had a proper crash yet, do not break the streak“, Hit go, collect 200 dopamine points, do not collect spare body parts. Breathe out, repeat.

Keep landing on black. With two riders having – thankfully brief – A&E visits, red was not a colour you’d be betting the (F)arm on. Crash anywhere here and there are consequences**, mostly of the “oh where did all my skin go” kind. So don’t think like that, don’t look at what scares you, lift your gaze, raise your hips, rotate forward and tune your senses to the trail mix. Rock strikes on the bash guard, buzzing tyres hunting for grip, rotors squealing in protest and maybe an involuntary “fucking hell, what just happened?” from the rider.

Mostly good things. On and off the trail. It’s been my long held maxim that half the utter joy of riding mountain bikes are the amazing places we get to do it, while the other 50% are those other riders you do it with. Having ridden an epic trail which dropped nearly 1500m to the coastal lighthouse, we incautiously leaned bikes against the sea wall before trying to explain just how fucking brilliant the last 90 minutes had been.

Right then the van rocks up proffering beers distributed from a carrier bag. Leaving you toasting your riding crew with that look in your eye. Yeah we get it, we’re not like everyone else because they don’t do this. They don’t get to see what we see, feel what we feel, overcome whatever comes. And every one of us is desperately trying to bottle that feeling for all those grey days ahead.

Sure it’s affirmation bullshit but I’ll take it every time. The knowledge I can still do this, and – other than the first uplift – absolutely love doing this feels so damn important. Best not to dwell on what happens when I can’t.

Back to those emotions. Relief yes, but also sadness, melancholy even. Standing apart and looking out to sea I tried to make sense of  the last seven days. Was still trying when someone gave me a beer and a hug and asked if I was okay. Oh yeah, more than okay.

Where do we go next? Still alive and desperate for more.

*Except the last day. When after lunch I went for a lovely walk with my bicycle 😉

**Unless you’re Steve “Leaky” Lewis who appears to have around 900 cat lives. I have no idea how he is still alive to be honest. Bravest man I’ve ever known 😉

Six weeks post a purchase event best described as “What? A new bike? With my reputation“, a rather more significant milestone has passed under wheel. Actually rode the bloody thing. To the cynical* amongst you hypothesising that period conveniently brackets a slew of upgrades best characterised as a drunken man power sliding through a parts catalogue, let me offer a seasonal defence.

This winter is precision tooled to methodically strip away your will to ride. Endless waves of low pressure systems delivering rain on target with military accuracy**. Fifty days of moist+ weather leaving you feeling damp even when on the dry side of a water slashed window.  The entirety of the UK is a muddy puddle occasionally accessorised with the odd dry spot.  These are not prime mountain biking conditions.

Certainly not for something Californian born with sufficient mud shelves to outfit a decent sized Aldi. That’s before we get to the bearings with a lifespan similar to a wine gum in a blast furnace.  Eventually tho my superpower – poor impulse control raised to the power of misunderstood secondary consequences*** – wrenched agency from the land of much dithering, and new bike ride day finally happened.

It was dark. But not too wet. Let’s not confuse that with dry- we’re at least a season away from that mythical dry line. A far too familiar climb reminded me that 160mm enduro race bikes are not XC race light. Geometry and suspension trickery negates the misery of bobbing long travel bikes, but gravity still has a say.

What it was mostly saying was “good luck stopping this bugger unless you’ve selected a handy tree as an emergency breaking point“. The Bronson has suffered a parts dart bait and switch including a set of stoppers left hanging off a wall while my collarbone was merely hanging. My good mate Steve jumped on the bike then jumped straight off summarising the experience thus: “that front brake” / “Yes?” / “would have liked one”

They improved a bit. As did I relearning the joy of two sprung ends and non creaky knees. Not sure I learned much more other than the bike felt pretty well sorted, that coil shock out back was a thing of immense loveliness evenly matched by a professionally fettled fork.

I took it home, hosed it off, chucked some new brake pads in and loaded it onto an uplift trailer. Been a while since my last trip to Bike Park Wales. And while the day dawned chilly and grey, this was a major upgrade to the sleet lashing down on us the last time I paid good money to swap pedalling for a motorised uplift.

It was still filthy tho. The bike however shrugged all that off and was properly awesome on a day that started stiff and confused, but ended with a “that’ll do pig“. In between a creative line choice which shimmied a rear wheel all of 15km old, an inability to properly pre-load that coil shock and a couple of refusals which reinforced the axiom that ‘it’s not about the bike‘

But it was about the bike. Or at least the fun I was having riding it. Runty rear wheel has a fab turn in, tuned dampers doing their thing, sorted geo whispers sweet somethings in your ear “you could go a bit faster, it’ll be fine, I got you” and it has, never got close to crashing and that’s beyond a high water mark for me at a bike park.

Strava tells me we did quite well. Not smashing my previous 10+ visits but a few crowns entirely unexpected with my pre-9am whispered mantra of “new bike, we’re not chasing anything here“. Yeah well that lasted about one run. Not the run chosen by Em who dispatched us down a “natural trail” represented by 50% mud and a similar percentage of terror.**** Still give me a few months and I’m sure I’ll be able to talk about it again.

Two days later we switched internal combustion for external computation. How many meters left to climb? How big is that hill? Is that a pub I can see? A difficult combination of Gym sessions,  riding and – ahem – alcohol made this a tough day where giving myself a talking to was a lonesome task based on how far ahead everyone was. Got it done, but fuck I was properly tired.

Downhills were good. Felt pretty confident on the bike. Well mostly forgot about the bike and that’s a great metric for evidencing good frame choices. After a much needed 12 hours in the pit, a post ride examination revealed binding pedals and rubbing brakes. Fixed both of those and I’m sure those extra 10 watts or so will make a massive difference:)

Then a night ride over the border. Extra pretend finger strapped on and fully aware electricity is considered a dangerous luxury, we ticked off some of the steeper and harder trails. Because we thought they’d be dry. “Thought” is doing some heavy lifting here. Surprised myself by riding 50/50 features rather than reading from the book of extensive excuses.

Fifth ride tomorrow. Trail conditions may have been affected by wind/hail/sleet battering our little storm tossed island these land 48 hours. That’s fine,  I have mudguards and a long suffering washing machine.  And I just want to ride my new bike. However old I get, that never does.

*how can that not be an acronym for “devastatingly accurate“?

**Not the US military. Unless schools count as legitimate targets. Hey vote in a cognitively impaired narcissist with an emperor complex and be not surprised when global fuckwittery follows. Well done America, we’re all very proud of you.

*** There is must be a use case where this could actually be a superpower. I’ve just haven’t found it yet.

**** She was “banned from the trail board” for the rest of the day. Whatever Em wants to ride, we’ll go and do something else 🙂

Sorry, not sorry, for bastardising Norm’s masterpieces. Cut me some slack here. It’s been raining constantly for a month. Never stopping to consider the Dementor level motivation crisis inflicted on those of us to whom outside is their best side. And okay it may not be full on Paired Animal vocalising navigational confusion as to the location of an Ark captain colloquially known as “Noah“, but nevertheless “fucking grim” is a baseline summary forecast for us Slitherati going mostly sideways.

I’ll admit to a slim possibility occasional dry spells may have intersected with my coping strategy of hiding under a blanket while whimpering gently. Previous strategies repurposed the shed roof as my rain jacket of choice as January dove Dante deep into “Fatman to the ShedMobile” turbo sessions. This year I’ve sacked that never-less-than-hurty contraption off with zero kilometres recorded. Some 400 under purgatory distances disguised as base fitness.

Can’t say I’ve missed it. Childish V signs represent my only interaction on passing the dusty static bike made ever more static through my non participation. The treadmill gets an easier ride especially as I’ve borked my knee having a) declared an aspirational target of a sub 50min 10km and b) attempting to run outside to see how well that went.

Not well. Not well at all. Running out of options, going to need to ride MTBs. Can’t even pretend with an MTB adjacent gravel ride having sold that hateful bastard child of a proper bike and something ruinously tarnished by the lycra fetishers. Usefully I have a shed full of bikes long on knobbles and short on tarmac.  Less helpfully only one of these is really suited for a winter campaign in the the FoD cosplaying as Flanders Fields.

It’s a good one tho. Fourth winter and absolutely the most fun you can have outside while avoiding a potentially lethal enema*. The rider tho is somewhat less committed. My good friend Matt firmly believes winter riding is the book of genesis in our riding calendar. See the mud and achieve righteousness though rain, cold and enduring misery. Suffering for the sunshine. Skills for the summer.

I tend to nod politely while wondering if medication may be the answer. Instead I offer a persuasive counter argument laying down the axiom that riding in winter is the embrace-the-grim bullshit we sell ourselves between being clean and being drunk. Shrink us to diodes and we’d gate ourselves in an electrical storm before being pulsed out to any pub rocking a lax policy on customers heavily encumbered by their own soil harvests.

So I’ve been getting out. Mostly in conditions characterised as “Greasy Snot Death“. GSD is a unique combination of soil and wet offering all the traction of moist glass. Sideways is mandatory, lying down often the best way to deal with what goes next. No tyre is going to save you.  it is enormous fun right up until the point it isn’t.  Especially when the forecasted “one dry night” was a misspelling of “Sleet? Fucking Sleet? Again? Is this some kind of test?

Shaking fists at an uncaring sky gets old pretty quickly. Talking of which, Haydn celebrated another successful rotation of the planet with an outing of his never less than amusing fat bike. We headed out in conditions best described as “bloody minging” but showed great fortitude not diverting straight to the pub**

We picked our trails carefully. And they picked us right back up. Fun times on loamy sand mostly impervious to 30 days of rain. We had a bit of a train going with H generating tidal surges with the woomp-woomp-woomp of his trail based paddle steamer way closer to my arse than I was entirely comfortable with.

“I can offer you a soft rubber interface” is not really the kind of thing you want to process when the cerebral loaf is attempting to pick non punt-y lines between sniper roots. Then “If it makes you feel better, think of it as being violated by a 70s space hopper”. I’ll be honest here, this did not make me feel better with the prospect of a 4.8 inch T-Boning probably increased my pace more than any skills course ever could.

Conditions being so perfect, we decided to head over to the next valley where the dirt was mostly hidden by seasonal streams. There were quite a lot of mildly concerning noises coming from behind, mostly in the hysterical giggle range and thankfully not so many scored for arboreal percussion***

A quick body count confirmed all bodies and no hanging limbs, which felt exactly the right time to head to the pub. The rain felt it had offered us enough respite and spattering quickly turned to potential drenching. More importantly my liver was 32 days distanced from a proper beer. I asked Matt if he’d consider closing the distance between rides end and a handy pump at 100 MPH.

First beer was off. That is God Level Trolling. The second one went down quite a lot better. The whole day was one of those where low expectations are the catalyst for fantastic memories. Nobody who doesn’t ride bike gets this. And I love it more exactly because of that.

Forecast shows fourteen more days of rain. Turbo gives me the side eye. Not interested. Outside is where the magic happens. Keep sending him up 🙂

*appreciate that’s a fairly low bar.

**mostly as it was 10am and nothing was open.

***not the case on Wednesday when Simon first smashed his love plums on a new trail probably not best ridden in those conditions, and then his still healing shoulder on the exit of the same trail. Being supportive types of chaps, we blamed his tyre choice 🙂

Remember Feng Shui? If so, you’ll remember how to confidently attune your Chi to furniture arranged in assured positions according to the principles of bagua.  Very popular in the 90s before we had Wellness, Influencers and TikTok taking up the slack for monetised grifts selling maximum benefit for minimum input.

I’m sure there is something in it, but mostly for those emptying the bank accounts for that cohort of spiritually curious true believers. See also those of us allegedly immune to bike marketing 😉

And while I may be all cock-snooping at genres entirely un-researched and lazily stereotyped, I am a firm fan of the tidy shed. Couple of reasons; firstly with the chaos strewn world outside the door, an environment of order inside offers peace to troubled souls. Especially if the beer fridge occupies one of those confident positions.

Secondly it means no bicycles have been injured in the making of this photograph. It is an unchallenged truism in our riding group that any maintenance undertaken by Al, will trigger a second and far more complex repair, undertaken by a registered adult with more than the vaguest grasp of tool use.

Tools on the wall and parts in the drawers are marked safe from the collision site, where the blast radius is ring fenced by a random selection of items, all repurposed for idiot level percussive engineering. A bit like this:

What, I hear you ask, is going on here? Some kind of major frame surgery? Multiple bearing removal perhaps? Disassembly of a complex sequence of shims, axles and bolts previously masquerading as a working suspension linkage? Something unquestionably nasty involving tubeless tyres?

Not even close. This avalanche of tools have been pressed into service for the changing of a single gear cable. Well two actually because when you ride through three and a half grim winters with nary a thought to preventative maintenance, the action of selecting a gear and the actual gear selected are no longer following the traditional rules of cause and effect.

Instead something – probably quantum* – happens which is either the mech stubbornly refusing to shift at all or cascading noisily across the cassette like a mechanical spider high on bad Meth. Sub optimal, so with a long Dry January afternoon at odds with a ever present wet sky, I attended the shed with a strong mug and tea and a determined expression.

I won’t bore you further with the non linear path from investigation to resolution, other than to say that – while mistakes were made – it was a triumph for a man who lacks patience, basic mechanical skills and no access to his normal medication. So proud of my endeavours, I sent Matt a picture of the finished work, after which he gently pointed out all the things that were wrong.

In my defence, I was occasionally distracted. Mostly by the job at hand. Rather than pick up any tools, I felt time was better spent dusting off an old MacBook and inserting a new operating system forcefully on its aging hardware. Now it acts as an 80s juke box projecting tinny audio to a bluetooth speaker. Sure I could already do that with my phone, but we can still all agree this was time well spent.

Running out of other shed based activities, I attended the matter in hand which quickly escalated to filth-encrusted bolts, scabby cables, mud cloaked parts, followed closely by an assorted collection of questionable adjustments I convinced myself would noticeably increase ride quality. **

Anyway job done, cables installed, shifting returned from the quantum realm and bike prepped for the next filthy outing. That filth is why I’m ignoring the extremely worn drive train and associated parts squeaking out requests for a mercy killing. Not happening until Spring is firmly anchored to the ground conditions.

And even flushed with this limited success, the prospect of attending to more difficult jobs reminded me that being lucky is a privilege not a right. Instead I went on a shed tidying spree that was both mostly pointless and extremely satisfying. By the end of which I couldn’t help but ponder “you know, there’s almost room for ANOTHER bike in here”

Hold that thought 🙂 Until then the hardtail with all the gears is to be pitted against the trails with all the rain. Best I can hope for is a score draw.

*After watching Oppenheimer, I have fallen down a Quantum Mechanics YouTube hole. I didn’t expect to emerge any smarter, which tracks closely to the reality of each video somehow rendering me even more stupid 😉

**I think we can all work out how well that went.

Two years ago I wrote this. It concluded ” And after today nothing else could go wrong surely?”. Consider this image as the first challenge to that assertion. It won’t be the last.

Before that, this: those intervening years have burnished perfect memories – downloaded that day – to reflect events in a rather more fantastical epic mythology. It is a ride oft remembered fondly when those riders, pubs and beer intersect. We all have our own versions, none of which stand up to any kind of evidential scrutiny- but are all agreed on the most important thing: It was a brilliant day.

Other than some photographic evidence, most of the experience is captured on this long video.

But let’s back up a bit. After a mostly sleepless night, the six of us stumbled into the darkness barely lit by the pre-dawn. In the time it took for the sun to crawl over the mountain, we’d kicked tyres*, squeezed brake levers and made a plan. “Train leaves at 10, it’s 1200 metres to the bottom of the valley, and we wearing shades”

Better plan: Collect Si’s car from town, shuttle to where we abandoned the van yesterday, rally both down to load up with bikes and riders before a short drive to Olette to catch that 10am train.  Timing were tight but we had a plan. It was a good plan. Right up until it we attempted to execute it.

Machine tooled logistics were going to get us there we told ourselves, Even in the presence of a man who once confidently dispatched me 900 metres down the WRONG MOUNTAIN.  Si** has a unique skill combining endless enthusiasm and a cheerful rejection of reality. He cherishes his ignorance of all things boring and detailed, instead sweeping up those around him with the kind of magical thinking almost always ending in mad adventures often passing into legend.

Don’t get me wrong, we all love him for it. And we keep falling for it. Si believes he is a man ideally suited for  a crisis and that’s true- if there wasn’t a crisis before he arrived, there certainly will be one once he’s left.

Okay, background done, strap in we’re going play by play.

8am- leave the refuge

Even after spending most of the previous day climbing, cold legs reluctantly spun us up a 100m climb to access the “trail that takes you all the way to the bottom, really you can’t go wrong“. That’s a phrase freighted with mild anxiety when such navigational certainty is confidently delivered by a man heading off in an entirely different direction.

Si – still helmetless – wisely chose the fire-road descent so waved us off with a cheerful “see you at the bottom, don’t hang around“.  Advice taken on board we set off only for Chris to crash ten seconds later. Maybe Si should have added “Oh and don’t stack it“.

Thankfully Chris was merely shaken and stirred himself into a passable resemblance of a mountain biker again taking the lead. First crossing of the fireroad, a brief navigational conference saw us taking the fork that punted us onto that knife edge ridge. Rather than turn back we carried on. I know, I know!

9am – That’s not a trail, it’s a waterfall with a footpath sign.

Hour later still going. Some riding, couple of crashes, much walking. Finally we cleared the rock strewn debris field and found a confused Si waiting for us. He pointed at another break in the lightening forest and – in an stunning act of delusion – we dived right into it. And it was great, fast, flowy and elevating the blood/adrenaline ration the frankly criminally underpowered 7am coffee had entirely failed to do.

10am
Arrive Vernet-les-baines and it’s still on. In a “if absolutely nothing else goes wrong” kind of way. Zero contingency, not a micrometer of room for fuck ups, no dicking about, let’s get this thing done.

Undone by the quantum particle that is Si James*** and his questionably legal, asset stripped Renault Clio. Slapstick closely followed frustration as bodies were scattered having failed to bump start the bastard. Si flicked switches, pulled fuses and shouted in terrible French. The car – also being French – responded with a firm “Non” and an automotive middle finger.

Steve and I conferred to check our Formula 1 credentials, found none so abandoned Si to chase electronic gremlins long departed from factory spec. Because RaceCar.  We did find half-decent coffee grumpily served by a waiter armed with a can of whipped cream and an absolute insistence to spray it. I know how that reads, but it was way funnier than it sounds. Probably hysteria creeping in.

While we were working hard on our caffeinated needs, Matt – being  a very practical man – secured a lift back up the mountain in a working vehicle. My phone recorded his safe retrieval of van, so we strolled back to the province of Much Bewilderment only to find Si had kicked the bloody thing into life.  Still in with a sniff,  but really no more delays. No one here *looks around, receives firm nods*  is at home to Mr Fuck Up? Right?

It was precisely at this  point Matt called us with the sub optional news that the van was running on fumes. A splash and dash had us racing to a date with the Yellow Train  soon to be briefly parked at the station.  And there it was- parked exactly where it should be, up to the point we finally arrived, when it left right on schedule.

11am – Racing the train

Deflation was the prevailing weather raining on the un-departed.  Moods didn’t improve when – on examining the time table – our next uplift vehicle wasn’t due too two hours so putting the rest of the days riding in jeopardy.

Further examination of the comings and goings of the train reminded us that while it is iconic, it’s not exactly fast. I can’t remember who suggested “We could race the train” but all of us thought it was a brilliant idea. Probably doomed to failure, but having considered other options and finding none, we were all in.

Expensive bikes carelessly thrown into the van fired the starting gun for us to storm out of the car park. We had a train to catch. Although not quite sure where and when. I called in logistics support from home and a few minutes later we had two options, one was closer but a little way off the main mountain road, the second offering easier access, but if we were caught behind a slow vehicle, game over.

Game on. I won’t attempt to document the one van assault on the mountain road other than to say we were serially flashed by a local astounded to find a large commercial vehicle door handling on the white line. Matt’s still very proud of that.

We piled into the station and then out of the van. Bikes dragged across railway lines giving us access to the uphill platform. I’d love to say the train pulled in right then, but we’d beaten it by seven minutes. That’s never going to get old.

Bikes loaded, we headed off for a well deserved sit down and thirty minutes of increasing views opening up the peaks but often shut off by endless tunnels. This train apparently makes very little commercial sense but we loved it. I really hope to be able to ride it again.

Not quite as warm was it looks from all that blue sky. Some of the reason for that is this train terminates at the highest station in Europe. We weren’t going that far though unless yet another navigational cowpat made a proper mess of our plans.

As I’ve said,  the train isn’t particularly fast. This is helpful when identifying if the next stop is actually your destination. Groupthink suggests it was, so we confidently jumped onto the platform and hauled the bikes out of the Guards Van.

Things were going well. Time to ride for lunch.

Midday

Sadly not all the way to top of where the fun starts. To avoid the inevitable climbing, we headed for lunch via a fizzy drink pit stop. It was also nearly the final resting place for Matt’s spare GoPro that Steve was filming with. Or not as we discovered a couple of hours later.

Spoiler: we collected it on our way back up the hill in the van a lot later that day. Amazingly it’d had been handed in and kept safe behind the bar.

A quick pedal out of town and into increasingly lumpy landscape deposited us at a perfect spot for lunch. Dubiously we investigated the squashed offerings collected from the Refuge. Let’s just say it was better than breakfast, but then so would be snacking on the dry stone wall.  Nice view tho.

1pm

Only 500m of climbing separated us from flipping downhill for 1400m of descending.  That’s a deal anyone would take, even those sleep deprived, poorly nutritioned riders hoisting three day packs up dusty, hot fireroads, Which made me wonder if hallucination explained what I was looking at, or if that really was a bloody tank? No, not one tank an entire armoured graveyard

Obviously we mugged on the chassis for a while before taking our leave to what Si promised was the final part of the climb. As I’ve alluded too, this is not my first James rodeo and it was a bloody miracle we were still in the right country. But the boy has done good, and it was only going to get better. So much better.

2pm

The first trail was that classic blend of nadge, flow and variations on the concept of discernability. Sometimes the line was obvious, often it wasn’t there at all. Si warned us of a barely marked fork, where the more obvious prong would likely punt you into open space over a cliff. So we sent him down first. And then followed at a safe distance.

This trail went on for quite a long time, and I was just slightly disappointed that it didn’t offer a bit more variety. Wooded singletrack giving off dusty vibes and throwing up solvable but tricky challenges are absolutely my thing. But being an ungrateful git, I really wanted something more.

More than even those views. Which launched themselves at bouncing eyeballs as we exited the forest and the trail opened up into the valley. Quite often on the edge of the valley as well. Long way down, best not to think about it. Although reviewing the GoPro footage, I was clearing thinking about it quite a lot***

Mostly though I couldn’t tear my eyes off the riders ahead, snaking down the hillside in an ever deepening boulder strewn trench. There were no big jumps or unridable drops, but there was a lot of rock, much of it speeding past at axle height.

Fast plunges through rock gulleys were brought up short by tight and steep switchbacks. Then back off the brakes, back your skills and commit to everything. Momentum really is your friend here, aided and abetted by long travel full suspension bikes built for pretty much this.

As were we, even when inappropriate middle age hollering sometimes drowned out the sound of my howling rear rotor. I’m mumbling nonsense the camera mic occasionally catches but mostly it’s Tourettes tuned by trail. “Come on Al, that’s a shit line“, “Fuck that one is even worse, get your shit sorted” and “Better, more of that dickhead” and even a whispered “Feel the Force Luke” as we dropped deeper into that trench and further into the valley.

I’ve ridden a lot of trails in the last twenty five years. A few of them with adequate briskness. Others rigid stiff with fear. The rest somewhere in between. Today our five rider train was paced right in the middle of my comfort zone and I just didn’t want it to end. Best trail I’ve ever ridden? Maybe, maybe not. But two years on and 30 mins from rewatching it from the GoPro perspective, all I want to do is ride it again.

Maybe every day. Or at least once a week.

Finally it had to end, leaving me with that un-bottleable feeling you only get after putting everything you’ve learned into fifteen minutes of trail, and knowing you couldn’t have given any more. Yeah that. A screen playing that out is a pale cipher of the real experience, but I’ve still watched it twice.

3pm – down and safe

We had a couple of trails to finish where it’s fair to say we’d got our eye in. Skidding onto the very same road we’d raced up a few hours before made me sad. We were done. And dusty. And also bloody thirsty, so when Si led us into the bar overlooking the station, somehow the day got even better.

Matt and Si were short-strawed on vehicle retreival duty. Cati, Steve and I stretched out on the terrace and watched the train go by. It’s mad this 100 year old relic still exists. I’m bloody glad it does, and ardently hope it’s still running when we come back. Because we’re definitely coming back.

The ride back up to Les Angles was less exciting that the train chasing version. The evening which followed was significantly more incident packed. But that’s a story for another day.

8PM

13 hours of chaos, serially dealing with stuff going south, getting it done, moving on before the next disaster rolled in. It could have been quite a lot easier, but I’m not sure it could have been any better. As a day on a bike, it’s right up there, as part of a trip that packed a years worth of laughs into five short days, it’s unforgettable.

Well apart from the bits I have forgotten. But you’ll have got the gist 🙂

*not Matt’s. That wheel had suffered enough percussive engineering already.

**Author of “The idiots guide to being an idiot”

***Is he alive or dead? Unknown but he’s certainly drunk.

**** Don’t look there Al, don’t look, Don’t, Oh for fucks sake you looked didn’t you?

For those of us gravity adhered to a rock hurtling through space at 70,000 MPH, considering the passing of time is – when you really think about it* – a properly random construct.

So it makes some kind of sense to slice our lives into neat divisions offering  illusionary agency to divide order from chaos.  Right until some hip physicist rocks up with “well, ya, spacetime is weird, it’s kind of a rubber sheet bending what you think of time at the edges” at which point your brain fires off a neurone shrug to the medicine tipping hand making all this go away.

On that happy note, do grab the beverage of your choice because the time has come to present the  “2025 Hedgies“**. A single image per month context’d by whatever my increasing string-vest like memory can offer up. With a link to an infrequent post if I can find one. If not, well at least you’ve been spared that.

January

Putting something back:  Matt, H and I go big on the dig

Two days ago, Matt and I were back on the shovel in the same location. Four hours of deep sub soil analysis resulted in initial findings best summarised as “Wet, heavy and apparently endless“.  We could have gone even deeper – limited only by crumbling limbs, and the worry we might discover Australia from the underside.

Carol and I abandoned the UK for some winter sun, and – in my case – a water tight excuse to give the side eye to all that joyless liquid associated with Dry January.

February

Steve and I went to Cwmcarn to escape the mud. Having only climbed about a million meters, we decided an off piste adventure would enhance an already fantastic days riding. Adventure it certainly was when our random trail selection met the fall line. By the time we found the car – distanced some 5km from the trails end – I was only good for a long lie down. Which may explain why I backed said car into a wall. On the upside only the bike trailer was damaged during this moment of brain fart-ery.

March

One and done?: Sadly not

My 10km saga which I’d mentally extended to a full marathon.  Most people are dismissive of running misremembering their zoomie school days. Running is easy they say. For proper athletes like Ian – without whom I’d have never got off the sofa – it is, for me it’s 80% hard graft and 20% worrying about my knees.

Got it done in a time that both surprised and impressed me. Probably no one else. Don’t care, intended to file it in the out tray and administer a sharp slap to anyone suggesting something stupid like trying again. No one could be that lucky twice. On that note, see you in March 2026 with a frankly delusional target to knock out a sub 50 min 10km now I’m a kilo heavier and a year older.

I expect that’ll go well.

April

How has that happened? I think we all know.

A new bike, but – more importantly- an old friend. Olli and go back 20+ years but we’ve never really met outside work.  Finally we got to ride together on his home trails west of Frankfurt. Carol and I had a fantastic road trip to get there, and a fab time being hosted by Olli and his lovely family.

The firm plan had us reciprocating the following month with a smorgasbord of our awesome local trails garnished with some mountain epics.  Yeah, about that.

Smuggled the bike home and waved an index finger at a work day when Steve suggested a ride down the valley. And up. And around. And – in my case – attempting to re-sculpture a small part of it with my elbow.

More of this, less of that.

At which point my fitness and riding confidence were sky high. Trail conditions were perfect and we’re heading into a summer full of Singletrack, dust and cold beers. Yeah, as I said, about that.

May

Okay this was April but I’m sneaking it in to prolong the mystery of what happened this month. Castles and Marches tour. Four days, three nights, two riders, many metres of climbing. Was a fantastic experience I’m desperate to repeat in 2026. Just not on a drop bar bike.  Hills, so many hills

A single image labelled “say goodbye to your riding summer“.  Snap, crackle and pop indeed. Definitely went through the five stages of grief with that one. Although my version went “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK‘.

I made my peace with it in the twelve non riding weeks which followed. Bone has healed, all the squidgy stuff about neck height might need a bit more time.

June

While the driest summer in living memory was represented in WhatsApp groups I no longer really felt part of, my focus shifted to thinning down the inventory in the ShedofDreams(tm). I could barely get in there to count the  number of “it’s all got a bit out of hand” fantastic trail bikes.

The RipMo and Yeti had to go. Neither of which was without exciting last minute revelations my one armed gesturing could have done without. The Yeti had a crack entirely unnoticed in my ownership, and the RipMo went long on PinkBike before a lovely fella turned up on his way to ride it in Morzine.

Thankfully both scenarios ended well and the shed was diminished in a way suggesting a very targeted bulgary. Especially as the gravel bike failed to make the “if you haven’t got proper bars you’re not coming in” grade. Still progress eh, three out and only one in. That’s adulting right there.

July

Or not as will become increasingly clear. My love of bike packing had always been mitigated by the bike doing the packing. So even tho I couldn’t ride it, a second hardtail*** was wrangled through Brexit nonsense to be built by Matt and ridden by no one. Still those tan walls eh?

Carol and I instead headed off the Denmark, where Copenhagen was a delight even if I couldn’t ride any of the million bikes that make up 15% of the transport system.

August

Yes. A MTB ride. Not much of one. And medically frowned upon. But it was that or vodka on the cornflakes. I worried I hadn’t missed riding anywhere near as much as I expected. Back on the bike, any bike, any trail shifted that hypothesis from supposition to bare faced lie.

Recovering bikeaholics

September

A week is a long time in…

There’s a couple of posts circling that image. One celebrates getting back on proper trails albeit with extreme caution. The second – a week later – is a self pitying lament to how I can’t do this MTB thing anymore. So obviously I chose that one 😉

Returning to the site of the accident did nothing for me in terms of closure. I could see exactly where it had all gone wrong, and – given the same time again – nothing in my skills toolbox would have saved me. I guess that was the lesson. It wasn’t much fun learning it.

September

Yes, another one: ShedofDrama

Hereford fracture clinic is sited near the site of the old cattle market. This is not a coincidence as anyone who has attempted to access that department will attest. However, even after much jostling and queuing for a time to wait, my final x-ray showed all things collarbone joined and healed. If a little shorter- that’s fine I’ll take that over a long term injury.

Somewhat inevitably, I  immediately celebrated by buying a new (to me) bike. Reasons are in the post linked above, none of them are valid.  Nothing new there, but that bike really is- rode it today (31/12) and it’s just my fav bike by some distance. Bit of a worry for the Hugene, but that’s a problem for future me.

October

With he summer being so dry and amazing, my time to ride crossed into Autumn where all the moisture missing from the previous season rained down on a daily basis. Back on the hardtail but that’s really not a problem when it’s still warm and only mostly wet.

I was just happy to be riding. Even after a couple of rain swept horrors reminding me what happens when grip doesn’t. Still put a smile on my face even if the prospect of four more months of just the same, only colder, wiped it off.

November

My friend Simon splattered his collarbone the week after me. This is not his first shoulder based rodeo having smashed the other one some ten years earlier. We’ve been rehab’ing together on carefully rated for “collarbone friendly‘. This hasn’t stopped Simon crashing at least twice on healing bones.

Remember summer?

December

We find ourselves at the end of the year. Wow that went quickly. Or slowly if you were gazing discontentaly out of the window at a summer happening for everyone else. Still time to move on even if the shoulder hasn’t completely got that memo. It’s still improving and I can ride when I want, although maybe not as well as I could.

It’ll come back. Probably. And if it doesn’t, it’s a million times better to be slogging around in the mud than experiencing outside from inside. Just keep sending him up and all that.  On that note, the annual Gap ride was amazing this year. Blue skies and sub zero temps. As it should be.  A fab way to finish the year.

Right 2026, more riding and less crashing. We’re agreed on that, yes? In that case let’s be having you 🙂

*Although I wouldn’t recommend this. It bends my brain past the leakage tipping point. Also see “orbital mechanics” if you want to feel really stupid.

**My own award ceremony curated entirely from what’s left of my memory selecting images chosen entirely to place me in the best possible light.

***Yes I could use the BfE with lighter wheels for the same job. But it’s me, so that was never going to happen.

Sometimes the season ratchet cranks slowly. Not the meteorological season, no the solemn switcheroo of bikes in the shed. Needy multi pivoted, bearing heavy engineering marvels are sadly backgrounded by multiple mudguards seeking a willing host.

I have two of those for reasons probably best filed under “let us never speak of this again“. The senior bike and big dog is the steely eyelet’d BfE campaigning it’s fourth winter season.* Not much has changed other than some fork jigapokery and Matt beating the dropper post back into an operating mode not requiring a hammer to make the magic happen.

Late October, there’s normally some hand scale judgement bike selection. “Yeah rained a bit, but ground was pretty dry, reckon I can risk a pivot” or “if we’re riding that trail, sod the collapsed bearings, I’m going to need all the skill compensation I can get“. Not this year, world’s gone to shit, and the weather vectored hard in that direction. It started raining so much I’ve had the Noah movie on hard repeat, and it’s not stopped since.

It’s filthy out there. Going out is hard enough, going sideways is mandatory. I’ve blathered on for years regarding the questionable mental state of my fellow riders who relish Hardtail season in very much the same way that Druids lustily lick Stonehenge.  They look kind of normal*** but no person within a moonshot of reality can enjoy this level of filth. Embrace it sure, if you must. Enjoy it… they walk amongst us. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Under stiff cross examination, I would grudgingly admit it’s not all terrible. More so early season when the ground hasn’t completely given up on solidity, while temperatures are on the right side of freezing.  Pick your fights, choose your trails and fun times can emerge from the filth. But all day death marches on energy sapping wheel slipping misery? Nah you can keep that.

Displacement activity is a better option. Forestry harvesting transformed a much loved trail – from sinewy singletrack barely scratched out from pine-y dirt to a stumpy apocalypse with the original lines buried deeply under anything discarded as non profitable. Eight of us equipped with one rusty trail saw and a few sticks spent a happy two hours clearing the brash to create something both familiar and new.

Excellent community effort and it rides great. But there’s plenty more trail maintenance backed up by winter wetness. Digging out the main climb falls to Matt, H and I, so I expect a visit to the chiropractor will be a priority calendar entry early in 2026. Sometimes tho you just need to kick winging to the curb and ride whatever the conditions, because we’re not in California anymore Dorothy.

So I pulled the spare**** hardtail off the wall to pit those summer hard XC tyres against the softness of hardtail season.  Not ridden this bike since my collarbone made nice with both ends speaking to each other again – so abandoning it as a dusty relic in the shed. A single ride this week and that dust was gone, now a filth pig as was I returning shaken and somewhat stirred by ninety minutes of heading in random directions not obviously commanded by the meatbag desperately sawing at the bars.

Reverting back to the designated winter hardtail, a local ride demonstrated how well the trails hold up at this time of year. Until they don’t. Roll forward five minutes from that photo to geolocate yourself at not one but two “how I am not reviewing recent kinetic events from the shrubbery” incidents.

The first manifested itself after a small gap jump landing into a massive braking rut. So violent was the experience I found myself pinged out into grip-less slop before a desperate bar wrench deposited me back into a line of dirt based cobbles apparently designed to apply breaking strain to that recently healed collarbone.

Two minutes later, and barely ten beats down on the HRM, Kai – the rider in front of me – made a brave decision to leave his bike so as to perform an impromptu analysis of the local sub soil. Obviously I laughed and pointed. Just as obviously a hundred yards down the trail, I entered a root infested bomb hole mostly sideways and failed to exit. Took a while to get out. Wasn’t sure we weren’t going to need to hire a crane.

Still keep sending him up and all that. Matt and I picked great trails last weekend. Other than the last one, but by this time we’d earned our “mud legs” so happily slithered about in a parody of forward motion. The previous two hours however had reestablished my cautious approach to questionable grip and rain polished roots.

No crashes tho, a few enduro tripods and some spiking of heart rate once passenger mode was engaged. At some point that day, the solstice wandered up and pointed towards spring. It can’t come soon enough for me.

But no point wishing your life away. Still got at least two more months of hardtail season.  Every time I wonder if I can be arsed, the turbo trainer gives me the side eye. And I am so done with that.

Right then, where did I leave those waterproofs?

* so flying in the face of baseless rumours insinuating my strategic** approach to bike rotation is now so far advanced, it’s basically quantum.

**Full transparency suggests other opinions are available when soberly analysing my bike collection.

*** “kind of” is doing some heavy lifting here.

****We will get to the “beige adventurer” soon. I’d like to say I’ve been busy, but honestly I’ve just been lazy 😉

Before we start, I suggest you locate a large sheet of paper and a sharpened pencil. Shit’s about to get real 🙂 The revolving door of the ShedofDreams(tm) is rotating at such speed it is a minor miracle it has not been torn from its hinges, and is now accelerating dangerously towards the western horizon.

While cataloguing the increasingly baffling ins, outs and some shaking it all about of the last few months feels important, firstly I feel the need to update my bike buying rationale. Long time readers of the hedgehog may remember one of the bedrocks of our marriage is I pretend to be executing a 4D chess bike curation strategy and Carol pretends to believe me.

Strip back niche chasing fads, shiny new toys and perceived gaps in an already stacked bike shed, it really comes down to nothing more than I like buying and riding bikes. This is not just rampant consumerism- I’m entirely uninterested in – for example – changing my five year old car. It does everything I need it to do without costing me much money in doing so*

Bikes tho, maybe it used to be chasing “the one” perfect frame. But I’m honest enough nowadays to peg the lowest common denominator as the ham-fisted baboon making a horses arse of riding anywhere near the limit of whatever is unfortunate enough to be the steed of the day.

There’s also a persuasive argument stating riding one bike all the time will make you faster and more confident. Well maybe, but I’m not chasing those metrics much either. Finally bike overlap appears to be a issue for those following the cult of the one true bike. Again, I don’t care- wake up, choose a bike, go riding. Not sure what the problem is.

However, even for a man spitballing nonsense on multiple bike ownership, owning three trail bikes with similar dimensions, travel and components is difficult to reconcile. Sober anyway. I always knew the Propain represented the trail bike hegemony leaving the RipMo and SB130LR as shed queens since April this year**

Both went on various selling sites with variable levels of interest and offers ranging between insulting and bizarre. Do I look like a man in need of a broken PS2 and a pair of axle stands? They both eventually sold each with it’s own slightly odd story.

The RipMo went to a lovely fella who was travelling to Morzine the very next day. He wanted a bike better suited to those trails in an attempt to keep his teenage sons in sight. The Yeti sold then rapidly unsold after a crack was discovered near the bottom bracket. Not smashed in my ownership, and I’d been riding it for 18 months!

After much back and forth, that sold at a price reflective of the cost of a full repair. And the Digger had already been shipped out before I smashed myself up. So N-3; hence the uneasy feeling on entering the shed that we’d been the victims of selective but invasive burglary.

Time to address that. Firstly came the gravel bike replacement. A steel framed, 140mm forked, lightly built backpacking hardtail. With XC tyres, it’s a hoot on easy trails and I expect it’ll be the ideal companion on planned 48 hour lightening raids crisscrossing Welsh mountains. All hail the beige adventurer.

So, and do try and keep up, we have the Cotic BFE (4 years old) hardcore winter hardtail and all round antidote to needing a full suss for most of my riding, Nordest Britango for blasts from the house and trips to the hills, the Hugene as my all round trail bike for most of my non winter riding, leaving only the never-to-be-sold Nukeproof Giga (also 4 years old) for when a big bike adventure awaits.

Done and dusty. Hard to cram anything else into some perceived micro niche. For most people anyway, which I am not. There’s a certain serendipity to the image at the top of this blog. I bought my second ever MTB from Stiff Mountain Bikes in Headingly. I remember debating the merits of a 110mm over a 120mm stem!

25 years on and sadly that shop is closing down for good. Leaving with a set of blow out deals that caught my roving eye. Specifically that ex-demo Santa Cruz 5010: yes it’s another sort of trail bike, no it’s not that different to what I have other than a right-on-trend 27.5in rear wheel. Good for jibbers apparently. No idea what that is but assume there are tablets to help.

I bought it because it was cheap- relatively the RRP on these things is insane. Surely no one outside of Audi owning Surrey dentists ever pays full price. This was further discounted with it being an ex-demo model with a few scars from over enthusiastic testers. Nothing more than cosmetic tho and – most importantly – in the fastest colour available.

So what’s it like? Only ridden it once in a timeline of increasing dampness. And I’m only three rides post splatterday all clear. It was fun tho, lots of fun, fast turning in fun, involving trail chatter fun, soft off the top but grippy traction fun. No idea tho if this is just riding bikes, riding new bikes or riding bikes without worrying about injuries.

Whatever, it was great and I have zero regrets.  The shed feels “about right” and I don’t expect the call of the shiny to be heard anytime soon.

It is me tho, so….

*nowadays that means: comfortable seats, decent aircon, reasonable stereo, not hard to park 😉

**My plan was to ride the RipMo on “Splatterday” but a quick lap of the farm track had me shunting it behind the Hugene. Not sure it’d have made any difference.