I’m not referring to the exploitive pagan festival first repackaged for Christianity and latterly for mass consumerism and financial misery*. No this this is something far more important: The Grim Has Returned both outside and in. The trails have gone from unseasonably dry passing through amusingly damp before arriving at their current status of tractionless filth. My own gritty trekthrough this pantheon of grisly misery has led me to question if I’ve ever ridden in proper mud before. A brief but depressing journey from – in my mind anyway – a fast’n’loose hip-sliding champion to a stiff’n’rigid tyre-slding loser wondering who drowned all the fun.

This happens every year. And there are always excuses. 2016 has both a short and long version; short: I’ve not been very well. long: I’ve succumbed to the worst kind of modern plague- visiting upon me many and varied symptoms, the worst being a digestive system suffering a 4 day colonic irrigation through theextensive use of a porcupine. A diet of dry toast and misery has done nothing to stop the bastard virus in my guts recycle any food whatsoever into foul liquid. With spikes. Too much information? Ha. I’ve spared you the gory details. But before Idraw a veil over any further revelations, let me be absolutely clear it’ll be a while before I can cough with any kind of confidence.

This personal Krakatoa coincided with the delayed seasonal rains and the Forest Christmas ride. It was pretty much touch and go if I was going to make it. Having been ‘going’ quite extensively in the few hours before the night-time rendezvous. Still stiff upper lit and all that even if things were a bit loose elsewhere. Fastened my shorts for the last time, gave the gurgling small intestine a good talking too and plunged into the darkness. Where I met my riding pals, all of whom showed great concern and sympathy for my evidently serious medical condition. Yeah, like fuck. Essentially accused of extreme malingering and being a social media special snowflake- their cackles accompanied us up through the gun range as my legs came to terms with being fuelled by a couple of biscuits and flickery motivation.

Irrespective of being within sight of the morticians slab, these are not my favourite conditions. Dark, Wet and Muddy. Hey let me throw in a cultural reference – this is the Holy Trinity of the unmotivated. We disciples of the grim differ in our steadfastness of faith in these trying times. Only one has Judas-like tendencies hiding dark thoughts of naffing off before the Last Descent. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want my riding pals crucified, I just wish the buggers would consider a little charity for the faltering one needing to feel the warm embrace of the pub.

In lighter times, these trails offer me the chance to hang on to the wheels of my betters. Not now tho, three corners and it’s all of them gone and one of mehanging off the back, harvesting limited traction through extensive use of the brakes, and idly wondering whether I’ll end up in a heap under the bike or more excitingly bonded to a tree like a flailing low level branch. The conditions actually aren’t that bad except in the most important place which isn’t the ground out in front of you, it’s more the squishy thing inside your head. Yep we’re back to thinking not doing, worrying not pushing, braking not flowing. Still even in limp-home mode, it’s good to be out even if my pace uphill and downhill is pretty much the Wikipedia citation for ‘Entropy‘

Eventually under my sustained pleading, we head to the pub via a final slimy trailI descend in the manner of an oversize fridge glued to a roller skate. Nobody really notices other than me, and I don’t care much either as my mind has moved on to the main event. Where we offer cash for beer and throw in a dirty protest for free. Pints are assembled, bollocks is talked, an entire new measurement of time – The Yodel – is created. There is much pointing and laughing. Tales are told, plans are made, friendship is assured for another year. Handshakes are offered – we don’t hug, we’re not American – before we slip away to our other families, our non riding commitments, what other people consider real life.

A couple of weeks ago, I did something similar with the guys I ride with in the Malverns. No pub but we stopped for Sloe Gin and Mince pies half way round. And parted in the same way. We’ll ride together soon, cursing the long shadow of winter, working hard on sloppy climbs and holding it together on sketchy descents. Getting the shitty season done and counting the days until Spring.

This is my tribe. And this is our church. You can make a dumb comparison to religion, extend it through contrasting iconography and forge spurious links between the two. Many clever people have, but for me that’s missing the point. Humanity basically operates on our subscription to a shared myth. You can choose a belief system which tells stories of omnipresent beings, or consider instead something a little more physical, a whole lot more fun and with many more pub-based interactions.

Choose either. Or both. It doesn’t matter.There’s too much horrible stuff going on right now over which we have scarily little control. It’s hard to know what’s coming for us first; global financial meltdown, environmental catastrophe or some kind of ‘war to end them all‘ started on Twitter by a man-boywho is neither presidential nor can even spell it. On that happy note, I wish all my readers a Happy Christmas and a prosperous new year 😉

I’ll be riding my bike with my friends. When you consider the option is not to do that, getting a bit muddy and being a bit rubbish doesn’t really seem to matter at all.

*I’ve consistently held this position. And now being nearly 50, it’s unlikely the joys of Christmas shall ever be visited on me. But hey if you need an excuse to photocopy** your arse whilst wearing a stupid jumper, fill your boots as it were.

**Told you I was old. All you youngsters are surely 3-D printing your unmentionables nowadays.

(wrote this while we were in San Francisco. Seems a long time ago now!)

There are so many. Epic days lost in the mist shroudinghigh places, dust blind on summeralpine singletrack, numb fingered on frosty night rides with owls silhouetted under a harvest moon, or summer days heart bursting betweenthe trees and always a beer to finish.

These are good of course, great even. Retrieved from deep storage when spiteful rain smashes office window panes. Shared experiences withthose who are a bit like you, who ‘get it’, who know the rolled eyes of partners who don’t. There’s much to celebrate here- like minded friends and awesome trails. It should be enough but strangely it isn’t.

The skeleton in the closet is made flesh each time you leave the house and abandon those in your care. They say it’s fine and mostly it is, but this doesn’t absolve you of the guilt that you could have done more. It fails to assuage the regret of being a bit of a rubbish Dad. It exposes the vicarious failing of making thosein your image.

I taught my wife to ride. It went well right up to the point where she ended up in hospital. Undaunted my kids received similar training progressing from stabilisers to full on bling mountain bikes in all the time you could ask ‘are you enjoying this?‘, One of them did before encountering teenage-ism, the other less so trying hard but mostly spending his time lying in bushes wondering if we could go home now.

So I gave up. Three bikes gathered dust on the wall whilst mine were campaigned through many seasons, ever changing but anchored by theconstant that it was all about me. Today we changed thata little bit and now I finally get it’s not about the bike.

San Francisco is a very bike-y city. Can’t move for the bloody things weaving between the ear-phoned runners and deluded segway riders. Many of the 17 million visitors a year wobble dangerously on brilliant shared cycle paths heading mostly to the iconic bridge and occasionally into the local scrub.

Two of my family don’t ride at all. Aproblem solved findingone of the bike-hiring multitude offered tandems of dubious provenance. We hired a pair, one with rusted forks offering around two kilos of weight in exchange foran inch of travel,the other shod with tyres exactly one generation downstream from the discovery of vulcanisation.

Initial Leigh to Bicycle interfaces didn’t go so well. Brakes the wrong way round would have been a problem had they offered anything but bar mounted accessorisaion. About the front brake? Yes? I would have liked one. Those bars spanned a width last seen on 1980s race bikes from whichthe vertical head angle had been stolen. It should not be possible that any bike with a length occupyingtwo States simultaneouslyto be eyebrow-steeringly twitchy. And yet through the magic of geometry I found myself wobbling in the direction of the Pacific while sawing desperately at the hip width bars.

And I ride bikes a lot, My youngest daughter has barely swung a leg over a top tube for a year and while game, was in danger of chucking herself and her brother into a passing taxi.

Family meeting. Kids split between bikes. I get the nervous eldest as my stoker and Carol’s bravely assumed the rear position on the drunken perambulator piloted by Jess. It’s hard to think of what possibly could go wrong.

Nothing did. We rode brilliant bike paths, were overtaken by keen joggers, stopped a hundredtimes to capture jaw dropping vistas, pushed a bit, pedalled a bit more all the time making inexorable progress towards the bridge. Progress briefly halted when the family idiot abandoned his helmet atthe bottom of one of the few chewy climbs on the route.

Dispatch the stoker and head back down. I’ve ridden many rubbish mountain bikes on sketchy descents and been properly scared. Yet nothing prepared me for the terror of 45lbs of acute-angled pig iron barely adhered to the tarmac on perished tyres. I cannot believe you’d ride one of these off road. And survive anyway.

The bridge was amazing – windy, crowded and noisy but amazing nevertheless. I was heart-burstingly proud of our little family getting it done, ignoring the carbon transported, Rapha clothed, shaven legged weekend heroes passing with an inch to spare*, instead being open mouthed at the view and the very fact we were riding this iconic infrastructure mostly only seen being destroyed in movies.

The descent under the bridge wasn’t without incident. I’ve got the boy leaning in and we’re topping 40kph on tyres held together by a few threads and habit while, not far behind us, Jess and Carol are close to bouncing off walls due to what I’ll charitably call Jess’s lack of spacial awareness.

We survive and it’s 3km up one big hill and then cruising down the far side to the ferry. Time for an ice cream and some high fives. There’s talk of tender arses and weary legs but that’s the first sniff of complaint I’ve heard all day.

This ride had no technical difficulty. We averaged a speed that wouldn’t trouble a weekend jogger.The bikes were terrible. But they were also awesome being the medium in which we all had a bloody lovely time, Last time I crossed the Golden Gate bridge was on a Harley some 15 years ago with a bunch of like-minded mates.

That was great. This was better. It’s really not about the bike.

*on my way back up the hill after forgetting my helmet, I overtook two roadies and kept them behind all the way, Awardingme a strava position of 7,205 of 22,000 on that climb. Says way more about them that me 🙂

We established early on that fat bikes are silly. Ridiculous even. Especially when campaigned in their endless look-at-me-glory in a landlocked county miles from any sand. Short of riding through the detritus of a builders van, they have all the efficacy of a chocolate fireguard.

Fun tho. Most would agree, if only briefly. In the same vein as one should try everything once other than buggery and bankruptcy* – having invested none too wisely in Fat Futures, I’ve flirted dangerously with at least one of those**

So silly and fun, for a given value of fun. Oh no dear reader w’re missing the point here. Fat Bikes are nothing less than a gateway drug into the sordid world of the chubby. First we get fat, then we get chubby. Some may be dragged in only to publicly shun the dragon chasing rush of the semi-fat by pretending they did’t inhale, while many others are lost in a maelstrom of standards, sizes and a fetishness for rubber which suggests other specialist publications.

My name is Alex and it’s been 4 hours since my last chubby. And 4 months since the fat bike saw light outside the shedofdreams. Not quite true, I lent it to the local bike shop whose mechanic was extremely keen to give it a try. Two months later it was EXACTLY where I left it attracting much interest but no actual riding.

Not wishing to consign it to the endless experience of a bike shaped elephant man, I threw it back in the rather crowded shed between many other bikes all of which were being ridden. And a parts bin that had â “new bikeâ” written all over it. Which is probably the same phrase that’ll pointedly anoint my gravestone. Fat thoughi s still good. I’ve been to the USA recently. Trust me, fat can be very good indeed if you’re elbows deep into a burger the size of a small island and cheerful staff are reaching over to pass you a cold beer. 4 Kilos of overweight baggage returning in Seat 43c cannot be wrong.

Chubby tho is just a little bit better. In that if everyone is fat you don’t feel left out. We can all be big boned with an overactive thyroid. Slow metabolism, fast pie hand and all that. But when you’re pin balling between trees while your thinner tyre-d friends pop over the horizon, it feels as if you’ve been matriculated into a club of exactly one. And the piss taking. That can get a bit old as well.

Switch to chubby, and I’m still not going to be out front – unless everyone else wants a rest – but at least I’m in the same post code as those with whom I just climbed the last hill with. All the fat bike traits – other than the reflected glory of being visibly different – bonkers grip, monster truck roll-ability, nutty cornering velocity and cartoon looks are pretty much there. And you can suspend normal looking frames between them without breaking many of the rules that make mountain bikes endlessly practical. Suspension for a start.

Suspension on a fat bike has a few advocates. Most of whom waffle and displace in the manner of any modern politician. 4 inches of damped vertical movement fighting about half of that undamped by a massive tyre is hardly a byword for effective vibration quelling. And there’s the whole Fat culture which states one must be fully rigid to pass into the Masonic Groupthink.. All the time being vigorously bearded. Terrible generalisations I know but as I’ve just sold my fatbike I’m free of ridicule by association. Although not ridicule because of what happened next.

I have a chubby bike. It’s my Trek Stache. I bought it very cheaply in order to upgrade it very expensively. At which point it was perfect. Then I demo’d a full suss chubby in the pissing rain a few weeks ago. Wet roots, muddy trails – dampness abounded, it was an inauspicious day to pretend the emperor may indeed be wearing some new clothes. I loved it tho, not the one recommended but the nimble version as size below. As nimble as a pair of tyres summing to nearly six inches can be. Rode the bigger one, didn’t like it. Rode the one with normal tyres, didn’t like that either. Only had eyes for the Stubby Chubby. Which is pretty much the bike resembling the potential owner.

So I bought one. Built it last night- well not me but Matt which proved apposite since it involved innovative engineering way beyond ‘do you think this might invalidate the warranty’ when it came to certain components – rode it today. Box fresh bikes always ride the best, that’s the lore. New bike goggles rarely suggest anything else.

Will it make me faster? Of course it fucking won’t. No bike, however fantastic, can do that. If it has brakes anyway. Does it replace anything? No again I’m afraid. Although I sold the fat bike to a mate as he wanted one, whilst I’m currently in a mental cycle which thinksI don’t. Will I have more fun? Dunno, I’ll probably tell myself I am.

Do new bikes make me happy? Oh Yeah. Isn’t that really shallow? Indeed it is. Do I care? Not massively 🙂

*Apparently Thomas Beecham considered incest and Morris dancing the baseline a few years back. But Oscar Wilde got there first so we’re going with the senior man here.

** Bankruptcy just so we’re absolutely clear.

That’sparaphrasing Buzz Lightyear; now that was a toy who constantly over-stated his own importance. So deludedbelievinghecould fly. Yeah, we’ve all been there Buzz. There’s an ironic tautology in hisoriginal mission statement with infinity being unreachable so making beyond achievable. This is how I think of my quest to divine the perfect bicycle.

In a world of chaos, standards should bring order. Which would be fine were there not so many competing ones to choose from. Not satisfied with creating three wheel sizes all within a finger length of each other, those cheeky innovators – who cunningly fuse product and marketing in onomatopoeic triumph – make serious claims that the one true way lies* in increasing both length and girth**

Enter boost, the proto-standard for wider hubs, stiffer wheels and fatter tyres. Not fat bike width because that’s both silly and already selling to a willing audience. Mostly vigorously bearded within an ever decreasingcircle of like-minded fundamentalists. So ˜Plus’ are differently great squashing into a niche between too fat and not quite fat enough. I should know I bought one but really wanted two. For even within this brave new world, no one is quite sure yet who might be king – is it 29+ built into special frames with bold new graphics? Or it’s littler brother, 27.5+ surfing on the zeitgeist of last years brand new thing which is cram-able into existing frames with just a fork upgrade.

I ignored such obvious increments feeling because my big Chubby was already so good. The only thing I didn’t much like was the fork, festooned with more knobs than a BMW event and equally slippery in the corners. So in a budget conscious upgrade I researched and purchased a replacement with a little more travel ignoring my peers who live by the rule that moooarr is always better. An extra inch would be fine*, perfect in fact. Except the product researched was not the same as the one purchased – a technical oversight only appreciated once we’d cut the steerer and attempted to refit the 29+ wheel. In that order. Fork would only fit 27.5+. Bugger.

The sensible option – having drowned the mirth of my mates in beer – would have been to sell at a small loss and start again, or stick ˜em on the shelf as realistically they’d behandily located close to the conveyer belt of my bike ownership. What I did instead tells you a lot about my insanity trajectory. Fuelled initially by a slightly less piss-taking pal who offered me his 650b+ wheels to try in the frame. Great I said, except the front one won’t fit as it’s last weeks standard. No problem I’ll just build a new one as – again – proximity to the shed suggests it’d end up being useful for something. In this case as the front half of my shortened dandy-horse with bits flipped and wheelbase shortened. Most bike makers have no idea which standard mightfinally stick so are designing frames to take basically anything in a throwing shit at a wall kind of way.

Even this simple change wasn’t simple at all with 10-to-11 speed conversionsbeing wrangled around SRAM and Shimano refusing to accept the existence of each other. Eventually we hit the trails at which point my first thought was ˜I wish I’d bought the longer fork now the wheels are smaller’. Said nothing tho as not wishingto be an accessory to manslaughter when anyone within hearing distance died from laughter. A few more rides convinced me this could very much be the boost I was looking for. Upsides included far snappier turn in – tales of ringing bells and shouting full right rudder from riders on 29+ are over-stated – but there’s a difference in the tight stuff where this felt closer to an extremely well damped hardtail and less like a full on fat bike.

Acceleration was a little quicker, tyre choice is better especially if you have access to Haydn’s rubber emporium where he seems to have bought every plus tyre known to man and possibly a few illegal remoulds. Downsides were there’s a bit of cush – especially on the rear – you lose and a little of the monster truck roll over is compromised, but mainly that my tyre-hoarding friend not unreasonably wanted his wheel back.

Again if Mr Sensible were in the driving seat, we’d be back on the road to financial probity and refitting the parts owned and paid for. Never going to happen because Impetuous the drunk took the wheel, crashed into the bike shop and pointed at shiny new round things demanding the owner ˜take my money‘, Which he did delivering back a perfect wheel naked as the day it was made. A second trip to Haydn’s warehouse of all things rubbery and we were ready to go, travel great distances and conquer huge obstacles powered by rightness and the satisfaction of having followed our dreams – a place where logic, rationale and imminent bankruptcy rarely get a look in.

Except we weren’t. Because the disks from the old wheels were one standard and the new ones something else entirely, And the chain too worn to run on a new cassette which also necessitated further transmission purchases to guarantee smooth running. Smooth that is, if a little harsh – you see I couldn’t shake the feeling that a 140mm fork would be so much better than the clearly inferior 120mm admirably holding up the front end.

Parts were ordered, parts failed to turn up, suppliers were shouted at, parts still failed to turn up, the world turned and I kept riding the chubby in drying conditions. And it was close to brilliant on the local trails, bang it into a corner, MBR high elbow optional – but you know for the look of the thing – eyes on the apex, fingers off the brakes and experience the magic of 3 inch tyres biting into tortured dirt. If you push just a little bit harder, it’ll fling you out the other side with little pilot input other than a big grin. Sure all bikes do this, but chubby’s do it a bit better if – like me – you’re not really very good at the whole entry-apex-exit thing. So yeah, fab but that fork¦.

Finally the part, which I’d now recategorised as a mythical beast that was much heard about but never seen, arrived and a single day later we were riding atop a longer fork and IT WAS FINISHED. Irritatingly finished 24 hours before a family holiday entirely incompatible with tree splattering injuries. Best take it easy then especially as the suspension-man gave me strict instruction to run the fork a little harder than my normal ˜yeah that’s abut right‘ level of sag. Mincing about it still seemed to be going quite fast, with the now perfect fork using nowhere near fulltravel even when challenged with some of my rubbish landings.

If anything tho, it whipped round the corners with even more precision. Not a word to be used lightly when I’m behind the bars. It gave me a bit more confidence which was rewarded with a bit more speed which then led to less braking and even more speed. Speed being a relative term but the devil that is Strava said nice things once we’d dusted ourselves off in the pub.

So have the four figure upgrades delivered value then? I guess that depends on your definition of value. Qualitatively, absolutely not – the cost of the minor increase in performance cannot be justified evenwithin the skewed universe I inhabit.Qualitatively tho – that’s harder, it’s been a fun experience and I absolutely lovethe chubby. The Aeris is a better all round bike of course, but I think the plus bike is just a bit more fun. As if it makes cornering – which makes up a fairly substantial part of of the riding metier – a little closer to perfection,you cannotput a price on that.

Two things to finish on – firstly after that first ride a good 20mm of suspension travel remained unused. Yep exactly the place I came in thinking that was all the bike lacked. Secondly my favourite bike manufacturer has unveiled some thigh-rubbing chubby full suss bikes two of which I’ll be demo-ing next month. I can’t see that ending well.

C’mon Buzz we’ve infinity to discover.

*either semantic definition works here.

**and there’s not many who would argue with that. Not those with x and y chromosomes anyway.

*** I’m not doing this on purpose. I’ve already taken out two references to ˜flange’

Mythology is a school of pseudo-science rarely attended by the Hedgehog. For good reason; most of it is the laughable premise of astrology mashed up with conspiracy theorists last seen flatulently dancing naked in crop circles.

Occasionally though there’s a nugget resonating far below the astral plane populated by those not convinced alien abduction features large in their life plans*. Here’s one ‘People begin to resemble their pets‘

Or bikes possibly. Although in my case this suggests aschizophreniadiagnosis where four rides pushedopen the door of the ShedOfDreams(tm)to bringforth many different bicycles.

Sunday was a classic winter slog. I dragged the Aeris from the shed on the grounds it was already dirty. It’s a broken seat post and wandering gears from a working bicycle, but blindsided entropy for long enough to slither about in conditions requiring core strength, bike handling skills and bravery furnace-forged in front tyre fundamentalism withtraction hiding under sideways motion.

None out of three isn’t bad***

Fun tho. Not enough effort go spend the rest of the day in the pub. So facing a dark week of no booze, my response was to chuck the FatBike and deludedrider at the Malverns to see what might happen. What happened was much steep’n’deep freshly cut loam grabbing those four inch tyres right up to the point where Mr. Stupid on top undercooked a steep corner, caressed a tree and had a bit of a wild eyed moment while gravity took over.

I grabbed that tree while the bike flipped end over end in an ever accelerating arc. Was mildly worried about the damage, was extremely happy I was no longer attached. Missing crampons, it took a while to retrieve the remains but happily the damage was limited to a kinked reverb cable and doubled over mudguard. Smacking both with a handy rock got us going again.

An hour later though my experimentation of essentially rigid bikes in a geological mess of step-y bedrock suggested there might be better tools for the job. That’s of course ignoring the argument the real problem sits atop the very thing we’re blaming for being a bit inappropriate.

Best thing here is to ignore that difficult supposition and instead switch bikes. Having so many, it took me a second or so to dragthe ‘Chubby‘ from the rack for a night ride in the hills above Ross. As a man publicly declared that night riding is a chore foisted on meby a tilting planet, slogging darkly through conditions one mud-micron removed fromthe trenchesof Flandersrequiresquite an effort of will.

Two weeks ago it was shit. Everyone else seem to be enjoying it. I was miles behind hating being useless and hating smashing against trees. Now tho it’s mostly dried out so it’s fast and fun. Sure another week of dry weather will surface perfect early season loam, but late Feb this is bloody brilliant. Climb on fire roads missing puddles, descend on trails sucking tyres into drying dirt, believe in the speed that’ll send hardtails over gap jumps and then relive it all drinking beer on pub chairs not ruined by gritty shorts. Don’t be shy Spring, I think I can see you.

Once more into the fray demanded the brain. Legs rebelled’really, REALLY, three rides and one bastard spin session, we were there you know’. Brain offered ‘How about a run instead’ Legs: “Oh do buggeroff, no really we’re done with this week‘

Ignoring the NCO limbs, I trailer-strapped the chubster and headed out to a Flipperati reunion. Five years ago we rode every Thursday regardless of the weather, but shifting prioritiessaw this last occur 18 months ago.

It was fab. Not entirely dry. Not entirely comfortable. Two of us were rocking dropper posts, 1×10, slack geo’s, short stems and knee pads. The third of the flipperati dug out his ten year old Santa Cruz Heckler sporting 3×9, steep head angles and roadie tights.

Early on he was fast uphill but rubbish the other way. That’s track cycling for you. But as the night marched on, the distance between us foreshortened and it was mostly like the old days. Not quite but close enough, butafter the last descent there wasn’t time for a breath to gap the joy of close quarter racing on trails we used to take for granted.

At the end of theweek, all that ridingunlocked the ‘beer and pizza‘ achievement. I sat in the pub cradling a pint in the good company ofa whole bunch of friends missed through the thimble of a Dry January. We talked about how the trails were pretty damn good right now, but God how bloodygreat is it going to be come British Summer Time.

Most of the way out of the dark now. Let’s hope someone nudged Spring to let it know it’stime to light up the trails.

*these aren’t all nutjobs. Phillip K Dick – the man who wrote the classic Blade Runner** – spent most of his waking life convinced he was being targeted by alien races.

** Do androids dream of electronic sheep was the book which inspired the iconic movie. I reckon Phil had a bit of Yorkshireman in him.

*** As Meatloaf would have sung has Jim Steinman retaineda single iota of honesty.

Said it before. February is the hardest month. Even after unlockingthe self-medication cabinet to numb frequent andcruelrain lashings, it’s still normal behaviour – in these parts at least – to stride angrily into vertical rain pea-shot from dirty clouds, shaking your fist and demanding ‘Haven’t we suffered enough you utter, utter bastard?‘

Apparently not. Not if that ride was representative. It was the kind of slog leading you towonder if it might it be bothsimpler and cheaper torun around the forest setting fire to ten pound notes. Consecutive Sunday death marches in suchconditions ensured we didn’t fancy another one, heading instead to our favourite South Wales trails centre.

Afan always delivers when it’s grim elsewhere. Not that is wasdry. This is a land full of rivers- many of them gurgling happily in the bottom of valleys, anda few more running down the trail. But a lack of horrible wheel sucking mud servedup a 40km placard marked ‘the return of grip and joy‘

The sun even came out, and — when protected from the wind – we felt for the first time this year warmth fromthefleeting orb. Warmth which was blasted aside once that incessantly probing arctic vectormade a mockery of expensive technical garments.

That wind is a double edged sword. It’ll cut you deep on long traverses and drain the blood from your extremities. Flip it over though and watch the zephyrslice the top inch of mud from the trails revealing something wonderful and loamy underneath. In the case of the Malverns that’s basically bedrock on the exposed bits and black, peat-y goodnessin the trees.

Get amongst that and ride fall lines whichin the wet are exactly that. Aquaplaning fun says Martin, assisted suicide I counter. But it’s a welcome return topointing in the same direction as your desperate bar wrenching was aiming. And feeling good on the climbs; dry trails are worth a couplegears at least soit’s worth putting a chunkmoreeffort in. February also brings aa littlemore light and we used every minute of it, finishing dry and laughing in the twilight. ‘look at my bike, it’s clean / no look at mine it’s even cleaner’

Back home, my route inside bypassed the bucket of doom and headed straightintothe chilled trophy cabinet. Wondering if it might be so good again, we ventured out the next night intothe woods about Ross which traditionallydry out sometime inJune. For a week or so before returning to their default state of fungally damp.

Not dry but not wet either. Firm loam which are happy words for a winter mountain biker. Although still spiced up with an occasional lack of grip leaving all that new speed to go somewhere. Thankfully through the tight linesbetween the trees and not into them. Two hours of that and while the bikes were splattered we remained un-battered. Far from it, the temporary return of a dry line raised our spirits to the point we didn’t need endorphins topped up in the pub.

It won’t last of course. It can’t. It’s February. As I write a big storm is dragging a couple more Atlantic lows in its wake. Three days of rain will bringlocalised flooding and a mess were that dry line so recently was. The line is like groundhog day – we saw it, rode it, cherished it and shall now lament its loss for a few more weeks.

It’s addictive though. I slipped out once morebefore that storm broke. Steeper and deeper than before. Apparently quite slippery* when wet and still pretty bloody tricky right now. Winch and plummet for most of an afternoon with impressive vertical distance butbugger all horizontal. Findingperfect dirt that cannot be bettered. A prize worth hunting for under those threatening skies.

Sunday is our real riding day. I used to pretend it was a battle andnot riding was a sign of weakness. If we didn’t keep battering the storms they’d batter us for ever and summer willnever come. I know better now, the weather doesn’t care and neither do I. The sun will be back out soon. I can wait.

February will be wet. Of course it will. But this isnot a test. If you can cheat it a little with three days of dry riding under a gently warming orb, you’re doing it right. As my much-missed friend Jenn Hill once said ‘Here you are with your arms and legs and walking around in the good sunlight. That’s winning. You’ve won, see. The rest is just gravy

Wise words. When worryinghow our lives may stack up againstothers, we’d do well to remember them.

*I think ‘certain death‘ would be more descriptive.But you can’t beat a Bon Jovi reference.

 

Oh the irony. Guilt driven abstinence crashes against the waves of our wettest month. Add in the darkness, debt, doubt and the enduringbloody misery of January and the exponential fallout rate doesn’t take much explaining. Not so much falling off the wagon as gleefully setting it aflame before exchangingthe horses for hooch.

Last week I was whinging at length on the rubbish conditions in the Malverns. I unreservedly apologise to those loaf shaped hills havingrecalibrated my worldview of shit conditions. Three hours in the Forest of Dean will do that.

The day started well. Because it was in the van where the rain wasn’t. We’d chosen to explore a trail network much talked up by rumour but unridden by us. Bikes built under threatening skies taking somewhat longer than ‘fetching them out of the van‘ really should. Only when multiplying the differential faffing coefficient do such extended timeframes make any sort of sense.

A sense of what was coming drove us into the cafe where we pontificated mightily over bacon and coffee. Eying my fellow riders from the lip of a massive cup, I tentatively suggested we might want to get out there. Just for the look of the the thing.

The thing being a bloody big road climb not entirely suited to the flatulent rubber of the stupid bike*. Still it wasn’t raining and eventually the ridge poked out of a steel grey sky. We headed into the dirt only to find it replaced by a muddy river with sufficient depth to be considered tidal.

Heading downstream, we reacquainted ourselves with mountain biking in our own little ways. Cez seeking out stuff to launch himself off, Haydn sniffing out endless traction from his chubby tyres, Matt sashaying sideways on over-inflated tyres and me crashing into trees.

Having concluded that this sliding about is still bloody fun, we headed off on now unridden trails ‘somewhere over in that valley‘. Via a few silly steep roll-ins and a river crossing as it turned out. Eventually we found ourselves exactly where we needed to be. Just 100 metres too low. Pushed the bikes up something close to vertical which in the mud proved to be unrelentingly comedic.

I knew we’d made it because the rain started in earnest. We rode a couple of fab trails on this steep sided valley without any major off piste excursions. Where there were clearly many more tracks waiting for better conditions – and in my case – some talent compensating suspension.

Non mechanically assisted shuttle back to the top where – as it was apparent the rain had settled in for lunch, dinner and possibly a light supper – we donned rain jackets and picked a steeper trail. When I say ‘we‘, of course I don’t mean me who just followed the brown spray in the hope there was nothing too scary coming.

Couple of bits seemed to suggest braking might be the last thing you remember before waking up with medical professional removing trees from your forehead. Steep tho. Not sure speed was going to be your friend here. Fat tyres are of course allowing the nesh to control their descents at speeds unlikely to introduce blunt force trauma into your afternoon schedule.

The rain first diluted our enthusiasmfor an extension into the next valley and then washed away our commitment to staying in this one for much longer. Just once more to the top this time selecting a depressingly wide track composed ofmud, despair and possibly my will to carry on.

Fat tyres are rubbish in deep mud. You basically turn into a paddle steamer spraying suspicious brown liquid all around while not troubling the five yards in front of you. It wasn’t just a bike issue – we were all off pushing through the churned filth sucking at our shoes.

Final descent was good tho. We all had the measure of the conditions now and sliding two wheels at low speeds can never be anything but brilliant. Even the tarmac home didn’t dull the grins much. Which considering it was undertaken into wind and driving rain must say something about how much fun we’d had.

18km. Not a big day. Bikes back in the van. Riders in the pub. Three of us requesting hateful cold cordials and hot coffees. January is supposed to be cold and frosty. And I don’t just mean those denied a proper drink. What we have is endless moist fronts adding water to already saturated ground.

If this carries on, I’m going to need thatdrink come the start of February. In fact, it might turn into a month long bender 😉

*although that holds true for any trail conditions.