Category: Photography

Windy Filler

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography2 Comments

Matthew's Luna

Ah the simple joy of feeling the wind in your hair. Except it wasn’t really a wind, more icy gusts punctuated by moments of flat calm. And my little remaining thatch was well hidden under a hat last worn by “Benny from Crossroads“.

So more Arctic blast freezing my eyebrows interspersed by periods of mild terror when the wind decreased in velocity and the model in altitude. I am still not entirely through the trauma of my favourite glider being significantly inconvenienced by rather more ground than expected at the moment of crushing impact.

If, however, there is ever a market for piloting skills to surprise the earth with a beautifully disguised vertical plunge, I’m in the money.

The glider in the picture is exactly the same as the one I destroyed. Except that it a) isn’t mine b) was flown rather better and c) wasn’t removed from the slope in a brown bag.

In the time it has taken my friend Matthew to buy, build and get around to flying his Luna, I’ve wrecked my way through a distinguished lineage of previously enjoyed gliders in a spookily similar manner to my bike collection.

I even managed to crash my latest acquisition before it had actually flown. Three times it had been to windless slopes, and three times it came back unflown. Yesterday would have been the perfect opportunity to commit it to aviation had I not accidentally launched it from the rafters in my workshop.

Broken? Yes. Repairable? Probably. By me? Take a wild guess.

So aside from the odd glider slipping gently below the slope and being retrieved by the “trudge of shame”, much fun was had by many with nary a smashed anything. After some Olympic class dithering Matthew finally converted his expensive desk ornament to flight with only mild encouragement – “Come one what’s the worst that can happen“*

The bugger not only flew it with an aplomb entirely missing from anything vaguely controlled by twitchy-thumbs here, but landed it in a manner that made the glider entirely available for re-use. Lucky, that’s what I call it 😉

So no time for riding this weekend. Too much time on underpinning the chicken house so preventing local rat population from helping themselves to both the food pellets and some rather tasty shed door. Only way those buggers are getting in now is if they install a flailing masonry bit on their noses.

Couldn’t even ride in today with the train scheduled to arrive some thirty minutes after I needed to be here. It would seem that the entire population of the West Midlands has seized upon the same New Years Resolution “YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF THE ROAD. I ALONE AM BEST“. This is trying my Christian Motoring approach to the traffic.

* Answer “it’ll all go wrong and be smashed into a thousand pieces”. Response “Okay, fair point, what’s the SECOND worst thing thar can happen?“

“I remember when this was all snow”

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CwmCarn Jan 2011

“When was that?” / “Last Wednesday“. I had that line prepped and ready to go for this mornings’ return trip to Cwmcarn. Them the driving sleet bouncing off the windscreen turned to snow pretty much as we arrived.

It carried on until we left some four hours later having availed ourselves of two fine trail laps. First time round, significant rammage as New Year Resolutions met middle aged guts and heavy puffing drowned out the sizzle of the snow.

Not us tho – four fine athletes in the prime of their life rocking round in seventy minutes. Well not quite, in fact not at all. Well I was not, rasping away on Ashtma’s cusp while my HRM categorised me as a soon-to-expire Hummingbird.

CwmCarn Jan 2011 CwmCarn Jan 2011

The cheery banter of long-riding pals was happily at the fore. Firstly Al the Motivational Speaker “With all that suspension, surely you should be going faster” and then Al the Yorkshire Whinger “Can we just slow down long enough for me to find a nice piece of forest to die in?“. Then Jezz fell off and that cheered us up even more 🙂

CwmCarn Jan 2011 CwmCarn Jan 2011

The reward for my legendary wit and repartee was to be sent down first to ascertain levels of grip. With my face if necessary. Backing off 5{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} brought some long forgotten smoothness, carving perfect berms while giggling like a gassed-up loon. A fast, last descent into the now eye watering snow had us running for the warmth of the cars and a spot of random lunch. Because obviously the cafe wouldn’t be open to feed hoards of hungry mountain bikers.

Dry and comfortable as it was, a second lap wasn’t going to happen from the passenger seat so we struggled back into waterproofs, engaged easier gears and set off again. I expected it to be horrible but with Martin and I setting an “old duffers” pace, it never really ratcheted up beyond mildly unpleasant. And this time mostly deserted.

Cheeky rest stops masqueraded as point’n’click camera opportunities. Most of which seemed to be Rob on repeat trying to clean a snowbound section with a slippy crux*. Descending for the second time, we backed off a little more with the snow increasing while grip was heading the opposite way.

CwmCarn Jan 2011 CwmCarn Jan 2011

Still fun, fun fun clattering over rocks on fast bikes that somehow climb, lean and plunge without being too heavy, too remote or too fragile. But my mind was getting a little frazzled with the speed, so when the magic began to fade I was left a bit panicky and target fixated on nasty stumps.

CwmCarn Jan 2011 CwmCarn Jan 2011
Last descent. “Get Down Alive” mode engaged. Disengaged when Jezz looked like he might get away. “Seat down, elbows out, be brave see what happens” is always exciting, especially when the non snowy ribbon of trail is less than a foot wide – either side of which is going to have you creating interesting new topographical features probably with broken limbs.

Of all the jumps in this section, only one was going to get the treatment. Lowest risk being on a straight section of trail, and not too much air time to think of what might go wrong. Apparently an entire FOOT of air was recorded beneath my wheels, which only happens nowadays if the bike is tumbling in a sky-ground-sky-ground-hospital manoeuvre.

So happy with that. Not happy about going back to work tomorrow. Still after today,at least I can have a lie in. No way I’ll be commuting by bike.

* Does that sound rude? Excellent.

Progression

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography, Pretentious nonsense1 Comment

It is said that you should never meet your heroes. And that’s probably right, because a simple human can only be an imperfect reflection of perception. I think the same is true of finding yourself face to face with a younger version of you.

I will quickly concede that such an event is unlikely. And we should be thankful for that, what with the certainty that meeting a doppelgänger face on will inevitably firm up a suspicion that you are a a whinging blowhard.

But the partnership of everything digital and low cost storage shoves a trillion pixels deep into the foetid outreach of your hard drive. Last night – while cataloguing kids videos* – I found that lot amateurishly spliced together up there.

Most are from Chicksands bike park – in an eighteen month period starting mid 2005 – except the bit where I’m terrorising the good citizens of Oxford. First visit to Chicky scared me half shitless just looking at brightly coloured Stormtroopers throwing themselves into bottomless voids apparently of their own violation. Then I tried some of the allegedly easy stuff and the other half of being shit scared kicked in.

North Shore wasn’t for me. Singletrack in the sky the non vertically challenged would say. I would stare at the unholy union of a Scalextric track and a hamster cage in wonder, but could only see pain, humiliation and A&E. I had a go of course, and scored two out of three.

The drops tho – they were easier. Again advice was always at hand “Just ride off the fookers” a tongue-ringed denizen of the dirt articulated while waving in the general direction of a handy abyss. Tried that, found it okay if I disengaged any part of my brain involved with brake levers, progressed onto some bigger ones, got scared again, compensated with a bigger bike and finally took flight off the big fella.

That’s so far behind me now, it seems to have happened to someone else. Paradoxically I have convinced myself that – should the opportunity present itself – there would be absolutely zero issue with lobbing myself back into space. Sure I’d need to get used to flat pedals again, but it’s just riding a bike isn’t it? And I’ve been doing a lot of that.

240 hours in 2010 to be precise. Into which I’ve squeezed 3012 kilometres of pedalling including 80,000 metres of climbing. Commuting accounts for about a third, night riding for about the same and only two of my six bikes feature heavily. Apparently 165, 000 calories have been burned along the way which probably explains why my clothes still fit in the face of a diet made up largely of beer, wine and pringles.

In my gravity phase of 2005, I probably didn’t ride half of that and was entirely un-bothered – walking uphill was the new cross country we used to say. It’s hard to plot any kind of progression in all of this because while today I’m not mad keen to go back to tweak the nose of vertical terror, that’s not to say I never will.

What I have concluded from this navel gazing is this; last year was a fantastic year in terms of frequency, company, fitness and variety. 2005 was genuinely awesome in that I massaged my cowardice through a whole year of going bigger. Clearly an annual recalibration of maximum personal terror then working backwards persists a belief you’re still pushing it a bit.

And I am. Pushing it a bit. Mainly in age and ongoing decrepitude. Left knee, left shoulder, right ankle, asthmatic lungs, short hamstrings, lack of moral fibre, etc tell me only one thing. Not to stop, but to bloody well get on with it while I still can.

Happy New Year to you all. I’ve already go a ride in 🙂

* On New Years Eve. The 2010 version of boring your family with a holiday slideshow. Soon I’ll be drinking sherry and eating vegetables.

New Years Bleed.

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Haugh Woods NYE Ride
Once I’ve shoehorned one dog, two children, three bikes and my long suffering wife into the truck, any actual riding feels like a bonus. But even before the geometrically puzzling angst of loading the trailer has begun, first we must repair what is broken.

Abi hasn’t ridden much this year. And when she has managed to get on her bike, it’s not long before she’s off it again, furrowing a trowel line with her head – stopping only on contact with a painful stump. This may account for her noticeable lack of enthusiasm when offered an opportunity to hurt herself again.

Still game enough this morning, leaving me with to fettle hastily on her dusty steed* so bringing hammer no.2 to bear on a bent mech with the kind of satisfying twang promising component purchases soon.

The woods could best be described as ‘encouragingly moist“. I know this to be true because they were the exact words I chose in my motivational opening to the children. I didn’t feel this was the right time to ponder the adhesive qualities of slick-wet roots cambered at bike-punting angles. They’d find out soon enough.

They both showed some proper bravery clearly not inherited from my DNA. Jess christened her new bike by throwing it roughly to the ground at least twice, but was usurped for “best crash award” by her Sis who attacked one particularly nasty set of wheel sucking roots with innocent vigour. The tyres held on for – oh – nanoseconds before letting go and starting a sequence of events that could only end in one eleven year old lying on the track.

Again I kept my council other than to offer parental sympathy while checking surreptitiously for unattached body parts. Probably for the best as it is unlikely that a blow by fall account of our two days Welsh “Slush Puppy” tour focussing on exactly how hardcore, skillfull and downright manly their old Pa is would have had the desired effect. Unless that effect was to receive a couple of yawned “Yeah Dad, whatever”

As it was – and even tho we’d had to finish with a rather testing ten minute climb – both kids are now mad keen to get out ‘every weekend when it’s sunny‘. I know this to be a fallacy, which in no way shall stop me reminding them of it every Saturday come the Spring.

Riding with your kids is ace. Much as the Wales trip was fab fun, and much as I am properly excited by oodles of mountain biking here and there come 2011, I’d happily give up my weekends to ride with these two.

If only to get the crashes on video next time 🙂

* In my younger years, I would assume that sort of thing would annoy the farmer if he caught you at it.

Play

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Play

That’s the essence of my plan for the next week. If we can expand the definition to include “drinking“, “more drinking” “and “probably too much drinking“. Other duties include the controlled explosion of an increasingly excited smallest child, sledge-captain and fitter of inappropriate tyres.

My play week includes two days at Afan, for which I’m considering replacing a perfect serviceable tyre pair with something entirely untried. The reason for this reboot is simply that the new rubber is looking at me in a funny way, and I’ve contracted a bad case of itchy-thumb-itis.

What I’ll not be doing is spending much time in front of a screen. Too much of my life seems to be wasted on that particular occupation. So before uncorking my lunch, I’ll bid my loyal – if disturbed and clearly lacking anything better to do – readership an extremely Merry Christmas and a new year not entirely covered in ice and snow.

In terms of presents, I shall again be receiving an extremely large hangover from Santa, generally accompanied by two children jumping on my sore head. 6am or thereabouts if history is a marker.

Snowbody here

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Not so much a bike ride, more a two hour tank slapper. Riding in snow is fun. It’s also bloody hard, and can be simply summed up by “Grip, Grip, WOW Amazing Grip, no grip, Tree”

These photos are from Jim’s iPhone which did its best considering a) it was dark b) it was about -2 and c) it’s not really a proper camera is it?

The FoD riding cluster climbs into double figures come Spring and isn’t much reduced during the months of mud, cold and darkness which precede it. Last night tho, only Steve, Jim and I made the more than a little exciting trip to the FoD.

The key to staying on was speed. Sufficient velocity delivered a wheel straightening gyroscopic effect to your track. Getting up to speed was tricky with bikes being rear wheel drive and we’ve all seen how well cars of that configuration go in the snow.

And if you should even twitch the bars or touch the front brake, the magic was gone and so were you. My 2.35 tyres floated well but you couldn’t really steer. Jim and Steve’s narrower nobblies seemed better suited but maybe they’re just a bit better than me!

We played about a lot. Skids were harder than expected tho with the powder snow offering up oddles of grip. Right up until the point when it didn’t. Ummmph generally followed.

We seemed to spend a lot of time climbing and not much descending. Although that perception was all about the sad fact we were pedalling downhill as well. No matter, a final three sections of singletrack where we were lucky enough to be carving freshies made up for the fireroad slogging.

Anyone who decided to stay at home missed one of my favourite rides of the last few months. And afterwards, the beer tasted better than good 🙂

It’s a new bike. And it isn’t for me.

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Jessie's new Islabike Beinn

The last of the little wheelers has gone. In its place is this rather Fab Islabikes Beinn bought today under cover of snow. Random’s little hotrock has passed from third to fourth hand, and I am sure it’ll carry on being a much loved wheeled sidekick.

Islabikes are great people to do business with. Everything they sell is for kids; from the ickle balance bike up to 3/4 size smart road bikes and everything in between. I was tempted by the rather fetching kids full-on MTB with a suspension fork but Isla talked me out of it.

Apparently unless you’re hucking major rock fests and shredding like Sam, you really don’t need anything but the fully rigid. I didn’t think this was a good time to try and justify my extensive suspended mountain bike collection.

The Beinn is lighter that the Spesh it replaces, has more gears with a far wider ratio, some proper off road tyres and oodles of clever designed-for-kids stuff. It even has her name on it – that’s proper factory.

Unusually I am even more excited than when a new bike is for me. Really looking forward to riding with Random (and hopefully her sister who also has a lovely bike but this has so far failed to spark her interest over anything more scary than forest tracks) when we can see the ground again.

It was also more than reasonably brilliant to see her face light up when she realised we could take it home today. It is on this cheery note I shall end, possibly forever due to the high likelihood of certain death on tonight’s FoD ride.

I’d tried being sensible about bikes and riding. It’s a lost cause to be honest.

Al the Unflown

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Garway December 2010

Three times I have trudged up steep hillsides encumbered by expensive pieces of moulded plastic, and three times have I descended same hill without so much as a sniff of being able to launch them into the slope.*

It’s been nearly a month since a windless day scuppered my last attempt. Winter arrived early for Christmas, and appears to be hanging around for a while yet. And while I’m stupid enough to inflict trench-todger in sub zero temps on a mountain bike, even I can see standing still on the highest and windiest point around isn’t going to be a lot of fun. Especially as access tends to be via untreated, broken up doubletracks on a gradient.

Still day off, monster westerly forecasted, above zero for the first time in weeks – surely portents of a successful day ahead. The lack of actual blowy weather against the lies on the Interweb was nothing more than a back-story to the main event of actually getting there.

My faux-by-four may be lambasted by Landrover beards’ and the like, but I’m still amazed at the stuff it gets up. Our road is a good start since one good freeze closes it to anything 2 wheeled drive that’s not a tractor. The steep, ice-encrusted slope was another, shimmied up there with only increasing revs demonstrating how hard the 4WD was working. I was keen to engage the manly diff-lock, but apparently that’s not something to be attempted while teetering on the edge of traction half way up at 15{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} slope.

Had I not been on board the dithering bus to unflown-central, the bloody glider would have been at least briefly committed to aviation. But no, the wind died and with it my hopes of anything other than flinging bits of foam about. It’s no much about flying then, more throw/sigh/collect as I’ve shown below:

The Fling.

Garway December 2010

The Brief Period Of Aviation.

Garway December 2010

The Inevitable

Garway December 2010

The Trudge of Shame

Garway December 2010

Always worth the walk for the view tho

Garway December 2010

Eventually the wind circled round nearly 180 degrees creating an instant competition of who could fly a glider back down the slope and end closest to the truck.

It would be unfair of me to gloat as befits the winner. Let’s just say my victory was sweeter because it included a piece of precision flying where I dumped the foam wing on top of the only tree for about 9 miles. Actually that’s not true, there is another spiky number some way off to the south side. Ask me how I know.

On arriving home, I couldn’t but help notice the gale now raging at the front gate. So before I contact deed pole, I need to decide on “Al the Unflown” or “Al the sodding Weather Jonah“. Honestly it’s enough to make me reconsider the planes with bloody great fans on the front. Although the last time I tried that it didn’t end terribly well either.

Ho Hum, beer time methinks.

* Most proper flyers throw them off the slope. I’ve found it saves time to just crash them straight away and get it over with.

Frozen Mech’s at dawn

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography2 Comments

Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride

Today I was an extra in the horror flick of that name. For two hours, my role was to squeal “Is this the bit where I die? No, must be here then? Oh, ARRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH”

Crash. Fade to black.

Thankfully as it was only made up* I didn’t actually die, but it wasn’t through a lack of opportunity. The frozen trails of last weekend were still rock hard but now encased under a thick layer of ice.

Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride
I knew this, and have ridden enough to understand the frictionless consequences of the freeze/thaw cycle, but still I had to ride. A crap week at work leaked into the weekend and was met head on by a Saturday hangover, which made me want to chop my head off.

So half the weekend gone and my only contribution to Thespian services was a world-weary re-incarnation of Mr Grumpy that the family didn’t deserve.

Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride

Portents of what lay ahead were all around. Firstly de-icing the car was a twenty minute job which made me late enough, before further time was wasted while kettle-tech(tm) gained me access to the trailer locks.

Locks that had re-frozen by the time I arrived at Jezz’s gate some 20 minutes later. No matter as so was his gate. Going to be one of those rides is it?
Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride

It was. Pretty much the same as last week in conditions similar, and yet entirely more menacing. Ice was everywhere, on the roads, packed down on high traffic trails and hidden under guilty leaves.

Descending speeds came down, but it was that or ploughing into gates/rocks/people. Brakes were more scary, the front one especially. Trying to stay relaxed while all things pucker shaped are puckering up was more than a little mentally challenging.

Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride

But really this is a matter for rejoicing. Two consecutive bluebird rides. The mud and sludge and grim of winter belayed by a protracted cold snap. The terror of hissing tyres on ice tempered by the relief of remaining upright and the same shape.

Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride Frozen Mechs at Dawn Ride

The freezing eyes of a blinking shimmy from the ridgeline bringing forth the inner warmth of this landscape being your playground. The realisation that the seasons have truly changed, and the joy that the next one is spring.

You’d not get me out on the road bike tho. That’d be lethal!

* In the same way as economic forecasts, household budgets, cost of bicycles and the answer to “how much did you have to drink last night” are merely glittery cast-offs from some boring place called “Truth“.

You have to laugh….

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, PhotographyLeave a comment
Malverns @ -7
That's me. Looks cold eh? There's a reason for that.

… mostly at yourself. Often at your friends. And increasingly at the Met Office PR team who appear to have their credence radar permanently set to “pratfall“.

First we had the BBQ summer which triggered floods not seen since Noah was a lad. Then we had the promise of a mild winter at which point the entire country was transformed into a set for Narnia. And now this- “2010 is the warmest year since either a) records began or b) 1997 depending on how hard we’ve hit the cosmic fail button”

A logical counterpoint would suggest the poor old tea leave diviners have been chronically misrepresented. Firstly the sizzling summer was a 60{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} probability which is about as statistically significant as a shampoo poll. Then the Arctic conditions of this year were the result of a freakish crashing of hitherto unseen variables, camping out well past any computer model could predict.

And yes this is the warmest year on record. If you look at medians and not specific events. Right now though, I seem to be riding into , through and shiveringly out of such events which is rather fab during, but motivationally crippling before and toe poppingly painful afterward.

Sunday, 7am. -7.4. Five minutes loading the bike and I’m already late. This is mainly due to an unscheduled pet activity; namely defrosting the dog. 7:30 warmed by coffee and central heating, I struck out onto icy roads with the temperature gauge beeping -8 and suggesting the Siberian engine setting.*

No matter. At least the mud shall be temporarily banished under an ice crust. and no other silly bugger is going to be icy toe side of a warm duvet. More right than wrong, but the hills were alive with the sound of nutters’ knee knocking by the time we’d been over half way out and back.

Every trail was rock hard and tho – where foot traffic was negligible – pretty damn grippy. All the time being crunchy under wheel and framed by a child-painted blue horizon. Wales was full of snow and foreboding, but due east was just lightly dusted and crackling. In the middle, we rode on ridge and woody singletrack that felt like summer from the axles down. Above that both Jezz and I were swathed in layers of expensive fabrics and heroic grins.

And rather than our normal “got to get back, got to get back, got promises to keep” approach to Sunday morning rides, we took it easy, took some pictures, stood astride fantastic bicycles feeling pretty damn good to be taking in some altogether more fantastic views. Lots of climbing, quite a few kilometres, all felt pretty fast which bodes well for when cold and dark becomes difficult and boring.

Normally late January when motivation is in thrall to sofa suck. Which makes the daft nonces who wait until the new year to start winter riding all the more unfathomable. The Malverns are a tough gig at the best of times, which January absolutely isn’t. Early this year the hills were full of huff and puff, until New Years’ resolutions wilted in the face of not being arsed.

Not us. We’ll be getting up at stupid o’ clock. Stumbling about in the dark cursing at the stupidity of it all. Getting wet, cold and unpleasantly windswept. Chipping off frozen mud because the hosepipe’s been frozen for six weeks. Looking at the confused faces of our dear ones who have all sorts of good reasons why we shouldn’t, and then doing it anyway. And it’ll be good – sometimes great, sometimes averagely ok but always epic – once tyres hit the dirt.

I’ve said it before, but it needs repeating- Mountain biking is like the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

* I have a photo of that in case you think fibbing for the sake of strutting a heroic stance may be at play here. I can’t show it to you though right now for which explanations may follow. It really depends on whether the embarrassment falls below a level acceptable for public ridicule.