Category: Photography

Rush Hour

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography4 Comments

I have one hour. Exactly sixty minutes to switch life modes, exchange drudgery and bug eyed stress for stolen pleasure. It doesn’t matter why or when – only that the clock is ticking, and I need to feel fast air in my lungs, dirt under my tyres, joy in my heart. I have to go and ride my bike.

First of too many problems is the dearth of any proper good muddy stuff from our door. Sure with the Malverns on one side, and the Forest of Dean on the other, I am only a short drive from stonking trails, and not much further to the wilds of Wales. But there isn’t time for trailers, parking and faffing when you’re a mere hour from needing to be back here.

The very local woods offer nothing other than an excuse to lose the dog in the overgrown footpaths. Head a little further out and a huge expanse of forestry should roll out a million trails, but it doesn’t because of too many horses, to few bikes, too little traffic and my apathy based exploring routine. I’ve driven out there a few times, and come back disappointed vowing to carry on next time to stuff I know is good.

Much of this is because I’m a rubbish explorer, no sense of direction, and yet blessed with a gift to divine rubbish tracks. If you’re in the market for a six foot wide ruined trail full of horses hooves, red Herefordshire mud, viscous shrubbery and a dark heart from which there is no obvious escape, I’m your womble.*

So it’s a bit crap for mountain bikes, and I’m completely unable to find any of this mythical singletrack I’ve heard talked about. But it’s close, 3.3 miles and that’s less than 15 minutes to a man who has 3 week unridden legs, and the need to unwind a million wrongs visited upon him.

Big Ring. Stand up. Ignore wheezing lungs and unexercised muscles. Forget that road riding is dull, blot out the threatening clouds and incessant headwind – there are many things worse that this and most of them are inside.

I’m still attacking everything when I first hit the dirt, diving under the trees on a trail I’ve jealously eyed up on numerous dog walks. Which already goes against the plan of riding just 4 known tracks to the valley bottom and then sprinting home on the fireroad.

But every mountain biker has a Pavlovian attraction for snaky singletrack, and it’s not long before I’m clearing deadwood from a little used trail and thinking happy thoughts on improvements if only I’d remembered my spade. But time doesn’t stop, and neither can I – sweating a bit now – switching to a favourite rooty trail that’s way drier than expected and twice as much fun.

God I’d forgotten how great this is. And it has nothing to do with the bike. Oh sure, the Cove is perfectly balanced, razor sharp without being twitchy, taut without being painfully stiff, fast without being fragile but that’s not what matters right now. Because right now I’m not inside with a pile of work, or outside trying to make sense of ongoing house devastation.

No time to gloat, time to ride, pick another trail and spend minutes I don’t have trying to jump a rooty set. Twice I cock it up, so go for a dumb brakes off approach that ends as well as you can probably imagine. Still, since I was lying down, this seemed a perfect time to break out a lunchtime energy bar and surreptitiously check e-mail. No Signal? That’s fate. Time to go.

Not enough of that to ride a cheeky trail around the lake. Walked loads of time with dog and family, it’s root strewn, off camber, damp today and sure to be rubbish. But I ride it anyway, and it’s bloody brilliant of course – not as it offers some kind of singletrack nirvana, or great speed but because I shouldn’t be here, and nobody else is.

Flick of the wrist shows bad numbers so I quit while I’m just a little behind my rush hour schedule. But not so fast that I cannot mentally mark a myriad of possible trails which peep enticingly from behind summer growth.

My hour is nearly up and some cad has laid an extra mile of tarmac between my fading legs and the demands of being a grown up. The headwind has even strengthened** but a main road short cut deemed to be less risky than the hilly back roads*** bought me enough time to make a sub sixty possible.

Being two minutes late didn’t matter unless you’re the type of person who stokes his competitive gland every time bikes are involved. So that’s me on a final charge which brought the house into view, and a moto style entry over the frictionless pea shingle impressed exactly one person. And that person read 59:48 on their stopwatch.

Don’t get me wrong – the trails aren’t fantastic, at no point did I carve successive corners or jump some monstrous double. The bike and I are splattered with smelly mud, every exposed limb has been brutally slashed by vegetation with attitude, nothing has changed here other than an Inbox close to explosion, and it’s just started to piss it down again.

But I don’t care. Because for a while there I forgot just how bloody great mountain bikes are. That’ll not happen again.

* Remember Womble’s picked their names by blinding pinning a map. If I were really a womble my name would be “For Fuck’s sake, the map is over there, that’s my HAND”

** Out and Back on the same road. Both into a headwind. Ask any cyclist, they’ll tell you this is always the case. We don’t know why but when we find out someone is in for a bloody hard time.

*** Risk assessment went something like “may get run over by a mad trucker heading to Ross, but almost certain heart attack if I have to go up there“

Soiled

On By AlexIn Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

Finally. Only three months later than promised due to a pace of life issue. In fact, at twelve weeks past deadline, this monstrous delivery is – in Herefordshire terms – marked as “on time“. I was wrong about the 10 tons though. But only by a factor of 25, as endless trailers deposited huge elephant turds on the wasteland of our garden.

To many people, this looks like merely a start; to us it’s feels more like the home straight. Unless any of the 400 metres of buried pipes springs a leak. In which case, we’ll have no heating but a rather fetching water feature.

Progress is remarkably brisk inside as well. Most of the ground floor now has a floor, a scud missile has landed in our utility room accompanied by electronic cleverness that somehow eeks free energy from the ground. It just needs connecting together through a complex fusion of plumber and sparky, which – assuming we’re on Herefordshire Mean Time – should happen just in time for Autumn. 2010.

Summer digging That's nearly finished

We’re so sick of the whole house rebuild thing*, my extended weekend was only partially scuppered by being unable to leave the premises when the first load of elephant dung had been carefully placed behind the cars. Still we fashioned an escape of sorts, and it was absolutely the right thing to do.

Heading west was an inspired move as a family full of the holiday spirit decamped to Techniquest in the surprisingly lovely Cardiff. I broke the mould of your standard male by both showing much interest in the kids attempting to re-configure the exhibits in a way that was way outside of their operating parameters, and surreptitiously refreshing the tiny phone browser until a final confirmation of the crushing of the Australians at Lords.

Good day that. Tomorrow isn’t. London calls as the Clash once said, but I wager they didn’t have to find a 5 O’clock in the day to get there. My train is broken for six weeks, leaving me little option but to drive most of the way there. I expect it to be dreadful. Don’t worry, you’ll be the second to know.

* Dangerous use of the word “We” here. I’ve done two thirds of sod all on the grounds that a) I’m working and b) I’m a lazy bugger with time consuming hobbies. The important thing about being a selfish bastard is being honest about it.

I need another weekend. Starting about now :(

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

Between six hours of fantastic – if endlessly moist – riding on Saturday, and some extreme chucking of gliders on Sunday, it’s been and gone in all the time needed to say “Weren’t you supposed to be painting?”.

Well I did some of that as well, and about a million other thing. What I’ve failed to do is sit down for more than five minutes, or prepare myself for a week full of difficult stuff. Ah well, never mind.

Should time allow, I have things to share – the first of which will be a rant about a bloke with a blacked out people carrier, a personal number plate and a “South Eastern” attitude that very nearly got him punched. Honestly, it’s like the badlands down there, everyone is completely MAD.

More soon… that’s a threat, not a promise 🙂

Cows Stop Play

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography5 Comments

That’s the kind of nonsense you would expect at Cardiff for the first Ashes test. In fact, I might send this lot down to put the wind up the Aussies. They’ve certainly had that effect on me. It is quite difficult to navigate your way to the car when about 8 cows are giving you ten tons of moo-attitude at 7:30am in the morning.

We know now where they came from. We don’t know when they’re going. As of right now, they appear to be enjoying an early breakfast of my wing mirrors. The dog – brave, stout fellow that he is – has gone into hiding under a chair, and every time Carol or I move they stampede in the direction of something expensive.

I fear for the fence.

And the windows. Short of borrowing a shotgun and setting up an impromptu burger bar, I’m short of ideas. They’ve sorrounded my workshop here and every time I look up from the keyboard, mad cow eyes look back at me.

I can feel a difficult sitution developing here.

UPDATE: We tried the local farmers who denied they’d lost any cows, and anyway it’d be quicker to claim them back from the EEC farm subsidy. We even called the police which was amusing “Are any of the cows comitting an offence Sir?” / “Breach of the Peace? They’re pissing all over the place and I’d like aggrevated looming to be taken into account”. Sadly it seems these are not sufficient grounds for ungulate arrest.

Kids Play

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography2 Comments

Let’s be honest here – there is a bit of Competitive Dad inside all of us. And for some that’s because they had Competitive Dad outside for all their formative years, and never really worked out how to stop. Not for me, my old fella wasn’t so much hands off as completely disinterested. Which is something of a reason why I vacillate between total commitment and tired apathy with my own offspring.

But the parent I’ve never wanted to be is that one screaming from the sidelines, desperately striving to put the Victory into Vicarious. There’s always a positive stop between my frankly pervy love of mountain biking and forcing my kids to try and share something of that. Good reasons abound – they’re girls, they’re (still) not that big, MTB’ing is a tough sport, and they have variously preferred scooters, ex-board, walking and – well – anything else really when I’ve punted a spot of weekend dirt riding.

Today one of them mined the giggle-lode I so cherish, while the rest of the family had a damn fine go, before retiring slightly scared. Random (8, bonkers, untouched by reality) demonstrated a level of focus that made me wonder about alien abduction. She piloted her little 20inch Spesh Hardrock down trails the big boys ride, and showed a level of bravery making me wonder again – this time about adoption.

That’s not her in the photo. Verbal shares her Mum’s terror of hills and my oft repeated maxim that “your brakes control the speed, not the hill” failed to unlock tight muscle or deflate the scary gland. But she had a proper try even though it was apparent the only thing more scared in the entire forest was probably Carol.

Who – having narrowly avoided plunging into a dangerous ditch – rode bridges she hated, survived downhill trails that offered nothing but fear, and a truly, scary off camber bend that gives me the heebies before retiring with eldest daughter to the safety of the fireroads. I was properly proud of them for giving it a go without the hint of a whinge, and riding stuff that was clearly shitting-the-bed scary.

My kids don’t ride much and I don’t push them to do so. I’m always amazed how quickly they pick it up again, and while I was picking up my lovely old Kona having helped Random over a nasty log bridge, it became apparent she wasn’t going to stop. A cocktail of roots, dips and little drops were mastered with nothing more than youthful bravado and a happy chuckle.

I watched her ride it – having stopped talking since she clearly needed no coaching – with a lump in my throat. Where do they learn that shit? Even when she was properly gorse bushed at the trail end, she just picked herself up and got on with it. Well sort of, I had to push her home but she’s desperate to get out again. I may have found myself a sleeper 🙂

On returning home, the hound was walked by bicycle and suddenly these two wheeled transportation devices are the best thing since… the last great thing, but I’m happy with that. We then jumped our fence and went exploring in the stream at the bottom of the garden. Which was way more fun that it probably sounds.

There are times when kids are bloody difficult. Anyone who tells you different is on strong medication or telling lies. This was not one of those days.

It lives.

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography3 Comments

As opposed to Michael Jackson whose unexpected croak-age has completely upset the celebrity dead pool. It also knocked Farrah Fawcett off the front pages – a major disappointment for those of a certain age who had THAT PHOTO on their wall, and in their minds during periods of lonely sexual activity.

Or so I’ve been told. Anyway, not old did Jacko supplant other dead celebs, he also managed to subvert the entire news agenda for more than twenty four hours. Watching the Sky rolling news, I saw the same grainy picture of an ambulance informed by voxpop scrolling messages “I still have the paper cups from the 1984 Bad Tour, and they are my greatest treature. Michael, you were my life and you’ll live forever”.

No he won’t. Let’s face facts here:

He was a kiddie fiddler. He was such a proper nutter I’d grudgingly award him Hedgehog Loony Status. His best work was some twenty years behind him. He’s dead and/or working in a chip shop with Elvis. Okay I accept he made the odd decent record*.

But now he’s dead from an overdose of painkillers or chimp jism or who gives a fuck. He’ll live long in the memories of those people who have no life of their own to cherish, and the rest of us will remember the “Thriller” Vid being pretty cool and not much else.

So get over it 🙂

Anyway I’ve had a day of fixing things. Bicycles, children’s toys, gliders, lawns, etc. My first foray into soldering for twenty years proves – once again – how completely clueless I am with any tool other than a big hammer. Still the glider flew, didn’t catch fire even once and even came to land somewhere close to the house.

A bit too close really, Carol was starting to panic a bit as I began to hum the Dam Busters theme tune, when the big yellow winged incendiary was locked onto the perfect flight path to smash through a window. I was never really worried, but then I did have a beer in one hand.

Flying the Electric Glider. And it not catching fire. Again. Flying the Electric Glider. And it not catching fire. Again.

Important to relax I’ve found during times of stress I’ve found. And on that note, I have many half written, half baked, quarter arsed things to say about lists, London and loving the summer. I shall committ them to the unwary readership as soon as the next batch of beer is appropriately cool.

Until then, have you noticed the nights drawing in? 🙁

* Don’t push me on this. I’m struggling to think of one, but 65 million people can’t be wrong, can they?

Burn’n’Crash

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography2 Comments

Right, for the uninitiated – and noticeably unwashed from those of you who I’ve met – in all things silly modelling, this is the business end of a glider than thinks it’s a proper aeroplane. With the sort of low cunning we’ve come to expect from marketing types, they offer up a flighty solution to days when you’re short of time/wind/appropriate hillage.

Fire it up, chuck it, make it a speck up in the sky somewhere, shut the engine off and glide for a bit. Run out of height, lean on the noisy stick and start again. Great idea, and absolutely necessary for me to add such a niche to the ever expanding mass of winged foam in my workshop.

But this one is special because it has been on fire. A late night chuck should have brought twenty minutes relaxing stick twirling, followed by a cushioned landing in the field of wheat a nice farmer has provided as my makeshift runway.

What actually happened was a perfect launch, a fast climb and then… well… nothing. The motor turned off, the transmitter was no longer talking to the receiver, and my frantic twiddling had all the effect of asking a ten year old to finish their homework. Unlike recalcitrant children, the glider was blissfully serene at this point – merely heading off downwind from a height of 100+ feet, and destined to crash into some poor innocent minding their own business in a spot of cow tipping. About four miles away.

A gust of wind changed that and gravity rapidly brought on terminal velocity, which thumped the model hard into the crop and cartwheeled previously attached parts to all corners of the field. This crashing been happening rather a lot lately, but in this case it wasn’t my fault.

Not that I was much cheered by such thoughts, as I trudged through waist height wheat heading for the scene of the accident. After some searching I found that the model mostly undamaged due entirely to the springy, vigorous crop cushioning the impact. Honestly we’re taking a vertical dive at high speed followed by significant deceleration trauma, and most of the bits were still the same shape.

They should make airbags out of this stuff. Anyway things were not so good up the front with the small, yet eye wateringly expensive, motor controller on fire and – until I took swift action – in danger of setting alight thirty acres of uncut crop. The smell was terrible, and that was just from my shorts after they’d be on the arse end of a thought process that ran something like “How the fuck am I going to explain setting fire to a field?”

Anyway it’s easily fixed. When I get time. Which I have none of, and even should some magically be presented, it’ll be eaten up by pond dredging*, removing broken forks, hammering the transmission straight on the cross bike, peeking inside the budget spreadsheet and fixing myself. With a large G&T.

It’s nice to know my “skills crossover ” from MTB to models is so seamless. Crap building? Check. Excuses? Lots. Rubbish ability? Oh yes. Crashing? Big sodding tick.

That’s a comfort of sorts.

* This weekend I’ve been up to my armpits in smelly, rank and sticky mud. I’ve had terrible flashbacks to riding in the Chilterns.

Hitting the wall

On By AlexIn Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

This is not, as it may first seem, the beginnings of my burial chamber. However, the way things have been going lately, the prospect of a long lie down in a cool, shaded spot is rather becoming. As opposed to what I am becoming which is bloody irritable.

My fully synchronised electronic diary failed to interface with its’ analogue sibling on hosted the kitchen wall, so curtailing my long looked forward to weekend of riding in the Peaks. A duplicitous plan, built on the need to fix my Mum’s home PC, was revealed for the web of receipt everyone knew it was, after said parent arrived at our house late last week.

Diaries you see, I have several but Carol has “the one that counts“. And I have not time to bore you with rambling whinges on house progress (not enough), budget situation (not enough), fantastic days of riding (not enough) and work (far too much).

In fact, I am being dispatched today to actually go and talk to some real clients. It’s been over three years since I had to go and earn a proper living. I’m quite looking forward to it, which is probably more than both those who have asked and those who are to receive my wise words and flailing hand motions.

I have just enough time to notice that Mountain Mayhem this year appears to be set fair. This I find slightly troubling as the entire world weather systems seems finely balanced on the predication that MM is ALWAYS piss wet through. Maybe the CLIC this year has drained the clouds of all their water.

Anyway I shall return in the manner of Arnie, although with more words and less shooting people. Unless London gets the better of me again.

Life’s a beach

On By AlexIn Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

H;mm beachy

I have spent much of the last two days in a state best described as “Moderately Damp”. This level of external moistness normally fires up the hedgy bilge pump to spray out exactly how wet/unhappy/in receipt of ‘trench willy’ my latest bike ride was. And followingsome random punctuation and naughty words, comes invariably a whinge that the bad weather has got personal, and there’s no one left to complain to.

Not today. An opportunisic very long weekend saw us heading out to the Welsh Riveria where golden beaches and stunning backdrops await. Not that we ever got that far, because a late start and early finish bracketed our sandy day. Which had started with a well known “low cost” tyre emporium cheerfully explaining that a) two tyres for the mighty Love Bus would be£330, b) They didn’t have any and c) tracking was extra.

How can it be extra? I am a major shareholder, surely, after that purchase and deserve some owner perks? And no wonder they didn’t have any, because at that price, I assume some Cuban virgin is hand rolling fresh rubber on her supple thighs. Hang on a minute, I just need to… er one more minute.. no I’m good…. right, as you were. Anyway I spurned their request for a large bucket of cash in return for some vague promise of future service, and instead deposited Baldy The Mini-Truck at the local garage.

Who, without any reference to far-flung, rubber rolling maidens, did the job in quarter of the time for about half the cost. This says to me that certain chains – okay KwikFit – are a bunch of racketeering, scaremongering rapscallions, and I shall not be darkening their telephone lines again. This is the first, and probably, last time the hedgehog does Public Service Broadcasting, and so I’d appreciate it if you could shout “THEIVING BASTARDS” ever time you pass one of their dens of financial inequity.

Anyway the beach was lovely, unspoiled and vast. The dog was mad, mentally disturbed and much chastised. The kids were briefly cold, often wet and full of the kind of smiles that only sand and ice cream can bring. I was merely sunburned on my extensive thin bit, and mildly exercised removing Murf from other peoples sandwiches.

The huge caravan park however is something else. It’s evenly split between people waiting to die, and those who are drinking such industrial quantities of cheap cider, they may soon be joining them. It was properly tacky with a betting shop on site, adjacent to a nasty looking greasy cafe and a gaudy bingo hall. It is also pretty close to my idea of hell, but – on walking through it – it seems I was in a minority of one. Although since I was the only bloke sober or not on life support in a twenty acre radius, this may have been contributory.

It’s not me being some kind of intellectual snob here. Mainly because I have neither the intellect or upbringing to be either, but I just don’t understand why you’d cage yourself in camp of 300 identical caravans, while there are delights aplenty all around. I am worryingly starting to view canvas bell tents in a non ironic manner, but the only good thing I can say about these caravans is at least they weren’t blocking a major arterial highway.

Having just about dried off, today we took 10 of Verbal’s friend’s swimming, ratcheting up the excitement with a huge floaty activity thingymebob*, before shovelling a zillion sugared calories and a similar number of e-numbers into their hungry stomachs. Parents love these swim parties as they get 2 hours of child-free weekend bliss. Having seen those kids at the end of the party, I’m not sure they’ve fully got the risk/reward gig here.

Anyway I must off to go battle with the eye high weeds with the Al modified strimmer**, because tomorrow the weather is again set fair. I think it would be wholly inappropriate not to enjoy that on some kind of bicycle.

* I fell off it three times. And then stopped, because I’d swallowed most of the pool. I told the kids I was merely prat-falling to amuse their little minds. They’re 10 and too lifeworn for that “Yeah, whatever“.

** Oh yes. Only a proper engineer can see something electrically certified and clearly dangerous, before thinking “right, to give it a bit of a kick, let’s simply convert it to NITRO“,