In the last issue of www.cranked.cc, I ran a snake-oil eye over the crashing protocol. Espousing a hooky theory that crashing isn’t entirely random. It can, at least, be categorised between ‘good ones’ and ‘bad ones’.

I’m still pedalling that line although – after today – I feel I didn’t give quite enough weight to how they both hurt equally. This is the fault of dry trails and brilliant bikes. Last week we were travelling mostly sideways in post winter slop offering the grippy assistance of shaved sea cucumber. Which was fine- slide about, stay happy side up, pine for Spring.

Spring turned up right on schedule and those same trails are now perfectly tacky. Sunshine burst out the hardy perennial of my favourite bike which I’d totally failed to crash at Bike Park Wales last Friday. I still somehow broke myself tho – seven runs in – retiring grumpy, wrist sore and hurt as my mates rode a few more.

Bit worrying. Taken most of my box fresh purchases on the uplift truck to test their metal* and not once has a combination of arm pump and cramp sent me home early. Tired I thought, long days, lots of travel, brakes a bit soft, probably holding on too tight, one of those things.

So it was the RipMo again today on a mission to rid myself of that memory, and reassert its place in the hegemony of the ShedofDreams(tm). 10 minutes it and the bike of doom – as I’m starting to think of it – took umbrage at some cack handed riding. Wheel goes one way, rider the other, bish-bash-bosh, over in a flash.

Dusting myself down with a fervent ‘what the fuck just happened there?’ it became clear a minor misjudgement pinged the front wheel off the loamy loveliness onto a patch of angled moist dirt barely clinging to the side of the trail. Yeah okay could happen to anyone, another one of those things.

Knee pads saved precious articulating joints. Elbow pads would have done similar had I been wearing any. Mildly abraded from shoulder to wrist and a sore calf sporting infectious looking dirt rash completed the injuries. Nothing to stop me riding on what felt like the first day of Spring.

Dry lines everywhere. Terrible lines from me. I’m riding okay while not being entirely present. The speed isn’t a problem, it’s not that buffer overload you get when too much stuff is fired at too little brain. It was more being so distracted by other stuff, I wasn’t even vaguely attracted to the trail in front of me.

There are benefits to this approach – mostly as a mitigation to my endless overthinking of what might happen next. However giving serious consideration on how to deal with overlapping customers without letting anyone down had me checking out of the MTB world completely.

And nearly checking into A&E. After a trail I’ve ridden at least 50 times tripped me up as I drifted off line again. It’s not even a narrow bloody trail, I just wasn’t really looking where I was going. Left pedal struck a low tree and that whole potential to kinetic transition slammed me face first into the dirt.

We weren’t hanging about meaning a frontal assault on a local tree was a possible near future experience. Luckily I trail braked with my face while improvising other body parts to aid the deceleration. Finally coming to a stop, I decided I didn’t want to go again so lay there having a little moan until help arrived.

It arrived in the form of Cez and Haydn who reassured me that ‘Yes, I did still have all my teeth’**, my nose was pointing mostly straight and my legendary good looks had not been ruined‘. Ah humour, always kick starts the healing process.

Aside from a split lip and blood running down my face, damage report was checking in with lot of hurt-y bits clambering for attention. Definite reds for a(nother) forearm skinned – and painful to move – plus stabby pains in my ribs which instantly had me worried I’d cracked a couple.

Can still laugh about it tho, so looks like I’ve dodged that bullet. Rode the 30 mins back in some discomfort wondering what the hell was going on. Tried to look over my right shoulder backing the car out. Won’t be doing that in a hurry. Or shaving. Or being polite when someone says ‘Aren’t you getting a bit old for this kind of thing?’’***

I want to blame the bike. Two crashes in one ride. Not doing silly stuff. On the best trails we’ve had for months. Can’t be me, I’m not brilliant at this mountain biking thing, but over the years I’ve developed an adequate range of skills.

Except that’s not quite true. Switching from the ridden for months chubby hardtail to the RipMo which is just so fast everywhere. Swapping slow, wet trails for rapid dry ones. All with one eye on next weeks work and the other on the one after that.

That’s not a bike problem, or a trail problem, that’s an Al problem. This is what happens when you cross those streams. Two many variables, not enough bandwidth. Mistook familiarity for competence. Had an easy lesson, didn’t learn it so a hard one inevitably follows.

Two things then; 1) I need to sort my bloody work-life balance out. It’s absolutely within my gift to do so. Got to stop saying No to the wrong people. 2) Need to get back on the horse as soon as possible. It’s somewhat ironic my riding has been the best I can remember all through the winter, and on one sunny day it’s Mr Crashtastic.

First tho, I need to find some way to lie down without it hurting 😉

*or increasingly expensive plastic.

**first thing I did was check for toothy shards. It was that kind of proper face plant. Genuinely expected to be rooting about in the undergrowth for my incisors.

***No. Thanks for asking. Now fuck off.

About three weeks ago if precision is on the agenda. Riding through a dead winter landscape long shadowed in unseasonal winter sunshine. I called it. Stupidly as it turned out. “Spring is here” summarised my happy mantra to Haydn riding next to me. That thing you see in front of you is the dry line. We’re done with the grim. Oh contraire.

The scientific method is something of a touchstone for me. So I’m not confusing the current climatic conditions with a butterfly flapping causal link to a man being optimistically stupid. Even so, I kind of wish I’d thought before speaking*, kept my powder dry, ridden the long game, and just accepted weather and seasons are really quite different things.

Ah but what a day. Warm sunshine blocking out the vista of nothing growing, dry trails lending grip to tyres not filled with February mud, bacon sandwiches enjoyed outside soaking up Vitamin D. Sure we needed an extra layer in the pub, but it still felt like early spring not late winter.

Then I got sick. Properly ‘don’t start any long books’ sick. It took over two weeks to de-escalate the certainly of ‘certain death’ to ‘possible death’**. I morphed into a grumpy snot monster with a cough clearly vectored for Tuberculosis . Stoic as I was***, the grimness encompassed Jessie’s 18th birthday and the last of the dry trails. I managed most of events associated with the former, while lamenting the latter through industrial quantities of Sloe Gin. No point risking malaria as well.

So yesterday we were back out once the rain turned up like an unwanted relative at Christmas, and showing no sign of sodding off until lent. While this was moderately annoying, I couldn’t help thinking it was fairly consistent with March. Comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb apparently. Or – as I like to think of it – rainy bastard with the chance of snow.

Riding out we couldn’t help but notice some puddles. Nothing was underwater, but a few of the trails had that look about them. Roots were slick, dirt was moist, skills were lacking. Had to lean on the front a bit to reacquaint myself with the whole ‘back there for partying, up here for thinking’ mullet technique.

Sideways rain wasn’t exactly a proxy for Spring either. We hid in PedalaBikeAway where pig sandwiches and hot coffee fortified us for the long ride to the pub. We ignored the ridden out rutty trails taped off for the Forest enduro, and headed west into the cheeky side of our riding realm.

Careful selection of trails avoided the horror of twenty minute plasticine climbs in what I’ve come to think of as ‘quick-mud’. Step off here and they’ll need to drag you out with a tractor. The similar sized tyres on my SolarisMax were working surprisingly well in the gloop. The front aiming me in the right direction, while the rear shimmied about in an amusing fashion.

Last three descents are all belters. The first an off camber loam-fest dropping into ever steepening turns. My plan to ride it feet up failed to survive first contact with the dirt. Tripod’d a few corners but not with my head so considered that a win.

Up a fireroad climb before dropping into a two pitch delight that’s fast and open until it isn’t. Rooty and nadgery between unforgiving trees makes keeping your head up and trusting your tyres the only way to stay in touch with the riders ahead. It’s all getting a bit lairy out back, but I’m staying off the brakes and riding the slide. Stuff of life right there.

We roll out though a muddy ditch and there’s lots of banter. ‘That bloody stump, nearly had me, reckon I tapped it with the rear, so much fun’. That’s pub talk, and we’re one descent from the river where our favourite hostelry awaits.

It’s an ever changing rock filled ditch. Relentless rain has opened up crevices and chutes hidden under last years leaves. It’s fun on the hardtail, but you need your wits about you as 3-D problems plant themselves in your optic nerve.

We ride the first section well and then accelerate onto a narrow ridge which disappears near the trail end. Option a) is to brake hard and drop gently into the mess of rocky chop. Option b) is more of a ‘ah fuck it, it’ll be fine’ brakeless plunge into the chute while hoping for the best.

The best was very good indeed. We giggled our way back on the old train track and got the beers in. Sure my bike is a muddy cipher of something I barely recognise, and my ride kit lies festering in a bucket, but we know it’s just going to get better from here.

I called it too early. But Spring is coming. I can’t wait.

*to be honest, this isn’t the first time such a thing may have happened.

**no medical professionals were consulted to confirm this diagnosis.

***In the Leigh household, there was a vigorous debate over the exact definition of stoic.

There is some stuff you shouldn’t mix. Explosive chemicals being self-evident*. Three generations of the same family a somewhat more learned life skill. And big days in the hills when Winter still firmly controls the calendar.

Matt – in the image above – clearly disputes this. His view is if you’re not bloodily injured with a mostly broken bike while struggling through waist high snow as night falls, then basically you need to get out less. Death-Marches are a real thing, and Matt’s keen to up the game with DM Evo where at least one person might not make it.

Honestly it’s like being the red jumper bloke in Star Trek. Join that party and it essentially peril, pain and a probable fatal interaction. Knowing all that, it as something of a surprise to find myself dodging fat raindrops at 6am this morning as the van pulled into the drive.

‘Clearing up shower then’ I greeted Matt. He just looked disappointed it wasn’t sleeting, or dinosaur killing meteors weren’t bouncing off the roof. We collected the rest of the red-jumper tribe and headed into mid Wales bombarded by zero temps and hard rain.

Daybreak didn’t bring much joy to a sodden landscape, with much hiding under the tailgate finding s dither of mountain bikers wondering how much waterproofing kit to wear. I went with ‘all of it’ as we took account of our surroundings – to whit being on the valley floor flanked by muscular hills at every compass point.

Best get up one of them. By the end of the day I’m pretty sure we’d been up most of them. Maybe twice. It’s proper ‘winch’n’plummet’ geography with little truck for anything tending to the horizontal. The first climb was a muddy horror, elivened only when an elbows-out MXer passed us in a spray of slurry only to bin it 30 yards on.

https://flic.kr/p/QWxKCD

Made me laugh. Into the sleet now acting as organic acupuncture. Fuck me that’s a bit miserable I thought dragging another waterproof from the pack. I didn’t need to look at Matt to see he was smiling. And hoping for snow.

First descent was a 2m wide mud rut enriched with a jumble of loose rock and wet roots. I was back on the Bird having repaired** all the broken stuff not really enjoyed on the Gap Ride. We are still having bonding issues – especially once my tentativeness ended with a partial ejection into a mud bank.

No one else seemed to be struggling tho. Nor at the first actual stream crossing where I took pictures before failing to fall into the river. This is something of a first.

Climbing wise, all was good even with frozen appendages stomping pedals and gripping bars. Six weeks in the shed going nowhere slowly may actually be making a difference. Or it could have been two cups of turbo-coffee and a dirty egg bap. Time may tell.

Descent 2. Went okay. Nobody died. Not even those wearing red. Bike still felt odd. Well I felt odd, unconnected, a bit nervous, missing my hardtail. At times likes this, a moment of introspection while chowing down on sarnies can help.

It didn’t really. I was a bit miserable from the chain gang up the valley into a bastard head wind. It was a pretty valley but it was also pretty brutal. Rather than deal with any actual problems, I changed my gloves. Displacement activity right there.

Descent three. Top of which is that first image. Stunning to be in the big hills, breathing clean air and on-sight-riding fairly technical stuff. Even when I’m riding like a twat, I cherish days like this. Any big hill, any season.

https://flic.kr/p/246rnaF

Sam was holding the gate as I came close to cartwheeling into it. Proper rocky but actually mostly dry. This lasted another two seconds before my wheels were submerged by a raging torrent pretending to be a trail.

Three minutes later not much has changed other than a few heartfelt ‘fuck me, that was close’ , and sufficient sliding off wet slate into water deep enough for me to consider whether a life raft might be something to add to my personal inventory.

https://flic.kr/p/SyNsWE

Arriving in a rather flustered state at the road, Haydn wondered if my forks might need a tweak. I asked him why. His reply suggested my current setup would be brilliant if I was method-acting Zebedee from Magic Roundabout, but not quite so appropriate for pounding rocks at regular intervals.

Since I was faffing, it seemed apposite to remove about 25{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of the air from a rear shock last inflated when I was quite a bit fatter***. Placebo or not, from therein, the bike received a studied Nod and a bit of a Yorkshire ‘That’ll do’ as we finally made some decent progress when the world tips to our happy place.

Last climb then. Feeling good. Except my feet. Can’t feel those at all. Swing into the road climb to be met by a sign informing any who may pass that 25{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} is the gradient. It wasn’t as easy as that, with a upward trajectory suggesting a moon-shot.

Orbital mechanics aside, I made a decent punt at it. 16 minutes of ‘oh sodding nora when is this going to end?’ delivering 250m of vertical waiting to be cashed in on a descent boosted as the best of the day. That’s a hell of an ask based on what had come before.

We rode into some stunning scenery filled with glacial moraines and the promise of cold rain. Dropping into a mad rock gulley I substituted any proper technique with the ‘hang on and hope’ approach that’s served me so well all these years. I even kept my eyes open.

Which was helpful as a tiring Sam became a further trail obstacle. Stupidly I followed Cez on a line best though of as ‘danger of death or at least the loss of a spleen’ accelerating to speeds I’m not entirely comfortable with.

Not as uncomfortable as what came next. A concrete slab drop-shipped by a lowest cost bidder to slow subsidence. It didn’t slow me as I was properly shitting the big drop on the far side of it. No way to roll that. Instinct is one thing, experience another. So for the frightened, closing my eyes and hoping for the best was as ever my go-to strategy.

Bit clattery, moments of uncertainty, bike going one way, upper body the other. Gritted teeth, rode it out eyeballs on stalks then cracked on registering every moment as the difference between merely existing and being alive.

Trail finally finished and we were cold, wet and bloody loving it. Rolled back into town to scare the good citizens of Llangollen with half naked bodies and much giggling.

What a day. Crossed many streams. Dodged some bullets. Found a way to enjoy the wet and the Winter. We’ll be back. Maybe next time tho hold the sleet….

*other than to those hardcore practical experimenters with no eyebrows. Tend to leave buildings vertically.

**as in ‘drop it off at Matt’s and get it back working through some kind of magic‘

***Don’t confuse this with me being whip-thin now. I’ve merely backed away from corpulent.

https://flic.kr/p/2dYX3rD

About this time last year I was reflecting bitterly on my inability to maintain forward motion without some kind of prat-fall. This prat fell over a log on a night run, failed to right himself so savagely rotating an innocent ankle clearly not designed to articulate in such a manner.

Damaged ligaments mutated that limb into a monster parody of a something mostly known for usefully attaching a foot too. Walking was painful, riding mountain bikes was strictly forbidden. My response was to buy a turbo trainer and Zwift subscription to stave off both boredom, and the inevitable loss of fitness doing nothing grumpily tends to engender.

It achieved neither. To be fair it was sailing into challenging headwinds comprised by an apathy and ‘fuck it, let’s have a beer instead’ approach to rehabilitation. Come March I could ride again – albeit 7 pounds heavier and with the aerobic fitness of a freshly minted corpse – meaning the turbo was first joyfully ignored, then repurposed as dusty clothes horse.

Until Christmas 2018. Even prior to the annual assault on all things cheese and port, the scales displayed the kind of quantitative evidence my clothes were already telling me. Basically I’d got fat. 13 stone 2 pounds fat. That’s me in another life where Mountain Bikes don’t exist, where hitting fifty merely unlocks the elastic waistband achievement.

Not having that, things must be done. Drag the unused cross bike onto the turbo, repurpose random shed items to host a ten year old monitor and a portable speaker. Fire up Zwift and some inspirational tunes and get right back at it. Went well for ten minutes until a few exciting seconds ending abruptly with the rear tyre exploding.

I tried to spin this as my awesome power fuelling a friction based combustion of some unworthy rubber, whereas an actual analysis of the remains demonstrated it had more perished than failed. Logic dictated a replacement was a simple ten minute drive/twenty quid transaction.

Pah logic? Over-rated. Some of us like to think more laterally. In this case around 30 miles east to a purveyor of all things shiny. Yes, if I couldn’t upgrade myself, I could upgrade the turbo into something marketing itself as ‘direct drive’ to ‘create a real road riding experience.’

Two small points worth mentioning here; firstly my limited familiarity with tarmac and bikes suggests the real experience would involve dodging wheel swallowing potholes, firing mud, dog-shit and God knows what else into your open mouth, all while being almost murdered by random strangers hurling two ton metal death bringers at you.

I didn’t want to lose weight that badly. I’m sure somewhere there’s a book heartily recommending shitting yourself on a regular basis to work off the pounds, but it’s not for me. Road riding is scary. Point 2 is there is nothing real about steaming up the windows of your shed, pedalling furiously while going nowhere and confusing flickering images for what’s going on outside.

No it’s more ‘FatMan – to the ShedMobile’. 13 days out of 14 was my record. Where the fuck I found the mental fortitude for that streak is something of a mystery to me. The problem with the bastard game* is it – well – games you. I somewhat incautiously signed up for a twelve week ‘training’ programme without understanding what the hell that might mean.

What it means is four or five hours every week, in what I now think of as the ShedOfMisery, wanting to electrocute the virtual coach who dispenses patronising inspiration through the medium of electronic smugness. But I keep coming back because if you miss a session, it’s gone. For good. No getting it back.

There’s 52 sessions in total. I’ve missed two. One was in the first week. It still burns. It’s like bloody Pokemon Go only for old people. Also this new trainer has some kind of witchcraft mode which basically makes cheating impossible. That I find extremely annoying as cheating is pretty much my first up response to stuff when it gets hard.

And it is getting hard. Every week just has a bit more bastard in it. Accompanied by the creepingly smug text scrolling across the screen. I have many issues; one is mountain bikers don’t spin a fast cadence. Anything over a 90 and I’m a mashing hamster. I’ve become increasingly convinced that the game knows this, thereby mocking my tawdry efforts with demands that wouldn’t be out of place on a washing machine spin cycle.

When I can’t face smugtwat(tm), I switch to a ‘group ride’. I so want to be sniffy about the friendship of virtual strangers. I mean VirtualShedWorld isn’t much of an upgrade to SecondLife or whatever came after. None of the avatars are fat for a start. And they all must know the cheat codes, because I’m blowing it out of my arse while every other fucker is happily communicating over group chat.

I have only responded once. With ’Nnnnnnggggghhhh’ after collapsing – aerobically spent – over the keyboard. But I keep coming back. And when one of those ‘Ride On’ drops into my virtual jersey I feel a little bit happy. And a little more dead inside.

5 weeks in. 7 to go. 12st7 at the last count. Most of that is giving up booze some of the time. Do I feel any fitter? Not sure, I certainly feel knackered. Someone suggested this might be overtraining, but I was able to counter that with I’m playing shit games in my shed, and this isn’t training. That’s basically an affront to the whole ethos of mountain biking.

7 more weeks. Fuck me, it’s worse than being forced to endure Strictly. At least I could do that with a beer. Come March tho, I’m not sure merely sidelining the turbo is going to be enough.

There might be a shed fire.

*and it is a game. Some people take it VERY seriously. I find this deeply amusing as I attempt to shave 2 seconds off a particularly annoying segment. I’m comfortable with simultaneously claiming the moral high ground and adopting the role of towering hypocrite 🙂

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