Commuting Viagra.

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsense1 Comment

It’s been a while since I’ve allowed myself a proper rant at Chiltern Railways. This isn’t because the perilous and difficult journey from South Bucks to London has in any way improved “ it’s more about a level of resignation that’s been beaten into me through a year of commuting. But today they pushed me over the edge.

Although to properly stretch that metaphor, you should think of it as being fired into the abyss by cannon. The root of my discontent is not the new platform built so far away from the station that one should be provisioned with sandwiches to fortify you on the journey. Amazing as it is, they still categorise this distant outpost as part of Marylebone station although a more geographically accurate description would be South Hampstead” The truly awful consequence of siting the platform in the next borough, is the unedifying sight of fat people struggling up the miles of asphalt – wobbly bits to the fore.

But that’s not the reason I was lemming fired into the ranting chasm. Nor was it Chiltern Railway’s total inability to communicate with their customers. They have acted consistently whenever presented with one of my written missives pleading for some rationale to explain their random decision making when it comes to timetables, bike racks and other myriad areas of Mandelbrot policy.

They’ve ignored them all.

I’ve been forced to complain to a ˜higher authority’ although my route there was plotted through terrifying thickets of ear steaming angst on rail forums. Some of the folk on there, as our American friends would label it, have ˜issues‘. I prefer to think of them as barking mad and in need of stronger medication.

Although I’m irritated beyond what’s sensible by their apathy is strategy approach to customer relations, that didn’t fire up my inner grumpy either. Even when the other day when the first train never arrived and the second one had hardly left before stopping to admire the leafy London suburbs, I couldn’t even dignify that as blog food. Once it started to move again, it did so with all the speed of glacial erosion “ still my boredom was forestalled by the educational delight of the entire Jurassic age passing by the window.

The reason for my rant was the simple announcement that This train is for London Marylebone“. No it bloody isn’t, that’s just an aspirational vision foundering on the rocks of we really don’t care “ an approach which abandoned us at Harrow. No reason was given although I’ve not ruled out a possible lightening strike brought on by a dispute over Bacon Buttie rations.

The undignified push and shunt onto a passing tube seemed like a possible solution but I’d happily forgotten that these wheeled cigars only give an appearance of speed through noise, vibration and the nervous worry that at any point, the tube would career off the rails. Time based reality distils the truth as a ten mile journey spanned thirty minutes and joggers of immense antiquity passed us with hardly a sweat.

Some bloke modelling June’s Mr. Motorway HiViz Maintenance” had the temerity to attempt to wrest further funds from my good self in exchange for an Underground ticket. Once I’d informed him that, as far as I was concerned, You’re all part of F*ckwit central stained with the inability to run a railroad“, further conversation deterioration left me with no choice but to out this bon jot Even in the remotest inbred village, you would disgrace the rank of idiot“. I’ve been saving that one for a while.

We agreed to differ and, vibrating sideways with righteous anger, I strode onto the Marylebone concourse (had to fetch the bike) only to see happy little trains running in and out of the station.

I’m starting to think this is personal now.

Still at least I can claim compensation. In this digital age, form filling should be a rather simple electronic page or, at worst, a quick email. But not this is Chiltern Railways motto: Fares from 2015, Systems from 1915” “ so it’s no surprise that it’s some kind of super complex four page form with carbon paper.

Oh the cruel irony “ we know they never respond to any communication that doesn’t involve the size of their bonus cheques, so what do you think the chances of me receiving anything back other than letterbox inadequacy? The form is pretty funny though, I’ll fill you in when I fill it in. Makes you think doesn’t it? Email travels at 30,000 miles per hour yet Chiltern Railway’s administration barely matches the speed of their trains. It’d be quicker to transcribe it on a stone tablet and dispatch it by camel.

I’m feeling increasingly impotent and while the blog is therapy of sorts, I need some kind of commuting Viagra. A man on the inside, a hotline to someone who cares, a targeted thermonuclear strike, that kind of thing.

Warm’n’Wet.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

That’s warm if you live down south and wet if you venture into the Penninian rain shadow that is Manchester. My arrival at the city limits triggered a downpour that if not exactly biblical certainly made you wish for rubber shoes and some anti-smiting cream. Having covered the hundred and seventy miles from home to Manchester in just over two hours, it only took me a further hour to find the hotel.

That’s the problem with technology you see. My PDA/TomTom thing reverted to the ground state of anything running WinDoze which is a blue screen, an unhelpful error message and the occasional apologetic electronic chirp. The backup plan of a printed map with detailed directions would have worked so much better had I completed the simple sequence of print, collect and carry. One out of three isn’t bad I suppose.

After attacking the city in a one man pincer movement, the Hotel appeared (well not exactly appeared as teleportation is still a young science) all concretey and welcoming out of the gloom. I then handed my car keys to a man I’d never met who aside from a Liverpool accent and a pair of Winkle Pickers looked every inch the valet parker they’d promised. I never expected to see the car again but my faith was partially restored in humanity the following morning when – aside from a tired looking interior obviously the result of a night’s hard taxi-ing – the vehicle was returned with the same number of wheels, and hardly any new “custom bodywork” as I like to think of the litany of every increasing dents.

The hotel was another one of those contemporary ones. You know, sink on the outside of the bathroom, remainder of bathroom designated a “wet zone” meaning everything you own disappears underwater and you must gain rapid surfing skills to remain upright on the way back into the bedroom. There was a mirror in the shower for shaving that had it not steamed up within one millisecond of the water being turned on may have had some possible use. The whole place was designed by a women because one of the few joys of hotel occupation was cruelly denied me.

I speak of leaving the toilet seat up. Being surrounded on three sides by women in my family, it’s a guilty pleasure not oft repeated. The sense of power being able to stumble into the bathroom unencumbered by difficult aspects of motor control involving seats and er, other things. But no, the flusher was cunningly hidden behind the seat meaning short of punching a hole in the ceramics, there was no way to have the whole seat up experience.

I will obviously be writing to the manager to complain in the strongest possible terms.

I didn’t bother with the in room dining on the grounds that there is only so much lettuce a man should see in his lifetime. And one day, I’ll rediscover the knack of sleeping in hotels. Last night failed to blaze that trail of discovery sadly.

A kindred spirit

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff2 Comments

My friend Nigel who has a similar amount of patience but a little more mechanical skill than yours truly. He sent me an innovative way to powertool (yes it is a verb and if it isn’t, it damn well should be) around, or more accurately, through a problem.

“Race Face turbine cranks arrived on Saturday very nice and shiny. Whipped off the old rings, shove on the luuurrvely new Blackspire 38T downhill ring (Rohloff see). Would it fit on? Would it feck – so it’s a 5 bolt compact chainring to fix a 5 bolt crankset… hmm, bl00dy holes wouldn’t line up.

Suffering sense of humour failure by this time I barely managed to restrain myself from flinging the chainring round the garden in case I should happen to accidently decapitate one of my neighbours having breakfast next door.

Time to raid the beer fridge instead.

So, off to Blackspire website to see whether I’m supposed to be using a different kind of chainring. Find another chainring size 38T singlespeed-specific only (38 – aye that’s proper singlespeeding that it) available in good old US of A. That’ll be $67 to blighty then – bollox.

Head downstairs decide to do what I probably should have done in first place, line up old big ring against my new one to see if they’re different.

Holes line up perfectly but the beer has cleared my head and I can see that on the old ring the mounting point round the holes are nicely rounded where they meet the cranks on either side, on the Blackspire they’re as square as a square thing. Mmm.. how to file a bit of chainring – hacksaw is way too much work. Divine inspiration came to me in the form of a power tool last used 4 years ago to encourage the new oven to fit in the place where it was supposed to fit. Yay, angle grinder, time to wake the neighbours up!

5 minutes later.. I wonder if the Health and Safety inspectorate would approve of my improvised bench vise – chainring on edge of doorstep left foot holding it down with the angle grinder spinning away like a mad thing a few millimeters away. I guess not but I still have a foot attached to each leg and best of all a chainring that fits. What’s more I proved my theory that a 5 bolt chainset would give a more consistent chain tension at all parts of the crank turn (that weirdy EBB thing again).

Celebrated by riding it to Hyde Park, getting blind drunk and riding back again. Rohloff in traffic is absolutely marvellous. Arrive at traffic lights, oops forgotten to change gear oh well…”

You see, it’s what I’ve always secretly known. Most problems – and I’m thinking big here, consider the positive implications of the aggressive wielding of an anglegrinder during EU budget debates – can be solved by the dual application of nature’s medicine and inappropriately brandished power tools.

100 posts are up and it’s a goodie :)

On By AlexIn Other stuff6 Comments

Behold the tool wall. Imagine a expensive funnel directing building traffic to a defined end point. This best describes the journey from a useful outbuilding to extended house. And at the cusp of that funnel is a vertical representation of all things tool shaped. Not that I’m obsessed or anything but this is about as good as it gets.

For some reason, my picture links seem to be broken, rather than try and fix then, here’s a link

Once sufficient elbow room is allowed, there’s the capacity for a biblical event that’d make Noah consider the rising of the water as localised flooding. You have to think big when considering the consequences of a talentless Alex, armed with dangerous hardware and aimed at an unsuspecting bike. Really don’t consider this as a victim, what we’re really talking about is a blast radius.

Still it’s all indoors and unlikely to frighten the horses so I’ll file it somewhere between a hobby and a mental illness. Somewhat like this blog which has crested a hundred posts and , more worryingly, attracts five hundred hits a day. Surely you’ve got something better to do.

No, I haven’t in case you were going to ask.

It’s back. Weird search phrases.

On By AlexIn Site StuffLeave a comment

In the second of a very occasional series, I felt I had to share the google funnel which dispatches the unwary, unwilling and just plain odd to the home of the hedgehog. Here’s a few of the choicer searches with my comments in ():

pretensious (welcome to the motherlode)
unilateral forced nostril breathing (I looked this up on google. I rather wished I hadn’t)
groundhog deterrents (Gun, surely?)
the close brethren (Woooaaah, nutter alert)
fiction underwear fitter (Something I’ve been hankering after myself)
fitting tow bar to partner (A little harsh but useful if you car breaks down and you need to get the caravan home)

Is it just me that finds this fascinating? Oh, fair enough 🙂

The law is an Ass.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

It’d be great if it was wouldn’t it? Well yes, I’ve just burgled your house in broad daylight, sexually abused the dog and sold your children into slavery but hey what’s that DONKEY going to do about it?”

But even allowing for nonsensical animal metaphors, it really is. I may, in a moment of unconsidered candour, admitted to being red-green colour blind when it comes to those bastions of the highway code; the humble traffic light. In a volte-face even more brazen than Sven’s tactical mastery of his forward line, I made a silent pledge to respect the red this morning. I was the only one. Entire legions of cyclists from Tour de France Wannabe’s to Halfords specials breezily ran the lights much to the consternation of crossing pedestrians and crosser motorists.

While I was trailing notionally in this rolling roadblock, my place astride the moral high ground was uncontested. Oh the glorious hypocrisy of my strident pleas for us pedal pushers to respect the highway code. Growling asshole” at every RLJ’r, I felt a faint surge of pride at my restraint “ either than or it was a somewhat unplanned bowel movement. And as only non light running colleague muttered it’s not like I want to get to work any earlier”. Good point, well made.

So as I wafted into the changing room borne aloft on a lingering sense of worthiness, the mobile crime scene that is riding in London slammed the door behind me. Someone had stolen my deodorant. Yep, nicked, filched, ˜arf inched “ however you want to categorise it, a fellow commuting bloke (unless it was a very self confident women desperately in need of a quick blast of Lynx) has had it away on the hoof.

While I’ve become immune to the threat of damp towels, the occasional ˜borrowed’ shower gel and fair weather squatters stealing my space, this is way beyond the acceptable direction of travel. I wouldn’t have missed a couple of cheeky squirts in the spirit of shared smelliness but the entire bloody tin?

So I’ll be filling my ˜hot spare’ with pepper spray and installing a couple of trip wires and web cans to catch the bounder on camera. Failing that, pass me the donkey.

Bristol Bikefest. Ow, Ow, Ow.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding1 Comment

On your right please mate, whenever you’re ready“. Oh I was ready alright, ready to lie down in the cool embrace of the leafy wood and wait to be stretchered out or abandoned as a rotting corpse, whichever came first. Either were preferable to actually riding another lap, or come to that another corner.

Having not ridden my hardtail for more than two hours at a stretch and almost never ridden for six hours in a day, my piss poor performance hardly merits an entry. But being crap wasn’t what really bothered me, it’s the whole endurance” scene man “ I’m more you Enjoyence rider; couple of laps, have a few goes at the good bits, retire to the bar and point aggressively at those zero fat body Nazi’s tightly wrapped in billboard lycra.

It hadn’t started badly. Having feasted on a balanced carbo load of fish AND chips washed down with a couple of fizzy lagers, the prospect of spending any longer in a waist high field of blowing pollen drove us out to do a lap. Since this was the night before the race, the track was all ours which considering our pedestrian pace was no bad thing. At 8k, the course is short enough to be tackled with vigour, but varied enough to suspend tedium on multiple laps. Rocky and rooty sections linked buff singletrack and height was gained on a couple of easy climbs. Super quick on a hardtail if you had the strength to manual over obstacles and stand tall when the trail added gradient and undulation. Big grins at the end of the lap, we felt pretty good for the race tomorrow. But that probably was the post lap beers talking.

Continue reading “Bristol Bikefest. Ow, Ow, Ow.” →

Burnt at one end, reamed at the other..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding6 Comments

The Bristol BikeFest was a fantastic event. If you like that kind of thing. Which I really don’t. I’ll download the entire theorapy session later but – and this is the last time – I’d yet again failed to detect the subtle nuance between Endurance Racing and Enjoyment Riding.

The bike was great. The course was fantastic. The weather was hot. The beer was most welcome. I hated it after about 3 hours.

Oh and waist high grass, a strong breeze and a hayfever sufferer make not a happy trio.

Riding whilst drunk

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Road Riding5 Comments

Riding whilst drink has much to commend it. Firstly it renders you immortal by sheathing your squashy bits in what I like to think of as lager armour”. Secondly it engenders a certain raffish approach to risk. Rather than assess the many and potentially fatal hazards awaiting the unwary cyclist, one can throw the entire risk management system out of the window; although a more apt description would be “in front of an oncoming car”

Thirdly, it grants you god like riding skills. Well that’s not entirely true of course, you think you have magically attained god like riding skills otherwise why would you attempt to craft a cheeky manoeuvre of placing a 24inch handlebar in a 20inch gap? As I wobbled down the Strand, it became increasingly clear that while I had no issues whatsoever powering the bike, steering it was quite another matter. Still what with being immortal, immune to risk and infused with divine bike skills, my progress was serene if a little erratic. It put me in mind of that old joke I’ve never been in an accident but I’ve seen quite a few”.

For every positive ying there is a negative yang when beer is your staple diet. The most pressing of these is the need to wee about every five minutes once the seal is broken. If one mighty tree in Hyde Park looks to be sickening, I may be able to offer an explanation, but not one I’ll share with the parks department. A second disadvantage is the pain of spinning five pints of lager in a bloated stomach at a hundred revs per minute. This becomes doubly unpleasant when chasing fellow commuters up hill. Yes, competitive dad kicked in and at no point did a belly full of sloshing liquid warn me that a more realistic target would be a slow pedestrian. Or a tree.

Still we’ve all done this when we’re drunk. Sweating and grinding away in pursuit of the unobtainable, pumping tired limbs and wrestling with recalcitrant objects. I’m still talking about riding but I’ve no idea what you lot are thinking. Really, you should be ashamed of yourself.

I had just the one accident when inadvertently punching a wing mirror while making hasty progress past Queenie’s house. In normal car hating mode, I’d flick the guy a V whether it’s my fault or not. But ensconced in my alcohol fog, he was my new best friend so I communicated my humblest apologies through the physical metaphor I can best describe as Frank Spencer with Parkinson’s disease.

He responded with soothing motions and a look of terror suggesting he believed I was going to open his door and enfold him in a beery hug. I did consider it but once the tiny sober corner of my mind screamed “Restraining Order”, I felt a weak grin and apologetic wave was probably a more appropriate response.

My statistically improbably uninjured arrival at the station was the trigger for my train to leave. Sadly not with me on it due to navigational uncertainly when faced with two new platforms and a slight worry that the bike probably would be safer if I locked it to something. Still gave me time for a quick beer before the next one. Well I didn’t, but I gave it frank consideration.

When you’ve put in a sustained effort at the bar “ and even this close to the longest day “ arriving at your home station in the dark shouldn’t be a surprise. It wasn’t really although that’s a decent noun to describe my expression when I realised I had nothing more than a couple of electric candles and a flawed sense of direction to get me home.

And the effects of the beer. That always instils a certain childish delight when spotting interesting stuff while attempting to keep the bike on the black stuff. oooh badger!” I squealed happily as he danced around my front wheel and I made a committed move to avoid his little black nose. A bit too committed considering my riding muscles were controlled by a fly by lager” system which was both imprecise and tardy. Still the bushes were not infested with anything too spiky and for a moment it seemed like a pleasant place to spend the night.

But no, drunk as I was, home was where I needed to be. To stave off boredom, I placed myself in the centre of a practical experiment to determine how dark is it without lights and how far can I ride no handed“. The answer to those questions are Very and Not Far.

Still it’s only a flesh wound.

Why oh why oh why?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding3 Comments

This post is written in the style of an eighties revisionist parady of Barry Took presenting Points Of View. Proper Public Service Broadcasting hosted by a man for whom a Christmas Cardigan held no fashion fears.

Alison B Yoghurt writes I see that you’ve decided to waste both your time and money entering an enduro race in which only embarrassment and possible permanent injury awaits. Why oh Why?“

To answer honestly, I’ve absolutely no idea. Other than to wheel out the old staple that it seemed like a good idea at the time. Since this broad category includes painting barn doors, relocating sofas and abandoning alcohol self medication, it’s should be obvious that it lacks efficacy when compared to anything within striking distance of sensible.

Continue reading “Why oh why oh why?” →