Happy New… on second thoughts to hell with that..

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New Years Day Malverns Ride

The passing of another year is beset with many problems. Let’s ignore pointless resolutions, mortality fears, unrealisable ambitions and full blown depression to instead pursue a denouement on the somewhat ludicrous rationale on why we adopted the Gregorian calendar in the first place.

Now Caesar was quite a forward thinking chap. About 900 years if his astrologers are to be believed. Sure it’s a bit narcissistic to present the world with a global calendar in your own name, yetat least he’d thought through the whole leap year thing* soensuring tax collection fell on the same day across the whole empire, but of course the bloody religious nutters wouldn’t let it lie.

The Gregorian calendar, introduced some 1500 years later by another bloke who was keen to have his name on the thing, fixed the cataclysmic issue of a 0.002{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} drift for significant dates. That date being Easter** which the original JC didn’t caremuch about, but for Pope Gregory’s JC was kind of a big deal. Although I still enjoy the old joke ‘Easter’s cancelled this year, they found the body‘.

Less funny was the actual violence metered out in Lindesfarne (Bede is your man here if you want to know more. All I shall say here is attempting to fixa date first by committee and then by arms wasnever going to end well) when a spirited debate broke out on exactly on what days Easter should actually land.

Still since it’s *another* Pagan festival (easter bunnies? Hot cross Buns? Eggs? Go find those in the Bible. It’s basically ‘bite the head off the bunny and say hello to spring‘), it’s hard from the perspective of another 1000 years to see why anyone really gave a shit in the first place.

And that’s my problem with New Year. Someone made it up like everything else when we get a day off work, and we’re all bloody slaves to it.

See? Problems all over the place, and that’s even before someone declares on face-cloth they are going dry for a month, When it’s dark all the time. And everyone is skint. Good luck with that. Have you consideredthe cost of therapy?

We went for a ride. The zephyr like conditions of a few days back were replaced by +10 degree temperature hikes and a blustery south westerly pregnant with rain. The world disappeared under cloud, and we tugged at its edges slithering about, and slapping New Year wishes on the occasional tree.

All good. I failed to add to the five crashes sustained already this week. There was laughter, tea and cake which feels a far better way to meet an uncaring rotation of the planet than angst, delusion and virtual hair-shirts.

In vaguely relatedNew Year/Old news, I’ve had a poke about in the archives to update both the ‘best of’ pages and the rotating door ‘bike page’. I didn’t put much effort into the latter to be frank. It’s about to get a pretty major up/down/side grade.

But that’s another story. And I think we’ve had enough of those already.

* as opposed to Indiana at the turn of the 20th Century who attempted to set PII at 3.2. Really they did. I accept it’s a bit neater than an infinitely repeating number, but try squaring that circle.

** Because of course Christmas is a Pagan festival usurped by Christianity to weave in some dodgy narrative involving a whole load of imbricatedstories, recorded some three hundred years after the actual event. Although event might be overstating it.

 

Done, not dusty.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, PhotographyLeave a comment
Penyard MTB - NYE 2014
That’s a big gap. Dean looking surprisingly relaxed!

Done – the lastrideof 2014. And in the spirit of all these indeterminable auto-generated face-cloth and Strava summaries, the two hour muddy endeavourperfectly encapsulated a year of many adventures, more than occasional timidity and a whole load of clean and dirty fun in between.

Firstly I crashed. Three times. Once adding a tree to the whole ‘it’s all gone wrong‘ experience. Secondly I avoided a difficult obstacle a couple of my riding mates sailed over. That’s Dean ^^ up there who gave it a damn good look on multiple run-ins before committing. Another pal, Cez, mistrusting that approach, instead launched himself at the gap jump with so much speed, he was still seen pedalling while both wheels were in the air.

I took some pictures. Then just before Beer o’ clock, we arrived at a freshly dug trail barely clinging to a slithery hillside. Apparently this ‘new way down‘ started with six vertical switchbacks, immediately followed by a couple of nasty drops and finishing in a run out to the fire-road where you could collect all your teeth if it went wrong.

I asked Sean – who built it – if I’d die riding it, evenutilising the full range ofmy legendary skills and bravery. The look with which he responded had me scurrying away to an easier trail less marked for someone who’d plumped for’involuntary suicide‘ as their New Years resolution.

So crash, nary and avoid. There’s been a bit of that this year. What do I mean this year, every bloody year really. Hard to know if I’m getting any less brave, or – as I suspect – because I’m starting from such a low base , it’s pretty damn hard to tell the difference.

Determining fun through progression is a slippery slope. I should know having fallen off many times attempting to navigate it. This year – when compared to 2013 – I’ve ridden about the same number of miles, climbed a bit more, visited a few less places, and had a similar shit load of simple joy.

I weigh about the same, pedal about the same, maybe arc through the odd corner a little sweeter after being up-skilled, brake when I shouldn’t, hesitate when I should just go for it, find excuses to quit and get lost in tangled mental thickets of over-thinking.

And for all of that, I love riding mountain bikes more than I ever did. I’m stupidly excited about new bikes, great adventures and unknown trailsin 2015. I have the best friends to ride with, and – right here on our doorstep – many amazing places to explore.

There’s a shitty season to ride through first, but ‘pre-spring‘ is just a couple of months to stay fit and healthy before it’s all drying trails, carving bluebell singletrack, kicking up dust and having a ball. Sliding about in January and February isn’t entirely without comedic merit either – especially if it’s someone else nutting trees.

Being such an antiquated sort of bloke, there’s something reassuring inunderstanding thatall these good things are coming, while retaining a childlike enthusiasm for spontaneous stuff that’ll make me point, babble and giggle.

Age is a number tho, not a barrier. Today after riding, a pub full of similarly chiselled*mountain bikers decided our mental age is about 27. Frankly I think we were overstating our maturity by at least 10 years. I looked around and saw old people with their tired eyes and well upholstered bodies. Their chronological clock may tickthe same as ours, but wechime to a different beat.

As an adult with a loving family and paying work you really must pay some attention to, there’s all sorts of commitments and deadlines outside of any control. The antithesis of that is being able to play outside on off road bicycles.

It’s all about balance. Until you hit a tree. Come on then 2015, let’s see what you’ve got. I’m ready.

* it’s a good word. Wrinkled might be a little more accurate.

That’ll go.

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Dec 2014 - Classic Gap MTB with Matt, Ceri and Haydn
Cez on a surprisingly un-icy bit!

Go badly that is. My last Gap year project was back at the end of 2012, after which I wrote a predictably pretentious load of old cobblers on exactly why I’d been avoiding it for ten years, and basically why it wasn’t anywhere near as terrifying as internally marketed.

Today was different. For a start the sun was providing the kind of light we photo-snobs dream about. Although so pre-occupied was it with projecting perfect mountain reflections in glass-still lakes, it entirely failed to provide any kind of warmth whatsoever.

Shivery start then. When faced with a big sodding mountain at which your current location is a million miles from the summit, go as cold as your dare.

That’s pretty cold so almost 2 kilometres passed before fingers inside thick winter gloves thawed out, and toes signalled they were in fact still attached. But God it was so worth it – a two week period in which I’ve eaten loads, drunk far too much, wasted too many hours and ridden not at all. Morethan just being back on the bike tho, much more aslimitless panoramic viewsbouncedaroundmy optical nerves.

If I may just be allowed a further moment of pretension; riding up frozen mountains with your friends, all the timebeing assailed with infinitelybeautiful glacial landscapes pretty much encapsulates all of’this is why‘ Thank you- from hereon in, I shall attempt tostick within the confines of a more descriptive narrative.

Illustrative couplets include ‘frozen-icy’ ‘slippy-frictionless‘ and ‘scary-terrifying’. As we climbed higher, hard ice replaced the trail – peppered only occasionally by soft dirt. A couple of short, steep technical ascents were summited through a combination of extreme effort and grip-less tiptoeing.

Enoughof this brought us to the first proper descent whichwas clearly going to be bowel clenchingly sketchy. It started well enough with baby headed rocks – free of ice – passing swiftly under superbly suspended wheels, before dropping into the type of frozen tundrathat can only be properly ridden rocking therictus gurn.

That Gurn is a facial summary of many things clenched from toes upwards. I wasn’t sure if the rear wheel was sliding, or my arse was merely twitching in the manner of a rabbit’s nose. Left, right, straight on – all choices entirely arbitrary and barely affected by wrenching the big steering handle things. You could try braking of course. If smashing face first into gritty ice is your kind of thing. Eventually the trail finally ended in a mess of Forestry brutality, and soon we were climbing again heading for the Gap from which the ride takes its name.

First tho, a nasty little rock strewn climb immediately followed by a short – but fun – plunge down a rocky escarpment. Not today though as it was filled with ice and even walking down, portaging the bikes, didn’t feel even close to safe. It was all a bit Blakes-7 ‘Down and Safe‘* vindicating my continued dalliance with flat pedals, and more importantly grippy shoes. Not that these saved me later on.

First tho, big climb up to the saddle. One of those ‘pick a gear and a point on the horizon‘, start pedalling, take in the view and think happy thoughts. Twenty minutes later these thoughts didnot include navigating a precipitous ice fall where the trail used to be. We recce’d it from all angles before agreeing the best approach would be two legs and two wheels, entirely separated.

This didn’t prevent me from an unscheduled arse-ice incident leaving a proper bruise and apparentlyamusing photographs. By the time I’d regained biped status and the remains of my dignity, the rest of the crew were long gone. They waited in the perfect spot to be enduringly polite at my attempts to actually ride some of this ice/rock/ice/ice horror.

I didn’t ride much of it, but I managed to throw myself roughly to the ground one more time. In the spirit of absolute fairness, this time a single pointy rock savaged the other arse cheek. I shall spend the remainder of this week walking like an aged cowboy.

No matter, reunited with my ‘rode most of that‘ pals, we set off for the classic descent on this loop. Firstly, a little up and down, launching over water bars and keeping a wary eye out for more ice, even tho we’d broken back into the sunshine. Never have I been so happy to see water streaming down the trail.

And then the increasing gradient and narrowing track tumbles you down into the valley at somewhat more sedate speeds than in less treacherous conditions. Still fast enough tho for Cez’s attempt to lob himself over a dry stone wall. Reasons mostly unknown.

That’s enough for a winter’s day, especially considering all limbs reporting in as still mostlyoperational. But there’s a little more, two tough sections demanding a decent pace as narrow paths throw up endless tyre stopping rocks. Physical, committing and on the ticked list to clear today. Proper, hard mountain biking.

All that was left were a couple of cowshit strewn roads, hidden from the sun under high leafless hedges and glistening with fresh ice. Safely navigated, we turned onto the frozen canal path and made haste for the pub, where beer was of course for winners/survivors.

There’s many other things I could have been doing today. Working for a living being one of them. Or lying on the sofa complaining of continuing plague which appears to have pressurised my small intestine. Or finding a thousand other reasons not to go and play outside where it’s cold and icy.

I’m so bloody glad I chose wisely 😉

* for readers under the age of being allowed to wear long trousers outside, this is a reference to the superb 1970s BBC Sci-Fi series somehow being both mostly realistic** and produced on a budget of about 10 bob.

** if you were very young. It probably hasn’t dated well.

A bird in the hand..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography2 Comments

In the vanguard of the shiny

… is worth two in the shed. As observedby that rather hackyned old proverb, now cheekily repurposed for what passes as rationale fromthis side of the keyboard. From here I can imagine the gasps of amazement and expressionsof disbelief fromthose hearing of this unforeseen event.

Yeah okay that’s not imagination, it’sdeluded fantasy. I expect exactly no one to be even mildly astonished on the big reveal merely shuffling innocent trinkets in the shedofdreams(tm). A bedrock of my relationship with the good lady, her indoors is that I pretend to have a brilliantly nuanced trail-map from today to a fixed point in time*, where fiscal probity and asset sanity finally replaces the revolving door of bike replacement. And she pretends to believe me.

It goes something like this; there’s some traditional dogma surrounding multiple bike ownership – plant the shed with the latest crop of shiny new things as defined by Mr. Marketing, and harvest the one most appropriate for the prevailing ground conditions. Crappy old winters day or quick woody hack, take the hardtaill. Uplift truck or big rocky day out, drag the big bike from the shadows. Anything in between, grab the one that’s pretty damn good at everything else.

There’s the thread of a compelling narrative there. Save the good bikes for best- every ‘proper‘ rider must tella petrolhead-Alfa hardtail story, the full face needs a worthy companion so there’s no situation for which I’m under-equipped or poorly matched. Dig a little deeper tho and a couple of rather important points are uncovered; firstly cumulative isn’t the same as appropriate, and two thirds of your bikes hardly getridden.

Examples abound; myhardtailis a lovely incarnation of the breed – big wheels, a steel heart and corner-chasing handling. Thepseudo big bike has an effortless brilliance accompanying it’s less accomplished rider from the back of an uplift trailer or swinging on a chairlift. Both are fantastic,butneither has even 10{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of the miles clocked on the middle of the road unsung hero.

The Pyga is a great bike. I’ve actually worn stuff out before upgradingit. 3200 kilometres, two drivetrains, one full set of bearings, two suspension services, one brake bleed, endless pads, multiple tyres and scratches from rim to rim document 18 months of multiple weekly interactions leaving me with a big grin and a nagging worrryover all the unriddenbikes with their drying seals, deflating tyres and dusty countenances.

Bikes at the heart of the periphery are outliers. They are essentially wall art, occasionally wheeled out to justify their existence. What they do better than your ‘daily driver’ feels strange and alien. Behind their bars is not a familiar place, sohalf the ride is relearning their foibles. It doesn’t make them bad bikes, but it does make the bike per genre thinking somewhat flawed.

The solution seems obvious. Just keep that one and use technique, bravery and bloody-mindedness to ride around perceived shortcomings on the margins of trail riding. It’s an interesting idea, but garners no traction for a man who genuinely believes he is one bike from unleashing some hidden potential – regardless of owning similar brilliant examples.

And yes there’s the shiny new bike thing. I’d be fibbing off the scale if that wasn’t factored into solving the complex equation of N+1-2. It’s another manufacturer almost no one has heard of, paid for way before it arrives and purchased entirely on the basis that ‘it looks about right’plus a nod tothe designers who seem like decent blokes.

So my plan** is two bikes almost the same. Small Hammer and Big Hammer if you will. For a man who sees the world pretty much as a nail, every bike is merely graduated percussion.You can keep your finesse, lightweight components, extreme compromises and ridiculous reinventing of what a bike should look like. I don’t want fat, thin, exotic or niche. Rather give me two bikes someway beyond my capability to test them, and I’m pretty much done and dusty.

Riding the Mega always made me feel a little bit special and quite a lot rubbish. Slinging a leg over the Solaris for the first time in six months gave me little joy and an unshakeable feeling of beingold and lumbered by a degrading spine. Both can go to people and places where they will be the bike of choice, primarily selected whatever the trail, dragged out in all conditions and slung back ready for another adventure just around the corner.

I’ll be sorry to see them go, but not as sorry as seeing them hanging purposelessly in a heated shed with so much to give and nowhere to go. This might – and probaly is – pretentious wankerage merely displacing guilt for buying into the latest wheel size and geometry, all of which is entirely irrelavent to having fun riding bikes.

There’s a reason bikes are called cycles, because the curators of a shed-full will spin up the sign wave between ‘one of each‘ and ‘more of the same‘. It’ll go around and come around always with some veneer thin rationale to why, this time, the deckchairs on this Titanic have finally assumed their final positions.

Until then, I get to ride new bikes that’ll blow me away in new places, make old places somehow even better and never hang unwanted in something that started as a bike store but ended up looking like a shrine.

A sane person looking into my word mayquestion why anyone could possibly need so many bikes. And they’d be missing the point. It’s not the quantity, it’s the mix. If I ride the Pyga and the Bird equally over the next year, I’ll be proved absolutely right. And if not, guess what happens next? 🙂

* at no timewould I put a date on that. There’s no point in both of us being disappointed.

** I’ve just reacquainted myself with the OED definition of ‘Plan‘ sofeel substituting that for the phrase ‘random stream of unconnected activities’ would be more appropriate.

Brittle Bones – on the edge of traction

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Don't go towards the light!

I’m not overlyfamiliar with the canon of Ms Zellweger’s work, nor the Bridget Jones extended franchise, but neither of these potential cultural oversights stayed the ‘Edge Of Reason‘ flash-sideways sliding into my frontal lobe during a mildly trying period best thought of as ‘man versus tree’.

Sideways and Sliding are a rare adjectival/verb crossover combination perfectly describing a descent into wooded singletrack and mild terror. One minute I’m drinking in the earths’ curvature from high places painted deep in winters azure clarity, and the next it’s all gone dusky dark, slithering mud and arborealaggressiveness.

My passion for forests is only topped by their taller mountain brethren, except when individual trees are throwing themselves at my increasingly brittle frame. Switching from the rather trite ‘lungs of the planet‘ to ‘bone crushing monoliths’ in all the time it takes to wonder where all the traction went.

‘More grip that you think, just a bit less than you need‘ is the watch-phrase here. It was preceded by a need to ride under perfect blue skies, with a less than perfect right knee and sodden geography recovering slowly from the first winter storms. Late year sunlight brings even the troglodytes from their crypts, sothe hills were alive with the sound of walking sticks, bored families and the occasional joy sponge composing their next militantmissive to the Malvern Gazette*

We dropped out of sight onto trails so cheeky they should have their bottom smacked, immediately encountering the kind of tyre filling mud leaving anyone perched atop with the option of risking a dab of brake or a hint or steering. Certainly not both. That way lies an individual consultation with thestump of your choice.

God it’s fun tho. There’s something about this time of year where the trails have basically turned to shit, but there’s still enjoyment to be found at half the traction, three quarters of the speed and twice the commitment. Two wheel drifts are amusing at 10mph, less so at twice that, and solving the weight-placement, braking, cornering angles on a per-second basis is physically and mentally satisfying.

Mountain biking in the real world if you like. Nothing is buffed other than your head with that particular brand insulating a deficient thatch. There’s no hero dirt here, no sun-sparkled dust long-framed in lens flare, no guns out in the sun, no easy options, no limitless traction, no endless light filleddays.

Proper four season sport. Layer up, get out thereand appreciate the vignettes of saving a desperate slide, warming extremities by vigorous stamping, conquering a greasy climb through torque and technique, hitting jumps already sideways, and always riding, riding, riding through a landscape devoid of life and often clamped in grey.

We hardly had a run at any descent because the hills were peopled with those asdesperate to walk shadow tall under cloudless skies. And that’s absolutely fine because just reeling in the horizon at any speed at times like this is enough. Not quite enough though, because today we sallied forth again under those much hated grey skies to slither about in the woods above Ross.

Bits were great. Fast, grippy, devoid of mud. Other bits were slick, difficult and often full of unwanted trunk**. Which brings me back full circle to the brittle bones bit; riding at this time of year requires more skill – and probably less bravery – than an amalgam of spring, summer and autumn. Which is fine and everything until someone loses aline, the plot, and possibly an eye.

Post ride, beers were pulled as those self-classified as the worthy sat in the warmth and talked of deeds to be done and more to be catalogued. I have some of the greatest friendswho, regardless of their circumstances, prioritise riding mountain bikes in all seasons and weathers.

We talk like children, excited by the possibilities of the new but we’re not young. The first flush of youth has long gone. We’ve got scars, broken bits, sore limbs and a clock countingthe minutes until all this stops. And it’s the thought of those missing months you can never get back which deprecates your bravery. Hurting myself isn’t the issue, being off the bike absolutely is. Riding tomorrow is far more important than riding the thing in front of you.

Mountain Biking is so much a part of what I am, and yet it’s also a perfect juxtaposition between cravingthe adrenaline hit and not hitting something that’ll put you off the bike for a while. Possibly for ever. Now there’s a dark place too scary to visit. Until there are no other choices.

My dad is getting on a bit. He’s flown gliders and light aircraft almost every weekend for nearly sixty years. Soon – so very soon – age and certification become incompatible. He is understandably worried about what to fill that hole with, and while it’s impossible not to sympathisewith position, I’m beyond bloody glad it’s not me facing that decision.

Ride bikes for fun. Don’t crash hard. Ride bikes again. That’s as close to a Christmas message as I’m going to get.

* ‘Dear Sir, I suggest in the strongest possible terms Mountain Bikers are reclassified as game birds so open season can be declared on August 12th. Yours, an old bloke pining for days that never were‘

** Trees not elephants. There’s a lot of weird stuff that goes on in Herefordshire, but herds of massive mammals*** striding across the Wye valley isn’t one of them

*** Except for MAMILs. We get loads of those. Fat mountain bikers I get. We drink loads of beer. Fat Roadies? Help me out here.

It’s about time..

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Malvern Night Ride

… I started night riding again. But much of my non participation is easily parcelled into the excuse that ‘it’s about time‘ just as well. My feasting of late summer turned into a rain-swelled riding famine come adark, wet but mostly working autumn. Stupidly early starts, endless late finishes and far too much of our fine capital* in between.

Two weeks ago we floundered about in the fog looking for familiar trails and – for me – my lost fitness and motivation both sucked dry by too many liquid evenings staring out into dark, rainy skies. A work/life balance pivoted by other peoples deadlines and trying to be the perfect new boy.

It was fine and everything, but thelistlessness of that evening foreshadowed an overburdened immune system gradually succumbing to a new medical condition best thought of as ‘flanmoo‘** rendering me pretty much incapable of any physical activity over and above having a little moan. It passed eventually so time to get back out there.

It’d been dark quite a while whenthe car beeped an ice warning on my way into the hills. Some effort of will required to remove oneself from the warm embrace of a heated cage to go play in the real world. Very much worth it tho, as within five minutes astounding technical modern fabrics and a rather more ancient vascular system upped the internal temperature gauge to ‘moderately toasty‘

Until I needed a tree stopor – as I like to think of it – ‘wee is just warmth leaving the body‘ about five minutes in. No matter much more climbing to turn up the heat before a couple of sketchy descents where the gloriously dry trails were occasionally hidden under 20 yards of mud. Experience has taught me that the best approach to such conditions is to relax, point the bike in the general direction of safety and stick Newton in the driving seat.

Dry trails are the result of Nature’s hairdryer which was blowing at 30 knots plus on the tops, as we pedalled downhill into the wind and sailed splendidly on the ups. But it tool me the best part of an hour to remember exactly night riding works. Before that everything felt awkward and closed in even with amazing optics blazing 1000s of lumens for miles up front. Really you need to disengage most of you peripheral vision and make bloody sure you look where you want to go, because if you start focussing your brain on a ‘show me that rock‘ game, there’s only going to be one outcome.

That said, it’s brilliant fun knowing there’s no walker ambling round the next corner or a awkwardlyplaced conservator marking time at the start of your favourite cheeky trail. And on a clear night like this, there are views all the way to Birmingham and amusingly bugger all lit up the other way towards Wales. The valley is full of smoking chimneys drafting the expired breath of the time-expired humans who believe they’re on the right side of their insulated walls.

We had a minute where that ^^ image was captured and for about the millionth time I found myself entirely at peace with the world whenriding bikes with my friends. Life feels really very complex sometimes until you suddenlyget hit with a ‘this is why‘ moment. Christ why can’t we bottle that, and take a sipevery time the real world intrudes into what should be a pretty simple operating condition?

Pretention over and shivering a bit, we headed up one more time – straining into a headwind – to ritually tap the trig point before turning round and blasting downhill pushed alongby wind and laughter. Loose rocks, steep pitches, decent sized drops moon backlit in silhouette allflowing underfast rotating wheels. Stuff of life this.

Just once more into the fray, we cried slurry rather than Harry as the dryconditions deteriorated into sticky, tyre filling mud rendering them entirely useless for anything other than sliding about in a mildly comedic fashion. It’s a night for flat pedals with much tripod-ing of corners and last minute saves. And it’s a night for giggling like a ten year old, messing about outside under this natural planetarium and wondering why the hell this ever seemed difficult.

Motivation is a strange thing. I rode tonight because it really was about time and choosing how to fill it. But it was still a stretch to remove insufficiently motivated arse from warm sofa. And yet 30 minutes later, it’s basically undistllled joy and adrenaline spikes.

There’ll be some shit rides this winter. At night and in the semi-perpetual darkness which passes as daylight during December, January and February. But for every one of those there will be many, many more of these.

For six weeks I have made decisions about what’s important, and I have chosen poorly. Tonight reminds me why I need to make bloody sure this doesn’t become a bad habit I can’t break. Roll on next Tuesday.

* to clarify – if the irony doesn’t leap off the page – how the fuck does that place even work? It’s like the matrix without the red pill.

** A spoonerism of ‘manflu‘ with exactly the same symptoms except no one else notices or shows any sympathy. Even when the snotty patient is flopped on the sofa idly wondering if ‘he should go towards the light‘

Centred

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Coed y Brenin

In a time best thought of thedistant past I wrote an article on the practice of Yoga and why it’s not entirely relevant for the approximate half of the population whose idea of self-reflection is scratching their bollocks in a post modernist fashion.

The past is a different country; they speak differently there which somewhat explains my current mild obsession with stretching muscles without lifting weights in a long term goal of flexibilityand a rather shorter one of standing up in the morning without clicking, creaking and exposing the kind of noises provoking the neighbours to call the RSPCA*

Not Yoga tho. I’m just too much bloke and not enough lentil. Pilates is a bit differentwith Carol and my youngest who cheats with longer arms and a body not ravaged by age, injury and abuse. She’s not idea how lucky she is right now. And obviously there’s no point in explaining such a thing to those having never known any different.

Which bring me nicely to trail centres. It pains me to realise than my extreme antiquity shields the truth of the young and innocent failing to understand that winter is actually a quest of the worthy snorting mud and mainlining an arse of liquid crack while pretending they might be enjoying themselves.

Which is absolutely fine for the hair-shitred amongst us. There’s a certain purity in endless death marches under slashing rain skies on trails once fast and hard but now basically under the water table. You feel fantastic. Afterwards. During the ride? Not so much. Bit this is proper four season mountain biking. There is no wimping out or whimpering. Others may be weak but you are strong in the face of drudgery, broken transmission and inevitably broken spirit.

Two weeks ago we broke ranks and headed for Wales to ride nothing but trail centres. The distant wild hills called and we gave them a nostalgic wave before forgoing navigation for stump based arrow and armoured trails. 3 Days, 3 trails and if I’m admitting a guilty secret it was nothing short of magnificent.

We were lucky with the weather which when you’re deep into North Wales in late October suggests you’ve not been hailed on. The rain came but by the time it was pissing down we were ensconced in a Halloween theme pub entertained by a band mostly differentiated by one man playing every instrument from guitar to accordion and the other wearing a pumpkin on his head**

Returning to the kind of climatic conditions November brings spiked my motivation to ride in such a way, I entirely failed to fetch the bike from the barn for the first time in a planetary rotation. The thought of slogging through muddy natural trails had the appeal of crushingone love spuds in a sharply contoured drawer.

Night rides came as did the rain and my non attendance passed but the shitty weather turned up in my stead. Eventually tho the need to ride trumps the inertia of wondering if it’s worth it. Circumstances predicated a two hour window at Swinley Forest where i’d cut my singletrack teeth many years ago and has recently been upgraded to a proper trail centre.

Hmm. Based on traffic and politics, all the heritage trails have closed notices stapled to trees whereas the new blue and red runs are vigorously signposted and marketed. And they are absolutely fine displacing the lack of elevation with seemingly endless switchbacks though pine forests and the occasional 30 second non pedally descent.

Something is missing tho. I slipped out of the matrix and headed out on vaguely remembered trails now marked illicit They were full of puddles, slick roots and unsustainable cambers. And I loved them more for that. I’d rather splash through something like that than dissolve brake pads on a cipher for a much loved trail.

This isn’t me having a pop at trail centres. Nor that the demands on somewhere like Swinley drove a hard decision between something official and nothing at all. Nor am I am denigrating the joy of 4 season trails perfectly designed for mass traffic and shit weather. Not at all, come Sunday I’ll be back at another one.

I guess it’s something a little more nuanced. My plan to ride Swinley was simply the displacement of a head full of much stuff to be done. Perspective guaranteed, to do listsaxed, real-lifte(tm) reasserting itself. Everything I get riding a mountain bike. And I got none of it switching back on scalexric tracks and wondering if this is how the end starts.

Sure the blood was arterially pumping. The trails snaked out in all sorts of interesting directions. The bike was willing and ready. But the rider had a head full of angst entirely failing to me wound out by the cycle of pedalling. It was okay, fine, sort of good but it wasn’t quite enough.

I love trail centres. If they are in Wales. Or Scotland. I get that but the idea of building a centre in a place where 25km delivers 200m of elevation you’ve got to think what the hell is the point. The point is of course political – too many riders chasing illegal trails on someone elses land. Armoured trails are the answer.

I feel we’re probably asking the wrong question.

* because no sound like that which resonates through a wall can be in any way human and must suggest bad things are being inflicted on innocent pets.

** this is North Wales and such things pass as entertainment.

Biscuits of Arse

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

Customed Yeti Tow Ball

Which I think we can all agree is an opportunity missed by the gel-setted 80s bands correlated by their terrible electric drum kits and rubbish names*

However today, we’re referencing a rather more contempory issue, although the photo above speaks rather prosaically to a thrusting medieval sex toy. Although such a toy could only be hoistedby two strong men going equipped with a block and tackle**

It’s a pretty meaty stressed member, even in a state clearly requiring alchemic viagra to return it to an original metallurgic state. For the towbar illiterate, these amusingly shaped rear end edifices are properly engineered to drag pointless lumpy caravans from a standing start to a speed perfectly designed to piss off 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of the motoring population. They imbue the principals of robustness, strength and longevity.

Unless, and I accept this is a scenario far beyond the edge cases dreamed up by the original designers, you repurpose the entire mechanism as a battering ram. Those long suffering readers of the hedgehog may recall an incident early this year when I tested the efficacy of a subframe attached towbar by launching it into Carol’s car.

It survived. Carol’s car? Not so much. This time, no other vehicles were involved although this was more luck than judgement. Having parked up in a local car park for a swift post work pint, nothing could have been further from my mind than returning to the very same spot an hour later to find my car apparently stolen.

Firstly I assumed foul play from my friends Matt and Haydn. This is not some kind of latent paranoia, it’s EXACTLY the kind of thing that passes for japery for those seriously starved or entertainment. They strenuously denied any misdemeanour mainly on the grounds the car was five minutes from the pub, and none of us had ventured furthered than the loo.

Hmm. A good argument but not compelling on the not unreasonable grounds of ‘where the fuck is my car then?‘. We found it seconds later having cast our eyes down the slope to a useful wall, recently brought into action preventing a ton and a half of ice cream van parking itself into a innocent partys Friday evening.

Handbrakes are over-rated. For thirty years I’ve been pulling the bloody things before going for a belt-n-braces engage first gear – thenexisting the vehicle. That night, I failed to do either and certainly not both with the resulting farce of the car accelerating driverless into the aforementioned wall and not someones living room.

My relief at finding the car and finding it apparently undamaged was mitigated somewhat on discovering the brick-dust and strangely angled tow-ball the following morning. Since we found it six inches from the saviour wall, it probably smackedt it quite hard before rebounding to a shuddering standstill.

Could have been worse. A lot worse. Firstly there was a car parked behind me which my Yeti would have collected had he not had the presence of mind to move it, and without the tow bar I cannot imagine the physical and fiscal damage that’d have been inflicted on the non shatter proof bodywork.

I did consider getting a proper adult to check for further damage but decided against for three good reasons: a) I already felt stupid enough b) a quick poke about with a torch suggested most things were pointing in the same direction and c) I’m trading it next year and don’t want to look guilty to any perspective buyer.

The good news is the tow-bar is firmly bolted to the subframe so transferring the impact to a whole lot of chunky metal. The less good news is my ongoing stupidity in charge of dangerous wheeled goods shows no sign of diminishing. Maybe I should design a full car airbag.

* and I love 80s groups. But I’m not blind to their many failings. Rolled up suit sleeve jackets? Really? Spandau Ballet I’m looking at you.

** not that kind of tackle. And stop sniggering at the back.

Friends in high places

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding3 Comments

IMG_4353

Not the kind of high places populated by the supposedly elite and inappropriately privileged. My proximity with those social groups could only take one of two possible forms; either serving the drinks, or laying about myself with the rough end of a Chesterfield*

The kind of rarified atmosphere I have shared with my proper friends are to be found in riding above the tree lines, desperately seeking shelter on bleak summits or carrying bikes towards distant peaks. Companionship forged under endless skies surveying people-less vistas. No fair weather friends here “ these individuals take one look at sub-zero snow being flung at the window before grinning. The unspoken ˜are we riding?’ question never needs to be asked.

Nige is one of those people. We’ve been often wet, mostly lost and endlessly cold in all sorts of situations containing mild peril. So I could not pass up the opportunity to bypass social convention regarding family gatherings, instead rocking up in a muddy Surrey Hills car park to ride with my old pal.

To find Nige, I first had to navigate through the thicket of ˜#soenduro’ bikes and pilots mostly strapped to the back of new-plate Audi’s. If there’s ever any doubt where all the worlds suppliers of carbon weave and orange paint has disappeared to, I can divulge the exact epicentre of the prime suspects.

Me and the Nigester were rocking heritage wheels (him 26, me 29), well campaigned gear and “ in his case “ straight steerer tubes and non bolt through rear ends. Amazing the whole thing didn’t explode on exit from his car as would be the expectation set by keyboard-warrior MTB Forums.

We headed up hill unscathed other than Nige blowing a bit on the not unreasonable grounds his riding has been curtailed by a proper job and family commitments – a set of circumstances entirely missing from my previous three months. The ˜All-Mountain-Rigs’ were nowhere in sight as we crested the summit of the Peaslake Alps revealing a rather pretty panorama marred only by its lack of altitude and evidence of mass population. It’s nice and everything but it’s not a proper hill.

It is however absolutely stuffed with brilliant trails criss-crossing the limited vertical in all manner of interesting and thrilling ways. Firstly Yoghurt Pots poked my singletrack synapsus with nicely crafted berms and dips. The expected mud remained mostly missing for all the time it took to drop into the next rather more natural trail.

A plethora of off camber roots “ polished from much use and slick from recent rain “ awaited our giggling and tripod efforts to ride them with any aplomb. Nig did rather better than me which entirely failed to prevent a big grin as we dropped onto a fireroad climb hauling us back to Telegraph Road.

I’ve never ridden this trail in the dry. And today was no different. What changed was my ability to dispatch the corners with the kind of middle-aged wildish abandon I’d long forgotten, for which my day with Tony is a gift that keeps on giving.

We hitched ourselves onto a ten minute pleasant climb back to where we started. Opening up the iconic Barry Knows Best trail much revered in these parts. And with good reason, being fast, flowy, bone dry and perfectly sculptured.

Which fails to explain why we both stacked on it. There’s a bond with your proper MTB mates which is broken when you can’t hear their front tyre nudging your rear mech. Having had a shit load of fun chucking myself into perfect berms and over entirely non terrifying jumps, I encountered a well upholstered man straining in the vanguard of an activity best thought of as ˜Rocking Green and Orange while perambulating extremely slowly‘. Backing off, I mentally backed up and checked my six for an expected Nige.

He wasn’t there and I wasn’t either having given away concentration, peripheral vision and the middle of the trail. Result being my 1 ride old Magnesium pedal ** stabbing an innocent stump with the predictable result of a previously well balanced rider leaving the office through the front door. Luckily a tree was right there to prevent any gentle deceleration. I greeted my arboreal friend by simply punching it with a soon to be swollen hand.

Moments later, and bleeding profusely, I wiggled most things and found them working if a little sore. Damage Control reported a sternum suffering a Mr Scaramanga Third Nipple due to dragging a bar from my belly button to where shaving stops, but such minor injuries didn’t stop me from staggering upright and checking the bike.

Which was fine other than a couple of rotated components quickly fixed but still in a timescale that should have seen a fast Nige flashing past. No flashing. No Nige. Just as my next action was a determined limp up the trail to check for body parts, he rolled slowly into view.

Proper crash on the only vaguely technical section. Whereas I’d merely hugged a tree, he’d failed to commit and suffered the inevitable consequence of riding a steep drop on his head. Brain undamaged, ribs bruised, wrist sore, we leisure cycled to the tea stop*** for sugar based recuperation.

Flapjack imbibed, we avoided the soft option of giving up and headed up Winterfold Hill for more frolics on brilliant trails clearly beefed up since my last visit some four years ago. We even got lost for a while which was nostalgia brought right up to date.

A final drop to the car park on ˜SuperNova’ had me reconsidering the lazy categorization of these trails. Sure there’s more money than riding ability but that’s the same anywhere. And we watched some proper fast riders who bucked the stereotype. There’s some brilliant trails here, and some brilliant riders. I’m not sure it’s a standard deviation, but as a guest on someone else’s patch it was bloody fantastic.

And then I had a beer with an old friend. Said it before, say it again: riding is half of where you are and half of who you are with.

Good day. Won’t leave it so long next time.

* Sofa or Lord. Either would suit my faux-socialist credentials.

** The industrial casting process for magnesium is essentially waiting for something to catch fire. I expect my examples were thrown from a burning building.

*** achieving 4102 from 4309 of Strava times. I’m strangely proud of that.

Need a lift?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding2 Comments
Bike Park Wales with Cez
It wasn’t that dry the second time round!

A simple question elicitingvisceralresponses, when the virtual thumb is thrown out intothe big tent of the mountain biking community. For those who still despise trail centres, the promise of pedal free riding representsthe absolute nadir of missing the point, plots long lost, shortcuts easily found and an evolutionary branch clearly mutated from the authentic origins of riding over the rough stuff.

That’s the joy of democracy right there. The rest of us exhibit Pavlovian responses onthe arrival of the uplift truck. There’s something important about the ghettoisation of mountain biking – herding previous free spirits into fenced off enclosures, driven by sheepdog arrows and exchanging natural wonders for sculpted safety.

But its’ not as important as accepting the landscape of mountain biking is changing. And changing for the better.

Bike parks aren’t trail centres. They make no excuses for a pay-to-play business model. Whereas trail centres hide maintenance* behind car parking fees, organisations like Bike Park Wales charge a price per entry and one for each uplift. They also understand this brings a responsibility to build ever more interesting trails while limiting numbers trashing what they have right now. Having met a couple of the people who run it, they absolutely get this doctrine.

Which doesn’t defuse the ticking time bomb of those who assert we’re giving away the crown jewels of land access, and entirely failing to stick it to the man. What – for me – they miss are two things; firstly bike parks are an outlier of mountain biking – fun for eight hours but you wouldn’t want to do it every day, and secondly they are corralling a whole generation of new mountain bikers who couldn’t give a rats arse for a nice XC loop.

We’re losing to the roadies. Olympic and tour success have transformed our local bike shops to selling the alleged joy of the tarmac. Market economics play to a model whichsells at least 10 skinny tyred bike to every knobbly one. Bike Parks don’t fix that, but bloody hell they make you feel sorry for the poor buggers playing with the traffic.

Twice in the last month I’ve motored the sub hour drive to Bike Park Wales – once in fantastic late summer sunshine and the other time in the pissing rain. And both times it was nothing short of adrenaline pumped giggling, interspersed with viewing 400 metre climbs from the misted windows of the uplift van.

The trails are brilliant because they are so diverse. It’s not all meat-headed downhill runs requiring large bikes and rather larger testicles. The runs are graded perfectly for progression and the hill is big enough to guarantee 7-10 minutes of fun on trails absolutely designed for modern mountain bikes.

And that terrain drops you into natural feeling wooded sections and over natural rock gardens. It’s all superbly armoured against the weather, but not styled as a homage to a BMX track. It’s full of technical challenges you can safely hit fast or slow, there’s progression everywhere from the carving blues through the steeper reds and some frankly terrifying blacks.

At the end of which you roll out onto a jump line which gets bigger with your confidence and finishes where the uplift starts. Where you will see a few individuals who believe£5 represents a poor return compared to climbing 45 minutes up a fire-road. That’s missing the point so hard, they need counselling.

I quite like riding uphill. I get earning your turns. I stay fit and work hard at it because getting to high places generally requires a bit of effort and bloody mindedness. But in an artificial environment where pedalling is negated by a superbly efficient motorised service, I’ve not the slightest interest in doing something that’s pretty much part of my mountain biking world for 50 weeks a year.

Railing the top blue section before dropping in to the notorious ‘rim dinger’ on my quite brilliant Nukeproof Mega, and rattling through two minutes of big rocks and endless berms, thenbeing deposited back at a towed trailer taking me back to do it all again is simply a fantastic way to spend a day.

I understand it’s not for everybody. I get that, but what I fail to understand is the disdain in which such places are held by those who’ve self-labelled themselves as ‘proper mountain bikers’. Sorry, that’s bollocks – I’ve been lucky enough to ride in many countries in all kinds of conditions and occasionally in states of mild peril. And I still love bike parks like this.

We have to progress somewhere at the same speed as the bikes get ever more capable. We cannot ignore the ageing demographic of the mountain biking community. If the future of this are people that aren’t like us, then we probably need to let that slide. Watching the indestructible kids throwing massive shapes on the jump lines just made me smile.

Because that’s one less roadie. One less footballer. One less sat in front of a computer like this one. One more of us, one less of them. Bike Parks do not represent the ghettoisation of mountain biking, they point at a part of its future. But not all of it.

Let’s not confuse progress with the disruptionof the current state. This is not the time for luddites smashing the Spinning Jennys. If you fear for authenticy, remember this: riding mountain bikes is always bloody fantastic. it’s an attitude not a location. It’s neither defined about how you get up or get down. It’s mostly about themany pointsin between.

We should cherish that. Go get a lift, I promise it will rock your mountain biking world.

* and sometimes not too well. Grants make trails but they don’t fund maintenance. Nothing sadder than a trail centre abandoned because of neglect and erosion.