Two weeks ago..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding3 Comments

… my commute started at an decidedly un-spring-line 2.3 degrees under cloudy skies. Less than half a month later, someone has sneakily relocated the entire UK to the Equator.

This seemed an ideal time to go ride a bike up very big Welsh hills which offered no shade, but almost unrelenting climbing. The temperature now was 28.5 degrees. At one point, I am fairly sure I was on fire. For reasons best understood if you’re nose down in a decent bottle of chilled white, I was press-ganged into attending the CRC MTB Marathon Series at Bullith Wells.

Yes, after saying I’d never do another one, and forgoing what I know would have been a properly fantastic FoD ride, I found myself amongst the weekend tribe of proper race bikes and no body fat. I fitted right in as you can well imagine.

It wasn’t as bad as the HONC, only being half as long. It did manage to pack in the thick end of 5000 feet of climbing in a mere 52ks which hurt especially since you were being basically charbroiled on endless moorland climbs. My preparation for such a tough day out was essentially zero. Since it was 9pm the night before and I was a bit squiffy, the best I could hope for was to load a working bike into the truck and lob in a few MTB accessories.

Water I remembered, sun tan lotion I didn’t. Good job I have this full thatch to protect me from badger stripes eh? Because they’d look STUPID. Even my knees are sunburnt. Of the 1000 riders – some of whom were doing the proper race distances to whomI tip my virtual hat – most were very friendly, many were terrifyingly quick uphill, a decent handful showed capability the other way round and the rest were, well, a bit shit really.

I’m fairly sure the swathe of people I managed to overtake uphill were out for the long haul, although downhill I’m not sure what their excuses were. One lad, on a£3,500 six inch full suspension bike, was clearly carrying out a practical experiment of exactly how slow it is possible to ride if you are presented with a difficult technical challenge such as a small tree root. I think I might have used a naughty word (or three) when I finally passed him.

The ST4 was great. A bit broken though with my middle ring becoming unavailable for use some 30ks in,* and a horrible click-per-pedal-revolution torture that had me pining for Elvis Costello or some other stuck soundtrack in my head. My investigation is postponed because the frame is too hot to touch, and I’m in post-ride hydration therapy. Just waiting for the fridge to cool me down my next pint of sports-tested fluid.

In other news, the dog has gone into hiding what with being big, black and furry. Not an ideal combination when the sun is cracking the patio stones. All the garden, so carefully planted last year, has either died in the frosts or been crisped during this hot spell. A few remaining sad looking specimens clearly are expecting something like an asteroid strike to finish them off. Verbal appears to be on the mend if the reduced volume of painkillers is any guide, and little Random is, as ever, away with the fairies.

Apparently it’s going to cool down 10 degrees and rain come Wednesday. I’ll expect snow then should I?

* I blame a lack of assos cream.

Hospital Pass

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

Would have been useful these the last couple of days. Taking the alternative meaning, Verbal accepted one, when agreeing to a game of Extreme Leapfrog, before landing in Hereford A&E. For about 30 hours. Having turned eleven only two days earlier, it could be viewed as a belated birthday present that keeps on giving.

I should have suspected the worse when Nick – the long suffering bike mechanic – text’d me on Saturday to say “Your brakes are now fixed……. but the bearings in the front wheel are fcked”. Ying, and bloody yang. Wondering if this rash of expensive failures would ever end, I idly inquired to the world at large, what could possibly break next. On the not unreasonable grounds that everything I owned appeared to be pulling a sickie in the bike shop.

The answer was Verbal. Honestly if this goes on, I’m calling in a priest. I might not even wait for somebody’s head to start spinning round, because it is obvious that some kind of “broken Jonah” stalks my world. Verbal’s initial – and only – leapfrog attempt went up, then sideways, rolled off the top and crashed down directly on her elbow. Which decided it’d make a quick break with the bone it has been recently attached to and play the “arm’s at a funny angle now” card.

Local community hospital suggested dislocation. Not as a remedy, more as a diagnosis. Hereford A&E eventually pony’d up a radiographer and HD digital images showed a gap where once there was none. I received most of this information by text message while being whisked* westwards by the Cotswold Trundler. Arriving home, breaking news announced an operation was forthcoming to pin all the broken bits back together.

This triggered a mad sequence of panic involving pyjama’s, toothbrushes, couldn’t-be-more-helpful-neighbours, inconsolable Random child and mad dog. I should have know better – based on my own experiences – and the promised op was postponed, leaving nothing other than a late night clothes delivery and a bit of sleepless night.

Following morning, we received an unexpected call from the hospital promising that Verbal was second in line for the knife. My expectations were quite low as we fought our way back into Hereford, and these expectations were not quite met. Typical NHS really, brilliant nurses, great Children’s ward full of light and toys**, aloof consultants and rubbish timekeeping. Carol hung about all day while nothing happened, until – finally – at 2pm, Verbal got the big sleeping draught and a major wiring job to align the wonky bones.

She was extremely stoic and brave all the way through. More than I was after my last big accident. Random and I pitched up about six to find a groggy and in-pain Verbal demanding if we’d brought any food. So not entirely groggy then. I asked if Carbon or Titanium had been used for the repair, but no one seemed to know anything. On those grounds, we decided to do a runner since there seemed to be no interest in keeping her in.

Anyway she’s off school for a week which I’m sure means a) lots of TV and b) some frustration for her mum. Next Friday we get to find how “Operation Barbed Wire” has gone and if they need to add a cast to her list of bloody annoying things that you get with a broken arm.

It is amazing what a sense of perspective you get when one of your children is badly hurt. I’m not suggesting you try it for that reason, but it is good to be reminded what is important. On that note, I’m off to unwind my head on some local trails. I have sacrificed a twisted derailer to the Gods of Fate to protect me from any more disasters. We can but hope.

* wrong word. If you whisked anything this slowly, it’d just curdle

** They even had a little games room with a Pool table and a Wii. Someone had nicked the remotes tho. What kind of people eh?

Today’s stupid photograph.

On By AlexIn Bikes, PhotographyLeave a comment

Where did I find this do I hear you ask? London, of course where all the nutters live.

This bastard love-child of an£100 Apollo special and a lucky dip into a scrap pile is clearly designed for people to lazy too pedal, or too stupid to realise they’ve been seen from a long way off. Can you imagine trying to pedal that when the battery runs out (about two minutes after full charge I’d wager)

That particular cell type has a little-known feature where over-charging leads to significant explosion. It’d be a kindness, really.

Anyway I need to tell you more about the “breakage contigen” which has now spread into members of my immediate family. And if I don’t write what happened in Exmoor soon, I’ll have to make the whole thing up. Rather than just about half of it as normal.

More of this soon, but first: Chilled Medicine, double dose.

Oi You “Clever Trousers”

On By AlexIn Other stuff4 Comments

That’s me. In a weekend packed with potential disasters which included Auto-Mugging on London’s mean streets, surviving Harrod’s toy floor without having to eat the credit card, managing some sleep while ensconced in the same room as two excited children, and remaining sober for absolutely bloody hours whilst others were nose down in the lager trough, I serenely* triumphed over serial adversity with only hints of sulky tantrum.

Talking of the speech as I did for quite a long time, my suit was noticeably un-fruited, my trousers entirely failed to explode, and the guests were kind enough to laugh. Sometimes even out loud. It was a strange experience in many ways; sobriety comes hard to me especially in the face of a free bar – so after my new Sis-in-Law refused all our pleadings, she and my bro were finally hitched and we decamped to a rather lovely Victorian pub full of the desperate-to-have-a-drink.

Here are some of the things I learned during a couple of displacement activity hours; the City of London is a lifeless void at the weekend – shops don’t open, restaurants remain resolutely bolted shut, pubs franchise their entire buildings for the event-only trade, and you cannot buy a box of matches to re-enact the Great Fire or light a cheeky cig. With nothing for tourists and a workforce that is entirely suburban, this square mile is tumble-weed post-apocalypse empty.

My surreal wanderings were interrupted by some random flash of illogic bringing forth the speeches some two hours early. This was good because it mitigated the real possibility of me eating an entire packet of Marlboro Light, but was equally bad as most of the guests still retained the power of speech and thought, somewhat working against my cunning plan to make them laugh. I bet their aim was still pretty damn good as well.

The stage was set if not very big. We ousted the band (their soundcheck having rendered most of us ear bleedingly deaf), nicked the radio mike and looked out on a sea of about a million people shoaled around the oval bar. A place I’d very much like to be in, or – preferably – upside down under. Worse still, my straight laced middle bro was both way funnier than I expected and entirely spontaneous. This from a bloke who carries out risk assessments before tackling a difficult set of stairs. The bride’s father was – well – American but none the worse for it, except when his ramblings nearly had me grabbing the mike and demanding to be put out of my misery.

Before we go on, it’s important (well to me anyway) to understand this is not me making a drama out of something that isn’t a crisis. I know – as many of you do – that I am a terrible show off, ego writing cheques my body can’t cash, terribly economical with the truth and never happier than when the attention is entirely centered on my verbal diarrhoea. But the terms of reference are different, those are my terms and my rules of engagement. Standing up in front of a 130+ people – most of which you don’t know – and having to be funny, that’s something entirely more scary.

And it was. I learned some more things; clever sentence construction translates poorly to the spoken word. Jokes that read well present something a little more ambiguous when blurted out at high speed, crafted stories hard learned by rote sound dry and forced, pauses are good, ah-doc works better, half as much would have been twice as funny. My desperate last minute edit made the whole thing a bit less baggy, so after twelve minutes – of which I LOVED the last five when I dumped the text and switched to something a bit less formulaic – I also found that people are incredibly generous, easy to please and happy not to have been bored.

And afterwards – with a welcome beer now in hand – I thought I had made too much of the whole thing. But I’m not sure; not because it actually mattered that much to me, but because it was my Bro’s wedding, and he’d rather stupidly entrusted me to humiliate him, and I didn’t want to fuck it up. Which is why I cut it, took out the edgy stuff, lost the best jokes but kept the happy vibe of the day. It felt like a mature response to something, and that’s not really my normal mode of operation.**

To that end; I played more with my kids than I did drink with some old friends. I left my extended family to get on with it because I wanted to spend time with my own. I turned down God knows how many beers and left sober enough to walk back to the Hotel. Where I grabbed a shower and much needed cup of tea. You always worry about getting old, but the bugger just sneaks in while you’re busy trying to be different.

Walking the mutt last night, I was struck my how little London appeals to me. Having done some tourist stuff with the family, it’s all fine and occasionally amazing but it ain’t for me. Place is full of nutters I told the kids on the way in, and nothing in the last 48 hours convinced me otherwise. Good to see the bro married off to a lovely girl, shame they couldn’t have done it somewhere less concrete-y or full of arseholes.

The last thing I learned was the worrying fact that almost all of my living relatives read this blog. Some of them find it amusing, many doubt it’s accuracy and most find the swearing a little reprehensible. I promised I’d try not to write “fuck” quite as often. Don’t send me back to London tho, or all bets are off.

* Thanks to some a reprehensible backslide into a single packet of lung unfriendly pharmaceuticals.

** Not sure I should have bothered, because his brave – if rather foolhardy – jamming with the band provided more humiliation that I could ever dole out. He did play most of the right chords, just not at the right speed. Or in the right order. Fair play tho, cahoonies the size of coconuts.

Suits You Sir.

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

“I could buy a half decent set of forks for that” was my initial response, when presented with the price for a pair of – sadly non exploding – troons and matching jacket. Okay, the cost may have been somewhat justified by the small detail of them actually fitting but even so…

There is a little shop in Ross that preserves the 1950s shopping experience. You are served by the genial owner who has all the mannerisms of “Mr Humphries” in his prime. I am not sure I needed to have my inside leg measured quite so carefully. Certainly not twice.

Anyway, he listened – politely – while I explained my ongoing suit buying problem. Other than being a tight-arse northerner. One, I am a strapping six foot individual*, but essentially a dwarf from the hips down. Two, being a cycle obsessed freak, my thighs fit in flappy shorts and not much else. Three, because of one, I need a jacket that would double – for most normal size people – as a full body cape and 4) I don’t like wearing suits

He eyed up my carefully thrown-together ensemble (baseball boots, dirty jeans, ancient paint-stained T-Shirt, baldness – possibly trying too hard) and presented me first with a garment of 1980’s shiny-ness. I have to say I was less than keen as even I know the Crocket-and-Tubbs era has clearly passed. But on slipping it over my wonky shoulders, I couldn’t help thinking somehow this was making me look even more debonair that normal. A tough act as I’m sure you’ll agree.

Sadly we ran into what I like to call “the trouser problem“. Either comedy clown-waist or drain-pipe tight thighs. No matter, off he hummed and harred into a stockroom putting me firmly in the mind of Mr. Ben, before returning with a rather traditional Navy Blue Suit. Luckily Carol was there to stop me launching into a diatribe about how boring and old fashioned it looked, before I’d even thrown a leg in. Amazingly, this one fitted even better, although my purchasing decision was now being made purely as a mitigation strategy to prevent further reach-arounds.

Eventually we agreed that with some minor alterations, I’d stop looking like I had stolen it, and talk turned to prices. Problem is, this is a proven sales strategy get the customer something they think they want and then hit them with a price. I didn’t dare ask for a discount in case he offered – instead – to throw in a Cravat or a Shooting Stick. It’s that kind of place.

And yet, I found myself curiously enjoying the experience. He clearly had millions of years of experience. It wasn’t pushy or disinterested. He did actually seem to care that I wouldn’t stride out in my new threads looking as if I’d just been demobbed. Curious times indeed – maybe this is what middle age feels like.

Anyway, as the Clash famously said London is Calling and I am reluctantly answering that call. 72 hours of logistical hell, congestion charges, tube stations, protocols, procedures and speeches. All with two small-ish children who find it all fantastically interesting, and therefore become even more difficult to control. I shall report back early next week on how it all went, unless the speech was so toe-cringingly unfunny, I’ve booked myself instead into long-term therapy.

* in my own mind, and out of range of a mirror.

Worst Man.

On By AlexIn Other stuff4 Comments

I spent far too many weekends in my 20s and 30s attending weddings. I always felt it was appropriate to turn up, get pissed, make an arse of myself before lying down in a comfortable gutter for the night. Something I carried seamlessly into our own wedding day, other than the gutter thing but only because the distance between bar and bed was carryable.

And for a few of those lost weekends, the additional responsibility of being promoted to Best Man was thrust upon me. Really, really bad idea. I was forever losing rings, speeches and, on one memorable occasional, the groom. My organisations skills hit the high water mark of assembling a few random people at a place of Worship, before wandering off to check the bar opening time.

I lacked the respect for the job, the willpower to ignore the delights of a free bar, and my speeches were delivered – at best – adequately. And, inevitably, properly plastered.

You would have thought with that history, no-one would ever ask me again and yet I’m sad to report, another disaster is almost upon us. And worse even that, all of my family will be there. Those for which I am directly responsible, and a wider group to whom I related.

My old brother is getting married. In a rash of Senior Moment Insanity, he offered me the opportunity to make a fool of him. In a rather more studied and inspired moment, he split the job between me and the middle bro.

Now playing to our strengths, that’s him with awesome organisational skills and the ability to herd cats and me being a lazy fucker occasionally known for writing amusing words, he took on the job of sorting out absolutely everything leaving me only to craft and present the speech.

This seemed an absolutely brilliant idea right up until the point when I realised what my responsibilities were in this arrangement. This can be summed up by repeating an earlier conversation whilst I was bemoaning the unfairness of my lot:

I am not looking forward to this speech you know

Why Not, you love being the centre of attention, they’ll all be pissed what can go wrong?

They might not laugh. They might all hate me. My trousers might explode. Whole episode is a cluster fuck waiting to happen

What? Total bollocks. I thought you liked writing funny stuff

That’s different, there isn’t an audience

Yes there is, you just can’t see them

It’s not the same

It is

IT BLOODY ISN’T

I am shitting the bed. I had no problem writing the speech, but that’s not going to help me delivering it. Because one thing I do know, reading off a prepared text is going to be about as funny as a brain tumour.

It’s too late to back out now. Most of my living relatives, people I’ve known since school and my own little family unit will all be watching. And I’ll be talking too fast, thinking too slow all while trying to stay sober enough to command fair use of my legs.

I hope my trousers do explode; at least that’s guaranteed to be funny.

For this, we had to put up with that?

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

I know, I know two consecutive posts with a political tinge, but we live in tumultous times. Or do we – because after four weeks of lie and counter-lie, endless rhetoric, vox-pop postulation and the continued cynacism of an electorate, we appear to be back exactly where we started.

As regular Hedgehoggers’ will know, my firmly held view is that voting for politicians only encourages them, and therefore should only be undertaken after much thought or much alcohol. And so you cannot help to be a bit proud of a nation that absorbs a month of political saturation, debates it, ponders it and then chooses to entirely ignore it.

Early indications would suggest the percentages of the vote are pretty much where they started on April the 6th. This after one bloke was apparently more popular that Churchill, another performed the kind of “smile at the front/stab in the back” volte face we associate with our esteemed Prime Minister, while the posh lad did his best to pretend he wasn’t really.

If they weren’t such a alien race of self important, power hungry lunatics, you would almost feel sorry for them. An exhausting, country-spanning, photo opportunic sales pitch glossing over the cracks (although Chasm feels like a better word here) none wanted to talk about, and instead promising a glorious future that looked pretty unlikey to anyone with sufficient mental prowess to, say, feed themselves.

And at the end of it, no one actually gives a shit. Those who could be bothered to vote – which doesn’t appear to include the much hyped surge of enfranchised individuals fired up by the campaign – stuck a cross where they mostly always had, shrugged their shoulders and waited for the world to end.

Deckchairs, Titanic anyone? I feel we would have been better represented by Private Godfrey and his “We’re all doomed” prophesy. Stock Markets in free fall, riots on European streets, panic on Wall Street, Budget Deficit with lots of scary zeros, 2.5 million umemployed, the gap between those with and those with not ever widening and, almost propetically, it’s pissing down.

I think I’ll just go and hide under a blanket until someone trustworthy tells me the worst is over.

That can’t be right.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff3 Comments

That post title could cover so many different wrongs; one of those would be refusing to vote in what is probably the most important election since I first proudly presented my voting card back in Yorkshire. Largely pointless really as the Conservative candidate was hunted down and eaten – a just reward for the temerity of attempting to explain ‘rich people stuff’ to a bunch of flat caps, who considered ownership of a whippet and an outside toilet a rather vulgar show of wealth.

Alison Yoghurt – Liberal – survived because “well she’s just a daft lass in a hand knitted cardigan with a wide ranging policy portfolio essentially honed down to being nice to kittens“, the emerging greens had no chance in a town where coal was forever king, so basically you voted for the dribbling nutter with the novelty hat or the Labour candidate. Often this was the same person.

Amusingly, while South Herefordshire constituency is a tight two way fight between Blue and Yellow, up here in the rarefied air of Ledbury (4 Deli shops in a town of about 19 people), the Conservative candidate (and probably land owner of every single voter) has been returned UNINTERRUPTED SINCE 1926. The majority seems to actually outstrip the registered electorate of the ward and, so confident is the fella in blue, we’ve not received even a token leaflet. Carol has collected – and pointedly – placed campaign literature from the, frankly, desperate other political options in easy reach of my desultory browsing.

I’ve had a look from the rational perspective of a cyclist and beerist, and find none of them fire any enthusiasm for much other than cracking open a bottle. But vote I must, if only to silence the tedious “No Vote, No Voice” refrain from bloody worthies and Guardian readers. I’d rather point them to www.voterpower.org.uk while shouting “1926, 22,00 Majority, tell me again that big idea about democracy“. Churchill had it right, and I’m sure he’d have given proportional representation the kind of short shrift that anyone who wants to be in charge traditionally has.

And he may have been right again, because I can give you only one example in the whole of history where the output of a committee has been genuinely brilliant. Yep aside from the American Declaration of Independence*, it’s all been politicised fudgery, spin and lost opportunities. I’m still of the opinion that the country would benefit from locking all the party leaders in a room, equipping each with a sharp sword and the last man standing gets to run the country.

Either than or install me as a benevolent dictator – let’s face it, at least I’d sort out those with pointless dogs and caravans. Plus anyone with marketing in their title would be either leaving the country or enjoying the company of a thousand scorpions. See, I’m not even single issue.

So I think a spoiled ballet shall register my disgust and weariness at a political class with noses in the trough and heads up their arse. It’s still a private booth isn’t it? That’ll do just fine.

Hmm, that was meant to be a single pithy paragraph. It appears I was slightly more irritated than I first thought. Anyway invoking a bit more Churchill and continuing the theme of extreme irritation, I have made a proper effort to Keep Buggering On regardless of the fact that the mechanical fairies stalk me still. Yesterday I broke something else – Rockshox make a fork that is the suspension equivalent of a Toyota HiLux. Not terribly sophisticated, bit weighty, aesthetically stunted, but with unchallenged reliability in the harshest of conditions.

I was making this very point to my friend Mike, extolling the robustness and performance of a component which I’d never even considered servicing** and yet was still providing unflinching service. When will I ever learn? Twenty seconds later 140mm of plush travel became 30mm of undamped bonginess followed by a hard wrist-jarring stop. The noise of various parts crashing into each other in an increasing cacophony of brokenness can be simply described as “expensive“.

My attempts to fix it by beating it to death with mile after mile of rocky descent proved unsuccessful. So as part of the revolving door policy I now have with my local bike shop, I offered up the offending items to Nick the mechanic while enquiring if he’d fixed my ST4 yet. He had not but only because I’d failed to furnish him with all the parts needed to do so. So I have a bike and a half being repaired, a bill that will probably have some negative effect on the country’s structural deficit, and no space left to write about what a great Exmoor ride we had.

More of that soon. Until then I’ll be desperately searching the pamphlets for some nugget regarding a grant for Cyclists recently inheriting a Jonah complex.

* and even this was more about taxes and whinging about perceived wrongs, the bit about freedom and the rights of the individual was a bit of an afterthought.

** as it was working. And if I’d serviced it, it wouldn’t be working at all. In fact, I would have probably thrown a blanket over the remains in honour of the tdead.

“Go and play outside”

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

A familiar refrain from when I was young, and one passed down a generation to berate my own children. And wanting to set a positive example, I abandoned what’s left of my bicycle collection this weekend, to spend it outside sometimes in the rain and mainly in the cold.

Still it wouldn’t be a proper Bank Holiday would it, without hail? Such are the vagaries of the British Weather, that on one day I dug a massive trench, and the next I emptied a moat of a similar size. The new Chicken run is not yet “out of the ground” with thin cross-hashed wire ready to be installed some 12 inches below mud level. With all the other anti-fox precautions we’re taking, it’s tempting to just get a couple of machine guns in really to finish it off.

The poor chickens will think they’ve entered some kind of Poultry Alcatraz

I have managed to cobble enough of a bike together to ensure my extra days holiday will be spent riding in Exmoor rather than staring moodily out of the window. There is tremendous pleasure to be taken in doing something your really enjoy in the happy knowledge all your friends are at work. It does mean getting up as early as if I was trudging into the office, but I’ll be heading due South the a truck full of car and a switched off mobile phone. And even the forecast looks promising.

Something’ll go wrong, it generally does. Not today I took my toys to a big hill in Wales and spent a happy part of the day throwing them off it. That one isn’t mine as I’m the shivering wreck behind the lens wondering if I can borrow a sheep to keep warm*. Fun tho and my new rather expensive, somewhat fragile and eyeball twitching fast flying toy managed a whole number of flights and landings where it was then available for re-use. This has not always been the case.

If I remember I’ll take a camera tomorrow to show you what a great time I had. If I forget to post any pictures, be assured I’m still having a great time 🙂

* Not for anything else. Whatever you’ve heard. Nothing was ever proved.

A new riding genre.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding5 Comments

Forget your power-XC, aggressive All-Mountain or Riding-round-in-circles-while-dressed-in-silly-clothes, these last ten days have opened my eyes to a style of riding that is entirely attrition based. That sad collection of broken parts represents a litany of trail-based disasters which has stripped me of a whole load of cash, and rendered the barn mostly devoid of spare bikes.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice the high co-efficient of Mech based products to general MTB detritus, but these are symptomatic of a far more serious cause. Before I explain what, let me explain how. First take the ST4 and add a spiteful branch to a fast spinning wheel. Stick hits mech, arrests wheel, rotational energy transferred to drilling the stick into a catastrophe of sheered brakeaway bolts, bent mechs and sacrificial hangers taking one for the frame.

I wasn’t unduly concerned with a flurry of Internet activity procuring fast delivered spares, so ensuring my participation on a ride three days later. This sanguine approach to the rough and tumble of bike ownership soured a little as the clever and expensive air can became a very stupid pogo stick. Without the sophisticated platform damping, a single pivot suspension system returns to the bongy age of early double springers. And that gets old very quickly – it’s only when something breaks, you realise how damn good it was.

What I hadn’t realised was how damn bad it would be getting the bugger out from various close fitting linkages. Weary puzzlement soon gave may to the kind of annoyed grunting and twitching for the big hammer normally associated with an embarrassed trip to the bike shop. But the shock came out undamaged as did a swathe of small and unexpected parts. My life was suddenly full of ball bearings, mashed cases and unidentified broken bitswhere sealed bearing once were. Orange agreed that their promise of “guaranteed for life” probably covered me for Warranty with only 400 miles and 4 months under-wheel.*

Both the repaired shock and a bag full of bearings arrived free of charge over the next few days, but still the bike is nothing more than a pile of bits. Because I own neither a bearing press, nor the skill/bravery to proxy something using a vice and a socket set. “Interference” fit is something my close friends tell me isn’t a long word meaning “smash them out with a hammer and while it’s in your hand, you may as well use that tool to fit the new ones”.

So it’s down to the bike shop, and I’ve asked Nick to take a few other minor indiscretions into mechanical consideration. For a start the brakes don’t stop. Well they do for about ten minutes so lulling one into a false sense of security, before the levers bang the bars and your options are limited to nutting a tree or abandoning ship. The front mech has taken the destruction of its’ mechanical brother rather badly and now has an action so stiff it speaks of Shimano Viagra. It’d be easier to list what is still working…er let me see…. er, no that’s broken…. hmm that’s pretty shagged…right…not much then.

But even after all this angst, I was able to unleash the power of my bike acquisition strategy by dusting down the not-ridden-very-often Pace which proved good to go. Well good-ish, I spent about an hour chasing a knocking noise around the rear triangle only to finally realise the headset was loose. The bike lasted exactly two and a bit rides unbroken, being much fun to ride downhill and only a bit too humpy on the ups. It survived 45ks in the Forest, a good pummelling on some Malvern super-dry trails, and then nearly an hour back in the FoD.

Before an unholy trinity of bad gear choice, a slightly bent chain and a huge sodding – if unseen – root, left with my that familiar lack of drive. And then I realised that Fate has taken against me, although enquiring of a Singlespeeding mate with squeeky breaks why he didn’t just get a proper bike may have poked that particular vengeful God in the goolies. The Butterfly Effect applies here – “Take the piss out of someone elses bike and ruination of your own will be visited within the hour“.

My fiscal misery continued when a close examination of the once expensive parts showed the cheese-dropout ™ hadn’t failed quite quick enough to save ANOTHER new mech. Amazingly this bit of metallic Gorgonzola somehow is worth* twice the£15 forked out for a bit of pressed steel to fix the ST4.

I am left with the roadbike and my Trailstar. I dare not ride either of them because bad things come in threes and if they don’t break I undoubtedly will. Many years ago a friend of mine reckoned “You could get a similar experience to MTBing by running around a forest setting fire to ten pound notes“. A wise man that fella, and he’s a Fulham supporter – two things you don’t normally find in the same sentence.

So there we have it; God hates me, I have found solace in the philosophy of a Fulham supporter, and have spent an average of twenty quid a day to push broken bikes along some lovely dusty trails. I’m off to burn a bunch of cash as a sorrowful sacrifice while taking my therapy from a bottle. I may be some time.

* They also admitted in passing that the cause might be a bent swingarm. “If it happens again send the whole thing back and we’ll sort it out” / “Is it okay if I set fire to it first?”

** Depending on your value of worth. As the buyer, I was struggling.