Oh one of THOSE winter rides.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Photography4 Comments

You know the fantastic ones I was eulogising over in the last post? That never really happen. Well one just did.

Two hours of superb riding with grip levels switching between “lots” and “none at all, no really nothing“. Playing about in deepish white stuff until each foot was nothing more than one big frozen toe. And then racing home through a half pipe of still fresh snow, entered by a decent drop that was then an almost stop as your wheel hit a deep compacted wall of white.

Malverns Feb 2009 Malverns Feb 2009

Still on the bike allows you to ride up and down the sides in the deepest snow, trying to do lots of quite complex ‘staying on the bike stuff’, but being brilliantly distracted by the long rooster tails of snow kicking off Tim’s tyres.

Then when you think it’s over, the easy switchbacks to home have been hard iced and there is nothing you can do but hold and hope. Brakes, feet, praying to a local deity – none of this helps as the faintest twitch of the bars sends the wheel sideways and over a not insignificant drop.

Malverns Feb 2009 Malverns Feb 2009

It’s not often I’ve thought “well I’m glad that descent is over” but today was certainly one of these days, and I was even happy to find a bit of mud at lower altitudes. Never before have I been riding on narrow, off camber muddy trails thinking “shit, this is ace – loads and loads of lovely grip”.

Best ride of the year by miles. First proper snowy ones for a very long time. Snow is good, bikes are great – snow and bikes are just the most fun you can have outside in the winter.

Ah there’s the f’ing snow

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography1 Comment

I whinge. God answers. Thursday and Friday added sufficient snow to make any attempts to leave the county largely fruitless. Although much of this was the result of the three local councils having only sufficient salt to season a small stew.

I took the opportunity and the Kona for a short, silly, woody retro ride. And to get in character, I dispensed with all that fandangly modern equipment, and instead sallied forth in jeans, Vans, sweatshirt and wooly hat.*

Everyone has fond – if inaccurate – memories of crisp rides in firm packed snow, drifting effortlessly betwixt trees in a magical winter landscape. The reality is a hard slog uphill, your progress measured by both tyre and foot marks, followed by an uncontrollable descent where everything ends up full of snow.

Snow Riding Snow Riding

That’s tyres, brakes, shoes, ears and nose as either the front washes out and you lowside into a bush. Or the wheel drops into a hidden divet, leaving you with little option other than to ponder the full might of potential energy as you spin carelessly over the now motionless bike. The result is a credible impression of a fat snow angel and the cold seeping through your bottom as you lie there trying to get your breath back.

Snow Riding Snow Riding

It was still fun though, and after spending half a day yesterday fetching the kids from the bottom of icy slopes high in the Malverns, I think today should be spent trying the same on a bike. This time I’ll be properly kitted up although the concept of an SPD wellie is appealing.

* Which had the added impact protection of a comedy bobble.

Breaking technology news…

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

… Microsoft have a secret agreement with Logitech. It’s beyond cunning this one as those spotty little coders in Seattle have made the latest version of Excel so insanely non intuitive, there is only a single cause of action left open to the vein throbbing user.

And that’s to smash a fist into the keyboard while screaming “ALL I WANT TO DO IS CHANGE THAT TITLE” “THAT ONE THERE” “ON THE GRAPH” “IF I’D WANTED TO ROTATE THE WHOLE FUCKING CABOODLE 90 DEGREES AND INSERT A PIVOT TABLE, I’M SURE I WOULD HAVE MENTIONED IT”

Smug little buggers as they are, marketing droids at Microsoft proclaim Office 2007 is a simple, and almost flat, learning curve from the entirely useful 2003. No it bloody isn’t, it’s like pushing peas up a cliff face with your nose while some kind of bipolar lunatic offers helpful little snippets such as “Would you like to embolden that title?” and “If you’re still stuck*, you can contact our help forums”

No, I’d rather smash up my keyboard if it’s all the same to you. I liked the old version of Excel. It just worked. It didn’t suddenly offer up a whole range of hieroglyphics every time you moved the cursor. You put numbers in and it added them up. Why did they try and improve it? We’ve all been bloody hoodwinked haven’t we?

I’m going back to an abacus, some rocks and the barter system

* You loser

Where’s the F in snow?

On By PhotoIn Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

Big Log, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

There is no F’in snow. Thank you, thank you I’m here all week. Here, as in unable to leave the county – not because the roads are covered with our rubbish covering of snow, more the hard coded English DNA that somehow prevents everyone else working while white stuff falls out of the sky.

I could bore you with either a) tales of my Northern childhood where we’d be under ten feet of drifting snow for six months of the year, and every child had to dig themselves out of the house each morning or b) my exasperation of really how shit the UK is at dealing with anything other than a slight drizzle.

But I won’t. Mainly because I’m sulking because London actually did something better than anywhere else this week, by standing still while being dumped on*. And then stuttering to a complete and embarrassing halt.

It makes the bankers look half competent. Okay it doesn’t, but you can see where I’m going. Or not, because the pathetic smattering of flakes here could be best described as the midpoint between “light dusting” and “complete traffic carnage” has prevented my entrance to our premier motorway network.

The 4×4 has been superb tho at creating a silence that is to be savoured, as whinging children are dropped off at School. “It’s not fair, why do we have to go?” – because I’ve paid my taxes, and back in the day my generation would sledge 9 miles on t’family dog.

2 seconds into that much repeated anecdote, there protestations cease as they run away in the direction of the local educational establishment. Works every time and I never tire of the story.

Tomorrow I’m heading off to London to see what all the fuss is about. I fully expect it to be a massively hyped up non event marketed by a crisis by metrosexuals who’ve merely been denied their skinny latte.

Stick with a big nail it at the ready then!

* a qualification that would ensure rapid promotion in some places I’ve worked.

A correction.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding3 Comments

Last night, I breezily labelled the Malvern Hills a somewhat demeaning “small but perfectly formed“. This morning in about 40 knots of ridge wind, they proved beyond doubt that any future description must include “steep, long and hard”

The day didn’t start well – but what day does at 7am? – with a frantic search for firstly the car keys, and then a black dog in a dark field, followed right up with the navigational challenge that is Ledbury Town Centre. Currently the water board are digging most of it up, seemingly so they can skewer every other major utility in grappling distance of their heavy plant.

This results in a diversion through someone’s front garden and over a hedge. Not difficult in the truck but time consuming never the less. My raffishly late arrival was made later still by a game of chicken with a pheasant. This isn’t the first time this has happened, but I had to feel especially sorry for the poor bugger since it’d just survived the shooting season.

I like to think it was striding purposely to meet its fellow survivors when I had to swerve several times to hit it. Not that the bumper delivered a killing blow, no that was left to some fast work with an SPD shoe and some tactical looking in the opposite direction. The whole ride that bloody shoe wouldn’t clip into the pedal properly – I think it still had a bit of bird brain stuck to it.

Still 750m of climbing, 18k’s, 1hr30 riding, 10 minutes comedy Body English in an attempt not to be launched into space off the big hills, and a bitingly cold wind which, of course, ensured I received a puncture.

That’ll teach me to be rude about the hills.

Muddying the waters

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, PhotographyLeave a comment

We’re lucky living here at the epicentre of some fantastic and varied riding. Head north to the small but perfectly formed Malvern Hills, drive west for 45 minutes to confront the hard edged mountains of South Wales, or draw a 10 mile circle around our house to find cheeky singletrack hidden in vast Forestry plantations.

It’s almost as if I planned it that way. No really, there are people who honestly believe I am nothing but a slave to such a single agenda. And while my smug gloating of mud free rides all year round are based on the almost truth, occasionally I need to pay homage to the sloppy dirt embedded in every mountain biker’s DNA.

Today I promised riding pal Tim an endless vista of carefully crafted singletrack nestling between fast fireroad transits, spiced with roots going one way and cambers the other. What a rain soaked forest delivered was something significantly more muddy, and immeasurably more comedic.

This is a silly sport, and days like this remind you of exactly why. There are trails in this forest that could justifiably be charged with corporate manslaughter – all slick roots and jagged stumps. But most of our two hours of mud plugging were spent heading sideways occasionally backwards, and sometimes still on the bike.

That picture up there is taken from a carefully chosen position, into which I’d fallen trying to ride the same trail about twenty seconds before. My tumble from the bike was punctuated by a slippy slide of giggling and general tomofoolery. Tim – the bastard – only rode it, but then generously fell off one second later to make me feel a little less rubbish.

We felt better than that as well – once the ride was done, we couldn’t decide between Egg or Bacon sandwiches. So we had both. Tomorrow is forecasted -2 at 8am, which’ll be one hour after I’ve stumbled out of a warm bed. Stupid? Probably. Looking forward to it? Oh yes 🙂

The Wrong Stuff

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

It would not be unreasonable to suggest that a man with such an extensive collection as I, could ever be embarrassed by riding an inappropriate bicycle for the prevailing conditions. A pre-ride enquiry may be met with “Mild rock, light shale, short, sharp hills, soupçon of mud, occasional wet grass.Trees? Mainly Beech“.

These important variables could be simply plugged into a spreadsheet*, the mighty pivot table unleashed and correctbike(tm) shall be brought forth. Unfortunately such simple equations cannot factor in a mechanical ineptness co-efficient which renders bikes inoperable with just a few spanner twirls.

The Cove is perfectly suited to the Malvern Hills. It was also broken and the urgency of my need to repair it was not matched by any haste from the Post Office. My remaining choices were between the CX bike (Off Road insanity wrapped in thin rubber tyres), the DMR (gathering dust, goes uphill best on chairlifts), the full suspension Pace and the no suspension Kona.

The Kona has never been ridden properly off road, which – added to the nagging concern that I’d built it – made my wasting ten minutes trying to fit the light battery feel even more stupid. A desperate bodge brought forward the next issue where the light bracket was configured for the wrong bars and the missing widgets were hidden in a place known only as “fuck that, I don’t have time to look for them”

Pace it was then. I surveyed its’ appropriateness and marked it with a 2. Out of a 100. Five and half inches of travel both ends, short stubby stem, huge brakes and 2.5 inch balloon tryes stuffed with downhill tubes. Still the light bracket fitted and only when I attempted to heft it into the car did I think I’d been a little generous in the marking stakes.

Once I’d had someone help me upload it, the first 600 feet of climbing reminded me to get my imagination gland checked. Because it clearly needs recalibrating, as my fantasy of a relatively painless experience refracted through the reality prism and left me breathless and cursing. It wasn’t much better downhill either with too much squish and not enough feel.

I felt it alright for a while after, every time someone popped a big sodding hill into my personal geography. I felt as old as the Granny ring, and even though the Malverns don’t really get that muddy**, the sinking feeling was well and truly received as we plodded ever upwards at the speed of stupid.

Some days later, my riding buddy decided we had not suffered enough*** and enthusiastically set course for a second ascent of a hill locally known as “oh shit, not that bastard again“. The top of that was a long time coming, but from there it’s 500 vertical feet of giggly dirt starting fast and open, snaking through some woody singeltrack before the crux being a steep cross rooted plunge best tackled on one of two dry lines.

But only one wet one really, the “sissy” line along the top misses out the off camber routes and steepest pitch. When those roots are damp, you may as well throw yourself off at the top and save the embaressment of giving it a try. Unless you have hauled too much bike for too long on easier terrain. Because then for twenty seconds, you can mainline payback and plunge brakeless down the fall line.

It is only then when you realise how astonishingly good modern full suspension bikes are. So much so that all manufacturers should be forced to name every model “Talent Compensator”. You don’t need the brakes, all you need are a couple of beers, a blindfold and a parachute. Every time I ride the Pace, the true extent of the performance envelope becomes clear. You will never, ever be as good as these bikes.

So shall I be selecting the big fella again this weekend, pushing it a bit harder, trying to find my limits, all that kind of macho nonsense? Of course not. the spreadsheet says “No” 🙂

* I haven’t done this. Yet.

** I am comparing them to the Chilters – twinned with Flanders – Hills where 20 seconds into any winter ride turns your comapanions into whinging swamp monsters, and your bike into 45 pounds of gloopy non rotation. Oh the horror !

*** I don’t feel he was speaking for both of us.

The dog ate my footwear

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff, Road Riding2 Comments

A contemporary reworking of the classic excuse offered up by lazy school children who couldn’t at least be a little more imaginative. A bloke I was at school with would regularly regale the terrifyingly northern Mr. Baxter with tales of alien invasion, a small boys’ single handed saving of the planet and the unfortunate collateral damage of his “Algebra 20 Hard Questions” being discombobulated by a frazzling death ray.

He still received the standard punishment of detention and a meeting with Baxter’s much feared “metal slipper“, but fair play to the fella for trying. It was only last night I remembered my oft slippered pal, during some ‘excuse brainstorming‘ for why my next day London meeting would be conducted in suit trousers, formal shirt and flip flops.

The dog has previous, redesigning Random’s week old trainers into fetching open toed sandals with custom chew motifs. His recent freedom from overnighting in his cage allows access to all sorts of interesting things that can be slobbered, chewed and then eaten. This includes a book – appropriately entitled – “Natural Disasters” which he took some delight in shredding.

Already, I wasn’t in the best of moods after my first bike commute of the year. Exactly half of it had been fantastic, cold and dark but immensely satisfying and reminding me why cars are just so rubbish. As are trains, especially the ones run by London Midland that can apparently teleport between platforms.

Because otherwise, why would I be chasing trains all over Birmingham New Street with my bike on my shoulder and innumerable flights of stairs blocking my progress. Some thirty minutes after this jolly game had started, I had ended up parking the bike in the correct carriage, divested myself of outer garments and courier bags, plugged in traveling tunes and opened the paper.

At which point the driver gleefully informed us that this train was giving up at Worcester, and poor saps heading West of that better get over to platform 7 sharpish. My frantic reassemblage of commuting collateral begat an elbows out charge up two punishing stair sets and a plunge down the far side. Excellent training if I ever considered Cyclocross racing,* but not an absolutely ideal way to spend most of an evening.

Especially since the overcrowding on this final train morphed me into a bikey sardine, trapped between two overstuffed carriages. The next hour was gainfully spent shuttling the bike between suitcases, tired looking passengers and train doors as I’d hurriedly parked it in the main thoroughfare. I feel my smile of acknowledgment, when being politely asked to shift IT AGAIN, may have become somewhat forced after a while.

So when Murphy greeted me with his standard arse cantilevering tailwag and slobbery hello, I sternly rejected his advances with a steely accusing finger and an admonishment of “YOU. SHOE EATER. YES YOU. WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?”. His confused expression suggested the evidence of mouthy shoelace had been planted, and it was all a stitch up. Honest Guv.

Two seconds later, having conveniently forgotten his telling off, he dropped to the floor and began licking his willy in a “Bet you wish you could do this” happy manner.** This is the default position of the Murf assuming there isn’t any footwear to be chewily mangled. It’s hard to be angry with a pet which clearly takes so much pleasure in basting his testicles in slobber. I mean there is an animal which clearly knows how to have a good time, and no amount of telling off is going to change that.

I have avoided potential disciplinary being cited due to inappropriate footwear by ballasting myself down with the spare pair from the office. Climbing the last gruesome hill before home , I couldn’t help thinking if that dog continues to suffer “separation anxiety”, he’ll more likely be suffering “sharp rap on the nose with the remains of my shoe“.

Not that there is much left. He’s going to be pooing leather patches for days.

* Which I won’t. As I’ll die of heart failure or embarrassment.

** Not really. Fond of the dog as I am, there are limits to my affection.

Going Spare.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff1 Comment

I am. They didn’t. Next time I will. Even looking ever backwards to my fortieth birthday, I have yet to achieve a level of calm when multiple failures pile up on my personal highway. It all started with good intentions, as such disasters invariably do.

Firstly a slow puncture highlighted a problem with my spare tubes, of which there were many and the number that held air, which were none. Slackness personified, my standard approach of decadently replacing old with new was stymied by a lack of fresh rubber.*

An hour later, the kitchen floor was awash with a tidal wave of water, my entire patch collection had been deployed, and four tubes now leaked a little less air than before. Flushed with success**, I spent some time worshipping at the voodoo of the front mech, before retiring satisfied a pro-active maintenance regime would be rewarded by trouble free riding.

Which made the horror of an abandoned ride at 8am this morning all the worse. Firstly my cranks basically fell off, when the drive side bearing stripped itself of a thread and made a break for freedom**. My riding buddy responded with patience, a quick return to base plan and – almost immediately – a aurally impressive exploding tyre. Luckily he’d not flatspotted the tyre, unluckily he’d flatspotted the rim.

No time to fix any of that as I was under orders to be initiated into the local flying club at 11am sharp. I arrived ready to go with flight box, fuel, trainer, a whole shit load of funny shaped stuff for which I still cannot divine a purpose and a cheerful expression.

Which lasted as long as the first engine start took, which in turn took the prop and flung it across the field. The only modification I’d made to this pre-loved trainer was changing the propeller. Ahem. Things didn’t improve much as fixing that merely broke something else. I can’t say I quite understood the exact cause, but symptomatically opening the throttle sent all the control services into a St. Vitus Dance.

Apparently this isn’t good unless you’ve the plastic bag ready. I do have a spare plane but decided to leave it at home. My reasons are now as cloudy as this beer I’ve been forced to drink. Yes, forced you heard me right, because after having no ride to speak of, no sleep beforehand and no chance to marmalise balsa in the presence of experts, it seemed the right approach to the rest of the day would be to back away from anything expensive, and get drunk on the sofa.

To get my own back on fate, tomorrow I’m commuting by bike for the first time in three months. Unridden bike, uncharged lights, unused climbing muscles. But I’m confident that nothing can go wrong, because HAVEN’T I SUFFERED ENOUGH ALREADY?

I’d be pulling my hair out, if I had any.

* I did consider the obvious alternative, but even fixing tubes was better than sewing condoms. You experience may differ 😉

** But not for long. They were all flat again this morning. So I ate them to teach them a lesson

*** I’m going with awesome power of my thighs. Although it does explain why the fromt mech was a bit out.

Call that a shed?*

On By AlexIn Other stuff8 Comments

This a shed. I’m about to lay down a deposit the size of a decent bike frame to secure the rights to this flat-pack furniture on steroids. Four weeks from now, a huge truck shall abandon a few hundred planks, and a single sheet of badly translated instructions on our concrete slab.

My understanding that this grown up self-assembly wardrobe will somehow do exactly that, while I examine my giant erection with unconfined joy and some awe. Do your own jokes, I’ll be back in a sec. Finished? Right, moving on or – to be more precise – up, my real plan is to shirk any building responsibility by dragging my friends from all over England to assemble it for me.

A tissue of lies shall promise unlimited food, beer and riding in exchange for ten minutes light work with a chisel. Apparently a competent DIY duo could assemble this in a week. Less usefully, nowhere is an estimate provided for six drunk blokes, one exasperated wife, and an impatient man skilled only in “powertool trigger revving”

But the completion of that building is right here; front and centre on the critical path of a thousand tasks that start with a big digger, and finish with financial ruin. The idea of a static caravan was put beyond possible use by a reasoned argument starting “WHAT? You’ve seen Grand Designs? Four of us in a caravan for two months would be Last Person Gouging with added Cutlery”

I’ve spent some quality time designing systems to hang bikes and hold planes. However, I’ve pulled back from that dark realm of sadness where humourless men speak of “A Steed Collection” and “My Hanger“. Instead I’ve sketched out a few ideas on wine soaked paper, and passed them over to the only person in the Leigh family with spacial awareness.

Now stop sniggering and help me out here. I have a problem with the siting of a rain water harvester.*** Anyone know what 6000 litres of litres of water weighs? Is it “quite alot?”

* Remember the film? “That’s not a knife…“. I had impure thoughts about Paul Hogan’s bit’o’stuff in that movie. Saw it again the other night. Hairstyles in the eighties, what were we thinking?**

** In my case “I’m going bald”

*** Oh yeah, livin’ the dream here, livin’ the dream.