Fly like a ….

On By AlexIn Other stuff6 Comments

… turd. That’s more than an adequate description of the manikin like gyrations of the little SuperCub I’ve been abusing over the holidays. I’m yet to be convinced my twiddling of the sticks* is in any way controlling the random perambulations of the flying rabbit** as it terrorises innocent patches of sky.

It’s more that a few thousand bits of foam happen to be flying in the same direction. Only when it magically appears back overhead does the full horror of my total lack of spacial awareness become terryfyingly apparent. I must be the only man ever to be dive bombed by his own air force. Well apart from the British when the Americans forgot to update the arial SatNav.

On another long trudge to fetch the bloody unsteerable thing from a far away field, I under-breathed admitted that maybe I needed some help. Nothing new there, but specifically in the art of bringing the plane to heel. I’d tried shouting at it – a technique daily demonstrated with the dog and even less successful; the dog just stands there with a “who me?” look about his fizog, while the plane buggers off over the horizon – and when that didn’t work sort of ran out of ideas.

But my grumpy DNA mixes badly with kind people explaining gently how to do things. It’s not that I think they’re wrong, it’s just that I can’t bear not being right. And my brief immersion into the Radio Control fraternity suggests Mountain Bikers + 20 years and even more bloody pedantic.

You know how it’ll go; I’ll turn up somewhere, do my best to be quiet and still then somebody’ll quote a rule at me, and the next thing it’ll be smashed balsa everywhere, and the police will become involved. Instead I decided the best way to learn was to up the ante in terms of danger and cost. That picture goes by the precedent name of “boomerang” which suggests it’ll be arriving back on earth in a smash of glazing and expensive parts.

We’re talking over ONE HORSEPOWER of raw power there people. And a radio system that has the word “computer” emblazoned all over the manual. And I’m buying it secondhand because – as everyone in the know knows – trainers are flown by calm, rational people who hardly ever scream “Oh Fuck I’ve dropped the controller and now IT’S COMING RIGHT TOWARDS US – EVERYBODY DOWN!” before a noise like the world exploding, and the traditional burying of the remains in a carrier bag.

Now with my unblemished history of second hand motors and computers, nothing – snigger if you must, but I tell you – nothing can go wrong. Especially since some poor unsuspecting bugger has offered to help. I feel money may have to change hands after the first flight.

I have neither the time or money for another hobby. Apparently we’re in training for the HONC***, the house spreadsheet has entered scary new worlds of advanced calculus, and there’s all sorts of stuff going on at work that really demands my full attention.

Still, always time to polish a turd eh?

* Not that stick. This is bloody well hard enough already.

** As named by one of my children. Yes, it was the random one.

*** New year, new rule. No beers with more than 4.5{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} alcohol content. Oh yeah, I’m serious about this race

You can be smooth, then fast…

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

… but you can never be fast, then smooth. Sage advice for almost any walk of life, but properly pertinent for those riding avoiding death. It was delivered as the single version of a truth by a man who was both, to another man who was neither. And since that day, I’ve spent quite some cash and a little less time looking for what happened between fast and stacked.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

The problem wasn’t a lack of bravery. That’s the default position of the riding hedgehog and it’s never really been the high water mark of speed, perceived or otherwise. No it was the constant fear of crashing on every single corner, the neural link between that and the brakes, the frustration of being left behind – again – by my riding pals, and the total lack of bloody enjoyment every time I went out.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

Get a grip I hear you say. And you’d be right because a second unquestionable truth is that once your front wheel is pointing in the right direction, most other stuff is merely distracting detail. Having lost that grip about half a second before ripping my knee open, it’s only taken me two and a half years to find it again.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

That and frozen hard trails at Afan, a year riding the same bike and so much grip that – short of taking the front wheel out and installing a melon – the corners would go as fast as your eyes can deal with. This proved to be jolly good fun, and most of it came together on the last trail I real remember riding properly on.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

To be fair, it wasn’t all one way Karma, two of the fellas received frostnip on a day colder enough to promise IceWilly(tm) later. Dave forgot most of his kit on the way down, and the rest of it before every ride. Andy’s lad made the near fatal mistake of chasing his dad, resulting in some quality learning time lying dazed some way away from his bike.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

Nige found that eight weeks, and one wedding is not the ideal training regime for hauling cold muscles up big hills, and Jason’s poor wardrobe decision left him with extreme chafing where no man should feel even the lightest of chafes. Still I had a great time, and would take frozen and hard over cold and sloppy* regardless of chill blaines in the nether regions.

Afan December 2008 Afan December 2008

Last year we slopped about for two days trying to find some grip. This warm up to 2009** must be a sign that we’ve paid our cosmic debt, and a proper summer is merely a few months away. Probably means I’m due another huge stack then.

* Any situation. Every time 😉

** The whole new year nonsense can go and get stuffed with what’s left of the turkey as far as I’m concerned. I covered that off last year and nothing much has changed. Except getting a year closer to death. but hey let’s not start the year on that kind of downer.

Musings from 40,000 feet

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsenseLeave a comment

A little out of sequence but I thought it’d gone when I found a bit of the treasured memory stick hanging from the mouth of our dog. Luckily he only ate the lid. Seemed to quite enjoy it to. Anyway.. flying to South Africa (“Welcome to the Basket Case of the Word“), I wrote this:

I am sat here, alone, cynically observing advanced states of catatonia in airline supplied romper suits. They are all pissed of course, downed by measures that would stun a hearty donkey. And shrouded under duvets of the purest white that put me in mind of a legion of dead, fat, middle aged corporate warriors

I’m sober through a combination of a waiting hire car, and the enduring memory of an incident many years ago involving multiple bottles of wine, and nearly being turned back at American customs. So my ears are full of engine roar displacement music, and I’m left with eight hours of nothing to do but sneer at a plethora of business class worthies – each thinking they are more important than each other.

They are clearly more important than me. The whole experience from collection in a posh car driven by an old man with values slightly right of Genghis Kahn, to being whisked through security by a pretty women who knew my name feels like it should be happening to someone else. I’m mentally back on the train to a factor of about five – this is not my world, these are not my people, I don’t belong here.

The Virgin “upper class wing” – their words, never mine – describes this feeling in spades. It’s clearly been designed to a brief of “funky” and so split between zones of fun, work, chill out, and emergency haircuts. I’m about as close to Amish in spaces like this as you can get. Wandering about, waiting to be thrown out until I find something that looks visibly close to a bar.

Grabbing a beer served by two happy barmen who talk about their customers – between serving cocktails to the type of people who cannot demean themselves by looking their lessers in the eye – so we swap stories of arseholes, and watch the death throes of English Rugby on the big screen. They love their jobs to be fair, it’s good money and better to be away from the general bottle throwing population out in the public areas.

Having found some kindred spirits, I extend my shoulder chip to the sit down bar found on the plane. When everyone else has passed out, the cabin crew tell me that – even at a third full – all the profit in at this end of the plane, and everyone downstream in the cheap seas are nothing more than organic baggage.

I risk a non committal smile as a defence mechanism in the same way I’ve failed to kick off about my drivers’ “they come over here taking our jobs” rant a few hours earlier. For which there are many reasons, the sort of reserve the English feel allows dictators to invade sovereign countries, a weary acceptance that I’m not clever enough to make people see another side to an argument, and the guilt that comes with me pushing the firm to pay for me to fly this way.

People lampoon Billy Connolly with the dichotomy of his castles and working class welding stories. I feel a bit like that. I’m desperately proud of being brought up in a small house with a proper coal cellar, but still secretly love the trappings of the business traveller.

Bloody hell, that’s such a craven admission I think I’ll risk a beer. It’s that or I’m going to start poking sleepy passengers with an accusing finger and a demand to know where they get off being such dickheads.

Everything for a pound.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

This seems to be the mutli-layered marketing message* being blasted indiscriminately from every form of media outlet, although the input it triggers seems to be mixed. For example, Selfridges reported 2,000 delusional basket cases queuing outside since half way through Christmas day, whereas Ross-on-Wye was essentially closed.

Not entirely, but aside from some desperate window posters offering 70{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} off, a free holiday and first go on the owner’s budgie, it was all shuttered up and hibernating until the new year. Except for a good number of retail outlets that appeared to be closed forever, their little deaths confirmed by half iced windows not really hiding empty rooms filled only with uncollected post.

The BBC cheerfully quoted some Grim Reaper’s accounting committee who predicted the UK economy will shrink by nearly 3{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} in 2009 – a number so historic, our public service broadcaster was able to fire off a salvo of statistics likening such a downturn to the first year after the second world war ended.

Since my mum is staying with us, I asked her how bad that was. Apparently the problem was the country was entirely broke, and even if you had any cash – which nobody did – you couldn’t buy anything. Bread rationing actually started after the war, and those little books granting right to such luxuries as an ounce of butter were around until 1950.

But – sounding an optimistic note – she also told me this was fine, since nobody was getting bombed and a little Welsh fella called Bevan was promising the state would look after you. Completely different to 2009 then, where the UK has promised to try and stop bombing people, the state is going to hock itself up to the eyeballs with a level of debt so huge you need wide angle eyes to read it, but hey – GREAT NEWS – it’s unlikely we’ll return to rationing.

Every cloud and all that. The local outlet store (think of Bicester village and take it down a few notches, more poundstretcher with end of line duvet covers) promised massive discounts and indoor warmth, which led me to ignore the fiscal rules introduced since “Black Thursday – the day the Heating Quote Arrived” and go mad in the trouser department.

Four pairs of jeans for£50. Satorial elegance has never been my thing, but even at that price this stops me wandering the streets in my pants, while not constricting blood to my thighs, and er, other parts. We also bought a bin which cost twice that. It is quite a special bin tho and goes my the name of Derek (the Dalek Dustbin) – we didn’t really need a new rubbish receptacle, but Colin was looking for a bit of companionship.

I so need to go and ride my bike. Many reasons, but the one I’m citing here is that there are four pairs of jeans that’ll be nothing more than shelfware unless I either suck it and stop breathing, or get serious about reducing the girth of these “Buggery Grips“.**

* Coming Soon: “The Hedgehog Private Members Bill: Banning Marketing and shooting all the Marketeers. A vote for common sense”

** A delightful phrase served up from Dave ‘the Man of Shoreditch’ Hoyland. Took me a while to work out what he actually meant, and then “urrgghhhh“

Christmas Presents – Part 2 and 3

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

Part 2 you can see right there ^^. That photograph was supposed to depict the speed, excitement and frisson of danger that only a competitive game of Air Hockey can create. Sadly, it fails to do so which is a shame because – even our bargain basement example – is way more fun that a big fan, a swathe of MDF and two Mexican hats for a small dog should ever be.

The designer must have been provided with a strict brief “Think Cheap and remember we’ve got a warehouse full of black ash MDF that needs shifting“. I was transported back to 1983 on opening the box, and the whole thing has “least cost bidder” written all over it. However, this in no way affects the way it makes you giggle when playing it. I intend to get all protractor angly good at killer shots, and then start playing my friends for money.

Part 3 you cannot see as it’s under the desk and seeping a bit. My right leg has some crazy paving scarring from an accident I spent about twenty seconds trying to have last night. It was not even a big drop – less than two feet – but both the entry and exit are a bit nasty. My standard approach is to hit it as fast as I dare, so lessoning my inability to pop the front wheel at low speeds.

Last night I was following Jezz – wheel popper extraordinare – at a speed that was clearly going to require some input from me other than closing my eyes and hoping for the best. Sadly, my pre-lip gurn/lift and shift did nothing other than unclip my right foot from the pedal.

Things went downhill rather rapidly from there. The pedal whipped round and struck me a mighty blow on the calf, I pitched forward over the bars, and my left wrist rotated round those bars to almost point back at me, while waving a desperate warning. This was some way away from “stable and calm body position” experts purport is the least life threatening approach when you and the ground are no longer connected.

The landing* started with only two of my limbs attached to the bike and nearly finished there as well. Convinced the end was indeed nigh, I withdrew my head – turtle like – from beyond the stem and braced for impact. Crashing through some gorse bushes in a one legged, one armed buckaroo fashion distracted me from the unbelievable situation of still being wheels up and attached.

Eventually the cacophony of sound (bike, undergrowth, rider screaming) ended without anything damaged other than the bloody leg where we came in. Lying in the hospital after the big accident I had in 2006, I kept replaying the crash in my mind, specifically how I could have been so damn unlucky to smash myself up on such a benign trail.

Well last night Karma may well have been restored. And that seems the right note to sign off and wish all you sufferers of the hedgehog a very Merry** Christmas 🙂

* See previous post regarding the SuperCub. Landing is really underplaying exactly how fraught and bouncy things were at this time

** Oh yes. Starting about now. What d’ya mean it’s 9am? And your point is?

Plane Stupid

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography3 Comments

Not those environmental worthies – most of whom happen to live under the Heathrow flightpath – crusading against a third runway, and generally being far too nice to prevent a million tons of concrete being poured. I struggle to see how making the Heathrow Terminal experience any busier can in any way be a good thing, but I care little for matters of the South nowadays 😉

The SuperCub celebrates its’ first birthday on Thursday. Last years’ Christmas present had been packed away and hidden behind the still many, many unpacked boxes*. Its’ abandonment was not merely physical, the first flights had not gone well, and even tho I’d put in some significant Sim Time, the prospect of drilling for mud with an extensive and expensive parts list held not much interest.

Especially after the local flying club – two miles away, beards mandatory, Cap and Tie at all times mandatory, humour and grace strictly forbidden – poo poohed my membership application on the grounds that it breached Rule 27, Paragraph 4, Subsection b), Item iii) towhit lowering the average age below 100. Anyway that route lay training and log books and theory, and frankly that’s far too bloody dull when you’re meant to be enjoying yourself.

So teaching yourself is both invigorating, occasionally frightening and always expensive. Yesterday with holiday and energy to burn, I launched the airdrill(tm) across the field and spent ten minutes wondering where I might be able to land it. In the same field actually, full of nascent winter crop and muddy enough to provide the kind of soft landings my vertical approaches require.

My flying has definitely improved, and I can say that with confidence because – even after eight impacts**, the stout little Supercub is absolutely intact with every component still attached. Sure I’ve had to empty the engine compartment of clay, and my lack of battery awareness did create a hike across someone elses field to retrieve the powerless plane, but otherwise all is tally-ho and top hole!

I can now fly right and left circuits, twirl figure eight turns, and mostly work out which way to twiddle the sticks when the plane turns turtle and heads back towards me like a homing missile. So having mastered that, I should bed down these manoeuvres, work on my turns, try and land the plane within a square mile of the house and generally hone my skills.

What I’m actually going to do is try some aerobatics. I know, I know you’re thinking the same as me “Top Idea what could possibly go wrong?”

* Does anyone else think if you have no idea what the contents are, and haven’t been casting around for the “forty eighth stuffed toy, you know the one that looks like the other 47“, donating the whole damn lot of unopened boxes to charity is the right thing to do? In our family, it goes 3 to 2 against, and that’s with me claiming Murphy’s vote.

** Landing would be too charitable. The field is rough, so even a perfect approach and flare would stil result in the plane’s arse pointing accusingly to the sky. That’s my theory not ever having made that perfect approach 😉

Gone !

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff3 Comments

1) The day with the shortest number of daylight hours. Pedants insist you describe it in this way because “it is not in any way shorter than any other day fnugh, perhumph*”. They also find this amusing, which is why many of us would like the shooting season to be extended to those whose goal in life is to tell you you’re wrong.

2) My hair. A pre-Christmas mow with the trimmer has finally answered a perennial question of “Which comes first the expanding crown or the receeding fringe?” The answer is both, and it now appears my bald pate is expanding ever skywards through what remains on the sides. In other hair related news, whispy gray folicles from every other orifice appear to be on the increase.

3) The number of rides that haven’t involved hub deep mud. A squelsh around the Wyre forest reintroduced me to chainsuck, unwanted sideways movement of tyres, a full body immersion experience enlivened by a hard pebble dashing from suspicious looking brown stuff, and 20 vigorous minutes with the hosepipe to find something even vaguely bike shaped.

4) Work. Until 2009, although only after three hours of purgatory on Saturday morning. My out of office reads something like “You poor sap still in the office eh? Stuff your email, I couldn’t care less frankly“. Well it doesn’t, but it would if I didn’t fancy a difficult meeting with Human Remains Resources.

5) My legs. After their feeble efforts to churn mud into dirt, they have adopted a mutinous position when presented with my idea for a quick ride today. But no matter, they’ll be flogged with the rest of me, since HONC is only three and a bit months away. and at least 4 kilos of Al needs to be gone before then as well!

So that’s me off riding then. Fortuantly there is a lovely real fire warmed pub that does the best Pork Scratching on the way back. Which is important as – like any honed athlete – I understand the importance of recovery food and rehydration.

* They all speak like that. Trust me I know, I work with accountants.

Lights are on but is anybody home?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

I have never been a huge fan of night riding. Some of this is my engorged lazy gene which goes all 70s shop steward when presented with a plan for dark, cold and wet. And, after five years of spending many unpleasent evenings disadvantaged by bicycle in the Chiltern Mudhills, my default position – between October and March – was hibernation.

And when I did venture out, my rubbish co-efficient was at least a double multiple of standard piss poor performance. I couldn’t see much, and when somehing big and robustly static loomed into view, I engaged target fixation and shoulder charged it. Between that, pedalling to make progress downhill, and steering rarely troubled by the position of the ‘bars, it was sort of, well, rubbish really.

This position was troubling to the Malvern Movement* who extolled the joy of those with “something of the night about them“, and promised an abundament of fun for those listing lycanthropy and bat worshipping in their list of hobbies. ALso, since this 45 sq/km of hillage is surrounded by a million trail users – many of them with red socks and humourless expressions – daytime riding can sometimes be nothing more than a physical and verbal slalom.

And yet I was nowhere near convinced because I know the truth of the myth behind disk brakes. They were in fact invented by a rider of the Chilterns whose ‘V’ brakes had reduced the rotation of his wheels to naught, his previously racey steed now weighed one hundred pounds**, and his very passage was nothing more than an illegal transit of national park moist soil.

It didn’t end well, last seen he was rocking quietly and sobbing gently, with crayoned designs cast around his unkempt self, and his only friend a bottle of DOT.4 from which he was carlelessly drinking. Yet after a few timid rides through the maw of a black night, I found barrelling through a shallow tunnel of light on the heart thumping side of invigorating.

So last night we celebrated the upcoming Winter Solstice with a great ride topped off with Sloe Gin and Mince Pies. The Malverns are nothing more than a glacial sponge so really reward four seasons riding, even if the cheekiness of woody evening bridleways sport a frisky combination of off-camber, slick roots and a gradient best described as plunging.

A topographical situation perfectly constructed for a trio of mildly inebriated mountain bikers missing a set of co-ordinated limbs – last seen upstream of “oh go on then, another swig won’t hurt“. It could have, but when my foot out moto sytle inevitably delivered more tree than trail, the giggling of a rapidly descending drunken idiot could be heard for miles around. Followed by the metally slither of the bike he had previously been riding.

Night riding now is something I am really going to miss when day time hours finally outnumbers those of the night, although dry, dusty and warm will be significantly more welcome. Unlikely but welcome.

In the meantime, I’m taking Snugtrousers(tm) out to play silly buggers in the dark, happy in the knowledge that very few other people are.

* Not a difficult bowel evacuation, more a bunch of very nice people I met off the Internet. Which has to be the first, and possibly a last time that could happen 😉

** Spookily, about what the bike was now worth as well after being ground away by the incessant Chiltern gloop.

DTFU*

On By AlexIn Bikes2 Comments
Ive just been done over by the big nasty Dogs
"I've just been done over by the big nasty Dogs"

That was my response to the dog’s expression as he slunk back in, having been put down in the mud by the bigger dogs. He’s such a wimp though, anything from an aggressive shrub upwards will have him lying down supine and looking to be loved, rather than duffed up.

Can’t imagine where he’s learned that behaviour from. Although it wasn’t in evidence during a terse conversation with a certain on line retailer. “Hello, Just wanted to congratulate you on a superb website, excellent prices, next day delivery and easy to contact customer support. Shame your picking system is a one armed blind bloke who breakfasts from a brown paper bag”

My new shiny forks arrived less than 24 hours after ordering. A triumph of logistics and navigation only slightly let down by them being entirely the wrong sort. And even a man with as much hammer-time as I can see no may to make this round peg fit a square hole. It would have been less vexing had I not gone to the trouble of RINGING THEM UP BEFORE I ORDERED TO AGREE THEY HAD THE RIGHT STOCK!

Now I’ve been forced to buy from a place who have no telephone support, an email reply service rated in epochs, and a chequered history of on time delivery. I fully expect to receive half an elephant wearing a Santa’s hat at a jaunty angle. In February. 2011.

I order myself ONE miserly present and all I receive is aggravation and excuses. It’s clearly not fair, and in that vein I shall be drowning my sorrows in about, oh, 3 hours. Day isn’t a complete right off then.

* Dog the F*ck up. The cannine variation of MTFU – a phrase seemingly used to describe any activity that does not involve ripping the head off something large and toothy, and then eating it raw.

Christmas Presents – Part 1

On By AlexIn Bikes3 Comments
80s inspired retro tinselling!
80s inspired retro tinselling!

With the Spreadsheet of Doom having been re-assigned to house rebuilding duties, it’s hard to know how much – or little we should at least consider that – I’ve spent on bikes lately. Not much is the suprising answer, although that must be placed into the context of the almost criminal approach to shiny-part-syndrome of which I’ve been guilty for far too many years.

Sure the Kona was new (to me) but many of the parts were recycled or some cast off from a kindred spirit (buy, procure excitement, open box, engage disappointment gland, sell for half price) and aside from consumables, it’s all been mostly quiet on the quite Western front.

Until today. Obviously the tinselling of the Cove is not really its’ real Christmas present. That’s akin to stuffing an orange into the stocking* on Christmas Eve and pretending that Santa has taken the rest of the year off. Only when the kids are googling for “adoption by nice parents” do you pony up with the pointless tat they’ve been listing for months.

Amusingly Random cannot quite see the dichotomy between the myth of Santa** dropping down the chimney and weeing on the mince pies, and the fact that certain boxes have been stashed way before the fat man cometh. Verbal on the other hand has a knowing smile and chastises her sister for being so gullible.

I deal with such conflict by a) telling them they are both wrong and b) if they don’t stop RIGHT THIS MINUTE, NO ONE IN THE HOUSE IS GETTING ANY PRESENTS. NADA. NOT ONE. OR ANY FOOD.

So far this has done the trick. Anyway the bike, well it’s sort of had some new forks and wheels ordered . And only because a) bolt through forks are much safer (and shinier) and b) the marketing blurb talks of increased sexiness and decreased girth.

Obviously I am no need of such things. But, you know, it’s always nice to have them in reserve.

* Now I know what you’re thinking. Or at least some of you. And I’d like you to stop as I’m about to introduce my children into this sentence 😉

** No he is not real. Don’t blame me if you didn’t know that. It’s all a marketing scam by Coca Cola anyway.