Cross

On October 18, 2008December 17, 2009 By AlexIn Bikes, Photography3 Comments

Although “knackered” would be a better adjective to describe my current condition. Two hours of messing about in the local woods, and straining every muscle to remove a muddy deflated tyre has left me quite spent. And that’s before the final pull home on gear ratios that are going to make a man of me.

I have, however, discovered a number of important things – even on such a short ride:

a) My “slam into things because I’ve paid for a big fork” translates not at all to a bike with thin tyres and no suspension
b) I’ve ridden some fast steering bikes. Only I haven’t because they all feel like oil tankers now. The bar has been well and truly raised. And, er, shortened.
c) Sliding round muddy corners on 28c tyres while gripping the arse end of 12 inch bars is terrifyingly involving…
d) … and more fun that you would imagine
e) Non disk brakes don’t really work well off-road. I considered dropping anchor a couple of times until it became apparent the top tube is at the same height as my love nuts. Arresting velocity using ones testicles as braking collateral feels even more dangerous than just accelerating ever faster to an accident that’s out there and waiting
f) Closing your eyes helps. It’s not like you can see anything anyway.

But – and it’s a big one – tracks that’d be dull on an MTB are really quite ace. And being fast on the road encourages you to explore all those paths written off as dull before. I’ve linked up more in two hours today than in the last two months, and finally a loop from home is beginning to emerge from the contours on the OS map.

Before setting off on my first dropped bar ride since puberty and “10 speed racers”, I completed the rebuild of the little DMR and took it out for a bit of skills training. I can still just about bunnyhop, trackstand and wheelie up to and past the balance point. Murphy found the whole experience quite exciting and – while I was sat on the floor rubbing my sore arse – he ate a tyre.

I’m thinking of this as a worthwhile period of dog/bike bonding. Although he’s going to be a rubbish trail dog if he just injests vital components when we’re miles from anywhere. Maybe I’ll get him a saddle 🙂

Time Machines: Part 1

On October 17, 2008October 17, 2008 By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

Last week, I fulfilled my half of the Faustian promise by rocking up to the station at Dark O’clock. The train failed to honour its’ half of the bargain when it predictably failed to turn up. This got me thinking about time machines, specifically how great it would be to wind back an hour, turn off the alarm and drift back into a blissful sleep. As opposed to risking another bout of extended tackle exposure, standing on a windswept platform waiting for something to happen.

Nothing did, but the time was well invested considering the value of thermal underwear, and selecting the one single event I would want most to change. if a fully working time machine was delivered to my door. And even with the many worthy candidates, one incident during my fifteenth year still sends me into a fully body spasm whenever the unwelcome memory surfaces.

The clock would be set to July 1982, the location Silverdale School, Sheffield, the time 6:30pm. Let the eye of remembrance cast it’s focus to the main hall where 200 5th year students are separated by 20 yards of Demilitarized Zone and further divided by the type of any recently sprouted bouncy bits. The eye would reveal a leaving dance, a few teachers stretching the bounds of smart-casual, and sufficient testosterone that a single accidental nudge would cause a pubescent boy to explode.

Let the eye rove along this line of drainpipe jeans and monster zits, allow it to flip and zoom to examine a particularly poor specimen with a messy centre parting and National Health Glasses. Notice how his hands are shaking, his face is wet with sweat, and his countenance ashen. Realise this is nothing to do with what is about to happen, but rather because of what has just happened featuring two rusty cans of long life, and a toke on a few illicit B&H’s.

Which is no way can explain what happens next. The boy – driven out of the line by fellow long-lifers’ – finds himself in no mans land facing one hundred girls, almost none of which know his name. But one does, and this is the one, and this is his time. If the eye withdraws, it would reveal a moment of silence, a hush for what may happen next, a pause in the noise of many people who have much to say, but no way to say it. And that silence would be broken by one R.Norman whispering – just below the pain barrier – “GO ON MY SON, GET IN THERE” while pumping his arm in what I can only assume was his biologically naive view of how one gets a lady pregnant.

Cheers Bob. Never really forgiven you for that. I approached this girl emboldened by an air of misplaced optimism, two beers and the sure knowledge I was leaving tomorrow. But even though I am not normally short of a few words, my mind went properly blank, I gasped for air, I risked a look over my shoulder (synchronised arm pumping from my ex-friends), I looked along a line of unfriendly faces. I only tell you this to somehow justify the prhase I finally managed to stammer, while attempting to elevate my eyes from her rather fine bosom.

“I like your jumper“. The hush stopped, the moment was broken, sniggers broke out from all sides and suddenly it wasn’t boys against girls, it was everyone against Al. As she considered her answer, my face blazed through the colour spectrum ending quickly at a deep and burning red. And then just when it couldn’t get any worse, of course it did: “You shouldn’t be looking at my jumper” she dead panned me, turned laughing to her friends and left me with the walk of shame back to the boys side.

So if that Time Machine turned up with “single use only” emblazoned on the packaging, that’s where I’d head back to. Where I would calmly change history by simply shooting myself.

Thanks for listening. That was better than therapy 😉

Bonkers!

On October 13, 2008October 15, 2008 By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

This image is stolen from BikeMagic where you can read the whole enchillarda of insanity, and check out Dan’s fantastic pictures. Don’t waste your time looking for string, wires or evidence of post production CGI.

There are none. There is only bravery and stupidity in about equal parts. This is what happens when you mix twenty of the world’s finest Freeriders, a bucket full of prize money and cahoonies the size of water melons. Check out the report, busted shoulders, broken this, smashed that – it reads like a charge sheet following a Friday Night out on Broad Street*

I may have mentioned that I quite enjoy riding mountain bikes. Occasionally I’ve even launched myself off what felt like quite large drops, and always promised myself I wouldn’t do it again. Why? Because it is so bloody frightening.

These guys do it week after week. I think they’re only allowed to stop when they die.

Completely and utterly bonkers.

* A notorious road in Birmingham near the office. Full of bars, strip clubs and – come Friday night – people fighting and people being sick. Generally at the same time.

Afan’in a laugh

On October 11, 2008December 17, 2009 By AlexIn Bikes, Pretentious nonsense3 Comments

At 10pm last night, I was suffused with anticipation with a bike already packed in the truck, a favourable weather forecast, a meet up early the next day with two old friends, and three of my favourite trails at the Afan MTB centre.

To say I was looking forward to a day of dry, fast riding on flowing singletrack is a phrase laced with understatement. In the same way as saying that Murphy quite enjoys his breakfast. So finding myself on a fourth visit to the toilet at 3am this morning, was a situation meriting more that a soupcon of disappointment.

It is not the worst food pointing ever inflicted on my innocent guts. That would be the night before flying home from South Africa a few years ago, where I completed an entire novel* while pooing out the contents of my small intestine. Determined not to shit my pants on the 11 hour flight home, I overdosed on Immodium which was both a spectacular success and – later – a painful disaster.

It was five days before I could go again. I honestly thought the local A&E crash team were going to be forced to remove the backed up bolus’s of bodily waste using a caesarian procedure. Last night was a mere three chapter experience, although made substantially worse by being undertaken in the outer reaches of the Arctic bathroom.

No heat can live here. You squat in trumpety misery while the icy tentacles of a chilly draught gently caresses your testicles. After one particularly lengthy exposure, my knees gave way and I crashed – head first – into the sink in the manner of a tall tree being chainsawed.

At 7am, I attempted to rise from the pit to begin my cycling odyssey. Such a noble deed was hampered by three not insignificant problems: a) an all over body weakness making even trousers a physically demanding step too far b) a poppin’ and a bangin’ stomach that suggested I’d best get started on the next chapter and c) a certain soreness where a Gentleman would normally insert a saddle.

Because I’m not even close to heroic, the best I could manage was a pathetic moan and a flaccid collapse back into the pit. The next few hours passed in extreme irritation with a perfect autumnal day loomed large in the window. Wisps of high cloud punctuated the blue sky, whisked along by a warm breeze. Weather I could best describe as “perfect for riding“.

Eventually I de-pitted myself due to a lack of hot towels and sympathy from the rest of the family, and took the kids out cycling. They certainly enjoyed themselves, disappearing to worryingly small specs on the horizon as their old-feeling man laboured breatherly behind them.

Tomorrow I’m in the slot for driving Random to a birthday party back in Aylesbury. A perfect opportunity to bag a couple of previously enjoyed trails and maybe a memorial pint. Unless tonight, I’m forced to move onto the complete works of Shakespeare, in which case the central thesis of my existence will be again confirmed.

Life isn’t bloody fair 🙁

* and not a small one at that.

There’s some good news..

On October 9, 2008October 9, 2008 By AlexIn Bikes11 Comments

Its like that only blue — It's like that only blue

.. and some bad news. The good news is I completely failed to spend a number closely associated with the sound of a high velocity rolling pin connecting with ones wedding vegetables. The bad news is that I still appear to have bought a cross bike. Not a new one, not even close to a new one, but not one that has been ridden much either.

After the trauma of buying from a bloke in a shed, this time I’ve gone for a purchasing strategy involving someone I know. And not just someone, the renowned Seb Rogers of taking-fantastic-photographs fame. I’m giving him some cash, and his under stairs space back in exchange for a pre-love Kona Jake and a quick rag round some of his local (Mendip) trails.

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice a chainring count of ones less than optimal, and a rear cassette with cogs ranging from “small” to “dwarf”. So an ideal set of ratios for an area of the country that is reasonably well known for not being entirely flat.

Seb’s also throwing in the amusingly named “suicide levers” which may prevent almost certain death on the first off road descent. Yep, I’m definitely taking it off road, although my innate honestly forces me to admit that a) it’ll be lame off road and b) I’ll be going even slower than normal.

So does this mean the end of the trusty Roadrat? At 3000 miles and 28 months, it is both the longest serving and longest riding bike I’ve ever owned. Obviously in AlWorld(tm), this makes it just about the perfect time to sell it. Dunno tho, the Jake isn’t costing much, the Roadrat owes me nothing, and when is an extra bike ever a bad thing?

Still I may very well be hating everything duo-wheeled tomorrow after rotating up and down the Malverns with nary a tube. Fitting tubeless tyres wasn’t exactly difficult, but I hadn’t factored three tyre levers into the purchase price. One of which shattered in such a manner, I’m pretty sure there’s a bit embedded in my skull somewhere.

But it’s like the cross bike. I mean, really, what can possibly go wrong?

One Fuse to Rule Them All.

On October 8, 2008 By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

This isn’t the first time my ranting radar has identified incoming targets from the nation state of Electricity-Ville. It’s a bit of a rogue state, firing salvo after salvo of incompetence missiles, and threatening to overwhelm a defence system entirely based on writing angry letters.

Powerless seems the right word to use here. We foolishly switched on a few of the storage heaters on Saturday evening, only to be endarkened from around midnight. A call to EDF didn’t achieve much other than for them to tell us there wasn’t a problem. I issued a stiff verbal rebuttal based on some local, on the ground and in the dark information.

It’s cold and dark I said. Not here it isn’t they smugly replied. Further pleading eventually harvested an engineer who grumbled his way through a fuse change. “You need an 80 amp in there mate” he told us after removing the charred remains of the previous incumbent of our fuse box.

The lights came back on but the heating did not. The reason for this became apparent this morning after the discovery of a hidden fuse. This seems a little extravagent as we already have two fuseboxes bursting with the little buggers. Half of these protect the standard domestic circuits, and the other half stop the storage heaters catching fire.

Or at least they would if their puny 13amp wires were not gazumped by a second 80amper sat in line, ready to take the strain. Now I’m no electrician – and it’s a constant source of amazement that electricity doesn’t leak out of the socket when the plug is removed – but how can a widdle of mini fuses remain unbothered while the big burtha explodes at the first flick of a switch?

Apparently this never used to be an issue when our house was part of a commercial building, because the entire place was hooked up to some monster three phase circuit. This information has not in any way assuaged my worry that – come midnight – the electrical ummph from activating storage heaters isn’t going to create the kind of problem the phrase “blast radius” was created for.

But, short of shovelling another child onto the open fire, it seems we must risk crisping ourselves and the surrounding countryside before ice forms on the inside of the kettle. Suddenly our priority for which project to undertake first has undergone a bit of a policy rewrite, and it’ll all be plumbers and the like saved from financial destitution.

Still could be worse, I could be an incompetant and greedy banker (steady!) who has just had his bonus guarenteed. That’s even better that the dog’s job role – spend an eon being an arrogant fuck up and still get paid a whopping chunk of cash at the end of it. All funded by Mr and Mrs shafted taxpayer.

They’re on the list. I too am “thinking big and bold“. Ready Belgium for a country sized scorpion pit!

I can’t put the tree back..

On October 6, 2008December 17, 2009 By AlexIn Site Stuff4 Comments

… because it doesn’t work with this version. Try and leave a comment and there’s some kind of internal explosion which renders the whole shebang at the dark end of properly buggered.

I’ve pulled back from the Athena nastiness of earlier. Ironically this theme only seems to work properly in Satan’s Browser, so for those of you with a product not owned by the evil empire, the picture at the top is behind the whitespace.

It’s a problem that keeps giving, you have to wait for it to load, but you never get to see it. I have absolutely no idea how to fix it, nor do I intend to spend anytime doing so. At times like this, it’s important to set expectations, because if you think this is bad, go check out the BBC “Market Report”.

I’ve emailed them and suggested it is rendered in a deep blood-coloured red 😉

EDIT: Oh it seems I can. The latest version works but we’ve lost the archives. A small price to pay for such a populist move 😉 It’s going to change again tho. No point having a wide screen if you’re not going to use it.

Hedgehog v2..

On October 6, 2008December 17, 2009 By AlexIn Site Stuff7 Comments

. and a bit. 2.6.1 apparently. The upgrade wasn’t without some technical trauma. I was forced to use every trick of 20+ years hardcore computer skills to bring old hedgy back to life*. This included “installing the files in the right directory” and a somewhat embarrassing “Read the bloody instructions”

I am awash in plug-ins and new features and all sorts of flashy shit that are probably soon to be filed under a bin marked “pointless marketing“. However, that’ll all have to wait for another lunch hour when boredom is the key feature.

In the meantime, the RSS feed should be unspammed and you’ll be delighted to hear the entire back catalogue of articles has been dumped to disk. Just think of the loss to the nation if we’d lost nearly three years of all this shit eh?

* up to and including “Waving the Lucky Chicken” over the keyboard. I can see the old IT sages nodding with me now.

Launch that hedgehog!

On October 6, 2008 By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

I thought I would share this amusing little game because it’s quite fun and extremely topical. Chuck the spikey little bugger into space to win the game, and judge how good you are when compared to my score. I’ll not tell you how well I did, but be certain your best effort is never going to be quite as good 🙂

Tenuously linked to punting hedgehogs into the stratosphere is my nail biting worry of upgrading the ancient technology underpinning this site. The version of WordPress I am using is only one revision about a stone tablet and a big chisel. Taking a quick look a the copious documentation. it seems the chances of performing a successful upgrade are about as likely as me keeping both my testicles, if I buy that cross bike.

Any readers do the WordPress thing? Offers of help will earn you nothing more than a virtual beer and a namecheck that at least one other person will read. My Mum’s good like that 😉

Why Not?

On October 3, 2008December 17, 2009 By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography15 Comments

It's red, It's not yet bought.

After lamenting my lack of motivation to ride, there has been a bit of cycling renaissance. Two glorious weeks of autumnal sunshine, and the rediscovery of messing about with knobblies in the dark* has put me back on the bike and a gormless grin on my face. It’s also re-introduced me to the joys of shopping after six weeks of buying absolutely nothing. Yes, you heard it here first folks – all that nonsense about sub prime debt and bankers having the fiscal sensibilities of a plant pot are mere media ruses. I’m solely responsible and for the good of the UK economy, so I’m trading the country out of the credit crunch with an accelerating spend on pointless upgrades.

First my tyres are more than a passing rubbery resemblance to my own departing thatch. With my lack of riding, I can only imagine this is some kind of design fault where the tyres moult during long periods of idleness. But rather than replace them with something cheap, I have plunged headlong into the deep and scary pool of tubeless. I already have the rims, I have some new tyres on the way, and I have no idea how the hell you mate the two without an inner tube.

Do the tyres come with some kind of magic pixie dust? Hope so – because I can then cast a spangly spell to distract the rest of the family, while a funny looking road-bike is added to the tiny collection of my current fleet. Yes it’s like the Roadrat, no I don’t like dropped barred bikes, yes it’s a silly waste of money, no I’ve not actually bought it yet. But during a euphoric moment of insanity on last night’s ride, I agreed to participate in the Hell of the North Cotswolds next year. And not in the sensible 50k event either.

Therefore I need an incentive, something to get me out when it’s too horrid to go mud plugging, something fast enough to let me hang onto the coat tails of my far fitter friends. Something, and let’s be absolutely honest with each other here, new and red.

That’s alright isn’t it? Thought so 🙂

* There was a bit of that going on in a car park we passed last night. I think I may have discovered Malvern’s premier dogging spot.

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