I want my pants back!

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Other stuff, Photography5 Comments

In my world, there is a direct line from that image depicting a goodly chunk of Welsh mountain to my current situation as a pantless man. Although, a quick scan of this office-based Al would suggest all is present, corporate and correct.

You would need to move a little closer to notice the shirt monogrammed with coffee stains, after an incident invoving a value bucket of Starbuck’s finest and a lack of small motor control. And it would be an uncomfortable and frankly invasive examination for a work colleague to declare “That man over there? The one supposedly in charge? He is inappropriately attired between trouser and willy”

But they’d be absolutely knob on correct, and here’s why. After the sun beat down and the rocks beat upwards on five hours of big hill action, my little brain was both addled and battered. And the whole 6:30am buggeration of attempting to excavate my commuting bike from the detritus of once cherished frames short circuited the part marked common sense.

It’s not a very big part, but it is responsible for co-locating me and my shit when it comes to commuting collateral. And because it took me three attempts to leave the house – first rucksack and then helmet failed to be collected before pedalling off – it wasn’t an enormous surprise to find myself staring in a bag containing exactly no pairs of strides.

At times like this the Internet offers the type of sartorial advice that can get a chap through a difficult experience. My question “Are suit trousers better worn with slightly sweaty cycling lycra, or is the solution to abandon underwear completely giving the old fella freedom of the trouser?” was met with the unanimous recommendation of “Free Willy”*

All was well except for inadvertently exposing myself to the entire post room, and a slightly unpleasant feeling of *ahem* “skin” on wool. Flashed me right back to those happy days in Yorkshire when men were real men and sheep were real frightened.

Still after missing my mouth by miles with a hot beverage, I am considering just stripping off completely to avoid further wear on tear on what remains of my clothing. It’s not the first time this has happened, and it’s unlikely to be the last.

* Although not the sequel, that was rubbish.

What’s missing from this picture?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Photography2 Comments

Flickr Image

a) Summer

b) My new frame

By the time b) arrives, a) shall either be over or it’ll be all lovely and sunny. And late August. I like to think of myself of man of action and would proudly hold up the bike rationalisation strategy as proof of my single minded drive to take an A and make it into a Z.

Closer examination may reveal that intermediate letters such a F[Financial review], P[Plan] and S[Sale of discarded frames] have been passed over in a hand waving ‘it’ll all be fine, cost neutral? Of course” scenario. It’ll will be fine of course, less bikes, more riding, less useless tat, more handy spares, less lamenting poor purchasing decisions, more making new excuses for the current ensemble.

The conclusion I’m slowing coming to is I quite enjoy building bikes, I certainly enjoy riding them and many of my friends can offer weary evidence to my enthusiasm for talking about them. I just need to cut out the bit marked “pointless upgrades” especially if it coincides with the financial blast zone of wine and eBay.

It’s just not going to happen is it?

Oh I missed c) It’s the wrong house. The move date of the 18th seems to be hurtling towards a test case where I harpoon the solicitor and throw myself at the mercy of the legal system. Because not only are they – and I must issue a pre vernacular warning here – sodding useless, they also appear to have taught Pace Racing the complex art of non delivery.

“I am on the train”

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

And I really wish you weren’t. Because while there is much to love about a languid steam* through the rolling countryside. None of it includes the besuited human elements who have confused volume with importance.

If there were every a competition to crown the phrase most loaded with banality, a split decision would separate “Hello, 5:59 as usual, Yes back at 6:53, no I am still a boring and pointless twat” and “Please hold, your call is important to us“. With my casting vote, carriage-bore would receive both a small trophy and a first class excursion under the wheels of a passing train.

Yet, as the grimy suburbs of it-really-isn’t-that greater London were exchanged for the leafy smugness of Oxfordshire, my ire was drawn to the indisputable fact that the cockage to square foot ratio is even greater in our fine capital, than ten fat, middle aged men microwaving their ears in a doomed attempt to find someone who thinks they are worth listening to.

Let me furnish you with an example of how your average Londoner cares for nothing but himself**. During the now famous summer rains, navigating the broad streets of Bishopgate was somewhat hampered by an eye poking spikey roof. Looking upwards brought flashbacks of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” as sodding great Golf*** tarpaulins weaved in from all angles.

The only amusement was watching testosterone fuelled jousts of chicken as London-Man – cranked up to ramming speed – sallied forth like a first world war major heading over the top. The inevitable clash of brolly on brolly brought forth much swearing and no apologies. I swore too when the realisation that the bloke allegedly murdered by a poisoned umbrella tip had probably just been minding his own business on a busy street under rainy skies.

I pondered some more on this and other illustrative examples – Hotel rooms costing the same as cars, tube trains breaching almost all of the Human Right laws, Taxi’s having locked doors and no opening windows – to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that London is really shit, isn’t it?

Once I’d completed that rigorous analysis of 10 million people – and because the journey time back to Ledbury is better measured using units of glacial epochs – a slightly drunken conversation on the best cat recipes came floating back. The rather British Caterole was out pimped by the rather more cosmopolitan Catatoue and Cat L’orange. But my personal favourite was that old stable: Steak and Kitty pudding.

Don’t even try and do better. It took a damn fine bottle of red to create the definitive dead moggy cookbook, and it’s hard to see how that can be bettered.

* The coffee urn of nuclear death more than makes up for a lack of actual firebox waste products.

** Two mobile phones, one willy, zero politeness.

*** A pit offence even before size comes into it. What kind of sport needs an umbrella? You don’t even get that in snooker.

Hamster..

On By AlexIn Bikes5 Comments

.. the wheel is turning but the hamster is dead. I’m pretty confident about that, because no sentient being could own two bikes and thirteen wheels. This baker’s dozen revolve around brake rotors, tyres and cassettes in a three dimensional model, on which entire new fields of mathematics are being founded.

And because my logic is merely stupidity sent to college, the critical path between too much stuff and an the end of a cheap eBay listing day has all gone a bit nuclear. The main problem is the French. As if you needed to be told – specifically a set of pre-loved wheel adorned with not-much-loved scars. After much twitching for the big hammer, the following has become apparent.

1) French wheels sulk. Send a cassette into the front line and they wobble like a Cheese-Eating-Surrender-Monkey.

2) The part which apparently will stiffen their backbone is about as rare as a moon drill. And slightly more expensive.

3) My bidding frenzy to secure them could have been better spent finding a cheaper set on a well known bike forum. Had I not been gripped in the kind of competitive financial deadlock which can easily lead to “Anyone know where the deeds of the house are?”

I amazed myself by pulling back from twatting them with a table and instead bowed to the received wisdom of the Internet. An experience which very much put the table back into play, if any of these virtual heroes ever feels to urge to impart their advice within striking distance.

So having failed that, I’ve locked everything in the shed hoping somehow the broken bits will be transformed to something all shiny and working, by a process of osmosis from my last assembled bike. Which is a road bike reveling in splendiforous operation inversely proportional to the amount of time it’s been Spannered By Al.

In the meantime, if anyone needs seven assorted wheels or a dead hamster*, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

* not a real dead hamster. But we might be able to manage a bunny rabbit. Or unidentified entrails abandoned by the cat after dispatching a very stupid bird.

Roger and out***

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Photography3 Comments
Voodoo Canzo, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Okay I admit it, it really was pink. Although the fella buying it and I exchanged manly nods while classifying in a “lively purple“. He was lucky to get a test ride in between the torrential showers, and luckier still that my ham-fisted debuild* didn’t customise the paintwork with a ‘deep screwdriver‘ motif.

One down, one to be delivered on our annual “trip of scars” to Scotland. I hefted that rather lovely but unused bicycle out of storage, and gave it some pre-sale TLC** between distinctly non manly blubbling.

Somehow in between acts of a model credit-cruched citizen, an unplanned event occurred on the eBay/wine horizon. Still you can never have too many sets of wheels can you?

Nurse? Nurse? The tablets. I’ve just seen some orange spokes and I think they’d match a squirrel I once saw.

* If the airline industry can get away with deplane, I am on safe ground here.

** Tender Loving Catpolishing. Cat loves it really. Like a live Chamois. Only with less cow and more claws.

*** Post tennis update. As a tribute to the Swiss cheese holed by the unbending enthusiasm of the Spanish bull, I’ve changed the post title. It seems my new strategy is already in disarray as the delivery of the new frame has been delayed by a goat strike, and the Cove has something gritty going on ‘downstairs’.

Bugger.

Sad day…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Pretentious nonsense3 Comments

… one bike sold. Another to be shifted tomorrow assuming email is upgraded to actual person. One may be wrenched from my pleading hands, while the other will glare malevolently from a dark corner for another month.

Anyone in the Ledbury area tomorrow hearing “NO NO I’ve changed* my mind, take the child instead” followed by the dull sound of rolling pin on skull, should just nod sagely and move on.

Move on. Deal with the grief. Accept the passing of frames 24 and 25. Relish the comic irony of believing that the right bike equation has finally been solved. As it has so many times before.

I accept it is a incurable mental disease now, and mine is a chronic case. So it should be no surprise that a quick palm reading shows “shiny things in your near future“.

I’ll stop moping and write something funny** soon. Assuming I can type through a vale of tears and sobbing.

* lost

* ish

Dates

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff4 Comments

Not the eating ones. Dreadful things with the colour, moistness and visual similarity to the output of a large dog. And one that is clearly quite ill. When my – strangely – delayed email confirms World Dictatorship status, the hateful things shall be banished along with related horridness including prunes, mushrooms and couscous.

To be replaced by something healthier and less squidgy- I am currently ruminating over whether that should be cheese or sausage. Have I allocated the key cabinet position for “head of sausages and frankfurters”?. No? So much to do, so little time to count the bribes*

Back to the JuliAL** calender where a date of 18th July has been carelessly cast into the legal cesspit of our house purchase. I have cut through the tedium of letter writing, deed forming, contract negotiating and endless epochs of nothing much happening, by explaining I shall shoot the next person that tells me this is not possible.

I care not who it is. They shall be ruthless dispatched by HarpCat*** and hung by the giblets as an example to others. I may even raise a merry bonfire in celebration and throw on passing members of the legal profession. Any lack of properly notorised paperwork would in no way stay us from at least pitching a tent in the garden. If we had one.

The second date is more within my control and less likely to involve difficult to explain fatalities****. The overwhelming success of my bicycle consolidation has moved into a new phase. I cannot say too much in case those not following “the one true way of upcoming fiscal disaster” are secretly watching. But soon something shiny and curvy shall cross paths with a further two heading in the opposite direction.

QUICK, THEY’RE COMING. THE UNBELIEVERS. Er, It’ll be cost neutral. Of course it is well thought out. Honestly, the long term costs are going to be lower. No, no I’ve not taken a blow to the head. Do I want to? Er.

My mum is becoming increasingly concerned by the never ending sweariness of my words. So, playing the dutiful son for just a second, Oh F*** S*** I’m as good as dead.

* Works for all well documented brutal despots and the British Government.

** Already subtle changes denote the coming of the One True Leader 🙂

*** A new weapon fusing the velocity of a harpoon with the beserker claws of a battle cat.

**** “That bloke with a cat sticking out of his eye? No Idea, go try the Sealed Knot nutters, he was probably playing Harold and it all went pear shaped“

What type of plant is that?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography7 Comments

Jsaon climbing from hope.

That will be a face plant – Latin name body-pummeler rock slasher – found in great numbers where soil conditions include abrasive rock, rubbish riding and a higher than normal incidence of Al.

Passing naturalists exclaimed “By Jove is that a greater bruised Alex, nestling perfectly between a sharp outcrop and muddy stream bed? Not often you see them with their legs still wiggling. Get the camera out”

And all this crashing about in the hard edged undergrowth after the first day had gone so well. Great swathes of the Peak District being mowed by the wavy lines of rumbling tyres, huge cakes disappearing at the speed of indigestion, and endless climbs bridging the distance between the two.

Even better, it was not even one of my own bikes getting a custom attrition paint job from high speed rock strikes. I didn’t have anything to ride you see*, SX lost in storage, Hummer akin to taking a toothpick to a gunfight, Canzo too pink to be allowed into Yorkshire. So I borrowed one, and it was lovely.

Except for the fork which had the structural integrity and lateral stiffness of a wilting lettuce. And the brakes which worked long enough to get me out of the shop. And the chain which fell off a lot. But hey it was a hard working demo which someone else had to clean and mend, once I’d sort of wrecked it.

Sort of would have been absolutely had the 15 seconds not quite falling off ended as it should. It’s the only time I’ve ever clipped both sides of a gate – held open by my wide mouthed riding buddies – as the plunging buckero of man and bike was hurled down the hillside by angry gravity.

Still four times over the bars the next day was a price almost worth paying for tweaking the nose of terror. If the terrain was any more technical, it would come with a four inch manual and a nine year old boy to explain how to make it work. The Andys** whooped along it with all the trouble of men attempting a single flight of stairs. The same trails dispatched me into a dark, sweaty place where bikes don’t clear rocks, corners cannot be turned and steep bits must be walked.

At one point – the point being where my head was yet again wedged into a painful rock sandwich – my sense of humour was declared missing in action. Presumed dead. The final descent cheered me up with it’s lack of near death experiences and bumpy swoopiness.

What cheered me up even more was finding my cash had gone the same way as my sense of humour and I was forced to sponge off two card carrying Yorkshiremen. Honestly you should their faces on receipt of a receipt of a loan request for one pound – it was as if I’d asked for first go with the whippet.

Two last thoughts.

1) It’s summer right? At what point did gales and driving rain replace sunshine and wispy clouds?
2) I liked that new bike very much indeed. It may be the bike page is facing a radical overhaul.

* Not QUITE true. But close enough for it failing to be prosecuted for lack of evidence.

** Strange Northern Tribe. Can float over impossibly difficult trails while discussing the pro’s and con’s of whippet ownership.***

*** Pros: Any port in a storm. Not bad eating. Cons: Bit smelly, no fold back teeth.

Cat in a flap.

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

Our cat* is a proper mentalist. For the first nine years of life, it was a cold, calculating, face scratching little bastard with a mind sharpened to the point of evaluating every decision on how it could end up with more food. I knew it was a bit of a player on the transition from cutesy, puring, soulful ‘get me, get ME‘ to ‘see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya‘ taking all the time it took to free it from the local Cat Rescue.

And it is because Darwinism has yet to equip your average domestic feline with opposed thumbs that we ever saw the ungrateful bugger. Only the successful operation of a tin opener separated it from being a latch-flap pet – well that and its’ visceral joy at trapping fear shitting mice in a bin shaped wall of death scenario. At 4am. Every night, In our bedroom. For a fucking eternity.

Thankfully the passing years have slowed the vicious little sod down, so it’s rare now that I find my morning stumble interrupted by the squidgy horror of bare feet accessorised by bloody intestines. Instead, it has switched tactics, and is now fully in touch with its’ bonkers side.

First the looper fucker decided to take on a sleepy rabbit which ended in a towel based rugby tackle of the shit scared ** bunny, and the softest of rebukes from Carol “Now, please don’t bring rabbits into the house anymore. If that’s ok. Oh here’s some prime steak to get over the trauma”

And now it has taken to climbing the side of the log in a doomed attempt to gain entry through a tightly closed window. In the spirit of context, I should explain that due to lack of cat exit/entry system, I manually flap it every night in the manner of the Flintstones’ opening sequence.

It appears to have taken this quite badly, and after a few bloody amusing cat wailing plaintively against a locked door situation, the brain damaged nutter has taken to making a frankly dangerous ascent of the North Face of the Pine – only to find it can’t get back down.

So what does it do? Does it wait patiently to morning? Does it retrace its’ steps and hang about until it is let back in? Does it fuck?***, instead it yowls like the mad bastard it is and waits for a) some kind person to let it back in or b) a not so kind person to try for a home run using nothing other than a i) cat and ii) stick with a nail in it.

And now it’s taking to hiding in the bushes, sulking like a nine year old*** and refusing to return to the mother lode until a a family member prostrates themselves on the deck, with cat food delicacies rubbed into their hair.

I really want a dog. A proper pet you don’t have to bend down to pat. Something loyal, steadfast and friendly. I’ve been scanning the local adds for “Dog for sale: Eats anything, Loves Cats”

* Semantically less troubling that “Carol and the kids’ cat which shares a house with me, while I spend every day inventing new horrors to prove how much I hate it”

** Let me insert the word literally here.

*** Unlikely after the op. One is annoying. Any more and it’d be a swift combination of sack, water and bricks.

**** A sulk so deep they call it Cousteau.

Ball Sports…

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

… this time of year. For women, Tennis. For men, masturbation. Oh come on blokes, who spend eleven months of the year watching twenty two girly-men mincing about for ten grand an hour, or declaring a fascination for thirty more engaging in mud wrestling with funny shaped balls, have suddenly become tennis aficionados.”Oh can we put the Tennis on love”. Red button, Google for who has the biggest tits in the woman’s’ game, select match and get all jiggy with the remote control*. “No, not the men – especially that English hating Scot whose clearly descended from a certain W.Wallace – their power ruins the very aesthetics that make tennis so special” is a lie chucked into the black hole of disbelief worn by long suffering wives and girlfriends.

“Let’s watch this instead” / “Who’s playing?” “Not sure” / “Sharapova you say?” / “Pretty?” / “Well okay I suppose but not a patch on you” hurtles he-lies comet** while one’s inner willy is giving it the pumping elbow “Woooaaaahh, get a LOAD of that body, if she grunts like that on a tennis court, she is going to be absolutely sodding cosmic in the sack”

And now she’s out. Beaten by her rather plain compatriot only recently released from a facefull of teenage acne. And not just beaten, comprehensively stuffed which kind of gets us back to where we started. So a million men lament the buggeration that a once in a generation talent/beauty morph is pounded off court by a girl whose had giblet stuffing in her recent vocational history.

So I’ve heard anyway. I’ve been watching bit of the football occasionally flicking over the BBC smugness to see yet another plucky brit narrowly beaten 6-0, 6-0. Only the Scot left (I love this, “I am not Scottish, I am a Scot” – right on fuzzy hair, reject all that English middle class loving, good on you) and he’s clearly hunting for some distant Spanish ancestry to save him from showing any allegiance to the flag.

Wimbledon may be an institution but it’s a bloody odd one. What people remember of the empire gate-crashed by a million nations who are significantly better at the game. It’s last night of the proms with tennis racquets instead of conducting batons, but the whole displaced nationalism and dangerously edged hats shines through, even tho the sainted Tim has passed onto the commentary box.

Still now all the nice boys and girls have been knocked out, there’s confusion multiplied by 10,000 spectators trying to work out if they should transfer their affection to a fella who clearly cares not the slightest for their adoration. That makes it worth watching even tho the glamour puss has been shown the door.

* I have so many lame wank gags lined up, there’ll be a small prize for who gets them all.

** I believe St. Peter will take that terrible pun into account when sending me “downstairs“`