Excel-ent

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

The community of blogging knows – if only it were prepared to admit it – that our vanity publishing offers nothing other than recycled news and the taudry outpourings of our bitter minds. Hence my current fascination with repackaging random Internet links in an attempt to confuse volume with content.

But this is great – not only because it exactly demonstrates the point that the world wide web is nothing more than a collaberation tool for slackers, but also because there’s a few seriously amusing graphical nuggets in there.

Here’s one of my favourites.
Amusing, yes?

And because we crave duplex interaction, here’s one I’ve mailed in for recognition.


Niche I grant you and yet as close to the truth as lies, damn lies and statistics can get you.

Boxed in.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

It’s all gone a bit dark in the land of the hedgehog. The primary reason is where we used to have windows, we now have boxes. The same can be said of the floor. And the stairs. And any flat surface not currently occupied by plant, animal or small child. There is some universal – yet baffling – scientific law that proves the boxing of items quadruples the volume of space they take. For example, a smallish bookcase can easily overwhelm a brace of boxes that appear to have fallen off a container ship.

And yet in a confusing reversal, an entire bed can be reduced to 14 matchsticks and a few pocket screws. The process is complicated by a goodly portion of our belongings being shipped to a house we’re not allowed to live in, while the remainder shall be delivered to the big log – assuming the removal truck can navigate the tiny entry road.

There is – I’m prepared to admit – some latitude for things to go very badly wrong. Legions of unwanted boxes containing ten years of kleptomania could quickly overspill the log, while useful stuff such as underwear and bikes are dispatched to who knows where. The bikes are a problem all on their own, there is seditious talk of a two bike quota being rigourously enforced with the remaining *ahem* four being quarantined in a no-go-Al-Zone.

This was obviously distressing to me: “Take a leg woman, a leg I say. Not a bike, no I can’t be without them“. Considering the plethora of locks and shackles returning home from far flung commuting stops, I could simply chain myself to the bloody lot and demand satisfaction. Except, I suspect, Carol would just leave me there looking rather silly*

So while the house is an obstacle course policed by hard edged boxes ensuring nightime navigation is a painful experience, the barn is as yet untouched. Two reasons; firstly I am desperately clinging onto any riding collateral before we move and secondly there was a slight issue with my attempts at packing. After Carol had packed 50 boxes, I rolled up my sleeves and pitched in with a big 2.

2 not adhering to a packing protocol in which the phrase “flip drawer over and shovel in” is curiously absent. On completion of a repack, her attempts to shift them was stymied by the contents vigorously falling out in line with the laws of gravity. Because – in line with the laws of stupidity – I had forgotten to tape up the underside. Easy mistake – anyone could have made it but because it was me, I am reduced to grumpily pointing at stuff and accepting it is unlikely It will ever be seen again.

It was almost as if I had planned it that way, I hear you thinking. Nasty, suspicious minds you have there 🙂

* Which would be even sillier than I am now. So really quite silly indeed.

Jet Sage…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff5 Comments

From nutter blog

… visionary or nutter? Here is yet another evolutionary branch of the genus bicycle, apparently designed for the sole purpose of inhuming the rider in all manner of interesting ways. Once the jet engine is fired up, speeds of 75MPH can be attained even if a steering axis cannot. This instrument of wheeled death could travel for literally yards before impacting something hard, spikey or both.

Failing that it could just explode and it’d be all flesh coloured tarmac and identification by dental records. Check out the video on this link and marvel at the commercial nous of a man that not only builds these but schleps them out on fleabay.

Every time the world seems to finally make some kind of sense, a kind soul fills my inbox with the truth that it really doesn’t.

Don’t Know Service

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Other stuff1 Comment

… and you’re back in the room. The sleepy hedgehog slumbered in his burrow while changes in the mighty signage of the Internet forgot where he was. Luckily my customer driven, pro-active, automatic fault diagnostic system kicked in when a reader complained of having to get some work done.

The terrifying complexity of the Domain Name Service, which left old hedgy in cyberspace limbo, seems to have unknotted to the point of a fairly reliable connection. Which gives me license to ramble in my generally unreliable fashion.

Yesterday was another first in an increasing number of lasts. A final evening ride in Chilterns full of woody singletrack, dappled light, cheeky trails and a last descent shrouded in darkness. It was a perfect way to sign off from five years wheeling about in this protected pocket of mostly unspoilt beauty.

It was also a lesson in what it really means to be race fit. Not me – I was off the back searching for a coughed up lung – but my three riding buddies. Lordy, one second it’d be all easy pedalling and pleasant conversation before trail voltage would short circuit these aliens into electric fury. And 2/3rds of that continguent were gapping my arse-hanging-out person with only a single gear.

And – once it was done and beer was drunk – it was odd saying goodbye. Typical blokes of course, no eye contact, a promise to meet up at the next big event, talk of getting together at the epicentre of cabbages, all that stuff. And same again this weekend, the rest of my riding friends are congregating on the North Downs to make sure I leave the county. The way this is all ending, I may have to write a speech.

This is my final commute into London from Buckinghamshire. It’s a beautiful morning and not one I really wanted to see from the inside of a car. Of course, our last Chiltern weekend shall be spent mowing lawns between rain showers and trying to remember it’s stuff in the boxes, children on the outside.

I confidently expect more dead air over the next two weeks, after a number of painful conversations around tempoary broadband and 3G coverage. “3G? We once has the Bootleg Bee-Gees play in Hereford, that any use to you?”

What have I let myself in for?

The word of the day is..

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

… … lassitude

The word I think I wanted was latitude but then this popped into my head and my internal dictionary offered up “Cross between a dog and a grid reference“. But no, the oracle of lexicon that is the Internet offered up:

“noun
1. weariness of body or mind from strain, oppressive climate, etc.; lack of energy; listlessness; languor.
2. a condition of indolent indifference: the pleasant lassitude of the warm summer afternoon.

That is a perfect description of how I’m feeling.

So from now on, I am going to live my life within the dictionary parameters of lassitude.

English. Marvelous language. Think that calls for a drink.

Maintenance maketh the man…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff4 Comments

…maketh the man bloody annoyed. But with the barn soon to be tearfully handed over to its’ new owner and the tool wall facing temporary evacuation* to ungrabbale storage, niggly faults must be exacerbated** by pointless maintenance.

It didn’t start that way. Only replacing a handlebar, reshaped by acting as the pole during the bike’s champion winning vault high into the bushes, and stem lurked between ‘Spanners‘ Al and nice cup of early evening tea***. Imagine my surprise then when, some four painful hours later, significant component driftwood splashed against a tiny shore of virgin workshop floor.

The detritus of an enthusiastic, if misguided, 4 bike romp of random tool use included four discs, two cranksets, three brakes and a worrying number of small parts that are likely to be key for the safe operation of a device that can slam into rocks quite quickly. So as the cranks detach during such a scenario and the wheels explode in a direct huff to my ineptitude, I shall be thinking “Ah HAH, the purpose of the 3mm grang-o-gromet is now clear to me“. Before crashing into the ground resets the priority of my pontificating gland.

I have mathematically modelled bike maintenance with the number-of-cycles squared equation. Two bikes takes twice as much time, three bikes, at least twice as much AGAIN. The SX has had so little lovin’ for example, the rear mech offered a choice of two gears separated by 9 desperate thumb shifts and 31 rusty spokes. And a bent one, which is so far beyond my ability to fix, I’ve ironed it.

A real solution is to outsource the entire spannering process to a man with a proper job and a confident tooly glint in his eye. Failing that – as it costs money I’d rather spend fixing my mistakes – I could dramatically improve my fettling skills. Since that’s pretty unlikely as well, the current limit of my ambition is for two of the “fixed” bikes to magically sync up their dodgy shifting, and the remaining long ‘to do’ list to JUST GET DONE.

A lack of wizardry leaves me with no option other than to phone a friend. Because, as of this morning, let me tell you how I’m feeling. Properly spannered.

* I chose that verb with care. The idea of removing my tools to a place of safety will surely prevent my increasing violent wielding on innocent bicycles. This could all go to shit tho as I’m taking my biggest hammer with me.

** Similar to masturbated. Much wiggling of hands and cleaning up of unpleasant fluids. Scraped knuckles optional.

*** Or beer as it is sometimes known after 6pm.

Oops

On By PhotoIn Bikes, Clic-24, Photography2 Comments

Oops, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

The riderless plunge through a garden of hard edged rocks took its toll on both rider and bike. Although how the hell I managed to dent it there is a complete mystery!

Tim “Mr Fork” Flooks assures me that fork crowns are cast and so as butch as a lesbian Marine.

Sadly bars, grips and other assorted items were transformed from purposeful, working components to skip food during the transition between wheels right side up and wheels merely acting as attractors for more gravity.

I have to stop crashing. It’s getting expensive. The upside is the customisation of the bikes makes them essentially unsaleable. Which probably leaves me with no option but to ride them.

They think it’s all over…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Pretentious nonsense, Road Riding6 Comments

… it is now.

Yesterday was my last ever London commute. 8200 miles, 421 round trips, 3 winters, 2 crashes and a daily joust with the murderous multitude. It was anticlimactic in the extreme with no fanfares or street parades marking my final passing of burned in landmarks. No final resurfacing of the pothole slalom which tests my early morning reflexes. No genuflection from those who I have bested in endless commuter races, nor gloating from those who have bested me.

No more shall I sequence lights in a three dimensional navigational puzzle, no longer shall the green of the Capital’s parks bring respite from tons of angry metal. No longer shall my ire be raised by unanswered pleas for airstrikes to disperse random roller-bladers. Not for me the obsessional forecast checking, the weary glance at a watch which must zoom round twice more before I am home, or the logistical ball ache of switching between urban MTB warrior and sad corporate clone.

And yet there is already a melancholy, a misplaced nostalgia if you will; sharp memories of soft summer smells, the warmth of the spring sun, the glory of a fitness properly earned, the joy of leaving fifty grand cars – with their brochure 150mph top speeds – in your£100 rat-bike wake. And even the grimness of seemingly endless winters could delight in crisp sunrises slash painted by azure blue, grinning through the rain, and just the simple bloody pleasure of not being completely ordinary.

It’s not enough. The first year was great, although cycling every day through the winter feels like it happened to someone else. My motivation to ride through the wind, rain and mobile death has diminished past the point of pragmatic excuses. Riding a bike – any bike – still defines what I really want to be doing right now, but the faffing, the background hum of traffic cockage, the grooved in rote of doing it again and again is no longer enough to make me do it.

This morning’s bikeless journey was strange. My bag was too light, my mind frazzled by a constant search for commuting collateral, my body showered and unexercised. My shoes don’t cleat click on the station cobbles and my helmetless head feels unbalanced. As I risk a guiltily glance at my shackled bike, I swear it glowers back at my disloyalty.

It doesn’t feel good or bad, it just feels weird. A phantom Al clips in and heads out, as I force a right turn into the peopled sewers of the Underground. Something feels lost and I think that might be me.

But this is not quite the end. The brutal termination of a two wheels to work strategy shall be stayed for at least the summer. I’m childishly excited by the prospect of a hard packed, off-road jaunt to Ledbury station. But no more riding in the big city, no chance of commuting through the winter, no danger of the big accident I know was coming.

But I can’t stop. Not yet. It’s like a Class ‘A’ drug and while I know I can give it up anytime, but not like this. I must wean myself off it slowly, let it be chipped away, sliced by a thousand excuses, a slow death barely noticed.

But when I do, what the hell am I going to write about?

Clic24: 24 Hours of Rambling.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Clic-24, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography3 Comments

Random bloke on the course. Dawn Lap, Flickr Image

Chronological retelling of something not very exciting rarely makes interesting reading. But – in line with my aims of ever lowering the bar – that’s the way the Clic24 is being Hedgehog’d.

If you can’t be arsed to scroll down, here is the adjectival summary: late, rain, beer, tent, snore, hot, arse, stop, start, crash, bleed, beer, hurt, beer, stupidity, sleep, stiff, apathy, quit.

Long, rambling, amusing. Pick two.

Continue reading “Clic24: 24 Hours of Rambling.” →