Did someone ask for Emelda?

There is a certain irony in this post, since I have ready scribbled a short missive on “Cyclonomics ” which is based on a premise that bicycles are a real money saver. Unfortunately my Magpie like mind was shone on by Inbox Spam offering up these Carbon Beauties before I could put hand to keyboard. I cannot imagine a more pointless purchase in the middle of a season where everything I own is now brown. Mud covers my bikes, cars, clothes and dog, and yet here I am seriously considering blowing cash on Angel White Disco Slippers for a road bike I don’t yet own.

Still they would go nicely with the new Helmet I’ve promised myself. Soon I’ll have a direct debit to Rapha and be setting fire to my camelbak* right up to the point that something else grabs my attention. Ten minutes is normally plenty.

So my frankly ludicrous theory on how a purchasing strategy based entirely on a N+1 bike collection is actually a fiendishly cunning rouse for a major trousering of spondulicks shall have to wait a while. At least until I’m back from a MTB trip to the Peak District, which I’ve only just shoe horned into 2009 after answering the call of my Mum and her broken computer. Because I nominally have a job in IT, there is this perception that I am somehow responsible for Bill’s Finest Software being useless and while I’m taking a kicking for that, could I also ask for the entire Out-Sourced TalkTalk support operation to be taken into consideration.

Anyway time for some proper riding on the Pace 405 and off the pace at the back. That’s my worry anyway after slurping 20ks of the Malvern’s choicest mud slurry last night atop 2.5 tyres barely inflated by DH tubes and hardly propelled by a sweaty man pushing flat pedals, and wondering where everyone else had gone. Short of campaigning a Penny Farthing, it’s hard to see how any other bicycle could have been so unsuited to the conditions. Uphill, the fat, wide tyres were robbed of momentum by organic plasticine and grip lost to sodden grass, flats on the flats wasn’t much better with any speed being eroded by the endless sogginess of the trail, and downhill just being control-less terror as the bars went one way and the wheels somewhere else entirely.

Tonight I’ve decided that what works for the CwmCarn DH course ain’t ideal for much else, so the SPD’s have gone back on, the fat tyres have come off to be replaced by something only 2.35 inches wide, and normal tubes substituted for the Elephant’s condoms previously installed. I really think I might be on the turn here. Anyway assuming I successfully fight the urge to fit some slicks and flat bars, Saturday should be a top fun day of rocky madness. Amusingly our accommodation (in a pub naturally, no point risking injury walking when pissed) is in the designated “disabled room”

Possibly a portent there.

* not possible unless mud is combustible. The pack is in there somewhere, but it’s some hours of chippy malleting away.