Remember Winter? Cold, wet, dark and miserable?. The four seasonal horsemen of the apocalypse ride out from November through March before hibernating for the summer. Which is why we ride when it’s warm. dry, sunny and lovely. Yes? No. I reckon those four cloak-billowing mounted dementers have their eye on summer. And like the fifth …
10th anniversary of the CLiC24 event is done. I am back and still fully capable of independent movement. I am also very, very tired. So here’s a summary of the good, the not so good and the occasionally amusing. Things that rocked: 1) Atmosphere. Chilled out but superbly organised. It’s a million miles from Mayhem …
Waterproof Jacket. Waterproof Socks. Waterproof Shorts*. Waterproof Socks. Winter Boots. Vast Tent (waterproof). Flippers. Goggles. Canoe. Beer. More Beer. Will To Live. Maybe a bike. Maybe not. Fairly standard packing list for any event caught in the crossfire of English weather, riding bicycles for indeterminable hours and me. Plan for snow and hope for the …
And here’s a picture of a tree to remind myself how calm I am. Because there are a number of reasons that such mental nirvana may soon be transformed into a state best described as 30{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} tourettes, 30{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} head banging lunatic and 40{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} roof jumping depressive. The major reason is that CLiC24 is just around …
Work done. Mostly. For a given value of mostly. And – come to think of it – work. Riding done. Well a single jaunt back over the same trails that landed me in the dirt and then in the hospital. Managed to screw up enough courage to dispatch rocky obstacle of elbow bleed without pitching …
I remember listening aghast as a shiny man sporting a bow-wave haircut declared confidently that, at the end of his two day training course, all sixteen of us would be skilled in the art of horizon stabilising with specific reference to events. Fifteen poor saps nodded, a few wrote it down, a single grubby digit, …
“When was that?” / “Last Wednesday“. I had that line prepped and ready to go for this mornings’ return trip to Cwmcarn. Them the driving sleet bouncing off the windscreen turned to snow pretty much as we arrived. It carried on until we left some four hours later having availed ourselves of two fine trail …
Or CDO as we obsessives like to order it. I have spent the majority of my Bank Holiday weekend polishing adequate to create something smacking of compulsive. I don’t know many people who would level four odds’n’sods bins with a spirit level, or even spend a hour on the web searching for a match for …
The Eighties were dreadful for so many reasons*, but even in that decade of pompous absurdity that phrase shines like a beacon of stupidity. Some quiff in a sleeve-rolled suit would wring their hands to a backdrop of starving African kids, and piously declare that the country had “compassion fatigue“. No it bloody had not. …
I remembered the dog’s birthday, but somehow managed to book a weekend of misery – where the Holy Trinity of riding horror: wind, rain and mud shall converge on a sodden field full of hollow eyed idiots – when Verbal hits double figures. A masterly oversight that would normally offer a perfect excuse to stay …