Category: Bikes

Tens of thousands of words and the odd blurred picture of fast moving vegetation rehashing one of two tenuous threads. Spliced together using random punctuation and alcohol.

Riding whilst drunk

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Road Riding5 Comments

Riding whilst drink has much to commend it. Firstly it renders you immortal by sheathing your squashy bits in what I like to think of as lager armour”. Secondly it engenders a certain raffish approach to risk. Rather than assess the many and potentially fatal hazards awaiting the unwary cyclist, one can throw the entire risk management system out of the window; although a more apt description would be “in front of an oncoming car”

Thirdly, it grants you god like riding skills. Well that’s not entirely true of course, you think you have magically attained god like riding skills otherwise why would you attempt to craft a cheeky manoeuvre of placing a 24inch handlebar in a 20inch gap? As I wobbled down the Strand, it became increasingly clear that while I had no issues whatsoever powering the bike, steering it was quite another matter. Still what with being immortal, immune to risk and infused with divine bike skills, my progress was serene if a little erratic. It put me in mind of that old joke I’ve never been in an accident but I’ve seen quite a few”.

For every positive ying there is a negative yang when beer is your staple diet. The most pressing of these is the need to wee about every five minutes once the seal is broken. If one mighty tree in Hyde Park looks to be sickening, I may be able to offer an explanation, but not one I’ll share with the parks department. A second disadvantage is the pain of spinning five pints of lager in a bloated stomach at a hundred revs per minute. This becomes doubly unpleasant when chasing fellow commuters up hill. Yes, competitive dad kicked in and at no point did a belly full of sloshing liquid warn me that a more realistic target would be a slow pedestrian. Or a tree.

Still we’ve all done this when we’re drunk. Sweating and grinding away in pursuit of the unobtainable, pumping tired limbs and wrestling with recalcitrant objects. I’m still talking about riding but I’ve no idea what you lot are thinking. Really, you should be ashamed of yourself.

I had just the one accident when inadvertently punching a wing mirror while making hasty progress past Queenie’s house. In normal car hating mode, I’d flick the guy a V whether it’s my fault or not. But ensconced in my alcohol fog, he was my new best friend so I communicated my humblest apologies through the physical metaphor I can best describe as Frank Spencer with Parkinson’s disease.

He responded with soothing motions and a look of terror suggesting he believed I was going to open his door and enfold him in a beery hug. I did consider it but once the tiny sober corner of my mind screamed “Restraining Order”, I felt a weak grin and apologetic wave was probably a more appropriate response.

My statistically improbably uninjured arrival at the station was the trigger for my train to leave. Sadly not with me on it due to navigational uncertainly when faced with two new platforms and a slight worry that the bike probably would be safer if I locked it to something. Still gave me time for a quick beer before the next one. Well I didn’t, but I gave it frank consideration.

When you’ve put in a sustained effort at the bar “ and even this close to the longest day “ arriving at your home station in the dark shouldn’t be a surprise. It wasn’t really although that’s a decent noun to describe my expression when I realised I had nothing more than a couple of electric candles and a flawed sense of direction to get me home.

And the effects of the beer. That always instils a certain childish delight when spotting interesting stuff while attempting to keep the bike on the black stuff. oooh badger!” I squealed happily as he danced around my front wheel and I made a committed move to avoid his little black nose. A bit too committed considering my riding muscles were controlled by a fly by lager” system which was both imprecise and tardy. Still the bushes were not infested with anything too spiky and for a moment it seemed like a pleasant place to spend the night.

But no, drunk as I was, home was where I needed to be. To stave off boredom, I placed myself in the centre of a practical experiment to determine how dark is it without lights and how far can I ride no handed“. The answer to those questions are Very and Not Far.

Still it’s only a flesh wound.

Why oh why oh why?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding3 Comments

This post is written in the style of an eighties revisionist parady of Barry Took presenting Points Of View. Proper Public Service Broadcasting hosted by a man for whom a Christmas Cardigan held no fashion fears.

Alison B Yoghurt writes I see that you’ve decided to waste both your time and money entering an enduro race in which only embarrassment and possible permanent injury awaits. Why oh Why?“

To answer honestly, I’ve absolutely no idea. Other than to wheel out the old staple that it seemed like a good idea at the time. Since this broad category includes painting barn doors, relocating sofas and abandoning alcohol self medication, it’s should be obvious that it lacks efficacy when compared to anything within striking distance of sensible.

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Welsh Rarebit

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding5 Comments

That’ll be what’s euphemistically known as my “thin bit” then. Summer arrived in Wales and with it my perennial battle of my pasty white skin versus the power of the sun. And since I accelerate from zero to angry lobster in about 30 seconds in direct sunlight, it’s a battle I’m sure to lose. None of this is helped by the fading sun cover once afforded by a full head of hair. Still I can always reconcile the rapidly receding hairline against the almost proven fact that a bald pate is a solar panel for a sex machine.

Aside from raw patches of sunburn breaking out on exposed limbs, this was the best riding weekend for bloody ages. Dry fast trails and long cold beers interspersed with drivelled bollocks being talked and the odd disaster befalling the wrecking crew.

We managed exactly no miles out of the car park Saturday before Dave fixed Brad’s brakes through the dark mechanical art of pissing the hydraulic fluid out of the calliper. No matter, this gave us time to “carbo load” on Bacon sarnies and strong coffee. Oops, yes fell off the coffee wagon this weekend although “set fire to it in glee” is probably a more accurate simile.

And again. Tes that's dustBrad - Whytes HairpinBrad and Brian - 9 foot river crossing

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Save the Wales

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

Well save a nice dry and dusty bit for me just outside the post apocalyptic horror that is Port Talbot. For the first time in living memory, a weekend’s riding has been organised and hails of trout are not predicted.

This means something else is sure to go wrong. I’ve filled the car up with appropriate juices and fluids (steady¦) and left the bike completely unmolested lest my mechanical incompetence reduces it to swarf when “ say “ I adjust the chain and packed the suncream.

And best of all, there’s a funky uplift service that for a few beer tokens whisks you up to the top of the hill so even pedalling becomes someone elses problem.

It’s all going to go horribly wrong. I just know it 😉

A year in Provence, er I mean London

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road RidingLeave a comment

That doesn’t scan quite so well but even with my factually challenged scribbings, I’m not going to get away with the notion that this last year has been spent dodging baguettes and riding an onion carrier.

Yep. 365 days since my first commune with the locking of grids and gnashing of teeth which characterises our great capital city. My riding has morphed from a country boy so far out of his depth they called him Cousteau*, to a grungy, colour blind tourettes weapon targeted on personal bests and personal slights. The occasional accident and rather more frequent altercation have cranked up my righteous angst and pitched me into a one man battle with every other road user.

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Flagging

On By AlexIn Pretentious nonsense4 Comments

What’s that all about then? Tacky St. George’s flags joyfully festoon each and every mode of transport in London. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as much as an armchair supporter as the next man but this looks like Jingoism’s poster child dressed up as sporting patrotism. It’s like a pensioner with a mobile phone – there’s just something mildly unsettling about it, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.

I’ve always distrusted blind allegiance to any flag, so could never really get my head round our American cousin’s daily ritual of hoisting the Stars and Stripes in their back yard, and then throwing it a non ironic salute. Although on reflection, it may have been their right to arm bears and build scary munition dumps which accompany the flag waving that was truly terrifying.

And we’ll lose. Oh we might scrape into the quarter finals before something unsporting happens like a better team beating us or – worse still – penalties. If it’s the latter, the mass neurosis of fifty million nail biting little Englanders will surely transmit itself to our recently clothed emporer’s sporting heroes and they’ll blast the ball somewhere into row Z.

And then all the flags will magically disappear for another four years. Except for the sad few, grubby and frayed, whipping a mocking farewell to a never really achievable dream.

Maybe I’m just being a curmudgeon. And maybe it’s just football that ignites my inner grumpy because who could not be uplifted by the sight of our fantastically hungover cricket team parading a small tea urn through the streets of London last year? But then we’d beaten the Aussies. And I’d be the first man out with my flag, rattle and kiss’me’quick hat whenever that happens even if England had recently retained the international tiddywinks crown.

Or maybe I’m just a grumpy bugger resigned to the inevitiability of defeat and the long faces it will cast for weeks afterwards.

That’s probably it.

Hosepipe ban? You can wring my shorts out..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road RidingLeave a comment

… but only if you really want to

There is a certain irony in contrasting the screaming headlines of today’s papers threatening summer long droughts, with the pissing rain which characterised my ride home through this evening. The doomsayers predict a scorched earth policy for previously verdant lawns, golf courses bunkered with sandy fairways and lifeless car washes. So not all bad then. In fact, I’m struggling to see the downside.

Not that it’s actually going to happen. Two reasons; one surely no political oversight body can ever reconcile the Water Companies’ inability to prevent a quarter of their precious aqua dripping through leaky pipes and this is some way being the consumers problem; secondly, it’s being chucking it down for weeks. Woops, for a second there I failed to make the link between faceless corporations and their greedy shareholders versus the incompetent hoard who are alleged to police them. But it has been raining, I have evidence of that.

I should have been fine. I have a layering system honed by a hundred commutes. There’s just one problem with it; it’s rubbish. Below decks, my shoes are soaked, lemmings are cheerfully practising all manner of watersports in my socks and I’m suffering from an unpleasant groinal moistness.

Above decks I am essentially a boil in the bag. While the emergency waterproof is adequate at keeping the water out, it is unfortunately bloody marvellous at keeping the water in. My first two layers wick sweat out in a superbly technical manner “ but once this moisture makes a break for freedom, it’s faced with the impermeable barrier of the cheap waterproof. I’m not getting rained on, I’m getting rained in. On removing this horrid garment, everything from the wedding tackle upwards is stained in stale sweat and there’s a generated head of steam that could make me good money if plugged into the grid. Still it was cheap and packs down to almost nothing which exactly mirrors how much use it actually was.

My feet would be dry if I didn’t have water on the brain by naively following the dogma of my fellow commuters. There is a childlike ideology that it never rains in London except briefly in the winter. Well all I can say is I’m glad it bloody does otherwise the suspicious gritty patch on my arse could only be passed off as an unfortunate and unplanned bowel movement.

As moisture began to permeate my every pore, I attempted to distract myself by musing if both the pressure and volume of this personalised enema was better or worse when comparing tyre types. Surely a knobbly would chuck up more but, hang on, maybe a faster rolling slick could make up the volume through greater revolutions.

This idle speculation kept me going until gaining the sanctuary of a warm pub where my friend enquired what do you need a waterproof for you poof, it’s never rains properly in London”.

I think he’s probably right.

Lock it, Leave it, Lose it.

On By AlexIn Bikes2 Comments

I can barely bring myself to admit it. Remember the addition to my lock collection purchased only a few weeks ago? Remember why I had to buy it? Well, I’ve only gone and bloody lost it. Although I’d prefer to think of it as temporally displaced. Because what kind of idiot can lose something that is locked to something else thereby making it almost unstealable?

This kind of idiot, that’s who.

I know it’s out there somewhere, carelessly abandoned at one of a hundred jauntily painted bike stands at the station. I can narrow it down to a single platform and it’s easily identifiable by the customised ˜birdshit’ artwork I’d thoughtfully left in place. It’s a great big sodding lock conspicuously not preventing the theft of anything unless some enterprising tea leaf finds a market for three foot high U shaped metal stands in a rather fetching shade of red. I mean how hard can it be?

Too flipping hard, that’s how.

In defence of the indefensible, the last couple of days have seen me backslide into the warm caress of beer and peanuts. And I could easily have passed on the peanuts. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do without a beer, it was just that life really was quite dreadfully dull and boring when facing it sober day after day. It is said that the Scots believe the English need a couple of drams before attaining even a partial match with recognised humanity. And let’s face it they’ve got some history and experience in this area.

So lock hunting while suffering temporary social confusion is unlikely to be successful, especially when the signal to noise ratio of bikes to locks spawns an impenetrable mechanical jungle. This spring bicycle uplift has created a space problem that Chiltern Railways have proactively dealt with by the simple expedient of ignoring it. On enquiring whether their spanky new platforms will be furnished with much needed bike storage their response was an engaging thank you for your enquiry. All our operators don’t give a shit. Don’t bother leaving a message, we don’t give a monkey’s arse as we’ve already had your money.. mwwwaaahhh’. So well done them.

This rant has in no way contributed to a future where I’m joyfully reunited with the latest addition to my burgeoning lock anthology but, through the power of misdirection, maybe I won’t feel like such an idiot.

Like that’s going to happen.

What is normal anyway?

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road RidingLeave a comment

Probably White Van Man cheerfully attempting to end my life earlier today. For sport, apparently. Sweeping round the curve into Aldwych, a vehicle largest enough to be both murder weapon and herse swung violently across two lanes with the clear intention of creating an new brand of designer curbing known as the Crushed Alex“

He was so keen to grind me into a tarmac paste, the front wheels of the van actually smacked the curb right where “ until about one second before “ I was innocently making headway. By tapping reasonably hard on his window, I was rewarded by the look of a perplexed idiot on seeing a ghost. Stereotyping is the lazy writer’s art but with his sunken eyes, unshaven countenance, England flags and copy of the sun resting proudly on the dashboard, he truly personified the ignorant arsehole” genus that seems to be a free personality upgrade on every van purchase.

We had a conversation, starting with this as my opening gambit:

Were you trying to kill me because you’re a fecking lunatic or can’t you drive this thing because you’re a fecking idiot?”

$$$&&**$$ (there may be children reading but think a sneering snarl, firing stacatto f’s and c’s at a hundred rounds a minute)

Oh really, well since your firm is keen to advertise both their name and phone number, I’ll be giving them a call to see if approve of your being a c¦” (sometimes I can’t help myself and boy it fells good)

They won’t give a f*ck mate“

Oh they know you’re a c¦ then do they?”

The noise of London traffic “ always on the knife edge of violence anyway “ was becoming increasing violent, today transmitted through a new experimental work get the f*ck out of the way, you’re blocking the road” arranged for car horn and waving fist. But we weren’t finished. He’s decided that if he can’t kill me with his van, then his bare hands will have to do. He was ready to leap out of the driver door and give me a good shooing. Well except that, in an inspired piece of survival strategy, I was leaning on it. However, it was clear that the situation could only rampage painfully downhill and I didn’t fancy my chances against this soily vested, throbbing templed, Sun weilding psychopath. And I’m only enumerating his good points here.

Seizing my chance as the lights changed to green, I pushed myself away from the side of the van and pedalled like buggery through the stationary traffic where he could not go. But not before slamming his wing mirror hard against the chassis smashing it into a million pieces. I didn’t get a look at the fella before I sprinted off in the manner of the sprightly coward but I’m guessing he may a been a little annoyed. And then I rang his firm to complain about his driving, backed it up with an email and have been promised a reply by the end of the week.

It’s a hollow victory which means nothing in the continuing battle of clueless wonders deepening their carbon footprint and planet friendly innocents just trying to stay alive. Hollow, yet strangely satisfying.

Here I am sat at my desk thinking kind of a normal day, really“. Now that’s skewed perspective.

Get off my land…

On By AlexIn Bikes5 Comments

Generally I’m against the concept of squatters rights “ it seems an absurd liberty to take over and generally trash other people’s property. However, specifically, I find myself advocating and firmly supporting the concept of possession being 9/10ths of the law.

By specifically, I “ of course “ mean something which directly affects the self absorbed sphere of influence with me at the centre. By engaging ˜Daily Mail’ mode, it’s abundantly clear that a man who has commuted valiantly through a long and frosty winter should have first refusal on the limited parking and changing facilities offered by the firm.

Throughout this willy shrivelling winter, a few hardy souls have exchanged a daily greeting still a bit chilly out there eh fellas?” while removing many layers of woolly clothing in the manner of a Russian Doll. Worse case was a couple of minutes delay before re-acquainting oneself with one’s extremities under a piping hot shower. Obviously this was preceeded with a little homophobic ceiling gazing in a small changing room occupied by a bunch of blokes, who’d shut themselves inside a locker rather than having to defend the slimmest allegation of checking out the competition’s tackle.

Locker space, availability of your own ˜peg’ in the bike cage and shower access were all well within tolerable boundaries. Sure your toes were holidaying in the Arctic circle and your ability to extend your progeny was negligible but all in all a satisfactory situation.

Not so now. The spring sunshine dragged the fair weather commuters with their shonky steeds out of hibernation. And in some cases, retirement. So now we ˜proper’ cyclists share the road with a rambling pantheon of wandering immortals who have never been in an accident but by God they’ve seen a few. The Highway Code is only happening to other people as they happily RLJ mowing down all those who naively believe that a little green man offers them priority. Okay, I RLJ as well but I do it in a safe and, it has to be said, a rather cool and raffish way. For example, I would rarely look surprised and even a little annoyed when a women with a pram has arrested my progress on a pedestrian crossing.

But while this is superficially irritating, it’s the smallest of potato’s when compared to the destruction of the proper cyclists natural habitat at journey’s end. An earlier rant covers the coveting of locker space, this has been extended to some shopper special being locked in the cage at a spot I’ve been calling my own for SIX MONTHS. It has my lock there to prove ownership but this had been cast aside in a flagrant abuse of my squatters rights.

This theme carries into the changing room where the firm’s calculated response to the increasing numbers of smellies descending on mass at 8;30am is to replace the two partially working dribblers with a single shower servicing about 50 people. It’s standing room only in there with absolutely no handicapping system favouring those who’ve spent days of their life in this fetid basement that Dante would be proud of.

It’s not right. Obviously being English, I just mutter under my breath and then join the end of the queue checking out the cracking ceiling plaster and maintaining just enough personal space to prevent a I CAN’T STAND IT, GET ME OUT OF HERE” incident.

The solution I believe lies in guerilla tactics. Where invisible borders are breached, retaliation may be taken through deflating tyres or “ in extreme cases “ a quick workover with a blow torch. The revolution in the changing room will begin with a rallying cry all weather cyclist COMING THROUGH” and by the crafty use of a shower gel as an assault weapon.

This stuff is important. No honestly it is. And it’s not the prison diet I’ve been subjected too for the last 9.23 days that has ratcheted up my pettiness, and inability to see ANYTHING from ANYBODY else’s point of view.

Oh ok then, it is. I have a medical and immediate need for Coffee. Maybe I can get it on BUPA