Category: Words

…don’t put your iPod Shuffle through the washing machine in the pocket of your riding shorts. It’s drying out now, but I reckon that it’s 50/50 as to whether it’ll live to ride another day.

This morning I decided I would forego the pleasure of riding a bike which sounds like it’s about to spew it’s bearings all over the side of the road in a black oily mess. The days choice for the bike to work was the ‘cross bike, which by all reasoning should be a sound choice with it’s sporty position and gayer wheels. Pumped the knobblies up so they were as firm a firm thing and headed off. Almost immediately I notice the stems not quite straight and the saddles a bit lower that I like it, but there’s no point stopping to adjust them now.

Second set of traffic lights on the way to work and some one tries to kill me. Never one to wait in traffic and having ridden the same road to work for the last four years I know the light sequence inside out. When you know the timings you can be off the line from the lights as soon as they change, which was exactly what I did this morning. This would have been fine except for the stupid cow in the small green car that jumped the red lights coming from my left and then turned right across the junction…

I think it’s only the fact that I was concentrating on looking out for numpties, that I was centre line riding and I’d gunned it from the line that I didn’t end up through her windscreen with several thousands pounds of bespoke and beautiful bike acting as a ground anchor between the tarmac and the front of her car. Having spotted her special move coming at me, I stomped the pedals and swerved and she just missed me. After that, nearly mowing down a still hungover student staggering down the cycle path using the railings for upright stability seemed pretty run of the mill.

Went to Coed Llandegla today to get a proper riding fix in. Predictably the drive out to Wales today was in Glorious sunshine, but as soon as I reached the trailhead, the weather turned and I ended up getting wet. I managed to forget my lid on the way there, so took this as a sign that it was time for a new one (i’d only been thinking this on Wednesday as I left work). The Xen must be about six years old now, the padding is falling apart and the Roc Loc’s held on with Zip ties. The Alps was its last outing as it has now been replaced by a rather sharp Fox Flux.

Despite spending a good deal of the ride wishing I had the waterproofing properties of a seal, it was great to do some riding. I rode the masts loop that Neil and Lardy had shown me, branching off from the main Llandegla loop comprising of the red run with all the black sections. The Remedy was great on the jumps, but you know that you’ve really got to pump the bike through the jump sections of the Black run to get the most out of it and keep off the brakes. Probably one of my best runs yet today.

By the end I was feeling the weight of the Alpine downhill tyres and their super tackiness and not having had enough to eat. I’ll be taking Neil’s advice and putting some lighter tyres on for winter trails riding from now on. After some grub at the visitors centre, it was back in the car to drive home and the sun comes out again and it’s a glorious evening. Typical.

In my mispent youth, I became quite proficient at destroying tyres on my mountain bike by skidding them through to the carcass. The trail protection and IMBA types out there will be aghast at the very thought of all this wanton trail destruction. People like me give mountain bikers a bad name… whatever. Rest assured most of my sideways moments were saved for tarmac. The route in those days was down an old military road. Very long, very straight and punctuated with several sets of lights. If as you approached them the lights had the poor manners to change to red, then skidding to a stop, finishing exactly on the white line of the junction, wasn’t just the challenge it was the law.

Soon there were a few of us hooning about trying the same gag. We’d pray for damp conditions, ideally just after rain when we could most effectively put into action one of the several variations. There was the distance skid, which involved judging speed, road conditions and weight over the front wheel to see how early you good lock up that rear wheel and start sliding. There was getting the bike properly sideways, speedway style. Then developing that to get a proper fishtail slide going from left to right and back again. Front wheel skids took a lot of practice and some balls, but the aim was to do what ever it was and just stop sliding as your front wheel stopped on that front line – that said if you went in too hot a nice stoppie and endo on the line was a great finishing piece.

In honesty, it’s clear that antics 15 years ago haven’t died a death. Skids aren’t just for kids – some one’s got to show them how it’s done and so I’m still frequently found to be laying down a black strip of bike  rubber just before a set of traffic lights. This morning was one of those days with perfect conditions, just wet enough to get a great slide on, get that rear end right out with some opposite lock and then ease up just a bit so that by the white line it’s come back and you can move into trackstand mode. It was great…

…getting to work and having the building fire alarm set off by someone smoking in a toilet while I was in the shower wasn’t.

Crazy skidding action over at Fearless Gearless.

Most mornings I get the lift up to the 14th floor and the office on my own, but today I bumped into Tyrrell. With water still running off my jacket, he asked how the ride in had been. The answer was predictable really – wet.

Despite getting a good soaking, I went onto explain how it had all been made more interesting by some lack of lane discipline. At the end of Upper Brook Street, the road becomes three lanes wide at a set of lights. There’s the left lane which is left turn only into Grosvenor Street, there’s the centre lane that goes straight on(ish) and up onto the Mancunian Way towards Liverpool and there’s the right hand lane that goes straight on to the bends of fury.

The challenge from the previous set of lights is to get from the left hand lane, to the right hand lane in what is usually quite fast moving traffic. To the uninitiated it’s undoubtedly intimdating, but if you can maintain a fast pace you’re going the same speed as the traffic, so it’s no big deal – certainly no more risky than centre line riding. Anyway no problems with that today. Rocked up to the set of lights in the right hand lane to go straight on, a silver 3 series BMW comes up along side in the middle lane, lights change, off we go.

As you cross the junction the single right hand lane going straight on branches into dual carriageway after a section of hashed markings. So as you cross, you move over into the left hand lane of the road. Except today as I did this, I felt a waft of warm air on my left leg and looked down to see the front wing of the BMW. Quick glance over the shoulder, he backs off and then as he over takes me, gives me the stare. Gives me the stare? That’s right, it’s my fault you can’t drive isn’t it? Why all of a sudden are there lots of dickheads on the road? Am I becoming Samuri? Have a load of people from Leigh recently been employed in Manchester?

I don’t know what’s going on, after almost doing a Fingers Kershaw job on my left hand index finger on Sunday cleaning the commuter, it’s clear my mind is somewhere else. Yet the ride to work is usually done at a cracking pace where I’m busy focusing on the traffic, the timing of the various sets of lights and looking for potholes, so that there’s not much time for the mind to wander. Going to be extra vigilant from now on.

A week of effort has paid off and it’s all gone to plan. I still need to add some finishing touches to the project I’ve been working on, but other than that it’s all good. I can look forward to the weekend now and have no worries about work.

This is a good thing, because it means I’m not so preoccupied with my thoughts. This is essential when f****** idiots are trying to kill you on the way to work. Not one, but two, expensive german saloon driving buffoons tried to cut me up this morning. The first was the driver of a burgandy BMW 5 series who tried to cut me up and almost got a foot scrapped along their wing before they backed off the gas and let me keep my space in front of them. Sod off you dick, I’m doing 28mph on a bike in a 30mph zone and you want to overtake me so you can cut me up for the next left hand junction? I think not.

The second probably only about 15 seconds later was the driver of a silver E-Class Mercedes who, as I was trying to change lanes just sat along side me looking at me through their passenger window and neither accelerated or slowed down. It ended up putting me into the armco at the side of the road when I ran out of space. I stopped in time, but for the love of god, where do there people learn to drive? Also why is it that these incidents only ever occur when it’s pissing it down? Being on a bike is miserable enough when it’s wet and you’re suffering from reduced braking distances and greasy diesel covered city streets.

I moved offices again at work. I’m no longer able to look out of the window as I sit with my back to the one in my new location. This I have decided is no bad thing because when it’s raining I can’t tell. This is good for the soul because there’s nothing more depressing than looking over a grey, bleak and wet city. This year seems to have gone pretty much from Spring to Autumn with only two weeks of summer in Manchester, when of course I wasn’t here. Talking of which I almost wasn’t here after this morning when on the way to work I was cut up by a Stagecoach bus on Oxford Road. I remember why I never ride in that way now. I have a near miss almost everytime I ride to work along Europe’s busiest bus route.