Battle scars.

Home Ground...

Cracking weekend of slip and slither, treacherous ground and the wrong bike on Saturday followed by day merging into sparkly, deep-frozen solo singlespeeding night on Sunday. All with that quiet greyness that normally seems to preface snow, but in this case was simply the prelude to an overnight deluge. Left most of the words on the hill.

Somewhere between wet and frozen.

The bluest of blues. 

Crocodiles. 

Somewhat the worse for wear.

Better.

Down - you can't see the sparkle, but it was there.

Post.

Nearly home.

Pure And Simple Every Time

Can't beat the glitter of frost reflected from bike lights, the Velcro traction of frozen Peak trails and the crunch of ice under knobbly tyres. The simplicity of just you and the bike and a hunter's moon beaming happily through grubby clouds. Living in a small pool of moving light. Hello winter.

Panoramic

Brilliant weekend of riding with slightly fried legs. Like fried eggs only longer. Snuck out over the Snake Pass on the cross bike on Saturday, which normally would be an unpleasant repetitive horror show of being buzzed by brain-dead, impatient drivers. Except that the A57 was closed to traffic bar the odd farmer or construction vehicle.

Just blissful cruising solitude in bright sunshine in the midst of beautiful scenery. One day all roads will be like this.

Then swung onto the Roman Road at the Potato Alley end of things and pottered percussively along the Roman Road, up onto Hope Brink then down via Aston into Hope.

Cross bikes are good things. Not as good on the road as a road bike, bu a lot better than a mountain bike. And not as good off road as a mountain bike, but a lot better than a road bike. Which is better than looking at it the other way round.

Then back road to Castleton, broken road, towards Dirtlow Rake, tracks to Sparrowpit, down through the Wash then back via Peep of Day, Hayfield and the farm with the angry dog who was in particularly fine, chain-rattling form. Who rattled his cage.

And somewhere above Hayfield, I got all panoramic before limping home with properly trashed legs.

Then Sunday a proper Jacob's / Roych loop with über muddy finish over Rushup and down the back bridleway from Hollins Cross into Castleton.

A certain irony that the Roych was over-run with 4x4s, convoys of them, exercising their rights to cause disproportionate levels damage to a beautiful historical track. Including two going in the wrong direction despite the one-way agreement thing. Bet they had fun when they met the others.

It always amazes me when mountain bikers stick up for fat blokes in camo 'enjoying the outdoors' in their elevated tin wank-boxes belching fumes and noise and indifference to others as they go. Here's a thought, they may be there legally, but the law is arse in this case. These are ancient pack horse tracks that, by historical accident, happen to classified as 'roads'.

They were never designed to be suitable for use by motorised vehicles and whatever the legality of it, it makes no sense. And guess what, these are the same daft access laws that prevent mountain bikes from legally riding on perfectly suitable footpaths, you know, the ones the same pro-4x4ing mountain bikers oppose.

I have nothing against 4x4 drivers as individuals, but for me, the line gets drawn at the recreational use of the internal combustion engine, because of the impact it has on other people. And maybe that does sound bleeding heart, but in a world we've tried our damndest to exhaust of natural resources and concrete over, do we really need people driving all over the bits that are left relatively unscrewed?

Anyway, that's just my personal opinion. It looks like 4x4s are going be banned from the Roych shortly regardless of what I think and I can't honestly say I'll be sorry to see them go.

And to those who say mountain bikers will be next, one question - where's your evidence for that? It's a ridiculous, simplistic attitude founded on nothing but paranoia. There are no statements I've ever seen from the Ramblers Association or the BMC or any National Park Authority to that purpose and it they exist, I'd love to see them. Not solitary forum rants by the odd intolerant idiot, real policy statements.

Anyway... there's another option; tarmac the Roych and then see how they like them roads. Not so much I'm guessing.

But a brilliant day with great riding on a magic bike in good company. Blah...

Unexpected...

 

Equilibrium. If you had the choice would you be happy or be fast on a bike? Correct answer: both. Funny the things that therapy teaches you. Except of course, that wasn't the right answer, the right answer was 'happy'. 

And it's funny how even in the darkest things there is sometimes an odd beauty. But it would be nice to have some balance back.

Been away...

Found summer lurking on the other side of the Channel. A week of mostly smiling.

N + 1

Stuff I don't get: celery, sprouts, N+1... I don't understand that thing where cyclists seem to have a perpetual appetite for owning ever more bikes, the thing where 'N is the number of bikes you own', so the ideal number of bikes is N+1.

It seems quite wrong on so many levels. Surely, bikes are about riding, not about owning? If your bike limits your riding in some way, viz, you have no road bike and therefore cannot ride on the road, then fair enough, but the endless acquisition of new bikes that basically duplicate the function of what you have already - why?

I ride to escape from the awful, competitive, materialistic, 'more, more, more' society we've built. To be in the moment, not in the future or the past, but there in the now feeling tyres rumbling over rubble or skimming silently across freshly-laid tarmac or splashing wetly through summer rain.

And I don't notice what bikes other people ride. 'He was the guy on the purple Cotic tells me nothing'. Try, 'He was the fella with the massive grin whose eyes lit up like catherine wheels at the bottom of Jacob's on the other hand tells me everything I need to know.

How have the basic precepts of capitalism leached into cycling so thoroughly? Of course it's obvious: we have an industry and a media which is founded on selling new stuff - 29ers for the win, you need a whole new bike along with those wheels - and a mind-set which believes a good business is one that creates steady growth in profits every year rather than one that produces outstanding products and has happy, fulfilled employees.

And we have a world stuffed with people looking forwards instead of at where they are, who need the illusion of motion to feel 'not static'. And in that cycling doesn't seem so much like golf as like obsessive DIY: 'If only I had a new sofa, nicer wallpaper, a Bosch washing machine, a new Cotic Soul, my life would be better...'

There's no end to it. Well actually there is. Here's the alternative N+1, where N is the number of bikes you already have and N+1 is the number of bikes that'll push your partner over the brink and create another 'forum regular with a new log-in so no-one knows who I am' post along the lines of 'my partner has left me for a DIY enthusiast' STW thread.

Of course the joy of the alternative N+1 is that it seamlessly morphs into the original. You no longer have a partner, so suddenly the optimum number of bikes is whatever you want it to be. Which brings us neatly back to the start. Stuff I don't get: celery, sprouts, etc...

:-/