Afternoon all

I went for my first night time mountain bike ride last night. T'was most excellent, except that I was reminded how much I rely on looking down at my bike to check what gear I'm in. That doesn't work so well at 9pm on a winter night...

The forest was completely empty (well; we saw one othe bike and 2 rabbits, so almost) so we were able to ride the "super special forbidden trails" without fear of running into the parkies. Most of these trails are actually prepared (so no damage problems) and have apparently been banned to bikes due to their popularity amongst walkers. And their kids in prams. And their uncles. And their uncle's dogs. So, riding them all at night no problem then.

One of the other bike club members lent me his lights, which are teh ones in the picture. These are ace and capable of blinding any motorist at 200 paces. Sadly they also cost 150 quid so I'll be holding off on a new purchase any time soon and relying on loans and charity for now. Another bloke told me on Wednesday (we had a skiver's ride, that I was obviously part of, on Wednesday afternoon) that he'd bought a set for 40 shiny Euro things, which he'd been using for offroading so maybe I'll give them a look. For that price I could buy 2 and strap one to me helmet (the one on my head Jezz).

We should be going out again next week and I want to try and get some pictures because the forest just looks so different under lamp light. Meantine, I'm dreaming of this video camera with lipstick cam attached for making stoked extreme middle aged biking videos.

Hmmm, groovy video goodness. And look, it's bullet shaped ... so you go faster

Bomber out

Hap-py New Year!

3 weeks and no posting. Bloody unforgivable! Well, I did spend most of it drunk, if that's any consolation. I've a couple of things to post later in the week, once I've got the steam up to convert thoughts into words, possibly with the help of lager, which for some reason I seem to have some of in my fridge.

Oh yes, I remember .... Last Friday we hosted the monthly BigM bike pr0n night. BigM is the mountainbike club we've joined and every so often they get together and watch mountain bike pr0n videos. Loads of people came, although most of them were late so we had to watch the videos through twice, which Andy, the owner of said videos seemed quite happy about. The Vids thenselves are full of young middle class American kids doing tricks on bikes and talking about how stoked they, like, are. And stuff. Kind of like BMX bandits but no afros. A fun time was had by all, although without mentioning any names (not that they read this site, but you never know) one (french) person brought a 6 pack of 1/2 litre cans of Stella then proceeded to hove into the *good* beer and someone else brought .... one can of Jupiler (the 2nd shittest beer in Belgium) and 3 (yes 3) half empty bags of crisps. To be fair, the second transgressor then drank water all night so I can't complain about the beer, but they did have a good go at our cheese. Didn't have to put the cheese plate in the dishwasher at the end of the evening, it was licked clean!

The upshot is, I'm drinking stella till it's all gone (another couple of nights I rekon). I refused to stoop to eating any of the opened crisps though. They went in the bin.

Went on a good ride Sunday morning with the same crowd, they seem to be a sensible lot in the main and not *too* keen.

I'll leave you with a couple of headlines, which reminded me how important it sometimes is to know the back story.

From the Guardian today;

Chefs cleared over TV slaughter - Yorkshire crowd goes postal when Jamie Oliver cooks black pudding in olive oil, six film crew members eaten. Oliver cleared of inciting violence by reason of stupidity.
Sharon breathing independently - He no longer relies solely on America for oxygen (did I just say that? straight to Hull with me)
Cameron says Tories will keep tuition fees - but they'll return the lunch money
Murray rolls on in Auckland - I didn't even know Dave was in NZ at the mo.

Bomber out