Orangey Brew

Trail riding today was a total hoot. Martin led the way, I was riding shotgun (or sweeping the rear to be more accurate). This suited both of us. Martin was able to charge ahead at the pace he likes without having to worry about what was going on behind him too much, and I got practice in riding ruts.

The price I paid for this practice was stopping every wee while to help folks pick their bike up. There but for the grace of God go I.

Our riding partners for the day were Dave, Tim and Ged. Dave is a road-rider, and rides a Hayabusa (the fastest road bike ever built). This qualifies him fairly early on as "Dangerous Dave". Ged had no idea where he was going today, it was his 50th birthday and trail-riding was a surprise present from his brother Tim. This pair were like the Chuckle Brothers - both of them sporting beards, and both of them very quick to crack a joke and have a laugh.

We set off and up onto Salisbury Plain. I was taking some stick for my Camelback, but I knew I would need it later. The golden rule about riding off road is that you have to drink as much as you can. If you start to dehyrdate, then the first thing to go is your concentration and this can hurt. If you feel thirsty, then it's already too late.

We got to where the tarmac ended and the gravel began. Martin gave us the first lesson - picking up the bike. Deja vu.

We set off down some gravel trails. Nothing too serious at all. I realised very very quickly how far I have come. Only two months ago, I was exactly where these guys were now. They were wobbling, tentative and gingerly. I was up on my pegs, roosting away, thanking my stars that we were on gravel because it is grippy not slippy. My God, has it only been two months? The improvement in my riding was noticeable.

I have something in common with God. A few days ago (blogs passim) I said that God only knows how quick Martin would be on a 2-stroke. Today, Martin chose a 2-stroke as his steed for the day. I, and God, now know just how quick he is on it. Think quick. Now mutliply that by fast. Multiply the result by "how on earth do you take that track at that speed?" and you're sort of in the right ball park.

We went through the trees where, all those weeks ago, the mountain bike course was laid out. Tim hit a root and it chucked him right off into the brambles. I helped him pick his bike up, made sure he was OK, and then gave him the words of wisdom that I first heard in these very woods not so long ago: "Roots. Nasty little buggers". He wholeheartedly agreed.

We did some more woodwork, some open fields, some off-camber grassy slopes and some more tracks. With ruts. Lots and lots of lovely ruts. Ruts that you can bounce from rut to rut. Tank tracks. Land Rover tracks. God-knows-what-made-these tracks. Puddles. Mud. It's a boy thing.

We stopped for lunch and, strangely enough, everybody had fresh orange and lemonade. I only drunk half of mine, and opened up the Camelback to pour the remainder into.

"What you got in the Camelback then?" asked Martin.

"Some Lucozade istonic, some water, the remains of the Ribena I had from my last race, I think there was some lime juice in there and - very shortly - the remains of this drink" I replied.

There was some piss-taking about it fermenting and magic potions and stuff, and I commented that I had no idea what the resulting liquid was, but it tasted orangey. That was it. My orangey brew. Liquid Jaffa Cake.

We took off after lunch and the riding got harder. The hills got steeper, the puddles got deeper, the mud got thicker, the roots got higher. Everybody was having a great time. There were several offs, and I was right off my bike to help the guys back up whilst Martin surveyed the carnage from the vantage point afforded him by the greased-lightning 2-stroke he was riding. People were getting tired. Even Martin, em, "laid his bike down gently" at one point. I laid Queen Madge II down a little less gently and snapped (another) clutch lever in the process. It's always the clutch. Always.

We came back across some open fields, and I was encouraging the guys to lean forward and open up the gas to the stop - roost a little and let the back end slide. This was later declared as being the absolute high point of the day - worth coming along just for that. All they needed was a little encouragement, and a little introduction to the pleasures of roosting.

Everybody was thirsty and we had run out of water but, despite repeated offerings, nobody was brave enough to drink the orangey brew.

We came to a very, very, steep downhill. I explained how to ride downhilll, paying particular attention to the golden rule - "if it all goes a bit wrong, let go both levers and let the engine braking take care of it".

Normally, this would have worked. Except for Tim, whose throttle was sticking open a bit. This gave him a bit more speed down the hill than an adrenaline junkie would like to carry. A very steep, very rutty hill. Physics stuck his hand in the air claiming for a penalty when he saw this and the ref blew his whistle.


One particularly impressive downhill highside later, Tim is flat on his arse in the mud. Spectacular. Olympic gymnasts train for years to get height like that.

I threw my bike down and ran down the hill (that's her lying on her side in the tp left of the picture). I got my priorities right - first I made sure that Tim was OK, then I took a picture. This will be a 50th birthday to remember.

Tim was knackered. Shaken a little, but he still had the cojones to get back on the bike and continue down the hill. Before he did so, he said he was really thirsty. I spelled out the choices:

1. Orangey brew
   
   
2. Thirsty

He grabbed the mouthpiece of the cameback and drunk it dry. He even declared that the orangey brew had given him new lease of life and had made him irresistible to women. I had to agree - I regularly have to take out restraining orders on the likes of Jessica Alba and Angelina Jolie due to my orangey brew irresistibility.

We made it down the hill and Martin gave us a nice choice. We can continue to the end of this track, where we would meet the road and the end of our day, or we could turn right and to a little bt more "technical stuff" (read roots, ruts and mud). He got no takers. Pity, it would have been most interesting to see him trying to get up some steep hills on a 2-stroke with no torque.

We made it back to AJP HQ in roughly the same shape as we started the day, even if a little bit more knackered. Bruises were compared (Tim had a particularly fetching impression of an AJP throttle grip on his right thigh) and tales were told.

Martin was kind enough to give me some numbers for the Chicken Run on Sunday. I told him that I needed "three sixes, and three nines" (my number is 96). The conversation went like this:

" I need three sixes, and three nines"
"You mean six sixes"
"No, three sixes and three nines"
"Six sixes"
"No, my number is 96. That's 9, 6, 9, 6, 9, 6"
"No, you idiot, a 9 is just an upside down 6"

Checkmate.

Martin then showed me a particularly cool and almost zero-effort way to tie the bike down in the van. We spent some time discussing Very Important Things like Dakar, the types of things you'd need to d to a bike to take it to Dakar, and some of the options about how you'd carry the extra fuel.

Came home to a wired Missus who was up to her lovely bits in camping gear and stoves and sleeping bags and stuff. She is a wizard at packing is The Missus. She has to be, because I am absolutely crap. I'd end up packing something like a dozen motorcycle books, no spare underwear and a pair of flip-flops.

Chicken Run on Sunday. Number 96. Need to beat the guy riding the AJP 125. I have started preparing the orangey brew, and have phoned the Solicitors to prepare the necessary restraining orders.

Let's Talk About Pegs Baby

So last night I was riding through the Swindon traffic, low speed urban filtering stuff.

As I approached a set of lights, I saw a police patrol car (not traffic) in my mirrors with its blue lights on. I pulled over to let it past.

The car stopped, and the driver says to me "Pull over. And don't try to get away." This made me chuckle. Anyway, I pulled over and three armoured cops pile out of the car and put themselves about 6 inches away from me - in the "invade the suspect's space, make sure you are in control of the situation" way that they are trained to do.

One of them asks "any reason?" and I ask reason for what. It turns out he wants to know the reason I was standing on my footpegs.

I tell him that there are actually several, and go on to list them in order:

1. It considerably lowers the centre of gravity of the motorcycle, which massively improves the stability, manoueverability and control, adding to my filtering safety;


2. Rapid changes of direction (e.g. in response to a car in front unexpectedly changing lanes) are safer and more controlled;


3. My visibility ahead is much much more, since I can see over the tops of cars in front, and I have more time to identify and deal with developing hazards;


4. My visibility behind is improved, since I can turn my head further round for "lifesavers" and obtain much more information about the traffic situation behind me;


5. I make myself a "bigger" in the eyes of other road users, particularly car drivers, and increase my visibility

I leave out the one that says "I am doing Dakar in 2009, and being on my pegs is good practice", since I figure that this will take me out of Kansas and straight into piss-take territory.

I go on to ask him if there could possibly be any other reason for doing it, I mean it's obvious surely?

He looks at the other two cops. They look back at him. They are all looking at eachother wondering if I am taking the piss, or if this is a reasonable explanation. It dawns on me that Physics may not be something that they spend a lot of time teaching cops these days.

Anyway, it turns out that two of them are rookies and the other guy is more experienced. One of the rookies asks "Can I do the vehicle check?". The other one asks "Can I do the producer?". I then wait whilst he follows his instruction manual for writing out a producer. We chat, he's actually a really nice guy - only a few weeks out of training and really enjoying the job.

Meanwhile, the experienced officer is on his radio asking his Seargeant if I was doing anything illegal. the Seargeant checks with the Inspector, who checks with the traffic unit and nobody can identify any law that was being broken.

I am told that I am very lucky they are letting me off with a warning this time, but if they catch me doing it again then I will be getting charged. I ask "with what?". The rookie looks at the experienced cop who tells me that I "just will".

I tell him that I have no wish to be a law-breaker and, to make sure that I abide by the law, please could he explain to me what the law is regarding footpegs so that I can make sure I am in full compliance. I explain that we live in a country where anything not specifically listed as criminal is legal, and that something unusual (being on your pegs) is not the same as something illegal. The law is written down for a reason and, as far as I knew, there wasn't yet a law saying "anything a Policeman doesn't like the look of is illegal".

The producer all done, and the rookies all now trained up in dealing with dangerous criminals, I am sent on my way. I go to the bike (still on its stand), climb on it and stand on the footpegs (not moving anywhere). I turn round and grin and give them a wave - only joking.

I wasn't being cheeky, I really genuinely wanted to know which law was being broken - The Missus and I have discussed it before (or, more accurately, she has given me earache about me being on my pegs on the road and I have insisted that I am not breaking any law by doing so).

The whole process took about 20 minutes start to finish. Three cops. One danger-to-the-public biker. Twenty minutes. It took something in the order of 3 minutes for Madge to be nicked from my driveway in broad daylight and stuffed into a van of some description. Something is not right.

Since my main objective on a bike is to make it home in one piece, I take whatever steps I can to make this more likely - this includes such things as wearing hi-viz jackets (blogs passim), a white helmet with blue & white checks on it and - in traffic or at very low speeds - standing on my pegs for extra stability.

So today I called up the Wiltshire Traffic Unit. They tell me that standing on my pegs is a moving traffic offence, but were unable to say which offence it actually was or what would appear on a citation.

I tried the CPS, who point-blank refused to say anything about whether or not it was an offence.

I trawled through http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ - where all of the UK legislation is published - and can find absolutely nothing about it. I called the Department of Transport, and spoke to the Think! Roady Safety guys who, guess what, couldn't say whether or not this was an offence.

I could just accept that the cops don't like the look of it, for whatever reason, and not do it. That's one option. This makes me more vulnerable on the road in traffic, and makes the bike less stable at low speed - which is the speed you're doing when filtering through heavy traffic. So I'm not comfortable doing that.

I've always been a bit of an omnipotent little sod but I do what I can to stay within the law - especially road traffic law. I regularly bore The Missus to tears by pointing out why such-and-such a speed limit is unenforceable because the signs are too far apart and the like - I like Road Traffic Law and, not so long ago, wanted to be a Traffic Cop (blogs futuro). I take an interest in road signs and how nothing happens for nothing (blogs passim).

Here's a road sign I found particularly amusing (sent to me by my ageing friend):



When I was explaining to the Wee Yin that Madge had been stolen and that nobody had seen anything, she suggested asking the neighbours if they had seen a burglar with a stripey jumper and a mask. Aw, bless.

It's a fair point though. I was up on my pegs, therefore I am a criminal because I, em, look like I am doing something criminal. The guys who stole Madge probably turned up with overalls and a clipboard and knocked on the door - anybody watching would've thought they were only doing something that they were asked to do. We look in the wrong places for our crooks.

This is one of those lovely little gaps in the Law that probably needs to see the inside of a court before it is decided. I had a similar question last year about reflective tape, and no-one was able to answer it. I had one good piece of advice from a traffic cop though - "If we don't like the look of it, we'll find something to do you for, otherwise you'll be OK".

Looking At The Moon

An interesting coincidence on the way home from work tonight. I was late in leaving, so it was getting dark, and it was at the point where I was having to consider my route options. Do I take the shortest route - through Gratelely - and risk having to play "dodge the deer" (blogs passim)? Or do I take a slightly longer - but more deer-free - route?

There is a fairly obvious and mutually exclusive fork in the road about halfway through my journey. As I pass this fork - every night - I always wonder what would have happened if I took the other path.

This dilemma is summed up in a poem by Robert Frost, published nearly 100 years ago. The poem, The Road Not Taken, kind of points out the obvious - once you take a certain path, you cannot change your mind. You can change direction, and rejoin the other path later, but you cannot go back and re-make that original choice. The past is fixed, only the future has possibility.

There was the most beautiful orange moon in a dark blue sky, so I stopped the bike for a few minutes to just kind of appreciate it, whilst I decided what route to take. I also took the opportunity to walk up a wee track I have been eyeing up - looks like a byway - and my map confirms that it is. Leads right on to the tank obstacle course on Salisbury Plain.

About a minute after I stopped the bike, my phone rung. A minute earlier, or five minutes later, and I would have missed the call. It was Martin of AJP, with a couple of tantalising bits and pieces.

The first was a tip - based on years of racing - to fit a couple of straps to my bike. Tough straps, made of seatbelt material, to help me drag it out of ditches in the event of a spill without having to touch hot exhausts or risk getting fingers caught up in spokes.

The second was to tell me that he knows a guy in the New Forest who is known to allow people to ride bikes on his fairly considerably-sized land. This is only about 15 minutes from where I live. Allah will provide.

The third was to tell me about a guy who I have already ridden in a race with. Martin mentioned that I was doing Dakar, and apparently the guy is completely and totally up for doing it. He also rides an AJP, is a damn fine rider, and keen to do Dakar. I am riding alongside him at Midwest Enduro on 9 August, we can talk more about it then.

The other thing was to tell me that there is another AJP in my class at Sunday's Chicken Run. A 125cc (we think bored out to 150cc). Martin tells me - "you have to beat him, he's on a smaller bike". I protest that the guy may be very very good, and Martin helpfully tells me that "you better be better then. You have a faster bike, you must beat him".

So I chose to stop and look at the moon. If I hadn't, then none of the above would have happened. We don't know what would have happened. How much have you missed because you never stopped to look at the moon?

We spoke about some of the bike options for Dakar - building one versus getting one from somewhere else. Bear in mind that I am standing at the side of an A-road, with trucks flying past, but also bear in mind that there is never a bad time to talk about bikes - especially Dakar bikes.

AJP are currently developing a bike which is being designed with Dakar in mind. Still only a set of blueprints just now, it's still something to keep an eye on. AJP bikes are designed by racers, and every bike that leaves the factory is hand-inspected by racers. This is not a pile-em-forty-feet-high-in-a-warehouse operation, these are craftsmen who produce bikes that they themselves would ride.

One of the challenges for a Dakar bike is how to deal with the amount of fuel you need to carry. The normal equation is to add more fuel capacity of the bike, extra tanks and the like. This adds weight - lots of it. So you add a bigger engine to cope with the weight. This means more fuel for the bigger engine. Which means weight. And so on.

Something that AJP considered a few years back was how to reverse this cycle. What if, they reasoned, you had a bike that was dead light and had brilliant fuel economy? What if you only needed to carry - say - 20 litres of fuel instead of 40 since the bike was so light and efficient? They even mooted the posibility of taking a bike like Queen Madge II to Dakar.

OK, there would be modifications to get rid of even more weight. Different forks, lights and a bit of tweaking with fuel tanks and filters but it could be done.

It could especially be done now that the race is changing a little - more fuel stops to favour lighter and smaller bikes.

There's an awful lot of options about which bike to build to get to Dakar on. Whichever path I end up taking, there will be no turning back - I just need to make the best of the option I've chosen, and make sure I absolutely give 100%.

Yet another one of those metaphors for life.

Untouchable

So I just checked the Chicken Run website, and see that I am entered in the Trail class - number 96.

A quick search on WikiPedia tells me that 96 is an untouchable number. This has got something to do with the fact that you can't come up with the number by adding together the divisors of another number. The number 4 is not untouchable, since it can be made up by adding together 1 + 3 (the divisors of the number 9). The number 5 is untouchable since there is no number whose divisors add together to give a total of 5.

96 is also the name of a town in South Carolina. This has nothing to do with racing but it just seems odd to name a town after a number.

On Sunday, I will be wearing an untouchable number. Nice omen, given my last race experience at Track n Trauma.

Thing is, I am not feeling particularly untouchable today - I'm feeling a bit low and not really sure why. I have enough things on the radar, and will probably start to lift as trail riding with AJP gets closer (this is on Friday).

Do Something

If you're not the type of person who likes thinking about stuff, look away now. This post contains nothing about Dakar.

I think about stuff whether I like it or not. I have nowhere to go. Welcome to the world of the Manic Depressive.

There are always two types of energy in the universe - positive and negative, back and white, male and female, night and day - call them what you will. Both of them need to exist.

"Up" cannot exist if here is no "down". "Male" cannot exist if there is no female. My Physics teacher (the one who taught me how to blow up telegraph poles) used to say that "there is no such thing as hot and cold - there is only temperature".

Male energy is confrontational, yet withdrawn. It takes things head-on, but doesn't shout about them. Female energy is non-confrontational, yet extrovert. It does not like to take things head-on, but likes to share the problem with other people. Men solve problems by quiet aggression, Women solve problems by talking about them.

Put another way, there would be a lot less wars in the world if Women were in charge. A lot more talking, a lot more consensus building, a lot more finding peaceful solutions, and a lot less work for those employed in the bullet manufacturing industry.

This may well be a bit of a Zawanda, but I been thinking.

Abraham Lincoln, both a brilliant President and the butcher responsible for the American Civil War (depending on your point of view), was bipolar.

One of his favourite sayings was "Do something. If that fails, then do something else, but - above all - do something".

So, wherever you're at, things aren't working out for you on some level. Then do something. It may well be the wrong thing and, in that case, do something else. Rinse, repeat.

I got really lucky, and I found Dakar. I have something to focus on, and it keeps the dark side at bay. God knows what I will do come February 2009 but, until then, it's working.

Be like Lincoln. Have a silly beard, and a silly hat, if you must but - above all - do something.

Dakar Rabbits

The old joke goes - "you're never alone with Scizophrenia".

Another one which I myself coined is - "Be bipolar, and see the world! Differently".

I've said before that companionship is everywhere, if you only take the trouble to tune in to it. It's everywhere, but you choose to ignore it most of the time.

Doing the maths for a second, there are 200 or so bikers who are planning on doing Dakar in 2009. That's me plus 199 others. Some of them are Dakar serial offenders, some of them will be rookies. Collectively though, we're radiating a kind of signal - our passion flies through the atmosphere like radio waves.

So it looks like I may now be part of a riding team for Dakar - no longer just one guy and his box. A guy in Ireland - also a BMW graduate - has a bit of a passion for doing the Dakar. My Irish Team Mate.

Lots of logistics to work out, but the point is that we are not alone. We have at least a 6-month advantage over a lot of other contenders - a lot of whom will not be consider Dakar 2009 until at least February 2008.

Having dealt with the pre-requisite cojones issue, My Irish Team Mate is in the process of sorting himself out with a bike to practice and race on. Like me, he is coming from a standing start. Like me, he has not a lot going for him other than a big heart and an unflinching passion.

One more rider, and a travelling mechanic, and the team will be complete. Oh, and sponsorship. If you know any philanthropists with a sense of adventure who'd like to be involved in a Dakar atempt, please point them here.

Thing is, I know I am going to get to Dakar, same as I know that the sun will rise tomorrow. I don't know where this comes from, I just know. I'm not too worried about the logistics right now, because I know that somehow it will just work out.

But please welcome my Irish Team Mate. The Team Name we have chosen, for now, is Celtic Endeavour - reflecting our ancestral lineage and our position as ordinary guys trying to achieve extraordinary things. Perhaps we'll change it in the future, but it'll do for now.

Life is a vessel. Both in the sense that it's something you travel in (like a boat), and also in the sense that it is a container you can fill. The boundaries of the container are dictated by many things - birth, genetics, finances, education - but ultimately it is your job - your duty - to fill the vessel as full as you possibly can.

How full is your vessel?

It's A Long Way To Trip-a-Mary

Today, twenty-two years ago to the day, Zola Budd smashed the 5000m world record.

Nothing really wrong with that, except that Zola Budd was running barefoot. Here was a young girl, a bare-footed runner, who nobody saw coming and she went on to become one of the best runners in the world. She was certainly one of the most controversial - especially after she collided withMary Decker in the 1984 Olympics.

I remember when I was at a posh boarding school, I used to run regularly. I was quite good at it, being built for long-distance running. I was competing in an old pair of trainers, running against well-to-do kids who had the latest in spiked shoes.

I was always there or thereabouts, but my standard of running got to the point where my equipment was starting to hold me back a little. Skill, stamina and technique were only getting me so far - it was now at the stage where my equipment was holding me back.

My Ma and Da done without god-knows-what in order to scrape together the groats necessary for a pair of spiked running shoes. These things were practically lighter than air and had the most enormous spikes sticking out of the bottom of them. They literally were liked having winged sandals - Mercury himself would have been struggling to keep up with me. They cut my times by at least 10%, and I was now regularly finishing races in the top 10, if not the top 5.

Had I started out with these brilliant shoes from the beginning, I doubt I would ever have been as good at running as I was. In order to compensate for having little grip, my technique had to be an awful lot better. A great technique had to be developed in order to compensate for crap shoes - I had to wring every ounce of advantage out of doing the right things right. At the beginning, great shoes would have compensated for crap technique.

Improving your performance by adding great equipment to a great technique is quick and easy. Improving performance by working on your technique is a long process - far better to concentrate on the technique early.

My Da likes golf. He used to sit and watch the Pro-Celebrity golf on the BBC when I was a kid. One of the golfers making a regular appearance, and who my Da liked, was Lee Trevino, who won the US Open in 1968 and never looked back.

The thing about Lee Trevino was that he had no choice but to have a brilliant technique - he developed his golf skills inbetween paying his bills as a caddy. He would practice and practice behind the caddy shack of the golf course, using old discarded clubs that the players had dumped because they were bent or broken. When he later added shiny new clubs to the well-practiced technique, he won the US Open and several other tournaments.

I have the same philosophy with the bike. I could have opted for a KTM race bike, but instead I opted for a solid and reliable AJP. She's quick, but nowhere near as quick as a KTM. This means that I have to rely on skill and technique to get me safely and speedily round a track. When I later upshift to a race bike (probably an AJP 400, which are currently in development), it will be the equivalent of the spiked shoes, or Lee Trevino's new clubs - the difference in my lap times will be noticeable.

And this is not to say that the AJP is the equivalent of crap shoes - Martin regularly wins races on a bike identical to mine. This is down to excellent technique - god only knows how quick he'd be on a blindingly-quick two-stroke.

Today, this year, is also my Da's 60th birthday party. It is in Edinburgh, and I am in Hampshire. This is because I have had to work this weekend - including tomorrow on the Bank Holiday. I am a bit gutted about this, because Uncle Alan would have been there too - I'd have liked to thank him face to face for supporting my efforts.

Happy Birthday Da. Only 5 years till the bus pass.

Having What It Takes

I was reading a book about off-road riding techniques. The main reason for this is as a review exercise - comparing what it tells me with how I have been riding - to make sure that I am still focusing on doing the right things right.

I see that Jack Youngblood, a former defensive line player with the Los-Angeles Rams (an American Football team) is mentioned in there several times.

Jack played in the defensive line, which basically meant that it was his job to stop opposing players getting through to the quarterback. He was entered in the NFL Hall of Fame in 2001, and has gained respect from team-mates and opponents alike. Some opponents have described running into him as being like running straight into a concrete wall.

Jack himself is more modest - "I wasn’t the biggest guy, I certainly wasn’t the strongest and I wasn’t the fastest either. But I think one of my biggest assets was that I had an undeniable determination to be the best that has ever put his hand on the ground, I had a genuine desire to be to be great".

It's all about what's inside the helmet. What goes on between the ears. This is the important thing. If you want the Dakar finisher medal as much as you want air (blogs passim) then you'll get it. Nothing is over until you give up. Ever.

As I reflected on today's events with The Missus, we realised how far I have come - both in terms of my riding skills and in terms of my disposition generally. There was a time, not so long ago, when I'd have dealt with anybody alighting a vehicle with a pick-axe handle using logic along the lines of "I better knock this guy out before he even thinks about using that on me". I would have hit first, and made it count - guys my size can't afford to do it any other way. Today, it didn't matter very much. I am focused on Dakar, not on silly pissing contests with heavy-handed farmers.

The Missus pointed out to me that getting whacked by a pick-axe handle, or getting shot by an angry farmer, would probably put my Dakar plans back a little.

Interestingly enough, the book where I saw Jack Youngblood quoted - Off-Road Riding Techniques - also states that angry landowners are a hazard, just like ruts and roots.

Jack was quoted in there as saying "You learn that, whatever you are doing in life, obstacles don't matter very much. Pain or other circumstances can be there, but if you want to do a job bad enough, you'll find a way to get it done".

How true.

No Dogs

We used to have a lovely pub round the corner from us. A real local. The best thing about it was that we could go in there with the dog. You could even order a bowl of water for the dog with your drinks.

Then it got taken over by a big brewery chain, and the rules changed. No Dogs. I recall the first time I found out about this.

I went into the pub with the dog and went up to the bar. I asked for my drink and the barman said "Sorry, No Dogs".

"Since when?" I asked
"Since last week", he replied. "New management."
"What about guide dogs?" I asked.
"Guide dogs are OK", he tells me.

I nod down at the dog (a rough collie) and say to the barman "She's a guide dog"

He looks down at the dog. "No she's not" he says.

"Yes she is" I assure him.
"No she's not. Guide dogs are labradors" he insists.

I keep my eyes facing forward and , at the same time, reach down to feel the dog - in the same way that a blind person would.

"What do you mean 'not a labrador'? What have they given me?"

It was a god bit of cheek, but ultimately didn't work.

The reason why establishments, and a lot of parks, don't allow dogs is because some dogs are badly behaved. They run around crazy-style, whilst their owner fruitlessly shouts "Bad dog!" or "He's ok, he just likes you".

Rather than say "No Badly-Behaved Dogs" though, it's easier just to ban the lot of them.

So let's take this logic even further. Some people in pubs are badly behaved. They shout, swear and start fights. So why not just put up a notice saying "No People". Then there won't be any trouble at all. There won't be any customers either.

So it is with bikes. Because one or two idiots terrorise everybody by riding like hooligans through the park, or take a filthy two-stroke across a farmers crops, all off-road bikers are hooligans and up go the "No Dogs" signs.

Out with the maps, looking for somewhere else to ride. Will keep you posted.

More Obstacles

Playing in the woods this morning, the ones just up the road from where I live, practicing the things I know I need to work on:

• steep descents into sharp corners
• clearing logs and tree trunks
• riding deep, soft mud at speed

I was doing really really well. Because I went up there with the stated objective of practicing these things till they hurt, they started to come together. Especially mud.

Now riding mud used to be traumatic. Very little grip, bike all over the place, but the trick is to go through it at speed. You then not only have two gyroscopes underneath you for balance (aka wheels), you are also kind of like surfing. Great fun.

The cornering was starting to come together too. I realised, only today, that I never use my back brake and that this is causing me to rely too heavily on the front brake and this is adding to my potential for wsahing out the front wheel. So I started playing with brake turns. OK, it may not get me round the corner as fast as a motocrosser, but it at least I get round a lot quicker than I have been.

I was playing for about an hour or more, and stopped for a rest right at the edge of the woods near the road. I saw two guys in a Land Rover Defender driving very slowly, looking into the woods. They saw me and roared the Land Rover over a fairly impressive berm, skidding to a halt beside me.

I just sat there and smiled. I knew what was coming next. I considered the options. Contrition? Humility? Defiance? Wise-ass? I figured I'd see what they had to say, then decide.

One of the guys jumped out of the land rover with what looked like a pick-axe handle. Contrition and apologies were instantly ratcheted down the possibility scale.

The driver asked me what I was doing, and I told him I was practicing. He then told me to get the f**k off his land.

I paused, let a few seconds go by, sighed and stood up. I told the guy that there was no need to speak to me in that way.

He then went completely mental about how this was private land. I asked him where the fence was, or a sign even. He explained that f**king bastards like me had torn them down.

"Exactly like me? What, did they look like me or were they just on motorbikes?" I asked him.

I should have asked permission, I was told. I asked from whom. This, it turns out, was his point. If there is nobody to ask permission, and the land doesn't belong to me, then it's private. I asked him if the same was true of Hyde Park. Nobody to ask permission, but it doesn't belong to me. Does that mean I'm not allowed in there?

Mr Pick-axe Handle takes a few steps closer. Now I have to respect the fact that he has a pick-axe handle, but he has to respect the fact that (a) I'm not particularly intimidated by this and (b) I am wearing BMW-engineered body armour so his pick-axe is going to a lot less effective than he thinks.

I then told the guy that I had no idea I was on private land and that I had never been there before. If they have better information than me about the status of the land, then there's a fairly effective way of asking me to leave. Try asking. And don't talk to me like I had just stolen something from you. And say please. Uh-oh, looks like that old blend of defiance and wise-ass.

To his credit, he calmed down a little - possibly because I had been calm throughout - or possibly because he realised that I wasn't just a hooligan on a stolen bike. He then asked me please would I leave his land.

I apologised for troubling him, and went to move the bike. Then Mr Pick-axe only went and inflamed everything again, by telling me what he'd do with the pick-axe if he ever saw me again.

I put the bike back on its stand and put my face a few inches from Mr Pick-axe. I asked him why he felt the need to be so aggressive when everybody else was being so calm. He told me that I had been terrorising everybody. I told him that I had been in a deserted woodland, and had not seen a soul. He said that it was the horses in the next field that I had been terrorising. I pointed out that if this was true then it would be the case even if I was just going up and down the road. He told me that he'd get the Police. I sat down again and asked them to please make their mind up - is it leave now, or wait for the Police and that I didn't care either way.

He suggested that he'd confiscate my bike. I invited him to do so - and that I have the registration number of his Land-Rover and would be happy to have him charged with theft. He told me that I had no rights since I was trespassing. The Law Degree studies kicked in, and I explained to him the difference between a criminal offence, such as theft, and a civil dispute - such as trespassing. He turned scarlet, and it started to dawn on him that intimidation was getting him nowhere - it was just making me even less likely to back down, pick-axe or not.

Mr Driver realised that this was going nowhere, and asked Mr Pick-axe to "just leave it and let the guy go". He then asked me again to please leave.

Again, I apologised for causing him trouble and thanked him for his civility. I took the bike and left. Mr Pick-axe and I exchanged stares as I went past him. Thank God he didn't say anything, I'd still have been there now.

As it was, I came home and did some maintenance on Queen Madge II. I have been reading a lot about mechanics and started putting some of it into practice. I straightened the handlebars (blogs passim), and did a complete oil and filter change. I adjusted the position of the back brake to make it easier to reach, and moved the handlebars around to give me a better riding position. Checked the wheel-bearings, steering head bearings and tightened up all the nuts and bolts. Hand-cleaned every link in the chain, de-gunked it and gave it a good oiling. Cleaned out all the fins on the engine to help her cool better. She is now ready for trail riding on Friday at AJP.

As I did so, I reflected on the mornings events. I wasn't too happy that I had been in a confrontation, but I was fairly satisfied that I hadn't backed down and even more satisfied that I hadn't lost my temper and had managed to keep everything calm with the guys.

In their world, anybody on a dirt bike is a hooligan riding illegally. They have probably been trying to catch off-road bikers on their land for years, and here's one who didn't even try to run away. A lot of the shouting wasn't at me, it was at all the other people who they were never able to shout at. I have to have respect for this.

They have to have respect for the fact that I have a road-legal bike, environmentally clean, and that I am riding at fairly low speed in a deserted place. Not all off-road bikers are hooligans on illegal or stolen bikes.

In Hampshire, there is at least 1 biker, with at least 1 road-legal bike, at least 1 side of whom does not back down to people with pick-axe handles.

More Harmless Mischief

If you find yourself at a computer with a few minutes on your hands, have a look at uncyclopedia.org.

It is exactly like WikiPedia, except it's satirical.

Please avoid it if, like the traffic cop who pulled me for being on my pegs yesterday, you have no sense of humour.

The entry on Napoleon Bonaparte is well worth a look. There is a lot of stuff there which carries "not suitable for work" warnings.

Harmless mischief in an increasingly uptight world.

Constants

One thing in life that is constant is change.

Stand or sit still for a second. Even though you may think you are perfectly still, you are not. You are stuck to a planet rotating at 1,000 miles per hour about its axis. The planet itself is flying round the sun at about 67,000 miles per hour. The solar system in which we sit rotates around the centre of the galaxy at about half a million miles per hour.

Multiplying that little lot together, you are moving at something in the order of 2 million miles per hour. Good job there aren't any Gatso speed cameras in the milky way, since that's pretty fast.

Everything is moving. Nothing is still. Nothing sits still for a second. Everything changes, constantly.

If you look at the end of the video I posted the other day, you'll see the Wee Yin sat on the petrol tank of Queen Madge II.



That look on her face is excitement. Or is it? Look again. It could be fear. Come to think of it, it could be both.

The physical sensation of fear, and the physical sensation of excitement is exactly the same. That stomach-clenching butterfly feeling where your heart races a little and your breathing goes up. You become more alert. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up a little. You become focused (perhaps even on the wrong thing in the case of a truck coming round a corner).

So I'm tramming up this twisty B-road today on the way to work. Sunny day, lots of grip, blue sky. Turned a tight bend into a bit where the road narrows and there, coming round the corner towards me, is a huge articulated lorry.

Brakes on, look for the escape. The lorry is as wide as the road - no chance of getting past him - and I'm carrying a bit too much speed to stop in time. The back wheel locks and starts skidding.

By now, the stomach is clenching, and the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up a little. This is fear. The front bumper of that truck doesnt't look like collision with it could be described by any word meaning "pleasant".

Then I see it. The escape. The lorry is as wide as the road - taking up all the space - but there's also off-road. The tarmac turns into grit and gravel and mud at the side of the road. there is no kerb - this is a B-road.

I aim straight for the gravely part - pebbles and stuff - and release the back wheel, even giving it a bit of gas. I see the truck driver looking at me from his cab - I am actually speeding up rather than trying to slow down - and he quite obviously thinks that he has just rounded the corner to be faced with some crazed suicide biker.

I hit the gravel and plough up the embankment a little. I am pretty much level with the truck's front bumper. A little gas, a little roost, and I just coast along the grassy embankment part the truck.

The point is, that the physical sensation was exactly the same throughout. The physical feeling of fear at hitting the truck, and the physical feeling of the excitement of roosting through the gravel onto the embankment. Same feeling, different perception.

So nothing stands still, and change is constant. That feeling you have - that fear of change. Is it really fear? Or is it, just possibly, excitement at the untold prospects that lay before you?

Parallel Lines

On the face of it, deserts and water are poles apart. I mean, one is wet and the other one obviously isn't (that's the definition of a desert).

So you may well find it odd that a very dear friend of mine - my Nautical Friend - does not like the desert. Or bikes. He has clearly stated on several occasions that he would never undertake a sport which required the wearing of armour.

Apart from the fact that life requires the wearing of armour (the emotional kind), he has a certain point.

How come two such diametrically opposed people happento be suchgreat friends? First, he's a really really nice guy. Second, so am I. That's an excellent starting point for a friendship.

C'est la vie. Or, more accurately, "SailorV". Even more accurately, www.sailorv.co.uk.

He is on his own journey of discovery and realising personal ambition by taking on the elements in a gruelling race. He has went through his own training - from novice to fairly-good-by-now. He has taken the knocks, and developed the mental toughness that racing needs. He has made his own personal and financial sacrifices to fulfil his dream.

And he, when he gets started, is also like drinking from a fire hose talking about his passion.

After a particularly tough couple of years where Life chucked him a couple of nasty nasty curved balls, has has picked himself up and will be taking off on the Clipper Round the World race in a few weeks time. He will be gone for a year, and will be missed.

It's not for me to tell you his story, or his journey. Apart from the fact that it is for him to tell it as he sees fit, he is doing a far better job than I ever could.

You can follow what he is up to here.

Good luck Captain Pugwash. May your winds be fair, your seas calm, and your swash ever buckling.