Me and George W.

Original post

Simon Brooke

Archived post

23 May 2004, 16:35 UTC #1

Well, you've all seen that George W fell of his bike yesterday. So did
I. Rather more than usual.

We were doing the first ride through of about two miles of old mountain
bike trail which had been blocked by trees blown down in a storm, and
we've been clearing. I was riding on new Scott branded SPD clone
pedals, but with genuine SPD cleats. So the first fall off was when I
stopped to lift the bike over a log that we haven't yet cleared, and
the cleat jammed. Ouch. And the second came on a fast bend, when a
branch hidden in the leaf litter snagged something on the bike and I
went down hard and bashed my shin. Ouch ouch. And the third was mostly
because I was losing confidence and took a bad line through a tricky
bit - and I went down into a patch of brambles and nettles. Ouch ouch
ouch. And after that I had completely lost confidence and fell off a
few more times. Ouch ouch ouch ouch. And the really embarassing bit is
the guy I was out with, who is a third of my age, didn't fall off at
all.

Still, on the whole a thoroughly enjoyable ride, although I would have
preferred not to emulate George W quite so often.

Then today, out on the road bike, I was coming wizzing down a little
lane through the woods to a little narrow stone bridge at the bottom,
and on that bridge I met a car. Now that *was* scarey... but didn't hit
it, and, most fortunately, didn't pitch over the bridge into the burn.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; my other religion is Emacs

dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers

Archived post

23 May 2004, 20:48 UTC #2

Quoted message said:
Still, on the whole a thoroughly enjoyable ride, although I would have
preferred not to emulate George W quite so often.

You fall off so much and it's enjoyable? You are mad, Simon, mad I tell you!
;-)

Glad you are in one piece in spite of your attempts to go for a Darwin Award
nomination!

Cheers, helen s

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Simon Brooke

Archived post

23 May 2004, 22:35 UTC #3

in message <[email hidden]>,

dirtylitterboxofferingstospammers (') said:
Quoted message said:
Still, on the whole a thoroughly enjoyable ride, although I would have
preferred not to emulate George W quite so often.
You fall off so much and it's enjoyable? You are mad, Simon, mad I
tell you! ;-)

It's all part of the fun. And only one of those falls was a really
rattling bang, and that was mostly onto usual sort of forest floor
needle litter. Not too bad. It was a bit of root that got my shin. You
don't usually get hurt falling off a mountain bike on a cross country
course. What you land on is mostly (with some horrible exceptions) a
lot softer than tarmac, and you don't often go as fast as you do on a
road bike.

But the point is, this was a competition-standard track when it was
open, and it was wrecked in a storm more than ten years ago. I and a
small group of friends have been working to get it ridable again, and
that's involved clearing a lot of fallen trees (with hand tools -
mostly axes - because the Forestry Commission quite reasonably say we
aren't to use chainsaws, and you can't cut a log that's under pressure
with a handsaw because it jams). That's been quite a lot of work and
we're just getting to the point where we can see it begin to pay off.

But this track was seriously hard when it was first built - I never
cleaned it - and as we haven't finished clearing branches and so on
it's a good bit harder now. So I was expecting to fall off.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Morning had broken, and I found when I looked that we had run out
of copper roove nails.

Me and George W.

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