Fat Lad Rides the thgileD girD

With only Pete and I out for the morning it was a leisurely ride up with no start time to panic about. The glorious sunshine of the day was cooled by the vicious winds whipping round the hills and streets of my home town. This morning was the maiden voyage of Pete's gorgeous new steed; his sunburst orange Superlight.



Sat at the Master Mechanics kitchen table necking hot tea an idea thrown out became reality. Spurred on, pedals swapped from old to new, we geared up and set off, the morning already getting late. With the ride decided, tyres soon span noisily on the tarmac, the thgileD girD had been born and it was time for the fun to begin.
Hugging the sanitised trail behind the empty industrial buildings my front wheel bounced up from possibly the only rock in the trail. The wind pushed at this precise and opportune moment and I struggled to stay in control of a bike travelling in a direction I hadn’t intended to. Straightened up we shimmied trough the narrow alleys and back streets of Gildersome struggling to keep to the right ginnel with the mirrored route of this ride.

Heading off the paved and onto the dirt, disorientation of riding the familiar backwards forced us down and away from the accepted pathway. Corrected and climbing we had not been slowed, even with Pete’s incorrectly inflated fork. Crossing the A road veins of West Yorkshire to the all too small Drighlington Moor, miniature dust devils danced around blowing grit into our eyes. Looking down the delight Pete joked about how nice it was to be this end of the hill without panting. With barely a glance and a grin we exacted revenge on a climb that has made us suffer for months and years. The run was dusty, dry and rolling; even the inconsideration of one of the equestrian community could not spoil what we had earned in so many rides past.
Adrenalin buzz subsiding, we noticed a path never seen before at the base of the climb. Making but one mistake in exploration it was added to the trail repertoire for future use. Knife edge retained it's challenge in a completely new way, requiring more of heart, lungs and legs then the usual mix of nerve and skill. Both promising a better attempt with a clear run we headed back out of cover into the gusts. Claiming the karma back for many a knee busting hurt upwards, it was apt to use the big ring on Nab Lane for the first time in riding memory.

Into Birkby Brow picking up speed rolling down the fire road, the shooters were in poor mood for such a glorious Sabbath. Bucking the trend one Englishly cheerful woman encouraged us onwards to the-better-climb-than-descent. The path barely dried out I bashed the top of my lid on a low branch trying to maintain some semblance of control amongst the top ruts and gulleys. Splashing through the seasonally shallow stream I completely mistimed the exit pedalling and Pete pulled away from me up the sharply steep bank. Desperately trying to catch up I middle ringed up to the ruin to see Pete taking no shelter from the vortex of air swirling around him.



Hurtling out from the soon to be overgrown path I bottled the church steps yet again. Not letting my blatant cowardice ruin a superb ride, climbing to the usual hip flask point, I suddenly realised that this jaunt had already gone beyond the original remit. The firm ground made the climb easier and I reunited with Pete for more pedalling. In Haigh woods the fallen tree that had so stubbornly blocked our flow since the last period of high winds was now smouldering away in one of the natural craters; the lads responsible sheltering, using it’s warmth. Up DSFT (which will be DSFD until mid Autumn) it sapped my legs of any go. Funny how some sections remain hard work year round.

Taking the short route around the reservoir the wind was creating waves upon the normally smooth surface. At the bomb hole local kids lay on the dirt BMXs by their side watching the clouds race by, only becoming aware of us as we did too. Crossing the final section of trail heading home we had our backs to the winds, it was nice to sail the last few miles with natural assistance.

Too many times we’ve been told “Don’t do that ride backwards, it’s not all that good”. For once it felt good to prove someone wrong.

Fat Lad

Fat Lad Rides To The Master Mechanic

Leave you're old pads in. Get a gert bif feck-off srewdriver in between them and force the pistons right back. That should do it. If not then take the top cap off the resevoir and do it agin. That'll do it

From here

And... that's what I did. The pistons? Oh yeah right back. The rest of the fluid from mos of the system? On the bat cave floor. Bugger. So a frantic phone call later I was booked in with the Morley Mechanic. Like a drunken Stormtrooper aim we kept missing each other. One ride missed I pootled on up to the lair of the Master Mechanic, a place where v-twin monsters hibernate to prowl the roads when salt will not damage their chrome armour.

Amongst the organised chests of tools obscure and familiar the stand was prepared.The King was hoist into it's plastic jaws to await it's salvation and the Mechanic set to work. Engrish Hayes instructions interpreted, ignored and bettered my brakes were air free to stop my chunk once more.

Coasting back home, the cold late spring wind knifed through the too thin jersey. Overly soft suspension unlocked beneath me, jumping speed humps for giggles, I swore for just one moment that I was 16 again. The summer of 97 ahead of me, a downhill bike to play with and the teenage feeling of joy and innocence.

Fat Lad

Fat Lad Filling

My good friend Phillis and I zoomed round the Great Yorkshire forest the weekend just gone and my creative energies (darlings) are currently being channeled through the ether to you via blogger. Just slowly.

In other news; despite exercising the most since I was a teenager, eating the healthiest since being a teenager my

Weight is firmly refusing to budge. It's pissing me off. As endearing as having a "fuel tank for a love machine" is, it's time for it to flabbily feck off.

Plans for heading stateside early autumn continue, in a moment of genius from my better half we are both taking our bikes as it's crazy cheap to fly them out with us compared to couriering them over.

The road bike is fun. If your definition of fun is dodging traffic and re enacting Death Race 2000 every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning.

What else?

Nope that's it.

Have Fun

Fat Lad

Fat Lad Could Be Unwell

The above picture is just to prove (mostly to myself I think) that the sun does indeed come out to play every now and again.

Anyways, I think I'm not right. Whenever the sun is shining and I'm stuck indoors I get ill. According to wikipedia:

The most common symptoms of SAD include extreme fatigue, oversleeping, not being able to get out of bed, overeating, carbohydrate cravings and weight gain. It can also be accompanied by the regular symptoms of depression, such as low mood, loss of interest in activities and trouble concentrating.

Blimey I tick all those boxes all year round. I find the only cure for this weather related malaise is to get out and ride. I wonder if I have inverse SAD. Maybe it's a whole new affliction. They could name it after me. FatLadMiserableGit Syndrome. I could be famous at last. Pictures of me in all good medical text books. Probably in some more graphically bad ones too.

I'm going to self medicate tonight with some swoopy singletrack descents, ball busting climbs and the company of honest decent riding buddies. I reckon, together, we can get through it.

Fat Lad

Fat Lad's First Meme

Over at Freewheeling Spirit posted up is an interseting tidbit and suitably inspired article I thought I respond here.

First Post:
The earliest record I can find is here on the "Way back machine". That link is a little flaky but works sometimes. I did have afew posts prior to that but they were delted by some script kiddy sadly. The first here on blogger was this one back when I used to do considerably less riding than now...

Most Read:
Was this one. My Sleepless in the Saddle report. Most of the traffic came from Singletrack and the vast majority never came back.


Most Commented-On:
Is actually this one. But I doesn't count because Phil used at least two comments up to abuse me over the interwebs.

There is a few more with equal numbers of comments but I consider this one my favourite for obvious reasons.

Personal Favorite:
Just a lot of fun to write. Not all my posts flow in their creation (some unkind people may same about their reading of this site too) but this one just happened.

Most Fun:
This was quite simply ace. Seven days off. Seven days of riding. Every day riding with some different, trying varied styles of writing it was just huge fun. If you missed them the first time round they're all here:

A stupid idea Day One Day Two Day Three Day Four
Day Five Day Six Day Seven Knackered

Quitting the Blog:
Never even entertained the thought. I sometimes wonder why, when something I've really enjoyed writing gets only a few page views and little comment. But truth be told this is vanity project, and I can be very vain indeed

Fat Lad

If you have a blog, consider this a meme and consider yourself tagged.