falling off bikes since 1975

Now, before you start this one you might want to get yourself a brew. I’m about to start rambling.

It’s time for a confession.

I’m not really a fan of riding in autumn and winter. By the time Cheddar/Polaris/The Three Peaks comes around I’m sick of riding round in ever decreasing circles. Wet and grim(e) wear their abrasive way through components, my finances, and my will to ride. It wasn’t so bad when I had decent trails out of my front door, but living just outside Preston these days, quite frankly I only ride because of the guilt inspired by articles from the likes of Guy Kesteven and Dave Smith that assure me that now is the time to be out there pounding the trails ready to leave my sofa-bound kin for dead come Spring. Hah. An asthmatic pair of lungs, bronchitis scarring and a penchant for cheese and mayonnaise long ago put paid to that.

Last year it’s fair to say that my desire to ride was killed by 8 a.m. 25 June.

Lap 16 of SSMM.

And while I feel guilty if I’m not riding for the last five years I’ve felt guilty if I am. That’s because I’ve had a horse, Pukk, that I’d still not learned to ride properly. By properly I mean more than just take it through the gears on a mad gallop round the farm. No, by properly I mean the ability to insouciantly leap on to it’s back and pop it over a decent sized jump, where decent means greater than 3 feet and preferably 3 foot 6. Not just knob about in the paddocks doing dressage-lite, which both me and Pukk find boring and hateful. Not just drive somewhere for the equine equivalent of BMX that is show-jumping - a two minute blast round a course to be eliminated in the heats and fail to make the jump-off.

Come winter not only was I conscious when I was riding my bike that Pukk wasn’t being exercised, when I was exercising Pukk I wasn’t exercising myself on the bike.

Five years ago I met the equivalent of Jake Lovell - a character out of a Jilly Cooper novel. Except I didn’t know that because I hadn’t read any Jilly Cooper. A bloke with swarthy gypsy good looks, an easy swagger in his jeans and boots, who could sit on a horse like Tomac sits on a bike, and just ‘pop’ said horse over the nearest 4 foot hedge with an ease that made me jealous in the same way as watching thirteen years olds on jump-bikes pulling tailwhips over a set of doubles I’d be slowing down for.

Anyway, That was the guy I wanted to be on a horse.

So last autumn, guilt free, I locked away the bikes, and set about learning to ride Pukk properly instead. Our farrier has always regarded me as slightly mad for my antics on a bike, yet at the same time he thinks nothing of jumping four foot hedges on horse that’s 6 feet tall at his shoulders. He goaded me to go out riding with him.

It was all very liberating. I left behind a world of technological consumerism and product years and the race for longer/better travel and entered a world where you were judged on your riding not your ride. That’s not to say that there isn’t some snobbery - until I entered the field coloured horses were the preserve of women and children. Provided the children were girls, that is. Round here they are now known as the preserve of women, children (girls) and Nick.

Despite quite patently having the wrong horse for a man I took to this lark like the proverbial duck to water, probably because there were enough parallels to make me feel immediately comfortable.

Arrange with other parties were you’ll be this weekend - preferably a pub. Arrive at pub, and have a drink while faffing, though there are less requests for your allen keys in the horse world. Then follows three hours of singletrack fun - cantering through the woods is not like it is in films, though, yes, you can be knocked off in a comedy style by a low-hanging branch - hip flasks at gates, bursts of lunatic OhMyGodI’mGoingToDie speed, jumping, and stunning views before back to the pub to exaggerate your efforts over more drink. All very familiar, apart from the jumping. There’s even the equivalent of named trails. It’s not the trails that are named so much as obstacles encountered on them. “Five Hedges” for instance refers to a very particular sphincter-puckering spot. Does exactly what it says on the tin too.

A whole new world of riding venues has been opened to me. I’ve been riding in places that I’d normally consider cheeky. Actually so far as riding a bike at these places goes they can happily stay cheeky. Unless your idea of an ace cheeky ride is across muddy fields bounded by innumerable hedges/fences/stone walls that you’d have to keep lifting your bike over. On horseback the more hedges and stone walls get in the way the better. Rather than climbing up places like Ingleborough I’ve been sat beneath it, usually with a flask of damson gin or such-like fruit/alcohol based concoction in hand, looking up at the top wondering why it’s never been that sunny when I’ve been struggling up there for the Three Peaks.

Of course this hasn’t come free. I’ve paid about the same as a good steel frame for the privilege of going out. I know that covers a whole range, so let’s just say more than an On-One, less than an Indy-Fab :-) Like paying for a coach (six weeks riding costs the same as a six week written training programme by the aforementioned Dave Smith) that payout has fairly given me the incentive to get out and ride every available Saturday - whatever the weather, and the odd Wednesday too. Strathpuffer weekend, when I couldn’t get to Scotland and horse-riding was cancelled - there is such a thing as too much mud - was one of the most miserable weekends I’ve had lately.

Like phillyd struggling to comprehend airborne youth at Chicksands I’ve been most shamed and inspired by the riding abilities of the “youth of today”. Except that phillyd, looking up at the Chicksands Shore, had a choice about tackling their routes. I don’t. Trails are laid by an 11 year old of precocious talent, and where he leads we follow. When 20 other riders leap over a solid stone wall and Pukk has the bit between her teeth I don’t really have much say in the matter. Which is all very well until you’re led on your back beneath said wall looking up at a nine year old on a pony asking in an exasperated tone how you managed to fall off again, before she turns sharply and pops the wall while I geriatrically struggle to remount Pukk.

I’ve even developed an equivalent of the trail riders eye. While one eye scans hillsides for likely looking bike trails, wondering where they go, the other scans the fields, looking at the state of the hedges and walls and post and rail, sizing up whether we’d be brave enough to take them on, and despairing if they are in a state of disrepair. It had always grated me that round here the farmers are overly quick to replace hedgerow with wire. Now, when I see an otherwise perfectly jumpable hedge lined with wire instead of being relaid I feel the same as trainer-shod jump-kids who’ve had their doubles taken away.

Recently it’s all started to come together (apart from that one stone wall, ahem, for which I am expected to atone by going building jumps in summer).

Photo courtesy Tony Dowdall

And for my money I’ve upgraded from a coloured horse of indeterminate breeding that hasn’t done much to a coloured horse of indeterminate breeding that will jump five bar gates, lead others out of trappy country, cross rivers, climb and descend banks that I’d struggle to walk up or down with my bike, and just recently was described by the Master as “genuine”. Which carries the same kudos as Johnny T casually remarking that he likes your bike. He’s not praised my riding yet, but I kid myself that day will come.

Then, last Wednesday it all went AWOL. Pukk pulled off a shoe and bruised the sole of her foot. Think puncturing on a rocky downhill and trashing your rim before you manage to stop. No jumping for either of us for a week on veterinary orders.

Saturday looked like a wash-out.

Then the postman came.

Singletrack fell on the doormat.

I could happily have sat down with a coffee, watching the drizzle against the front room window and read it front to back. I nearly did. But instead, inspired by the articles inside, for the first time in months, I actually felt like getting back on a bike. Personally I blame RHS.

I unlocked the bikes, made busy with the track-pump and WD-40 and we hauled off over to Gisburn Forest. Where we were pleasantly surprised by snow.

Despite my aerobic fitness being quite obviously shot at we proceeded to have a whale of a time.

Gisburn Forest

At the end of the ride, as we kicked ice off our feet and climbed into the car, heater on full, I couldn’t help thinking how bikes are officially 100% of Ace. As someone once said.

A month from now I’ll be hanging up my breeches and riding hat - with a celebratory piss-up, naturally - and I’ll be back on the bike.

Thanks to inspiration from this months Singletrack I’m actually looking forward to it.