Idless Woods Photo Spam.

This winter started off very dry, with only 42% of the average rainfall in December for example, but Mother Nature has worked to address that particular deficit recently, judging by the state of some of the local trails. 

Sunday dawned at about 8.30 in my house, and all outside was bright and sunny, with a fresh breeze thrown in. Still feeling fit for a ride I had in mind a little potter into Idless Woods once again, and this time I made sure I took Fatso after my hairy, near crashing, incident with the Voodoo a few days ago.

Beautiful display of colour on the lane to Idless Woods.

Going off piste in the woods.

These woods are divided by three distinct paths, and loads of minor ones, but the three main ones all go from one end of the wood to the other - one at the top of the hill the woods reside on, one in the middle and one on the bottom of the hill beside the stream. The middle one is used by the Forestry Commission lot and is hard packed and well maintained. The lower path used to be the soggy boggy number, but a couple of years ago, that received some attention, looking like it had been planed and then packed down, and as a result, it's not half as muddy as it once was. That just leaves the top most path, the one I'd be doing a bit of riding on, and that hasn't received any such attentions along the section I'd be using. 

I've ridden this path many times before when it's been a little on the soggy side, on the Voodoo and the old clanger Carrera, and both would come to a wheel spinning half at the worst possible moment, requiring a big dab into the mud to prevent a fall. Both run 26" wheels and are shod with narrowish tyres, compromised towards road riding pressure wise, so traction in such slime goes awol pretty quickly, given my slow riding speeds anyway. With the Fatty, hitting mud at speed will see the tyres float rather than dig in, and it all gets out of shape rather quickly, giving the sensation of riding on castors perhaps, as everything goes light and the steering flaps about. So the best approach which for me at least, works well, is to approach a gloopy section slowly, stay in the seat and just keep pedaling. The back wheel doesn't always follow the front, and it does slip a little too, but in the main, it just keeps driving forwards. 

All of which was just as well, as it was sketchier than Van Gogh's doodle pad along that top path yesterday. I wasn't the only biking type navigating my way through the clag though, as there were a number of narrower mountain bike tracks ahead of me the whole way, so they appeared to have no trouble with the mud, must just be me then, which I suspected is the case anyway. 

 See that puddle on the right? I once thought to myself 'what's the worst that can happen' and rode into that particular pool on the Voodoo. Well it's deeper than it looks, as I quickly found out as the bike came to an abrupt halt and I dabbed into the mire and sank well above my ankle. If I hadn't dismounted quick and pulled myself out backwards I'd have sunk up to my hips I think. Best avoided then that one, even on Fatso.

I am a bit wary of riding this path when its so wet and muddy, as I don't like churning it up too much, but it appeared that several other bikers had been through here ahead of me, as well as the usual walkers and horses and so on. Given the amount of gloop I would hardly be making it any worse, particularly as like the other riders, I stuck to riding through the boggy bits, and not going round them and thus making the scar wider.

Whatever, negotiating the slop was huge fun, it's impossible not to grin like a tuppeny fool when riding through this kind of stuff, with the wheels slipping and sliding about but never threatening disaster. Before getting Fatso I read on a forum somewhere someone's advice on just letting a Fatbike do its own thing - trust it and let it find its own way, and that applies as much to slogging through bogs as it does hurtling down hill. That advice, I've found, rings very true. Of course the downside to all this mud plugging is bike and rider get blathered, but it's all part of the fun.

 Even the plant life is blathered in mud it seems.

 Now here is a puddle I do know well - a bit of a bomb hole but not too deep. Some bikers have gone around the side judging by the tracks, the wimps!

Wey Hey! You can have fun at 3 mph on a bike! Well, I can anyway, but then I'm easily pleased.

Anyway, it wasn't actually the top path that was the target for yesterday's little jaunt, that was just the way to reach it. What I had planned was to ride what is most likely an old Drover's path from the top of the wood, right down to the bottom. I've only ever ridden it from the top down to where it meets the middle track, never beyond. Why? Well it looked a bit more overgrown and rough to ride on, and I always bottled it just never got around to checking it out. The thing with this path is, it has high banks on either side in places, so only two directions are readily available to the intrepid explorer - back the way you'd come, or forwards. No bail out to the side option here. That put me off a little too, given my limited scrabbling about capacity - I'd encountered a couple of other paths in the woods that became suddenly vertiginous and very loosely and rockily surfaced, the sort of terrain that would see a Mountain Goat smirk smugly at you and think 'yeah crack on mate, good luck with that.' Well... Maybe. 

 Mercifully free of mud, and notice how on this upper section, the path bed is clearly defined and free of leaves.

Invisible on Google maps thanks to the trees, but the positioning of this path at the top of the hill, adjacent to a wide and very old footpath that comes from the St Allen direction, suggests this is likely an old Drover's path rather than an old river bed.

I refer to this path as the tube, as it is like riding down a gert big toilet roll at times, and must be huge fun for the fearless biker who can rocket down it, swooping up and down the sides of the earth banks along the way, but it's still fun even at my rather more pedestrian velocities.

 Old boy gingerly descending the tube. It is quite steep in places, but even at this time of year no problem to navigate by bike or on foot.

As it was, the new to me second part of the path was a bit of an anti climax. After the steep entry onto it from the middle track, it all gets pretty tame again, with just a fallen tree to get past by way of obstacles. The ground, on this section covered in leaves, held no large stones or old stumps to trap the unwary into crashing, so I arrived at the bottom safe and sound, and really enjoying my riding.

 Ok, enough looking at it and pondering, time to take a bravery pill and get down the second half of the path. It doesn't look much in a photo, but the entry to this bit is a little steep and the floor covered in leaves and fallen branches, so care is needed if you're a bit chicken like me.

This bit looks much the same as the first half, but is covered in leaves that could be hiding all sorts of hazards, but as it turned out, thankfully wasn't.

 There is a downed tree to get past though, and I doubt anyone could ride past it given those branches waiting to lodge in the front spokes and launch the pilot over the bars.

So it's get off and push time.

That done, I just had a potter about the woods again, poking my nose here and there, before heading home again. 

The lower half of the path doesn't quite reach the very bottom of the hill, as it is blocked by more very large, and very dead, trees. Instead there is a gap in the bank allowing access into an adjoining path. This gap shows the banks to be just earth rather than the often found 'Cornish Hedges' which are ancient earth banks faced with stones. Trees grow out of the top of Cornish Hedges, and other flora out of the sides between the stones, so what at first glance appears to be just a hedge, contains a rather solid surprise, that has severely mauled the front end of many a vehicle that has gone into the hedge on the narrow lanes in Cornwall.

 Bozzing along the lower path which not so long ago was also a quagmire, but is a lot better after some attention a year or two ago.

 Still some sloppiness to be found though, but not half as bad as it was.

Stopping for a p on the roadside on the way home. My apologies to any fellow Flickrneers for posting the same joke on here...

Only a few miles done as the woods are but a shotgun's blast from home, but a jolly good ride was had. Fatso needed blasting off with the pressure washer mind you, as he was a trifle blathered, and given the woods are popular with dog walkers, it's not always just mud you bring home on your tyres, so it pays to give a bike a good scrubbing afterwards, especially if it's a house bike like Fatso.

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A Bimble, a Woodpecker and a Moan.

Once again a whole lot of nothing in particular to report, with as of today (Saturday) just one ride this past week if my rather poor memory serves me right.

Thursday morning was a very fuzzy one first thing, both in my head and apparently, outside too as I peered out of the window wondering where the rest of the village had gone. It was there when I'd gone to bed the previous night, but now all was a thick grey out. Figuring this strange occurrence out was obviously a job for a particularly strong coffee.

Sure enough, the coffee not only cleared my head, but the village re-appeared as well, which was a bit disappointing truth be told, as I'd decided to head out and get some photos in the fog that had blanketed (weather based cliche number three) all around just half an hour previously.

But, having decided to risk going for a ride, (and also taken some precautionary steps to combat my IBS with some industrial strength Immodium just in case) I thought I'd best carry on and gamely set out, once again on the Voodoo, with a vague plan to go round in a loop that would ultimately see me briefly flirting with the big city (Truro). Well that was the plan anyway.

 I love this tree, (the one on the left), it is a rather splendid looking specimen at any time of the year, but getting it into a decent photo is very frustrating thanks to lack of space to fit it all in and so on. It's one of those spots that when seen with the eye looks good for a snap, but in camera looks drab and very mundane.

Another bugbear of mine clearly evident in this photo is dull but bright skies. Best to blow them out exposure wise then and concentrate on what lies below. In this case, a crappy bike and a recently surgeried tree.

The fog might have lifted, but all was still rather eerily quiet out as I left the village and crossed a deserted A39 and into the lane towards Lanner Mill - a lane I use a lot as it also leads to Idless Woods. Now with the hamlet of Idless being on my intended loop, I would normally head through the woods, lopping a big chunk off the mileage going via the lanes requires, and also giving a socking great hill a nifty swerve too. But we've had a lot of rain recently, and the woods would be a soggy, boggy, quagmire. Fun on Fatso, not so great on the Voodoo, at least not on the lower path anyway. So I headed round the lanes towards Idless instead.

 It's best not to go too fast down this hill to Lanner Mill else you'll miss the corner at the bottom and go headlong into the river...

I do like the textures, starkness and general muckiness of the lanes in winter, it's how they really are for half the year after all, not just the soft focus havens of sunny and leafy summer tranquility that a Google Images search of English Country Lanes might produce.

Grrr... another fuzzfest of an upload. Right click and open in a new tab should reveal all.

The ugly little bridge over the River Allen on the edge of Idless Woods.

I'm glad I did too as just past the farm at Lanner Barton I heard the deep 'Bdddddddd' of a Woodpecker, the first I've heard this year. Either that or the farmer was using an Uzi on some 'they wuzz worryin' moi sheep they wozz' rambler/mountain biker cull. I stopped and after listening for a minute or so, identified which tree Woody was pecking and started to fish out the camera, despite any chance of getting a shot of the bird being slim, what with the bright grey sky behind and my limited photographic skills. Just as I was fishing out the camera, I saw the silhouette of a small bird leave the tree and head off over the farm, and the noise wasn't heard again. Woody, obviously a bit camera shy, had left the tree, and photographic embarrassment was avoided.

Arriving in Idless I found signs giving dire warnings of the lane I intended on taking being closed, but I was on a bicycle, there's usually room for a slim one to sneak by, if indeed any work was going on in the first place. So unperturbed, I climbed the long but gentle hill up out of Idless heading for the village of Shortlanesend. Well that was the plan...

 Hmmmm... whichever the animal was that did this in an escape attempt shouldn't be hard to spot, it'll be the one looking sheepish... 

Pfft! And Pfft again! I laugh in the face of your warnings mister Fred Champion...I am a hardy mountain biker and no such drainage based trivia shall interrupt my chosen course...

Sure enough, after blithely passing another set of signs ('Road closed!' 'Last chance to go back!' 'For a good time, see Ten Quid Tina by the phone box, Tuesdays afternoons'.) I reached the roadworks and ah... yes well, the road was indeed very closed. Not a chance of slipping past, but as luck would have it, the road was closed just beyond a turning to the right, which would take me back down to Idless again, but at least would mean not having to go back the same way I'd come. So trying to look as if I had intended on taking that turning all along (my approach had caught the attention of two hard hatted chaps who looked to be readying themselves for a barely disguised chortle as they told the dimwit cyclist he couldn't get past) I set off back towards Idless once more. Mission denied.

This lane though is a proper beauty. It drops down hill with a wood to the left and fields to the right and I don't think I've ever met a car along it in all the times I've ridden it. A chap could let off a thermonuclear device down this lane and no one would be around to hear anything. 

 Many of the lanes bore very recent signs of a different sort of digging going on, as the banks and hedges were riddled with freshly dug holes.

I don't know what flavour of hairy arsed critter lives in this hole, but I don't expect it wants this shoved in his front door. I see this a lot in the lanes, old bottles and cans shoved in critter holes, and it pees me right off. Fishing it out was a bit of a faff involving a stick and much cursing, and I don't suppose the animal was overly concerned anyway given how much room is evident in there, but still.

Meanwhile, on the other, wooded, side of the road, some rather strident colour was dotted around in the form of a number of Lesser Periwinkles. A welcome splash of colour not immediately visible from the road, I only found them due to having a good old nose around.

This is where the otherwise excellent Canon G1 X Mk 1 lets itself down. The macro really is proper pants. It's the bigger sensor than is normally found on a compact that is the culprit apparently, but getting close ups of items such as this is an exercise in frustration and muttered profanities. The minimum focusing distance is measured in furlongs I think, rather than the millimetres of the macro setting on other cameras.

Now back in Idless I decided against going towards Truro along the lane I had intended coming back along, so opted instead to return home, this time via the woods, and the middle path, that is used by forestry vehicles and apart from the last half mile or so, is mostly hard packed and mud free. It's a low gear leg burner of a slog though as the path climbs steadily, but at least bike and body would remain fairly mud free.

Just off the better surfaced part of the main track in Idless Woods, and about to drop down a very muddy and rutted, stony, rocky, descent where dignity was nearly lost...

It was dropping back down the other side of the hill, and on the less well surfaced track, that my anti gravity powers nearly suffered a fail and I nearly came a cropper. I can ride carefully, but confidently, down this hill on Fatso quite easily, as it's not just going up hill that fat bikes have good traction. Going down on the brakes also sees them exhibit good levels of control and decorum. 
So I rounded the bend at the top of the hill and started the descent without giving it much thought, but soon remembered I was on the Voodoo when things got a little untidy as higher pressured and skinnier tyres met stones sticking up with muddy bits in between. A dab of back brake to bring matters back under control was met with a rear wheel lock up and forward motion unrestrained. Letting the brake off saw me speed up to rather unwise velocities as bike and I had differing opinions on the correct course to take. I knew that on that particular slippery slope the front brake would require very careful application to avoid some unplanned Break Dancing, but the situation was escalating rapidly (condition red - bale out and face planting the scenery imminent) and I had to arrest downward motion somehow. So I gingerly squeezed the front brake, and grabbed a heftier handful of back brake which again resulted in a rear wheel lock up. Swerving round a gert rock that would've spelled certain disaster should I have hit it, I ended up pointing towards the bank on the left of the track and a spectacular gymnastic trip over the bars now beckoned. Quite how I don't know, but somehow I managed to turn the bars to the right just in the nick of time, and with an almighty dab of my left boot onto the bank, heaved the bucking, slithering Voodoo to a back tweaking, bum trumpeting, halt. 

I sat there for a moment, breathing heavily and letting my back calm down while pondering how the Immodium had done a good job of preventing the flow of adrenaline that under other circumstances would surely have resulted in trouser traumas of the laundry related kind. 

All this of course would've been immensely funny to any of the normal mountain bikers who inhabit these woods on occasions, and who can be encountered spearing through the trees at maximum attack and hurtling gleefully down slopes such as the one I'd just chaotically and near terminally, descended. But I'm old and with a dicky spine, so have to try and maintain control, and dignity, at all times, so this was a bit of an unwelcome episode, and I can only blame Fatso for spoiling me in the past with its easy riding manner leading me into trouble when mounted on the lesser machinery in my stable.

Thankfully all was well back wise again within a few minutes - just a quick tweak, and I continued on my way home, a little frustrated at the morning not having gone as planned, but otherwise a not bad escape from the stress of waiting for a Government department to 'urgently' make a decision. I hope their building never catches fire as they'll never get out alive - their definition of  'urgent' is clearly very different to everyone else's. Meanwhile stress and anxiety levels go through the roof every day as the postman approaches, but there we go, moaning at them makes no difference at all, so neither will moaning on here! 

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Sunday Catch Up.

It's a good drying day today (crikey... I sound like my dear old Nan) and as I'm now single and therefore not in possession of one of those magic baskets that you dump your smellies in, only for them to reappear in the airing cupboard fresh and clean a few days later, I have to do all my washing myself. So while the washing machine is doing its thing, I might as well lob a few photos up from this past week's rather windblown ganderflanking jaunts.

To be honest, there isn't a lot to report, but that never stopped our local paper, so here goes.

Tuesday saw me donning the over trousers and heading out on the Voodoo again for a trip around the usual loops. These regular rides on oh so familiar roads still serve several purposes - keeping up with exercise and therefore helping shed the Christmas waistline I seem to have acquired, (having IBS makes me look and feel like I've swallowed a Spacehopper at the best of times, I don't want to put on weight and add to the bloated look) helping to sort my head out, getting fresh air (lots of that hurtling about lately) and also exercising the old creative side and taking some photos. Well that last bit is the hardest round these lanes as they've been photographed more times than a Government Minister recently caught rogering a farm animal. 

If in doubt, get the GoPro out is my motto at such times of photographic inspirational failure, so being unable to think of fresh photographic ideas ahead of setting off, I bunged the GoPro on the Voodoo's crossbar and headed off down Tregassow Lane once more, hopeful that if all else fails, I at least would have something to show the photo a ride Flickr group I'm on.

As it was, I was soon fetching the compact out of my bum bag but the photos were pretty ordinary. The usual stuff from me then.

 Celandine adding to the increasing amount of colour appearing out and about now - Spring is definitely under way!

 Primroses too. You have to feel sorry for these early flowers, popping up after the long winter, only to get flattened by the wind like lots of the Daffs round here, or splattered by road snot like here. If I were a flower right now, I'd stick my head up and look about a bit before deciding to hit the snooze button and giving it another couple of weeks.

I feel a strongly worded email coming on...

What did annoy me though was finding a couple of dozen or so Next catalogues dumped on the verge, most still in their plastic wrapping. I can only imagine someone was tasked with dumping them in the proper manner, but instead, that someone decided to save time, effort and possibly money, and just chuck them out in a lane somewhere. I'm still considering informing Next of this act so they can send someone out to come and pick them up again. I think I may go back and see if they're still there - if they are I can see me coming over all Victor Meldrew and firing off a moaning email along with photographic evidence. Yup, I've become one of those interfering old busy bodies that I so despised when I was considerably younger. It's my age though, not long now and I'll be smelling of mothballs and wee, having strip washes in the kitchen instead of the perfectly good bathroom (why did Granddads do that?) and taking delivery of my tartan shopping trolley.

Woo look at those... It's got be the red though, don't you think? I like the bar at the front for parking it in the middle of the aisle on the bus... you could bruise a good number of ankles with that bar as well...

Well that was Tuesday. Thursday was set to offer a dry and sunny day, still with a lively wind though, but a perfect day to go a bimbling. 

Deciding which bike to take is sometimes an issue for me, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. But seeing as the ride I had in mind would be all on tarmac, I thought I'd give the Jamis a chance to redeem itself after the aggro it caused me last time out.

I'd given it a thorough clean after that ill fated ride, and inspected the chain and sprockets for damage caused by the chain jamming down in the frame, and my half arsed and increasingly desperate attempts to fish it out again. All was tickety boo as far as I could see, and a thorough test of the gears in the maintenance stand shed no light on why the chain had come off in the first place - just one of those things I suppose. 
Riding it again would give my confidence a boost too, as long as the flipping chain stayed where it should that is - I knew I'd be clenching my buttocks every time I shifted onto the front granny ring in case it hurled itself off again. So having given the Jamis a stern pre-ride talking to, reminding it of its contractual obligations and the general level of behaviour I expect of my bikes (don't p**s me off!), I set off into the sunshine daringly devoid of the waterproof trousers that have become an un-needed feature of my rides lately. I don't take risks as a rule, buying green Bananas, given my advancing years, is about as big a gamble as I like to take, so to head out without even putting over trousers in the Jamis's almost capacious panniers is really strangely courageous of me, and also an alarmingly optimistic show of faith in the 'dry' forecast too.

 I do love the trees at this time of year, shorn of their leafage (is that a word? Who cares anyway...) you can see them in all their gnarly, knobbly, grizzled glory. It's quite fascinating sometimes just to study all the branches and how they have grown, shaped by the sun, wind, and each other over the years.

The Jamis on a bridge over a stream on the road to Ladock. I've looked, but can't find any name mentioned for the stream, or indeed the location where this photo was taken, despite there being a few houses nearby. What address do they give out I wonder?

 Well here we go again, another blurry upload by the look of it... Grrr.... Those are Ladock Woods on the horizon, with the road ahead following the line of different trees along the forward edge.

I don't know anything about tractors, but by crikey these John Deeres sound properly pukka. Straight six engines apparently, and they growl along very nicely.

Thankfully, both the Jamis, and the weather, behaved themselves, and an enjoyable ride around one of my extended loops was had. In fact, to top it off, my run of good luck with the weather continued, as once again I stepped out of the post ride shower to the sound of (presumably dry) rain battering the bathroom window. What a jammy git I am these days!

 Bozzing along and enjoying the ride. Those are miles an hour on the speedo by the way, none of those funny money kilowotsname things here.

Random shot passing through a sunny farm yard at Trendeal.

By crikey... Google photos - uploading and generally organising them is a proper kerfuffle... Who the hell came up with all this and thought it a good way of doing things? It's a right dog's breakfast and no mistake. What a lash up.
Hoi! Google peeps! Less time playing on the swings in the 'on trend, hip and cool' office romper rooms and a bit more effort shown in the way your tools work please! 

There, that told 'em.

Right, where am I up to now? Oh right, Saturday, yesterday. Yup, a good week for riding this one was, as I plotted a third bimble, despite a less than cosseting weather forecast.

No risk taking this time, I seriously doubted I could complete even a short ride without getting utterly wet, given what was happening outside Back Road Bimbles HQ as I was supping my coffee. In between the lashing showers though were sunny intervals, so it wasn't a bad day out truth be told.

Right, a big pile of photos coming up...

 Did I just say it wasn't a bad day outside? Strewth, look at that belligerent looking sky...

Yup, it's wet out, but just cast off, set sail and it'll be alright...

 The Gopro of course comes in handy as an ordinary camera to use when it's raining and the bigger toys aren't allowed out.

 A lull in the rain did allow the compact to get in on the act though. 

Much snottiness in Tregassow Lane, and another fuzzy photo upload.

Someone has used something to scrape away the banks either side of the lane here. No idea why mind, but maybe instead it was a wide vehicle caught in a sat nav fail... A car transporter complete with a load of Audis once tried to get along this lane after all...

Back on the Voodoo again and back to wearing over trollies. I'm going to need a new pair of waterproof strides though, as mounting up I caught the low hanging crotch on the nose of the saddle and ripped a hole in my leggings right where I really don't want a hole, the bit between my bum and Big Jim and the Twins, whatever that is called. Most uncomfortable getting wet there. Would I suffer a wet whatever though? Would my run of luck continue even though the odds were clearly stacked against it? No was the answer to the latter, and yes to the former, although it was close - another ten minutes and I'd have been home again complete with a dry whatever. But no, it wasn't to be, and I it rained on me, if only briefly, about a mile from sanctuary. Rather than battle the elements though, I stopped and poked about the small wood I was conveniently passing when the deluge hit. Well I say poked about, I didn't venture more than a couple of feet inside where the boundary wall collapsed at some point in the past. This wood is privately owned and I'm not up for trespassing as a rule. Well, not that close to home anyway...

My luck ran out good and proper here. I'd had light rain - spits and spots, most of the way round but when nearly home and just passing through this wooded section it slapped it down. Ditch to the left of the hedge, pop up pond in the woods to the right. 

Strewth... flipping Google Photos... now where has my latest upload gone? Closing the whole programme then reloading it seems to be the only way of finding the latest photo uploaded sometimes. I must be doing something wrong, it can't be that bad, can it, really?

Ah now my washing machine is finished, and without burning the house down. Always a bonus that, and always a possibility given the frequency of laundry machinery related fires these days - washing machines/washer dryers/tumble dryers, they're all bursting into flames with great venom lately. I never knew doing the laundry was so dangerous...

So three enjoyable, but also rather unexciting, rides then. It was still great being out and about in the countryside and all that comes with it though.

Nothing else to write about comes to mind, other than the great Disc Brake debate in racing has reared its head again after another rider has claimed he's been injured by a disc. The wuss. That's at least the second one in a year, just what the hell are these geezers doing to keep getting injured by their brakes? I don't know of anyone, in 'real life' or online, who has said they have received an injury from a disc brake, not even a burn, although I could see that could happen, but then again, so what if it did? These blokes go hooning about in their vest and shorts, riding lightweight bikes balanced on tyres as wide as the cock on a chocolate mouse, and equipped with whizzing, whirring, spokes, chains and sprockets to trap fingers in, as well as blunt handlebar ends and seats to knock teeth out on, and nice abrasive tarmac to slide along removing vast acres of skin in the process. It beats me what they're moaning about it really does. Stay home and play Dominoes or something if you're that worried. Bunch of big gurl's blouses these pros...

Mind you, they're not the only ones needing to think before opening their mouths. I see that Giant bikes in Australia have had to issue a recall on all mountain bikes with bars more than 700mm wide, and I expect other makers will have to do likewise, as they are technically illegal, being deemed to be a bit dangerous. Single chain ring drive trains are also deemed unacceptable as there is no element of chain guard style protection from a front derailleur. Aussie blokes are born wearing shorts aren't they? What the hell is that all about?
You live in a country with gert big hairy arsed spiders that could kill a horse living under your dunny seat, Crocodiles in your ponds, flipping great Sharks waiting to grab you as soon as you go paddling in the sea, as well as Possums pissing on your head and five foot high bouncing mice that want to pick fights with you, but the handlebars are 20 mm too wide on your bike... "Are you bloody stupid mate? Don't you know how dangerous those bloody bars are you bloody Drongo?" 

Bonkers. The world is going bonkers.

Right, I'm waffling, time to go and... Where the bloody hell has my last photo upload gone now... Last week half of the Blogger back end went awol... Google are really ripping my knitting at the moment... Another stiffly worded email on the horizon I think...

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