While out looking for early evening customers of our "discreet adult entertainment" portfolio, we were disappointed to see that Ashton Court was "out of play" this weekend, on account of a 12 hour mountain bike race. These people have to recognise that actually participating in sport is not what the sponsors of major events such as the Euro2012 cup or the london olympics actually want. Every pair of buttocks on a saddle is one less arse in front of a TV, watching advertisers, getting ideas of which new consumer goods to buy.
Consumer purchases are the key to kickstarting the economy, and these people, by cycling for 12 hours a day, are not doing their bit
The EU is taking our money to keep other countries afloat, when we can barely afford to keep our own country above water. Do you think Berlusconi needed to accept "party funding" from other countries? Do you think Putin does? No. These people have enough local sources of revenue.
Yet the EU takes the money away from us, the tax payer, forcing us to pay more for our pasties -and pieminster pies, while our politicians are reduced to begging for handouts.
Sometimes that money comes back. Usually it is in useful forms, such as EU agricultural subsidy, which helps protect the Bristol Traffic country estate without having to let people visit it. Yet today we are shocked to discover that the EU has been funding tourist development.
Tourist Development? So what, people say? More caravan stops would not be amiss, more echelon-style seafront parking at Weston super Mare? No, none of these.
The EU have taken our money, and used it to fund the building of cycle tracks in ashton court, and are calling it a "tourist destination", a mountain bike hub for north somerset.
This is so wrong. Not only is it a waste of money, it will encourage cyclists to visit the area and take all the parking spaces. What is worse, it will encourage the residents of bristol to cycle there direct from their homes, so increasing the cost of congestion by many billions.
We sent an expendable mountain biker to inspect the route.
As you can see, the route is smoothly graded and weaves around the trees. This adds another complaint -it will give the cyclists unrealistic expectations of what a cycle lane can be. The in-town routes have bigger potholes, trees, road-signs, parked vans and bus stations in the middle of them. Yet here: no vehicles, not even a mini-cab right behind the cyclist. Nor are there any pedestrians diving out the way and complaining about unlicensed tax dodgers lacking registration numbers. The worst bit -look how long that route is without a single give way, "cyclists dismount" or other anti-cycle feature. Not even a single bollard or unlit set of chicanes.
Yes, this will raise expectations of what bike routes could be like across the entire city -it must be stopped at once.
Despite the nature of the activity -cycling- we are pleased to show
the route preview of the 2011 Ritchey Oktoberfest Bike Race.
Paul of ZeroG cycles is not actually in fancy dress, he can regularly be seen hanging round Bedminster in Lederhosen and singing bayerische beer drinking songs.
Paul will also be dressed like this for the duration of the event -we presume- and he does usually organise some (free) kids events that small children enjoy.
Be aware that Ambulance Leap has been removed so you will not be able to enjoy OktFest sitting at the picnic benches drinking Dunkel Hefe Weissen Bier and watching the MTB racers crater out in front of you.
This race marks one of the two main events taking place in the city this week, the other being the Bearpit Brunch. We shall be attending the latter, it being hosted in our team's weekend holiday home.
The MTBers are all happy there's a new all-weather trail being built in Ashton Court, with some EU anti-british money going in to encouraging cycling.
We had hoped "all weather" meant "horribly muddy all year round", but apparently it means "with drainage"
At the end of the newly uprated "blue route" by the quarry-in-the-park that is an odd feature of Ashton Court, we can see a boy perfectly executing the new jump at the end at full speed, and getting airborne in the process.
Apparently earlier in the month someone else trying it out managed to get the logistics of which part of the bicycle should land first (wheels down, head up) wrong, and ended up being ambulanced out due to concussion and/or other injuries. We hope they recover.
For now then, we consider this jump formally christened as "ambulance leap", and will warn the adults going out to enjoy it that it doesn't matter how much you spend on a bicycle, kids who spend time on a BMX park can do things you can't. Money is not a substitute for skill, and skill comes by putting in the hours.
The HooF campaigners in the Forest of Dean are organising a national "come out and enjoy the forest" event today, March 20, where they want everyone to come out and do something in their local forest.
We can't discuss what we plan to do in the forest that night, except that our slogan "Fuck in the forest, not with the Forest" will come into play. Instead here are some pictures of the Bristol Trails Group's work. They plan to get out and get muddy.
Here is one of the trails, built by the cyclists themselves, in 50 Acre Wood, FC land.
And here's a bit in Ashton Court.
While we obviously don't condone such daytime activities, the trails can be good for discrete activities in darkness, and for us mobile vendors of sex accessories, the woodlands close to the city are quite profitable. Our new line is the "George Osborne" toy. It hurts, but while it hurts you in a squeaky voice it tells you it's for your own good.
Marlborough Hill is 25% gradient zero visibility at the bottom. When the council was asking for places to put in contraflows for bicycles, this was one where even the tax dodgers consensus was "no, too dangerous" -though as they have ninetree hill as their secret cut-through, they have less need of it than us motorists. Usually.
This rider is brave, and descends at a speed where there would be no opportunity to steer out out the way or stop were something big to come out of a side road.
You can see it in the video -and hear it to; the sound of hign-end knobbly tyres on wet tarmac. tyres which offer less surface area on tarmac that slick tyres, and hence can sustain less braking force in the wet. Mud, they work, but on road, not so useful.
We've covered the rules for aggressive downhill work before: runout, align, commit! This MTBer is aligned, and 100% committed, but the runout looks dubious. All it takes is a vehicle to pull out from the upper of the two road, the one he turned into, and it's game over.
What's also interesting here is the sheer number of people walking up and down this hill. Walking and cycling activists could make the case for downgrading this from a road to a pedestrian/cycle path. We're against that, obviously, because it would eliminate a secret rat-run from Kingsdown to Dighton Street -one used by cars, cyclists and pedestrians alike
