November Round Up and Video
November came and went, a fair amount of riding was done, occasionally wet and sometimes snowy. We ended the month without The Pensioner, who has gone to ride trails in some other world where the sun is always shining, the path always wide and bright, leading to a cafe with a perpetual teapot and no closing time. I hope he's having plenty of his 'little adventures' wherever he is.
Out of all the people who made 2016 their last year on earth, we never imagined, not even for a nanosecond, one of them would be our own Pensioner, who always managed to rise above physical constraints (Stephen Hawking? That lucky bastard) to keep riding, putting everyone else to shame by being out on the moors four or five times a week. Often alone, on his ‘little adventures’ which generally consisted of trying to find a track he’d seen on YouTube, in some remote Yorkshire Dale, using a combination of educated guesses, map reading and blundering through the heather, desperately trying to make it back to civilisation before dusk fell. Not always successfully.
His unique outlook on life and the generally profane verbalisation of whatever thought happened to be in his head at the time ensured no-one forgot him, even after a cursory meeting. In these vapid times he was a character, something the world needs more of, always outspoken but never malicious or unkind, despising any kind of officialdom or authority but in many ways conservative with a small c, living quietly and modestly, having no need of the conspicuous consumerism which blights modern life.
I can still recall the first time I saw him, 1st November 1977, 18 years old, my first ever shift at work, long before he became The Pensioner, when he was just Bob, or a few other names which can not be repeated here. He was driving a forklift truck in a long since demolished warehouse, I thought;
“I don’t like the look of him with the glasses.” But first appearances were deceptive and we soon became firm friends as he showed me the ropes at work and socially, taking me drinking in some of the less salubrious pubs and clubs around the locality. Shifts together were mainly horseplay and practical jokes for hours on end, it’s a mystery how ICI made a profit. One night shift we found a full-sized steamroller parked outside our control room - with the keys still in the ignition - which we took great pleasure in trundling up and down the road like overexcited four year olds. Most shifts were similar and probably best not recounted in public until I’m no longer employed in the chemical industry.
The Terra Trailblazers now have a vacancy for a grizzled old curmudgeon, whose black humour tempers cynicism and whose enthusiasm for mountain biking and the outdoors in general must always be hidden beneath a layer of phlegmatic indifference and continual censuring against; A, the weather, too wet, too windy, too sunny; B, trail conditions, too steep, too muddy, too rocky, too wet, too narrow, too dark, too many trees and C, the cafe service, friendliness of staff in the face of mud-covered old men dripping on their floor, quality of tea, ergonomics of the teapot and readiness to supply litres of top up hot water. A bladder was the size of a beach ball is also an asset. As they say experience preferred but training will be given.
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