The Westbrook Pages

Cigarettes might kill you, but they’d struggle to break your shoulder. For that you need a whole new habit.

Try downhill mountain biking.

I didn’t realise I was an addict, then I looked back and saw that all the signs were there:

- It costs me too much
- I hang around with other addicts
- To me they seem normal
- I don’t see what’s funny about a subscription to “Dirt!” magazine
- I disregard the side effects of my addiction as trivial
- Even when these side effects put me in hospital

It’s definitely an addiction.

The problem is, when I started it was like gentle home-grown grass. Things have changed. Now, it’s like genetically altered skunk.

When I was 14, mountain bikes, if ridden into roadside curbs, would crumple like wet cardboard. They were normal bikes, but with fat tyres. They were good fun but unlikely to get you into too much trouble.

Mountain biking for its early life was normal cycling but with added mud. Not so much mountain biking, more covered-in-crap biking. I had to wait until my 30s before the “mountain” bit was properly justified. It was worth the wait. It’s brilliant.

The bikes are amazing; they’re like motor cross bikes without engines. The trails are fantastic, and gone are the lycra, the clippie pedals and the bright poncy helmets. It’s a whole new era of speed, helidrops, shocks, disc brakes, body armour and a complete disregard for saving weight. This means you get to ride them a bit like you ride snowboards: fast, off cliffs and generally with the assistance of chairlifts. They are also more than equipped to get you into lot and lots of trouble.

Doing this aged 14 would be fine: Break a few bones. Mend quickly. Get back out on the bike. Be fairly accomplished, even a little wise, by the time you hit your 30s.

If you try to cram all that experience into half a decade though, you soon learn that what now crumples like wet cardboard… is you.

There’s a lump of bone in the photograph that’s floating on its own. This is bad. It should be attached to the jaggedy stumpy bit of bone that it’s floating beneath. Together they make a shoulder blade. Turns out that attempting to plough a French Alp with your right shoulder after an unplanned, high-speed dismount is stupid and painful.

I executed this ground-assisted stop on a Saturday – a day when the local Les Gets GP surgery was closed. So in an ambulance I was shipped to the nearest town. The facilities were fantastic, but the doctor was only interested in making sure I’d not damaged the joint. He took a bunch of x-rays (of the joint), told me I’d not broken anything – gave me pain killers and said that I’d need to come back if, once the swelling had gone down, I couldn’t move my arm above my head.

Turns out, that with rest, care and pain killers that I could not only lift my arm over my head, I could just about ride the bike. It was July, the sun was out, the lifts were running and there was a mountain to play with….

Clever addict.

Naturally I picked up the odd knock here and there, but knowing that the bones and ligaments were largely OK – I felt reasonably comfortable. An interesting conclusion given how much I don’t know about shoulders, bones and ligaments.

Then reality caught up. Pain. A kind of can’t-sleep-can’t move-can’t-keep-still, feels-like-I’m-constantly-being-stabbed-with-a-pointy-rusty-shard pain.

Tim and Andy carefully hauled me to see the local GP. How I wished I’d had the foresight to injure myself on a week day in the first place! You know that you’re in a mountain resort when the local GP surgery has four beautifully-equipped x-ray suites. The feeling of being surrounded by experts was certainly comforting.

It was less comforting to hear the barely disguised glee in my doctor’s voice as he rushed in with the x-ray films explaining, “Big, big, break, Monsieur. Snap! Very rare.”

He then proceeded to talk me through the above picture, and explain the surgery that would be necessary upon my return to England. He really was quite excited.

So no more riding. Just morphine, beer, world cup football and then the puzzle of how I was going to drive myself home to London at the end of the week.

I have now had it plated together. I’ve a fine scar, a good record of attendance at physio, and the staff at my gym came to recognise me again. I was lucky, it all mended perfectly. I was even able to take the week’s downhill riding in Whistler we already had booked for the October – was a cautious week but shoulder held out.

I’m off to Les Gets again in June, and Whistler again in August. And I’m considering a bigger, fatter downhill bike. I even have friends that I no longer recognise unless they’re wearing a full-face helmet.

Like I said, genetically altered skunk.

Calling all lovers of middle-brow, blinkered news distortion - go to this site immeditately. If you've been away from bigotry for longer than is comfortable, you no longer have to find a news stand and a copy of the Daily Mail. Just log on and have Daily Mail headlines generated for you at the click of a button...

WILL GREENPEACE ROB THE MIDDLE CLASS BLIND?

COULD GYPSIES IMPREGNATE THE ELDERLY?

WILL THE UNEMPLOYED RIP OFF HOMEOWNERS?

What relief this will provide those who have not had their daily fix of smug self delusion.

With thanks to Chris Applegate for devising this illuminating toy, and to Dave for bringing it to my attention.

If I've not previously mentioned this, I'm not a fan of the Daily Mail. Essentially, it's read by an undemanding audience that rather wished the world was the way they'd like it to be as opposed to the way it actually is. A charming bunch of people, all revelling in their mediocrity. You can spot them....

They don't like diversity.
They like segregation.
They're keen on liberty.
But not if it upsets their routine.
They do like opportunity.
But only the kind you pay for.
They largely believe that Maggie was the best thing that happened to the UK in the last 30 years, and they will almost certainly oppose the law to prohibit marriage among first cousins.

They will, I suspect, struggle to count their own toes accurately when to them the biological consequences of such unions are explained.

You get the picture.

So, I generally take the line that if the DM supports it, it must be quite awful. Try it, you'll find it works.

Currently, Dacre Mindlessness is championing the Tory-led opposition of licensing law relaxation. Ergo... licensing law relaxation must be a good thing.

It actually doesn't take a great deal of thought to arrive at this conclusion without the DM, but I was sufficiently concerned by the errant ponderings of a colleague today, I feel the need to lay this out.

Q) Have we any example from history of licensing restriction having an effect upon society, particularly with regard to alcohol consumption, health and crime?

A) Yes. 1930s Chicago. Al Capone. Speakeasy. Massacre. Civil disobedience. Smuggling. Moonshining. Death. Murder. Theft. Damage. Lovely. Although the cast of the untouchables looked great in their Armani suits.

Q) Does the majority of the clientele of out country's bars and pubs routinely get so drunk that they puke, fight, collapse and fuck on the streets?

A) No, amazingly we're rather free of such anarchy. The vast majority enjoy a drink. Occasionally they enjoy too many, but the vast majority get up in the morning. They go to work. They don't fight. They don't puke. They don't go home via the hospital. They don't queue at Boots the following morning for a dunce pill, and half of them only occasional pee where they shouldn't.

Q) Is a law that penalises the vast majority because of the prejudices of the Daily Mail reader a fair law?

A) No



Drunken behaviour is a blight inflicted upon us by a minority (I wonder how many are the progeny of DM readers). Their problems are not associated with the distribution, price or supply of alcohol. If I could buy six cans of Special Brew when I was 16 from the local off licence, then I'm sure the average belligerent 20-something idiot desiring a skin full will satiate his or her desire with ease, regardless of whether or not the bar is open to sense, or at hours that even prudish the US 'Jesus Land' of A would consider prehistoric.

That the roaring Tory drunks of Westminster are taking with the morons is only a sickening indication of how desperate they are for a dying, blue-rinsed electorate.

Cheers.

This rant was brought to you by a desire for a single pint of Timothy Taylor's in the King's Head at 2255 on a Tuesday.