I don’t need the acid factories,
I’ve got the mushrooms in the field…
-The Fall, Two Steps Back, Live from the Witch Trials
My head is dripping into my leather boots
- The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Living End, Psycho Candy
Ol’ man Winter is coming. The leaves are turning then
falling, as is the sky…ever greyer, ever lower, ever meaner-looking. This is a
good thing, generally, if you ask me. The changing of the seasons has been
celebrated for millennia by the olde religions. And who am I to argue with the
Wiccans? Samhain and the beginning of the dark winter months that it foretells
are a particularly potent time of year. The last coat-tails of summer are
languishing making each fine day seemingly all the more precious, psychedelic
fungi (liberty-caps) carpet the moors and the time for harvest is upon us,
stock them cupboards high and batten down the hatches ready for the cold, long
haul of winter. Winter is also the time to go to ground, to get them projects
ticking over as the Yule Solstice, and Candlemass pass on by and the wheel
turns towards the promise of Spring and the re-birth of sorts beyond.
A replacement rear-wheel for the Bantam had been sourced,
and after faffing about with various nuts, bolts, bearings and spacers for
longer that I should have, eventually installed and re-aligned.
A crisp, cold late October morning presented the gift of a
day off from work and sensing the weight of the seasons change bearing down
upon me, I took off for the hills and peaks of Derbyshire, Tupperware pot
safely stashed next to the tools and 2-stroke in the canvas saddlebag. I wanted
to see if the fairies of the fields would be kind to me and if I’d actually got
a serviceable bike once again.
The bike ran like a top, steadily climbing up and out of the
city’s reaches, through the sticks, eventually crossing over into the rural
wilderness of the Peak District beyond. I‘d donned every single item of
clothing I own, including some very fetching long-johns, and still nearly froze
to death as I clipped along; it even tried snowing up on the moors, whilst I
was down on my hands & knees in a boggy field, searching out the spoils of
the season.
After various false starts, quick stops, breakdowns and the
usual trials and tribulations that owning an old bike can bring, it felt great,
liberating even, to have seemingly worked through the mishaps, mainly by trial
and error, and by hook and/or crook, ending up with something approaching a
machine that will take me places without destroying itself entirely in the
process.
Phone calls were made, plans were concocted, pure,
unadulterated jive-talk was chatted, and the very next day I was again dressed
up as some sort of rag-tag Michelin-man, skateboard and sleeping bag strapped
behind the saddle, once more headed northwards through the peaks, though this
time destined to pass right on through, aimed for Sheffield and a weekend’s
get-getting down on the other side.
The day was sunnier and marginally warmer than the grey,
snowy Friday before it, and it felt exactly like it should have felt to be
blasting through the bright heights of rural Derbyshire, past the previous
day’s generous fields full of small, green magick fellas, past the stately
excesses of Chatsworth House, and then up and out of the Peak District, via a
long, slow climb, which eventually spits you out at the top of the moors,
where, upon rounding a long, shallow right-hander, you are greeted by the
impressive sight of the post-industrial bulk of the city of Sheffield, sitting
snuggled in and amongst the tall peaks that firmly keep the steel city nestled
where it should be, amongst the lumps and bumps of the south Yorkshire
landscape.
An equally long and slightly less languid downhill dropped
me down into the relative madness of ring roads and city traffic, slipping in
and out of the way of buses, lorries and terrible drivers in expensive 4x4’s,
and battling some directional amnesia, I eventually pulled up outside my
friend’s house, at the very top of a particularly tall and leafy Sheffield mound.
In no time at all, bikes had been unloaded, tea drunk, shit
talked and soon we were bombing back down the hill, on skateboards this time,
nearly getting mowed down by a pissed off, beeping guy in a Jaguar and whizzing
straight past some cops, sat waiting at a red light that we only just made. We
didn’t hang around.
It’s a rare and joyous thing to explore the nooks and
crannies that cities invariably have, and the weirdness there within, and doing
so on skateboards and with good friends in tow, it is all the more so…we
blasted through car parks, down hills, through the forgotten bits of the city,
stopped off at an art gallery in an industrial estate, before ending up at an
amazing d.i.y. skatepark of sorts, that the good scumbags of Sheffield have
made off of their own backs behind a burnt-out and decaying shell of a factory
down near some railway tracks. If where you’re at, ain’t where it’s at, then
what do you do? Sit around and moan about it, or get busy making something of
your own? Actively changing your environment for the better, not bothering
about such trivialities as legality or funding. The very spirit of d.i.y. is
alive and well, lurking in and amongst the industrial estates and wastelands,
not to mention garages and lock-ups of this faire land.
The sun eventually set and went underground and we followed
suit; stumbling across another scene of desolation and industrial decay,
eventually finding some stairs leading down to a brightened underground cellar,
where some sort of modern-day speak-easy was in full-swing, complete with a bar
selling booze, trashy garage bands rocking out and all sorts of weird and
wonderful folk in weird and wonderful get-ups, I’m not entirely sure how
responsible the advent of All Hallow’s Eve was, as I reckon these sub-terrain
freaks probably look just as far out during the day as they did this particular
night.
All things must pass, and weekends
are no different, in the perceived blink of a blurry, bloodshot eye I was all
too soon back on my way south, retracing my route from the day previous, in a
fine October drizzle which streaked the world with a keen lack of symmetry,
turning to sleet up on the moors. Bad weather is nothing but bad weather, and
did little to dampen the mood a fine few days of gallavanting and righteous
stupidity can inspire, and sinking further down into my coat(s) I clipped
along, thoughts following in momentum, hazily looking forward to having no
tales of breakdowns or mechanical mishaps to regale once I got home.
Slowing for a slippery cattle grid,
the B-road which winds through the grounds of Chatsworth House opened up ahead
in an empty, unbroken stretch of tarmac, leading eventually home. Zen is a
clichéd and overused term, especially in reference to ‘sickles, but something
similar, if not quite that was definitely in the ascendancy.
Nothing will kill a lazy daydream
quicker that the sudden appearance of 4x4 pulling out of a side road straight
in front of you; the abstract being replaced instantly with the cold, hard
tangibility of a massive lump of metal on wheels obscuring nearly all vision.
Knowing that the road ahead was clear in both directions, I pulled out into the
right-hand lane in order to avoid running clean into the back of the
twat-mobile, and would have made it safely past if they hadn’t then decided to
swing right again, almost immediately, into the next side road along from the
one they’d just emerged. They say the moments before a crash tend to run in
slow motion, these didn’t. I had just enough time to register that I was going to
hit them, and swing the bars hard right before I was watching first my
outstretched hands, then face hit the rear side panel of the 4x4. The crunch of
metal and bone against metal was impressive and sickening and as I flew through
the air, I remember my main thought being faint surprise that my eyes were
still open. I bounced a few times, eventually landing face down on the wet
gravel, some distance from the point of impact. I had enough time to wonder if
my legs were still attached to the rest of my body, which was neither deigned
nor confirmed by trying to move my feet, as I couldn’t feel anything other than
the all encompassing electrical numbness that shock induces, before I was
swamped with the faces and hands and shouts of people rushing over me to try
and help.
Several cyclists clad in bright
lycra turned out to be doctors and moved about me swiftly, making sure nothing
was about to fall off without fuss or hysteria, whilst the driver of the 4x4
kept shouting “YOU’RE ALREET, MATE! YOU’RE ALREET!” over their heads at me,
which seemed to be a strange thing to be shouting at the time, given the
circumstances.
The rain began to fall heavier,
flashing blue lights at the edge of my vision marked the first-response unit,
then the police’s arrival, and soon the cyclists were replaced my paramedics in
green overalls, who proceeded to cut nearly every single item of clothing off
of me, checking for internal damage, joking, gravely whilst slicing in that
reassuring, professional way that comes from constantly dealing with
mind-boggling shit and blood and guts.
Head stuffed into a neck-brace and
body strapped down to a rigid stretcher, it’s hard not to think of paralysis,
though once inside the warmth and dry of the ambulance, out of the rain and
convoluted concerns of the milling citizens gathered outside, the feeling
slowly returned to my lower half, the numbness of shock being replaced by the
pain of cuts, bruises, torn muscles and a good case of concussion, and
mercifully, that is all.
The first paramedic continued
cutting at clothing and joking; “’ere, it’s funny that your top says Eyehategod
on it…” he remarked, jovially, as he cut through my denim to reveal the EHG
patch on my hoody beneath. “How so?” I just about managed. “Well my duck, you
was hit reet outside a church!” He was right, it was kinda funny.
Luck, like most other things, is
relative. It sucks that the world is full of shitty drivers in huge machines,
oblivious to anyone and everybody else, because from up there, behind the
safety of their expensive climate-controlled, faux leather interiors, they can
afford to be oblivious. To be knocked off a bike that you love and that you
have invested blood, sweat, and sometimes, very nearly, tears into getting up
and running is a shitter too, but when all is said and done, to end up with all
limbs intact and injuries that should heal up completely in time…fuck man! All
else is small change really.
Plus, there’s that long, low
winter ahead, just right for getting things straightened out and maybe even changed
up a little, ready for next spring…and when all that straightening out gets a
little heavy, and its time to get a little loose, let’s not forgot those
Liberty Caps fresh from the field; just so for a spot of self-medication.
Dave Bevan
