Cravings

It's properly summer and I'm jonesing for some real riding, for some fun flowing trails under my wheels and some big wide open spaces above me as I ride through the green and the dust with a big grin.

However, I live in North London and so that is never as easy as I hope. Even while my brother makes me jealous with his casual trips to all the Welsh places I want to ride I suffer and fantasise in a concrete-locked environment.

It was time to rediscover the minor pleasure in messing around on a BMX on the streets near where I live. Substituting proper trails for a bit of flow over steps and walls and kerbs. It's not the real thing; it's a half hour hit of over the counter painkillers when I want the hard stuff, but at least it's something, and there's the odd carving turn to give just that hint of the bigger high.

It turns out that a winter or more off the BMX has seriously blunted my edge on the little bike and, as this short clip amply shows there's a bit of work to be back to where I was even a few months ago. At least that's a project for the urban summer evenings, and a mission to find places to get better.

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