29th October
Mark at the Park. This is Mark trying a tyre tap in London. I think he finds them almost as hard as I do which is reassuring. Mark was there at lunchtime yesterday too so we had some fun in a packed cos of half term skatepark. Riding with Mark is pretty fun as he pushes me a bit because he trys things. I like to learn things at my own pace sometimes but then sometimes it is good to have someone who pushes you to go a bit higher or try something a bit bigger.

It seems that trails are back in fashion again. The new dig is full of trails and sprocket grind (which has a good new look) has some trails building pictures. THSHVLLD has a load more digging pictures but that's nothing new for them.

People have been going on for ages about how trails are not fashionable and it's all street everywhere, but maybe things are changing. It's probably all Joe A's fault.

My motherboard has arrived so the moment of truth will be tonight. Either my computer will work again or I will go crazy.

28th October
I like this angle. I am a bit bored of riding the stone circle now though. Next time I am going to try and air out of it or something just to make it a bit more interesting.

I am giving Tim driving lessons again tonight. I am making him pay me. One hour driving lesson for one hour digging. Seems fair to me.

Maybe Sittingbourne at the weekend, and Burham on Saturday afternoon if it's not raining this week. Although having said that, my motherboard is coming today, so I might have to spend all weekend failing to get that to work.

27th October
Wow it's nearly Novemeber already. November is the last month of Autumn. This time last year the trails were still running. Not so this year. I am sitting in an office. Like I do for about 8 hours everyday. It's starting to get a little repetitve.

Lunchtime sessions at the park have been fun. These are some photos that Chris took:

Table with knee in the wrong place. Tyre tap, not pulled, ever. See how empty the park is. Not so this week. Half term means that the park is full and its hard not to knock all the little kids off when they are in your way. Yesterday there were lots of kids on the box so I did a little kickout into their bars. They soon got the idea and moved off the box.

Jamie and Ryan and maybe Mick from Paddock Wood were there yesterday too. Jamie came off pretty badly on the box becasue it was wet and slippery. He opened up his chin quite badly and it clearly needed stiches but he refused to go to the hospital. Then I had to leave so I hope he got it fixed up.

I received this today from Tom at Dig Magazine. He's a nice guy:

Ben,

Had your email forwarded to me here at Dig BMX magazine, if you didn't know already, I'm an orthopaedic surgeon as well as a photographer for Dig and write a column answering peoples medical questions.

Regarding your question, you're pretty much spot on, plates used for internal fixation of bones can act as what are called stress risers (as you described  they "apply higher forces at the edge of the plate") Again as in the case of your brother, it would appear, this can lead to a fracture right
at the end of the plate.

Now the question you obviously want answered is should metal work be removed. Well the answer depends on a couple of things, where the plate is, what type of plate it is and how long its been in for. First off though, metal work can stay in for ever without causing any bother if necessary. If
its some where that the possibility of stress rising  is less likely (i.e. not a long bone), then your concerns are less of a problem. Importantly though the plate needs to have been in long enough for it to have done its job, again where it is depends on how long it needs to stay in.

At the end of the day, most sports people with plates in the long bones would opt to have them removed, once the bone has fully healed. Remember though it would require another operation, which although relatively minor, still caries some risk, And you may not necessarily re-brake the bone by riding normally!

Get your brother to speak to his surgeon, and get his advice, making sure he expresses his wishes with regards returning to biking.

Good luck and hope this helps. If you need any further information feel free to email me back,

Cheers,

Tom

26th October
That's Mark coming out of a  tyre tap. Very bad photo timing. This is Meanwhile Gardens 2 which has to be one of the hardest places in the world to do any stunts at.

Digging is getting done slowly. I am aiming for half a jump a week, which by my calculations means good trails in the summer, but I have been doing this for long enough to know that it never turns out that way. I wonder what will go wrong this time.

Plans for a Headcorn skatepark are slowly starting to move as well but that will still be years I guess. Councils are slow beasts. It will probably be concrete becasue it's hard to burn.

25th October
We went to London on Thursday. When I say we I mean me, Nigel, Tom, Chris and Mark. I managed to wangle a day off work so we made some plans and hoped it didn't rain.

This picture was taken somewhere near Paddington. Nigel's chain snapped which hurt a lot and then after my failed attempts at fixing it with a brick we found a pair of policemen on bikes who lent us a chain tool to fix it. This is illustrated brilliantly in this snap shot which I took. That's Tom on the right playing with some chain. Chris is in the background trying not to look too shady in front of the po lice and then the two coppers listening to Nigel telling them how to fix a chain.

We rode a lot of different spots but they didn't let us into playstation, sorry, baysixy6.

I got some pictures off my camera at Tim's house but they are just a random selection as his computer is painfully slow.

23rd October
Someone buy my cruiser. I don't like rain.

Digging season again.

22nd October
London yesterday was fun. My back and arms ache. I have lots of photos on my camera which I will try and get off tonight using Tims computer, but it will probably take an hour because his pc is like a tractor.

It will be nice to have some riding pictures on this website though.

This weekend, who knows, maybe Burham in the afternoon? Up for that Nigel / anyone?

21st October
Today I have gone to London to ride. I am taking my camera and spare batteries so there should be some riding pictures soon I hope, but my computer still needs fixing.

This is a picture of me fixing my car. I spend quite a lot of time fixing things because things tend to break a lot and I am too tight to pay someone else to do it. Tonight I will be fixing my bike.

I fixed my car good. It was making a squeeling noise all the time, so I practiced some of my mechanical magic and it's all good for another ten thousand miles.

A few weeks ago I randomly met someone I used to go to school with who also works in Maidstone so I have been giving him a lift to work (Peter - sign the book you lazy bum). Then my computer broke, and Peter knows about computers so he is helping me fix it.

Old job:

This is the old ladies who sat behind me and monitered my internet use. It was these people who I had to be careful of incase they saw the porn that someone had put on the prettyshady book. I miss their banter now though.

New job:
I had to go round and put up lots of posters about European Mobility Week, including this one. Then I had to go round and take them down again. Fascinating.

COME TO LONDON

remember this?

Well it's happening again, except without the hotel rooms and the naked Seb I hope.

The plan is to meet up at southbank on Thursday morning then ride southbank for a bit and head over to playstation, sorry baysixty6. From there we can see what happens but if its dry then we will probably ride that wierd brick tranny street park thing and meanwhile 3 and maybe cantelows or brixton who knows where the day will take us. If it's dry then probably just baysixty6 and southbank all day.

So the point is that you should come too. Me and Nigel and Tom from Tenterden. Adam - if you've not ridden that brick thingy yet then come and bring Maddams or other skater people, Seb - take the day off school haha, Martin - I'll ring you if I remember, Bambi should come, Chris and Mark should come - bring some Paddock Wood ghetto kids, Mat should come - get the day off and bring your MTB!, anyone else who is reading this, if I have forgotton you, or if I don't know you, come anyway.

18th October
Squirrels are amazing. I was at the trails a while ago and I saw this squirrel just sitting on a branch watching me, so just sit there for a bit and it runs up the tree and across the branches between the trees. It was running across really tiny branches, and just on the leaves a a few points which was pretty amazing. Then on my way home I saw another one by the side of the road and when it saw me it jumped from the side of the road, and up a tree. It must have jumped about 3 foot forwards and 2 foot upwards at the same time. For a squirrel who must be between 6 and 8 inches long then that's a long way. That's like you or me jumping onto the top of our house from the floor.

Squirrels have been entertaining me a lot recently. I could see one out of the window when I was in a boring meeting recently so I was watching it instead of listening to the meeting which was much more interesting.

I rmember last year when I was moving some earth from an old berm that I came across a stash of acorns which the squirrel had put there. I moved them out the way so that he would have some food in the winter.

16th October
My computer is still dead. The new motherboard seemed to be broken so I am updating from Tim's house. I spent most of today fiddling with it but it's no good. It's one of those strange times of year where it's too wet to ride and too dry to dig so I have been riding street, but it's not much fun. Last year:

14th October
There was an explosion on the sun last night which meant that stuff was flying all over the place, the effect of which was that the northern lights (Aurora Borealis) were very bright. Well me and Tim went out for a walk at 10 last night and there was a faint glow on the horizon which looked less like this ---> and more like maidstone on the horizon but anyway. Look at this to see how cool it can look, and here to find out more.

I have day off next week so I want to ride but Nigel's email is bouncing. Leave a message on the book?

13th October
I am a gimp. I labelled those pictures the wrong way round. The one with the black text was the one I did and the green text one was what it got changed too.

Just testing! <- Shoot me.

Went to the park on Monday with Chris. Was pretty fun but lunchtime is always way too short. Then it started raining pretty soon and hasn't stopped since. It looks like that might be about it for trails this year.

This is about the only time of year that I ride street so that might be happening, but apart from that I think it's time to go to some gigs.

This week I have been designing a leaflet at work. I have been working pretty hard on the layout trying to get a good balance of white space, keeping it looking clean, simple and professional. Then today I give it to the person that I was doing it for. They asked me to send them the file so the could make a few minor changes.

This is what it looked like when I had finished with it:

This is what it looks like now:

stpbefore.bmp <-- LINK HAS BEEN CHANGED AND IS NOW RIGHT

Am I going crazy?

11th October
Last night my computer died, so no updates to anything but news for a while probably. Fortunatly there's a bit of a backlog on the news front so I should be able to eek it out for a while.

There was a bit of riding at the weekend but the camera barely came out. It's hard to take pictures of yourself. The trampoline bike has been ressurected so that is fun again too.

Tim had his plaster off on Friday. The doctors told him no riding for 3-4 months this time, which is more than twice as long as they said last time, so they know what they are talking about then? And they said that won't take the plate out, despite saying that they would before. I am going to do some research.

Lunchtime today I am going to Maidstone Skatepark. This is what it looked like this time last week. MPT. That box is really short, but it's still hard to clear even if you air the quaters over a foot you still need to pedal.

9th/10th October
It's ten to midnight so a kind of overlapping update. If you missed the pictures that were up briefly yesterday then click the link above.

In other news, I have gone back to my old freind the guitar which is fun so I will be entertained all winter. Tim and Rudi have taken to hanging out with the village tramp. Basically they don't have jobs so they bum around the village playing hackysack all day and talking about physics with a drunk tramp. Give it 6 months and they will be on the street with one pair of clothes living in a tent and claiming benefits without an address. Good luck boys.

8th October
I didn't have to pedal once on my way to work today. It's all downhill, so if the traffic lights are right it's a nice lazy roll into the office. There are some strange fans in here today that come on for about 10 seconds really loudly and then go off, and then come on again so loudly that I can barely hear the clicking of the keyboard. It's getting really annoying. This is my office. I work on the first floor but you can't quite see my desk. It's behind where that half moon shaped camera glare is.

the shovel load has some movies up and a nice new update

With all this Wisley stuff going on it makes you think about your responsibilities as a rider. Sounds like a strange thing to be taking about, but if ride it makes you part of a group of people whether you like it or not. This means that the way you act can have a big effect on the way riders are percieved. If you drop litter and are abusive to people then this creates the impression that everyone who rides is like that. Then when the landowner turns up at the trails and sees rubbish everwhere and gets loads of abuse, is it suprising that the decide to plough.

Respect will get you a long way. Respecting someone doesn't mean you like them. That's the attitude you should have to land owners and the council. Be polite. Sending abusive emails is only going to make them want to get their bulldozer out.

Respecting the trails is important to, and it's not just about not leaving your rubbish there. It has taken someone a long time to move that mud and if enough idiots trample all over it then it won't be there anymore so be careful.

More important than any of that though it this: DO NOT SUE. Please don't ever ever sue anyone for anything that happened when you are riding. That is the most stupid thing you can ever do. The effect of this is simply to get park/trails/street spot taken down for good. If I ever meet anyone who has sued someone for something they did on a bike I think I will sue them for ruining it for the rest of them. Either that or put a hammer in their ear. DONT SUE KIDS.

I stole these pictures from the prettyshady media. It's all still there.
I hope Simon doesn't mind.

I work with Roy Orbison.

6th October
The End link on the front page is fixed. Go and download the best song ever nearly.

The park was empty at lunchtime so I rode for an hour non-stop nearly. I think this is the last of the hoilday pictures which I am using up.

5th October
Pretty shady is living up to it's name. I prefer it like this. it reminds me of the old Knowlhill days with Joe's updates done in html.

Becky took some pictures which you have probably already seen. Click to enlarge:

Recent media:
girls take pictures / boys ride bikes
autumn burns
barmouth
skimboard
joeys
september trails

Some steath pictures from the comic shop. I was given some comics that I thought might be worth some money so I took them to the comic shop. I was a lot like the simpsons. This is the counter with comics priced at £20 or £40 and lots of little collectable plastic modals of half famous people.

In this picture on the far right we have the shop keeper. he was quite large, and he was demonstrating his guns to the other people. He said my comics were not worth anything, but I gave them to him because I don't want them so I thought it might give him some pleasure.

4th October
Its Tims birthday. Happy birthday Tim. I went to revolution skatepark on Wednesday night and Sittingbourne last night, but I hardly took any picture because I wantedto ride. The pictures below are from Revolution. 2 foot can, xup, turndown and no footer on a mountain bike. The guy on the mountain bike is called Simon, but he doesn't usually ride a mountain bike. I met him before at Playstation and he was qutie friendly but he does have about twice as many runs as everyone else.

Then above: Revolution is a lot more like a real place than Sittingbourne, by which I mean they have stuff like arcade games and things which I don't really like as the could put ramps in the there. On the right is Nigel on the mini. The good thing about both of the park is that they were pretty quiet which was suprising.

At Sittingbourne I hardly took any pictures as well and they are still on my camera. I bascially spent the whole time diving into the foam pit as it is being dismantled TODAY. The foam cost £500 wow. more than a trampoline.

I met Martin from Sutton Valence at Sittingbourne and his dad was there taking some pictures. He is an amatur photographer and he said he likes some of the pictures on this site. He specifically mentioned one at Burham, so Rebekah will be please with that. It's nice to have someone praise your website rather than slating it all the time.

The rest of the weekend was wet but becky did get some good trails photos anyway, which might be up soonish. Prettyshady seems to have died so go to theshovelload.

2nd October
Tomorrow's update is coming early as I will be busy tomorrow probably.

The shopping came to £52ish by the way so I think mat was close but no crisps.

I rode the park at lunchtime again. It was fun.

The other day I saw 3 people from my old school in the same day. Not that strange you might think, but I hadn't seen anyone before that for about 3 or 4 years.

There has been talk of ghetto indoor parks but finding places is hard.

1st October
Nothing to report

"Every day riding is a day stolen from old man winter".                         -ride(your)bmx.