Eruptive disruptive

How come nobody had thought of it? Of all the things that can come between a man and his debut into the world of dual suspension, a volcano on an island near the arctic circle. No terrorists, no customs, no airport official who doesnt like the shape of the package, none of that, a flipping volcano.

So my brand-new-second-hand bright yellow litespeed frame is sat in Glasgow, ice cold in my in-laws garage waiting to come to its new life as a tropical XC machine. Waiting for the dust to settle, quite literally.

I know the subject has been revisited ad nauseam but you have to marvel at how confused everybody got over the volcanic ash, how the skies were blue over the UK but it was far too dangerous to fly. How upsetting it is when there is no-one to blame, to get angry at. How, it turns out, there is no master plan to cope with this kind of thing and what seems to be emerging is an image of all the powers that be (in the aviation world) running around in a panic, ignoring each other and closing airspace.

Its a sign of the times that nobody was willing to go out there and see what the danger really was, like it was a monster in the cellar. It took the airlines themselves to take the initiative.

The crux will always be that had they let planes fly and just one of the thousands that were grounded had crashed the whole world would have blamed the aviation authorities for not closing the skies.

In this particular case I do think that it was a case of there being a risk at all rather than there being an assessment of the level of risk.

So now, customs, airport officials and terrorist threats notwithstanding I shall be meeting my new frame on wednesday. Am I nervous? well of course I am, for one its yellow and I have to get over that, for two its not new and has a few minor dents, what if its so horrifically disfigured as to look old and worn out? For three I have only ridden two full-sussers in my time, one was a top-of-the-range Jamis and the other a brand new Santa Cruz Blur carbon. The litespeed is not in thier league and I dont want to find myself disappointed.

I am at that wierd stage you get to when you are so close to something happening that time seems to stand still, I want to go and pace around the arrivals hall at the airport.

Of course the wife and kids have been away for nearly five weeks so it'll be nice to see them too.......