embracing my inner bearded self….

… otherwise known as sticking a Carradice Barley saddlebag on my bike… I may as well own up to it now <oh the shame..> as sooner or later I’ll be spotted in public all lycra’d up with this thing hanging off the back of my seat :-) Same comment goes for that Giant Bowery I mentioned a few weeks ago… in terms of being a diehard bike-snob and erstwhile weight weenie I’ve either made immense progress or suffered the cycling equivalent of  breakdown.. depends on your outlook :-) As for what I think… errrm, well when it’s wet and dark and windy I’m highly unlikely to be spotted anyway and it is immensely practical as a winter commuting hack…. ;-)

The bag is ace really – it’s 100% waterproof – the water just beads off the canvas, big enough to carry a change of clothes for the office and it’s nice not having to wear a backpack – especially with a rainjacket but I think the biggest benefit is judging by what I see on fleabay folk are willing to spend a wedge on battered old Caradice bags.. so I figure I can use it for a few years and then get all my money back and then some. I think it’s mainly Americans who buy ‘em…can’t get enough of that olde worlde english cycling gentry look… or something. The only other thing to note about the bag is that I made up a support for it to keep it clear of the backs of my thighs when pedalling.. an old seatpost mounted like bracket and a length of alloy strip. I forgot to photograph that – will do it today and update this post.

Still not wearing tweed plus fours though, not even in the dark…

As for the bike, well I paid £380 so I can’t complain… in reality it’s pretty good for what really is minimum wedge in the world of usable bikes – the wheels in particular are worth a significant chunk of the total – stainless spokes, gold ano rims with machined side walls and decent large flange hubs with sealed bearings. The stock gearing of 48×17 is a little high for the steeper of Cornwall’s hills and the 170mm cranks aren’t the stiffest – but are stiff enough. They run on a square taper sealed BB unit  - floating so you can adjust the chainline. The only bad bit about the otherwise 1/8″drivetrain is the rather weedy looking fixed sprocket – it’s a cheap pressed steel thing – I left it on figuring I’d replace it with a solid 1/8″ one when it wears out.. which will probably be sometime middle of next week :-) What else… ah, the frame.. yeah it’s fine, stiff, haven’t noticed an excessive harshness from the alloy fork but then I’m running the gatorskins at only 95psi right now – I’m only using it for my commute which is up to 50miles/day so frame comfort – or lack of has not been an issue. I know I’m committing  major style failure (!) by having natural cork coloured bar tape with the stock black saddle… but it was all I had spare when I threw away the silly bars it came with and fitted an old set of Deda Newtons I had kicking around. It was all about not spending any extra money you see…. but come to think of it a brown Brooks saddle might look nice… and would add roughly 30% to the value of the bike, hehe. If I have a criticism it’s just that a little bit of extra thought in the frame that may have cost nothing would have made it so much better… the fork has mudguard eyes but no clearance under the crown – even when the stock 25C tyres are swapped out for skinnier 23C rubber… I had to take a half-round file to the underside of the very chunky crown in order to be able to squeeze the guards through. Clearance at the rear is equally tight – no chance if you wanted to run a rear brake, and no mudguard eyes… strangely at odds with the eyes on the fork. I don’t understand it, especially given that there are some nice detail touches in the frame like the rubber o-ring in the seatclamp to stop water running down inside the frame and the polished highlights in the finish… Anyway, back to the guards.. the rear is held on with a zip tie on the chainstay and brake bridges, and the stays I secured to the chaintugs as in the pic below… the advantage of doing that is that the stays release with the wheel which is useful with rearward facing track ends should you need to get the wheel out. I did consider drilling the track ends and running a tap through but got lazy and in the end, although a bit untidy, it works well… I suspect however I will feel compelled to tidy it up in future… and sort out the clashing bar tape/saddle combo ;-)

So that’s it really – I wanted something for the wet and muddy winter commute that I could hang my lights off permanently and could leave filthy in the garage with a clear conscience.. it certainly ticked that box… but looking at that bag again… oh dear, I really don’t want to grow a beard….

Paraguay….

Yesterday I was looking at a map of South America with a friend and we noticed that Paraguay has a department called Presidente Hayes… we thought that was pretty cool however my hopes that the Presidente in question was a particularly dastardly character were dashed when a little bit (a very little bit) of research revealed that the area was named after namesake US president Rutherford B Hayes who mediated in a border dispute between Paraguay and Argentina… presumably it worked out in Paraguay’s favour as I imagine you’d have to be pretty grateful to name a large chunk of countryside after some foreign guy… and it’s only fair I think seeing as how Paraguay is tiny compared to it’s enormous Argentine neighbour. I have no idea if my US president namesake shares any of my family tree in the dim and distant past, I’ll have to ask my brother about that one… (‘we’ did make it to Mafeking tho :-)

Anyway, back to Paraguay – I think it definitely warrants a visit in the near future now, especially as the capital of the department is called Villa Hayes… I may even change my middle name to Rutherford and see if it gets me any special privileges on arrival… Mike Rutherford Hayes, has a nice ring… It’s a pretty flat country  - very much fixed gear cyclocross bike territory for touring I think :-)  Also attractive in that it’s a particularly fascinating country in terms of history… bloodthirsty dictators, odd wars and so on. A good read for some insight into Paraguay is At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig by John Gimlette… I read it a couple of years ago and I can’t for the life of me remember what the inflatable pig was about… I’ll have to read it again. I did pick up an inflatable cow for this years Christmas party but typically for this blog that has no relevance whatsoever :-)

 

Suppressed creativity and new bearings all round…

you may have noticed I’ve not been writing much recently… something of a cerebral overload has been going on here as I worked towards a major design review, which was successfully pulled off last week… major creativity suppressant though. Anyway, it’s over now so hopefully after a few good nights kip… apparently kip = chicken in Dutch.. or so I am reliably informed.. so after a few good nights chicken I’m hoping I’ll be back to my usual self… whether that is good or bad is for you lot to judge. I also fractured the middle finger on my right hand last week in an embarrassing office doorway incident, so no kayaking this weekend… and my braking action on that hand is weak… lucky then that I have my fixed gear to ride… though luck as little to do with it as these days it seems just about all I ride.

Planning for my South American trip is complete in that I know where I’m starting, also where I plan to finish and that I need to head in a generally northerly direction. As for the all that space in between.. well, I’ll make that up as I go. Best estimates indicate around 5000-6000km of cycling given I want to explore northern Argentina while I’m at it. I also plan to use the trip to raise a bit of cash for Shelterbox – more on that soon.

This weekend my Nomad had it’s most thorough overhaul since I built it nearly 7 years ago.It’s seen a lot of adventure in those years and is a really well sorted bike.. All I’ve done is replace all the bearings (headset bearings, bottom bracket and hub bearings), new tyres, couple of new chainrings, new chain and cassette and new cables all round. The FSA Orbit XLII headset is handy in that you can easily get hold of replacement bearing cartridges. The XT hubs have cup and cone bearings… new cones and balls cost bugger all and are worth it I reckon as ‘insurance’. The wheels themselves still appear sold as a rock, the ceramic 618 rims were worth the money – they show no real sign of wear at all, and I’ve never had a spoke go despite some serious abuse. I always carry spare spokes inside my handlebars (along with a copy of my passport) anyway and a hypercracker to get the cassette off easily if a spoke goes on the rear drive side.

I have an idea I’d like to keep my  entire load, with camping gear down to around 15-17kg including some ‘luxury’ like a pair of jeans for off bike days :-) I dumped some of my gear in Colombia last year so I have a new tent – Force Ten Helium which weighs about 1kg and a new MSR Hyperflow water filter which only weighs a couple of 100grams. Anyway, as I get my gear together I’ll update my gear list with an all up weight…

Jingas…. ultimate packable travel shoe

I’ve been meaning to write about these for ages… the ultimate off-bike travel shoe. Given my impending journey it’s kind of appropriate to write about them now. Jingas are a Brazilian shoe, incredibly light, incredibly bend incredibly comfy and rather cool… see I didn’t want to overdo use of “incredibly”, and after all cool factor is very much a matter of personal opinion but I like mine :-) My pair of “originals” packs flat and weighs just 300gr for the pair, in a size 45, so you can probably see the relevance to light weight bicycle travel… I prefer these days for bike tours to wear my stiff carbon-soled cycling shoes for better pedalling efficiency rather than an “all in one clipless walking shoe” that can weigh well over a kg/pair. Jingas come in two flavours – the feathery “originals” (green and gold in the pic below) and the slightly heavier “Cushties” which have a thicker sole. I’m taking my cushties with me on this next trip. My originals are well travelled already and possibly a little fragile for the altiplano…

I should write a bit more about Jinga – they’re a thoroughly ethical company with a chunk of profits going towards social projects in Brazil… as they say on their website…

We are a social enterprise. What this means is that where regular companies are driven first and foremost by finaicial goals and targets, our goals are social as well as financial. Our purpose is not just to run a successful business, but also to provide opportunities and social development to disadvantaged young people in Brazil…. <read more….>

They’re also a nice bunch of folk and kindly provided a pair for the raffle at the photo exhibition for the Julio Otoni Project my sister and I did last year. You can buy online here in a wide range of eye-watering colours… and some not so eye-watering colours too. Sizing can come up small so if you’re normally a 44 like me then a 45 may be a better fit, but the returns process works fine if you get it wrong first time anyway.

There is also a facebook page if you’re connected in that way….

I’m feeling a little battered this afternoon, the surf was really rather heavy ‘outside’ at Sennen this morning and it seems like I spent rather a lot of time vertical, flying through the air, upside down and every other which way rather than actually surfing in my kayak. All very exciting and fun if not a good surf session – with a strong onshore wind it was just rough in a big way. I’ve managed to slice my drysuit and arm somehow during one wipeout, one of those strange occurrences where you recover, roll upright and carry on as if nothing had happened and then look down to find blood running down your arm in a “well swipe me how the heck did that happen” kind of way…. Oh well, could be worse, I only have work for the next few days :-|

where was I… ah yes, South America…

so where was I… ah yes, South America… yep he’s off again… my employers have very nicely allowed me to disappear with some unpaid leave.. again. I must be truly special, either that or they’re just happy to see the back of me, so I just booked a flight for 11th January that will take me and bike to Puerto Montt in Southern Chile… and from there I have 5 months approx to make way along the Andes as far as Cusco in Peru. I’m not trying to join up with where I left off in Colombia and Ecuador last year as I’ve seen a fair chunk or Peru already.. rather it’s a case of fitting in as much adventure as possible without missing out on the usual summer fun here in Cornwall :-)

So with the flight booked I shall indulge in my usual lack of planning until I actually arrive – heck all I ever needed was a map and idea. I think it’s going to be somewhere around 5000 miles of riding. Maybe, I guess I’ll soon find out. Before then though I have all the exciting <sarcasm> decisions to make once again concerning equipment… like what tyres to use and whether or not to treat my arse to a new saddle. I’m taking my well-travelled Thorn Nomad once again and I have a bunch of things on my mind regarding equipment so stay tuned if you’re interested and I’ll share my thoughts as I get ready to go. In the meantime though my ‘generic’ gear list is here and there’s a few words on my trusty, and slightly rusty now, steed (sounds a bit corny doesn’t it…) here. Must confess I’m rather excited… there’s going to be a lot of my favourite things like volcanoes and mountains and desert…. and cold nights camping under vast high altitude skies laden with stars :-)

Beards, Pros and other stuff

when I was young, so not so long ago really.. hehe, and just starting out on my amateur racing career I was a member of various cycling clubs, and as cycling clubs generally do there was always a weekly club night… on these occasions there was  a very definite divide in the cyclist “genres”, at one end of the room would be the racer types, such as me, all skinny and focussed looking and thinking themselves incredibly cool (somewhat erroneously I have since realised) with discussions characterized by energy drink recipes and gear ratios.. and at the other end of the room would be the “audax” guys characterised by tea stained beards, slack looking wool jerseys  and rusty dynamos… there wasn’t much of a middle ground back then in the “leisure cyclist” form you see today.  At the time it was unthinkable that the two distinct groups would crossover into each other’s discipline, let alone be accepted into each group. Ironic then I thought today as I was approached enthusiastically by a classic looking beard at my local bike shop while dressed head to toe in lycra racer tart mode to be asked about my bike parked outside.. or more specifically about the bag on my bike (I was on my way home from work at the time). You see I was on my Salsa which has that rather retro looking Velo-Orange baguette bag slung underneath a Brooks Saddle… the chap who approached me was on a vintage looking (i.e well worn) steel audax bike with faded canvas luggage and salmon guards (plus of course leather saddle so well worn as to have taken on a hammock-like quality). I was wearing my Cyclelogic team jersey, 3/4 length lycra bibs and what the price should indicate are a very cool pair of sunnies below my carbon-look crash helmet so traditionally about as approachable to the “audax type guy” as a wasp (see here). As I cycled home I pondered on the situation and realised how privileged I was to have been accepted into that other species of cyclist much in the same way as the bold zoologist can be accepted into a tribe of gorillas… or something, lol, .. no, that’s disrespectful though 20 years ago it would have felt like that, rather it’s just great indication of how inclusive cycling has become in the UK… and despite my mode of dress I was quite happy to enthuse with him outside about the virtues of cotton canvas, wool clothing and toeclips…  but I still ain’t wearing tweed, not ever :-)

Interestingly while on the subject of beards.. friend, noted long distance bike-venturer and journalist Cass Gilbert (see here) is currently somewhere along the Great Divide on his bike and has managed to cultivate a beard worthy of many an audax meet. I can’t tell from the pictures of his bike whether or not he has a rusty dynamo attached.. unless a love-it-or-hate-it Rohloff hub counts as near enough…

In other news.. I just shipped off my Storck Scenario Pro frame to Germany for a full refurb by Storck. Despite being alloy and 6 1/2 years old, and having ridden a wide variety of carbon and titanium creations in the meantime it is still the finest road frame I have ever ridden… in terms of pure on-paper performance characteristics it is outclassed, just, by the current crop of carbon machines but as a package taking into account the wonderful ride quality, responsiveness and flawless workmanship in the metal work it is still unbeatable. Traditionally lightweight alloy frames have a limited useful life but the Pro is a very tough frame and besides Storck will stick it on the dyno and test it in comparison with it’s manufactured values… and if it shows degradation (unlikely) then I can choose to repair it or bin it… It was a lovely custom blue to black linear fade powdercoat. The new finish is going to be Chrome Black and it’s going to look fab. Truly a modern classic I reckon :-)

I have some other interesting news involving my imminent two-wheeled return to South America.. but that can wait till tomorrow, or the day after. I’m hungry.. see ya!

quicksilver sea

I’m making the most of the mild fall weather by doing all my cycling Monday to Saturday… with Sundays given over entirely (now I’ve finished all the exterior house DiY :-) to kayaking, sea or surf, so this morning I paddled west down to Porthcurno on the trailing edge of some bad weather… the sea was quicksilver in the stormy light. Beautiful :-)

more Montréal… Zeiss Ikon

during my recent visit to Montreal, aside from having a chance to play with the lovely  Voigtlander Bessa III (review here) I also picked up a new Zeiss Ikon 35mm rangefinder + 35mm ZM lens… I wanted an alternative to my Leica MP for taking on my biking expeditions.. something that wouldn’t hurt quite so much should it go tumbling down an Andean mountainside for example… (it’s a black paint MP with black paint summicron 35…) and also lighter but with all the good things about film rangefinders… and the Zeiss is it. I don’t intend to write about the camera, suffice to say I really like it, as there’s loads of good stuff on the web (particularly Erwin Puts’ site here). Rather just to share some results of the roll of film and couple of hours of random wandering I enjoyed before going back to work…  Nothing special, just my usual flavour of random street photography… (all pics Zeiss Ikon + Biogon T* 2/35ZM, Kodak 160NC film)

This one is my favourite, it doesn’t show up well at this size but the white blob in the background on the right is the chef of the restaurant just stepped out to use his mobile.. at full size it ‘makes’ the pic… for me anyway :-)

end of summer…

Friday night marked the annual end of summer kayak race down at the PZCC..

Small boats (i.e no sea kayaks) only allowed to keep it fair. I could have borrowed a club boat….

but in reality after riding my bike in the afternoon I was quite content to sit on the wall with my beer and watch everyone else do the hard work

I was nominated time keeper. After the race start. I wasn’t really paying attention.

I had to make the times up a bit as the boats started coming back.

But I don’t think anyone minded, or even noticed,  especially after we lit the BBQ as night crept in from the east.

beans, hagelslag & other stuff of Dutch flavour..

I spent the last few days visiting a friend in Groningen in the northern Netherlands followed by a couple of days with my camera enjoying some street photography Amsterdam style… and that doesn’t necessarily mean psychedelic, pornographic, aromatic or any other -ic for that matter… though I suppose I’ll have to process the films first before a decision can be made on that… (stay tuned for the results)  There’s not so much to say really… Groningen turned out to be a really nice town with the usual Dutch proliferation of bicycles and a lot of interesting history – though I confess I may not have been paying as much attention as I could have done due to an excess of 6 foot blondes on bicycles… and Amsterdam was , well, Amsterdam… Friendly bunch the Dutch – even at immigration.. I probably wasn’t paying attention but I’m sure the guy at the passport control said to me “hey, velcome to Amshterdam, you come shmoke shome pot met me shumtime..”…… or something :-)

I took my Zeiss Ikon body with me and just one lens.. a 35mm F2 plus a pocket of film.. mix of monochrome, colour slide and print… it reminded me that a little while ago I meant to write something about why I still use film.. I may as well do the short version now… so, when I’m photographing, especially on the street I need to tune in to what’s going around me, and once I’m tuned in I find I can anticipate interesting things happening… pictures and stories just seem to materialise.. but to do that the camera has to be a minimal interuption on my consciousness – it’s not a case of looking for photos, it’s rather a case of simply recording what I already saw. I can’t find that state of mind with digital – too much to think about plus the disadvantage of the instant result interrupts my ‘flow’…  with just one fixed focal length lens and a minimalist body .. like the Zeiss Ikon or my Leica MP I can tune in perfectly and happily spend hours enjoying the life around me. There is the other advantage that film has, though most I suppose would view it as a disadvantage… by not seeing the images until a day or a week or more later I can view in different light, literally, a different context and as well as enjoy the moment again see things that I instinctively reacted to but could not appreciate at the time and find new value in the images I made…

Make sense? probably not, oh well. How about the other reason then.. film cameras are cool, especially ‘old-skool’ rangefinders :-)

There is one other thing I feel compelled to write about and really only because I know someone is probably reading who will find it all rather amusing… and may even use my full name in addressing me just like my mum does when I’ve been bad… or used to anyway, I’m pretty much perfect these days <cough> so I haven’t heard it recently…
It’s Hagelslag… to the uninitiated think of cake decoration sprinkles, or ‘hundreds and thousands’… they eat it for breakfast over there, sprinkled on their toasties… on the face of it mad as bunch of hatters.. and probably even deeper than that still mad as a bunch of hatters … however I have been thinking about this and maybe it is just another example of Dutch common sense… you know like bicycles and trains that run on time and windmills and stuff.. regular chocolate spreads have so many disadvantages.. like they’re messy, you need a knife to spread it and then you need to wash the knife… and you need a glass or plastic jar to put it in.. hagelslag on the other hand is none of those things.. open the box, sprinkle it on and your done… how very clever… <sniggers in the background>. So, having done my bit for hagelslag advocacy I still have the problem of persuading certain folk over there that Heinz beans on toast with a large mug of well brewed tea is proper food…. I know there are legions of outdoor types reading this that will support me (hint: awaiting a deluge of comments please ;-) and that you must have brown sauce with it, preferably HP….

mmmmm, proper peak district beans..

so, just to finish off.. I did have my little digital compact in my bag too. just for snapshots and those idle moments on the train and at the airport when some colours and stuff look interesting but really you’re just bored…

mid-September catch-up :-)

blimey, how time flies… it’s been more than 2 weeks since I last applied myself to my keyboard… main reason is that with September came summer at last so when not working every spare minute has been spent either on the bike, on the water or working on the outside of my house (getting there… slowly). Two shocking things happened since I last wrote.. the first is a bit of a bummer in that I managed to write off the frame of my Condor Stadio in an unfortunate accident… just one of those things that happens, c’est la vie… and the other is even more shocking in that it is something that, as a confirmed bike snob, I thought I would never ever do… I bought an off the peg bike.. shocking enough in itself but when I mention that it is a Giant as well then you’ll see what I mean… a cheap Giant.. a very cheap Giant, a Bowery ‘72 in fact to wedge mudguards onto for winter commuting duties. Cornish roads are pretty destructive in winter – grit, salt, lashings of mud (grinding paste) etc etc.. I wanted something I could hang my lights off permanently and leave in the garage without caring… and for the amount I paid I couldn’t have built a hack, not even out of secondhand bits. It’s actually a decent quality little machine so I expect it to do OK… quite pretty too. More on that to come but really my reason for writing was to share a few pics of last Sunday’s sea kayak outing… with no wind, no cloud and (sadly) no surf it was perfect day for a 16 mile trip up the coast exploring some fantastic sea caves in the granite cliffs and a lunch stop on a secluded little beach. The weather really was perfection…

from the archives: eye watering…

It’s been a busy weekend here so I haven’t had the time to sit down and write anything meaningful… I have been flicking through my archives this evening however and came across this I thought I would share… a few years ago I was invited to attend a Thaipusam Hindu festival with my camera by an Indian chap I met in Melaka. The whole point of the piercing and mutilation is based on more pain = more merit.. bit like cycle racing really…

Bright young things

just a quick one… in the bakery this morning:

old gent juggling some buns (!): “oh life would be so much easier if I had 3 arms“

girl of 16-17yrs behind the counter: “oh, you’d be like an octopus then“

ummm, don’t think so….  though perhaps there is a Cornish Octopus with just three arms .. victim of generations of inbreeding or something… Interestingly however this week in the UK saw yet another record set of high grade GCSE marks.. and the government insists it’s because schools are better and kids are getting brighter. Not here they ain’t…

Voigtlander Bessa III: a mini-review

weekend before last my friends at Montreal’s Leica Boutique asked me to do a brief write up for the newsletter on the new Voigtlander 3 medium format folding rangefinder… something I was quite happy to do in return for a few rolls of film and, as it happened, lunch at Jean Talon market :-) I don’t think it is even available yet here in the UK so it was a privilege indeed :-) I have permission to reproduce the review here… I’ll include the lead in as I think it sets the scene and it’ll give you something extra to read while I go & wash off the smug expression, lol. Now ‘peripatetic‘ is not a word in particularly common use… I even looked it up just to reassure myself I had understood correctly… and in this context it’s pretty appropriate I reckon… but I did note the synonyms of vagrant & vagabond…. so maybe Daniel is trying to tell me something…. ;-)

Anyway, the review:

“We asked Mike Hayes, rangefinder aficionado and the man behind some of the most extraordinary images taken anywhere and everywhere, to give us his impression of the camera. His considerable experience with Leica M film cameras and Fuji medium-format rangefinders make his comments especially noteworthy. After perusing his review, go to Mike’s photography site at http://www.mikesimagination.net to enjoy his eclectic and outstanding pictures, and his blog (http://mikesimagination.wordpress.com/) to read about the exciting activities and multifarious adventures of our favourite peripatetic photographer.”

{possibly overdoing it a little but I’ll not complain too loudly, hehe; MH}

It would be hard to dislike this camera. With its uniquely retro flavour, it offers prodigious quality in either 6×6 or 6×7 from a package that, when folded, takes up less room in a bag or pocket than an M6 with a 35mm or 50mm lens!  Mechanically, it is a lovely thing. The folding mechanism has no slop in it and both focus and aperture rings are smooth and precise in operation.  Physically, it fits well in the hand, although a slightly chunkier grip would be nice. (The thin body can only accommodate a ‘finger tip’ grip when the lens is open.) The lugs for a strap are on the left-hand end of the body only, so with a strap it hangs portrait fashion around your neck… not a problem as such, just different.  A wrist strap would work really well with this camera but, with no lug on the right side of the body, you’d have to rig something using the tripod socket.

Handling took a bit of getting used to. With the bellows extended, the focus and aperture rings fall further outboard from the body than I’m used to, and the aperture ring is very ‘skinny’ with no tab (the focus ring is tabbed however). I fumbled a few initial shots as a result, but it’s simply a case of getting used to it and before too long, I reckon it’d be almost as quick to use as my Leica MP. I found the lack of feedback from the shutter release disconcerting at first. The shutter itself is practically silent and being located in the lens rather than the body, there is no vibration transmitted through the grip of fingers on the body. For one or two frames I wasn’t sure if the shutter had fired, it is that muted. Although it felt weird to begin with, this is merely a case of becoming familiar with the camera.

Being used to the ‘qualitative’ style of meter à la M6 that just gives you an indication of how far each side of an ideal exposure you are by means of a couple of LED arrows, I wasn’t too keen on the meter display of the Bessa III. The Voigtlander presents actual shutter speeds in the viewfinder; the one selected and a recommended speed that flashes. It means you have to read the numbers to understand how your selected exposure relates to the meter. I did not find it intuitive at all and instead found myself figuring out in my head what the shutter speed/aperture should be based on film speed and ambient lighting. It is probably a very personal thing and I imagine I would get used to it. I suppose you could just leave it on aperture-priority auto. The meter itself is consistent and accurate.

The quiet nature plus the vintage style will make the Bessa III great for street photography. It is entirely unintimidating and even attracts the interest of folk who may find themselves in its field of view. This is a terrific camera to take on a short city break where you want something that is easy to carry/stow while exploring. The biggest plus of all is its ability to simply and routinely dish up the fabulous quality of medium format, an increasingly rare thing in a mostly digital world. The Voigtlander Bessa III is not perfect, yet I can easily forgive it all the things I don’t like simply because of what it is. I want one :-)

“It would be hard to dislike this camera. With its uniquely retro flavour, it offers prodigious quality in either 6×6 or 6×7 from a package that, when folded, takes up less room in a bag or pocket than an M6 with a 35mm or 50mm lens!  Mechanically, it is a lovely thing. The folding mechanism has no slop in it and both focus and aperture rings are smooth and precise in operation.  Physically, it fits well in the hand, although a slightly chunkier grip would be nice. (The thin body can only accommodate a ‘finger tip’ grip when the lens is open.) The lugs for a strap are on the left-hand end of the body only, so with a strap it hangs portrait fashion around your neck… not a problem as such, just different.  A wrist strap would work really well with this camera but, with no lug on the right side of the body, you’d have to rig something using the tripod socket.

Handling took a bit of getting used to. With the bellows extended, the focus and aperture rings fall further outboard from the body than I’m used to, and the aperture ring is very ‘skinny’ with no tab (the focus ring is tabbed however). I fumbled a few initial shots as a result, but it’s simply a case of getting used to it and before too long, I reckon it’d be almost as quick to use as my Leica MP. I found the lack of feedback from the shutter release disconcerting at first. The shutter itself is practically silent and being located in the lens rather than the body, there is no vibration transmitted through the grip of fingers on the body. For one or two frames I wasn’t sure if the shutter had fired, it is that muted. Although it felt weird to begin with, this is merely a case of becoming familiar with the camera.

Being used to the ‘qualitative’ style of meter à la M6 that just gives you an indication of how far each side of an ideal exposure you are by means of a couple of LED arrows, I wasn’t too keen on the meter display of the Bessa III. The Voigtlander presents actual shutter speeds in the viewfinder; the one selected and a recommended speed that flashes. It means you have to read the numbers to understand how your selected exposure relates to the meter. I did not find it intuitive at all and instead found myself figuring out in my head what the shutter speed/aperture should be based on film speed and ambient lighting. It is probably a very personal thing and I imagine I would get used to it. I suppose you could just leave it on aperture-priority auto. The meter itself is consistent and accurate.

The quiet nature plus the vintage style will make the Bessa III great for street photography. It is entirely unintimidating and even attracts the interest of folk who may find themselves in its field of view. This is a terrific camera to take on a short city break where you want something that is easy to carry/stow while exploring. The biggest plus of all is its ability to simply and routinely dish up the fabulous quality of medium format, an increasingly rare thing in a mostly digital world. The Voigtlander Bessa III is not perfect, yet I can easily forgive it all the things I don’t like simply because of what it is. I want one :-)”

——————

So there you have it. I really did love using this camera. The lighting conditions on the day I used it were hideous… high sun with a lot of glare from the humidity yet the combination of the excellent transmission qualities of the lens (probably a fujinon in disguise…) and film (Kodak 160 NC) coped brilliantly with the contrasty conditions and captured some stunning shadow detail in situations where I can only imagine a digital camera would have failed miserably :-) If I could make any changes to the camera it would be to put a mechanical detent on the shutter button just to give a little positive feedback and stick a meter in along the lines of that on my Leica MP. The meter fitted is not really suited to pure manual photography as it only really works in one stop increments… hopeless, but then with an accurate aperture priority mode then I guess the makers figured why would anyone want to work exclusively in manual mode…..? For me I have just developed my style around a purely manual camera… the MP. I could adjust.. :-) It’s a fab travel camera, I’d even be inclined to take it on my next big bike trip despite having just 12 exposures per roll in 6×6 mode. I did not include any techy details as you can read all about that on the German Voigtlander site here.

My favourite picture of the day is this one… instinctive street photography and the colours, or lack of, work well with that limo. As Daniel put it “… young Rene Levesque at the right has just stepped out from 1958.”

Perhaps a short history lesson for my non-Quebec readership… Rene Levesque was the founder of the Parti Québécois political party, and 23rd Premier of Quebec… but before 1960 he was a journalist/reporter… and he looked exactly like that photo… Street photography is my mainstay and this camera is beautifully suited to it… I would even consider taking it on my next big bike trip despite only having 12 exposures per roll in 6×6 mode.

I have been thinking an awful lot recently about why I am so stuck on film in this mostly digital world.. and I think I finally have the words to be able to articulate it.. it’s not a lecture, merely an expression of what it means for me personally.. but I’ll save it for later this week, I figure you have enough to read for one day :-)

p.s. just noticed my photo site rollovers don’t work in Safari. Buggerance….

in Montreal

‘allo, apols for recent/ongoing absence… I’m working in Montréal at present, back next week with some interesting stuff including some hands-on with Voigtlander’s new Bessa 3 medium format (6×6/6×7) folding rangefinder… film based of course, and really quite special. Stay tuned…..

Sunfish and stuff

oh dear, I am having a ‘dry’ period aren’t in terms of words, averaging about 0.9 posts/week or something, lol. It’s not that I’m not doing anything.. it’s just there’s not so much to write about…  for instance I had a fab high speed ride out on Saturday, only about 50 miles but very satisfying, during which I called in on a good friend who has unfortunately been kept off the bike recently… with extra time on his hands free from training and racing the cycling legs have morphed into green fingers… and his garden now looks fab but this isn’t really a gardening blog, though I suppose at times it is very much a coffee and cake blog so I could mention the welcome coffee and buns enjoyed while in the amazing garden :-) The Cervelo P3C looked rather forlorn in the shed behind the garden tools and bags of horse shit… I can’t remember if there really were bags of manure next to the bike but it serves to illustrate a point I think :-) Oh well, hopefully he’ll be back on the bike soon for some cake rides at least :-)

As for me… well, sadly with dry weekends few and far between this summer I have been spending far too much time of the dry days working on the exterior of my cottage… I used to be a perfectionist when it came to handiwork… but this 200yr old cottage cured me of that and I have become a great believer in the concept of “good enough” or “oh sod it that’ll do”. That’s not to say my work is shoddy, with already high standards and, might I add a sprinkle of talent <cough>  my  ’that’ll do’ is still worthy of a feature in Country Living or some other such pretentious publication I reckon :-)

I did however, while out kayaking on Sunday, come across a Sunfish specimen about a km offshore from Godrevy light.. weird looking buggers (pic below, not mine I might add). Not often seen in these waters – although a temperate waters inhabitant anything colder than 12 degs kills them I think so they rarely come this far north.

(picture credit unknown)

This one was lolloping (is that a word?) about at the surface sort of on it’s side with one fin sticking out of the water lopsidedly. I thought “oh he looks a bit poorly”, especially given that there was no apparent attempt to get away from me and darth kayak (thanks for that Lisa, it ’stuck’) . It was obviously staring at me with one eye.. it had a panic stricken look to it in the way that a horses eye does when spooked from behind… though perhaps they always look like that – the fish I mean, not the horse. Anyway I let it be, didn’t poke it with my paddle or anything  like that you’ll be glad to hear. I was intrigued to find out a bit more about them though so when I got home dug out trusty wikipedia and had a read… It seems the specimen I saw at about a metre across is a small one, they can grow to 4 metres across and 2000kg… !

That behavior (if doing bugger all in a lopsided way can be called behavior) wasn’t it being sick, rather it was exhibiting characteristic basking behavior.. possibly to try and warm up a  little – the surface temperature is only about 15-16 degs at the moment so deeper down I imagine it must feel a bit chilly… and given what I’ve understood about their swimming capability it was most likely running away in what it thought was a blind panic… but to onlookers (i.e me) it looked like a sort of almost imperceptible change of direction of about 5 degrees executed over half a minute or so. Anyway, fascinating to see it. What did make me laugh was to read that they are difficult to keep in aquariums due to a tendency to bang into things due to not being very maneuverable and poor in competition for food with other fish. Amazing how such a fish has survived, it looks ‘ancient’… have to wonder if Darwin was right, something I had cause to think about further when I arrived back at my launch point to find the sea full of lemmings flapping about in the surf with their foamie popouts, the lifeguards busy and the rescue helicopter on yet another callout….

(actually that’s a bit unfair of me, everyone is entitled to have some fun and accidents will always happen, i just think if folk engaged their brain cell just a little more often it would be useful….)

So, very educational my paddling session turned out to be yesterday :-)

bye July..

ahh, the dog days of July… the cats and dogs days of July I mean.. ‘cos that is what it did here almost every day. Rain. The final day of the month on Friday was marked here by heavy rain and a southerly gale… not ideal conditions for a swim yet that is what happened to me, albeit unintentionally. It has been bothering me a bit this weekend that my roll completely failed me on Friday night and I had to exit my kayak upside down. It has been a long time since that happened. I think a  combination of factors came together – I was tired after a couple of hrs of surfing 1.5 to 2 metre swells in my Xcite, the wind was howling and the waves were breaking at sea. I can remember really struggling to set up for a roll – I felt a big force of water on my chest – probably due to a combination of wave movement and the boat being blown sideways by the wind. 3 times I almost got it only to be flattened again. Hence the decision to swim, lol. A self rescue onto the rear deck succeeded to the point I was back in the boat but without my spraydeck attached… only to be sent over again by the curling lip of a large wave. I never felt in any danger, only a km or so offshore in onshore conditions – a swim to the beach behind my kayak being the worst prospect, I would not have gone out in such conditions otherwise. Anyway, thanks to the arrival of a friend, also surfing, I was soon back in my boat and happy as larry. Oh well, every kayaker swims at some point I guess but I’ll definitely be practising some more rough water rolling… goes to show no matter how good you think you are in any respect there will always be a situation where you ain’t good enough.. especially when the sea is involved. No reason really for telling you all this I suppose other than as a lead in to writing a bit more about the rough water capability of Tiderace’s Xcite… it is brilliant. Not as exciting in a hairy kind of way as the Greenland but rather reassuringly predictable in unpredictable conditions.. That is not to say it is boring, far from it, it just won’t surprise you. The tracking while surfing on a  wave is very good. The hard chines of the Tahe Greenland boat make it somewhat ‘tetchy’ and hard to control at times on steeper waves, the Xcite exhibits none of that… just smoothness. Punching back out through big surf is quite different in the Xcite too… the featherweight Greenland shudders and flexes as it smacks through the waves… the Xcite is solid as a rock… as you’d expect I suppose being 10kg heavier.

I bought a GoPro Hero wide angle helmet mounted video cam last week so I can hopefully capture some decent wave action. Friday night would have been ideal.. had I remembered to take it with me in my rush to get ready. I thought I would head out in the surf today in my Greenland… but as Murphy would have it the sea is pretty placid today, just a couple of feet of swell so instead, given that it is not raining for a change my entire day has ben given over to stripping and painting window frames. Oh the joy of owning a traditional cottage… I haven’t even been on my bike this weekend either. I rode a lot of miles in the week commuting and that plus some long days at work left me with tired legs and tired head. I’m stupid really, 2.5hrs of hard kayaking Friday evening… right after 50 miles of commuting (30 in the morning, 20 in the afternoon) on my fixed gear… ’tis no wonder I’m a little tired this weekend. Must be getting old…

a lack of inspiration…

it feels like ages since I wrote anything… it’s not that nothing has been happening, it’s just that nothing has been happening worth writing about.. you know- I’ve been going to work, riding my bike, watching Le Tour, paddling the kayak.. all fun (well, apart from work) but nothing remarkable that I would bore you lot with. I haven’t even ridden a single race this year . At the start of the season I felt like having a season off to spend more time out on the water and doing other stuff in general without feeling any pressure… , then when I came back from Eastern Europe I had great legs and planned on racing the rest of the season, then I went to Italy and on my return promptly great sick.. and now I can’t be bothered again, lol! I don’t think it was the pork-flavoured bug that is favourite of the tabloids at present but whatever it was it left me pretty well wiped out. However, I’m Ok now but I still think the closest I’ll get to a race this year is the pushing off duties last Thursday night at the PZW 10! I’m in Montreal for work next month and then come 4th September I’ll be off again on my bike for a few weeks…. Remarkably though for the first time in years I have not been feeling any guilt at not racing… folk I used to ride with and against say to me “you should be racing Mike”…. and for sure it’s fun but I this summer has been a whole lot of fun anyway :-) I’ll start again next season, my Condor is too good not to ride.. in fact I might take it out for a spin this weekend on the local TT route just to see how I get on with that 100″ gear….

Enough of the personal ramblings, seems the fixie-as-fashion backlash might be gaining pace…

Stumbled upon on a quick trip around t’internet one idle lunchtime & probably photographed on the back of a dirty great SUV…  but whatever happens I’ll still be riding fixed for years to come simply because it makes me strong and I hate cleaning gears in Cornwall’s filthy winters… Anyway, hopefully I’ll get some inspiration some time soon and wrote something worth reading.

hasta luego!

heavy duty bicycle recovery….

There’s a fab story here about the recovery of one girl’s stolen bicycle complete with undercover cops and supporting cast of friends… it reads more like a drug sting than a case of bike theft, now if only coppers over this side of the Atlantic had the time and/or motivation…. so the moral of the story I suppose is that if you’re going to get your bike nicked… make sure it gets nicked in Toronto, elsewhere just get good insurance. Anyway, well worth a read “….It begins on the Friday night of the long weekend in May, while Heather was having a drink with friends at a bar in Kensington.  “I had a feeling….read on>>>.“

Bicycling and the bonk… or rather bonking

Most cyclists, or indeed endurance athletes in general will be familiar with the term “the bonk”… or “bonking” .. or “I bonked/you bonked/they bonked” etc etc…  generally used to describe a condition that is otherwise rather drily known as the complete depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles which manifests itself by precipitous fatigue and loss of energy… Yep, been there, done that… many times. However over in Berlin it seems that bicycling is also becoming more closely affiliated with the schoolboy definition of bonking. This article by Reuters describes how you can get yourself a €5 discount off the standard service charge at a city knocking shop. I couldn’t possibly comment on the ethics of such a situation, but it is an intriguing idea that leads to a number of questions… if you show up on a trike is the discount worth €7.50.. does a tandem count as a double discount or is a threesome extra… and what about unicycles.. and I have 8 bikes at present, does that mean €56 off…  and if you show up in pink-trimmed Rapha tweed on a fixie with dildo bars (now in flavours) do they pay you…? I can’t even think about showing up on a recumbent, affectionally known as a ‘bent [cough] , at least not before the 10pm watershed…

Of course it’s illegal in England so you just have to use your imagination. Like this chap.

…so enough of that.. apologies for my recent absence, I took a little trip over to Italy for work. Italy is great… great people, great coffee and great food… sometimes. Every time I make the trip I have some bloody brilliant food and some bloody awful food, nothing in between… seems Italy does not do mediocrity when it comes to grub … :-) On Wednesday evening at the place I ate there was an item on the menu that looked rather intriguing.. translated as “aromatic octopus in a transparent wrapper”… I ignored it that night and instead had a terrific plate of pasta.. it was good food so with a distinct lack of choice in the area decided to eat at the same place again on Thursday… this time, being a fan of octopus, I went for the “aromatic octopus etc etc etc” expecting something along the lines of filo pastry parcels or a fishy version of spring rolls in a transparent rice wrapper… sounded like a great idea… except what arrived on my plate was nothing of the sort… I was served a plate of… clear plastic bag, all tied up at the top, containing steaming octopus. My colleague laughed quietly into his lasagna as I fumbled with the knot in the top of the bag. To be fair it was a very high quality plastic bag… Brilliant.

Tahe Greenland – more photos

By popular request… a few more photos of my Tahe Greenland boat.. (original post here)

Footrest is a simple peg affair, easily adjustable even while afloat…

Very basic seat and backrest… barely any depth to the hull means there is no room for seat adjustment. At first I took the backrest out as it got in the way sliding in and out of the cockpit and did not expect it to be very effective… but I have since refitted it – it does work. Outfitting is minimal – there are no knee braces for example but with such a narrow form and low deck you don’t need ‘em….

The sliding skeg control on the left of the cockpit. The skeg itself is pretty long, I’ve never needed to deploy it more than halfway…

Close up of the logo on the bow and that carbon weave that just looks cool… you can see the neat deck seam in the top right corner

Manufacturers ‘tag’ bonded inside the cockpit. The boat also came with a certificate stating the weight and a qa sign-off. The construction is very neat and tidy with a clean hull/deck seam. There’s not much else to say… there isn’t an awful lot to it. All of my friends who have paddled it straight away understand the appeal of it… :-)

And finally from last night down at Perranuthnoe… a pic of muggins (comments about “is that canoe between your legs” will be, errrm, ignored) after an evening of surf, refreshments in hand and waiting for the BBQ to get going :-)

it never rains but it….

….pours… and heck did it lash it down in the thunderstorms last night. I padded downstairs at 4.30am this morning in search of water and got more than I bargained for in that I was ankle deep in the stuff. Brilliant, I do like an early morning swim but generally prefer to travel to the water rather than have the water travel to me… My initial reaction was to go back to bed and hope the bad dream would go away but in the end I could not ignore the generally wet aspect and spent the next three and half hours moving as much water as I could back where it belonged outside. By 8am there was bugger all else I could so rather than mope around I figured I may as well go to work and call the insurers from there… leaving my dehumidifier on full chat.

I usually cycle to work, but this morning I made a fateful decision that as I was running late I would go in the car. Bad move… totally preoccupied by events at home, and in poor light (still raining) I managed to crash my car into the back of another car…a particularly stealthy black car that I didn’t see… but nevertheless it shouldn’t have happened… and had I been on the bike I might have been late for work but I would arrived totally de-stressed from a bad start to the day instead of even more wound up from a really bloody awful start to the day. Proof positive that a bike is the only way to go…. So there ya go, lesson learned. Bloody car. Bloody rain…. :-|

getting the bike out…

Most fortuitous though don’t you think that back in May I chose to spend the carpet money on that Greenland kayak rather than, errrrm, new carpets… truly prescient of me I think :-)

impressed…

I may have mocked on the odd occasion in the past… and probably will again but for the minute i’m mightily impressed by Rapha… my two and a half year old classic jersey which rather suffered in the sun in Croatia… has been replaced, free of charge :-) Impressed because their website quotes only a 90-day policy against defects and although I didn’t say anything I am sure they must have figured out when I bought the jersey. So, 11 out of 10 for customer service. The classic jersey is actually a great piece of kit for being understated (and unsmelly when touring tx to the merino..).. so long as you only ride on cloudy days I guess (not hard in the UK..)… but despite all that I still ain’t going to be wearing tweed anytime soon…

a quick photo gallery…

if you have an idle moment there is a quick and dirty photo gallery available from my trip. Not tightly edited yet but not just snapshots either, they are not ‘great pics’ by any means and I left some of the ‘postcard’ pics in to give it context… my usual mix of random street, abstract and whatever else you want to call it… it is not too extensive so you won’t get bored, and it might help give a sense of the place…. I hope….. clicky the image below to open in a new window (If you’re viewing on a windows PC rather than an Apple Mac then some of the pics may appear darker than they are meant to…  :-)

My favourite single image though, in line with my preference for street ‘moments’ is this one… I like the geometry of it, the spontaneity (I was just walking by to get coffee…) and it has a sense of place too from the Jadrolinija name…

I’ll edit down to the best 8 and add a gallery to my site.. next wet Sunday we get.. should not have too long to wait being Cornwall and all :-)

that’s about it I think…

So… there’s loads of new reading in the posts below and that’s about it really for Croatia & Bosnia-Hercegovina. A brilliant little journey. I closed my loop just north of Ston from where it was just 60km back to Dubrovnik… a bloody hot 60km. The three of us met up that evening in the Old Town for end of trip/farewell drinks and dinner… we were such party animals.. worn out and brain dead by 11pm :-) Although that might have been down to the walnut and sour cherry liquers they brew locally….

My cycling gear made the journey home stuffed in plastic bag from a clothes shop in Dubrovnik called Bio-Hazard…  how very appropriate. There is totally a business opportunity for me in Dubrovnik I think… all those English tourists and not a curry house in the city. There was a restaurant there with an Indian name, Taj Mahal, but it served only Bosnian food… nothing Indian about it so it clearly  seems the way of it to have a restaurant name unrelated to the cuisine, i’ll call my place Vatican Surf n’Turf or something (to attract the american cruise ship crowd), it can be next to the Dominican Monastery in downtown Dubrovnik.

(this is the suspension bridge just west of Dubrovnik)

Bike made it home without a scratch on it. I flew British Airways for only £105 return and they did not charge for the bike… or even weigh it in either direction. Check out though what the sun did to the back of my once-black jersey. I took my one and only piece of Rapha gear ‘cos it looks OK off the bike, is nicely understated and the merino content means it doesn’t pong… I’ve sent it back to Rapha asking for a new one… remains to be seen if they take me seriously :-)

That is it I think, I suffered from only one fatal mistake on my journey home… the failure to make sure my wine rack was stocked before leaving home… the place was dry as a camel’s backside when I got home.. silly silly silly!

I’ll stick up a photo gallery with all the arty stuff in it dreckly….

MIjet..

Probably worth mentioning at this point that camping in Croatia, especially if travelling alone, ain’t really going to save you any money. The going rate for a room or bed in my experience was between 100 and 200 kuna/night.. for which you get linen and towels as a minimum… sometimes use of a kitchen and more often than not a terrace and a fridge. According to the girls they were being charged between 100 and 200 kuna per night for a camping pitch.. for which you get to bed down with loads of Dutch and German folk in their RVs :-) Having said that though there were a couple of terrific spots for camping.. quiet and right by the water. If I was to do this trip again I’d leave behind my off-bike shoes (just flipflops instead) and take a summer weight sleeping bag and mat for the odd bivy… All this leads nicely in to the morning of the 15th June when at about 8am , after breakfast and multiple coffees in Ston, I rode over south over another big hill to D & N’s campsite at Prapratno.. where I found them breakfasting outside their tent amongst large numbers of Dutch and German folk in their RVs :-) The plan for the day was to catch the 10am car ferry across to Sobra on MIjet island and pedal west to the MIjet National Park which is very beautiful and has some terrific swimming in a couple of saltwater lagoons. There was time for coffee on the quay before the ferry however so that is exactly what we did.

There is not so much to say really about MIjet except it was a truly fab day… and probably the slowest 90km I ever rode! Some terrific views, brilliant swimming spots with diving straight into deep, blue, impossibly clear water, icecream, beer, sun etc etc. Definitely a day to remember.

(right after this photo I changed into my swimmers and executed a perfect double somersault backflip into the water… really…)

We arrived back in Sobra about an hour before the 7pm ferry. The light wind had dropped to nothing and it was turning into a stunning evening. A cold beer and some pretzels (magicked from my back pretzel pocket…) passed the time before riding onto the ferry absolutely exhausted. The water at the ferry harbour in Sobra was the clearest I have ever seen… with a depth of about 10 meters I could see the bottom with perfect clarity and it was if the fish were simply suspended in crystal. Amazing. The crossing of about 45 minutes back to Prapratno was absolutely magic – the ocean was  mirror smooth as the sun dropped towards the horizon in the warmth of a mellow evening.The comedy was provided by an Austrian couple who asked Daniela if her hair was real, lol, not so many folk with dreads in Austria I guess… I was tempted to ask if the walking carpet that was their dog was real…

It was a sprint for me back over the hill to Ston where I went straight back to the same restaurant as the night before (good grub..) where, despite dripping with sweat and looking slightly the worse for wear in my cycling kit, I was warmly welcomed with a handshake and an ice cold natural lemonade (for a change!). One wag said “Tour de France, haha!” as I parked my bike… <sigh> there is always one…

Oh yes, lots of Mk1 VW Golfs all over Croatia… none quite so amusingly gruesome as this one however….

Korčula to Mali Ston… the Peljesac Peninsula…

Got up this morning in Korčula feeling decidedly ‘jaded’.. a combination I think of all the kilometres, the heat and red wine last night… Korčula and the Peljesac have some pretty good wines… apparently Korčula does the best whites while just across the water the best reds come from the Peljesac… at least that is what the chappy in the restaurant in Ston told me… with a beer in his hand, lol! I very nearly stayed a day (to be fair I could have stayed forever…) extra to simply absorb the atmosphere of the town (i.e put my feet up at a bar for the day…) but after a couple of good coffees with D&N the motivation started creeping back and bags were packed for the arduous 3km ride to the ferry terminal just around the headland at Dominiče… more caffeine was imbibed while waiting for the 11am boat across to Orebič on the Peljesac… my caffeinated walk was noted by D who apparently is an expert in such matters…

It’s only a 20 minute trip across the channel on a small ferry that runs every hour… it still had an air conditioned bar though with cream vinyl sofas.. :-) As we rolled off the boat the smiley Jadrolinjia guy in his white uniform on the quayside looked at me, grinned, and said “ah, one guy two girls, haha, very good, very very good….!“. I was unable to disagree… though what he didn’t know was that we were about to go our separate ways for the rest of the day… different plans and all that plus different riding speeds in the mountains, though we would be meeting again in the morning…

It was a pretty stiff, and hot, climb of about 10km out of Orebič (another pretty place…) heading east but on a good surface with fab views back towards Korčula. Once over the summit and after some rolling sort of terrain, about 30km into the ride the road descended on the southern side of a very lush forested mountain. I could see a tiny little harbour way below me to the right… it looked like a pretty nice place to stop for more coffee and a bite to eat despite knowing descending all the way to the sea was only going to add more climbing to an already very hilly day… The cafe on the quiet quayside on the far side of the village had some decent shade and groovy tunes so I stopped there. The guy running the place was a dude… long white linen shirt, long gray beard and a ponytail. I walked in with the usual “dobar dan! Bijela kava molim…” to which he responded with something like “groovy, tall latté machiatto, OK!” in a Croatian accent…  technically a machiatto cannot be a latte at the same time (I think anyway…)… a machiatto is an espresso shot marked with a small head of foam… but hey, I wasn’t about to argue.. it had caffeine and I liked the “tall” bit… and indeed it was tall when it arrived. Perfect. After that I didn’t really notice the 600m or so climb back up…

I arrived in Ston at about 3pm I think… figuring that was my riding for the day I decided looking for a room could wait until I had cooled off with a beer… with beer nearly gone and a distinctly wobbly feeling in my legs I asked the barman if there were any rooms for rent in the town… he told me I needed to ride further on to Mali Ston… oh dear, I wove a wonky line as I pedalled across the flagstones of the village square on my way back to the road… Luckily Mali Ston was only a couple of Km and I did indeed find a room… after a trying a few places. Mali Ston is known for it’s oyster beds and there is a pricey hotel in the place… which means that private rooms are also pretty steep and the owners are reluctant to negotiate. The first place advertising a room wanted 300Kn a night.. so I said “well, I want to stay 2 nights so how much is that“… it usually results in a significant discount… “600 Kuna” came the deadpan reply. Bugger. I eventually found a tidy place for 200 Kuna. Not wanting to eat oysters that evening, after a swim I rode back to Ston which seems to consist entirely of cafe-bars and restaurants… and some old city walls which folk come to see. The food was more interesting.

Hvar to Korčula

Up early to catch the ferry to Korčula… the ticket said 8am, it didn’t show up till 9am. This one was a monster of a ship, I think it comes just twice a week from Bari to Rijeka, Split Hvar, Korčula and Dubrovnik…or something. N&D were there, as were my American friends, with a pack of beer :-), from before looking somewhat hungover….also another German couple on bikes with luggage that looked like something by Samsonite,or a cheaper version of it anyway… bike suitcases with natty purple and green trim. It looked pretty amusing stacked up on the back of their bikes :-) Though perhaps I should not laugh, they probably thought my Ortlieb panniers were dreadfully dull… Wasn’t allowed to park my own bike on this one, the crew were pretty insistent that they had to provide a service (I guess that is what the 121Kn was for,….) by lashing the bikes to rails at the side of the car deck…interestingly they don’t provide the same untying service, leaving the cyclist to sort the mess of bicycles and rope out on arrival….

The ferry ride itself was ace, found a nice shady spot on the deck with N&D from which to enjoy the views of the coastal mountains and islands for the 3 1/2hr ride. Coffee and jaffa cakes (yep, they sell ‘em in the supermarkets :-) provided just enough sustenance to get through ‘till lunch time on arrival at Korčula Town. Korčula Town is yet another one of those elegant little towns that Croatia is so good at….

The three of us cyclists found a great little apartment (no sharks in the loo sadly) to share right in the heart of the old town…it wasn’t hard,  all the local landladies come out to meet the ferries. Turned out our landlady was from Široki Brijeg, the town just west of Mostar I passed through last week.  Bikes were parked on the terrace with enough room left to kick back with a much needed beer* in the evening after a hot and hilly afternoon of exploring…

Korčula has some serious hills, heading west right of town the road climbs at between 8 and 10% for 16km… OK it’s not quite on an alpine scale but with a temp of 32 or 33 in the shade you do notice it. Could only be bothered to explore about 20km west before doglegging back through the vineyards  below some fantastic limestone cliffs and then climbing to Pupnat (great name, the associated harbour way below at sea level is called Pupnatska :-) There was a terrific steep (20% or so) hairpinned descent down a tiny little road from Pupnat to the north facing coast… the sea looked fab and we were pretty damn sweaty so nothing to do but park the bikes on a little boat slip and jump in…. and then head back to town for a beer (it was on our minds… again) before going out for dinner and icecream :-) Quite a nice day really, lol…that is an understatement by the way ;-)

* My friend Ana in Zagreb tells me that of the various Croatian beers Karlovačko is the best. Can’t argue with that tho they are all pretty good to my tastes..

Hvar Island

Was up pretty early and scooted over the mountain to Hvar Town to meet Daniela and Nadia, henceforth known as D&N for a brew.

(Stari Grad on a still morning)

Hvar Town turned out to be a pretty busy little tourist spot…I think my impression of it may have been unfairly soured when I walked into one cafe with my Croatian greeting and request for coffee at the ready only to be greeted by “yeah, whaddya want?” from the waitress… I went next door where they were at least smiling. Hvar Town was full of backpackers wearing improbably skimpy clothes lugging improbably huge backpacks… Met a German touring cyclist here too…I had seen him on the road and waved a couple of times but with his huge load I think he was suffering too much to notice a road bike scooting by … 50kg I think he said “I am camping you see”… yes, with a very heavy tent  I imagine… he followed up with “but now I go to the the 5-star resort on the hill”. Worn out I guess…. ;-)

(not so scary after all…)

So after charging up with coffee I headed east to explore while the girls headed off to find a boat for the day… I was tempted to join them but thought I should ration my excellent company for the time being rather than spoil them, lol, so instead I went back towards Stari Grad then Vrboska and Jelsa for a beer and ice-cream lunch before exploring the quiet mountain roads further east.

East of Jelsa the roads are narrow and quiet as they wind their way around beautiful mountain scenery blessed with wildflowers, olive trees and ancient stone terraces… (oh how poetic…). A bike really is the only way to explore. I ended up in a tiny little place on the north coast called Vela Stiniva… a stunning hairpinned descent, tiny road, through a limestone gorge brought me to this place… a crescent of shingle in front of a bay of the usual crystal clear and impossibly blue water with a little quay and a bar,, hardly a soul in the place, lovely… after a quick dip I dozed in the shade for a couple of hours at the bar (while the owner and his buddy letched through binoculars  at a woman swimming off the cliffs) before mustering my energy for the return journey to Stari Grad…

It was on the ride back that I had my only “dickhead in a car” experience for the whole trip.. Big BMW 4×4 (typically…) pulling an enormous caravan with German plates… came hammering past way too fast for a little mountain road with a blast of the horn that said “out of my vay schwitzenden cycling person”. All I could do was stick my finger up and think of the war and how he was probably a big sweaty wurst of a man…
In the little network of roads west of Jelsa I managed to get lost…. “nudist camp? I don’t remember a nudist camp…” as I headed down one tiny wooded road… I turned round pretty quick and found out what the locals do with their old cars… they chuck ‘em over a handy hedge in the same way as I do with a banana skin…

So a very lazy 125km of exploring some fabulous little roads. My companions for dinner the previous night were unable to make it for dinner… beer related incident I think… so picked a place with a smiling waitress and sat in the evening sun with spaghetti and beer….
Another observation.. nothing to do with loo seats but rather stripey tee shirts,..on sale everywhere… but nobody ever wearing them. Very odd.  Perhaps the local equivalent of fetish wear so they only come out after dark…

Trogir to Hvar..

Right then… I think I was in Trogir when we last caught up…. <scrolls down to check… oh yes, I had tired legs that evening>

From Trogir then on the 11th June I was all set to cycle the 30km or so back into Split to catch a ferry to Hvar and wasn’t really that excited about it – not particularly pretty roads and I came that way from Omiš… the night before had been a late one with beer and pizza so when Marin, my host, goes “why don’t you just take the boat?” my response was “there’s a boat?” followed by “ Oh cool….”. So I totally cheated and slung my bike on the stern rail of the little local passenger ferry that left Trogir for Split at 11am. It dropped me right on the waterfront in Split (another improbably elegant waterfront of white stone and terracotta) just a stone’s throw (or a pedal stroke even…) from the Jadrolinija ferry terminal at about 12.30pm. With 2 hours to kill before the next boat to Hvar I did what any self respecting local would do and retired to the cool shade of the nearest bar…. I had already eaten a sort of lunch in the form of a bag of figs courtesy of a chap on the boat from Trogir so all that was needed was liquid refreshment…

Bit of local info… bicycles get pretty heavily charged on the Jadrolinija boats…considering they don’t take up any room that would be otherwise be used for something else (i.e they just get shoved into whatever space is available at the side of the car deck) it seems pretty steep to have to pay about 40% more than a passenger fare for the bike only…i.e person + bike is roughly 2.4 times the passenger fare… I bought an onward ticket from Hvar to Korcula and was rather taken aback at the price… 77Kn for me and 121Kn for the bike… Ok it is still only a total of about £25 but still…it’s the principle :-)
Anyway, on the quayside I got chatting to 3 American guys (well, one guy, 2 gals but you know what I mean)  who had been on a study field trip in Sarejevo for a few weeks and were heading to Hvar for some chill time. Nice guys.
On the ferry I spotted two girls… obviously cyclists despite attempts to disguise the fact… baggy shorts over lycra, flip flops instead of SPDs and so on but the sculpted legs, odd tan lines and Descente jerseys were the giveaway…took me a while to decide I was going to engage with ‘em… they looked kind of mean in their wrap-around shades, set jaws and in the case of one…  a wicked set of dreads…. But as it happened they were nice as pie – Canadians you see, lol… and sisters no less making their way from Trieste to Dubrovnik on their bikes. To cut a short story even shorter we agreed to meet the following morning for coffee in Hvar Town as our plans for the island were different… they were off to the beach on some outlying islands and I planned to explore the island on my bike.

I found a room in Stari Grad, where the ferry comes in, right off the boat, 150Kn a night in a new apartment owned by a local lady . Nice room too, terrace, kingsize bed… Result.  Stari Grad was nice, very mellow feel to it…completely unlike Hvar Town which I will mention in a minute. It was in Stari Grad that I really noticed the trend for new bathrooms in this part of the world to feature toilet lids/seats with a photo-printed marine theme… in Trogir the loo featured a rather happy looking Humpback Whale, here in Stari Grad my loo was of a tropical, sun-blessed flavour with dolphins frolicking gaily…Tacky anywhere else but here just a case of “oh look at that… how pretty..”. I await with interest to find a toilet featuring a Great White Shark… memories of childhood nightmares when, at the impressionable age of 7, I was taken to see Jaws at the cinema by a clearly unsympathetic father… bath time held a special fear for me that year… anyway, I digress.. Met the guys from Sarejevo for a very pleasant dinner interrupted by a local religious parade of some sort… it was a public holiday today apparently, no idea what for… Croatian Scientology day or something, effigies of Tom Cruise on a cross and stuff perhaps…

I rode a grand total of 4km today :-)