a mellow January drizzle kind of a post

Two weeks ago I injured my back surf kayaking.. it was a heavy, dumping wave and I was caught out in a bad place with nowhere to go. My body was forced through a violent, twisting motion as I tumbled with the wave, pulling the muscles in my lower left back. I spend a lot of time on core strength exercises so I suspect I got off lightly. I was able to recover and paddle to the beach but that was it for the day… and for the time being  unfortunately it means that with the aid of a little ibuprofen my physical activity is restricted to bike riding and sea kayaking in not too rough conditions… so not too unfortunate at all really I suppose :-) Having got well ahead of things on the weekend by working (interspersed with a few hours on the bike) Monday afternoon then presented an ideal opportunity for a sneaky little paddle out of the improbably pretty but probably mostly wealthy second homes little hamlet of Durgan on the Helford west along the coast towards the Manacles. We didn’t go a huge distance, the weather was closing in and we were feeling lazy.. but it was fun cruising around all the rocky little inlets while feeling particularly mellow and contented in the January drizzle.

I believe that this is what is known as a "comfort break" in circles uncomfortable with the idea of stopping for a pee.

the Einstein Bicycle Effect

It is a shame the effect seems limited to rides of 2 hours or less. Given all the miles I’ve ridden over a lifetime, I am sure I would otherwise have solved the problem of a unified field theory many times over, putting many a theoretical physicist out of a job in the process.. but I haven’t so I have to content myself with my bicycle merely as a brilliant tool for solving more mundane problems. I do an awful lot of problem solving on my bike.. I always have. Sadly when I was employed as an aero engineer the phrase “I’m off out on my bike to think about this” didn’t really cut much ice with the management, and neither did time on the bike count as chargeable hours no matter how brilliant the resulting insights. It’s a different matter these days however.. if I get stuck with a technical challenge it is the perfect excuse to nip out on my bike for an hour or two in order to free up the gears of inspiration.

I suspect the root of the benefit lies in the rhythmic nature of cycling, almost a form of meditation. I don’t get the same benefit from kayaking or hiking for example, those activities don’t allow me to partition off a section of my mind to explore ideas. The most productive time is the first hour of a ride before any fatigue sets in. The second hour can still be productive but less so. After that my mind fixates on a single idea and goes round and round in circles generating no new thoughts much like a stuck record. Most likely this is attributable to the onset of fatigue and a drop in blood sugar levels. The brain after all can use up to 30% of the total energy requirement of the body, with peak demand being during those times when it is thinking hard. This, I suspect, explains why when I was studying for my Masters, I could eat vast quantities of chocolate every day and not put on any weight. How about that, thinking as a weight loss exercise. I’m going to make  a DVD.

Anyway, that’s about it except to say that Einstein, who is generally considered to have been a fairly bright chap, of course did ride a bicycle and was, I suspect ,all the more clever for it…

cheero!

Orange wellington

have been feeling somewhat under the weather the last couple of days, I suspect something to do with being unable to remember the last time I saw proper sunlight rather than just a rare glimpse of a watery disc through veils of cloud and rain… but the forecast is better for next week so looking forward to some time on the water. I did however find a really cool old welly washed up on the beach today, the only bit of colour in the landscape as far as I could see… and I washed my bike. Exciting stuff. I am wishing now I had brought the boot home to plant something in… it’s the fact that it is orange. Orange is by far the best colour, top of the colour food chain in fact.. for example did you ever see a yellow tiger.. or a blue one, or even a green one? Nope, thought not.

<not sure if I can justly dignify this old boot with a ‘photography’ tag… oh what the heck>

the end of the year post

it’s that time of the year again.. a year ago I had been exploring the Valle de Los Exploradores on my bike before returning to Rio Tranquilo to camp on the shores of Lago General Carrera with some Swiss cycling friends. The weather was unexpectedly warm and sunny, and as I gaze out of my window today at the grey rainy crap that has characterised the end of 2011 here I feel I would not mind being somewhere else, on my bike. However.. it’s not all bad, in fact it’s all good. 2011 was a brilliant year with lots of bike riding in Patagonia, a summer afloat in the Western Isles and now a new business venture to think about, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. The business side of things is growing slowly, I’m working on a project that will be a really good one to have in our portfolio – a site for a recruitment agency with all the online jobs management, resources,  applications and so on that entails together with an online timecard submittal application. It’s not particularly complex but there’s lots to think about so my braincell, when not occupied with basic motor functions like breathing, is getting plenty of exercise. As such I’m starting 2012 with a very positive outlook, which experience tells me is more than halfway to having a good year regardless of what happens.. I have freedom, I have work to do, I have expeditions to plan.. and I have a bicycle(s) :-)

a fixed gear.. totally the way to go in winter.. IMO. Heavy rain keeps the muck level at an acceptable equilibrium and it just keeps on working

Anyway, enough of that… some cycling words I think might be in order. Despite the first part of the year on two wheels in Patagonia 2011 was my shortest cycling year for a very many years.. just 4000 miles/ 6400km, less than half a ‘normal’ year. I was tired after Patagonia and then that summer paddling meant I didn’t turn a pedal for almost 3 months… and come late September/October I was worn out again. The short year has done me some good I have decided, despite hardly riding at all of late, around only 5hrs/week on my fixed. Having been out for a stiff, hilly spin on my fixed gear with friends, on their geared machines, seems my legs are still a match for Cornwall’s climbs on a brisk group ride…. happy about that. Less happy about the state of my winter hack which I have come to know somewhat affectionately as my ‘rattle and squeak’..  it goes fine, it’s just not quite as sorted as I would like. The BB is seized in the frame, but the frame is of such low value I can’t be bothered to do anything about it, instead when the BB (a Miche track) dies I’ll use it as an excuse to bin the frame and go back to a steel frame for winter.. knowing my luck it’ll probably last 10 years when really I would be happy with it failing tomorrow. The integrated headset cups in the frame also seem to have become less of a tight fit for the cartridge bearings so even when adjusted properly the headset has some play in it. This is a weird one that I have not seen before.. the bearings themselves are fine and when packed well into the frame with grease there is still play. I keep meaning to pack them in with some of that teflon plumbers tape but I haven’t got around to it… mainly because to work on the bike I need to wash it…. Washing winter hacks is not my forte, because it’s a bike I don’t really care about, and because the roads are so perpetually wet and filthy there doesn’t seem much point. Being fixed the drivetrain just works and works and works regardless of how minging it is, provided I maintain correct chain tension and give the chain a wipe and drop of lube every now and then. It’s the one bike that lives in the garage rather than indoors and I swear it throws muck at me every time I stray within 5 feet of it. I felt quite ashamed on Thursday meeting up with a buddy for a ride… in the rare patches of sunshine his winter bike freshly washed and all gleaming paint, chrome and polished alloy served only to make mine look quite rubbish, splattered with mud and shit as it is. I was asked if the rims were really a gold colour or was it just the dried on mud.. they are gold coloured but they would have looked just the same regardless of their colour. I might wash it this weekend, it does brush up quite well.. but then again with more rain and hence mud in the forecast I might not… Maybe if I accumulate enough dirt on it I’ll feel the best way to deal with it is buy a new frame anyway :-)

I have plans for a vegetable garden on top of the front mudguard/fender

.. and a colony of dung beetles around the BB to take all the cow and horse shit away.. though most likely they'd end up burying the entire machine. The last of my OFS stickers too..

Speaking of bikes a buddy in Canada sent me a pic the other day of a newly acquired steed.. I know he won’t mind me using one of his pictures. It’s a nice classic machine equipped with a mix of vintage Campagnolo and Shimano 600 (oh well… perfection is hard to come by) and as you’d expect of a nice steel frame rides beautifully. He bought my Merlin Extralight a few years ago and says it is comparable to that. A very nice find for not very many $$$. A thoughtfully chosen background too. Back in the days before carbon and titanium I used to race on a Basso Loto, built in Columbus SLX and equipped with a very shiny Campag Chorus groupset, among the very first of the 8 speed groups Campag made.. I was a student at the time and couldn’t afford Record. I regret selling that bike, it was a beautiful thing to ride.. as well as look at. I also feel stupid for selling the Merckx Corsa Extra SLX frame I restored and turned into a fixed gear machine with a sublime ride – a buttery feel that can only come from a fine steel frame…  It’s hard to find frames like that now at a sensible price but at the time it felt like the right thing to do as I had 11 bikes in the house and was feeling somewhat ashamed about it… which on reflection was stupid too :-)

nice

Right that’s enough from me… I wish you all a very Happy New Year and I hope all your dreams and aspirations come true.

Some pics of that Merckx follow below. Just because it was such a pretty bike and I don’t think I have ever posted them on here…

cheero!

non-period hubs but appropriately shiny...

happy something or other…

I wonder how many posts there will be by the end of tomorrow in the blogosphere titled “Bah Humbug”? I don’t think I’ll use that title today although I did consider it ;-) I thought I would sit down and write something however as it is that particular time of year that I am quite relieved has arrived at last. Having spent the last couple of winters on the road I found the idea of Christmas really hard work.. nothing to do with the concept of Christmas itself though the religious side is a story I choose not to subscribe too, rather that the assimilation of what used to be a fun mid-winter celebration by the slavering dogs of materialism and consumer culture seems, in this country at least, to be complete. So having suffered Christmas fatigue for the last 3 months I just can’t seem to get wrap my head around the idea and keep wishing I was on the road somewhere again… having said that tomorrow I am looking forward to seeing my family and as always it’s great to spend time with friends… I know that I will ‘suffer’ that warm, fuzzy feeling that brings back memories of simple, childhood christmases. I imagine tomorrow at some point I will also be on my bike or on the water as is usual..

Yesterday was the Design Room Christmas lunch which was fantastic, thanks Chris & Em, in case you’re reading. I feel very lucky to have found a niche there that I am enjoying very much. There seems, at time of writing, to be plenty of work lining up which is a good thing, especially at this time of year with wet, dark evenings to fill… meaning I can use the better daylight hours to get out riding or kayaking with a clear conscience.

Anyway, that’s enough from me. In the spirit of recession and counter-consumerism I just went out and drew you all a picture. Happy Christmas, have a good one :-)

p.s. Oh.. by the way, thought I might show you this fine engineering solution to a broken door handle.. It has been so consistently wet of late that all the wooden external doors in my cottage are sticking. I’d shaved them a few years ago such that they didn’t stick in a normal winter but this year it has been phenomenally wet.. I’m reluctant to shave them any further because as soon as things dry out a little I’ll have gaps and draughts.. Seems I overstressed the back door handle a couple of days ago tugging it open. I’ll fix it after Christmas, just cannot be bothered right now… noting that “after Christmas” may mean any time in the next 6, or even 12 months.. and in my case probably will :-) I rather like it like this.

Christmas night time paddling

last night was the Penzance club Christmas night paddle west from Penzance to Mousehole and Newlyn.. the point being to enjoy paddling at night with views of the Christmas lights followed by a hot, spicy and mildly alcoholic  brew and mince pies, also hot, in the boat shed :-) It was a beautiful albeit cold evening, the skies cleared and the wind dropped. No moon so once away from the light pollution of land the starscape was wonderful… and almost matched by some unexpected phosphorescence in the water.

The snaps aren’t great… using a cheap compact at night on a moving ocean with gloved hands… but you’ll get the idea.

I was disappointed Richard didn't wear a white beard given it's Christmas and all....

but he does have a beautiful new carbon Tiderace, the stern of which can be seen here. There are 6 of these things in the club now... we're going to have to create a special Tiderace owners sub-club.. or something

Ben managing to look inebriated with not a drop of alcohol in sight.

late dusk leaving Penzance

Mousehole had the winter barrier across the harbour entrance which was a shame but there was a particularly fine, if blurry once I'd done my bit, festive lobster on the quayside in Newlyn. I want one for my house.

Something else of a watery flavour.. Friday saw some pretty reasonable surf in Mounts Bay. It doesn’t happen very often in the bay but is fun when it does as the waves tend to peel a long way. It was a crumbly wave, not particularly big or powerful but it’s been more than a couple of weeks (i.e practically forever…) since there was a half-decent wave anywhere so it was gratefully enjoyed by me and another surf kayaking friend (in the red boat). The almost gale force offshore wind did make it difficult to get much speed on the boat and hence really make the most of the waves, and kept the windchill below freezing but for a couple of hours it was well worth getting wet. We were fortuitously snapped by a local surf photographer from just below the Penzance harbour wall.

at last, winter light

after what feels like weeks of endless storms… rain, high winds and days that never seemed to get properly light that left me feeling utterly uninspired at last today the sun broke through on a cold northwesterly gale, bringing with it a wonderful winter late afternoon light down on the cliffs at Gwithian…

DeSalvo titanium cyclocross for sale

*** this thing is now SOLD ***

This is difficult for me as it is a beautiful thing but I just don’t use it so I think I’m going to re-use the cash elsewhere… it is my titanium cyclocross machine built for me by Mike Desalvo (http://desalvocycles.com/) in Oregon.

The pictures will speak for themselves I suspect, full build list is at the bottom. The frame alone would set you back upwards of US$2300 and the craftsmanship is second to none. This will last a lifetime. Frame and the Reynolds Ouzo Pro carbon cross fork are mint, as are the Paul cantilevers, which by the way are an assymetrical set up for better modulation on the rear similar to the concept behind Campagnolos d-type brakeset. The Campag Record drivetrain has more use in it but is far from worn. Dimensions are as follows:

• Top tube has 4 degs of slope and measures 54cm effective, short relative to a road frame for a more upright position for offroad riding
• The equivalent seat tube c-c size is about 55.5cm, or 57cm from center of BB to top of seat clamp
• Head tube 15cm
• Seat angle is 72.5 degs, head angle 73degs
• Chainstay 43cm
• Standover with the tyres pictured, measured at the center of the top tube is about 82cm. It has a high BB for better clearance

so, the build list.. it is a mix of practical for off-road use and nice things…

• rear mech and shifters – Campag Record 10spd, KCNC jockey wheels in the rear mech
• front mech – Campag Chorus
• crankset – RaceFace Cadence  (175mm crank)
• headset – Chris King
• brakes – Paul Neo Retro Canti front, Paul Touring Canti rear
• bars – Deda Newton, 42cm,shallow drop, dark metal finish. I will also include a set of wide WTB Dirt Drops
• stem – Deda Newton, 11cm
• wheels – Mavic Open Pro 32H laced onto Campag Veloce hubs, X-Lite skewers
• seatpost – Reynolds Ouzo carbon
• saddle – Specialized Alias 143mm
• pedals – Shimano M959

That’s about it I think. It really is quite a beautiful thing. I would like around £1400 as a complete bike, negotiable downwards of course as I am not really sure what it is worth. I will consider splitting in future but only if I get a decent offer on the frameset…

a short cycling post of a November flavour..

very stormy today, gale force winds and torrential rain. The rain eased to more sporadic, less intense downpours this afternoon so I grabbed the opportunity for a spin out..

it's that tree... seen on here before in different guises such as "tree with flowers (spring), tree with snow (winter), tree with freshly ploughed field (fall) etc etc

it has been very mild of late, today was the first day this winter it felt raw enough to get the heavier, windproof Assos legs out... worth more in ££ terms than the winter hack bike now I think.. the background illustrates why one needs a winter hack in Cornwall.. one with decent full length fenders.

as the afternoon wore on the worst of the stormy weather moved away east to leave a wonderful winter late afternoon light in Mounts Bay for the windsurfers having fun in the waves. If the wind drops overnight it could leave quite a nice, clean, fun little wave.. in which case I shall be down there with my surf kayak tomorrow :-)

Design Room Cornwall

A couple of posts ago I mentioned Design Room Cornwall, henceforth referred to as DR… I uploaded the new site yesterday so now I can write a little bit about it. Although not directly employed by DR I am part of the team so I can say things like “we are a talented bunch” rather than “they are a talented bunch“.  It is true too, although “bunch” might be too plural, we are only 3 after all ;-).

I don’t need to write too much, the site should speak for itself. Given most of DRs business comes from the small, local businesses that make up the Cornish economy the site needed to be something appealing to that market that showcased the diverse talents and growing portfolio of the team.. it needed to avoid being overly and intimidatingly trendy, easy and intuitive to navigate, avoid superfluous content and clichés, and be nice to look at. I also wanted to keep it very light in terms of processing. It’s all CSS/XHTML.. no javascript or flash to weigh it down. I think between us we managed that very well, certainly feedback received so far has been very favourable.

We operate out of a fun little studio in Truro.. well, it’s an executive shed really, but I don’t mean that in a dirty, cobwebby kind of way. Rather it is that office rental in Truro is very expensive so instead of weighing the business down with unaffordable rental we have a very groovy wooden studio on a patch of private land a short walk from the city centre. It’s cosy and a darn site nicer than some of the office spaces I’ve worked in over the years. There is also very good coffee, visitors are most welcome… bring jaffa cakes :-)

So, please go and have a look around, clicking on the image above will take you there.. or simply point your browser at http://www.designroomcornwall.com . So now you know where to go for all your graphic design, photography and web needs.. and coffee of course :-)

the devolution of a roll

the planned flavour of the weekend was originally to be a spiced blend of a decent spin out on the bike on Saturday followed by making the most of the forecast big surf  with light offshore winds on Sunday. The reality however turned out to be something that couldn’t decide if it was a dumpling or a tasteless pudding salvaged only by a couple of hours worth of messing on the sea.. a half-hearted, appropriately watery gravy for the pudding (english cuisine)…  All thanks to picking up one of those annoying, non-specific bugs that make you feel just crap enough to not be able to do much but not really crap enough to be able to cope with the spending the whole weekend horizontal on the sofa. Hence the reason I’m sat here writing this rather than down at Sennen Cove with friends. Oh well…

Desperate to do “something” with the weekend some value was recovered from Saturday by heading down to Mounts Bay in the afternoon with a friend for a bit of sea kayak rolling. My roll is pretty reliable and is pretty much instinctual thanks to all the time spent in the surf over the last couple of years… the problem is that surfing has ruined my technique. I used to have a very nice, effortless roll with “perfect” <cough> technique on both sides  but over the last year or so that has been eroded into something that works but isn’t very pretty.. brute force rather than technique, which of course means it is more likely to fail when things don’t go quite right. I know why it has happened, when I find myself upside down in my surf boat it is something to do with a very big wave.. usually on the paddle out or when I’ve tried a move and failed miserably. Commonly swells here are quite short period too so when I go over foremost in my mind is recovering before the next one hits… repeated beat downs aren’t much fun and in my case often result in a lack of nerve for the rest of the session, especially if it results in an unplanned swim & there are strong rips around. So my roll devolved into something aimed at righting as quickly as possible no matter how ugly the technique. Every so often I consciously make the effort to slow it all down and do it properly but not always, especially if I’ve not got much breath stashed away. In respect of how poor my technique had become it all came home to me a couple of weeks ago in my sea kayak when I failed to butterfly roll.. it was something I’d never had any issue doing nicely so it was something of an embarrassment, especially with friends around. That was in my Tiderace – my Greenland doesn’t count, that thing will roll on a sneeze.

very November

So off we went from Long Rock on a bleak November afternoon. Feeling distinctly rubbish I was worn out by a quick lap of the Mount and a half hour of messing in the few feet of surf at Marazion.. rolling practice was shortened to just 10 minutes in the end with the sea cold enough now to give me an ice-cream headache. It was enough though to get my technique back in order, mostly, and remind me how easy a sea kayak is to roll compared to a surf boat.. My surf boat is not particularly difficult but it is a harder thing to right.. that flat bottom and sharp rail must create quite a vortex, and hence a lot of drag, as it rotates through the water and the short, low volume stern means that once up one needs to get one’s weight forward quickly, especially in aerated white water, to keep the boat upright. I have been known to capsize it simply because I was laughing too hard for whatever reason – usually the misfortune of a friend :-)

Sam claimed to be overheating on this November day... nuclear powered or something I suppose.

So.. the moral of this story… there isn’t one. No, wait, there is.. it’s that I need to pay more attention to technique again, rolling is something worth practising regularly throughout one’s paddling career… and that pudding with gravy is definitely more worthwhile than no pudding, or dumplings, at all..

Before I go .. back to those carbon fins… More than 5 months on the various sets in use are doing really well. I stuffed one of mine on a rock and cracked the leading edge – easily repaired and a mate managed to break his through the application of a very heavy sideways force.. i.e dropping his boat sideways onto the fin tips.. but that too was easily repaired. What was interesting with that second one was the failure mode – as expected the ‘weak point’ is the seam between the fin halves. The impact sheared that joint down to the root leaving both fin sections undamaged and more importantly leaving the fin-boxes themselves in the kayak undamaged. I suspect a more conventional solid glass fin would have transferred all the force into the fin box… The fin damage was easy to repair, much easier than trying to repair a solid glass fin  - they tend to either delaminate messily or simply snap,  and they look like new again. While I had the broken thrusters for repair the solid glass fins went back on to the boat.. it was an interesting and useful comparison having become used to the handling qualities of the carbon fins. “Dull and unresponsive” were the words used :-) I’ve stopped making them for the winter as my workshop is a bit damp and not heated but come March I’ll get production going again. You need some… well, if you have a surf boat you do..

5 month on and doing well..

Cheero!

a post about a life change.. or something

Usually when I sit down to write I have a clear idea about the words that are going to follow.. Most likely because the majority of content on this site is to do with adventures, cycling, kayaking, photography and so on.. all tangible things that are easily articulated, and relatively lightweight albeit potentially interesting or entertaining in content.. and in it’s favour I think that is why it’s become popular.. well, relatively ;-) All this preamble then is to try and warm up the writing part of my mind in the hope that the thoughts I am trying to articulate will begin to flow in a logical manner… “hope” being the key concept here ;-)

A couple of weeks ago in “not really a rainforest kind of guy” I rambled on a bit about what was next and to a point dodged the question by focussing on ideas about adventures… however life itself is also an adventure and it’s something I’ve shied away from writing about because to be honest when I read other folk’s blogs I’m just not that interested in those that get heavily & deeply introspective… when I log on it’s because I want to be entertained or inspired with something enjoyable to read  so out of respect for my feelings on that I try to avoid going down that rabbit hole on my own site. So, with that in mind you have my full permission to switch off now and go and do something else.. perhaps your gutters need clearing or the shower plug-hole needs unblocking.

Right then.. 14 months since I left my career as an aeronautical engineer here are some words about where I am now and where I think I’m going that may be of interest to folk thinking about the radical career change experience. Or not.

That was the only career I had ever had since graduating. In this country ‘career’ is a powerful concept. People become defined and pigeonholed by society here by what they do for a living…  when meeting people for the first time the question “so what do you do then?” is inevitably a popular opener. As a little aside ironic isn’t it how people traditionally held in esteem by society such as bankers, lawyers, doctors have often turned out to be the biggest crooks of all.. but I digress.. In my case having lived an expat lifestyle for 7 years purely because of a job that definition was an extremely powerful thing.. I was a senior engineer with a global bluechip corporation on the front line if you like of cutting edge technology. That was perceived as being successful, or important along with a raft of other adjectives of a similar flavour. In my case however it wasn’t. For sure I was very good at my job and my employer was a very good outfit to work for, and very happy with the work I did, but inevitably allowing myself to become defined by a career led, in my case, when things were going badly due to factors out of my control – such as technical issues, difficult customers, budget cuts and so on – to a severe and at times potentially life threatening depression. It took me years to get over that. Lesson learned.. but deeply ingrained was still the idea that I was only someone because of what I did for a career. Letting go of that last year was one of the hardest things I ever did. For the last few years I’d had a growing sense, almost a compulsion, inside of me that with just one life to play with I really had to take a chance and go and try & do something different. Getting away for a really long bike ride in South America in January ’10 restored my proper perspective on life and gave me the push I needed to make it happen. It was a difficult step, I had absolutely no idea where I was going.. beyond of course taking my bike back to Patagonia for the winter ;-) Looking back now it was no different really to getting on my bike for the first time outside an airport at the start of a wilderness adventure.

As of today then.. well I’m effectively self-employed but working for a small graphic design agency (I’ll write about them separately in due course, they’re ace) here in Cornwall. It’s an industry I’ve wanted the opportunity to get involved in for a long time… my creative streak needs satisfaction to be happy long term and I also have the opportunity to bring something to the outfit in terms of software, i.e web development. It isn’t particularly difficult relative to the stuff I was doing but I’m enjoying working on small projects within a relaxed environment immensely, taking huge satisfaction from learning new stuff again and pride in producing a high quality product. I’m not making very much in the way of ££ at all.. but the whole point of coming on-board was that the business needs to grow – so I am interested to see where I am, or indeed where we are in a year or so. I’ve been very lucky, as is so often the case it’s not what you know but who you know. In my case the ‘who’ is my sister. She is one half of the agency. Can’t beat a bit of nepotism eh?! I also have the flexibility to return to the Hebrides next summer for another season of guiding – hopefully not the last either, that was the most rewarding job I had ever done by a long stretch – as well as explore other interesting avenues of earning an income. That’s not to say I won’t go contract engineering should interesting short term opportunities arise..

So, I think I am in a pretty good place all thing considered. I’m not broke hence I have the freedom to take this chance.. I have the mid-week freedom to go for a daytime surf or spin on my bike if I so desire (I do, frequently) and I have the freedom to plan future expeditions without having to save up vacation allowance or negotiate unpaid leave. Despite the fact that I cannot afford 5* (or less..) hotels, weekend breaks in Europe or frequent restaurant meals I think a lot of folk would be envious… Hence to the reason for writing all this… I suffer from intense bouts of insecurity about what I am doing.. I worry at times about future finances, and I sometimes.. but increasingly infrequently.. wonder who I am now.  I also have days when my still fragile self-esteem, as a result of that depression, takes a knock for the silliest of reasons… for example it’s a reasonable thing to look to friends when one is in need of support, but make the wrong choice in terms of which acquaintances one considers friends and you’re stuffed… It’s a difficult transition to make but it’s turning out to be very a worthwhile one and for the first time in a long time I am genuinely excited about the future. I’m lucky. Very lucky I think. I even feel lucky that all the bad shit with depression and so on happened.. I learned a lot of good stuff from that and without it I probably would not be in the position I am now. Within reason & without being stupidly naive about it life often has a way of working itself out I think if you can keep a positive spin on things…

words are very dull without a picture.. here is one of an appropriate flavour I think. In Tasmania.

Hasta el futuro.. or something.

Wow, I needed to get that off my chest… I’ll not go there again. Next post.. back to the lightweight stuff .. hover sheep or carbon fibre toilet seats or something :-) In the meantime however I should probably go and take care of the hanging garden that is the guttering at the back…

cheero!

p.s it’s a very common thing depression so it might be useful if I said that the way I ultimately learned to cope with it was to hang on to the knowledge that no matter how dark things seemed on a given day there would always be a day in the very near future when, for no logical reason, things would seem OK. That was it.. and some help from my bike.

p.p.s oh and they do say “luck favours the prepared mind”.. being lazy won’t get you anywhere even with the best luck in the world…

back in the day…

oh dear, it has been a couple of weeks since I sat down at my keyboard with the purpose of populating these pages with more words and pictures.. It’s not that nothing worth writing about has been going on, it’s just that the brain cell has been otherwise engaged you see… when it’s not been waterlogged. Autumn in Cornwall always brings good surf and the last few weeks have seen some cracking surf, nice, clean, consistent waves with faces up to around 8-10 feet – the point at which my present ball-size threshold is exceeded – with one spectacular day of 30ft which I enjoyed, quite sensibly, by staying mostly dry. Anyway although this is a topic related to paddling I do digress… so back to back in the day, or something.

Of late I have been reminiscing somewhat about past adventures.. Probably something to do with approaching my thirtytenth birthday next spring.. and dark winter evenings of course. I came across some pictures of an interesting, albeit minor, episode in my paddling career. Back in 1996 I found myself “shipwrecked” with a couple of friends for approximately 6 weeks among an inaccessible speckle of tiny islands, at the time barely inhabited by a few fishermen, lost in the Indian Ocean off the coast of north west Sumatra. I had a wonderful canoe borrowed from a local fisherman, fabricated in wood and bamboo.. and this became my vehicle for exploring the network of islets, tidal sandbanks and coral reefs of the area. Despite leaking rather badly it was a wonderful thing to have, I was happy as larry out there amongst the turtles, dolphins, sharks and so on. Looking at the pictures now I cannot help but think how much fun it would be to build a replica here to use for a spot of fishing and messing about down at the kayak club of a summer evening. Only thing is I have no idea where I can lay my hands on those fat bamboo poles here in the UK… I’d love to hear if you do know.

perfect for a simple life.. a very simple life, I had 'nothing' with me.

stopped on one of the many tidal sandbanks between islets

rather funky accidental double exposure...

note the complete absence of bars, jetskis, paragliders, speedboats, windsurfers, lilos, deckchairs and, errm, people :-) Truly paradise

we lived pretty much off fish, coconuts and biscuits.. until one night a storm brought this Indonesian fishing boat in.. she had a cargo of illicit beer (Aceh province is very islamic.. hence dry) on board.. hurrah!

evening entertainment consisted exclusively of lighting a fire and watching the sun go down before bedding down under the palms. Some nights huge electrical storms could be seen over the invisibly distant mountains of Sumatra

When I finally managed to leave I had less then US$10 to my name.. it was a day and half of hitching by fishing boat back to the mainland then 3 days across the rugged interior of Sumatra to Medan on the east coast. Where there was a bank. Happily.

Sadly this group of islands was hit very hard by the tsunami of 2004. The main village on the ‘big’ island lost something like 300 people out of an already tiny population. Sometimes I think I would like to go back but research shows that there is a little more development there now with a more regular boat service so to revisit would only lead to disappointment I think. I shall stick with the memories… and perhaps a wood & bamboo canoe ;-)

Now, on a sort of related topic.. I’m not one generally for writing about what other people are writing about, blogs should be for original content in my opinion.. but this is a special case, especially for those of you interested in the Greenland tradition of kayaking and hunting. Another chap has been reminiscing about past adventures involving kayaks, but on a much grander and more involving & worthwhile scale than my self-indulgent  little journey down memory lane. The Hunting Trip to Umiamako is the story of a summer spent with the inhabitants of the west Greenland village of Illorsuit.. in 1959. The photography and narrative are a fascinating read and wonderful insight into a disappearing way of life. Clicking the image below will take you there.. <highly recommended>

not really a rainforest kind of a guy

“What next?“.. it is a question I am hearing with increasing frequency from friends and ex-colleagues.. Of course I know full well that what they really mean is “when are you going to stop messing about and get a proper job?” words that have followed me ever since one very (very, very) short reversed charges phone call to my father from northern Sumatra on my birthday back in 1996. When I hear it however of course it really means “where next?”. While it is true that to some people I suppose I have been dossing around in the almost 14 months since I left my aeronautical career it has been a most worthwhile exercise what with the two-wheeled return to S America and summer guiding in the Hebrides.. and in between the development of those carbon surf kayak fins that made it to the world championships on the bottom of a boat in the British team… more satisfying than that however is that friends are using them and enjoying their performance benefits. In the year or so since making the decision to leave my employer I’ve managed to earn a grand total of less than £2000, hehe… but I haven’t exactly been trying very hard it has to be said. I’m lucky in that I have no family to support and I have savings behind me.. besides, these kind of transitions from ‘employed’ to ‘free agent’ are bound to take time.. aren’t they…;-) It’s not all about ££ though is it… so far the non-monetary benefits have been huge, mostly my health.. stress is no longer a feature. I am enjoying life immensely and it shows in the absence of the severe eczema that blighted much of the last 8 years or so..

Anyway, enough of that, I’m in danger of getting boringly introspective… so what next indeed. Well, inevitably as the rain lashes against the window a significant proportion of my mind is always thinking about the next adventure. I don’t have firm plans but I do have a woolly sort of idea along the lines of big mountains and deserts… think Tibetan Plateau kind of a place… though sadly the Chinese will not allow a cyclist to go there independently… fortunately however there are plenty of other similar places. It is hard to describe, all my life I have had a yearning to be in such epic places, every time I see a picture in a book or on TV I feel an overwhelming desire to be there, on my bike. I’m just not really a rainforest kind of a guy…

I shall illustrate… in my recent delves into my archives I came across a set of pictures I am sure I have not published before… a grand excuse for a blog post in it’s own right I think. I took these in 2001 on a journey through northern Pakistan into China’s Xinjiang Province and they illustrate perfectly the kind of place I feel the need to ride. This is approx 12,000ft up on the edge of the Pamir, a wonderfully remote place characterised by vast, dry plateaus and monumental peaks. To see where I am click this link to open a satellite image in Google Maps .

yum...

a yurt in it's proper environment, not in a tacky campsite on the cliffs at Newquay..

So places that are on the list..a return to the Himalayas definitely.. which part.. not sure yet – it could be India, Pakistan, China.. or Nepal.. in such a vast area there is so much to do… the only potential spanner in my Himalayan plan is a similarly strong desire to revisit northern Argentina in slow time. I loved it there and ticks all the right boxes.. wonderful people, arid mountain wilderness on a monumental scale…  and the icecream is among the best in the world too. At the time I was heading for Bolivia but could not help but recognise the potential for a leisurely couple of months exploring the backcountry in that northwestern corner.

It was August but bitterly cold.. just a few degrees above freezing

It is going to be almost a year before any of this happens I suspect. Opportunities have come my way to make my way in a different, and very much more fun kind of working environment so despite the fact that a highly corrupting influence in the form of a friend of mine heading to Nepal last week with her bike dangled a very attractive cycling adventure flavoured carrot I got all responsible and declined in favour of spending the winter at home in Cornwall and knuckling down to some ‘work’. My one concern is that is winter is the best time for good surf… I shall have to have a scrape around down the back of the proverbial sofa for some self discipline.

village & livestock enclosures dwarfed byt the surrounding peaks

I’d also like to make a sea kayak expedition in the Aleutian Islands where something like 20 active volcanoes stick up out of the Bering Sea… damn..

street & stuff… live

It is something of a character trait that when I get my teeth into a project I can’t leave it alone until it’s done.. so just one week on my new portfolio is live online. I didn’t swing a paddle or turn a pedal all weekend… as a result of which it is complete to a state where I’m happy for folk to explore although I’ll be twiddling around I expect for weeks to come.

mikesimagination.net rides again...

I’ve based the site around a Graph Paper Press theme, Sidewinder. The gallery functionality is quite fantastic and it hasn’t taken much messing with the CSS to get it exactly the way I wanted it but the homepage functionality is very restrictive so for the minuet navigation is restricted to the menu. I suspect I will be hacking deeper into it for a while longer to get it to do exactly what I want.. this will do for now however.

lovely big image sliders

It is mostly about street photography with five galleries dedicated to that flavour of work. It is something that fascinates me, the way a photograph captures a brief, chance and quite unique moment in time (and place) that can never be repeated. I also like it because it suits the way I see the world as I trundle around the world on my bicycle. I have not the patience to be setting up in one spot for hours to wait for the perfect light, or to fiddle around with lighting and so on. I’ll leave that to folk more focused (ha..) than I.

it isn't all street however....

Despite that you will find a few non-street flavoured photos on there, again mostly captured while out riding, and as with the street content a large proprotion of fresh work from my most recent journey along the Andes. I have left in a few favourites from other adventures however… by saying which is really just an excuse to bung more pictures in this post….

such as this one from Pakistan..

and this one from Morocco..

So.. having introduced it I think it is time for you to explore.. point your browser here.… or click the top image in this post. By the way, for now this blog remains the place for all the random photography such as the Holga stuff, and the ever present messing about on bicycles and in kayaks.

street & stuff…

I suppose really I’m writing this just as an excuse to post a couple of favourite photos, to keep the content rolling so to speak in between adventures…. so having been honest about that here are some words.. and some pictures. For a number of years I maintained a photographic portfolio online before I just let it die… I went through a phase during which I didn’t see much point in putting in any effort to maintain it, after all I don’t photograph in the pursuit of $$, I just like taking pictures. It is also true that for a while on & off depression killed off the creativity within me.. but since leaving the aero engineering job just over a year ago that problem has gone away and I’ve been persuaded that I should put a new one together.. especially with a winter of dark evenings on the way.

I am still in the early image selection process and haven’t yet knuckled down to the hard part.. editing.. so at the moment I’m just enjoying going through my library of transparencies and negatives and revisiting stuff I’d completely forgotten about. The primary focus I think is going to be street photography as that is what I like best but there is also an awful lot of stuff that I haven’t figured out how to categorise so I think I’m just going to keep it as ‘stuff’.. ‘street & stuff’.. or something. The mikesimagination ‘brand’ will live on as over the years, since 1999 in fact when it was a spur of the moment idea in a Montreal office, a lot of folk have come to recognise it, so it stays.. briefly my sister and I thought it would be quite fun to play on the title of some pretentious, no wait.. I can’t say that… lets say “arty”  London establishment… Buttock of Cow (Haunch of Vension being the original) was one idea that occurred but also one that would rapidly go off so to speak… .

I have lots of new content but it is probably not hard to figure out that there will be precious little local material.. I only feel truly inspired when I’m on the road. I can either make more of an effort locally or just keep on heading off on my bicycle. I think I like the latter idea… and there are plenty of ideas of a two wheeled flavour bouncing around in my head. For now though stay tuned & I’ll let you know when it goes live..

North Cornwall Caves…

so, having determined that Bob is an appropriate name for my kayak (see previous post..) I met up with Ben in North Cornwall for another terrific day of paddling. Ben is the same Ben I guided with in the Hebrides and he’s a big chap… too big in fact for Rosie, being an uncomfortably tight fit… <ahem> He doesn’t have his own boat down here so Rosie was left languishing in the shed with one of my bicycles, also feeling somewhat neglected…  and instead I borrowed a larger kayak from a friend. I have no idea if it has a name.

We paddled a stunning stretch of coast from Trebarwith Strand to Crackington Haven with a lunch stop at Boscastle.. the harbour of which, due to a low spring tide was somewhat dry so we couldn’t even get around the corner to the quay without walking. The day was not a huge distance, I wasn’t measuring.. probably only 20-25km with all the mucking about, but it is a fabulously interesting stretch with towering cliffs, a multitude of sea stacks and honeycombed with some wonderful caves… well worth a whole day of exploration. I don’t have much in the way of great pics.. it was a grey day & for most of the day the offshore wind was fiercely gusty and 2 hands on the paddle and a brace in the heaviest of gusts meant picture taking was a bit fraught.. except in the shelter of the caves. So here are just a few pics to give a flavour. I plan to revisit this bit of coast on a still, sunny day.. so many tiny little caves, nooks and crannies to explore.

richly coloured ocean contrasted nicely with the dark, brooding cliffs

I did crop the sky out of this.. it was a very boring sky

paddling between sea stacks

this one rates as cave of the year I think...

deep inside the humidity was tangible, hence the hazy look of the photos.. quite painterly

it is a very deep cave... in a similar one a seal came right alongside touching Ben's boat, the faint entrance light reflecting off it's eyebrows in the darkness

how nice it would be with a blue sky and that green glow that filters into sea caves on sunny days

the cliffs are of a very black flavour...

some daylight exploring..

and some large(ish) rocks... exciting stuff this innit....

cliffs along here approach 200m in height

just look at the tortured strata in that cliff

typically right at the end of the day the sun started to break through and the wind dropped.. ho hum. We had thoughts we should have made it an overnight trip with a beach camp somewhere...

this is The End…. again

Lands End that is. Something of a Cornish classic paddling day out and my own favourite stretch of water. I never get bored of paddling around Lands End.. every time the character is different. It is magical on a glassy calm, sunny summers day when you can get in all the tiny little nooks, crannies and caves, and basking sharks are cruising close to the cliffs. It’s intimidating as hell when Atlantic swells as big as houses are rolling in with violent overfalls and spray shooting 100ft or more up the cliffs.. the rebound from those gets exciting.. and, as it was yesterday it can be wonderfully playful for a competent paddler with a couple of metres of swell cruising in and a big spring tide racing through.. provided you keep your wits about you. It is a good trip as a one-way from Sennen to Penzance but compared to the stretch from Sennen to Porthcurno the bit from Porthcurno to Penzance can be pretty dull.. so we rarely do that, instead preferring to lunch at Porthcurno, or Porthgwarra if the surf is dumping too heavily at Porthcurno, then turn around and paddle back. It is always different – the tide will be at a different state so opportunities to play are renewed, and the sea-state will often be different too… as it was yesterday with a rising tide and increasing swell which left us with the opportunity to do some surfing in fun shoulder-high waves on return to Sennen.

Interestingly the Romany that Ben and then Taran paddled belongs to a good friend of mine.. I’m looking after it by making sure it gets plenty of action.. or rather making sure ‘she’ gets plenty of action as apparently she is called Rosie.. a girl in other words. Perhaps this why Taran made the comment “she’s a playful little thing”.. hmm. My boat needs a name.. I could call it Colin perhaps, or Frank even…. but Bob might be more appropriate…

Enough of the words, having rectified the waterproof camera situation, hurrah, it’s time to wave some photos around… mine and a few from Taran at the end as well. A great day out with like-minded friends I am lucky to have.

see if you can spot the paddler... <hint - blade @ left>

a sheltered inlet @ low water

like threading a needle around all the rocks.

lovely bit of Cornish granite

Sam timing the swells...

it was quite violent on sets so timing was key

thinking about lunch

fabulous beach

lunch. It doesn't get much better, especially on a Wednesday. We're all professional work-shy layabouts it seems....

Taran & Ben swapped boats for the return trip.. this is Taran... no longer wearing yellow :-)

I like the 'frozen' waterdroplets in the foreground here

The next few are from Taran’s lens… more words & pictures over on his site.

this made me laugh... they're all watching the lamb go to slaughter as I paddle off to investigate a particularly interesting stretch of water..

the swells were rolling in..

& as I'd been lazy about my sunglasses strap I promptly lost them. Oh well, luckily I only buy cheap ones....

good tide flowing...

Ben awaiting his moment..

me & my Tiderace.. or should that be "my Tiderace & I".. or something

and again..

 

an update on A Boatbuilder’s Story

It occurred to me that what with spending the summer in the Hebrides and so on that you might have thought this project had fallen by the wayside.. not so, it’s still on-going. It looks like the text is going to be a winter project but the photographs are just about done. There are few gaps in the photo sequences from the original book that I haven’t been able to fill with matching content.. but on the bright side there are an awful lot of interesting photos from the yard  that were not in the original edition.. so I’ll use those instead. Like this one for example.. health and safety at work…

a cimmerian new look..

this site was way overdue for a refresh so in honour of all the dark things that I like such as coffee, cerveza Salta Negra and rubber… lets say, rubber as in bicycle tyres ok..  I’ve gone all a bit cimmerian, now there’s a good word <sneezes from the dust and cobwebs billowing out of the pages of the thesaurus*..>. The dictionary definition of the adjective form is “dark” but interestingly Cimmeria was also the fictional homeland of a race of barbarians, quite appropriate really if you think about it.. that well known wiki site says of the Cimmerians “.. a people forged by those very harsh conditions of their land… hardiness…  many other impressive skills. They can climb seemingly unscalable cliffs, track humans and animals with ease, and stalk their prey without making a sound. They are tall, dark with light colored eyes, and exceptionally strong..“  Yup, that’ll do. The most well known cimmerian is Conan the Barbarian, relative to whom one hopes that one is somewhat more articulate despite, or perhaps because of, one’s lack of a rabbit skin jockstrap.

I just need one of these now…

Anyway, I digress… It was about time I tidied up, or rather trashed, some of the old static page content, the remaining static pages I have yet to decide what to do with. I want to keep them around in some form as they get a lot of traffic.. so folk clearly are finding them useful. I haven’t finished twiddling around with it yet so further changes are likely to creep in but in the meantime I hope you like it. The header image, by the way, is from cycling across the Salar de Uyuni last year..

hasta pronto!

* when I was 11 years old my english teacher said to me “buy yourself a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus, it ill be one of the most useful books you ever own.” So I did, and she was right, it is a terrific thing to have on the shelf, full of the richness of the English language..

a quick kayaking the Lizard post

while I’m at it… <like Cornish buses these posts…> a few pictures from a fun day of sea kayaking with a couple friends on Tuesday. These are not my pictures, they were taken by another kayaking friend, Taran (more great pics and goings on over at his blog here). Conditions were quite lively so we enjoyed some spirited rock hopping under the brooding cliffs of the Lizard before returning to Poldu Cove for a couple of hours playing in about 5 feet or so of messy surf :-)

yours truly hiding behind cap & sunnies as usual, & regular paddle buddy Sam

Taran & his Nordkapp... funny how Rockpool kayaks decided to name a new kayak design after him, I think they should give him a Taran just for being cool...

that's Sam's head peeking above the waves..

pictures can never quite communicate how much fun and at times how exciting it was

but they're great pictures nevertheless, cheers Taran

I really need to bite the $$-shaped bullet and replace my broken waterproof camera

my red boat/red cag are definitely a good colour for this...

the sandbar at Kynance is a great stopping place, and inaccessible by regular foot folk except at low water. hurrah!

the ultimate bar stool is for sale.. :-)

not so long ago I built this machine, one of my best builds ever I think, and raced it for a couple of seasons…

but then it’s racing career was sadly cut short by an accident which destroyed the frame.. except for the fork and rear triangle.. so, once I had got over the grief.. it took a while I can tell you… I gave it a new lease of life as a bar stool… which is now for sale on a certain well known auction site.. but you can also drop me a line through here if it is something you really have to have.. and I think you do, especially if you have more money than sense… (don’t miss my next post on how to alienate potential buyers)

“…a bar stool with an impeccable cycling pedigree.. <cough>.. this is, or rather was a Condor Stadio carbon track frame. No longer suitable for racing on, having had it’s racing career sadly cut short by an accident, but happily now eminently suitable for drinking on. The frame, or what is left of it is in perfect condition and as a stool is fully height adjustable using the original aero seat pin. The seat is a Specialized Toupé that has a crack in the shell – not much good for riding but still perfectly good for sitting at a bar on, in fact the crack gives it something of a hammock-like quality thus improving in-the saddle comfort. As a seat it is quite stable although probably not quite as stable for the inebriated occupant as a more conventional 4-legged stool but being carbon it is of course “at least 30% lighter and twice as stiff while still remaining comfortable for long sessions”. Some folk will no doubt look at this and think what a load of rubbish.. but then one man’s trash.. another man’s treasure.. or something. Anyway, nothing ventured, nothing gained so here it is… 

(reason for sale… a large house repair bill, a noble cause indeed…)“

 

 

I need an orange one next….

as my time in the Hebrides this summer drew to a close thoughts inevitably turned to the coming winter at home in Cornwall. Having spent the best part of the last two winters away on my bike in South America I could not help but dwell on what winter cycling in Cornwall means… i.e roads lagged with soppy mud & cowshit and lots.. and lots of rain. I persuaded myself that I needed a new winter bike to help me through the dark months.. the reality of course is that I don’t need one, I have one that still runs just fine other than needing a new chain & sprocket. But I wanted one… a condition that will be familiar to vast majority of cyclists I think. I didn’t want any bicycle however, I wanted an orange one. Orange, to my mind, is a brilliant colour for a bike but it has to be all over orange and not sullied by too many decals or contrasting bits. Indeed I have wanted an orange bike for many years now but could never find an excuse. In my cycling career I have only ever owned one orange bike.. at least I think only one, there have been so many over the years it is quite possible I have forgotten one.. oh wait.. correction, I have only ever owned two orange bikes in my cycling career. The first was a Raleigh Meteor with 5 speed Huret gears and cottered steel cranks, bought in 1984 from a bike shop in St Austell run by a pair of pedantic duffers with grating accents from a place quite well north of here… I hated them but my father thought they were quality folk so I had little say in the matter. The other orange bike was a Trek 8500 MTB bought in Montreal in 1998. It was a fabulous shade of orange which complemented it’s fat aluminium pipes and polished XT groupset wonderfully. I loved that bike, a friend of mine bought it off me a couple of years later and he still has it.. it is sitting unridden &  in almost mint condition in a garage somewhere north of Toronto now and I would love to have it back.. but so far my efforts in that direction have failed :-(

A couple of years ago Salsa had a bright orange scandium cyclocross frame in their catalogue. I nearly bought one .. on many occasions but given I already had a titanium cyclocross frame I could, sadly, never quite get past the potential credit card shock. Such a shame, it was a lovely looking machine.. so long as you only used a campagnolo groupset… not like this:

Salsa Las Cruces.. orange

Nothing to do with winter training I have also been rather taken of late with the Surly Troll.. just the thing for an epic adventure somewhere.. and indeed friend Cass Gilbert has been using his for many months now in Latin America and rates it highly. The only thing is I have a brilliant expedition bike, my trusty Thorn Nomad that has been on so many adventures I could not bring myself to sell it. I could get it stripped and powdercoated orange I suppose.. but it wouldn’t be the same. I’d have to find an alternative niche for the Troll.. it has horizontal dropouts so conceivably I could build it as a fat-tyred rigid fork steel fixed gear. Quite perverted. Quite appealing… and ripe for conversion into a full on expedition bike for a future trip, say a return to the high mountains of the Himalayas… <cough>  while my Nomad enjoys a leisurely retirement in Cornwall. Hardly a winter training bike though…

Surly Troll... orange

here's Cass's Troll on the road in Latin America (see www.whileoutriding.com)

So back to the winter training thing.. I have, on many occasions, also tried to bring myself to fork out for a Genesis Day 01 Alfine.. it ticks a lot of important boxes… i.e it is a very nice shade of orange and it has eyelets for full length fenders.. but with that hub gear it has 7 gears more than I really need and the stock shitbongo shifter is soooo ugly. I suppose I could swap it out for a Jtek bar end one but it doesn’t get past the quite strange idea of having a winter bike with more than one gear… There is a singlespeed version that is an easy fixed conversion.. but it’s yellow. Ugh.

also orange..

So my ideal winter road frame then is orange, it is steel, it has track ends, spaced at 120mm and it has eyelets for full length fenders/mudguards. Such a beast doesn’t appear to exist. There are loads of cheap steel fixed gear road frames around but they all miss a trick by not having eyelets, can’t understand given the utility they offer for winter training. None of them are orange either. So I suppose I have two choices.. buy a cheap steel track frame like a Genesis Flyer or On-One Macinato and send it off to a frame builder to have eyelets added and an orange coat of paint.. or I just stick with what I have for another winter. Or, and I know I can’t count, I build up a Troll and avoid the winter problem altogether by buggering off on another expedition with it…. oh, dammit..

Or I could get something in lime green.

a couple of surf kayaks for sale

a good friend of mine is selling a couple of surf boats to make room in the garage for.. another surf boat.. more truthfully I think it’s wifey that is selling the boats as most of us know that these things make very good garage decorations ;-) Pictures below.. I’m sorely disappointed I cannot make any sly remarks about weeds in the paving or the poor state of the lawn although I am wondering about those brown patches… anyway I digress.. The stealthy looking black one is a Mega Maverick in ‘x-tech’ full foam cored carbon/kevlar construction. Usual scratches but good condition, great boat, light and very fast with a tiny radar cross-section…. £350 including standard Mega fins (though of course you’d be well advised to buy an additional set of my own carbon fins to make it go even faster and harder ;-). The rather more colourful boat is a Mega Jester IC boat in standard glass construction. A complete steal at £100 .. worth it even if you don’t surf and want something more original than an old bathtub in which to plant some daisies or something..

If you’re interested drop me a comment below – it won’t get published but it’ll give me your email and I’ll put you in touch.

getting my legs back…

9 weeks kayaking in the Hebrides… the longest I have spent away from a bicycle in something like 18 years. Not that long ago as an obsessive racing cyclist the thought of spending that much time off my bike would have sent shudders down my spine and brought sleepless nights but of course with age, but not that much age of course, comes experience and 9 weeks isn’t really that long at all for someone with many years of accumulated aerobic base.. I was interested to see how my legs were when I finally did swing them over the crossbar of my bike last week. Quite surprisingly OK was the happy answer. As you’d expect I’m lacking a little power uphill and I am feeling some fatigue.. well completely knackered to tell the truth, from a physically draining summer but it was all something of a pleasant anticlimax :-)

shiny shiny...

I did make one concession.. dropping the gearing on my DeSalvo fixed to a slightly more leg friendly 72″ gear from my usual 76″, replacing the very shiny EAI Superstar 17T with an equally shiny Phil Wood 18T :-) I’ll leave it like that for a few months now in the interests of some relaxed winter riding.

I also have a new but not shiny San Marco Regal-E saddle on the DeSalvo. The shape respects the classic Regal form that my backside has found comfy for many years.. but at only 200 and something grams

It is quite possible that with my very little bit of accumulated age I’m turning into an antisocial, grumpy old git .. or quite possibly it’s just that there are lot of tossers around. I think having had a summer guiding folk, nice folk I must add… mostly, I’m quite liking just doing my own shit so to speak, alone. Out for a ride today, just enjoying the early fall sunshine, the whisper of skinny rubber on asphalt and the barely audible whirr of a quality track chain on the aforementioned Phil sprocket I was disturbed from my mellow reverie by the sudden angry buzz of a freewheel in my rear quarter….

“where you goin’ then?” came the unwanted, breathless interrogation… I looked across at a nugget of middle-aged lard squeezed into some garish lycra on top of a very shiny, very brightly coloured Cannondale. “Just out for a spin” was my reluctant reply. “Oh I’m going here, and there and then there. Yes I’m doing a BIG ride today” he informed me. “oh good” I said hoping he would just leave me alone but like the annoying drone of a wasp in my ear the distinctly one-sided conversation continued something like this…

Cannondale: “is that a fixed then? Why are you riding fixed? Don’t see many of them around…“

me: yes

Cannondale: “This is a new bike, picked it up yesterday. It’s carbon. It’s definitely the best material for bikes. I was going to buy an Italian frame but I think Cannondale are better made”.
<Looks at my custom titanium Mike DeSalvo frame.. >
“DeSalvo..hmm who makes that then? … Are they any good?“

me: good enough

Cannondale: I’m trying these carbon wheels, they’re amazing. They make such a difference, I’ll use them for sportives. Have you got carbon wheels?

me: no    <thinking nothing in the world would get me to swap my handbuilt ambrosio rims on Phil high-flange hubs for his stickered plastic hoops…>

Cannondale: I’m doing the sportive next week. Are you doing it? I do lots of sportives.. all over the place, they’re really good.

me: no

Cannondale: why not? You should.

me: <silence but thinking “because you’ll be there and I feel no real need right now to prove I can ride a long way.”>

Cannondale: so are you from around here then? Are you in a club? Where did you say you were going? Mind if I ride with you..

at this point he was half-wheeling me so despite wanting to keep things easy by way of a recovery ride I had no choice but to put some effort in and ride him off my wheel… oh dear.. still a bike snob.

final few island images…

I’m leaving these islands on Sunday morning… feeling a little sad, I feel very at home here. However all being well I’ll be back next summer for another season of kayaking and in the meantime I have a whole winter of ‘stuff’ to look forward to back in Cornwall. I have no travel plans as such for a change – just riding and paddling at home.. & I could do with earning some proper wedge for a bit… well, trying to at least.

Anyway, a final few island images…(most with the Holga lens..)

Vatersay bristles & more Holga..

the weather continues in a stormy vein up here.. Before heading back to Cornwall next week I’d hoped to get down to Mingulay in a kayak for a couple of days exploring & wild camping but with Hurricane Katia on the way it ain’t going to happen. The wind did drop off a little last night for a cracking evening surf… offshore winds on a perfectly formed head-high wave with wonderfully stormy evening light. Magic.

idle hands on a storm-washed beach...not sure what this is.. a Vatersay Beach Bristle Monster perhaps... whatever, he's coming back to Cornwall...

wonderful storm light in Castlebay...

the coast of Vatersay

painterly hues of the airport beach near high water

Because the airport is the sheltered beach behind the dunes backing the west-facing  surf beach of Traigh Eais the free parking, in contrast to Cornwall’s hideous beach parking charges, is very handy and the baggage reclaim shed makes a cracking foul-weather changing spot… but not in this photo taken one fine evening earlier in the summer. Bearded guitar minstrel optional.

a little more Barra & Vatersay

Just a few more images of Barra & Vatersay as seen through a plastic Holga lens. It has a focal length equivalent of 50mm & aperture is fixed at f8. Ideal snapshot lens if you can work with the low contrast, vignetted, unsharp look… especially at the moment as the weather remains very unsettled with terrific lighting  :-)

three carrots and other things

just before I brought myself up here to the Outer Hebrides I picked up, for a very few £ indeed – £10 or so,  a Holga lens in a micro 4/3 fit. I used to have the original medium format film Holga camera, before I broke it, and rather enjoyed the somewhat distorted & heavily vignetted images in produced. The plastic lenses are now available in various mounts for digital cameras which is rather a fun thing. Mine came from the far east via fleabay. Postie delivered it as I was packing my gear for the trip north so without unpacking it I tossed it in my bag and forgot all about it. Until yesterday that is while digging around for a clean(er) pair of socks… With 90km/hr winds and driving rain the weather was fundamentally unsuited to anything much except for a walk out onto the exposed west coast with my GF1 & Holga lens in my pocket. The weather suited the lens.. or rather the lens suited the weather. Whichever way you look it the images seem appropriate to the bleak nature of this island when a storm blows in…

 

through the rainy window of my luxury sleeping quarters....

Anyway, enough of that. Last weekend was the Barra & Vatersay Produce Show… an important event on the local cultural calendar… really it’s just a heap of fun and while some folk take it deadly seriously most seem content to have a good laugh.. and unintentionally come away some prizes…

inevitable really....

Chris won a prize with this creation...

.. and with this decorated wellington boot entered, appropriately, in the fishing & crofting section...

it's serious stuff this...

deadly serious.. quality not quantity, 4 carrots would not have done

for some reason I found it all rather amusing...

Finally, before I crack on with more kayak repairs, and completely unrelated to any of the above.. an evening scene on Vatersay snapped while on the way to the beach for a surf.

more island stuff…

“You anything to do with the sea kayaking?” the grumpy looking chap said… it clearly had not escaped his notice that I was faffing about with sea kayaks on a trailer here in Castlebay. “Yup” was my one word reply… failing to warm to him and his equally grumpy looking wife. Gruff words followed… “Well, what about it then?“. “Are you interested in just getting out for a half day paddling or one of our longer adventures?” I asked. “We just want to go paddling” he says.. It was late Saturday afternoon so I said “Ok then, well Monday is the next likely half day trip, the forecast for tomorrow is for high winds so I can’t take anyone out“. “What use is that to us, we’re going home on Monday and need to go paddling tomorrow” he complained. I apologised and blamed the weather forecast. “This place is rubbish, there’s nothing to do” he grumbled. I pointed out that there were plenty of empty beaches to explore and some terrific walking to be enjoyed amongst other things. “We don’t do walking” was the retort… I said no more.. well, not out loud anyway. I have no idea what they expected to find in the Outer Hebrides.. a theme park perhaps? I cannot imagine how meaningless life must seem for a pair cursed with such a profound lack of imagination… not that they would notice.

looking west across the Atlantic.. towards Canada in fact.. on a beautifully still afternoon

I love the place.

My kayak guiding is just about done for the season but I am in no rush to head south back to Cornwall just yet. I love the simplicity of life up here. I love the fact that the vulgar displays of materialistic greed and arrogance that blight much of the mainland are completely absent. I love the friendly, down to earth folk. I love that I can go and surf and share the waves with no-one but a couple of friends. I love that I can always find a beach on which the only footprints are mine. I love that when I want to go for a hike there are no marked trails littered with people and the odd discarded crisp packet… I can just pick a mountain and go, any which way I like, knee deep in heather and wildflowers or scrambling over weathered rock patchworked with lichens, and chances are I won’t meet a soul.

looking to the north end of Barra and beyond to Eriskay & the Uists. The beach on the left is Traigh Eais.. a good surf spot. The beach to the right is Traigh Mor - used as the airstrip.

For the next week or two.. or however long it takes I have got a bunch of kayak repairs to take care of. The glass boats are in need of some repairs before being put away for the winter. It is something I am good at and glad to do in return for a place to sleep while I enjoy this small but perfectly formed mountainous little island called Barra :-)

for some folk this is rubbish.. nothing to do, nothing at all...

Oh dear, as I write I seem to have chomped my way through an entire fruitcake… I’ve been out in the wind on top of some mountains again today, by way of a break from paddling.

spongy...

a few other random recent photos follow..

meet the Clearwater dog...she's lovely and is called Kipper... with her boundless energy I cannot help thinking of her as the Kippertron.. ;-)

yours truly having a rest... (photo by Ben)

.. having a rest.

there's a pattern emerging here... in my defence I worked hard and what else to do while waiting for a ferry ride on Eriskay ;-)

a glassy morning in the Sound of Harris (photo by Ben)