terrific view of an approaching storm front from Godrevy this morning….

I’m too lazy to plan my bike trips in detail, preferring just to have a start and end point and only a very rough idea for the bits in between. It’s a very handy sort of laziness though ‘cos it works really well and gives me the flexibility to plan just a few days ahead, and not get stressed if things go wrong but makes it kind of hard to describe in advance what my plans are… so to that end here is a map showing a rough route for my journey beginning in January. The green mark to the north shows the route I took through Ecuador and Colombia last year, the purple line represents the idea for 2010.  I have mixed feelings about starting in Puerto Montt rather than Ushuaia.. on the one hand it makes getting to the start very easy but means I won’t see the very tip of Patagonia… however I have plans for that bit in a combined kayak and hiking adventure anyway for the end of 2010 so I’m not too bothered…. which on reflection is maybe not the right attitude… life being short and all. Never put off ’till tomorrow what you can do today… unless it’s work of course.. :-)

<click the map for bigger pic>

So, from Puerto Montt I’ll head north in Chile until I feel like crossing over the east side of the Andes in Argentina at some point, most likely while still south of Santiago.. from there I’ll stay in Argentina until in the north around Salta (probably…) before crossing back into Chile and the Atacama Desert. I’ll cross into Bolivia from the northern end of the Atacama.. pedal my way across the Bolivian altiplano via Uyuni, Potosi and so on all the way to the border with Peru at Lake Titicaca. Once in Peru I’ll head downhill and northwest to Arequipa before heading back up into the high Andes at Cusco. That’s the nominal end point. I’ve travelled a fair bit in Peru already so not too bothered about going further than that, however if time allows I’ll keep going north… it would be nice to join up with the southernmost extent of my cycling in Ecuador but I doubt very much I’ll have time. Just the part from Puerto Montt to Cusco could be as far 7000km over the ground, don’t know for sure… guess I’ll soon find out. I have just under 5 months.

That really is the extent of my detail planning until I get on my bike in Puerto Montt on the 14th January :-)

To be honest I wish I could just go now…. I can have my gear together and ready to go in a few hours I reckon.

a particularly gruesome news item on the BBC website yesterday caught my eye, concerning as it did travel along remote roads in Peru… The full article is here but by way of a synopsis it seems that a gang has been ambushing/abducting folk on remote roads and then rendering the bodies down as a source of fat and body tissue for sale to the cosmetics industry… ugh… “Cmdr Angel Toledo told Reuters news agency some of the suspects had “declared and stated how they murdered people with the aim being to extract their fat in rudimentary labs and sell it”“… and I thought they only did that in the movies (Perfume springs to mind)…..

Members of the gang may still be at large, of course my immediate thought was that I’ll be travelling alone out in the mountains on my bicycle, but logically being a lean cyclist and, as one of my friends put it yesterday “one look at you Mike and they’ll decide you’re not worth the effort” I have nothing to worry about, hehe, especially not after a few months of mountain touring if past experience is anything to go by :-)

I’ve just written to a friend currently cycling around the world concerning maps for biking in South America and figured it may be useful to reproduce here…(really just  very lazy way of producing a post…) I already wrote about maps for Colombia and Ecuador last year here, and also touched on Rough Guides maps here… so here is what I wrote… “…traditionally the hardest country to get a good map for has been Bolivia but Reise now have a decent one (http://www.reise-know-how.de/bolivien-11300000-p-1782.html) as part of their World Mapping Project, the scale is 1:1,300 000 which is OK. It’s printed on waterproof paper too. The same maps are available for Peru, Chile, Argentina with Rough Guides covers – they’re all good maps and Stanfords.co.uk in London has them all….” and then, being the useful sort of chap I am, hehe,  I said I’d be happy to buy them for him and mail them to collect in Australia or New Zealand or Buenas Aires…. but it’ not a service I can offer to everyone… well, not for free anyway ;-)

Reise also have one for Ecuador now which may be more accurate than the ITMB one I had, but don’t have one for Colombia. Yet….

… 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….

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 :-)

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 between 5000-7000km of cycling (ya I know that is very ‘ballpark’…) 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…

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 :-|

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 :-)

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!

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 :-)

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 :-)

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.

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 :-)”

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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….

‘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…..

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 :-)