It has to be said, as can been seen from the frequency and quality of my posts of late, that maintaining this blog has become a bit of a chore. Gone are the days were Sun effectively paid me to write it. I do enjoy blogging, but with a couple of other sites to maintain and an often more than full time job I struggle to find the time or motivation.
Rather excitingly, but not without a lot of stress, Espe and I have just bought a flat. We get the keys today. The move will be quite a bit of work and the flat needs some attention, so the chances of me going near a computer out of work hours are pretty slim.
So there you have my excuse for the lack of posts over the next few months (and to think I still haven’t finished my Peru post yet…). For your viewing pleasure, and in and attempt to entice you to come and visit, here are a few pictures.
The alarm goes off at 6:25 am, but this time it isn’t for the dreaded 7am Spinning Class… In terms of physical punishment though, what I’ve got ahead is far more tough than that. Getting up this time was easy though, as I was excited by the prospect of a two day, 155 mile ride from Bristol to London.
I made my way down, somewhat clumsily, in the dark with both day pack and back pack, to Bristol Cathedral where I was greeted by a multitude of fluorescent jackets and the bright lights of a BBC TV crew.
After registration and a prep talk we were told to form groups and wander over to the start line. Not knowing anyone else taking part, I joined the queue and found myself in the first group, then after responding ‘yes’ to the question of ‘did I know the way out of Bristol?’ I found myself being goaded into leading the first group. Quite a privilege, leading 50 cyclists out of Bristol on an (estimated) 155 mile ride to London.
So, off we went smiling (rather awkwardly) at the TV crew as they filmed us leave. Cycling past my flat I’d left an hour previous with daylight starting to break I found myself setting a fairly fast pace up the steady incline on the Bristol Bath cycle path. Checking behind every so often I was surprised to see all six of my group right on me. At this point I began to wonder what I’d let myself in for, as these people were clearly very fit. I knew for sure I wouldn’t be able to maintain that pace, but at the same time was pleased that I didn’t have a group that was happy to dawdle along at snails pace.
After a quick stop to discard excess clothing we were on our way again, and before long had caught and passed the Sustrans riders who were marking key directions with chalk. A snapped chain and two punctures (one of them mine) delayed us but arriving at the first rest stop we discovered we were still way ahead of the second group.
Not that any of this was important, as it wasn’t a race, but one clear advantage was keeping just ahead of the rain that look rather ominous every time we glanced over our shoulders.
The event, dubbed the Bristol Blue Wave was organised by Bristol Diocese who had put on a couple of support vehicles to carry our luggage, planed the route in conjunction with Sustrans and arranged refreshment and overnight stops.
The Bristol Blue Wave was actually just a feeder event to The Wave, dubbed the UKs biggest ever climate change march, with people coming from all over the country to take part. See www.stopclimatechaos.org/the-wave for details.
When I first spotted the event I was initially pretty keen just because of the cycling aspect. Thinking of the December weather though, I pretty much shelved the idea, until seing The Age of Stupid ‘made’ me do it.
During the first stint we introduced ourselves to each other and I was pleased to find I fitted nicely into this group. With one exception, all were about my age and keen cyclists. There was a lot of encouragement in the group and we all seemed pretty competitive too, wanting to make our group winners, despite the fact that it wasn’t a race (something we had to keep reminding ourselves of).
We were also joined by an older chap, Pete, who was the only person in his congregation to take up the challenge. In addition to being a good 20 years older than the rest of us, he wasn’t a regular cyclist. As a result we did have to slow down to his pace, and drop back to give him encouragement. Being the back can be very demoralising, I know from the Alps trip earlier in the year, so Ollie and I regularly took turns to drop back to ride with this chap. Trying to engage him in regular conversation, but it was never long before the incessant whinging started up again. In his own words he resented us for being young and enthusiastic and several times mentioned dropping off at one of the check points and joining a group of his pace. Something that would have suited us all, but unfortunately he didn’t and stuck with us.
At the second checkpoint / tea break, I had my second puncture of the day. Only spotting this as we got back on the bikes the others in the group set off while Ollie stayed back to help me change it. We then had a full on stint as we set off to catch up the others. Given that Ollie was on a road bike this was a big effort. Thankfully a bit of crafty slipstreaming enabled me to keep up… just.
Despite being over 80 miles / 130km, the first day actually easy. We ate up the hills without complaint and despite it being December I was plenty warm enough. Having mis understood the plan for the stops I failed to bring any lunch with me, which left me to survive on protein bars, bananas, chocolate, raisins (and a Tuna sandwich kindly donated by Matt (who deserves a special mention: riding a single gear bike and always being out in front were both testament to the guy’s fitness). Pleasantly, after eleven hours on the bike I was pleased that I had no pain in the arse (unlike previous long rides) and was therefore very thankful for the support van carrying all our stuff.
That said, the last 5 mile leg was actually the toughest part of the day. With the darkness and cold having closed it, it got tougher as my light fell of and smashed down a pitch black country lane. The cold soon worked its way into the fingers and toes. I then got the hunger shakes during last half hour and to top it all off, we had to contend with the constant whinging from the older Pete…
All that just served to make the tea and cake at the overnight stop all the more welcome. Despite being a pretty poor brew, it was the best cup of tea I’ve ever had, and the two bits of cake I had were also awesome. And fair play to Pete. Instead of joining a group more to his pace, he stuck with us and pushed on until the end of the day.
For the night we were put up in the hall of Newbury Baptist Church, but not before we were all taken off by different members of the congregation, welcomed into their homes and, in our case at least, fed a mighty feast. Lasagna, chilli con carne, salad, garlic bread and two deserts were more than welcome after all the calories burned during the day. I was genuinely touched by the generosity of these people who invited smelly dirty strangers into their homes and fed us so well. Disgracefully, I can’t even remember their names to thank them personally via this blog…
We slept on the church hall’s heated floor heated. All 50 of us spread around the room. It has to be said that it was not my best night’s sleep ever, especially given that Christian got up at 6am and switched all the lights on.
Itching to get moving we were delayed by about 45 mins before we were allowed to go which was frustrating (’it’s not a race’!), but thankfully Pete had seen sense and joined another group so able to push on at our pace.
It happened to be the year’s first frost and there was a fair amount of ice making it a little treacherous, but on the upside it was a beautifully clear morning and we even were blessed with a beautiful sunrise as we progressed along the Kenneth and Avon canal. Its not often when living in the city with a 9-5 job that one gets to see the sunrise, which set me reminiscing of Australia where Espe and I would witness sunrise and sunset every single day. With white frosty fields along side the canal and mist rising off it this first leg of the day was stunning.
Arriving in Reading for the first stop off we were fed Bacon sarnies and then interviewed by kids at the local primary school about what we were doing. The second leg was had an odd looking d-tour marked on the map taking us well out of the way, but unlike most of the other groups we decided to follow it and were treated to yet more stunning (and very English) country side which was contrasted massively when we arrived in the suburbs of Maidenhead, which to be honest could have been one of many new towns in the country, so nondescript was the place…
After a welcome late lunch in pub in Eton Wick we pushed on through Windsor great park. Somewhere well worth visiting on a nice sunny day. It was here that we split into two groups as Ollie Cathy and Matt, pushed on at a high pace, while Paty (Spanish), Christian (German) and I (English… I only mention the nationalities as after my time in Madrid I really enjoy the company of Europeans) slowed down to us all suffereing from knee pain. At this point we had already covered over 140 miles and it was becoming quite clear that the people at Sustrans who had planned the route had underestimated the distance some what.
Despite the knee problems it was still good to be pushing on in great company. The last leg was along the Thames cycle path, would have been stunning, but it was dark by that time and raining.
Arriving for the overnight stop after 12 + hours on the road I was pretty much destroyed. I couldn’t walk properly as my knee was in a lot of pain (anyone sensible would have abandoned the ride, but as many of you know I can be pretty stuborn at times). Day two was less distance (75 miles / 120 km) than the previous day, yet it had taken us considerably longer, due to the slower pace and more built up areas interrupting the flow.
Paty, Christian and I hit an Italian restaurant in Richmond were we ate rather well and had a good chat. They are a couple and met here in England working for a wind turbine company. Both vegans they have strong ethical views on many things (not least climate change - which was after all the reason we were all here). I couldn’t help but admire them both. Not your typical ‘activists’, don’t inflict in on anyone, but when delved in can supply some pretty strong arguments. Hopefully be seeing more of these two…
The second night was much better as we were split into three separate rooms, with Matt banned from our room based on his snoring the previous night.
The final day’s ride which was a mere 12 miles, was great with some stunning views as we crossed Richmond Park, but my knee was in a lot of pain now. We were following Sustrans ‘ranger’ so no need to map read (although Christian had done a sterling job of that the previous two days anyway). Arriving at Lambeth Palace was pretty special, crossing the Thames in view of the Houses of Parliment we’d reached our destination over 170 miles (275km) later.
Having completed the ride, all that was left to do now was take place in The Wave. After all the climate change march was the whole reason we’d cycled here in the first place. It wasn’t long before we’d changed into suitably blue attire, and the ever enthusiastic Paty had painted our faces blue…
It was great to take part in something this big, especially as this was the first time I’d taken part in any type of demonstration or march. There was a great turn out, some reported 50,000 people and a great feeling within the masses. Unfortunately, after the two days riding I was too knackered to take it in, and can’t do it justice here.
The ride itself was fantastic. Being out on the bike is great alone, but take the challenge of such a long distance, the opportunity to see some English countryside and the thrill of getting to know some fantastic people made for a truly great three days. Would I do it again? Hell yes!
Oh, and of course, this post wouldn’t be complete without one of My Maps…
Finally, I’d like to extend a huge thank you to all of you who sponsored me. I’d hoped to hit £100 with your help, but that has been smashed. Rather worryingly, I pledged to match whatever you guys raised for me. I’m rather regretting that now as at this moment in time I don’t have that money to spare… I think I’ll have to pay up in installments.
To all the Drum and Bass MCs out there who insist on calling for the rewind at every possible opportunity… please stop it.
The average DJ wants to take the punters on a journey, carefully selecting tracks, mixing, blending and teasing the crowd. The flow of a good set is ruined by incessant calls for rewinds. It really isn’t necessary. Granted, if the DJ drops and absolute stonker of a track, and the crowd is calling for it then, yes perhaps the rewind is justified. But not on every bloody track (once or twice per set should be the limit). And lets be frank… calling a rewind is no substitute for good lyrics.
I remember seeing Andy C up at United Dance in Stevenage back in the late 90s (before he was recognised for the true talent that I could see clearly). Along with amazing me with his technical skills as well as ear for a good tune not to mention his production abilities, I was especially pleased to see Andy turning down MC GQ’s call for a rewind with a curt shake of the head. A sharp reminder that MC’s are there to compliment the DJ and not take over.
So what’s brought this rant on all of a sudden? The Thekla was my favorite club while at uni. Dark, dingy, unpretentious with a great sound system all housed in a ship mored up in Bristol’s Floating harbor it was unique.
Two years after moving back to Bristol, I still hadn’t been back to the Thekla, put off slightly by the talk of the refurbishment changing the nature of the venue. That was until about two weeks ago when Nat and Jon came up to visit us in Bristol. Nat had managed to blag guest list tickets for Hospitality, the monthly drum and bass night.
It’s been a while since I’ve been out dancing, and I have to say I love it. The heavy basslines reverberating around the Thekla’s hull just took me. Entertained by the likes of Marcus Intalex, Blame and Fabio, it was a great night and good to see that Drum and Bass is still going strong. Quite a different crowd from back in the day with a much more student crowd (which left us feeling old) rather than the rougher rabble of the past.
While enjoying the music and several beers, I found myself composing this post in my head, something that I used to do a lot while drunk at gigs. Shame it has taken me over two weeks to actually write the thing.
To finish off, big up and nuff respec to Nat and Jon for coming up for the weekend and getting me out listening to what I love.
Right… tomorrow morning I’ll be setting off for London on my Bike. One of the other riders will be updating twitter as we go so you can follow our progress here: http://www.twitter.com/bristolwaveride
Must go to bed now, as I have to be up at 6 tomorrow to get ready for the ride…
Espe and I finally got around to watching the Age of Stupid on Saturday which is a pretty hard hitting film about climate change (not an uplifting weekend film wise, we’d been shocked and saddened the previous night by a Swedish film Lilja 4 Ever which deals with the horrific subject of the sex trafficking trade).
Seeing Age of Stupid renewed my interest in alternative energies (something that dates back to Geography and Science lessons as school), and served to remind Espe and I that we need to do more to combat climate change. The little things we can around the home to save on energy consumption may not have much overall effect, but imagine half the people in the country did the same.
One of several things that stood out during the film was mention that a Government is only as good as its people, and will only act on something if enough people push for change.
I had spotted The Wave through the Sustrans gumph I get through the post and of particular interest was the Bristol Blue Wave, a cycle ride from Bristol to London as a feeder event.
The Wave aims to be the UKs biggest climate change march and will take place ahead of the crucial UN climate summit in Copenhagen:
“Part of a global series of public actions, The Wave will call on world leaders to take urgent action to secure a fair international deal to stop global warming exceeding the danger threshold of 2 degrees C.”
I considered the ride when I first heard about it, then dismissed it when I thought about the distance, the cold, the rain and a huge work party that takes place the same day. By the time I’d finished watching the Age of Stupid, I knew I was going to take part in both the march and the 2 day ride.
I’ve never taken part in any processions before so it will be a pretty new experience. Having been studying the 150 mile route for the ride I’m pretty excited about that too. Although only allowing myself two weeks to get fit doesn’t bode well.
The main aim of the ride and the march, is to raise awareness of the climate change issues, show the UK government how seriously many people take this and encourage them to take a lead in Copenhagen.
On top of this I will be raising money for the UKs leading sustainable transport charity, Sustrans. They work on practical projects to encourage people to walk, cycle and use public transport in order to reduce motor traffic and its adverse effects. Read all about them at www.sustrans.org.uk.
I’ll probably regret this, but I will be matching whatever you donate, so please generously, if nothing else, to stitch me up.
There will be about 50 of use setting of from Bristol, being joined by more in Swindon. There are many other rides setting off for London from Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Cambridge, to name but a few, so if you see a whole load of soaking wet cyclists dressed in blue, towards the end of this week, now you know what it is all about. Wish us luck…
I logged into my Google Adsense account last week for the first time in ages to check on my earnings. Unsurprisingly, with the lack of regular updates, my income from the adverts has dropped off completely. The adverts will never bring in big money, but one month during my round the world trip they peaked at $92.
Recent chats with Pete, who is becoming a bit of a ‘digital media‘ expert, have reminded me of the potential earnings from websites. Most of this is through adverts or affiliate programs. I go into detail, but the better the content and the more traffic you can generate, the more chance you stand of earning some money.
We’re going through a bit of a re-organisation at work. This year has been absolutely manic and we’ve pretty much burnt ourselves out (Jan - August I averaged 1.25 weekends a month in Bristol). As a result we will be changing the way we work, with each of us doing a more specialised role rather than a whole lot of everything.
Therefore I will be concentrating a lot more on web development and doing much less of the event organising, communication and administration. In that sense it is great, although I will get to travel much less.
The net result of all of this is I should have more time to have to get on with my life out of work, part of which involves getting this site back up and running.
So, expect more regular posts, a new theme (as I broke the current one with a recent upgrade) and possibly a new website or two.
My visa extension in Mongolia occupied the last free page in my passport, so its time to get a new one. Flicking through the current one, even if I do say so myself, it’s pretty damn impressive full of weird and wonderful stamps and visas. I did wonder when finishing my round the world trip whether it would fill up before it expired. Working for Tom, I should have guessed that would have been pretty much a dead cert.
Rather well timed, was an email from Philippe mentioning www.PassportStamp.com. A new website designed for sados like me to show off how much one has travelled. I’ve been cutting my internet faffage down to a minimum of late, avoiding the likes of Facebook, but after five weeks without a day off I felt some wastage of free time was in order…
Admire the redness:
Clearly Africa, the Middle East and South America need some attention, so I guess I’d better work out how to get a new passport before I head off to Peru in a months time…
What can I say? I love mountains, I love mountain biking, and I’m starting to get into this personal fitness thing. So, based on that, this holiday could only be a great thing.
Despite all the training I threw myself at, the trip was physically very very tough. Quite possibly toughest physical exercise I’ve ever done. Rubbed in by the fact that everyone around me was much fitter. Still, I feel pretty proud of what I achieved. We covered over 534km in total, with a cumulative elevation gain of 11,096 metres.
This was the third trip for Christian and some of the others but for me, being the first time, I was not sure what to expect. There was more tarmac than I envisaged and initially this was a disappointment, but to be honest after a while I began to dread the gravel climbs. For a start these tracks are a lot steeper than tarmac roads and secondly you waste a lot of energy on loose gravel. Likewise, although this trip was about off road, the downhill stretches on tarmac were amazing. Hurtling down at ridiculous speeds towards hairpin bends, hammering the (quite incredible hydraulic) brakes as late as possible before leaning right down and being launched out the corner the other side. Great fun! I can only imagine how good that would feel on a road bike.
It was the tarmac stretch coming down from the pass that put us into Italy that we hit our top speed. 74kph / 46mph. Pretty fast on a bike, I can tell you.
Downhill on the gravel was even more fun. Speeds were not so high, but due to the bumps and slippy surface still felt very quick. Again, as the gravel bits were often steeper, it was quite incredible how quickly you pick up speed. One has to be constantly on the brakes, but very cautious at that to avoid locking either wheel.
Something else I hadn’t anticipated was the amount of walking we had to do due to the terrain being too rough or too steep a climb. This is easily avoidable on a short trip with known trails, but when covering the distances we were, it was inevitable. Technical single track is what we all crave, but finding good stretches is very hard. That said, the long walks (usually on the last stretch up to a peak or pass) paid dividends when coming back down again.
During this trip I tackled some of the steepest declines I’ve ever done, which at times gave me the fear. It is counter intuitive, but on the really steep and slippy bits, it is better to be off the brakes (weight as far back as possible) leaving you to gather it up after the steepness or obstacles.
We also did quite a bit of ‘Belgian queueing’ (as the direct German translation works out at) while on the flat tarmac too. This is when, as you might have seen on the Tour de France, where one guys leads a pack, then drops back to let someone else lead. I’d never imagined that this would make much difference, but how wrong I was. As a group of six, the leader would cycle as fast as possible, with the rest of us being dragged along in his wake. Due to the slipstream the effort required to keep up was minimal. Granted, you had to be close (generally 1 to 2 inches from the guy in front’s rear wheel) for it to work well, but once I got over the initial fear of riding that close to someone at speed this was no problem. This was so effective that on some of the gentle downhill gradients, despite the lead guy pushing as hard as he could the rest of us would have to brake gently to avoid running into those in front.
Obviously the guy at the front pushing as hard as possible can’t keep it up for long, so drops to the back of the line to recover allowing the next one to take his place. Using this technique we were able to maintain a very high pace over some of the flatter sections for long periods.
We had great weather apart from one afternoon when the heavens opened. This was just after the climbing our second 2000 metre peak of the day, leaving us to negotiate a particularly steep track, which instead of being nice fine gravel was more like a bed of rocks. Hard work in the dry, this was particularly treacherous in the wet. A balance between arresting your speed, but not allowing either wheel to skid out of control.
Knowing only Christian (my house mate when I moved back to Bristol), it was great getting to know his friends. A great bunch. I’d love to say it was a great opportunity for me to practise my German, but in reality it was a great opportunity for them to practise their English.
It was great having the company, enjoying the riding, good beers and good food together but above that, the support and encouragement they gave me on the long climbs really helped. Being at the back, which I invariably was, is really tough psychologically, but both Rafi and Daniel helped me out with that.
As Christian said to me before the trip, anyone could manage the trans alp, but the fitter you are the more you would enjoy it. Having done it, it seems a pretty fair comment, although I wouldn’t have wanted to have attempted it without any of the training I did do. One thing that is pretty obvious, but was made clear is that to do this you need a lot of fuel. I, generally speaking, eat a lot. In fact, I really should be fat. But I’ve never eaten as much before as I ate during that week. Breakfast was generally a five - seven roll affair, stuffed with ham, cheese or jam. Lunch was lighter, but still a few sandwiches, or a stodgy soup followed by the ubiquitous Apfel Strudel. The evening meal was where we really went for it… Starter, main and desert, and often in the pizzerias we found ourselves ordering more pizza after all of that.
One evening after a few beers and rather a lot of food, Christian quite possibly amazed by my culinary intake, laid down a bet… That in ten years time he will have a slimmer waist than me. The looser buys the winner 10 crates of Weissbier. So, come June 2019, we’ll be digging out the tape measures…
Towards the end of the trip we had a day off lounging by and swimming in a lake. The following day we then went for a ‘fun’ ride - no luggage, no destination, just a mapped out route on Christian’s GPS. This was going pretty well, but I was curious about noises of some pretty potent automotive machinery being ragged, for lack of a better word, about the mountain. I initially put this down to the local boy racers, but after hearing the distinctive noise of several Porsche flat 6s I new that wasn’t the case. A little later on my eyes got to feast on what my ears had already gorged on… a classic car rally / hill climb was being held on the local roads.
This being a post about mountain biking I’ll try not to go on too much about the rally, but there was a Delta S4 there. Those that know, would appreciate why I was rather excited at seeing one for the first time. For those that don’t… Group B, Supercharged, Turbocharged and 680bhp might give some idea. Or perhaps not.
On the final day returning to Munich, first we got a train up to the Italian Austrian border. From there we had an hour and a half to get to Innsbruck some 35 kilometres away before our train to Munich left. Thankfully it was all down hill, so some more ‘Belgian queueing’ and the help of some ultra fast road bikers who came past (that we tagged onto) we made it in a hour! On one stretch we were even being held up by cars!
I haven’t talked much detail about the route or the views as hopefully the map and photos will tell the story much better (see photos added to the previous posts). All I will say is it was fantastic being in the amongst proper mountains again. The Alps really are pretty special!
Before signing off, I would just like to say, being airborne on a bike is an absolutely wonderful feeling, both wheels sliding out of control despite not touching the brakes is not.
