Back into weekend walking...

With the cycle racing season done and the new trike 'almost real' I'm back to weekend walking.
Last week was a damp 4 mile loop alongside one of the local reservoirs, this week a 5.6 mile circuit out to the Ticknall Limepits (abandoned for 100 years and now pretty woodland) and back.
The featherweight Mountain King 'Trail Blaze' poles are working well - this is my first time walking with two poles and they make a big improvement on slippy uphill stretches.
In the above photo I'm also wearing an Epic jacket and jeans. These are both cotton but the threads are individually silicone coated making them waterproof. Because of the cotton both are very nice to wear, and don't seem to be as susceptible to catching and tearing on thorns as nylon fabrics. The fabric is not AS waterproof as some of the adverts make out, the jacket (Rohan Pampas) requires some internal heat to stop moisture slowly seeping through so I'd rate it around 75% as waterproof as a good Goretex jacket but much more so than a windshell like Pertex. It is currently my outdoor jacket of choice because it just feels right - it feels less 'hiker' and more 'wax cotton' without the maintenace problems of re-waxing). The trousers are Alpkit's Jeanious Jeans and they have become a constant companion! Again the Epic fabric means that a splash or shower just runs off them. Constant damp works through eventually but the fabric does not 'wet' and body heat quickly forces that dampness out. They would not replace a proper pair of waterproof overtrousers on the hill but for a 5 mile Sunday potter they do the job. They are a tad too warm for harder walking at the mo (I usually wear shorts or knee-length breaches enjoying the breeze around my lower legs) but I'm sure as we go into Autumn and Winter they'll be in their element. Oh, and the rest of the time they fit and feel just like ordinary jeans - I've even adopted them as stock wear for dress-down Friday wear at work where nobody seems to have noticed they are anything other than normal jeans...

What I've been up to for the last month...

Posts have been a bit thin on the ground for the last month. Now it is confession time - I've been busy getting back on the bike again! I've been working on adding the bodywork (fairing) to my Greenspeed SLR race trike. And then racing at the last few events in the BHPC race calendar. I haven't done that great, but along with some evening training on a stationary exercise setup I was fit enough to finish the course at Hog Hill on Sunday - a circuit with a rather vicious climb each lap. This might not seem like that much of an achievement but I didn't even manage to complete a flat velodrome event a month earlier! And the result was good enough to give me 40th position in the UK rankings for the year!

Just in case you are wondering - the trike under the bodywork is effectively a bare chassis and I've built the white bodywork as streamlining. On a flat race this allows much higher speeds. On the hilly Hog Hill course it only helped on half of the course!

Photos with thanks to Fraser - see his full coverage of the event here.

Bargain time?

To celebrate their 5th birthday Alpkit have a special on their self-inflating mattresses. I've tried most Alpkit stuff but not these yet - if you fancy giving them a go £15 for their lightest version including p&P seems like a bargain to me!

Route Change - Boycott Wales!

With the Welsh Assembly proposing pushing ahead with a Badger Cull in Pembrokeshire the only response I can think of it to boycott everything Welsh. The cull is based on the assumption that Badgers transmit TB to cattle and ignores the fact that cattle are routinely kept in overcrowded conditions, indoors for 6 months of the year which is much more conducive to spreading disease than being in fields that badgers may also have been in. This is before being turned out for the summer into fields that have previously been sprayed with the waste products of the previously mentioned indoors cows.
So for now my Glyde Around Britain route will be replanned following the English side of the Border up through the Welsh Marches and keeping my Tourist Pounds in the land of the free (and live) Badger.

Custom Mountain King Trail Blaze poles

My new pair of Trail Blaze poles arrived from Mountain King, up in Newcastle, this weekend. They're a custom pair in plain alu rather than the usual black or purple. I use a white 'blind' cane when walking around town (as much to avoid being trampled by people who expect me to see them as to feel my way!) so would have liked a pair of Trail Blaze poles in white, but plain brushed alu was the closest the makers could offer - and as I was offered this as a no-cost custom variation I'm grateful to the team there!
So, next walk I have a pair of 117g each poles to test. This will be an interesting change from using a single half-kilo or so cheapo hiking pole that I've been using for years.
Next weekend is another mad 'fairing building' weekend (adding a lid and tail to the nose/body I build and raced a couple of weeks ago - see photo below) followed by the last race of the UK 2009 season the weekend afterwards so these sticks will have to wait until after that to be tested...

Achievements...

This week I have...
1) Won my first cycle race
2) Entered an exhibition for the first time
3) Sold my first photograph
Ok, so I am not going to be retiring on the proceeds but my hill walking is showing its first signs of return on investment!
And the cycle race was in the 'slow' class and next time I get to race in the 'fast' class but hey, it is a sign of my returning fitness...
And I did spend more on things I bought at the art exhibition that I earnt, but again hey....

I'm still here

Just in case anyone was wonderering if I'd disappeared.... things have just been a bit busy! Amongst other things I'm preparing for my first photography exhibition - I'm not giving up the day job yet though...

Latest News:

I went along to a local BHPC race this weekend but didn't take part - it was rather pleasent to just chill by the trackside, sit in the sun and watch the racing for a change! I did use the opportunity to fire up some of the stove collection to make coffee. The EK750OB had two runs - I recovered it from a little bit of dieback on the first run, on the second run it behaved perfectly! The more I use the wood burner the more I like it!

Third serving of coffee was courtesy of the MBDCult 'Stumpy' which also worked very nicely.

New stuff - I'm waiting on a pair of custom Mountain King Trail Blaze poles and a Factor 1 base layer from Subzero to arrive...

Oh, and having enjoyed getting back to cycling, at least on the race track, I'm working on rebuilding my faired race trike with the plan of getting it race-fit over the August bank holiday weekend ready for a race in West London the following weekend.