Category Archives: friends

Africa, bikes, friends, GPS, MTB, travel

RVO acclimatisation

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For over a year, Adrian had been trying to convince me to come back to Kenya to ride the Rift Valley Odyssey – a three-day 250 km stage race down into the Great Rift Valley, across the bottom & up the other side & back to camp.  He and a couple of mates rode it last year – which I was quite impressed by as they seemed to start mountain-biking just to do so.  As since my last visit AD & Carm have got married & had a couple of kids, the 2013 RVO seemed like as good a reason as any to come back & visit – plus it gave motivation to all the riding I’ve been doing over summer 2013.

As it transpired, the timing didn’t work out all that well as two weeks before the event AD & Carm moved south of the border to Arusha, Tanzania.  So when I flew into Kenya I had a day or so staying at Brackenhurst (a large bible college complex just north west of Nairobi that serves also as the Kenyan base for AD’s company, until recently their home & also the start of the RVO) resting from the travelling, assembling my bike, getting my lungs slightly used to the 2200 metres of altitude before AD & Carm turned up.  I also manage to slip in the shower/bath & bruise/crack a rib that was to trouble me for the next week or so – lack of adhesive ducks.

It’s nice turning up in an expat community where everyone is really friendly & very well travelled – my first trip overseas in five months, it’s cool to hear of new places to go & see.  AD, Sean (also riding the RVO with us) & I managed a nice little very early Tuesday morning ride around the local teafields – with over 400 m of climbing in less than 15 km, it was bit more than I was used to around the flatlands of home & it gave my sea-level lungs a bit of a workout.  Later that day I managed a second ride with another guy, Dave, a bit further afield (30 km in total) to a couple of waterfalls & through more teafields.  My lungs were slowly getting used to the thinner air – but it was still worth resting Wednesday.

Most of the international entrants in the RVO turned up Wednesday evening & there was a social prologue ride on Thursday to help with the high altitude.  I had a miserable night’s sleep previously & with all the rain I heard while lying awake I had decided to give the prologue a miss as I was in a foul mood & thought I’d just end up slipping to a big crash – not much use before a three-day event; also all my teammates had wimped out citing being too busy at work.  But a bit of light broke through the clouds at just the right time twenty minutes before the start – so I hurriedly got ready & rolled out with everyone else.

It was time on the bike off-road so predictably I quite enjoyed myself – even if the almost 50 km & 1200 m+ of climbing was probably a bit more than was sensible before the upcoming three days.  A nice big lunch in quite a colonial setting was enjoyed by all.  That evening we were around at Sean & Tesni’s (Tesni runs the baby orphanage that the other guys were riding for – they ended up raising $US10K!) tweaking bikes for eight o’clock start.  Thankfully I managed to cure the horrendous creak from AD’s bottom bracket – I’m pretty sure I would have had to rip my ears off if I had to ride next to that for even half of the 250 km.

combe raiders, friends, GPS, MTB, national park, UK

Hound Tor return – in the sun

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John kindly proposing a big Combe Raiders ride was enough to get me to Somerset for what was otherwise a free weekend – I still need to get longer rides under the belt before the end of the month, while looking after my knees. With just three of us signed up for whatever ride it was going to be, it was going to be faster (fewer stops) than other CR rides.  With an all day pass from home, John was keen to head back to Dartmoor and ride a route I led eight of us on back in March – last time the weather was atrocious, so I could see some of the point in going back in nice weather at the tail end of summer.

After dropping into the bottom of the valley, there’s a big climb to get the legs & blood pumping.  It wasn’t long before I was wondering how I survived on a singlespeed last time – the larger group & cooler weather probably helped.  Dartmoor has a bit of a reputation for quickly turning into desolate isolation if the weather turns, so it was odd to see it on such a lovely day.  Oddly, within an hour of each other two of the three of us riding tubeless tyres got punctures that didn’t seal – I put a tube in, John just kept pumping his tyre up rather often.

We had to ride through a herd of these guys, thankfully they didn’t object

Grimspound

We eventually arrived at Hound Tor, which is a much bigger & impressive pile of rocks than the photos below show.  The Hound of the Basket Meals food van was back in the car park – this time we had more than tea.  One cheeseburger just served to remind me that I was actually hungry – so much to the others’ later envy, I had a second.


John & Hound Tor – after we avoided the man running after an escaped kite

Before long we were back at the van & with John phoning home to see if we might have another hour or so out & getting an affirmative – we tacked on a bit more trail that I’d loaded on to my GPS.  With a fair bit more climbing, a nice flowing bit of woodland trail and then an unexpectedly long hike-a-bike to more good views – this was the highlight of the day’s riding for me.

Just nice countryside

around home, friends, history, vehicles

Kentish long-weekend

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After a big weekend of riding the previous week, where I managed to pull a muscle in my knee on the Saturday making Sunday’s large singlespeed ride rather painful, it seemed to a good idea to leave the bike(s) at home for the last long weekend of the summer. The physio sorted out my knee quickly, but recommended I do some form of exercise other than biking – a thought that hadn’t crossed my mind recently. So I went for a run & pulled a muscle in my foot – I promptly gave up running.

Not taking bikes, meant that the four of us could all fit in the same car as we travelled to a quaint 15th century cottage we had rented for the weekend – our base for a friends’ wedding. It’s quite fun staying in a house that is more than twice as old as the country you’re from. Happily, I also had a long weekend for my birthday for the first time in my life – a rather dismal day weather wise, we pretty much spent the day eating well too much. We also managed to fit a visit to Canterbury Cathedral in (I’d been before with Trish a few years ago, so as the weather was pants I didn’t really take many photos).  Eventually we settled on a huge roast dinner and if that didn’t fill me up – the two birthday cakes certainly helped.

Plenty of exposed beams

Kings Head Cottage – plenty of room for us all

Across the village green

One of the older houses in Chartham

Thankfully, the wedding day had considerably better weather than my birthday.  Laura & Luis got engaged before I started working here in the UK, so it was good to see all the plans that we’ve heard so much of come to fruition.  The service was all very traditional (dearly beloved, have & to hold etc.) and quite good fun, I still can’t sing very well though.  On seeing the wedding car, below, I immediately had to get a few snaps for Uncle Geoff back in Australia – I’m pretty sure Bentleys of such age are his favourite.

With a bit too much time to spare between ceremony & evening wedding party, we went down to the white cliffs at Dover in our gladrags – where we picniced on the beach, mucked around, went to the pub and then wandered a bit on top of the cliffs.

After the speeches was the dancing for the night – a céilidh.  Basically a gaelic folk dance, it reminded me of the (awful) folk-dancing endured at primary school – but it was miles better due to there being a good band, a caller to tell me what to do and no longer being scared of girl-germs.  But I still had little idea what I was doing – but it really didn’t matter as plenty others didn’t either.  A huge pig-on-a-spit topped the night off nicely; amusingly the happy couple drove off in a tuk-tuk.

around home, bikes, combe raiders, friends, GPS, MTB, UK

Combe Raiders Swanage Weekend

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For the second weekend in a row, I was off to Swanage for a riding trip.  To make a pleasant change, I had the short drive to get to a Combe Raiders ride – fifty-five miles instead of the normal hundred to Taunton.  Arriving early due to the afternoon off work, I quite happily passed time in the local bike discussing bike-packing & my next bike.

The ten others turned up in dribs & drabs; once settled into the dormitory/bunkhouse & John had dinner prepared we headed out for a quick ride before it got dark (after being told not to bring lights, I forgot to pack the small ones from my commuter).  Most of the trails in the area I was familiar with from the SSUK 2013 events of the previous weekend, although we did find a nice little descent off the other side of the golf course.  Up onto that ridge again, I had to walk about twenty metres as the headwind was gusty & it was just too much on a singlespeed.   The downhill off the ridge & back into town was just as good & is even better when someone has opened the gate on the blind corner halfway down.

I think this weekend away had been booked well before this was decided, but somewhere along the way it turned into a bit of a celebration of D’s fiftieth birthday – but perhaps that’s just what the guys with wives had to use as a reason to get away for a weekend of biking. Either way, there was special Combe Raider cider, whisky that I actually found palatable & a very enjoyable Friday night. Somehow I managed to avoid the rooms with the chronic snorers – snoring stories are much funnier the next morning when it’s not you that has been kept awake all night.

It would have been too much to expect two glorious weekends in a row – but Saturday was reasonably nice as we headed out to the lap that John, Rich & I had done last week (except they’d wizened up & brought bikes with gears – I was the only nutter left on a singlespeed).

Near the start of the ride – a pub we didn’t go in (well, I had the week before).

“If you’ve got time to hold gates open – get to the back & ride up with the stragglers.” Up the first climb – Isle of Wight just visible in background.

Rich standing in front of Swanage.

As this was the same ride as I’ve already detailed last week – just without the two-hundred odd singlespeeders – I’ll spare you the details, except I rode everything again. Normally, when riding around those with multitudes-more-gears-than-me I don’t mind getting off & walking if I have to; but this time I knew I could ride all of the big hills, so made myself do so – my knees weren’t so happy about that. We stopped in Corfe Castle because someone said there was a good bakery there – I had a great pasty & danish again. The climb up to Kingston was a bit easier this time around  & soon enough we were back at the Square & Compass – nice ale & I convinced myself I deserved another pasty. Back into town via Priest’s Way & time for ice cream by the seaside.

Come Sunday, we’d done most of the trails of note (or so we’d been told) & were looking for a slightly easier & shorter ride before the respective drives home. Somehow, it fell to me to cobble together a route using two photocopied OS maps; I’m not sure that was the best idea for those looking for a cruisy Sunday ride – after all I was riding a tank of a singlespeed (I still can’t believe how heavy it is – that had conveniently escaped my memory before I brought it back from NZ last year) & could not be thought of as taking it easy. Pleasingly for a group of eleven, we only had one mechanical for the weekend – & that was only a puncture on Sunday morning when we weren’t pressed for time. Coming off the Priest’s Way (this time riding up it) we found ourselves in the middle of a Wiggle sportive for roadies. For the next fifteen minutes we had a great time chasing down those ever-cheerful breed of cyclists that wouldn’t even smile or return a greeting as they whizzed past us. I don’t think one of them was overly impressed by being tailed by mountain-bikers – although the icing on the cake was when I managed to pass one up a hill.

I think this photo was taken to show the niceness of the countryside – very pleasant to ride through, if not as spectacular as some recent photos.

After we got over the hilarity at being sworn at by irate roadies that couldn’t handle knobbly tyres passing them, we found a descent we hadn’t done yet. Down the side of a ploughed field, where I was filled with my usual trepidation of riding parallel to barbed wire fencing, we were in between hedgerows and all of a sudden the trail got really rocky & absolute great fun. This was the part of the weekend I most wished I was riding the bike I had in Moab. We joined the main road back into Corfe Castle, joining up with the road contingent before stopping at the bakery again.

More new route took us north of Corfe Castle where we discovered a nicely wooded section filled with bluebells, other flowers & mostly-smooth fun trail. Up & over another ridge & we could see the village of the lunch-pub in the distance.

I had one more nasty surprise on the map – what turned out to be the steepest climb of the weekend.  Unfortunately, we could all see it coming – I was pretty sure that I would be walking up that as it looked like loose boulders at the bottom of a continually high gradient.  To get to it, we had a reasonable climb on the road where we passed more of our road friends again.  I was pleased to clear the whole climb – somehow I negotiated all the rocks before settling down to slowly push the pedals around & get to the top.  From the top of the ridge, we could see the weather closing in – there wasn’t much to see from the lookout, so what else to do but head to lunch in Kingston.

We finally got rained on, for the first time of the weekend (not bad going), sitting in the beer garden waiting for a delicious lunch.  The bonus of the beer garden was we (well, D – he who got sworn at) could boo every roadie that went past.  Then the road got slick & they started crashing on the corner in the village & it would have been funny if they had not needed medical attention.  With the rain set in, we took the easy fast route back to our cars in town.

So a great weekend, where the company was the highlight, the riding was good, the food & drink plentiful and I didn’t blow my knees apart – well organised John.