howies®

It’s my last day with James McKnight and his crew out in france and we’ve spend the last few days doing some serious rides. Pushing bikes up over 1000 vertical meters of Alp, camping out in a mountain hut to escape a storm, then riding down 2000m of virgin singletrack in the rain. Im stiff today.

Yesterday we shot James McKnight and his boyos at possibly the most scenic set of trails in the world. Nestled in the Chamonix valley and in the shadows of the Mont Blanc glacier we spent 6 hours shooting these puppies in the sunshine.

Anyone know of any contenders?

So I’m in Morzine and four days into documenting the life and times of howies team rider James McKnight for his forthcoming guidebook project, and I feel like a wreck!

Yesterday I found out the true meaning of the term ‘epic ride’ as we scaled up 2000m in assents (partly with the aid of chairlifts and a good 300m or so carrying the bikes over a high pass) and 2200m of decents…a 7 hour epic covering all sorts of terrain, from high speed fire roads to unridden technical singletrack decents.

Today we hit some trails in Chamonix, to mix things up with some BMX.

Good times.

I’ve just returned to Hong Kong, after the spending the day shooting in the howies denim factory in china, the main goal and aim after all this traveling. It was definitely a highlight that’s for sure.

It’s an amazing place they have going out here…not what you think when you see ‘Made in China’ and I hope the pictures do the place and people justice.

So now, I guess…thats it…job done.

The Numbers…

Days on the road: 21
Distance traveled: 7940 miles (roughly)
Trains caught: 8
Trains missed: 1 (thanks to the welsh snow)
Time spent on trains: 9 days 2 hours
Photos taken: 1371 x digital, 396 x 35mm, 29 x medium format, 19 x polaroid, 1 x camera phone
Countries visited: 9
Visa’s issued: 5
Visa’s rushed through last minute: 5
Amount of money spent on visa’s: too much
Books read: 3
Instant noodles eaten: 16
Man flu caught: 1
Man flu downgraded to mere cold: 1
Flights taken: nil
Best job’s ever: 1

OK, You may think why didn’t I fly, or as someone quite rightly commented on an earler blog, ‘isn’t all this travel bad for the environment’… well yes it is. But personally I’m not going to stop, I can’t. I do it for work and I do it for pleasure…it’s just me. So this was an experiment into another way for me to travel, a way that treads a little lighter. Slow Travel.

Tomorrow I’m leaving Hong Kong, but i’m not coming home…I may be some time yet.

17 days, 11 countries, 8 trains and nearly 8000 miles later… I’ve made it to my final destination, the great city of Hong Kong. 

Phew. That was some journey to work howies.

I’m pooped!

Well I’ve made it to China and Beijing. Today was my ‘day in the city’ as I leave Beijing tomorrow on yet another 24 hour train ride down to Honkers (the final destination) and even though I walked till I dropped, I barely even scratched the surface of what this city has to offer. So after mulling my options over a coffee this morning, I decided to bail on the tourist route and just wander…up and down the back streets, through the old hutongs, ate ‘who knows what’ from the street vendors, chatted chinglish to cheery old blokes, took plenty of pictures and got properly lost.

A good day. Time for a beer to wash down the dog meat.

Cheerio, more from Hong Kong.

p.s beijing is swarming with amazing skate spots, next time I’m bringing my board.

6000Ks, 5 time zones, countless stops, -40C temps, 2 border crossings and we pulled into Beijing Central train station just 2 minutes late. Unbelievable.

That was, indeed, an epic train journey. 

I’ll send more as soon as I have eaten real food!

The picture is shot through a dirty window somewhere in Mongolia…

I have a few hours to burn till my Trans-Siberian train leaves Moscow, so…

…The trip in numbers…so far…hoooraaay

Days traveling: 7

Distance traveled: 1918 miles (roughly)

Trains caught: 6

Trains missed: 0

Hours spent on trains: 42

Nights spent on trains: 2

Flights caught: 0 

Cameras broken: 1

Cameras fixed: 1

Rolls of film taken so far: 5

Digital Photos taken: Lots

Russian Vocabulary: 12 words (& a few useful phrases) 

Mandarin Vocabulary: 0 words, 0 Phrases!

Countries left to visit: 3

Distance left to travel: 5580 miles (roughly)

Days left on the rails: 7

Days left to Hong Kong: 8

Beef Strogonoffs eaten: 2

Days till next blog: 6-7ish?!…speak soon howies. 

(Im not sure what the first pic says, something to do with the Metro, just thought it looks very ‘Soviet’. Second pic is one of the Moscow metro platforms, Be nice if London underground was as pretty as that!)

Usually the first word I learn, when learning a new language is ‘thankyou’ Not much use here! No body uses it, or please, or anything polite. So in order to not stick out, like the polite Brit I might seem, It’s rudeness all the way! 

Saying all that, Moscow is quite a place, especially negotiating the underground palace that is the metro, dordle here to try and figure out the crylic map and your swept off wherever the crowd is heading. 

Hiked (and slid) around the usual tourist traps today, and tomorrow it’s off to the markets before catching a week long train to china. Will get there in the end howies, there is just so much to see on the way!

p.s Merino boxers we’re a goooood idea.