This Weeks T-Shirt of the Week is ‘No Gears’ by 45rpm

No Gears is a group of like-minded cyclists who live and ride in Bristol.

From premiering some of the best cycle films in the world, to curating bike-based
art shows, they have a love for anything with two wheels.

45rpm is an artist and member of the collective. He has designed this t-shirt
to commemorate the 2010 Bristol Bike Week.

Click Here for the Men’s
Click Here for the Women’s

Well, I  say ‘running’ … I mean going out with a specific route in mind, and aiming for a speed at least a couple of times a month, usually a couple of times a week.

This weekend I will be running in my first organised race, the Bristol Half Marathon.

With 4 days to go, it’s playing on my mind, I can’t stop thinking about it.

Have I done enough training? (probably not.)
Can I pace myself for the first half? (maybe…)
Will I be able to finish? (yeeeah.)
Will I be fast? (Don’t be stupid.)

I’m aiming to finish in under 1 hour 40. With my own absurd target being 1 hour 30.

I figure there are three key points that will help me in the race as opposed to training on my own.

1 – Bristol is flat. A lot flatter than Pembrokeshire.
2 – There will be well organised and regular drink stops. I often dehydrate half way through my run and finish with a headache.
3 – I will be running in a pack and will be able to tune out easier once I find someone to pace myself with.

The nervous energy is building in my legs.

It can’t start soon enough.

While the pros rolled up with their swish carbon bikes & shaved legs and set up their turbo trainers along the sides of the back roads, the focus of the day for us was the traders race. A 15 minutes +2 lap race, open to any local business people, shopkeepers, delivery drivers, barkeepers and the like.

Ade and I joined Jon Heslop of the Do Lectures on the motleyest of motley start lines.

Ade and Jon were sporting fixed wheels, I was on a borrowed road bike with gears and a freewheel. Also in the mix were a few classic town bikes, a couple of more serious looking racing frames and at least one 26″ MTB’er.

The flag fell and off we went. A leading pack quickly took charge of the race and built a lead over the rest of the field, with Ade and I trading places in our own race behind them.

I kept in touch until the final lap, when he made his break and my tired legs capitulated.

The real hero of the day was Josh, though. Who shot off with the lead pack and went on to win the race (but only by a whisker) on the carbon Look he borrowed from the bike shop, wearing jeans with a pair of flat pedals and a 15mm spanner in his back pocket to swap them back onto his BMX for the ride home.

Many thanks to Carl, Tom and the rest of Velo Teifi who laid on a great event. We hope to take part in many more Cardigan Street races in years to come.

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is ‘Multitasker’

Modern life has its demands.
So much to do, so little time.
Work, play, family, money and updating your Facebook page.
That’s why modern man (but primarily woman)
has become so good at juggling.
It seems it’s now the only way we can function.
Just don’t drop the ball.

Click Here for the Men’s
Click Here for the Women’s

The internet died a few hours before the Autumn site was due to go live.
Turns out it’s hard to run a website when you can’t get online.
So Plan B was a 6am start in the Cardigan shop to do the final bits and pieces.
Two sprints across town to HQ to get some files (my best time for the 1GB is 10 minutes)
A rebuilt SQL database and a jury-rigged XML upload.
And we’re live. The Autumn clothes are online and you can see the catalogue here.
Hope you like it, it’s been fun getting it ready.

School starts
Early sunsets
Picking berries
Trees transforming
Eerie mists
Migrating birds
Bonfires burning
Evenings snuggling
Rustling leaves

Autumn is on its way. And so is our new catalogue.

A copy of our full catalogue, or one of our cut-down newspaper versions
should be landing on your doormat any day now.
New jackets, jeans, dresses and knitwear. And the story of our surf team’s
trip across Ireland in an old Winnebago.

Alternatively, you can go look at all that stuff on our website, where youíll also find a downloadable PDF version of the catalogue.

Click here for men’s
Click here for women’s

Just found this on Vimeo.

A day in the life of New York City, in beautiful tilt-shift miniature.

Winner of Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction 2010

Love it. Tilt-shift makes the world look so cool.

Part 2 – The Riding.

After the incredibly slow drive to Åre in Northern Sweden for the 3rd round of the Maxi avalanche enduro cup, we were more than happy to wake up to sunshine and fresh mountain air. After the official morning coffee we’re back on our bikes and stuck into some epic riding.

The area around Åre is by no means the highest mountain range, with it’s peak at only 1420 metres it’s a mere blip compare to say the Alps, but don’t be fooled by this lack of altitude as it’s part of some of the most epic ‘big country’ in Europe.

When the sun shines the light and the expanse of sky become overpowering on top of any of the local peaks your view is uninterrupted for miles as the mountains just roll and roll only stopping to be punctuated by mountain lakes and more mountains. Riding in mountains you find yourself surrounded by huge house-sized boulders that dwarf the trails and make Northern Scandinavia so distinctive.

The riding here is simply Åresome (sorry!). There are so many trails littering the mountains it’s difficult to know which to start riding first with all of them keeping you grinning all day, and riding late into the evenings.

Even the light is epic, which also happens to last from 5am to about 10pm this time of year, it’s pretty much 24/7 daylight in June so if you fancy taking some taking epic nightrides, head north.

What do top mountain bike riders do when they are not racing or riding? They go on Facebook of course! James McKnight relaxing after a days riding…. And pre race training for the Maxi race.
More coming up in Part 3 when we cover the Maxi race, it might not be sunny so wear something waterproof.

Desirable riverside location with striking views.
Easy access by foot or bike (no tubes or busses, sorry).
Large conference room*
Mooring point.
Adjacent to pub.
Otters and herons.
Many Sq Feet.

*field

This video is made up of screen shots from Oliver O’Brien’s London cycle hire station status map (oobrien.com/vis/bikes/).
Each second of video is 1 hour in real life and the video starts midnight Tuesday 10th August and ends midnight Wednesday the 11th.

It really shows all the bikes flooding into central London in the morning and then leaving in the evening!

Blue circles represent bike stations that are less than half full, red circles are over half full.

(From Chris Jackson @ Kingdom Bike)

Part 1 – The longest Day and Night.

The internet attention span is so short I know I’d better keep this quick, so here’s the details behind this micro blog and our bike adventure.

Take 5 bike bums including howies team rider James Mcknight and plan a 3000km round trip through Scandinavia to Northern Sweden for round 3 of the French enduro series the Maxiavalanche, all in a VW from 76’. Interested? Read on. Bored? Click.

We all meet up in Copenhagen airport and headed directly to the ferry which would take us overnight to Oslo. The ferry leaves promptly at 17.00pm every evening, so with our lungs full of exhaust fumes and a flat battery we ‘pushed’ our VW onto the ferry at approx 16.55pm.

Fast forward 16 hours and we roll out onto the port of Oslo, bump start the love bus over to a lurking customs official, who pronounces in a lovely mockney accent ‘Nice van geezers, where you orf too.’ Erm Åre!

The following 12 hours became a sea of u-turns, oil changes and uphill chugging through some of the finest ‘widescreen’ scenery there is in Europe. Epic countryside. Crossing the border from Norway into Sweden we entered the last leg of this slow motion voyage as the sun tried to set and get some rest for the day.

Rolling into Åre too late to get the keys for our apartment; we silently unloaded our bikes, took a quick nightcap and poured 5 fractured bodies into a fried out combi. Night.

In the morning, the retro cramped interior of this classic motor had started to feel claustrophobic, so we decided it was time to get some space, put our bikes together and do some riding instead of bonding.

We’ll continue regular updates and adventures all week from Åre, finishing with some Maxiavalanche race coverage on Saturday.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the start of this little adventure.

(I got this up a little late, part two tomorr0w!)

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is ‘Follow Your Front Wheel’, by Joby Barnard.

The ride is not about what bike you’ve got,
or how much it cost, or your fancy gearset.
It’s not about time or speed or winning.
The ride is not about the destination or how far you go.
The ride is not about this way, that way or the other.

The ride is just a ride. All you have to do is pedal.

Click Here for the Men’s
Click Here for the Women’s

He’s just set up a skills coaching company called New Mountain Rider.

Find out more here. Dan’s offering private coaching, or training camps for groups of up to 4 in Wales, Switzerland and France for a more social experiance while learning on some of the world’s most awesome trails.

Dan says a huge thanks to Sam Gunton (who you may have met working in the howies Bristol shop) and Alastair Wright for their help building his rather nice looking site.

Thanks, Joe. As if living in the shadow of Ben Nevis with some of the UK’s best trails on your doorstep wasn’t enough to make us all jealous, you’ve gone and made things even worse with this!

I’m just kidding. There’s some beautiful stuff in episode 1 of their trip.

Part 2 to follow!

Dear howies,

I thought you would appreciate some positive feedback on your Epic  jeans.

I popped into your shop in Cardigan while on holiday. The salesman (bit of an unfair title,  it felt more like a chat with a mate) told me all about a canoeing trip he had done wearing his Epic jeans, and generally raved about the brilliance of Epic cotton. He even sent for an assistant to come bearing glasses of water which got chucked across the jeans (and the counter) in a epic demonstration of Epic.

I bought the jeans.

The next day dawned dark and gloomy along with a planned canoe trip with the nice folks at heritage. No guesses as to what I wore . . . . . .

We had a great trip on the Teifi, and although the rain stayed away my son managed to find some interesting routes under wet low hanging branches. His paddle work was often somewhat splashy and the net result can be seen in the attached. The second picture of my dry and surprisingly clean jeans was taken a short while later

Credit where its due these jeans really are Epic (they also feel really nice and comfy). Please pass on my thanks to the man in the shop.

Phil

Glad you like the jeans and that Scott was helpful.
It’s always good to hear stories about what our products get up to after they leave us!

You can find our Epic jeans online here.

I was riding this Kingom Leigion, kindly lent to me by the guys at Kingdom Bike.

It was the first time I have ridden a titanium frame, and I liked it. After my super stiff, tank-like Chameleon it was nice to ride something a little lighter with a 120 fork and more of a bouncy personality. I caught more air over the jumps, and found more whippy lines through the tricky bits.

Check out Kingdom bike here. They’re currently road tripping through Sweden with howies rider James McKnight,  giving some of their other frames a through testing on some beautiful looking trails.

This is Andrew(‘s legs) and his little boy.

He popped in today to say hi and pick up a t-shirt.

We spotted his jeans and got talking about denim.

Turns out he’s been wearing the howies jeans in this picture for more than 5 years and they’re still going strong.

A little frayed at the back of the hem and very faded at the knees, but no holes and still plenty tough.

Makes me proud to see that. I love our denim.

We have a new shipment coming in next week, and some fantastic new selvedge soon after that.

(5 points to whoever can name the other howies product in the shot)

The Cardigan River and Food festival is tomorrow.

It’s always a great event, with stalls of tasty local food and loads of fun stuff going on down by the river.

Scott will be running a howies stall down on the riverfront by Fforest from 12pm.

We’ll be selling some great sample sale stuff with everything going for a tenner on the howies stall!

And Fforest have a lot going on with canoe taster sessions on the Teifi and bushcraft lessons on the quayside as well as barbecuing some yummy food on the quayside by the fforest / howies shops – veggies and pescatarians catered for. They will also be serving up delicious hand-made pizzas from the pizza oven on the quay all washed down with lovely local Penlon beers. Fforest cafe will be serving coffee and homemade cakes and the giant hat tipi will be up with live entertainment happening throughout the afternoon.

The quayside is also the perfect vantage point to watch what’s going on on the Teifi.

For more details of what’s going on, click here.

It’ll be a great day, if you’re around don’t miss it.

But it might rain, so bring a brolly or a jacket.

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is Hope

Hope is fight or flight.

Hope is that place between take off and landing.

Hope is not knowing, but doing it anyway.

Hope is a way out of a hole.

Hope is everything is gonna be alright.

Click Here for the Men’s
Click Here for the Women’s

As part of our women’s Autumn preview, we’ve just got the Scout hoody in stock.

The chunky knit merino looks and feels amazing. Really cosy.

Lydia wore one on the trip to Ireland for the Autumn photoshoot and she is seen here making it look good with wellies. “It’s just nice” she told me when I asked for her thoughts.

Click here for more

(Women’s only, I’m afraid!)

I have a lot of good memories of great big bowls of dough rising in the kitchen and the warm smell of fresh bread seeping through the house

It’s only since moving away from home that I’ve really appreciated how good it was to have home made bread around all the time

Mel’s talk of her bread maker and the excitement about the upcoming WeeDo lecture at the Bristol shop doesn’t help either

Maybe it’s time I started baking my own…

They keep predicting wind and rain on the weather.
But here in Cardigan Bay,  the sun keeps on shining.

Fingers crossed for a heat-wave August to see out the summer.
Autumn is a beautiful season, but much nicer when it comes after summer.

Here’s hoping for many more long evenings on the beach
before the leaves start turning brown and the swallows start flying south.

(…but for a sneaky peek ahead at our Autumn range, click here for men and here for women… shh…)

P.S. This tune keeps getting stuck in my head.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is on hold
to make way for the Election Winners.

For the last couple of months, the votes have been flooding
in and the swingometer has been swinging, but the 2010 T-shirt
Election is finally over and the ballots have been counted.

The public have spoken, and after much speculation by the media
the winners have been chosen. 10 of the best designs from our
archives have been reprinted and are now available to buy again.

Congratulations to Ravi, who was randomly selected by
random.org as the winner of the prize draw and will be
receiving one of each of the winning t-shirts in the post.

Click Here for the Men’s
Click Here for the Women’s

Maggie, who is more often found down by the river in our Cardigan shop,  is up in the office today – helping me out with some data processing work at a spare desk.  (I’m always sorry that the work I give people tends to be so dull…)

She rode in on her rather beautiful pink Pashley, and it’s drawn quite a bit of attention in an office more used to MTB beasts, fixed wheel flyers and racing whippets.

The Pashely looks good on our bike racks, and she’s currently dating my white Chameleon.

Awww

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is ‘Get Around Above Ground’ by Steven Bonner.

The underground:
hot
smelly
sticky
grimey
polluted
overcrowded
and expensive
(the buskers are quite good though)

Go by bike.

Available on White for men and Heather for women.

On Sunday the 29th August, the high street in Cardigan and the one way system round the back of town will be closed to motorcars for a day of criterium racing.

The Cardigan Street Racing event is being organised by the Velo Teifi cycling club and howies are proud to be sponsoring the event.

On Friday Ade and I went for a meeting with Tom from New Image Bicycles (our local bike shop) and Velo Tefi’s Chairman, Carl, to chat about stuff that needs doing.

A few of us from howies will be racing in the traders category on the day and we will also be providing some prizes as well.

More details to come. We’re looking forward to it.

We gave her some of our Merino base layers to keep her and her team warm on their recent trip to Holland for the World Rafting Champs, and a load of stickers for their helmets and paddles.

Deb just emailed to let me know that the team had a great competition and came home with the Bronze medal overall, as well as Gold for Sprint, Bronze for Head to Head and Silver for Down River Endurance.

They were the only team to medal in more than two events.

Great work team!

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is ‘Go Your Own Way’ by Davy Evans.

Leave the map at home.

Turn off your sat-nav.

Ignore the signposts.

Get away from the pack and take some wrong turns.

As the great Fleetwood Mac say, go your own way.

Click here to view the embedded video.

See the Men’s Here

See the Women’s Here

I just got a time lapse app for my iPhone.

I love how time lapse lets you see more in a view than you usually would.

This is an hour of rain and sunny spells out of my bedroom window.

Watch out for the double rainbow. (Yes, a double rainbow.)

I want to do some sunrise and sunset ones next.

I wasn’t really planning to be competitive until Ade posted this.

But that sparked something. And now I’m driving myself to win.

For three weeks now, I have been running around 40km every week.
Including two half marathons.

I have been practising my strong finish, and my interval sprints, and running up lots of stairs.

I know Ade has an edge on the bike, but I am sure that the gap when running is narrowing.

My legs and lungs are different animals than they were even a month ago.

Third half marathon on Sunday. New record to set.

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is ‘Animal Tracks’ by Chris Brown

If you’re out in the wilderness (or park)
it’s good to know your animal tracks.
You should be able to tell a fox from a dog…
Who knows when a savage squirrel or
a brutal badger could sneak up on you?

Better to be prepared…

Click Here for a handy downloadable animal track guide.

Available on White for men and for women.

Just a quick one – our broadband line has stopped working. So that means no emails, no orders, no Internet. (and no Spotify – we’ve resorted to the iTunes library. )

So if we haven’t replied to your email of if you’re still waiting on your order, please be patient. We will be back up and running as soon as possible.

Sent from my iPhone

EDIT: It’s back up already, thanks to Ade and Henry the hoover who cleaned a load of dust out of the firewall.

This week’s T-Shirt of the Week is ‘Matchbox’ by Davy Evans

‘Money Doesn’t Grow On Trees’ My mother always told me.

‘It’s made of paper, and paper does!’ I retorted, thinking I was very clever.

Now that I’m older, I think I get it.

Like money, wood isn’t in infinite supply (no matter what the banks and sawmills may tell us).

We need to look after our supply, and make sure our useage is sustainable.

Just as the accountants say – ‘if you look after the pennies, the pounds will follow’

If you look after the matchsticks, the forests will flourish.

Wood Doesn’t Grow On Trees

Available on White for Men here and for Women here

(If you didn’t get the email, you can see it here)

Our servers are running slowing because of the spike in traffic, but we are working on it and things will be back to normal shortly.

Go and put the kettle on, make yourself a nice cuppa and check back in a bit.

It’s that time of year again.

Walking down the high street, every shop seems to have a big Sale sign in the window.

So not to be left out, we will be going to sale this weekend as well.

Our shops in Bristol, London and Cardigan will be on sale when they open tomorrow morning.

And we will be launching our online sale at 12 noon on Monday (the 5th July).

With more than 50% off some lines, there’s bound to be a rush to get the best stuff first.

So if you’ve had your eye on something but haven’t had the budget, this is for you.

See you when the doors open.

Join the queue.

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is ‘Vive Le Tour’.

Yep, the 2010 Tour De France starts this weekend.
There is no finer test of human endurance and spirit.
A race with such heritage and so many heroes;
Coppi, Hinault, Merckx, Armstrong…
and of course El Diablo (Google him).

Vive Le Tour!

Available on men’s and women’s white tees.

Free postage on all UK orders for 24 hours.

Shopping online is great. You get to browse from home and you avoid the crowded high streets and the packed car parks, but you have to pay postage for the privilege. And then wait for your stuff to arrive.

Well, we have some good news for online shoppers. We’ve decided to make things a little easier by offering free postage on all orders placed in the next 24 hours. And if your stuff is in stock, we will get it to you in time for the weekend.

You’ll still get a freepost returns label in your parcel, as well. So if you end up with something that’s not quite right, you can post it straight back to us at no extra cost.

Offer ends at 12 noon on the 30th June. Only applies to orders being shipped inside the UK with our standard postage.

David, Me, Tom and Xander – The Mountain Mayhem 2010 team. We did it!

3 of the 4 of us had never done a 24 hour event before, but with 0 punctures, 0 mechanicals, 0 crashes and 0 injuries lady luck was on our side and we managed  21 laps, finishing 82nd of 205.

The blazing sun and the steep and dusty hills did their best but never stopped us.

We had a great time, and we’re all up for going again next year. (David might need some convincing, but he’ll be ok if he brings some different cogs for his singlespeed. )

Massive thank you to Kim and Wendy who helped us to wake up and eat and get on track at the right time and kept note of our lap times. And to my brother, who cooked up some great baked potatoes for the end of my night shift!

See you again next year!

This week’s T-shirt of the Week is ‘Head For The Hills’

Head for the hills.
Go as high as you can go.
They’ll help you find yourself.
They’ll turn your mountains into molehills.
And they’ll unravel your knots on the way back down.

Available on Vintage Red for men and for women.