howies®

Yesterday I tripped upto Manchester to see Oi Poloi to show them the new Spring/Summer range for 2011.

I had 3 huge bags to show them so it was a driving mission, but this means passing up through North Wales and mountains.

Which also means Cader Idris on the way home. The run is from 300ft to 2854ft and back in 7 miles.

4pm I parked up, hid all my stuff round the car. Put on shorts, shoes and merino, stretched and plodded off to the steps.

The first few hundred feet are steps and stones that need a slow constant warming pace.

By the top of these I am drenched in sweat, breathing to the bottom of my lungs and my legs are burning.

The steps stop, the mountain still climbs on rocks, gravel and grass. The sun is in my eyes, my shades are off as the lenses are already sweat stained. I tap out a constant pace. I pass all the walkers coming off the hill to go home.

I try to thank them for moving aside but my breathing is too hard and I am beginning to descend into that level of concentration you need when pushing beyond.

I reach the lake and decide that today is the day to go right to the top, round and down. But I have bought no water or food.

The climb from the lake really kick. I can run short sections and then others it’s marching pushing on my legs. I pass another set of walkers who look at me with questioning faces.

The trail flattens for a short spell and I calm my breathing and concentrate hard on a smooth pace.

I run, march, run, march up and up feeling the onset of dehydration. When I look back this was the toughest bit. I run a sentence through my head over and over asking the next walkers if I can have some of their water. Will I ask, won’t I ask?  The last people thought I was mad. Who wants to speak to a sweating runner in the wilds.

No one comes along. I see bilberry bushes along the trail that all seem bare. I search harder and find that bushes in the shade of rocks have fruit. I eat every one I find no matter how ripe.  50 berries kick in. Pace rises.

I see the top with a ladder over a fence where I stop and look at the view. 44 minutes.  I look down to the lake and rejoice.

I then look along the ridge and see I still have a decent and another climb. A big climb. To higher than where I am.

I am not at the top.

I am super hot, vision is blurred and my hands feel tight and cramp like. And I am not at the top. I am a long way off and this knocks me.

I have a very long steep decent followed by a sharp climb. People are coming down and I can only just see them. Should I continue. Will going on be harder than going back. I can’t get this far and not do this. Now or never.

Top off, volume up, wipe face and down the slope. It is really steep and loose and I have trouble slowing down. I am worrying about injury and my ability to get round and I am making mistakes.

I meet the walkers at the bottom of the climb. They all smile and say hi and I cannot bring myself to ask for water. Am I embarrassed about being so far out and so unprepared?

I start the last climb. I can’t run, but I maintain my fast march. I look for bilberries but up this high there is nothing but rock. I look for pools of water, but the only ones are peaty.

Then there is the last gully to the trig point. It’s looks like a greek mountain. And then I am up.

I spend 10 minutes at the top. Absolute silence. Birds are on the floor resting. No wind. The Irish sea to the fore and North Wales behind. There is a rock shelter.

It all come back. My legs. My breath. My confidence. I have done it and now I just have to get back.

I hear voices and decide to descend.

The fist section is over grass. Steep and fast. Rocks appear. Picking a line has to be fast and acurate.

I then enter back into rocks and gravel and the perfect hip hip mix enters the head phones. I pick up the pace across the rocks despite the gradient feeling like vertical and relax into the tune. I dance down the boulders. The more I relax the faster I can be.

There is nothing right now but the rhythm and my rhythm.  I am now flying along and I have shoved the fear of falling away.

I join the path I climbed up on and know it’s steps all the way to the car. I pass all the walkers I passed on the climb. I replay the last track and dance the last decent to the car.

On the very last step I stop and whoop.

I am soaked, boiling hot, my knees and ankles are painful, my shoulders and back are stiff but I feel like I won.Further, higher, longer and faster.

And I beat my head.

September has only just began and…

the car parks are empty

the beaches are quiet

there are no queues in the supermarket or coffee shop

the mornings are clear & crisp

the berries are bursting out of the hedgerows

the evenings are drawing in

there’s a nip in the air before the sun goes down

jumpers are coming out of storage for snuggling into

there’s some surf on its way

hurray hurray hurray I love september

(From Chris Jackson @ Kingdom Bike)

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.

Just had this cool little link pop up in my twitter feed (thanks to @CliveAndrews)

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!)

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.

On July 29th we have our second Wee Do of the year. As usual there will be free drink and good conversation on offer.

Come along and listen to a woman who has been changing lives for the better since she began the Deki project whilst still at University in Bristol. Find out what motivated her to not just chatter about the state of the world, but do something to make a difference.

Pop into the shop to get your ticket or reserve your place via email at bristolshop@howies.co.uk or call on 0117 929 8928.

Our Wee Dos are always a relaxed,  inspiring way to spend an hour or  two on Thursday evening, whatever the weather, so see you there.

Friday 23rd July sees howies Bristol doing something a bit special with our mates at Weapon of Choice, a live painting show using pens upstairs in our gallery. There will be drinks and a DJs, an authentically Bristolian evenings entertainment.

We know that you guys are appreciative of great illustration, so get yourselves down to the Bristol shop on Queens Rd to witness some of the best bring their work to life before your very eyes.

Check out the Facebook group at Weapon of Choice take over howies with ‘The Live Show’ .

We think that this is going to be a very popular event so get here early.

Thank you to all those who came to the Wee Do last night, it was a lovely, relaxed  evening.

For those who could not attend, here is some of the fascinating stuff that you missed…..

Dan Wedgwood from The Adventurists told comedy tales of how Tommy set up the mad cap adventuring team and explained that they are moving away from vehicle based trips to horse journeys, a dug out canoe race down the Amazon and the Pedal Walla rickshaws around Bristol. The Pedal Wallas created the biggest buzz, such a genius idea, and if they manage to get permission they may very well be taking people up Park St too with a bit of electrical assistance! The first major outing of the Pedal Wallas will be at the Harbourside Festival so look out for them there. They are looking for keen cyclists and co-operatives of cyclists who know Bristol well to be the Pedal Wallas of Brizzle, go here if that is you. Money raised from the Rickshaw Run across India that The Adventurists organise, goes directly to Frank clean drinking water projects throughout India, currently funding around 28 projects.

“Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and therefore, a basic human right. Contaminated water jeopardizes both the physical and social health of all people. It is an affront to human dignity.”

United Nations Development Programme.

Did you know that bottled water from the likes of Evian travels on average 666 miles to get to you and therefore has a rather large carbon footprint, not to mention the plastic packaging and the fact it is owned by a huge multi-national?  Frank water on the other hand sources spring water from the UK and wants to put itself out of business because it wants to support refill bottles instead, so that they have a smaller carbon footprint. But whilst bottled water is still needed for specific events where refill is unavailable, all of Franks profits go to clean water projects in India that use suitable technology and train local people to do any basic maintenance needed. All projects also including education programmes so pass on potentially life saving information about hygiene and keeping water safe from contamination.

Frank is currently championing the ‘Turn Me On’ campaign which includes a petition to Bristol council to re-establish drinking fountains throughout the city so that people can refill their water bottles on the go (remember we have a refill point in our shop if you ever need a refill, Carnaby St shop has one as well.) It’s part of a country-wide campaign you can find out about here.

The next Bristol Wee Do is by Vashti Richards from Bristol-based micro-loan organisation Deki on 29th July and all details will be online very soon.

Here in Cardigan the High Street is suffering.  In the three years I’ve been here I’ve seen half a dozen or so shops close, read mutliple complaints about high rates choking local businesses, been disappointed by the council’s decision to give  Sainsbury’s the go-ahead to carve out a place in our countryside and also to consider letting tesco expand it’s already large empire.

Pwllhai is a disused site in the town center that is for sale. 

There is momentum being gathered for local people to buy shares in order to purchase the site for local use. (reduced rate parking, market area for local producers, etc.)  The news broke a couple of weeks ago in our local Tivy-Side newspaper.  This week’s issue calls for an immediate response from those interested in investing in the town because time is ticking.  A Cardiff developer is interested in the site.

Colonel Sanders, Ronald MacDonald and Mr. Starbucks need not apply.

Colonel Sanders, Ronald McDonald and Mr. Starbucks need not apply.