John butler trio & critical mass

We went to see another gig on Thursday night, but unfortunately it was another Australian band. Even when we are overseas, we keep going back to music from home, maybe that is telling us something. So we set off and took Emily to her first London concert which was the John Butler Trio, performing at the magnificent Roundhouse in Camden.

As usual JBT were absolutely brilliant, playing a 2 hour set with a great mix of the classics and new material from the latest record, Grand National, which we actually hadn’t heard anything from apart from the track Funky Tonight. A Highlight would have to be John’s solo of Oceans, returning from a short break. Great song, you can see an alternate version of it live on his website here.

The Venue was also pretty damn impressive. Recently restored, the Roundhouse has seen many bands play over the years including; the doors, jimmy Hendrix, the clash, the sex pistols, plus a plethora of contemporary bands. It is a beautiful domed space which sounds amazing; the entry spaces are also pretty impressive, nothing like the Astoria or Apollo that we have been to previously. A nice change indeed.

Friday night saw me take Bridgette to participate in the London Critical Mass. Since I enjoyed last months so much, though she may like it too, she did! Not quite as many people as last time, but still 1000 or so easily. The only problem this time was that after doing a couple of laps of Hyde Park Gate (a round-a-bout with 5 lanes) the group got spilt, and we were left in a small group of about 100, with no police bike to block the traffic off for us. Didn’t really stop us though, we had a few very determined cycle couriers that had no problem putting themselves directly in front of oncoming traffic.

Bridgette managed to record a few little videos of us cycling down the Mall and outside Buckingham Palace, which I have put on youtube, and you should be able to see below (touch wood). If they dont work, you can see them directly here, and here.

Better be off

Pete

australian news travels fast!

It seems that Australia's dry spell is starting to make an impact in international news. A two page feature and the front cover of today’s Independent, click here for the story.

It goes on to say how dire the situation is, how the Liberal party can't even agree if it will or won't work without Victoria and, more interestingly, how the UN has warned Australia about the potential of this situation for a number of years. Shame we don't tend to listen to the UN when it comes to the environment!

Almost in other news, the Camden New Journal was going to run a story about our trip. That was until we realized that we had inadvertently gotten in contact with a newspaper of that name in Minneapolis USA, not London England. Oh well, guess we will try the UK version now!

Emily has been staying on the floor at our place while Bridgette has been in the Gambia. She's been here almost two weeks and has already found a great house in Hackney, which she is moving into on Saturday. We didn't kick her out, but I think the though of three people in the shoe box was a little daunting for her!

Bridgette gets back from the Gambia tonight, so I'm sure she will have heaps to report on her African adventures very soon.

Pete

wales part ii

Sorry I haven’t got around to posting the second part of my wales trip, things have been a bit hectic with the return to work after a 5 day break, not to mention that I awoke on Wednesday morning with a shocking head cold that I’m only just starting to get rid of.

Our second mtb adventure was the descent of Cadair Idris, a mountain in Snowdonia with a towering height of 893m. This is one of the most popular mountain walks in Wales with thousands of people climbing to it’s summit via the northern fox’s path. More interestingly though is that a bridal way climbs to its summit on the southern side, allowing horses and mountain bikers to ride the mountain.

Of course with every descent, there is always an ascent, with this one starting at 37m above sea level. As Welsh farms tend to extend to the steepest part of a mountain, the first 600m was along well formed gravel farm roads, turning into grass single track in the upper areas. The last 300m of climbing join onto the main walking track, and are extremely rocky, proving very difficult to ride up, needless to say Sarah and I spent most of this with our bikes slung over our shoulders. It was so rock in fact, that we were a little concerned that it would near impossible to ride down. Tom and Sarah gave up a little too early, leaving their bikes about 50m shy of the summit, so I get bragging rights for actually getting my bike right to the top. A quick snack in the shelter at the top, with thirty other people, and then we were off.

The extra 50m that I took my bike up were useless, as they were way too much of a scramble to ride, but I was making a point after all. Much to my surprise, 90% of the decent was rideable, although I had put on a set of flat pedals, as rocky riding and clipless pedals are usually a bad combination. Once we made it back down to the farmland section it was time to really let things got and keep the fingers off the breaks. A top speed of 48Km on grass single track with the occasional big rock was pretty good I though, considering that the grass was very wet, a perfect opportunity to ease on the rear break and slide my tail around the switchback sections at speed.

After 150 minutes of climbing, the descent was complete in about 15 minutes. Some times you really think weather all that effort was worth it for 15 minutes……
Actually I didn’t think about it at all, the cheek to cheek smile and splattering of mud on my face had already told me that every cm of climbing was worth it!

Returning back to Porthmadog for my last dinner and a game of cards with Tom’s family was about all I had time as there was an early rise the next morning. My train back to London left at 8am and I had to be at Heathrow about 10 minutes after I got into Euston (never going to happen) to meet Emily, who was due to arrive that afternoon from Australia (via, Mexico City, Cuba and LA). I’ll fill you in on that a bit later though.

Pete

Places in Wales have funny names!

The train journey from London to Porthmadog was a bit if an epic, close to eight hours of bum-numbing travel. At least I could get up and walk around the train as I needed. Four trains meant that there were three mad dashes at different train stations to make sure I got the next one in time, which is always fun, particularly through large crowds with a bike and rucksack with you.

England is flat!
Well the bit that the train went through was (London-Reading-Birmingham). It wasn't until we crossed the border into Wales that anything remotely like a large hill was visible, that magical line meant that the land could begin to soar into the sky (not really soar as they are only about 900m high) with seemingly never ending dry-stone walls dividing the fields, hills, and mountain sides with amazing precision. What was even more impressive was that, a little unexpectedly, the train hit the coast, and weaved its was along between the hills and the beach. Yes I did say beach, and what a sigh for sore eyes it was, glorious sun and sand!

Spent my first afternoon in Porthmadog meeting Tom's family and partaking in a slow family-ride across town to see the only pair of osprey's in all of Wales. Very large birds indeed. As they are the only pair, the nest has constant video surveillance, and you can visit the porta-cabin and watch the birds in close proximity via the two 42" screens showing live footage from the osprey house! Quite weird and very Big Brother, I'm expecting a public outcry when the birds mating sessions are shown in intricate detail, all on glorious High Definition.

Today was a little more action packed, with a some rock climbing in the morning. I can see why people come here to climb, there are literally hundreds of craigs every where you look, a lot of them within a 8 Km radius of a town. It was a bit of a family climb with Josh, Tom's eight year old nephew, having a very impressive go at the route.

The afternoon saw Tom and I having some more serious fun, with a late visit to one of the local mtb parks. It seems that regardless of where Tom and Sarah travel, they are always within 40 minutes of a great mtb Trail, which is about 21 park. This time it was Coed-y-Brenin, Snowdonia. We road the Tawr Trail, which is about 22kms with 500m of rocky climbing. It took about 2 hours, which was fairly good going. Tom had the better of me for the ride, as he has the gift of dual-suspension, and if this track was anything to go be, Welsh single track is very rocky up and very rocky down. It was quote hard work on the hands, riding over 10 kms of uphill shale fire road, and 10 kms of beautifully manicured rock single track. I think I'm going to purchase a dualie when I get back to Australia :)

On a minor note, it was the first proper outing since getting my forks serviced by mojo suspension. They were fantastic, only having to adjust the air-pressure and rebound slightly. Good as new.

Pete

What a week

What a week it has been, with plenty of ups and downs. Bridgette had her exams on Monday and Tuesday, with the results coming out sometime today. So fingers crossed that it all goes well.

To celebrate her finishing we went to see 300 last night, based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, of Sin City fame. Visually it was an absolute feast, being stylized perfectly to match the feel of the original material, violent, action packed and bloody! The only thing that let it down was the dialogue, which due to the directors aim to keep it as true to the graphic novel as possible, sometimes felt a little flat.
It was very enjoyable to watch however, and was fantastic on the massive IMAX screen that we went to see it on (20x25mm huge).

On a sadder note, with all the stress of exams that this week has brought, my iPod got stolen from the computer lab at Bridgette’s school. Bit of a pain really, but it is insured so I will get a fancy new one in a few weeks time hopefully. In the meantime, if anyone sees a black 60 Gig iPod walking the streets that answers to the name pete, be sure to let us know!

Being Good Friday tomorrow, I have a four day weekend, which has been turned into a five day weekend due to the British Rail System deciding that the Easter break is the best time to do ‘essential’ track maintenance. To put it into perspective, it would be like Virgin Blue saying:
“We know that Easter is the most highly travelled time in Australia, but we have decided to start repairing our planes between Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney. Sorry for the inconvenience, you will have to take another means of transport”.
Completely baffling.

Friday morning Bridgette will have to be on the tube at 5:30am to get to the Airport in time to fly to The Gambia for two weeks, while I will be able to leisurely leave the house at 7am to get to get my train to Wales. The weather looks great for the Easter break here in the UK, so there should be plenty of riding on offer in beautiful Snowdonia.

More reports as the news happens,
Pete

Happy Easter everyone

Exams are now done yippppppppeeee.
Gambia watch out here i come!

I need to get some sunscreen, a big hat and lots of film before Friday! Exciting news is that, Emily arries in the UK while I am away and Peter is off mountian biking in Northern Wales. So we should have some fun pictures and stories to tell when we get back. Hope to hear all about everyone elses adventures.

Bridgette