Cornish lockdown riding diaries; time for reflection & reconnecting with my local area – a spiritual place with a deep connection to the ages.
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Dummy Weekender
A quick mid-winter coastal campout on the Big fat Dummy to make the most of a scarce spell of fine weather.
Dartmoor
2-day bikepacking weekender around Dartmoor National Park. 120km loop featuring open moorland, steep wooded valleys, river crossings.. and some hike-a-bike.
Wayfarer Centenary Ride, and weekend
A weekend in north Wales with the Rough Stuff Fellowship, in honour of the centenary of Wayfarer’s snow-bound crossing of the Berwyn Mountains.
Mental Health Loop
The town I live in has been, and still is, the butt of many jokes within Cornwall. With the collapse of the tin mining industry its fortunes declined dramatically and it became ripe fodder for jokes around the perceived lack of ‘sophistication’ of the heart of west Cornwall. It is a poor area, walk inland a couple of km from the wealth on the coast and you’ll find one of the most deprived areas of …
Various
On reaching the mighty age of six my brother and I were given a small secondhand mono tape deck. It was my first exposure to music independence and, despite being extremely basic, was something I found completely marvellous. Along with it came a ‘ripped’ cassette with only a hand scrawled ‘various’ on the paper insert which turned out to mean ‘something of a mishmash of stuff’. The reason I mention it is that this post …
Galloway Gravel: part 2
Part two of a week spent exploring the tracks and trails of Dumfries & Galloway in the company of friends.
Galloway Gravel: part 1
Part one of a week spent exploring the tracks and trails of Dumfries & Galloway in the company of friends.
A couple of days of Dorset
I recently caught up with @whileoutriding for a couple of days/nights exploring the trails of southern Dorset on two wheels with an emphasis on great pub and cafe stops, and a good opportunity to do some more bag testing. It’s a part of the world in which I’d not done any riding at all despite it being not much more than ‘just up the road’ (about 4hrs drive). A good time was had. The area seems …
A fluff-covered heap
Do you remember as a kid you had, or might have had, those sticky rubber creepy crawlies you could fling at a window and watch them slowly creep their way down… this post is kind of one of those, entirely pointless with the exception that the rubber toy is just a bunch of photos and the window is the internet. They might stick and work as some sort of mini-adventure inspiration… or they might end …
Three Moors
A super bikepacking weekender / mini-adventure from Minehead home to Cornwall, via Exmoor, Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor.
Spring. Maybe.
After my last post I had thought I might follow up with some apparently intelligent thoughts around things I wanted to say but on reflection realised that all that would have come out would have been an angry rant around a particular set of topics.. for example the environment, consumerism, the government.. or indeed the political classes in general (not fit for purpose), cars.. especially ridiculous cars like giant luxury 4x4s, otherwise known in these parts, …
That thing that never happens in Cornwall…
…happened. It’s not news anymore, at least not if you’re in the UK, but I did enjoy a rather splendid afternoon, all the mud on the trails is now frozen solid… an opportunity not to be missed. And snow, there was snow.
January
January was the darkest winter month I can remember.. endless days of rain and gales.. riding in rain became the norm, I lost the motivation to get in or on the water… moments of brightness were few and far between but they did happen. I dusted off my old film cameras before Christmas and have been trying to be disciplined enough to use them more. In particular I’d forgotten how nice the handling of Zeiss …
October Early Weekend
Thursday morning dawned filthy wet and misty, the forecast promised better however so when the rain began to ease around midday, and with the encroaching winter very much in mind, camping gear, food, and fishing clobber was hastily thrown at bikes for a cheeky early weekend at a favourite spot just 50km east of here.