Logo a go go

Here it is, the all singing dancing Mountain Spaces logo. I think in the Flickr upload process the colours may have have altered slightly, something to do with CMKY files and jpegs or some other unintelligible acronym.

A big thank you to Dave who came out to shoot the Chalet last week, it wasn't exactly a holiday and we'd be scuppered without some decent photos for the website, so nice one bruvva.



Website should be around by the end of next week possibly.

Ooooh, arty

After an incredibly boring day off work due to cyclone inbound for downtown Hong Kong (everything shuts, nothing to do, cabin fever) I decided to post some more pedestrian photos of our Alpine adventures.

Cheers for a great week everyone, it was excellent catching up, having quality time with my homies and confusing my inner workings with too much cheese. See you at Christmas for more. By the way, if anyone fancies some festive chilli-wing action, I bought a jar of Zhuangxiang Top Capsicum Extremely Hot sauce. I quote from the label...

"King of hot pepper of Wu Lao Gui's has unique places, openning the bottle lid will have fermented phenomenon in period of time. And only pass the pur king of hot pepper of Zhang rural area who fermented naturally, could only release out the best taste out of the common, strong, overbearingly hot fragrant. Hand over the surface, stir-fry, mix the sauced material on the steamed bun, a sense is first-class".

It looks nasty. Anyone game?







We should have won... we were frickin robbed!!






Le boeuf est dans la vache


Un Grand Coq...


I want one of these if you're stuck for Cristmas present ideas...

Alps Part Deux, Part Two

Here it is-the biking bits after a suitable delay-why oh why do we have to go back to work! Basically we (me-Daryl, Dave, Gavin "Legwood" Edwards and Mike) went to Les Gets, Morzine, Avoriaz, Champery and broke all course records, aired some new undiscovered gaps etc. etc. Day 1-They have now relabelled the "Barel Gap" on the Les Gets 4x to the "Legwood Gap". Day 2- Daryl and Mike raced Sam Hill down the Champery World Cup course-Sammie couldn't cope with the pace and crashed out. Day 3-Dave broke the course record formely held by Chris Kovarik on Pleney in Morzine after some slick overtaking of Finter in the final wooded section.....Anyway back in the real world
Day 1-Straight on the case in a bid to make the most of our 3 days of biking we tried to rediscover all the trails from our foray 2 years ago. Rode Chavannes and rediscovered those legendary braking bumps (not again thanks), then Mont Chery-still steep, then over to Morzine after jumping the fences on the not so official anymore Les Gets-Morzine link!! Then a blast down Pleney, followed by a trip over to Avoriaz and a blast down some new runs through the woods which were very good indeed. Good days riding for all, except for me binning it hard on the road right in front of a car on the way home-smooth!!


Day 2- We took a linear route straight over into Switzerland with the aim of getting to Champery to have a look at the worlds course (and maybe kid oursleves into riding it). Some very good natural trails made a nice change from the man-made stuff, took away from the dissapointment of the lift not running on the worlds course and us missing the top of the other DH track. We then ran down the rocky route right back to Morzine-with a couple of dozen stops in between for Mikes punctures!



Day 3- We used this as a best of day so tried to ride all the favourites and did a pretty good job in-all. Including finding a secret trail running under the super morzine lift which was frankly-savagely steep and rooty-but thankfully dry. This made for some technical and intense riding and Legwood ending up 10 foot down off the side of the trail in what kind only be described as the upside down position-bike atop! Dave and I then ran Pleney again and got some great camera footage and set what we thought was a pretty good time-5 and a bit minutes to the fireroad-I have since found out 4 mins is a v. good time so make of that what you will (we slow!!)

Aston Hill.

Wet, slimey rooty and technical come to mind. Yesterdays ride at Aston Hill was far harder riding than any of the rooted wooded sections that we hit in the Alps. Mostly because of the greasy nature of the roots. However, it was still fun and we had a little sesh on the 4x course, of which the video below is:



More footage than this, but Adam is going to have to wait for me to finish the video to see the best bits!


In total Adam, Neil and Andy came up from down south and I finally managed to Jon out on a working bike. He did admirably considering he was riding his Azonic jump frame!
The confusion over which route is which continues, but DH3 was the best, most flowing route that I ran there, by far.



Car park Enduro based geek out.

Alpes Part Deux!

Quite a week! Leaving Blighty behind and meeting up in a BP station forecourt, Team IBFC headed back out to dish some abuse to the hills of Les Gets and Morzine and if the Swiss thought they'd get away un tarnished, they were wrong!

Steffi and I joined forces with Daryl, Gemma, Gav, Jen (all too briefly) and Expat Mike for a week of sun, walking, riding, beer, BBQs in rain, hot tubs, more beer and an unfeasible amount of punctures!

We were back at Chalet Martinet, not through fierce loyalty, but just because its a cracking place and well priced! After a small recovery sleep and sauna, we set to it on Sunday with a drive to Les Lindarets (Goat Village) and saw the most amazing amount/collection of classic cars, doing a rally tour. Renault Alpines, TR6s, old Porches, a Fiat 500 Arbath, lots of Triumphs and all manner of others. Amazing, Mike nearly exploded. Then it was on and up the hill to a chair lift and a walk to the amazing waterfall for lunch!









Monday was the start of the biking and for this, I will try and get Daryl to post!






Des Cosmiques with Mt Blanc behind, in cloud...

Guinea Pig a go go

Quick test to embed a Google map, might be quite nice to tie one of these in with riding or climbing pics.

Map is the location of the Chalet and lifts, was just seeing what sort of stuff you can include, google maps round that area has terrain as which is quite cool, might see if you can make it a default setting.



View Larger Map

Website and them some

A selection of two new visuals from the second batch the designers sent through. The rest are variations on these two themes, Sqwaaaaaarrr or all round and cuddly.



Our original thought with all round and cuddly was that the colours were too cold and it didn't look 'classy' enough, a rubbish description but we didn't feel it matched a company selling £500 and above holidays, maybe a darker background helps with this.




We also asked for a more angular design so we would have something to compare, I'm now torn as there are aspects of both designs I really like, answers on a postcard!!

Website Visuals

We've got some non functional visuals of the website back from the designer any comments would be more than welcome.



we've got a couple of suggestions to make but I won't mention them as I'd be interested to see what people come up with, colour scheme layout etc. The name is just a type face, it's not our actual logo as that's on another quote. Pictures might not be completely relevant to the headings as we've only given the designers some 'stock' images so the photography will improve.



Clarity, ease of use and standing out with a touch of class are our main objectives. Can't really comment on anything else yet as we haven't written the copy.



General view opinions in a language I understand are welcome as are Gav's suggestions/comments in a geek language I don't. Honest opinions wanted if it's not right we need to change ASAP.

Forks, grease, Oh..... and Unemployment, please.

Big fat bum. I was made unemployed on Tuesday as our perfectly profitable studio and less profitable and poorly managed umbrella company went into administration. Whats more, the month of work that I've just done isn't being payed to me and we are all supposed to be off on holiday tomorrow...

However, I'm beating off the suicidal tendencies and trying to be pro-active. Hopefully there is freelance work in the wings and we have the outside possibility of being bought up lock stock. I can only wait until Friday...

I had just spent lots of money on making my bike work again and although I really wish I could get the parts refunded, I can't as I put them on the bike on Monday night! So I'm going to enjoy the parts, take the holiday and think very seriously about what I'm going to do.

Before the new parts were bolted on, I serviced my forks, shock and other various parts on the frame, which, hopefully wont develop problems out in Morzine. Below are pictures!


Lots of sand came out of these and are the cause of the wear on the anodizing on the sauntions. I will have to replace them at some point.


I was really concerned about doing this until watching a video from Mojo on Mpora. Nice one Mojo!


Frame in a well cladded, lightly tightened vice...


All back together again, with a new Blackspire Dewlie, Nukeproof Generator/Sun wheelset, 08 XT casette, 08 XT shifters and XT front mech and chain.

Before the arrival of the shiny new parts, I had the pleasure of visiting Gav to sweat all night in his studio flat, after a few beers and rounds of Mared Tete with Jim and Sarah at their local. Proper lock-in bo. Then off to Leith to ride with loads of Pompey-ites on the hottest day I think I have ever exercised on! Lost my weight in sweat, but was shown some amazing new lines next to BKB with jumps etc and had a great ride. Cheers all involved.


Red hot Welshman!


Daryl surveys Phil's bloody off.

MountainSpaces

I arranged for it to snow last week in Morzine so we could get some nice exterior shots of the chalet in a winter stylee. I have now re-requested sunshine before the IBFC crew head out to Les Gets next week for two wheeled fun.



We're heading out again on the 16th to pick up any body/bike parts left on the mountain by an over enthusiatic Finter and co. and to get some interior shots for the website and do a load of other odds and sods all of which will more than likely require us to part with more cash for the pleasure of experiencing some more French bureaucracy, which so far hasn't been too bad but I'm not holding my breath.



We met with a couple of guys last night who are going to give us an idea of website and logo design having decided on the name MountainSpaces, clearly not as inspired as Tom's Chalet-I-Shan't-I but unfortuntaley dot com wasn't available, neither was glorifiedshedonahill.com ho hum, such is life.

What I have mostly been learning this week...

...is that taking doors off old wonky cars is much easier than putting them back on.

Tremadog and Ogwen.

With little time for post roast relax, I headed north as our guests went south, on Sunday evening. I was off to North Wales, to hook up with James Linford, an old climbing/oudoors acquaintance who is training for his MIA (Mountain Leader, not Missing In Action) award and needed some less experienced climbers to instruct. I was/am less experienced and James brought along another climbing instructor friend, Simon, who was slightly less experienced than James.





After a very windy camp setup in darkness, followed by a pretty sleepless, flappy night, the dawn came cold and cloudy. Bum. But not to worry as massive amounts of porridge with Jam and Tea were consumed, as plans were made to head to the cliffs at Tremadog for some multi pitch fun. I had expressly requested some multi pitch stuff as I've not done any before and needed to put the rope theory into practice.



Finding the start of your route is quite a challenge for the un-seasoned Tremadog climber, as the lower section of the cliff is in dense woodland and a lot of wandering, consultation with two guide books and some pacing eventually saw us at the bottom of Oberon, a Severe route with a nice slabby start.


Oberon

Climbing in threes is something that I've only done a few times, and whilst sociable, takes longer, which was fine for me as I got to really take in the new rope procedures as I climbed in the middle. After a pleasant climb, we were up on top and taking in the amazing views, before finding the precipitous climb down path. Then off to Eric's Cafe for some of his advice on which route may offer another good route where James could ascend a fixed rope next to our lead climb. We decided not to do this in the end and headed for 'Poor Man's Peuterey', another Severe.


James on the traverse stance just before the 'Nose'.


Gulp! Standing on the 'Nose' of PMP with some good exposure to the right!






Everyone who has climbed at Tremadog will know Eric's Cafe, run by Eric Jones a famous climber who now looks to be in his late 60s. He was the first person to solo the North Face of the Eiger (!) and his Cafe is adorned with some amazing shots of his exploits in climbing and base jumping. Quite a dude.

PMP was wicked, with some real exposure on the last pitch and hot, hot hot! It was amazing to have a family of buzzards or Kites (not sure) cruising the crag at eye level, quite amazing. I will be back to do this climb again, only leading, I think! The video below is of Simon, coming up the last pitch.






We retired from the crag and after a meal of left over Arny rations at the tent, headed to Plas Y Brenin for a pint and discussion on what to do tomorrow. Plans were made, and rehashed after a meeting with Pls Y Brenin's top assessor next morning and we ended up doing the Idwal Staircase with a different top route to the one we did earlier in the year, then on to the Cneifon Arete and then roped down climb of the same arete.

Interesting to see the scramble we did earlier in the year from an instructor's perspective and how he protected the moves that we were soloing. We then rope climbed the first pitch of Cneifon and then soloed the rest, re roping for an 'instructor with two clients' roped descent. Again, new rope work for me and a good experience in procedures.










Counterbalanced abseil off the last climbing pitch of Cneifon Arete.

Then it was down and back, before the long drive home and the realisation that I was sunburnt! Don't get that every North Wales trip! :P