Lovely Lakes

Post should be below Sun and celebrity

Being a Bank Holiday Daryl and I (Gem) took an extra day off work and headed up to the Lake District, with a nice Thursday evening stopover in Manchester with Jez and Gemma.

We made an early start Friday morning and we had the tent pitched in Chapel Hill Farm campsite in Borrowdale and were ready for walking by 11am.

Friday’s mission was Blencathra, via Sharp Edge. We parked the car in a lay-by on the A66 near a hamlet called Scales and slogged up a steady incline round the eastern side of Blencathra. After about an hour and a half we crossed Scales Beck and arrived at Scales Tarn, which was a beautiful turquoise colour and seemed to glisten even with the grey cloudy sky. This is where we got the first real look at the Grade 1 scramble ahead of us. Sharp Edge is a relatively easy scramble and gets most of its grade 1 from the exposure rather than the difficulty. I found certain points quite unnerving and had to slide along some bits on my bum. Getting to the top was well worth it as the views of Skiddaw, and the lakes of Ullswater and Derwent. It was also possible to see Scotland across the Solway Firth.







We were woken Saturday by the early morning call of the farmer coming round to collect the camping money. After a hearty breakfast of bacon and egg sandwiches we embarked on our route. This walk was my ideal type of route: flat to start; 90% of height gained by scrambling; awesome views; and a nice steady stroll back down. The approach from the campsite was down through Seathwaite into the Langstrath valley up to Cam Crag. It was a nice gentle walk in a valley, through green hills and sharp rocky crags, giving way to the amazing rocky views of Stickle Pike and the Scafell group. Finding the route up Cam Crag was a challenge, but we eventually made a decision and chose the correct route. The start was the hardest part with an exposed climb around an overhang, the rest of the route was in several sections up broken buttresses and was technical, but not too hard – in all good fun.





At the top of Cam Crag we carried on up to the top of Glaramara, crossing many boggy rivers and ending with a simple little scramble to the top. This was really worth doing as you could see so many of the main Lake District peaks – the Langdales, the Scafell group, Great Gable, Green Gable, Pillar, Skiddaw and probably many others that I just don’t know. The descent from Glaramara was a long tourist track and as we were nearing the bottom Daryl wanted to find the pub in Seatoller, which even though is marked on the OS map doesn’t exist as such, it is a lunchtime café that serves alcohol, therefore was shut. It was quite a depressing walk back to the campsite from there as it started to rain!



Sunday, I wasn’t feeling too great as the fact I was suffering from a kidney infection had caught up with me after 2 days of activity. We decided to visit as many outdoor shops as we could so explored Cockermouth (this is so the place we are going to live when we move to the Lakes) and Keswick. We decided to head home Sunday night to miss the traffic(!) but had a lovely meal in the Kirkstone Pass Inn, after a slightly scary near death experience.

General conclusion of the weekend – absolutely awesome as per every weekend in the Lakes!

Sun and celeberaty.

We were the celebrities, unbelievably.

Well, what a weekend. With both Daryl and I having the most ridiculous, busy weeks, we hadn't really planned a thing until Friday night when it was all kicking off. We'd decided to go to Cader Idris, last minute, as both of us wanted to go and the weather was going to be rather nice!

So up I rocked to Dave and Steff's in the MK massif, scoffed some fish and chips and faffed about with maps and gear before getting to bed. Saturday we set off early clutching the directions from bikefax for a bike up Cadair Idris as we thought it would make a change to the usual forest loop/trail centre and the Audi A4 avec Spesh Stumpjumper crew!!! We starteed South of the mountain and set to the beeeatch of a climb-helped greatly by the fact it was hot-damn hot. But we had prepared ourselves for that (well mentally at least) so carried on in typical shambolic on bike/off bike/on bike fashion. As we approached the join with the pony path-the main walkers track we started to come across more people who all seemed quite astounded at the fact we had bikes with and remarkably friendly. This air of celebrity continued all the way to the top-even over the final 100m where we had to shoulder the bikes! We then had a quick spot of lunch and prepared ourselves for the route down-which mostly involved me emptying out all the air from my propedal and being faced with a ride down with no damping and savage bottom out!!

We weren't too sure about the rocks at the top but went for it anyway and it was absolutely amazing-different from anything we have ridden before as we drifted down in an avalanche of boulders generally whopping and hollering and we thrashed past the bewildered walkers-they were impressed you could tell! At least until I got my first pinch puncture, and they all overtook us. Just as we got going again it was daves turn who once he had fixed his puncture decided to rip his valve in half. Quick bodge later and we were off again trying to beat the air leak to the bottom-which we almost did. This lower section was awesome as we ripped through fields launching off the little kickers into and out of gullys.

We then packed up and headed to the North Side of the mountain for camping at the most bizarre derelict campsiite ever, some cider in a wonderfully cosy-log fired pub by the lake and then some sleep. Before getting up super early washing in the river brokeback style and setting off on the next mission.

We planned to climb the Cyfry Arete and wanted to start early before the crowds. We headed up the foxes path and got to the lake at the foot of the boulder field to the most peaceful, sunny, quiet scene with not a bugger in site. We set off up the boulder field-sparking avalanches (definately wear a helmet on this route) with rocks the size of your head to the start of the root-marked out by the large CA on the rock. A quick tool up with rope etc. and Dave set off on the lead. The route was very exposed the whole way but on mostly solid rock with plenty of holds and the next few pitches gave a great opportunity for much needed ropework practice. The downclimb off the table about halfway up being the most difficult with a barndoor style shambles of a move by me!! We then moved up the crux which again had plenty of holds but was great fun leading up to the final section which can easily be done without a rope as it is just broekn ground.

At the top we again acquired noteriety as a bunch of walkers had sought us out desperate to speak to us about the route and get a first hand impression! We then had a cracking bit of lunch in the sun with shirts off-soaked up the rays for a bit before accepting the fact that we could not sit there forever, so made a hasty descent-we even ran for a bit! And then the drive home which I admirably slept through a portion of!!

This was all rounded off in fantastic style by a beautiful roast chicken dinner courtesy of the lovely Steffi-thank you Steff :)


ridiculous packing for two people.

T minus 0 we have lift off

The website is up and running baring the odd typo that creeps in, we've still got some bits to add to the site but it's complete enough to be functional. I have downloaded Adobe Contribute which makes editing a bit easier than ringing the web dood up all the time. Any comments pass 'em on!!

Have got 3000 of these here leaflets sitting in the lounge which I might ask the IBFC collective to help distribute. These are beyond editing so if you see any typos keep them to yourselves!

Finally our leaving do is going to be the 18th October at Kate's M+D house in case there's anyone I haven't told, marquee and dancing a go go.

winter leaflet front featuring 'Slash Dog Jay' and some cheese

Winter leaflet back featuring some of Daves finest work, Steff and a small child we've named Angus

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.