Turbo time

Bashing out many miles on the turbo - made bearable with the phone set up playing a selection of really dated music. Anyone remember "Alice's Restaurant"  - good for 2 miles! All the miles are logged on Mapmyride. Saying that a fair selection of Road in there too.

In a moment of madness put in an application for the Fred Whitton - The turbo will have to be set to extreme hill and see how I cope. Not missed a day so far - day 14 - The Target is at least 34 days!

So I do feel fitter and the heart rate has come down. The first real test of the year is the Anglezarke Amble - 2 blokes from work say they are doing it too!

Got an LX crankset at a ridiculously cheap price - That's going on - save a couple of 100 grams.

Half term!

Well its half term, edging ever closer!
For once in my life I elected to do the short course on the Anglezarke Amble. I felt awful climbing up to the top of Rivington Pike. I realised at that point this was not going to be good - I was wrong!

Heading to the top of Rivington Pike - all of 1.5 miles and I was feeling done in.
I coughed and sneezed all the way to the top until I coughed up something that resembled a seaslug - felt a lot better after that

Standing in front of Rivington Tower. This is made up of 9 shots stitched in Hugin

Slipper Low dog training - very impressed and totally unexpected!

Trotted past - the dogs were exceptionally well behaved!
We were exceptionally smelly by now!

Great Hill from the Slipper Lowe end. Went straight up here in one charge. However it was very windy. 80+ mph. Found a guy at the top in the shelter shivering, dragged him to his feet and we managed to get to the next checkpoint. Just over the top of the hill the wind picked me up and dropped me on my backside 5 yards away - Oh how we laughed-  not

Looking back Jubilee Tower which was on the route is far, far away!

The checkpoint straight after great hill and the  last checkpoint before the end.
Managed to add orange juice and hot tea together in my mug, too embarrassed to throw it away so I drank it ugh! No permanent damage though - made quite good time on the last section.

 As soon as I elected to go short I regretted it. I had to back in Blackpool by 7 looking and feeling my best. I didn't think I would make it. I don't believe it would have added more than 2 hours to the trip round. The wind was intense but never felt it was going to be a problem. Climbed all the hills OK after Rivington so the other stuff would have been OK - Roll on the Peelers!

2014 and all that.

Well, really good to get one of the crappiest years ever over and done with. Out with the old and in with the new! Miss you Steve and Lee

Several intentions this year. At least 3000 miles on the bike (only 9 miles a day!) - get the wheelbuilding going again and being considerably more tidy. There are numerous small intentions too!

4 or 5 events lined up starting in February, Silverdale with Bowland and Morecambe, Anglezarke Amble - (done at least 5 times before) , The peelers from Bury Twice before, possibly Derwent Water, the 2 Crosses - (6 times before). Seems that my son and Girlfriend have hatched a plot to do a serious bike ride at Easter - 400 miles or so (and drag me along) and then the "Fred Whitton" if I get an entry 50-50 at best.

However since the arrival of the truly wonderful Garmin Edge 500, using the Turbo takes on a brand new dimension.

I also got another bike (Giant Talon) from the Cycle to Work scheme, which is being heavily modified for big hills - looks like being a big year.

Got to go. I have a shed to tidy!

Well got to get the impetus going again.

Not so much not working at the blogs, but having so many iron's in the fire. The old bike has gone! Hopefully to a good home. I have the Defy 2 still but that is about to go to - Didsbury and then a trip around Cuba accompanied I hope by my newest acquisition. A Giant Talon 1 - the last of the 26ers. Wonderful bit of kit. Pictures to follow. Work has been manic. It will be really good to relax into a steady flow of work and not keep on dealing with sickness, audit and rotas. Endlessly.
The new blog at Wordpress slowly creeps along. Don't suspect the numbers will be anything like as good as the blogger ones.

My latest toy will be a Garmin 500 with all the trimmings - a report will be in Tools of the trade as I battle to understand it.

Wow! Summer Holidays

Haven't held off photographing stuff. My new installation of Fedora with a KDE desktop is really excellent - not crashed once in 2 weeks. It also has Luminance and Hugin and GIMP 2.8 installed already. Turned it into a powerhouse graphics workstation.

On the way into Grasmere - Wild Camping

Outside Burneside

Spent time on the ancient camper and now Millie has passed her test! New Tyres and ready to head south for some more research.

Here is a Hugin panorama:

Looking down on Grasmere lake

A quick look at a Luminance HDR image compared to a normal image!

The river at Burton in Lonsdale in HDR

The same shot in normal exposure

The last final Mod to the kit is Batch processing on GIMP - works really well. It was rubbish on on 2.6 but now straight forward - Takes ages though!

Currently doing 200 shots of St Annes Carnival to upload to the Datstore!

Grasmere 2013 and some GINGERBREAD

Well the weather was good, I even wild camped in Millie the ancient camper just short of the event site. I had a few worries about being disturbed, but I had a quite undisturbed night. Not so the following day, my fitness is really appalling and I really suffered, butI took some great panoramas and I got in the church and photographed the memorial too. Those pictures will be in the memorials blog. So the day was a success... I suppose.

View into Grasmere

Alcock tarn

On the way to High Rigg from Heron Crag

High Rigg, Fairfield in Mist

Looking back to Heron

Looking back into North Grasmere

Path to Fairfield on the right and Seat Sandal on the left

IT WAS A GREAT DAY OUT!

New Year (Old Year!!!)

Oh dear kept on wanting to blog so little time! A pathetic excuse but here goes! Completed the Keswick round with the Morecambe Bay and Bowland branch of the LDWA.
A good day out. Here are some landscape pix I did.

Old view of Braithwaite from a postcard.
This is where the event started

The summit of Cat Bells. Skidaw in the distance - behind Derwentwater

The other side of Derwentwater Cat Bells is facing! This is the view from the checkpoint.

The climb out of Rosthwaite. It is below and to the left

On the way to Walla Crag. There are one or two walkers up towards the right which I managed to catch.

There are more pictures to add but they have not been prepared yet.

Well its Christmas Day!

Chance to catch up!,
Been over to Manchester to see youngest son. Good drive back roads surprisingly quiet.
However some photographs in the experimental vein!

Photographed through infrared filter 50mm 18 canon lens

Considerably higher value of infrared Same lens as above.

Infrared again 50 mm

Same picture desaturated and contrast and brightness adjusted

The moon at 250mm increased contrast and a drop in brightness.
Tripod shot could still see the moon shimmer, but it seems to have cancelled out the shimmer.
Looks quite good  close up