september long weekend pt2

so friday turned out a bit of a long day indeed,home from filming the sunrise i uploaded the film onto the pc then had breakfast and headed out again on the karate monkey again around 10am to ride and film some trails along,under and over the busy A1 trunk road down to see a friend for lunch,its great doing road miles on the karate monkey after the pugsley!,its time to get some mtb tyres on it now,looking at something quite fat for a bit float like the 2.4s from WTB,why i got the halo rims at 37mm so i can get a comfy ride,the ride down to my friends was fun riding through tunnels under the A1...

i didnt take alot of pictures as was mostly filming which takes a wee while setting up then returning for the camera,thats 10 self made films of local mtb trails now so i will now wait until i get my helmet cameras i won-should have arrived by now!,
it was just a short film i made but there was another secret wood i was going to head to on the way back from my friends...



looks like all the combining is done now,seems as soon as the fields are bailed they get disc harrowed and ploughed!

last trail to near my friends...

heading along up into the secluded glen i passed the witches stone near the small village of spott...

this was the site of the last witch to be burnt to death in southern scotland..


there was a lot of this went on in scotland,brutal stuff!,time to head for my favourite wood in east lothian...

september long weekend

my dad has always said "miss the morning and you miss the day.." never a truer word said as ive been up at the crack of dawn the last 3 days,
yep im on a long weekend and i took it after i saw the forcast last week and for once they got it spot on and its been amazing weather,i was up at 5am friday as ive wanted to film a sunrise from the top of north berwick law for a while now,i dont have timelapse on my cannon camera so i set up the camera to film for an hour and a half then on vista movie maker i used the double time on `effects` and after about 12 times speeded up came up with this film...



the hour and a half went by quickly as i took loads of photos with my other powershot cannon A470,i have to say im impressed with the quality of pics from such cheap cameras (£59) maybe not brilliant but good enough,friends say buy a nikon N90 or simular but i dont want to have a £400 camera out where i am,and i like using a cheap camera anyway,oh and if your wondering why i didnt film myself descending the law its because i crawled down trying to not lock up the wheels with the semi slick tyres on hardpack grass wet with morning dew-not a good combination!!

how to avoid trenchfoot

well it isnt that wet in scotland but we do get regular rain and anyone who`s up here and outdoors alot has alot of different waterproof footwhere,redbike commented on keeping dryfeet riding through this on satuardys ride and film;

i had bone dry toasty feet all day!,how?,well i had altura trousers on which have a long leg thats neat in that they split behind the boot 2" and with a adjustment strap give a good tight splashproof seal over the top of the boots,these trousers arnt 100% waterproof all day but underneath i had on the secret weapon;

british army goretex boot liners (high) these are the bizz,ive NEVER had wet feet with them,i got them about 10 years ago for motorcycle trailriding but havent used them for about 4 years until i got the pugsley,you also get a low version but they dont have a velcro wrap around the top;

though i may sow a velcro patch on them so i can use them in winter when just a bit wet-not flooding!

the socks are made of that real heavy goretex material like the camo army jackets are made of,i used to wear the short socks as slippers whencamping and sitting about cooking around the tent etc.i think the long socks were £25 and short socks £18 (£UK)
im a size UK 10.5 in boots so most size 11s are fine with these on with a thin pair of socks underneath
silvermanshave them in stock for £20 and will ship overseas,
so now you know why im always smiling in films as ive got toasty warm dry feet!

pugsley goes to the beach after the big flood

so with a clear sky,low tide 8.50am and more rain forcasted later in the day i headed for john muir park as i can ride there all offroad after a 1/4 mile of road from my house and the bay being the estuary there would be lots of wood and stuff washed down out the river tyne

this is the john muir trail which will take me to then along the river tyne to the bay there was still alot of standing water from the burn which had overflowed
look at the snails i assume were about the height the water had reached!

i ploughed through the water on the pugsley making a big bow wave!

this amount of water will take a while to drain away...

the john muir way turns onto this old road-now closed to public vehicles,its called `ware road` on old maps and was used in the past to cart seaweed off the beach for applying as a fertilizer on local farms

pugsley managed to break the farmers speedlimit!

down onto the sand and along the coast there was as expected alot of wood washed down...



and there was another police `no waiting` cone!

the bag of rubbish beside it was a gentleman picking up plastic and other rubbish off the beach,he does this voluntry-we should all do an odd day or half day lifting plastic off the beach,i stacked up a pile near gullane about 8 months ago and its still there!,
had`nt noticed this before,must have been the old shore banking now long gone,proberly was sea buckthorn,the tree with the orange berries...

i didnt take that many pics as i was mostly filming but there really is so much on any beach you could photograph,sometimes i just park up and soak up the views..

when you have an hour of film clips its hard to cut it all down into a maximum 10 minutes for youtube,im trying to make my films shorter and pack more in,keeps them more intresting,i try to imagine what someone who dosnt cycle see`s when they watch,-proberly that were all nuts!!,22 miles in 3 1/2 hours crammed into a 2 minute 30 second film...

crazy rain!!!!

about a week ago we had a real heavy downpour type of day,it was the day i posted about the new boot gators id got and was off out on a nightride to try them out,well the rain had cleared and i can report they certainly keep stuff out your boots

here was me just returned home muddy and happy!...

it felt weird riding a full suspension bike as i haven't rode the cannondale for about 2 months,still a great bike...

so on the way up to my friends i shot some film whilst driving and took some stills and ended up making a short sunset film...



so i thought that was the last of the bad weather,oh no,it came back with a vengeance...
we got 2 months average rainfall in 2 days!!,it was mad,it just poured down for hours and hours and hours,thursday night it hadn't let up at all so rather than go a cycle as per usual thursday evening i went a walk along the river tyne armed with an unberella so i could film and although most of the riverside path was underwater i managed to scurry up and down bankings and using the brolly.filmed enough to put together a film...



now ive gone into film over drive as i made another on the pugsley this morning!
i was up at 5.30am for work and filmed the sunrise


while behind this to the west a full moon set


i left a camera on the tripod for an hour then on movie maker i doubled the speed-4 times to make a sunrise film
theres lots of flooding around in the fields.looks like not alot of harvest work for a while...

i finished and left work about 7.30am -early bird catches the worm!!,and i had a low tide to catch on the pugsley at 8.50am!
i stopped a few times on the way home from work to take a few pics...





home for breakfast then time to head for the beach on pugsley...........,