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  • Downieville

    Downieville

    Downieville lives in mountain biking folklore as home to some of the best riding on the West Coast. Site of the famous Downieville Classic bike race, it’s the spiritual centre of ‘all-mountain riding’; combining cross-country and downhill disciplines into one.

    Booking at the last possible minute, we scored accommodation at the delightful Lure Resort – camping, but without the headache of tents.

    The riding? Some of the most intense, varied and scenic riding I have ever ridden. And the town was probably the most genuinely friendly places I have been in this mad little country I now call home.

    Bikes are loaded up onto the truck – it wasn't all being lazy; it was up in the 90s in the valley, and considerably cooler up in the hills.
    Insanely, we rode up alongside Paul, from Paul's Components fame … slightly star struck!
    At the top of the first climb, we topped 2200m … rather tired!
    Endless single track along the ridge
    Anton takes a quick power nap at "A Tree"
    One of the many stream crossings of the first day
    Go too quickly, and you might miss this crucial right-hander
    First of many!
    Day two, on the Downieville DH course … Anton rips one of the turns
    Hanging on the bridge
    Dominic managed four punctures … all by himself!
    Cooling the legs in the river after the ride
    The Lure Lodge – I think I might be back!

    GPS Data

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  • 2012 Tour de Cure Silicon Valley

    2012 Tour de Cure Silicon Valley

    A couple of months of expectation and marginal planning, and it was all almost ruined by yours-truly setting the Monday-Friday alarm on his iPhone, rather than the ‘other’ alarm, set for the next day only. So, 5:25am, and Marc is waiting outside my house with the engine running, waiting for the Brit to emerge from slumber.

    Yeah, not that one (the 3200m one I keep around as a title, to remind me of the time I awoke to climb Kinabalu in Malaysia).

    “We’ll have to go on without him…” (or more likely less polite words to that effect, and in German)

    6:20am, I awoke, proud of the fact I tuned my body to wake before the alarm sounded – at least for all of ten seconds as I stare at the clock on the wall in horror. “SHIT!”

    Throwing my things into the car (almost literally), I career off in the direction of Palo Alto, and screech to halt at the registration desk, apparently still with time to sign up. Frantic SMSs to Marc sent, new helmet purchased (yes, it was sitting on the kitchen table) and away I go up the hill, alone with my thoughts and Clif bars for quasi-breakfast.

    Sounds of the forest waking up for the day were rudely interrupted by one panting British cyclist on his way up the first major climb of the day (“out of my way, scumbag trees!”). No souplesse, no elegance, just mashing the pedals on the way to the first food stop of the day. Check the phone for messages (Marc still 40 minutes ahead!), and off I go down the road, slip-streaming the first stragglers on the descent towards the Pacific.

    Three quarters of an hour later I slide into the mid-morning fuel stop. More than half-way through the course, and with a crazed look on my face, I hear a ‘Jonny!’ and turn around to see Marc waiting with our other team member. In my exhaustion and jubilation at seeing them, I lifted my bike to turn around and dutifully knocked over both someone else’s bike, and my own in the effort to save the first one. “Hi guys…”. Further muffins crammed down my gullet, M&Ms poured mostly into my mouth, and we are away – I felt the relief washing over me, and could finally start enjoying the ride.

    And so we did. Riding up Route 1 towards San Francisco, we took in deep sea cliffs, arid hills patch-worked with forested gullies and horses copulating by the side of the road. Some of the old stage towns around there were fascinating – I suppose there is no real reason why these ‘startups’ of the day weren’t successful against San Jose or Palo Alto, but at least we are left with the old buildings and odd general stores.

    Turning inland, we began the climb back into the trees. At this point, we were both overtaking large numbers of slower participants, and being trounced by local cycling clubs – there is always someone faster than you. Twisting its way up through the hills, it was surprisingly steep, and suitably punished my  60-mile year-old legs.

    One immense downhill and a puncture later, and we landed back in Menlo Park. Rolling past old-growth Silicon Valley stalwarts such as HP and Lockheed Martin was something special – especially when high on endorphins and adrenalin. Visions of barbecues guided the way for the final ten miles, and thus it came to be – we did it!

    I’ll be back next time, but perhaps setting two alarm clocks. More importantly, we raised some good money for the American Diabetic Association – thanks to all those that reached into their pockets.

    Rest stop at about the 65 mile mark.
    Girl on the right selling lemonade – 50c well earned!
    Marc at the top of the final climb. I had meant to get a more triumphant-looking photo, but I was too busy cramming my face with muffins (between three of us, these are literally all the photos we took).

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  • Sponsor Me!

    Sponsor Me!

    Hello all! I am raising money for the American Diabetes Association by riding 120km around Silicon Valley … and starting from the Lockheed Martin facility. Over 6100ft of climbing and a long day in the saddle.

    Sponsor me here.

    Check out the route here.

  • New York New York

    New York New York

    Taking advantage of the extended Memorial Day weekend, I tacked on an extra day and winged it away from the West Coast for a weekend in New York City. What a place; I had visited in my early twenties, but it makes a major difference when you have local friends to visit and, crucially, a credit card.

    First impression: the people are far more friendly and polite than I realised. Ticket collectors forgave my mistakes on the trains, strangers waved me towards the correct subway stop, people held doors open for me and random acts of kindness and humour caught me off-guard. The combination of awe-inspiring vertical scale, surprisingly large horizontal distances needed to traverse the place and warped sense of horizon and perspective, combined with these little bits of humane magic, make for an addictive combination.

    I managed to spend a solid chunk of time with some great people. Yes, people, I have New York friends; Mia and Brian of San Francisco fame, and then Matt Landman, who I know through Ken in Taiwan, and had only ever met once in an evening of insane metal and rock.

    Highlights: getting caught on the ferry in the rain and walking up Manhattan using the freeways as shelter, an evening on top of ’30 Rock’ – The Rockefeller Center, and wandering through Brooklyn, fire hydrants opened up to drench the local kids with cooling water. Did I mention how hot the weather was?

    Since New York is about half way back to London (insane, no?), I can imagine I will be back here soon.

    View from Brian's apartment to the streets below
    Brian displaying his perma-Sartorialist.com abilities
    The sense of perspective in this space is wonderfully warped
    Standard issue taxi cab shot
    New York feels simultaneously more American, and European at the same time, compared to San Francisco
    V22 Osprey Tiltrotor Crazycopters were circling Manhattan for the whole time – I thought they had been decommissioned for safety reasons
    Modesty (Instagram)
    Sheltering from the rain (Instagram)
    Brunch at Freemans … and as it turns out the same chain as where I get my hair cut in SF
    The skyline – never anything less than amazing
    Williamsburg – hipster central. I swear I did not pose this shot. Ridiculous.
    5th Avenue
    I was obsessed with what people were wearing; so much more stylish than San Francisco or Taipei
    Public artwork more common than in California
    41 Cooper Square – by Thom Mayne
    Shadows of Train Tracks
    Catching up with Mr. Matt Landman
    Mia rocks the graf
    Delighted to see fire hydrants opened up everywhere in Brooklyn for impromptu street parties – I thought this only happened in the movies. I was expecting the Sesame Street cast to walk past at any moment.
  • Santa Cruise

    Santa Cruise

    Endless singletrack in California

    I had the pleasure of Sam swinging by for a week of mountain biking and food. Some awesome days in the saddle, hitting up trails in Marin, the Peninsula, and then a fine finale riding out of Santa Cruise, and up to see the Amgen Tour of California cruise by. Good times!

    First up, Skeggs Point and Tamarancho in Marin:

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    And onto a fine day near Santa Cruz, where we managed to catch the Amgen Tour of California go by.

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    GPS

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  • Yosemite is Awesome

    Yosemite is Awesome

    The only way to sense the scale is to look at the trees on the left, and realise that they are … trees.

    Language is funny. You spend the year throwing around superlatives, describing new features on Facebook or the texture of your new favourite Burrito, and are then totally disarmed when you go somewhere like Yosemite, and faced with things that really are ‘awesome’ (in the base sense of the word), ‘massive’ (as in, unimaginably heavy’?) and ‘amazing’ (oh come on). Without the ability to describe anything in a meaningful way, all you can gawp and try in vain to compare it to other places that you have been, and mostly failing.

    Yosemite is ridiculously, completely unnecessarily gorgeous. Like a set from a Star Trek movie (perhaps one of the pleasure planets where people run around in togas and seduce secondary members of crew into a life of endless procreation), there is forever a CGI waterfall in the background and vistas stretching off into the distance.

    Four days of unbroken sun above our heads, snow underfoot, and yet weather warm enough for t-shirts was a perfect backdrop for enjoying a birthday with my family. Great food, wonderful company, and an awesome location; literally.

    Entrance to the valley, on some of the finest roads in California (not saying too much, there).
    Mum and Dad enjoy the vista. It's impossible to stop yourself from screeching to a halt in each siding to enjoy the views on offer.
    El Capitan rock – a genius of naming.
    Incredible arcs of rock look like an impressionist; the brain is not capable of dealing with such scale for more than a few minutes.
    A good day to fly overhead
    First major hike of the weekend, up past the snow line.
    The same waterfall features in most of the images.
    Switchbacks – ah for my mountain bike.
    Don't look down!
    Oh look.
    Half dome on the left, and more waterfalls on the right – we hiked up to the first one the next day.
    Attempting to link up with the previous day's hike … we turned back after we decided it was getting a bit hairy … it's hard to appreciate, but there was a substantial cliff to the direct left side of this.
    Instagram delivering the goods again the next day in our hike up to the falls.
    One thing I love about my Mum is that we notice the same things at the same time.
    Back to the house for the most delicious possible artichokes. Mum & Dad drove through the 'Artichoke Capital of the World', and we spent the weekend laughing about it until we actually tasted the things.
  • Take Me Out to the Ballpark

    Take Me Out to the Ballpark

    Loonies inhabit all corners of the city. The baseball stadium is no different.

    One of my minor ambitions during my stay in the USA was obviously to head to baseball game. It was extra-special to go there with my old man, and reminisce about all the other baseball games he didn’t take me to as a child while not growing up in America.

    Sell-out crowd
    I spent much of the match trying to remember the rules, and then recount them to Dad with some semblance of sense. The guy in front of us almost caught a ball, though, and the crowd around him berated him for the rest of the game for having dropped it. Good times.
    Bleachers.
    The rush to get home.
  • Marin Weekender

    Marin Weekender

    Mum & Dad, having completed their main tour from San Diego back up to San Francisco, now have a couple of weeks with me in the Bay Area. We took the opportunity of having good weather to cross the Golden Gate and spend the weekend in Marin. Day 1: antique shopping in Petaluma, and Day 2: a fantastic walk in the sun, retracing our steps to Alamere Falls. After the manufactured saccharine charms of SoCal, I think it was a breath of fresh air.

    Dad navigates the streets of San Francisco, to the accompaniment of the Bullett theme tune
    Crossing the bridge never gets old – it's stunning.
    Objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are
    Hold onto your hats!
    Dad, clearly enjoying the Mustang
    What a team.
    We retraced the steps we made in the summer hike to Alamera Falls, back in July
    Even though 99% of people make the detour to the beach, the rangers seem to ignore this fact, and mark it unmaintained.
    View out to Point Reyes – very much need to go there some time soon.
    Dad negotiates the frankly slightly scary cliff down to the beach
    Unconventional team photo
    Don't go chasing waterfalls
    Dad and I, standing above the cliffs
    One more for good measure
    The trip back … and you are reminded that you are in Marin – the wackiest collection of individuals this side of, well, San Francisco
    Sunset Strip
    The breathtaking return through the tunnel back to the city

     

  • Alcatraz in the Sun

    Alcatraz in the Sun

    Leaving the Rock, and thinking of the ROC

    I am lucky enough to have my parents visiting at the moment; here for a few days before heading down to San Diego, and taking a leisurely drive up the coast. While the first Saturday was a wash-out, the sun came out to play on Sunday, and we counted ourselves lucky to have such a pleasant day to visit one of the most famous tourist destinations in America; Alcatraz.

    It certainly is a tourist trap, but the constricted numbers (book ahead in the summer, folks) and unbelievable location make it a must-see attraction. The audio tour – usual a gimmick – adds tremendous depth and atmosphere to the experience … very much recommended, and even better followed-up with hot clam chowder.

    STOP
    Mum, in the spotlight
    Beautiful decay on the old buildings; it's just a shame so many of them were being left to rot. Sea air, concrete, and steel are not a good mix.
    Jail birds
    The audio tour exceeded my expectations … I am looking forward to going back to do the tour at night next time I have visitors.
    What must it have been like, to look out and see this? Apparently, if the wind was right, you could hear the sounds of party revellers in San Francisco wafted across on the breeze.
    Thoughtful moments
    The sun was pouring in through the windows; I am glad we went on Sunday, instead of the rather wetter and colder Saturday.
    Atmospherics
    Looking across at my adopted home
    Zebra doors
    There are swimming races each year, but the of legends inmates not being able to swim across alive stand.
    Original signage, combined with the 1969 Indian protester signs, during the Nixon era.
    Bird on the breeze
    I wonder as well how long the piers are going to last – the concrete pillars not looking too strong at the moment.
    Shutters, and back on dry land we are.
  • Squaw Rush Hour

    Squaw Rush Hour

    The pleasures of living in California … while it is a bit of an effort to get up to the slopes, it’s worth it. This time, it’s Squaw; a much larger, almost European resort, and host to the 1960 Winter Olympics. Super amazing (if cold) conditions were marred only by having ski boots that were a size too big … something to add to the shopping list.

    Gregg, ruggedly eating a chocolate bar
    Serious weather this time!
    Nicole, rocking the board
    Team Squaw!
    Great posse to get lost in the mountains with
    Sadly, a ridiculous 10 hour drive back … we think as a result of a jack-knifed truck. The car did really amazingly well all weekend, outperforming a few 4×4 show-offs on the way.