Africa, bikes, friends, GPS, MTB, travel

RVO acclimatisation

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For over a year, Adrian had been trying to convince me to come back to Kenya to ride the Rift Valley Odyssey – a three-day 250 km stage race down into the Great Rift Valley, across the bottom & up the other side & back to camp.  He and a couple of mates rode it last year – which I was quite impressed by as they seemed to start mountain-biking just to do so.  As since my last visit AD & Carm have got married & had a couple of kids, the 2013 RVO seemed like as good a reason as any to come back & visit – plus it gave motivation to all the riding I’ve been doing over summer 2013.

As it transpired, the timing didn’t work out all that well as two weeks before the event AD & Carm moved south of the border to Arusha, Tanzania.  So when I flew into Kenya I had a day or so staying at Brackenhurst (a large bible college complex just north west of Nairobi that serves also as the Kenyan base for AD’s company, until recently their home & also the start of the RVO) resting from the travelling, assembling my bike, getting my lungs slightly used to the 2200 metres of altitude before AD & Carm turned up.  I also manage to slip in the shower/bath & bruise/crack a rib that was to trouble me for the next week or so – lack of adhesive ducks.

It’s nice turning up in an expat community where everyone is really friendly & very well travelled – my first trip overseas in five months, it’s cool to hear of new places to go & see.  AD, Sean (also riding the RVO with us) & I managed a nice little very early Tuesday morning ride around the local teafields – with over 400 m of climbing in less than 15 km, it was bit more than I was used to around the flatlands of home & it gave my sea-level lungs a bit of a workout.  Later that day I managed a second ride with another guy, Dave, a bit further afield (30 km in total) to a couple of waterfalls & through more teafields.  My lungs were slowly getting used to the thinner air – but it was still worth resting Wednesday.

Most of the international entrants in the RVO turned up Wednesday evening & there was a social prologue ride on Thursday to help with the high altitude.  I had a miserable night’s sleep previously & with all the rain I heard while lying awake I had decided to give the prologue a miss as I was in a foul mood & thought I’d just end up slipping to a big crash – not much use before a three-day event; also all my teammates had wimped out citing being too busy at work.  But a bit of light broke through the clouds at just the right time twenty minutes before the start – so I hurriedly got ready & rolled out with everyone else.

It was time on the bike off-road so predictably I quite enjoyed myself – even if the almost 50 km & 1200 m+ of climbing was probably a bit more than was sensible before the upcoming three days.  A nice big lunch in quite a colonial setting was enjoyed by all.  That evening we were around at Sean & Tesni’s (Tesni runs the baby orphanage that the other guys were riding for – they ended up raising $US10K!) tweaking bikes for eight o’clock start.  Thankfully I managed to cure the horrendous creak from AD’s bottom bracket – I’m pretty sure I would have had to rip my ears off if I had to ride next to that for even half of the 250 km.

combe raiders, friends, GPS, MTB, national park, UK

Hound Tor return – in the sun

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John kindly proposing a big Combe Raiders ride was enough to get me to Somerset for what was otherwise a free weekend – I still need to get longer rides under the belt before the end of the month, while looking after my knees. With just three of us signed up for whatever ride it was going to be, it was going to be faster (fewer stops) than other CR rides.  With an all day pass from home, John was keen to head back to Dartmoor and ride a route I led eight of us on back in March – last time the weather was atrocious, so I could see some of the point in going back in nice weather at the tail end of summer.

After dropping into the bottom of the valley, there’s a big climb to get the legs & blood pumping.  It wasn’t long before I was wondering how I survived on a singlespeed last time – the larger group & cooler weather probably helped.  Dartmoor has a bit of a reputation for quickly turning into desolate isolation if the weather turns, so it was odd to see it on such a lovely day.  Oddly, within an hour of each other two of the three of us riding tubeless tyres got punctures that didn’t seal – I put a tube in, John just kept pumping his tyre up rather often.

We had to ride through a herd of these guys, thankfully they didn’t object

Grimspound

We eventually arrived at Hound Tor, which is a much bigger & impressive pile of rocks than the photos below show.  The Hound of the Basket Meals food van was back in the car park – this time we had more than tea.  One cheeseburger just served to remind me that I was actually hungry – so much to the others’ later envy, I had a second.


John & Hound Tor – after we avoided the man running after an escaped kite

Before long we were back at the van & with John phoning home to see if we might have another hour or so out & getting an affirmative – we tacked on a bit more trail that I’d loaded on to my GPS.  With a fair bit more climbing, a nice flowing bit of woodland trail and then an unexpectedly long hike-a-bike to more good views – this was the highlight of the day’s riding for me.

Just nice countryside

around home, friends, history, vehicles

Kentish long-weekend

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After a big weekend of riding the previous week, where I managed to pull a muscle in my knee on the Saturday making Sunday’s large singlespeed ride rather painful, it seemed to a good idea to leave the bike(s) at home for the last long weekend of the summer. The physio sorted out my knee quickly, but recommended I do some form of exercise other than biking – a thought that hadn’t crossed my mind recently. So I went for a run & pulled a muscle in my foot – I promptly gave up running.

Not taking bikes, meant that the four of us could all fit in the same car as we travelled to a quaint 15th century cottage we had rented for the weekend – our base for a friends’ wedding. It’s quite fun staying in a house that is more than twice as old as the country you’re from. Happily, I also had a long weekend for my birthday for the first time in my life – a rather dismal day weather wise, we pretty much spent the day eating well too much. We also managed to fit a visit to Canterbury Cathedral in (I’d been before with Trish a few years ago, so as the weather was pants I didn’t really take many photos).  Eventually we settled on a huge roast dinner and if that didn’t fill me up – the two birthday cakes certainly helped.

Plenty of exposed beams

Kings Head Cottage – plenty of room for us all

Across the village green

One of the older houses in Chartham

Thankfully, the wedding day had considerably better weather than my birthday.  Laura & Luis got engaged before I started working here in the UK, so it was good to see all the plans that we’ve heard so much of come to fruition.  The service was all very traditional (dearly beloved, have & to hold etc.) and quite good fun, I still can’t sing very well though.  On seeing the wedding car, below, I immediately had to get a few snaps for Uncle Geoff back in Australia – I’m pretty sure Bentleys of such age are his favourite.

With a bit too much time to spare between ceremony & evening wedding party, we went down to the white cliffs at Dover in our gladrags – where we picniced on the beach, mucked around, went to the pub and then wandered a bit on top of the cliffs.

After the speeches was the dancing for the night – a céilidh.  Basically a gaelic folk dance, it reminded me of the (awful) folk-dancing endured at primary school – but it was miles better due to there being a good band, a caller to tell me what to do and no longer being scared of girl-germs.  But I still had little idea what I was doing – but it really didn’t matter as plenty others didn’t either.  A huge pig-on-a-spit topped the night off nicely; amusingly the happy couple drove off in a tuk-tuk.

engineering, history, UK

Blaenavon

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I managed to get my tent packed up before the rain rolled in for what transpired to be a utterly miserable day in the Welsh valleys. Just as well the nice bike ride was on the Saturday and I’d set Sunday aside for a couple of industrial museums close by in Blaenavon. While not nearly as extensive as the fantastic museums at Ironbridge, there was enough to keep me interested to want to wander around in the driving rain for a few hours.

First up were the ironworks, of which there were the hearths of the a couple of blast furnaces, a couple of old casting halls, the remains of lime kilns & charging floor, and the shell of a huge balance tower (a water operated lift for lifting carts of pig iron ten metres or so). The audio explanations dotted sparsely around were excellent in explaining what it was like for those iron workers. The site is of note for the pioneering of basic steel-making which enabled high phosphorus ores to be used.

A little down the road is Big Pit, an old underground coal mine (of which, there were of course many in Wales once upon a time) that is now the National Coal Museum.  It closed over thirty years ago and opened shortly after as a coal museum.  The big attraction is the chance to go down a coal mine.  It’s not far, less than a hundred metres down.  As it’s still regarded as a mine, our small group donned hard hats, miners’ lamps and emergency gas mask before we could enter and gave up any item containing a battery, matches, lighters etc.  The tour was very well done and most informative – nicely it hasn’t been sanitised too much for the public, so there’s plenty of opportunity to bump one’s head or fall over in the dark.  Not quite as much fun as my previous trip underground in to a fully operational pit under the Waikato River back in NZ – but interesting all the same.

So I only managed a few pictures of the cage and winding mechanism – with the weather, they’re really quite poor.

Back above ground there are a few things to look at – the restored bath house that the miners used has some good exhibits in.  A good visit & nice to be out of the rain.

Biking to go places, going places to bike.