Pretty sad day yesterday. Spoke to my mum to find out that the family cat had passed on. Liz and I both got a kitten each when I was about 10 or 11, Liz must have been about 7 or 8 then. We picked the pair of them up from a farm in Wiltshire where we grew up – two brothers from a litter of 5 or 6 I think. They were smaller than the size of our childlike hands at the time. Each would sleep on our respective beds as we grew up and Liz even dressed Topise up in baby clothes which was hilarious. Mine was called Tim but was hit by a car when I was around 15 I think. Liz then kindly said “We can share Topise now if you want”. Topsie kept on going and in recent years had turned into a cantankerous, grumpy old man. Very particular about where he would sit and constantly hassling mum for attention. She said she couldn’t stand him but secretly she still loved him. Amazing to think that he has been in our lives for that long – two thirds of my time on this earth, crazy.
Quick walk around the park this morning with Magnus, Mari and their son Milo followed by coffee and cake. Pretty grim weather but managed to get a few snaps anyway.
We visited Franks Campari bar the weekend we moved flat – about 4 weeks ago now. We got very drunk with Patrick and Smiley Kim (her real name) when we should have been at a gig in Victoria park. It was raining and we got drunk in South London instead. Silly but fun.
Was shooting with the LC-A that day. Whilst the lens has some pretty bad distortion going on it’s got a great contrasty feel to it and is incredibly sharp in the middle of the frame. Love this little thing and it works really well with this load of expired Superia I have.
The views over London are incredible. It doesn’t take much to get above the rooflines and see the full panorama available. Lovely to watch the storm pass in the distance and see dusk fall over central London.
Thursday has to be my favourite night. It’s almost Friday and The Gowlett holds it’s weekly 7″ singles night. All you have to do is turn up with four 7″ records of your choice and add your name to the board for a slot. Then eat amazing pizza and drink beer til your hearts content and dance, scream, or shout at whoever is playing. Awesome.
However we also have a record player at home and lots of records. So we continued on until the early hours of the morning. Not so hot the next day but great fun. Few pics below. Still sorting out a load of shots that I haven’t been able to process due to my laptop accident.
I met my good friend Simon the other day for a drink after work. We talked about Architecture and who’s doing what these days – we went to Portsmouth together. He also has an interest in Photography and asked me what I thought the best way to improve his skills was. I suggested that he do a little project such like my 365 in 2009. Obviously that’s quite a commitment so we went for 50 days of Black and White photos using only a 50mm f1.8 lens. I think reducing the options available will definitely help.
He’s off to a great start already!
I’ve finally got round to processing some pics from their wedding which was a few weekends ago now. Seem to think black and white suits weddings really so here goes. Going to get a few printed tomorrow to send to them.
I’ve said a number of times how much I like the Hipstamatic application on my iPhone but this is a slightly more creative use of it. Patrick holding a bike light to illuminate their faces with the incredible view from the top of a car park in Peckham behind.
Last weekend I gave Nick & Zoe a hand removing their shed from the garden and a few trips to the tip. Took a few photos with my iPhone and also a quick video. Love using the video camera on it.
I’ve been going to Les Arcs for a summer mountainbiking trip since 2004 with my good friend Gavin. A number of others have joined us over the years but Gav and I seem to have been the constant amongst the groups. The summer trip to Les Arcs seems to have become a bit of a tradition and we’ve ended up going in 2005, 2006, 2007. For 2008 we went to Scotland for a week instead to ride the 7 Stanes trails, 2009 was a year off due to me studying for my Part 3. But 2010 was back on to the usual annual trip. This year it was me, Matt, Vaughan and Gavin all travelling in his superb Fiat Scudo van.
Man & machine in perfect harmony – Photo © Gavin Hutton
Previous trips to Les Arcs have always been with TrailAddiction which we’ve always had a great time on. This year we decided to have a bit of a change and go solo as well as sorting out our own accommodation. We managed to find a pretty nice little campsite at the bottom of the main lift in Bourg-St-Maurice. Of course the family tent made another appearance as did the warm weather!
Happy campers – © Andy Matthews
Whenever other riders ask me what riding in the Alps is like I always used to say “Well it’s a bit like riding in Wales only longer and a bit steeper“. The first days riding really rammed home the point that I’d been spouting utter bullshit for quite sometime. You really do forget just how steep, exposed, rooty and rocky the riding is. It’s great but the first day certainly makes you draw a few sharp breaths over some of the trails. It’s hard to capture just how steep some things are but we all spent a lot of our time just hanging off the back of the saddles. It’s pretty exhilarating and your riding goes up a few notches instantly. Smiles all round after our first days riding too.
Rooty rocky stuff – © Andy Matthews
On the Monday we actually did have a guide for the day from TrailAddiction, Ali, whom we’ve spent lots of time riding with previously. He showed some great new trails as well as a few favourites such as White 8, a variation on the popular, and pretty worn out Black 8. We also used the newly opened Vanoise Express lift at Villandry to get over to the La Plagne side of the valley. The lift is simply incredible! Being in a metal and glass box 380m above the valley floor is quite an experience. Ali showed us some real corkers of trails over the other side. Some really steep and rocky stuff as well as some really nice flowy singletrack. We came back over to the Les Arcs side of the valley and finished on Chicane down to Bourg.
Tuesday we just headed out in our usual lazy fashion after a good breakfast and coffee to get some more riding in. There rarely was a plan but we all liked number 10 and found ourselves up that way a few times. This year there were large patches of snow left in some of the higher sections of the trail. This allowed for some pure comedy stacks from Gavin & Vaughan as well as a few great team photos on it. A nice soft landing to stack it on though so nothing damaged. From this lift we also did Ridgeride but again this is so worn out it really wasn’t worth it. One trail that did seem to hit the spot was Lakeride. Getting out at one of the higher lifts and then heading down an enormous scree slope to find the top of the trail was great fun. On the 2nd time down Matt led the way on the snow and has quite a talent for it. Megavalanche next perhaps? The rest of us followed are seeing that he hadn’t died.
Matt’s off ski-biking – © Andy Matthews
After the mucking around there’s actually a really decent trail to be had which starts with a fairly rocky section and ends in a beautiful open series of switch backs to the lake. So the earlier part looks something like this…
Rocky trails – © Andy Matthews
…and ends looking something like this. You can just about see the rest of the trail in the background with a few riders on.
Singletrack switchbacks – © Andy Matthews
Weds was a rest day. Hey, three of us were on hardtails and getting pretty beaten up. Time to have a trip out somewhere. We went up out of Bourg up to Pic St-Bernard and then over into Italy into the Mont Blanc tunnel and over to Annecy for lunch. After lunch and a wander around we hired a speedboat dingy with an outboard. Matt & I jumped in for a dip whilst Vaughan & Gav stayed on pretending to be in Miami Vice. The water was incredibly warm and so nice to swim in. Didn’t really want to come back in to the boat.
Swimmers – © Gavin Hutton
The idea was to spend the rest of the week in Chamonix trying out trails there. Seeing as we’d been having so much fun in Les Arcs and we couldn’t really be arsed moving the tent, well, we stayed put. The riding seemed to get better in the week as we pieced together the trails a bit more and also tried out some others such as Grange Hill, Moist Nun etc. We still covered a few of the favourites too as well as the Cachette DH course which I really can’t stand!
A cracking week was had, the weather was superb as was the banter and of course the riding was the best yet! No massive mechanicals apart from the usual forks spewing oil and brakes overheating. Also no real injuries either. Vaughan damaged his thumb fairly early on but nothing too major. It was great riding in a smaller group than normal. We’re all fairly competent riders and evenly matched, with Matt probably being the fastest (usually as his brakes don’t work). Here’s a few of my favourite photos from the trip.
Hayfever – © Matt Noble
Snow trek – © Matt Noble
Gav in the greenery – © Matt Noble
Rolling in – © Gavin Hutton
Team shot – © Gavin Hutton
More photos available on Flickr of course. Mine are here along with Gavin’s, Matt’s, and Vaughan’s are all online. The come down of being at work is horrendous. Roll on 2011!
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