SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

[dr_bar]

LOL, love that dang show...

[sv-wolf]

Hiya Doc.

How does that TV Prog keep up its popularity from year to year with its tacky sets and jingoistic themes. I remember seeing the very first Dalek ever to hit the British TV screens. Or the first bit of a Dalek. It appeared right at the end of an episode, with the closing music already howling in everyone's ears. All you saw was a rubber cup on a stick, like a sink plunger, advancing down a corridor in the Dalek city. (It probably was a sink plunger, knowing the BBC). I was terrified.

The UK has roughly fourteen times the population of BC (just looked it up) which is yet, another good reason for the Tardis. It's also the primary reason why Canadians find motorcycling over here such a different experience.

I bought a video headcam a while back, and have spent the time in between working on my technophobia. I might even get it up and running one day.

[ceemes]

Are you questioning your Supreme Rulers and Overlords? Foolish Human.



and if you don't, you know what gonna happen to you

[sv-wolf]

My skin is still tingling this evening after returning home from a weekend of motorcycling and fell walking.

On Thursday, I made the four-hour journey down to Wells in Somerset on the DR650. I like this journey because it takes me across furze-covered moorland, through my teenage stomping ground around Andover, past Stonehenge and then out across the wildness of Salisbury Plain. The journey was only slightly marred on this occasion by the fact that I spent a good deal of the time riding straight into the winter sun which blinded me so thoroughly that I couldn't read the road signs and kept missing my turnings.

My plan was to leave the bike for a week with Gabriel of 'Zen Overland'. Gabriel's business is located just outside Wells in what was originally a magnificent stone-built Victorian train shed with a dramatic wooden roof. He is going to custom-build a pannier rack for the DR and provide it with a set of hard panniers of his own design. He is also going to order a number of goodies for me from the US, Italy and the UK: a sump guard, a 25-litre Acerbis tank, a fuel filter, some decent hand-guards, a Renthal handlebar, a headlight guard, a large side-stand pad, a pair of LED lights, and a Laminar Lip adjustable windscreen. The gear from America he can get cheaper than I can because he makes regular bulk orders, and he is willing to pass the savings onto me.

I talked with him for over an hour about the work I wanted on the bike, and at the same time tossed balls across the workshop floor at the insistence of Bess, his lovable and tirelessly enthusiastic Staffie cross. I think in that hour I learned more from Gabriel about bikes than in any other conversation I've ever had. I also learned a lot about dogs.

Once everything was sorted, I hefted my rucksack off the DR, left my riding gear bagged up in Gabriel's workshop, and settled myself down in his car. He then gave me a lift to the bus station in Wells. It's a lovely old town, with a magnificent and characterful gothic cathedral. One bus trip, two train journeys and three hours later, I was in Malvern and walking down the hill to the home of an old university friend. Tim and I had shared a room back in the early 1970s, and spent most of our time playing loud music, and walking on the fells. Tim was also an avid potholer. Today, he's one of only a handful of people in the world who makes handcrafted wooden recorders. That evening we drove out to a pub/venue to hear a local scratch band play R&B. They only did a short set, but it was immediately clear they were talented musicians. To judge from past experience, Malvern is jam packed with people like this.

For many years, five or six of us have driven to Snowdonia in North Wales on the first full weekend in January to go walking in the mountains. We meet up at Malvern and then drive to Wales through the massive Tanat valley which encloses two iron-age hill forts. The valley is steep-sided, and dramatic. At this time of year its sides are covered in a fiery copper-coloured vegetation which sets the imagination ablaze. By the time we had reached the valley head, the wind was getting up and beginning to unsettle the car on the mountain passes. Down in the next valley, the waters of lake Bala, usually so smooth, were whipping up into high cresting waves. Then the rain came down, and on the hills, shallow, fast-running streams began to form along the edges of the roads.

The old, stone-built cottage where we stay lies at the foot of a craggy hill facing across the valley towards Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales and the second highest in the UK. The cottage has electricity, but the only heating comes from a wood burning stove in the living room. Its water is supplied from a cistern which collects the run-off from the hillside in wet weather. The cottage is damp and run down and the pantry is full of mouse droppings, but it's cosy and warm and welcoming once we have chopped some logs and got the fire going.

We decided, this year, against climbing any of the higher peaks, and headed off towards some of the mid-range crags, a good decision, as we later discovered, since the weather station on the top of Snowdon was recording temperatures of -17 C and 110 mph winds. Apart from the occasional drizzle the weather that weekend stayed dry, but rainfall over the previous month had been exceptionally high, and the rivers were swollen and fast running, and the land was marshy. On Saturday, a path we were following turned unexpectedly into a marsh, and we ended up knee deep in boggy water for several minutes while trying and failing to get across a torrential river into the forest beyond. With no way forward, we detoured over the crags into a neighbouring valley where there was a railway line, and caught a train into Betws-y-coed. The line had one track, and was served by a single locomotive which travelled back and forth all day, picking up locals and walkers. I've never had to stick out my hand to flag down a train before. A couple of buses then got us back to the cottage at Nant Gwynnant. These local vehicles were small, and were driven round the narrow, winding roads at scarily high speeds. We changed buses at the freezing-cold hill station of Pen-y-pass which stands under the huge battlements of Crib Gogh, a ragged, razor-sharp ridge buttressing Snowdon.

On Sunday we set out to climb Yr Aran, a peak close to Snowdon, but rarely visited. By the time we got to the col between the two mountains, though, the winds were so fierce and so bitingly cold, that we decided it would be the better part of valour to carry straight on past the mountain tarn and down the long, undulating hillside beyond into the village of Beddgelert for a cream tea in a local cafe. After feeding our faces, Tim and the others distracted Chris, while I sneaked off to the village shop to buy a cake and candles, as we'd discovered it was his 70th birthday the following day.

After a great day's walking in stunning mountain scenery, I've discovered, there is nothing better than spending the evening cooking, reading, chatting interminably, stoking the wood-burning stove and playing Scrabble. It's the kind of easy-going sociability with friends I rarely have the chance to experience these days at home.

On Monday, we drove back to Malvern, stopping off at Swallow Falls and Dolwyddelan Castle. I've never seen so much water in the river before. At the falls, it forces its way through a cleft in the rock with enormous speed and ferocity, spuming and roaring and filling the air with spray, before tumbling on down the hillside in a series of rapids to the village below.

Dolwyddelan is one of the few castles in Wales built by a Welsh Prince rather than an English King. The castle is formed of a single tall tower erected at the head of the valley on the orders of Llewellyn ap Gruffudd who ruled over Gwynedd (North Wales) before the country was annexed by Edward Longshanks (King Edward I of England). In days gone by, it guarded the entrance to the valley and the mountain fastness beyond.

After Tim dropped me off back in Malvern, I caught an excruciatingly slow train back into London and then a faster one home up to Hertfordshire. I got in at 1.00 am, tired but very happy.

I still don't have a camera, so here are several links to photos of the weekend taken by Tim.

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... e=552FEEB5
On the slopes of Snowdon

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... e=5537B122
Evening activities back at the cottage

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... e=55233A35
Map reading by committee

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 9339dbf070
Llewellyn's castle

[blues2cruise]

That picture at Snowdon...the scenery is spectacular.

[sv-wolf]

Hi blues

It's a great photo, isn't it? But the whole of central Snowdonia is just spectacular like this, with some amazing peaks. They may not be as high as continental peaks - it's a small island - but they lack nothing in power and beauty. They keep drawing us back year after year.

[sv-wolf]

A few more links to pics of our weekend in Snowdonia.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 6a3a22573c
Old slate miner's hut in the cwm below Snowdon and Yr Aran.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 5102186ccc
Walking back to Beddgelert across the moorland below Yr Aran

https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/ ... ebee39fd32
On the lower slopes of Snowdon and Yr Aran

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 095ef4a443
View across the Snowdon massif from above the Nant Gwynant valley, with llyn Gwynant (Lake Gwynant) in the valley floor

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... e=552FF8C5
Cate, dry stone wall; dry stone wall, Cate

https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... e=552E646B
Boathouses on llyn Gwynant

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 554dd6f174
Another shot of the Nant Gwynant valley with llyn Gwynant and the line of the afon Glaslyn (river Glaslyn)

https://scontent-b-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hph ... e=552B65C2
The first drop at Swallow Falls on the afon Conwy (river Conwy) above Betws-y-coed,

[Hanson]

Nice picks Hud!

[sv-wolf]

Thanks Richard. I wish I could take credit for them, but I can't. Now that my camera has broken beyond economic repair, I'm still mulling over what to replace it with when I go on my trip. My main priorities are robustness and ease of use. I've decided that I'm also happy to forego some of the more sophisticated bells and whistles on more elaborate cameras, so long as the picture quality is reasonably good. I think travel pics need to be pretty 'realistic', so I don't plan on any fancy artwork. I wouldn't have time to develop the skills for that anyway.

I've settled on a top-range compact, but I'm not yet sure which one to go for. The market seems to be flooded with them. I'm still reading through the literature and the voluminous reviews on the web.

[sv-wolf]

No DR again this week. I was expecting to pick it up from Wells on Monday, but some of the mods Gabe had ordered for me hadn't arrived, and the work had not been completed. Delivery dates were out of his hands, he'd said, when we first talked about timescales, and he'd warned me this might happen, but I'd closed my eyes and hoped things would go to plan anyway... Unfortunately, they didn't, and I didn't get the news till I was already on the way to pick up the bike.

I'd spent that weekend attending a residential course down near Abbotsbury on the Dorset coast. The venue overlooked The English Channel, and had great views of Chesil Beach and Portland Bill. Fortunately, it was only forty miles from Wells, so I'd come down by train, and was planning to pick up the DR and ride it back home to Hertfordshire. All my arrangements had fallen conveniently together - or so it seemed.

At one o'clock that afternoon I was standing on Dorchester South railway station waiting for a train to take me to Yeovil Pen Mill. From there I was planning to catch the first bus to Wells, in the hope of arriving at Gabe's premises by mid afternoon. The evenings were frosty and I didn't want to be riding home after nightfall when temperatures plummeted and riding would become painful. I tried several times to phone Gabe from the station but his line was permanently engaged. Feeling far too happy and optimistic to worry, I let the peace of the station settle in on me. Living in the Home Counties in the bustle of the London commuter belt, I had all but forgotten how different were the rhythms and sensations of country life. Within the palings of Dorchester South station there were no ticket office queues, no anxious travellers jockying for position on platforms, no continual rush of trains, no Tannoy announcements, no flash of electronic signboards, only the occasional wheeze and clack of a wooden gate at the station entrance, and a solitary bird, singing to no-one in particular. The stillness settled into me like a stone sinking into a woodland pond.

It wasn't until I was on the slow South-Western train that I managed to get through to Gabe and heard his news. It didn't take long to burst my little bubble of excitement, and from then the day began to look very different. As the train loped on from one tiny station to another, I wondered for a while whether I should be cross with Gabriel for not trying to contact me with his news (he'd apologised, admitting he hadn't), or with myself for not having given him a mobile number, so he couldn't have contacted me even if he'd tried. But by then there was nothing for me to do but carry on to Yeovil where I could pick up a connecting train to London and then another back home to Hertfordshire. Since all time pressures were now off, and I'd never been to Yeovil before, I decided that before I went home I would spend an hour or two looking around the town.

Outside the station, I found a woman standing at the bus stop. I doubt that she was much over fifty, but she had a grey and shrivelled appearance, a 40-a-day face and a head wreathed in a cloud of cigarette smoke. I asked how far it was to town. 'Oh you can't walk', she rasped, guessing the reason for my question, 'it's about five miles'. I took her word and waited for the bus. In reality, the town centre was less than half-a-mile distant, and it occurred to me that the judgments people make on these matters are probably related to their mobility. I suspect the thought of walking any distance at all would have horrified her.

To an English ear, a name like 'Yeovil' is synonymous with West-Country charm, and my head was pre-stuffed with images of quiet streets and characterful stone-built houses. Reality, though, often fails to live up to expectations. The town is hedged in on one side by a band of achingly banal 1960s and 70s housing estates. The centre, too, is drab and charmless. Once, it may have been an attractive market town. In some measure, it might have been still, had not the planners recently pedestrianised the High Street and tidied up the unruly habits of old buildings spilling down the hillside. And where the planners had left off, commerce had finished the job, cladding traditional brick and plaster in all kinds of branded facades until Yeovil town centre could have belonged to any small town in the country. Here and there, where the town's native character peeped through the overgrowth of 'modernity', it looked mournful and neglected.

Half way down the High Street stood a large building that may once have been a cinema, but was now a shiny metallic club called 'Neo'. The name suggests both a superficial newness and the unreal world of 'The Matrix', summing up everything I was beginning to feel about the town. I've never been seduced by the metaphysical charms of what conservatives get to call 'reality', but there is unreal and there is tawdry, and Yeovil was tawdry. I decided to head for home. I would eat in London.

Trains to London ran from Yeovil Junction, the town's second station. That was where I was now heading, and this time, I had decided to get there on foot. A twisted road sign to the station pointed straight out of town. The way looked unlikely, so I asked directions from a passing dog-walker. A dog-walker, I guessed, would have a reliable appreciation of routes and distances. Yet despite my clear request, he began by directing me back to Pen Mill. It took him a few moments to realise his mistake - I guess from the look on my face. He then checked himself, studied me dubiously, and pointed silently to the road I had previously rejected. It's a fu-cking long way', he said after a long pause. He gave me another hard look, and then said it twice again, 'it's a fu-cking long way'. Each time he emphasised the 'fu-cking' a little more, as though delivering a dire warning against any such foolhardy plan as I was considering. I looked up the road and considered my chances of survival.

After trying to disentangle myself from his scrutiny, I set off on foot. The Road led out of the town and into the neighbouring hillsides. It was narrow, had steep banks, and there were no footpaths, suggesting to me that Yeovil people did not like to travel to such exotic locations as London. As I followed the winding road up the side of the valley of the river Yeo, a thin sun appeared from behind some high clouds bringing a kind of wintry cheer. The road ran past water meadows, farms and a stark, grey-stone mansion house (six rooms to live in and another twenty for status) with prominent 'Keep Out, Private Property' signs at the drive entrances. The greenness of the valley reassured me, and the spinneys either side of the road made the walking comfortable and pleasant. From a byre, down in the valley, the sound of cows lowing brought back memories of growing up in a farming village in Hertfordshire.

It was a winding, green mile-and-a-half to Yeovil Junction; I would have been content for it to have been a lot longer. But by the time I was on my way to London, my disappointment over not being able to ride the DR back to Hertfordshire had been absorbed into new plans and perspectives, and I was content just to let the train take me home.

.......................................................................................................................................


While on the platform of Dorchester South station, the words of a favourite poem kept going through my mind: Edward Thomas's 'Adelstrop'.

Adelstrop

Yes, I remember Adlestrop -
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop - only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.