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Footage from Sundays 32 mile epic!

I spent last weekend hurling myself down mountains, and complaining because i’m not fit enough to ride back up them. It was awesome.

As I wander through life’s experiences, a little (quite sad) part of my brain clocks the ones that are of remote interest and ill make sure i get as many photos etc to write a post. I thought this was perfect, i could post a picture of me, arms in the air at the top of a mountin….beautiful scenery, ranges of other mountains in the background Headline: The Lakes - Conquered! Unfortunately my (complete lack of) fitness chopped this idea quite short.

Friday: After a long drive up there was only a limited amount of light left in the day for riding. We dumped our kit and headed out to the Altura Trail over in the Whinlatter forest. This was, quite possibly, the best and most technical singletrack i’ve ever ridden. It was only a 6 mile loop but the interesting terrain easily made up for the short distance.

View from half way up the hill, Whinlatter

The trail starts technical with a short burst of flowing singletrack but quickly levels out into a climb that snakes back and forth towards the summit. Once at the top it changes back into more flowy technical terrain. By this point the wind and snow had go up and sticking to the narrow paths that had been cut into the hill proved to be an interesting if perrilous challenge. The ups and downs grow as you fly the the forest helping you to pick up speed. Snaking down the hill the track turns into more of a slalom with huge berms and less obsticals allowing for some propper speed. This was easily my favorite part of the course, especially whilst still in the forest. As you come out the woods, the distance between berms grows allowing room for a selection of singles, doubles and even some tripples. Unfortunately, all the fun does come with a certain risk involved and on the last switchback of the course….

Idiot

….Yep you guessed it, more injuries. Idiot.

Saturday’s plan was to hike (definitely hike i my case, i can’t climb hills on a bike for toffee) up to the top of Helvelen and enjoy the downhill on offer from Britains highest legal access point. As it was there was too much snow  still on the top and common sense told us to leave that one for another day. Instead a 30 mile epic was planned and we set off to enjoy a collection of the ups and downs that were on offer surrounding Ambleside.

I’d love to discuss the route, but unfortunately i was far too busy catching my breath and pushing my bike up hills to really take in where we were! Safe to say it was an awesome ride, intersecting some of the North Face trail which was awesome. Lots of ladder sections, and well made man-crafted trail. Genius, not as extreme as the Altura, but genius no-the-less.

Cue photos:

On my shiny new Kona came a set of Shimano SPD pedals (the ones you clip into for the uninitiated) and i have to say i wasn’t convinced. I very quickly went out and bought a pair of DMR V8’s (flat BMX like pedals) which are much more like the ones i’m used to. A couple of the guys i’ve been riding with use SPD style pedals which made think i should at least give them a try. A loan of a spare set of shoes and i’ve put the SPD’s back on the bike.

Whilst out riding to the pub today i came to stop at a set of traffic lights and my left foot refused to disengage and i subsequently hit the tarmac pretty hard. So for all the drop offs and hops i did this morning on my trials bike turned out that riding in a straight line was going to be most difficult.

Idiot

This guy is genius, he does stuff i’d think twice about doing on two wheels….and i’ll give most things a try!

Dear beurocratic policy making morons at the O2,

I was privelidged to get to see the great Lee Evans at your venue this Monday evening. No no, i insist the privelidge was all mine. I bought the tickets after all. Unfortunately, and this is why i’m having to write to you, my experience didn’t completely live up to expectation.

On entry to the venue a member of your fun police *ahem* security staff insisted that my camera was not permitted in the venue and as such i would have to check said camera in. A second member of your fun police confiscated my camera and telephoto lens and gave me two cloakroom tickets.

Working in production i completely understand that certain artists will make demands that must be met. The tannoy announcement made it very clear that Mr Evans was not a fan of flash photography. As such i would have been more than accomodating in leaving my camera behind if you had at any point made it clear that this would not be acceptable. However there was nothing on the website, no dissclaimer as i purchased the tickets and nothing that could be read with the naked eye was printed on the tickets. (Tickets have since been taken to a laborotry and analysed with an anatomic microsocpe. No unauthorised photography can just about be made out). Still your agent in the fun police didn’t ask if i had authorisation for my camera, he just marched me over to the point where i was expected to leave it with some incompetent monkey with a book of cloakroom tickets.

Additionally your obvious double standards have only fueled my distain. Leanne (who accompanied me to the show) and what seemed to be 30,000 other people were allowed in with their compact cameras and mobile phones. No attempt was made either to stop the guy in the raked seating that insisted - against the reccomendations of the tannoy announcement - to take a number of photos. Flash and all. As such i feel like i have been victimised, singled out if you will, for taking a interest in decent photography.

I am both saddened and dissapointed. I think you should go stand in the corner and think about what you have done.

Being a student is awesome right ? Meeting new people all the time, studying the one thing that interests you most, all the parties, the drinking and the chaos. The flipside for the most of us is a diet of beans on toast (with cheese on Sunday for “Sunday Dinner”) and never having any money (or at least not having any money that isnt earmarked for socialising right ?).

And when it all got a bit much our tutors and parents would retell you the one about how if you get a degree you can get a decent job. Decent jobs tend to pay well, money gives you the choice to live your life the way you want to….yeah ? Stick at it, it’ll pay off.

I used to call this the educational punchline. The irony being that it really isnt funny, when you get to the end where the hell is this higher state of jobs and wealth ? Turns out i was a big cycnic! Just beyond a year past my university days i can’t think of many of my peers who arent in decent well paid jobs. We rock!

So one of the things i pretty much gave up to come to university was my biking, i was fairly big into it in my college days (A-level time for those of you who did it properly) but with little time or money and a flat in London with no storage space for a bike i ended up knocking it on the head for a while. Thankfully my seniors were correct and with a little more time, space and money i’ve managed to pick up the old past-time once more! Let me introduce you to my new toy:

Isn’t it a beauty ? I’ve already had chance to take out for a good burn around. Below you can see the backpack i bought at the same time is already starting to look quite trail hardened! Along with my photography and technology rants you’ll start to see a few more posts and photos from rides out appearing on these them blog pages too.

Having spent the last couple of months away from blogging/google reader/podcasts (not through choice mind you) i wandered across an excerpt that states what i feel in ways i that could never come close to. Incidentally this is by another Porter - Russel Porter of the Super brilliantly named Porterreport. If only i’d got that domain first! Mwhaha!

“I’m sorry. Really, I am. I know I’ve been bad, I’ve negated my digital duties and left the Porter Report unattended like a babby at a bus stop. I know it’s inexcusable, I realise it’s going to take a lot to win back the tens of people who check back to the site on a literally bi-monthly basis, I know the blame lies squarely at my feet like a rabid mutt, I’m aware that I have a lot to atone for…”

I’m not quite sure i’ve got quite this bored of twitter yet (infact i’m still pretty hooked) But i couldn’t help laugh at this post here.

Incidentally you might be wondering where the link is ? Have a little hover over the ‘here’ and you’ll see. Since the switch to the new wordpress theme, my links have been appearing in the same typeface as the body text. A couple of pints to anyone who knows enough about CSS to help me change this. I’m USELESS at web development!

Retrospect is a series of posts Andy Hicks and I promised to write about a year ago now to review our time at Rose Bruford College. Unfortunately we never got too far with them, which is a shame. Especially as I know Julian Bryant our old course tutor has posted a few prospective students our way over the last few months to get a feeling for Bruford life. Shame all you’ve been able to see is my thoughts on Cars.

So for Julian, Prospective students, and the motley collection of friends, family and co-workers who wander by these them pages. Here are a few more thoughts in the retrospect style.

I woke up at 6:42 this morning, wondering why my alarm neglected to go off 12 minutes earlier. Fortunately i’ve been an early bird for the last few days and the body clock has adjusted. I stumbled out of bed, and found that my flatmates had mistaken last nights takeaway for rubbish. Shame! i’d had my eye on that for breakfast, perhaps that was for the better. Luckily bathroom duties had been delt with the evening before as i’d returned home the night before pretty grubby. I cleaned my teeth and swore at my reflection in the mirror. It’s far to early.

Time to leave, here comes the fun. I grab my backpack which is thankfully still packed from the day before. I check i’ve still got the power supply for my Macbook and hunt for the other assorted electronics i’ll need today at work.

• Macbook - Check
• Windows Laptop - Check
• UMPC - Check
• 2 TB Raid Disks - Check
• Camera and Lenses - Check
• Paperwork - Check
• Keys, Phone, Ipod - Check, Check, Check

Those who know me well will be aware that I love my gadgets. I may well have the perfect job. Still an extra backpack wouldn’t hurt. An hour and a half later and i’d negotiated the M25 (see previous note to all drivers for propper driving ettiquette). I wander out the car, hungry and tired into the beautiful surroundings of Wrotham Park. A huge marquee has been errected on the sloping grass behind the old stately home. When i say huge i mean HUGE. I’ve seen smaller tents containing less equipment at festivals. With the hill gently sloping away there’s plenty of room for a substage area. This is where we’ve built ‘dimmer city’ and ‘video land’.

I sit down on a flightcase and drink a really strong cup of tea. More technology. I take the plastic dustcover off my station and connect up my laptops and raid disks. I’ve got both my cinema displays with me on this one, i can’t feeling a bit smug through all the tiredness. Still, this isn’t a “monitor measuring contest”. Sat behind me to the right are arguably the two most prolific video freelancers around at the moment. They make the technology i’m driving look like a chalk and blackboard. 4 Mac Pros, all laced into a fibre channel SAN. They can churn out After Effects projects faster than anyone can think of the ideas.  4 days ago i didn’t even know some of this stuff even existed. Over my left shoulder is an Encore system and a pair of Cat Servers. Did i mention this was for a 13 year old kid’s barmitzvah ? Yeah, this is mega.

12 months ago (almost to the week) i was still wandering the hallowed walls of RBC. Its crazy to think where i’ve got to today. I’ve no illusions of grandure, i’m only a year in to a life time’s worth of work. But its pretty exciting already. Photos to follow soon no doubt.