Charge Bikes

San Fran guide in The Guardian

Posy and I wrote a short guide to San Fran by bike following our adventure there. You can read it on the Guardian's online site here. We're crossing our fingers that we can do some more of these things so we can blag free places to stay when they're are no couches to be had!

Arsenal, Arsenal! Come on you gunners!

No, I haven't completely lost my mind and started liking football. In fact, I still hate as much as I always have.

However, I have been riding quite a bit up at the Emirates Arsenal stadium over the last week or so. There's loads of room, it's nice and smooth, there are some blocks, some slopes etc. Its circular so you can follow the sun all the way round and avoid the icy patches, plus there is CCTV to put the scallys off throwing bricks at you.

I went up there yesterday with Thom after I saw Tom Mosher's footdown tutorial coz I fancied a go at that. I got pretty close but didn't totally nail it. Thom filmed me so I could see what I was doing wrong which is the first time I've done that as an aid to learning stuff. It wasn't entirely useful as I can't actually work out exactly how to correct what I'm doing wrong, I can just see it's not quite there yet. Anyway, Tom Mosher posts quite a few of these tutorials and they can be really helpful so head over to Trick Track to see the others he's made and to get advice on how to do all the tricks you want to master.

Me at the Arsenal enjoying the sunset:

 

I think I'm not getting sideways enough to spin the bike round enough. Maybe I'm not sticking the footdown foot far enough away from my bike – if I stuck it out further, it would tip me over more and the bike would whip round me better I reckon. I managed to pop it up, spin a bit and get my foot back on but not spin the whole 360. 

FAIL:

Backyard Blam in Portland

If you're in Portland make sure you get down to Backyard Blam on Feb 5th and 6th.

Man, I wish I could be there! Go check the blog here

Speaking of Hell Yeah, I have some new shirts and hoodies in the store so go take a peek here or check the blog here

I've been really busy and I have a rubbish computer so I haven't been updating this quite so often..also, now that I work for myself, I actually want to get my work done when I am in front of a computer rather than blog. Whereas when I was working for someone else before I was so bored that I was constantly writing and reading blogs!

In between the work has been a lot of fun. I hooked up with The Revival crew as detailed here.

I went and watched Grace's London to Paris moved and pedalled a bike to power it. It was ace and she'll be showing it in lots of different cities around the world so check it out if you can. I think Grace and Patrick are planning a showing in Portland so make sure you check the Pedal Consumption site for more details or click here for info on showings in your city

I went to the Rouleur launch and drank lots of champagne. Here's photographer Sam Hart with Camille who is basically Mr Rouleur.

I didnt actually manage to see the photo annual but I recently got a copy of third issue of The Ride Journal which I'm enjoying reading in bed.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to getting out on my road bike again. For some reason I really get into riding my road bike in the cold, dark winter, whereas in summer I prefer to sit in the park and drink a beer. I really want to go back to Chicksands with my mountain bike too but its bloody difficult to get out mountain biking when you live in central London and don't have a car. Might investigate getting the train. Anyone wanna come?

London To Paris premiere in London

You gotta make it down to this tomorrow – the 2nd Dec.

Check out my buddy Grace's film featuring ten riders including Ted and Hassan riding to Paris. Be there! 7pm next to Stolen Space in the Truman Brewery. Whoop!

I’m for sale

Sam sent me this link with the subject title 'look who is for sale!' and it made me laugh.

Halloween

Forgot to post Franketcat pics! Here we are!

Hell Yeah in Helsinki

Continuing my trend of mainly stocking Hell Yeah in places other than the UK, you can now get Hell Yeah in Finland, well Helsinki to be precise.

Head over the the small T shirt boutique, My Cup Of T to make your selection from the nice range of shirts they have.

My Cup Of Tea – Iso Roobertinkatu 34, Helsinki

Some love for LA

New Hell Yeah shirt really, really is on its way. I've just got to……order them….. keep meaning too….its good, honest! In the meantime, check out this shirt coming out of LA – Death Rides A Pale Horse, available here.

Also stateside is the premier of my buddy Grace's film about the London to Paris ride that Ted went out earlier this year to as part of the launch of a shoe some fixed gear dudes did in conjunction with Nike. I don't know much more than that apart from the fact that Fixed Gear London were pretty stoked on meeting Lance Armstrong in Paris so if you want to find out the story behind the trip, go check the film on Oct 29th. If you are in NYC, that is!

Final days in America

I have no idea why this writing is coming out underlined. Its really annoying as I can't switch it off for some reason.

Anyway….!

I spent a final couple of days hanging out in Portland. Patrick's dog, Beans had fully accepted me my the end of my stay and had stopped grunting at me whenever I entered the room.

It was meant to rain a lot but we were really lucky with the weather and shot quite a few pics. These are by Brenton Salo. Thanks for sending them through, Brenton!

I had a good night out with Sara playing pool at the Sandy Hut and later at Dee's. Sara and I managed to keep out winning streak going beating Brenton and Patrick six – nil and leaving undefeated. Woo, England!

On Saturday I went over to get tattooed at Sandy's. Clay got the outline of his done on his forearm and I had to grin and bear the whole of mine in one setting. Now I don't know if I was just being a pussy that day, but by the time Sandy got to putting the finishing touches to it I was hurting a lot. I just had to try and hold on and let him finish as I'm not sure how soon I'll be back in Portland. Looks good though so I'm happy it was worth it!

Sandy's opening a new custom tattoo studio soon at 30th and Burnside in Southeast Portland which is gonna be called 'VIRTUE HAUTE TATTOO'. Not sure when though. I just read it on facebook.

After Portland, I headed back to SF for a couple of days. On the Sunday we had a fairly chilly picnic in Golden Gate park where everyone kept telling me how sunny and warm it had been the day before. The next day it pissed it down so we did a bit of sightseeing and holed up in a bar with bloody marys and beers.

I was reading the newspaper the next day and came across this advert encouraging the use of weed. Pretty amazing! In case you don't know, in California you can get a prescription for medical marajuana which allows you either to pick up your supplies from a clinic or grow a certain number of plants yourself each year.

So now I'm back in London, battling the jetlag and trying to get some work done. Thanks again to everyone who made my trip so much fun, to all the great people I met who helped me out, put me up and showed me a good time.