Bakewell Station ride

Thursday 14th May 2009

Hardly any walking!

This weeks ride started from bakewell's dissused railway station, once and impressive structure, it is now a industrial/office complex, and has the Monsal trail running through where the tracks were.
This ride can be an energy sapper, as it seems to be all uphill. The early part is along the railway track, then we leave and climb up onto Longstone edge where the quarries are. What can only be described as the worst descent in the Peaks was our way down, almost arrow-straight it is a mix of small stones, slippery white slab rock and large boulders. I hated every bit of it, and was just glad to be down, what now follows is an energetic mix of tracks that go through woods, water splashes and up the longest most demoralising tarmac climb I know.
At the end though there is a treat in the descent through the woods from Ball Cross back down through the golf course to Bakwell station. Some locals have built a cracking set of small jumps that wind down into the very rutted but fast finish.
There were no falls and no injuries, no punctures and no mechanicals!

My rating:
I only walked the bit that had us all off, getting much better at climbing, new skillls are helping.

Lake District skills day

Friday 8th May 2009

A bit too much to drink, some low flying and a very wet ride

For Christmas last year, Amy (one of the bikers) very kindly organised with our wives/parners to have us all go to the Cycle Active guys in the Lakes to participate in a skills training day.

Now I know this sounds a bit 'cocky' but there were some of us, wondering what on earth they were going to teach us, after all we are all very experienced arn't we??(!)

On arrival in the Lakes it rained. Whats new then? We found the campsite to have these lovely 'pods' for hire so we ditched the tent in favour of a couple of these. They really did save the day!

We then went to the pub, I had way too much, and then after staggering home through the rain had some whiskey, ( cheers whoever brought it, it really hurt my head)!

I got up the next morning with a proper head ache, and after some coffee thought I'd have to sit out the training.

I squeezed my helmet on over my woolley hat and spent all morning wondering why my head wasn't getting better.

The skills course, was a revelation to most of us, there was a lot of sprinting around cones, braking sharply and learning to 'lower your heels'.

Then there was some going baclk to basics on wheelie-ing, it may seem a bit silly or childish to some but the new techniques we learned have really helped me.

We ventured out to some locall woods after lunch, and spent quite a lot of time doing 'track stands' the art of just balancing without moving is a good grounding for staying upright on very technical trails.

There was then some climbing and descending training, the climbing bit turned my attenion off at 1st, (I always walk up hill normally), but actually, I did listen, and have applied the ideas and find I can get up hills I previously didn't, my back-side is complaining a bit about the technical climbing position though! (You guys no what i mean!!)

After this we did a little jumping in the woods, and had to try and remember to use all our newly aquired skills, to my knowledge no-one fell off, and everyone 'cleared' the jump

We all learned something from this excellant day out, (thanks Amy, and the wives).

Even the sceptics amongst us came away with something to talk about, and now before during and after our usuall Thursday night rides there is always someone practicing something. Personally, as I already said, my uphill technical climbing is better, and my wheelies are coming on.

We had an excellant (restrained) night in the pub that evening, and awoke packed away our gear, and drove down to Ampleside for a very wet ride. Having had severe back trouble on the run up to this weekend I was always ready to miss out this ride in order to protect the old back, and after the initial climb I made a decision to cut short this ride. George wasnt feeling too great so we both cut across the centre of the route and as it happens wasn't a bad idea. The west side of the hills where the others were was absolutley horrendous by all accounts, windy, cold and extremeley wet.

We reached Elterwater, our re-join point and I noticed that the rain had penetrated my under wear, and my shoes were full of water. We sent phone messages to a couple of the others and headed on, waiting was not an option, it was freezing when we stopped.

The final descent was a cracker, but was tainted by the amout of people who had braved the weather to get some walking in. We did however enjoy this water splash during the ride.

A cracking weekend away. Good times.

Angelsey Easter weekend

Sunday 12th April 2009

A long one to finish take two!

After lunch we gathered a group og 8 kayakers who intended to paddle back to Porth Dafarch, there were 6 sea/touring boats and two guys in river boats, one of which being a short Pyrhana Burn, a tug boat shaped boat that would sap its paddlers energy!

We set off, and passed through a gap in the headland, or at least those who had plastic boats did, it was now just passable and even my fairly flat bottomed boat scraped as I passed through.

We set off North up under the cliff edge, and as we got into the slightly rougher sea, we were alerted to something going on by a shout behind, it seemed that they just needed us to wait so we hovered around, and eventually the guys caught us up. It turned out that actually, a new to the sea paddler had managed to take a swim whilst negotiating the rock channel!

I now discovered that the mild back ache I had experienced in the morning was going to be a problem, I had take a couple of Ibruprofen at lunch along with some paracetomel, it hadnt had the desired effect though.

I had printed some small maps of this bit of coastline before leaving home, but not knowing exactly where we would be paddling, I had managed to miss the early part off, so as we moved on, I had the challenge of picking up where I was on the map. This was proving to be more difficult than expected, the cliffs looked similar wherever i looked, and the houses and buildings on top didn't look anything like the ones marked on the map.

Eventually we had a rest in a little inlet, where a caravan site, and a slipway was situated, this turned out to be Porth-Y-Garan, and had two very expensive looking speed boats moored.

Two paddlers swapped boats here to allow the one in the shorter boat a rest, he paddled the clubs brand new P&H Capella.

A small group including dad set off ahead now across the final leg of the trip, the bay of Trearddur was littered with speed boats, jet-ski's and general noise and tom-foollery, I was quite concerned about getting mown down as the drivers seemed to spend most of their time looking back at whoever they were towing!

I looked ahead and saw dad and the others were really making a good headway on us, so I made it my mission to catch them, a good test of my stamina, and forwards speed. i kept stopping though to get pictures, and as I hadn't got a waterproof camera, it meant putting down the paddle, undoing the deck bag, undoing a dry bag, then another which the camera was in! take a quick picture, and re-do the process in reverse! (mental note: purchase waterproof camera!)

Holyhead mountain in the distance

Trearddur bay-speedboat city

I managed to get acroos to Dad before he reached the bay, but with a now very painfull back, Dad had done very well, I am actually really impressed by the way he has embraced this touring lark! On any previous trips we have done in the river boats, the have been stability issues, and nervousness when things get 'choppy' or challenging. Now, its head down - paddle through, and all totally at ease, and so far no drama's. - Keep it up, here's to the next trip!

A very frenzied hour and a half now followed packing the tent and all the gear away for the journey back to Dronfield.

The journey was trouble free, and made the weekend even more enjoyable thanks in part to the completion of the A55 from the M56 right through to Holyhead.

Angelsey Easter weekend

Sunday 12th April 2009

A long one to finish

After an evening of chat and food inside the Angelsey outdoors bistro lounge! (sounds posh doesn't it?), we had a good nights sleep and awoke bright and early for breakfast and to get packed up.

We were to do the days paddle and leave for home in the evening.

The plan today was to drive down to Rhoscolyn and set off from Borthwen bay, dad and myself needing to get away at the end of the day, took our boats and kit down early, and I took the van back to the finish and hitched a lift.

The beach and bay was a picture perfect setting, and was an enclosed bay with a narrow entrance, high tide was due in the hour so the beach was short, and congested with launch trailers as it seems there were lots of divers out today.

In contrast to the sea state on Friday when we had arrived, it was flat calm, and with a cloudless sky, promised to be a cracking day.

Dad raring to go.

The water was perfectly clear here.

We got everyone on the water, and today we managed 23 kayaks! the plan, much like yesterday was to take everyone out for a trip and then back for lunch, and then the longer boats carry on up to Porth Dafarch, a trip of abot 8 miles.

We went out around the island of Ynysoedd Gwylanod, the farther of the two isles has rhoscolyn beacon on it and had a steady tide race running between the two.

The begginers and guys in the shorter boats did really well around here, the currents were strong, and there was a fair bit of chop especially on the seaward side.

We gathered the group together and set off towards the clifs to try and have a look in a cave, the swell was picking up abit now, and meant that it was difficult to get near in. So we paddled around back to the bay and to the beach for a lunch stop.

Angelsey easter weekend

Saturday 11th April 2009

Lunch at Wylfa

Todays paddle would be far more leisurely, the drive there was not.
When we (me & dad) finally got out of the tent at 0915 we had a frenzied couple of hours or so of making and eating breakfast, and packing our gear together, so that when the guys decided it was time to go, we could just get moving.
We had travelled to Angelsey using our in-built GPS (in our heads) so didn't have a map of any usefull scale. (I need to send for a 2 1/2 inch OS of Angelsey.) When the club set off, we knew the name of where we were going, but not the exact location, so we found ourselves 2nd to the back of 12 or so vehicles. Now I can drive pretty quickly if I need too, (years of motorsports experience) but it never ceases to amaze me when someone gets either a trailer on their vehicle, or a kayak on the roof their acceleration, and speed increases to such that its almost immpossible to keep up, especially in a van.
Anyway, someone in front of us took a wrong turn and had us all in a shopping centre, by the time we were back on the correct route, the others had gone. Looking at our 4 miles to the inch atlas we hadn't a clue where we were going, or really where we were! As some of the guys pulled in with an OS map flapping around in the wind, I passed them and carried on, Luckily Cemlyn Bay was reached down a single track road and the others were still trying to get down it against traffic going the opposite direction. So we had caught them.


Now the challenge was parking the car park appeared full, but we managed to get all 12 or so of us in.
This tidal lagoon and shingle ridge is a North Wales Wildlife Trust reserve, particularly for its nesting sandwich, arctic common and (occasionally) roseate terns which occupy islands in the lagoon with black heded gulls. There is a public right of way along the spectacular shingle ridge, but visitors are required to keep below the crest during the breeding season to avoid disturbance to the colony.
We all got on the water and when I counted there were 21 boats, most of which were younger people with short boats, by far the oldest though was Hugh, who at 71 was the most experienced paddler there, and has been all over the world paddling, including an 18 day trip to greenland.
I paddled with him for a while, an asked him about his kayak, it was clearly not new, and looked as though it would tell some great tales of adventure. I was right, it was the 2nd fibreglass version of a mould made from an origonal Greenland fabric over timber design, it was moulded in 1978 and is still going strong.


As we rounded the headland of Cerrig Brith I got a glimpse of Wyfla Power Station.
Construction of this Magnox station commenced in 1963 and ended in 1971 when it produced its 1st electricity. On a typical day, Wylfa supplies 23 million kWh of electricity – enough to meet the needs of two cities the size of Liverpool or Manchester. Wylfa is responsible for the management and operation of the Hydroelectric power station at Maentwrog in the nearby Snowdonia National park.

I looked back across where we had come from to see a small group of kayaks still away off from the others so I paddled over to see what was going on. Everyone seemed to be in control, but there was a young girl who was in the sea for the first time. The perception Sparc she was paddling was spinning from side to side, exagerated by a slight following wind. I hooked her up to my new towline and helped her towards the beach we were heading to for lunch, the 'sparc' still wouldn't go straight, and another paddler had to paddle across her stern to push it strait.

A very nice lunch was had on this little beach in Porth-y-Pistyll, in full view of the reactor.

Now we paddled back to Cemlyn Bay, and some paddlers had a rest, others climbed the rocks, others just chilled out, some of though went over to the headland Trwyn Cemlyn. Here we found overfalls had started running as the bay emptied into an ebbing tide, they seemed quite freindly so I paddled through, the Venture Easky felt very good through here, so I had a paddle out over to the overfalls at Harry furlough's rocks, here there was a good 2 feet of water running over the rocks, I got the camera out and managed a couple of shots, then heard someone shout out ' watch behind you'. I quickly packed the camera and paddled forwards, looking back i realised it was not me in the immediate danger, but a paddler in a shorter play boat now with arms like bees wings sliding slowly backwards towards the over falls.

Overfalls at Harry Furlough's Rock in the back ground of the picture.



The paddler struggled on, and i sat in the falls off the main headland, i had the Gps on, and as I paddled fairly hard to just sit still it read 0mph! So i think they were running at 4mph ish.



I now headed over to the car park for a rest, and a go in Dads Tsunami, I did a couple of nice text book rolls to see if i still can, and then had a blast around in the Tsunami, This boat still surprises me everytime i get in it. it is stable and moves quickly and easily, and now ive got better at edging boats, it turns very well, I pushed a little too far though, and over I went! Managed another roll OK though, and called it a day

A nice short easy day, made a lot of freinds, and played around a bit.

Angelsey Easter Weekend paddle

A Gentle introduction

Moelfre

10th April 2009

Arriving bright and early at the Angelsey Outdoors campsite on Good Friday, we found that none of the Sheffield canoe club guys had risen yet!


So we set off for a look around to familiarise ourselves.




We reached the bay of Porth Dafarch, there was a fair swell and big dumping surf that didnt look very freindly!


We drove down the coast a mile or so and came to Treaddur Bay, a nice little village, with loads of parking, and lots of slips for boats.




We headed up the coast now to South Stack Lighthouse, an impressive building on an island, linked with a small footbridge, we didnt head down, as it was blowing a very cold wind striaght at us.








Heading back to the campsite now we found Phil our host for the weekend was up and about so we introduced ourselves and got the tent up. By lunchtime, a good number of other campers had arrived.



The plan was to head to the main Angelsey isle, and got to just South of Moelfre to Traeth Bychan.



This little bay was in contrast to the dumping surface this morning 'like a millpond'. we got ourselves sorted and carried down to the water, there were numerous groups, some learning sailing, others in kayaks.



We paddled out of the bay and around the small island of Ynys Moelfre.



Both mine and Dads boat were now on their maiden sea voyage! Mine felt quite good, moving forwards and tracking really well. Dad looked the most comfortable I have seen him in a kayak! His boat is only 12' long but doesnt struggle to keep up. I experimented with the skeg a little to see how it felt with the moving water, its definatley worth having, although its worth paddling in different conditions both with and without to learn more about the effects of weather cocking etc.



We headed for a bay that seemed close but was actually quite a slog, and had a following wind to make it more interesting.



At Traeth Lligwy we beached for coffee, and had a rest ready for the return journey, it was windy enough to blow hats off wasn't it Dad!



On the return we hugged the cliffs and rocks and managed to do a little rock hopping. A bird on an island was drying its wings for what seemed an eternity, it only put them away when I got the camera out!



We passed Moelfre life boat station which has a Tyne Class, and a D-class inshore boat, always good to see the stations and reminds me of what I'm actually doing and how potentially dangerous a place I am.



Heading back around to Traeth Bychan all the kayakers were out practicing, we stopped for a couple of pictures the one below showing the dried private harbour, it was now Low tide on springs


We paddled back to the beach, and faced a short but steep walk up the road to the carpark, Phill from Sheffield canoe club produced a very simple set of wheels which he attached to the stern of his boat and just dissapeared to his car, 'make mental note, 'need one of those!'
All in all a very enjoyable afternoon, back at the Angelsey Outdoors campsite we had dinner, and dropped into the Paddlers Return bar, and almost fell asleep, (we did leave Sheffield at 0355). so it was off to the tent for 12hours sleep!

On the water this week!

A flooded coalfield

Saturday 21st March 2009

For a while now I have been gagging to get out on the water with the touring boat, and do some more extensive 'testing'.

We (my Dad and myself) decided to take a trip to Rother Valley Country Park, its only 20mins from home and is big enough for a good test paddle without getting bored.

Rother Valley opened in 1983 having cost over 4 million to convert after the coal extraction work had finished The lake is lined with a metre thickness of compacted stone and filled with clean water pumped in from the Moss Brook 2.5 km away.

Having called into the watersports centre and paid our fee of £4.20 each, we quickly got changed and moved to the waters edge. I always wonder if a specific routine of warming up should be followed prior to paddling, and I've come to the conclusion; by the time you have got the boats off the car/van, got into all the dry gear, and carried the boat to the water you warm enough!

So we got in and had a little paddle up and down. There was a gusting wind from the North which was picking up crested wavelets on the water surface.

The Venture Easky kayak seemed to gluide through them nicely with no noticable spray.

I had set the GPS unit on the deck as we set out, mainly to try and get and idea of a comfortable cruising speed that suited us both.

It seemed that we could sustain 4.1 miles /hour comfortably, so now we can plan our proposed canal trips.

We paddle to the Northern end of the lake, and found it to be crowded on the lakeside, the kids playground was busy and there were plenty of people sat around enjoying the sunshine.

I suddenly noticed a bloke on the beach, waving in what looked like my direction, I checked behind me, and again all around, but couldn't make out who he was waving at. He then shouted, and made a large circular shape with his arms definately in my direction.

I had no-idea what he was on about so I paddle over, he shouted to me, 'can you get our football from the water?'

Apart from the annoyance of having to get close to the edge to play ball by, it did make me realise how difficult it is to see a head sized shape floating in the water! In the sea Kayak Safety DVD I purchased recently, the RNLI stated: 'Anything you can do to increase your visability in the water will aid us if we have to come to rescue you', imagine trying to pick out a head from a helicopter in the middle of a vast rough sea, particulary at night.

We paddled back where we had been resting, and had a rest, the guy shouted again, this time after passing back the ball, we moved on, and went down to the other end of the lake.

Here with that northerly wind blowing freely the full length of the water, the chop was significantly bigger, so i had a little play just testing the kayaks manoverability to see how it handled. now when paddling straight at the waves, there was some spray from the bow, made worse as the wind caught it and blew it my way.

One thing I have just thought about is the paddle, this was the first time I had used it properly, and with its cranked shaft it was all new. I didn't find it to be good or bad, and seemed to be quite 'fluent' in use. It did I think, make me concious of my hand position, and will probably make my grip from left to right more even.

Another thing that I noticed (perhaps more significantly) was there was little or no water run off blowing back into my face even when heading into the wind.

I now decided to have a go at towing Dad! I have towed once before, but though it would be good to try the new tow line. I had altered the standard Palm 'river tow' by reducing the diameter of the rope, I could increase the length from 3metres to 6metres, allowing me to tow others with my 15' boat with out them being too close to me.

I towed Dad firstly in a straight line, and then around some bouys to see if I could turn correctly, it seemed fairly straight forwards, but with a following wind, Dad had to use a stern rudder every now & then to keep track. I tested the quick release on the tow belt, and put it all away, happy that I can tow on flat water anyway!

I now decided that I would have a go at some self rescues, Dad didn't have a dry suit, of any kind, so I was in on my own this time. I had already done a couple of rolls earlier on. This had been with spare paddle on the back deck, and with the deck bag in front of the cockpit. I rolled no problem, but found it to be a slow and deliberate action, I think due to the drag of the extra gear strapped onto the deck!

So....time to get wet, I rolled over and popped the deck, gently eased my self out and broke the surface, now I waited, waited for the slow creep of the cold water to work its way throughout my body. It didn't happen! Don't get me wrong here, it was cold! But the new dry trousers and the excellant Yak dry cag Ive been using for a couple of seasons now really worked well.

So, on with the self rescue, I had been concerned with my positioning of my spare paddle on the back deck for a while now, and my concern was justified! I swam around to the bow, with the boat still up-turned, and whilst kicking hard with my legs pushed the Bow up and out of the water, and then as it dropped back down, rolled it around so it landed the correct we up. This is much harder to carry out than it looks on the safety DVD!

Having got the boat empty, I swam around to the stern, and passing the cockpit checked to see how much water remained inside.... quite a lot!

Any way I grabbed the deck lines and hoisted my self on to my chest and strated to work my way along the back deck. I got stuck1 The spray deck was stuck on the spare paddle. It was then Dad reminded me to put the deck in my teeth before strating. so I had another go, I managed to get right up to the deck this time, but was very conscious of not tearing the new dry trousers on the spare paddle, (if this is going to be on my mind when doing these re-entries then maybe I'll have to move the paddle to the fore deck).

Now having got as far as the cockpit, all i needed was to get my legs in, I dropped my bum in to the seat and started to get my legs into the cockpit, it was now I remebered that I should have leaned right back to keep the centre of gravity low, in I went!

When I surfaced, the Rother valley rescue boat appeared to check all was well. I told him I was practicing, but he said he had to wait to make sure I was OK.

So with and audience I got out the paddle float. I pondered about where to keep this usefull item. After some thought, I decided to roll it up and tuck it just behend the seat back rest under the spray deck. My thoughts were; if I need it, I'll be out of the boat, so I'll be able to get to it, the drawback is if someone else needs to use it, then it means taking off my deck.

I slipped it over the paddle blade, and inflated the 2 chambers, with the paddle trapped on the back deck behind the cockpit, under my arm I hokked my left leg over it whilst facing the cockpit on the right side of the kayak. There is a moulded in channel that is supposedly for this purpose on the deck, but if I use it, and put the paddle under the deck lines to secure it, I fear that I would not get it out easily in a hurry, and in a lively sea I might end up back in in the resultant struggle.

I clambered up the paddle on to the deck and facing the stern, put first my right foot, and then the left into the cockpit whilst still leaning all my weight towards the paddle float. Now with both feet in, I just spun around so I faced forwards, and I was in! Now I needed to paddle to shore to sort my paddle float out, NOT easy, and if there was a swell of any sinificance I would be struggling.

Thoughts on the paddle float? I reckon, definately should carry it, but only use it if I cant climb back in, or there is no one to assist. Packing it away/storing it wouldnt be too bad but getting it off the paddle blade is not a fast job, needs practice!

So we got out, packed the boats onto the roof rack. When I got changed there was a small amount, ( about a cupfull )in the bottom of the dry trousers, I think this is due to the waist band, and better layering might help next time.

Dad had paddled very well in his Tsunami 120, it cruises very well, and to be honest appearto handle and turn very well, it cuts through the water well and the smile on Dads face says it all. I'm sure we will have some great days out in these boats!

Conclusions:

Well I definately need to get the boat into the sea, I want to know how it handles in a swell, in the surf, and just to know if I can keep a good pace.

My rescues need more practice, and when the waters are a bit warmer, we need to practice X rescues so we know we can both get back in.

As for the position of my spare paddle....I like it on the back deck, its out of sight, keeping the fore deck less cluttered, I spent time getting it si I could reach it and get it assembled easily whilst in the boat. so just putting it on the front will take some thought, I'll try getting back in again before I make a decision.

Were off to Angelsey for Easter, so will get some sea paddling in, weather permmitting!