Summer. Ends Saturday.

  • Posted by ade
  • 17 September 2012
Cook outside on a fire. Even just a tin of beans heated over a blaze in the garden will feel like an adventure.

Every shop is showing their latest Autumn ranges, howies included. We are all talking about the Autumnal weather (there are even chocolate Santas for sale in the supermarket). It's like we're willing summer to be over already.

But until Saturday, it's still here, so you have five whole days and nights left to make the most of it.

You could:

1. Swim in the sea. It's probably the warmest it's going get this year, so get in.

2. Wear shorts or a skirt all week.

3. Sit in the sun on the grass and eat your lunch.

4. Cook outside on a fire. Even just a tin of beans heated over a blaze in the garden will feel like an adventure.

5. Go camping. Why have 5 star accommodation when you can have billions.

6. Run somewhere at sunrise or sunset (Late summer always has THE best light).

7. Leave work early to ride the long way home with no lights on (pretty soon you won't be able to ride home without them).

8. Get to a forest before the leaves fall. The trails will be great.

We hope that gives you a few ideas. Do something everyday to push back autumn and let us know what adventures you have.

#lastdaysofsummer

Suggestions

  • Posted by alex
  • 5 April 2012

With 100% more weekend on offer as of now, we've been thinking of a few ways to spend the extra days while we're not at our desks.

After a quick poll in the office, these were the top suggestions. We'd like to hear yours.

Have a great weekend. Whatever you do, we hope you enjoy it.

1. Run in the woods

2. Fix up your bike

3. Get lost somewhere new

4. Read a book

5. Eat outside

6. Skinny dip

7. Go sledging (do not leave the country)

8. Make wild garlic soup

9. Take to the water

10. Make a paper hat for a fly*
(*sadly, this fly was dead when we found it...)

Friendship through adversity

  • Posted by howies
  • 7 March 2012
Twenty-five years ago, Bill and I rode rigid steel mountain bikes from Kashgar in China to Chitral in Pakistan. It was hard yakka all the way. Our friendship was young as we set off: we’d come together for the adventure.

I ride a bicycle for many reasons. Perhaps the most powerful reason at this stage of my life is to share the physical and emotional fellowship of riding with friends. Happily, all my best friends ride. I’m not saying that we can’t be friends if you don’t ride – that would be absurd – nor am I suggesting that I’m friends with everyone I’ve ever ridden with. It’s just that all my best friends do ride. That’s the way things have turned out.

When I reflect upon the friends I have now, though, I realise the link between cycling and friendship is more profound than I’d previously thought. I see there is a direct correlation between how close my friends and I are, and how many miles we’ve put in together. I’m not talking about commuting miles or Sunday morning miles. I’m talking about the hard miles, the miles where you’re hanging and sore and need help, the miles where you’re far from home, shit’s gone wrong and your mettle is being tested. These are the miles that really count. Adversity puts friendship on the line. When things go awry, we subconsciously confide in each other. This leaves a lasting bond.

Twenty-five years ago, Bill and I rode rigid steel mountain bikes from Kashgar in China to Chitral in Pakistan. It was hard yakka all the way. Our friendship was young as we set off: we’d come together for the adventure. When my cheap aluminium luggage rack fell apart deep in the Hindu Kush, Bill offered to strap one of my panniers to his back. I knew then our friendship had distance. When I got married a decade later, he was my best man.

I have as many examples of hard miles with folk I’ve subsequently come to trust as I have good friends, so when my Dad died suddenly last autumn, old riding buddies were the first people I called.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: ‘A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.’ I believe in this. It’s why I’m still riding the hard miles, and why I’m still making new friends. It’s why I’ve hooked up with Ade and Alex and the howies team to organise a ride across Wales at night, in March. When I’m lost in a dark forest with a broken chain somewhere between Cardigan and Abergavenny, when the night seems dead, when hope is fading and the right road is gone, then new friendships will be forged.

Rob Penn
www.bikecation.co.uk

Merino in the field

  • Posted by alex
  • 18 August 2011



My friend Tim just got back from an expedition to Greenland. He's often off to the remote reaches of the fjords to take photos of calving fronts. Sometimes he camps with colleagues, sometimes they stay in a research station.

Despite what you might think, the temperature is mid teens in the day time but gets down close to zero at night. So he wears our merino. He swears to me he wore his yellow NBL for the full three week trip and only washed it once. Hopefully the pants (no photos of those) did him proud too... I won't ask if he wore them for 3 weeks straight! "Amazing" was the word he used most.

Sometimes, we're all so busy running and riding in our merino, I forget it's a good thermal layer too!

Thanks for the debug Tim.


Kayaking Around Wales

  • Posted by alex
  • 17 August 2011



Next month, a few of our friends will be setting off on a 650 mile adventure to circumnavigate Wales by sea kayak.

This back-to-basics trip using only will-power, kayaks and tents is to help support the work of the Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre. We've got onboard and sent them some merino to keep them warm at night and cool when battling the tide. You can get involved by donating to the cause and helping everybody downstream by supporting the great work of CBMWC.

They will be leaving Newport, Pembrokshire next month and heading North to the wild waters of Anglesey. When they reach Chester, the route heads inland using the canal systems to make their way down past Gloucester and back to the sea. Their journey back to Newport concludes through the tidal races of Pembrokeshire and a well earned pat on the back!

Spread the word and watch out for updates from the boats via podcasts on brainfood soon.

SAS Raffle - Update

  • Posted by alex
  • 15 August 2011

SAS Thermometer Week 1
A big thank you to everyone who bought tickets in the SAS raffle last week, we're off to a great start.

This week you've raised £1300 towards fighting great causes for our coastline - nice one!

With 17 weeks to go, we need to keep up the pace to hit the £25,000 target by December. If you've bought a ticket or two, you're in the running for £2000 of howies clothes (obviously), so let your friends know tonight over a drink, now with a tweet or on your ride home and let's smash the target.

If you haven't got involved yet, there's a book of tickets going out in every order, or you can get them directly from SAS.

Start building your howies wish list, 'cause £2000 is pretty much a wardrobe full!

Since we last blogged about the SAS raffle, the target this year has been set at £25,000 - not £20,000.

SAS are swinging by at the end of the week to drop off some books of tickets and we'll need your help to sell them to friends and family. It's not all hard graft though. I reckon that the final list of prizes should wet your appetite and help make the sales needed to reach our ambitious target.

Prizes include:

A £2000 howies voucher.


A beautiful handmade wooden Otter single fin.


A fantastic custom-made Foffa single speed bike

As well as loads more amazing prizes!

We'll be putting books of tickets in all our parcels (along with some stickers to sweeten the deal) soon.

If you can't wait and want tickets now, get in touch with Pete at peter@sas.org.uk or call him on 01872 555958.

Plus, if the prizes alone don't sway you, the person who sells the most tickets wins a luxury eco-break for two at the fantastic Bedruthan Steps Hotel in Cornwall.

The Blue Mile

  • Posted by hollie
  • 14 July 2011

Photographer Jurgen Freund has spent the last 18 months photographing the beautiful underwater world known the Coral triangle (an area covering the Philippines, Malaysia & Indonesia, down to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands) as part of WWF's Blue Mile campaign (-that's the WWF as in the 'panda' one, not the Wrestling one....)

The aim of the campaign is to highlight how beautiful and diverse marine life is, reminding people about the effects climate change and pollution will have on this very vulnerable environment and the creatures that call it home.

There will be a fund raising event held by WWF in North London on september the 4th where people are encouraged to swim or paddle one mile, but they want people all up and down the county to hold their own events too. Click here for more information on that.

SAS (surfers against sewage) are also running their fundraiser too, click here to take a look at Ade's blog from a little while ago and see how you can help on shores a little closer to home.

£2000 of howies clothes

  • Posted by alex
  • 5 July 2011

A little while ago, Surfers Against Sewage came down to Cardigan to talk about plans for their annual raffle. Their plans are big, and it's no longer just about Surfers and just about Sewage.

This year, howies are helping SAS sell tickets to raise a target of £20,000. We're also giving away the headline prize - £2000 of our clothes.

But what does £2000 worth of clothes look like? Well, something like this...

SAS receive no government grants or funding, so it's up to us (that means you too) to help sell and buy tickets to raise this year's target of £20,000.

Like the video, we thought we'd give you an idea of what £20,000 could do:

£1 Could pay to send an item of identifiable marine litter back to the manufacturer

£10 Could pay for a family to attend a beach clean

£25 Could pay for SAS to attend a local pollution incident

£50 Could pay for a school talk to educate young people about marine litter

£100 Could get SAS in front of policy & decision makers

£250 Could help us train a regional representative to tackle environmental issues in your area

£500 Could contribute towards a campaign action, and help us lobby government and industry

£1000 Could pay for an investigation into the misuse and abuse of combined sewage overflows

£5000 Could pay for a scientific report into the threats facing your local beaches

Tickets will be £1 each, with 90p in every pound raised going to fight their causes.

As well as your pound helping to campaign for cleaner beaches and water your ticket could win you this bundle of howies kit, a hand-made wooden board, a bike, surf sessions and loads more great stuff.

It's almost time to dig deep (we'll let you know exactly when), but in the meantime write a sticky note or tweet this to let your mates know what's to come.

PS. If you can't wait, you can get involved with Surfers Against Sewage online now!

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