Upcycling

“So I don’t think that I like grease and sparks quite as much as I like knitting and baking” Kate said as she handed over a box containing the various pieces of her vintage ladies shopper bike.  She’d found the dilapidated Hercules Balmoral online and proceeded to disassemble and strip the entire bike with the intention of refurbishing it, but now it looked like the task of reassembly was going to fall to me.  I took the opportunity to break down and rebuild my own bike, which had been my Dad’s mountain bike that he used to ride alongside me when I was a child, and come the start of the summer we had two good-as-new bicycles.  Her bike looked classic in black with a brown Brookes saddle and a wicker basket; mine looked like Frankenbike in green and black, with various boxes bolted on and a rack to hold my surfboard hanging off one side.

Kate and I used to live an hour's drive apart, she on the south coast of Cornwall and me about 45 miles away on the north coast.  It seemed like a nice idea for our first roll out last summer to be an overnight bicycle camping trip leaving from my home and travelling to hers, pedalling the coast roads and the cycle trails and stopping off at beaches along the way.  We’d upcycled our bicycles and we upcycled an awful lot of steep hills as we wound our way down the Cornish coast.  What follows is a photographic journal of our trip, shot entirely on 35mm film by Kate and myself:

We should've caught the ferry at high tide.

Long hills and lots of luggage.

Coasting downhill to the beach.

The Upcycling chalkboard.

Kate checking out the distance to our campsite, just the other side of that far headland.

Cyclo-shortcuts to avoid the holiday traffic. 

 Camp.

Washing the road off with a quick sunset bellyboard session. 

Fuel. 

We stopped at backroad farm-stalls to buy fruit and lunch provisions. 

 Two and a half foot at eight seconds with a light nor-westerly wind.  I probably needn't have bothered hauling my surfboard along with me if I'm honest.

A polite reminder to myself for all of the "up" bits.

Can you overflow a bike?

It turns out that Kate's house sits at quite some elevation.

The Last Lane.

The Finish Line.

A big thanks to the team at Babes&Bikes in Wadebridge for sorting out our gears and brakes (and giving my probably quite questionable workmanship the necessary once-over) before we set off on our journey, and to various colleagues of ours for the help and advice that they gave whilst ridiculing how heavy I'd made my bike.

Adventure-mobile

Most of us, most of the time, go looking for waves on four wheels.  Whilst I'd certainly love to arrive at a remote surf spot by boat, bike or boots more often, the reality is that more often than not I find myself throwing my surfboards in or on a car and driving.  I almost always wish that I was going in a Land Rover.  Big but not really big enough to easily transport surfboards inside, expensive and thirsty for fuel,  they're probably not the most practical option but the day-dreamer in me loves the idea of driving along miles of deserted beach scanning the waves for a perfect set-up, fording rivers and settling down to sleep in a roof tent at the end of the day.

Developed in 1947 by the Rover car company in an attempt to skirt post-war materials rationing and make up for the drop in sales of it's luxury cars, the Land Rover was designed to be a light agricultural and utility vehicle, something of a cross between a light truck and a tractor.  Intended only for a short production run of two or three years until the luxury car market had recovered, Land Rover developed into its own successful brand and in 1992 Land Rover claimed that 70% of vehicles produced were still in use.  The original Series I was designed to minimise the need for materials that were still rationed following WWII (such as steel), and to use simple production techniques and tooling; the bodywork was handmade from an aluminium/magnesium alloy (called Birmabright) which is still used today due to it's light weight and resistance to corrosion, and flat panels and constant radius curves were used to make it simpler to cut and form by hand around simple jigs.  The chassis was welded from box-section steel for ease, and the first vehicles off the production line were all offered in a single colour option of military green because the only paint that the company could get hold of was army surplus.

Perhaps it's because of their iconic design and the fact that each successive model has remained true to their original utilitarian function that Land Rovers are still so desirable.  It's certainly not for their top speed or road tax band.  But having seen one of these boxes on four-wheels as the workhorse carrying so many epic overland expeditions (on the search for surf or not) across deserts, over mountains and through jungles, it would be difficult to put any other vehicle at the top of your dream kit-list when planning a trip that you want to title an expedition.