Undulating in the Dale of Silver

Undulations. It's a nice word isn't it? So much more pleasant than precipitous or plunging.

Welcome to Silverdale. Just south of the mainly mountainous Lakes in a tucked away corner of north Lancashire; a secret, undulating, verdant oasis bypassed by the honeypot bound hillwalkers and mountain bikers, ripe for an easy day's skateploitation.

A lovely day out road testing the new heel brake and flat wheel set-up. A few miles of rolling, lush countryside, ancient woods of oak, yew, beech and holly seasonally bedecked with ivy; forest glades dappled with wintery sunlight, resonant with the melodious call and response of the blackbird and the throaty smokers' cough of the jay. The timeless scent of woodsmoke drifting lazily in the air and rich, moist earthiness of leaves being gently recycled by nature on the forest floor.
A sound in the distance. A vague rumbling and incoherent mumbling, becoming louder. Protestations about undulations. A hidden red deer nuzzling acorns discreetly from the loam pricks up his ears.



And then:






The deer leaps gracefully into deep cover. The jay hacks a spitball and coughs out its fag as it darts into the higher branches. Farmers fling themselves in their own slurry pits in terror...well we can hope can't we?


Yep, it's all gonna be shattered next week by the banshee shriek of the heelbrake failing to slow the skating lunatic's
mad descent
on the
unsuspected and unsignposted one in four that appeared from nowhere around a blind bend. Ah, the smell of burning urethane in the morning, there's nothing like it.



Heelbrake testing in the wild to commence next Tuesday.





























Photos of Silverdale nicked from flickr
Courtesy:
focusmania
Jenny Mackness
spg_mutts
ministry

A shameful weekend

of full sun in the Lakes...but no skating! I know, I know - a wasted opportunity and I am ashamed of myself. My only excuse was the tarmac never quite drying out after the heavy morning dew. And the roads being never much less than one in five gradients anywhere. Oh and being knackered from fell walking; being knackered from trail running; being knackered from heavy cake consumption; and the SRD hill-braking system being as yet untried.





Normal misbehaviour will resume shortly. Just need to find a hill in/around Southport to
test the bleedin' brake. And then wait for the cover of darkness. Oh the shame.








Edit:


The SRD braking system is now un-untried. As of tonight I'm coming out of the closet as a fully born again heel brake user.

Not because they slow you down descending hills easily, which they do; nor because they're gonna transform my Lakes skating, which they are. No, it's because they make a MEGA-SQUEAL which, in the dark frightens the pants off any pedestrians within half mile of one. Cool.

Of SRDs and bananas

Ok here it is: I don't like them, you don't like them. To be honest we're all a bit ashamed of them. I've already been mocked by in certain quarters just for mentioning them. But we need to try these things; if we don't experiment we never learn anything. Apparently they emit a terrible squealing noise when dragged along the ground causing onlookers to leap aside in terror. They even leave marks on the floor if depressed too firmly. But dogwalkers who use extendable leads need to be punished and punished severely - so strapping them to the back of one's skates and using them as a heel brake down
steep hills is fully justifiable
and kills two birds with one stone in my book.

Meanwhile, I've managed to discreetly acquire a much less fun but infinitely more embarrassing speed retardant device. This probably isn't really designed for banana-rockered wheels. As you can see from the photos, there's about 4 mm clearance when the skate is on the middle two wheels, but when on the rear wheels it's about 2mm.





This should be fine as long as I'm skating on marble. Newly polished marble. Bouncing around the Lakes on rutted tarmac is going to more difficult. Every time I surmount a blade of grass or traverse a mote of dust I'm gonna grind to a halt as the SRD touches down.
One alternative may be to mount it on the front of the frame to act as a kind of snow plough to clear a path in the sheep pooey areas?
Actually, now I come to think of it mounting the dog walkers at the front to act as the sheep poo plough may be the best option.


At the moment, however, the best I can do is to have three 80mm wheels at the rear, removing the rocker at the back, and sticking with the 76mm wheel at the front to allow some manoeuvrability. I believe this is known as the "EU banana rocker" as it conforms to European curvature standards.
I'd like to try this set up out in Southport before my next skatepedition next Tuesday, but:

A. There are no hills whatsoever in Southport.
B. Small children on plastic Barbie skates would mock & kick sand in my face
C. I would be harangued within an inch of my life by my skating colleague CK.

So SkatesLakesBrakes here we come.

Sin City, and beyond.

Kentmere, lovely Kentmere. The scent of coal fire smoke drifting in the air, a heavy overnight dew still adorning the grass, and oak leaves mottled brown and brittle as tracing paper fell like snow as I veered gracelessly, arms flailing up the roller coaster lane, cursing autumn's wet mists and bloody road-littering mellow fruitfulness, towards the distant fells. Fortunately I didn't get as far as the fells due to time constraints (yep, spent too much time sinning in Staveley) otherwise I would have been tempted to head up into the foothills for some really fruity downhill fruitbooting. I only had an hour to skate, but about a million calories to burn off so thought I'd get as far up the valley as I could in thirty mins. I'd rashly decided not to take the newly purchased helmet as I'd predicted a pretty flat route up the valley, contour lines being thin on the ground according to the map but contoured pretty damn thickly up and down on the road itself in reality. But this was fun stuff, not the quarter mile one in five descents from hell of recent escapades. Fifty metres up, fifty metres down, a nice bit of flat then another fifty metre up and down on and on, and fairly gentle at that. More a kiddies' merry go round than an Alton Towers' nightmare.

For the first mile or so the lane hugs the tumbling river Kent before meandering off on its own merry way up hill and down tree lined dale.





Strangely, there are two small factories down this sleeping shangri-la so I had to drape myself across hedges a couple of times while lorries tore past me at formula one speeds, but as the valley is a cul de sac it was really quiet most of the time.

Tarmac quality ranged from excellent to "I must see my GP about
getting some new knee cartilage" in places, but overall pretty good.




After just a few miles I stopped, gazed longingly at the unexplored hinterlands and decided that it'd be wiser to save this for next time, as I would have the new custom speed retardant attachment by then, more time, a helmet, and the threat of violence from a girlfriend abandoned for hours in a rainy Lancaster would've been mitigated.
I'd say this was probably the most fun skate yet. I will be back. I may take shoes with me next time and at the head of the valley de-skate, walk over the hills to the next valley (Longsleddale) and skate back from there. Boy, am I gonna need serious caking after that one.

Staveley: city of lust

Not many people know that the village of Staveley, nestling in the foothills of the Kentmere horseshoe mountains, is becoming a destination for the more discerning open-minded visitor keen to experience and indeed taste the pure, unadulterated, earthy entertainments that this veritable hotbed of shameful delights is home to.




Yep, you know what I'm talking about you dirty monkey:


CAKE LUST








































REAL ALE LUST















ARTISAN BREAD LUST




















CYCLE LUST











NOW SEEK FORGIVENESS
It's also home to a rather nice 14th century church with stained glass by William Morris.




















So tomorrow, after indulging in a few lusty moments I may go for a quick skate up the gentle, pastoral valley of the fast flowing river Kent towards the mountains whereupon encountering anything more than a one in two hundred gradient I'm gonna turn tail & flee having still not recovered from the Windermere fear.






Also any rough surfaces, sheep poo, dogs, cats, bulls, wet leaves, wet anything or bloody Melvyn Bragg I'm outa there.





Til I get the custom speed negating accessory (don't make me say heel brake) I'm taking it slow & leisurely.


And then quick as you like back to Wilf's. Have I mentioned that I like Wilf's?

pictures copyright:
© www.lovethelakes.net 2003-2011
paulz@wheelbase.co.uk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davewebster14
http://www.eaglechildinn.co.uk
http://www.southlakesgroup.org.uk
http://beatingthebounds.wordpress.com

CakesLakesCakes

Apologies for the rain last week; we're back from the Lakes now so expect the indian summer to resume shortly.


Yep it rained a tad. Then it rained lots of tads. Every bleedin' day.









The rivers rose inexorably.
Fords that would normally have been a doddle to drive through became impassable.
























Roads that had been skated by James & myself became rivers.






















Yet did our spirits drop? Yeah, course they did! But we overcame our despair; we waded through our slough of despond in the only sensible way; the only way clinically proven to beat depression, as recommended by 8 out of 10 cats: we ate cake.


We took our medication carefully on the first day, just a muffin & a piece of lemon drizzle cake at Wilfs. This seemed to help so we found a cake dispensary in Keswick and handed our prescription in for tiffin & autumn plum cake at Lakeland Pedlar.


Ok, possibly we overdid it on the Sunday at Zeffirelli's in Ambleside with the triple layer lemon cake. Looking back this seems to have been too high a dose and probably contributed to our prozakpastry addiction.

Unfortunately the rest of the week proved as wet as the weekend which inevitably forced us to indulge even more shamelessly.

Memorable moments:
apple & date muffin
lemon drizzle x 2
tiffin
autumn plum
coffee & walnut
triple layer lemon
victoria sponge
raspberry & almond bundt
raspberry, oat & nut slice
strawberry cream sponge
chocolate & orange x 2
blackberry & apple crumble
date & treacle scone
orange polenta
raspberry bakewell
raspberry & almond tart
blueberry & almond tart

Disclaimer:
list does not include breakfast pastries, croissants etc or ice creams, obviously.

Luckily the caffeine and sugar combo provided the energy required to drive around the northern Lakes in my guise as Tarmac Quality Inspector (SouthportSkateScene dept) in order to catalogue & record suitable routes for adventurous (& probably certifiable) skaters.

Results:

bugger all. The hills are just too steep. You'd have to be mad to even consider this area.



















So, I'm considering going back to this area.
Possibly with a.... (whisper it) heel brake.
Oh, the shame. I feel dirty
now. But they are available to purchase in certain types of discreet establishments which cater for
those sort of tastes: sometimes known as specialist skate shops. So it's a possibility.












Plus I'm still addicted to the darn cakes so I have to go back for medical reasons.

Following the enormous success

of the Windermere skate...successful in that I didn't die - I'm now contemplating the next skatepedition.

You'll have noticed the weather turning far more cold, windy & wet - that's my fault. It's become a tradition that no matter in which season we stay in the Lakes the whole country gets a mini ice-age.
As we're staying further up north at Keswick for a few days from Saturday, as well as taking the obligatory snow shoes, ice axe & crampons, I'm going to be taking some new maps to check out some new routes this time.

One possibility will be on our doorstep. Looming over the vale of Keswick is the massive mound of Skiddaw, the third largest fell in England. Winding tightly round its base is the lonely singletrack lane known as Back o' Skiddaw; or as it's known in the local dialect Get Off My Land Afore I sets T'dogs On't Ye.

Renowned huntsman & DJ John Peel of whom the badly misnamed song Ken John Peel was born here & is buried just off this route at St. Kentigern's church. Well known author and TV personality Melvyn Bragg lives near here.

The whole circuit of Skiddaw would be about 20 miles, but cutting out the boring main road bit and the overly hilly scary stuff would still leave around 12 miles of gently undulating fun*. And if it's a bit more than undulating, having learned some lessons from the last skate I now have a helmet. Also, a first aid kit. I also learned that skating in flat as a pancake Norfolk is a far more sensible idea.


















Potential hazards:
Cattle grids
No cakeries nearby.
wild ponies
wild farmers
Melvyn Bragg

Hmmm, the lack of cakes could be a problem. May need to rethink this route.

* Wishful thinking alert Wishful thinking alert.

Photos Copyright Peter McDermott and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.