The magical lady of the Highlands danced through the crags and rested by a rock, she turned back to me and her voice floated down on the cool breeze “Just a little farther, there’s a perfect pitch with a hidden spring not too far away…” I smiled and followed her, it would be nice to get [...]
Posted on June 29th, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Items Various | 11 Comments »
Binge and bastard purge. I’m dead on my feet tonight. This week so far has been played without a pause: 40 hours of pipes so far, more at the weekend; two nights in the hills, a late-evening meeting with a customer, a night in the studio (where if we can’t get a recording slot for [...]
Posted on June 26th, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Items Various | 30 Comments »
Bowling is like a silent movie film star. In that no one’s heard of it, but there’s lots of old photies of it kicking about. That view above has been etched and painted many times over the past couple of hundred years. I think the piers of the Erskine Bridge would be in that horse’s [...]
Posted on June 25th, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Items Various | 2 Comments »
A dash home to get my pack and find something garish to wear and I was back on familiar ground. I met Allan at Overtoun House for an evening wander in the Kilpatricks, a long overdue occasion. I’ve known Allan since ’72 or ’73, which is always fun in conversation, because he’s the only person I know [...]
Posted on June 23rd, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Adventures | No Comments »
It’s going to be Kilpatricks for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the 900m contour exists only on the horizon for the next wee while. The 600m contour as well I suppose. First up tonight was a long overdue bike trip with familiar faces Ange and Bobinson. We sweated up the usual route from Old Kilpatrick under the [...]
Posted on June 22nd, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Adventures | 5 Comments »
I’ve been cutting about the Ft Bill to Laggan stretch a few times recently, and it’s shuffled previous thoughts to the surface again. I love industrial stuff, the visit to the pipes on the recent Ben Vorlich trip was, oddly perhaps, a highlight. And the narrow gauge railway that ran from Loch Treig to the Ft Bill [...]
Posted on June 21st, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Items Various | 6 Comments »
First off I’d like to stick two fingers up at Race Face. I have a bucket full of their bottom brackets, every one seized solid, and as I admined the bike for Monday night’s ride the newest one was in the relentless grip of inertia on the non-drive side. I was going to replace both the [...]
Posted on June 20th, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Gear Diary, Kit Reviews | 27 Comments »
I met the guys from Zyro, Powerbar’s UK distributors at the Etape Caledonia cycling event in Pitlochry a few weeks back, and came back with samples of their new Natural Energy Bars to test. I haven’t written them up as they’ve been in either my pack or my mouth, and with only one of each flavour [...]
Posted on June 17th, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Kit Reviews | 16 Comments »
I hear my dreams, I see for years. Running backwards, Again, and again.
Posted on June 16th, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Items Various | 7 Comments »
Lot’s of my trips revolve around routes for Trail. Now whatever folk may opine on forums, the routes are all-new and equally importantly, not imposed upon the writer. So when I’m back in Kintail in a few weeks it’s entirely my own fault. But first: The Easains, or This yin and That Yin. I had [...]
Posted on June 16th, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Adventures | 7 Comments »
Posted on June 15th, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Adventures | 3 Comments »
Naismith’s rule said the route would take five hours fifty, the gap between trains at Corrour is six hours thirty. Naismith wasn’t eating biscuits and taking photies, so I don’t like them odds. Arriving at 2100hrs tonight would have given me the whole day tomorrow, but camp would have been somewhere at the southern end of [...]
Posted on June 13th, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Items Various | 10 Comments »
I’m still working my way through some old books, and just finished is the recent reprint of Hamish Brown’s Hamish’s Mountain Walk from Sandstone Press. It’s the story of the first continual round of the Munro’s, back in ’74. First is good, it doesn’t matter how fast or fancy someone does it after that, they’re [...]
Posted on June 13th, 2010 by PTC*
Filed under: Items Various | 7 Comments »
