News: The UK Singlespeed Championships.

Beer drinking, debauchery, tomfoolery, shenanigans, cycling?

That'll be The UK Singlespeed Champs then.

I've signed up even though the looming spectre of my shoulder operation is imminent. Hopefully I will be recovered enough to trundle around slowly. If not then I'll go along, drink beer, and cheer.

It's taking place in The Lake District on September 1st-3rd and is sponsored by a brewery; that's about all you need to know really.

However if you'd like to join in the fun then you can read all about it here: UK Singlespeed Champs

The entry fee for the whole weekend is a trifling £32.45 and all profits are donated to local charities.

If you'd like to enter then you can do so here at the Eventbrite website: Entries

There is also an Event page on Facebook here: SSUK17

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A pebble in the pond. How young women are changing Nepal.

Al Seaton, Usha Kanal, Jenny Caunt, Roja KC.

Something is happening in Nepal. A wind of change is blowing, a gentle breeze that might yet become a tempest.

Sport, that great leveller of people, is beginning to make its mark. Tenacious young women like Ultrarunner Mira Rai and Mountainbiker Laxmi Magar have through their own efforts inspired other young women to dare to dream.

These dreams are then facilitated by people like Richard Ball from Trail Running Nepal, working tirelessly to promote running and running events, and helping and promoting the potential of Nepali athletes on the world stage. Richard, of course, makes a living from this, and rightly so, but he is also making dreams happen too.

Now we have Jenny Caunt, from Himalayan Singletrack, a mountainbike shop owner and tour provider based in the beating heart of Nepali tourism; Thamel, Kathmandu.

Jenny is also doing something remarkable. In the west we might call it progression, continuity, or something similar, we take equal opportunities for granted; in Nepal it is pioneering, it is the rejection of boundaries, prejudice, regression, in a deeply misogynistic society. She is empowering women to get involved in this completely male dominated industry, and she is giving them jobs - equal jobs.

And guess what? They're good at it.

Jenny is a very good friend of mine, and when she told me what they were doing I asked her to write me a little piece for the blog. I was proud of my friend and I wanted to help promote it.

What I got took me by surprise.

Jenny has written a very honest and open review of a transformation, and it isn't only affecting the girls.

She has thrown a pebble in the pond and the ripples are spreading.

I love this story, and I think you might love it too.

Jenny Caunt

An unwelcome return.

After spending a month in Sri Lanka I was looking forward to getting back down the wood and enjoying the beautiful late spring weather.

Unfortunately it seems that other people have been enjoying the wood in my absence.

My log store (full of seasoning logs) has been razed to the ground, several other fires have been lit, a lot of my timber for projects has been burnt, signs and boundary fences damaged, the compost toilet has been upended, beer cans, bottles, and litter, are strewn around the area.

I'm disappointed that people feel that this kind of behaviour is amusing to them. I have put in extraordinary amounts of work only to have most of it destroyed by morons. I'd estimate that the real-time cost of all of this damage is in excess of £2000.

Fortunately the police have taken an interest and will be collecting the bottles and cans for DNA and fingerprint analysis. I sincerely hope that they catch someone for this.

I have contacted a local newspaper and I'm hopeful that they might run the story, if only to shame the scumbags that did it.

Actually there's not much point in trying to analyse the behaviour, if someone is prepared to do this then they really don't give a shit. 

At considerable cost I have now ordered, and will be installing, motion sensing HD surveillance cameras; if they come back then I'll try to make them famous.

Damaged boundary fences.

Tarp ripped down.

The ladders etc were chained to the log store. The log store is ashes and the ladders have actually partially melted.

The compost toilet has been upended. It must have taken them a lot of effort do this.

The large cordwood pile of Oak logs has either been burnt or scattered.

A number of very large Birch logs that I put aside for a project have been burnt.

Yet another fire. The morons very kindly burnt a lot of my timber.

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Consume less, live more. Plant more trees.