A day out cycling and packrafting.

Neil's latest "badly edited video" Blockbuster.

Follow him around as he cycles from home to the River Trent, then paddles around for a while, before cycling home again.
It's gripping stuff 😝

The Long Way Home.

Recently I headed over to The Isle of Man to take part in the, very brutal, Manx100 mountainbike race. It had been an eleventh-hour decision to go. At the same time I made another rather rash decision - I was going to cycle home too. The Manx100 didn't quite go to plan (that's another long story: see here) so when the sun shone on the morning of my departure back to the mainland I was emboldened and was looking forward to a few days of very pleasant cycling through England’s finest green and pleasant lands.

I planned to cut across country from Morecambe to Settle on The Way of the Roses and then pick up The Pennine Bridleway (PBW) from there all the way back home to Derbyshire. It was a basic plan with some wiggle room for any potential disasters along the way - which turned out to be a fortuitous plan, as it happened, because I didn't have a map or actually know the way.

A visit to Celtic Paddles.

Today I took a visit to Anglesey in Wales to visit the Celtic Paddles factory.
I had a great experience and was surprised to find that it was a pretty big operation with a lot going on.



If you're in the market for a quality paddle check them out.
My very special thanks to James Marden for arranging a generous discount.

Buying a PFD from Peak UK

Today I went along to Peak UK in Derbyshire to buy a PFD (Personal Floatation Device) for my packrafting adventures.
I received really good advice from Adam Gill and enjoyed a great customer experience. Peak UK will be familiar to anyone interested in paddle sports. If you're in the area (Matlock/Peak District) it's well worth calling in to browse their showroom.

A Paws for thought. Singlespeeding through Sri Lanka.

A Paws for thought – Singlespeeding through Sri Lanka.

There’s something about the sight and sound of rushing water that captivates me; be it the soothing chatter of a brook speeding through a shallow glide or, like today, the deep base of white horses breaking on a sun-soaked beach. Last night I was lulled into a deep sleep by it, and today I stood on its edge with a wash of cool, foaming, surf tickling my feet whilst I studied, mesmerised, the infinite variety of the forming waves, no two the same, ever.

It was 36 hours since we'd rolled into Tangalle, on Sri Lanka’s southern coast, on our local singlespeed bicycles; seven days after leaving Jaffna, in the north, 804kms of cycling now behind us. My bike sat in the shade of our simple but pleasant beach-side accommodation, its tyres half submerged in the soft white sand. It was a nice place to end an adventure.

Lush Shampoo Bars (Review).

Lush Shampoo Bars

As a committed environmentalist I'm always on the lookout for products that will reduce my footprint on the planet, and as a regular traveller I'm always on the lookout for products that will make my life easier and more efficient. (I appreciate the paradox in that statement and I do my best to keep air travel to a minimum and to offset it whenever possible).
So when I stumbled upon these little beauties I did a little jig of joy.

Look out Nepal - Here's Nellie!

So far so good. My excellent friend Mitch Bryan dropped me off at Derby Railway Station, and with only a minor delay to the trains in Birmingham I boarded my flight to Doha seamlessly with the super efficient Qatar Airways. I scraped in on the 30kg luggage allowance with only 2.5 pouches of Aldi cat treats over the limit. The nice lady at check-in let it go, and the shop cat at Himalayan Singletrack in Thamel, Kathmandu was, later, very pleased.

The flight to Doha had barely anyone aboard and I had a row of three seats all to myself, that’s a rare luxury indeed for the frequent traveller; all I had to do was try not to fall asleep. Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh kept me royally entertained for quite a while. The inflight meal was a delicious Chicken Biryani, followed by an even more delicious blackcurrant cheesecake. I’m very happy about the improvement of inflight meals; I thought about the first one I ever had, on a Balkan Airlines flight to Bulgaria in 1984, it was so bad that on my return flight home I pretended to be asleep so that I didn’t have to eat it.

2018. A shit-happens kind of a year.

2018 was a bit of a strange old year for me.
I was still firmly in the recovery stages from my shoulder operation by the time The Puffer (Strathpuffer 24 hour race) came around in late January. I was entered to race in the solo category along with a bunch of other mates with the same idea. It turned out that the trail conditions, fairly heavy with snow, were a bit too sketchy for me; I was still under strict guidelines from the Consultant Surgeon not to take any risks. So instead of racing I elected to man the pits and support the guys instead.
It was a nice way to experience the event, and I got a tremendous buzz from helping and encouraging my mates to finish, even though I would have much preferred to be racing. Hey-ho. This year I will be racing in a quad team for Alpkit. I'm really looking forward to this even though I am a bit short on fitness.

The Sonder Signal Ti - Building a Dream Machine.

The Motel du Mugling is an oasis of calm on the bustling Kathmandu-Pokhara Highway. I called in and ate an unplanned lunch with my friend Sagar, the manager. It was unplanned because I had already eaten breakfast there a few hours previously; inbetween times I had made a minor navigational error and cycled 26 or so kilometres in the wrong direction before retracing my steps to begin all over again. My initial 90km trundle to Pokhara was now to be a slightly more hectic race against daylight.

I'd arrived in Kathmandu a few days prior to this and spent my time pleasantly hanging out in the - now traffic-free - tourist hub of Thamel, catching up with old friends, drinking coffee, and riding familiar trails around the valley rim.

Familiar trails with familiar friends on an unfamiliar bike.
I'd been given a great opportunity to ride the final prototype of the new Sonder Bikes Signal Ti 29" Hardtail with the explicit purpose of capturing some high mountain images of the bike in its natural environment (see my initial review here).

A Signal of Intent. The Sonder Signal Ti.

The Signal Ti is soon to be the latest addition to the Sonder(Alpkit) range of highly regarded, and highly capable, bikes.

I was in the very fortunate position to ride the final pre-production model during my recent trip to Nepal.

It is an astonishing machine.
Anyone who visited last September's Big Shakeout Festival or the recent London Bike Show may have spotted this bike already. I spotted it nestled innocuously at Big Shakeout and immediately interrogated Neil Sutton about it - in my mind it had Nepal written all over it.

Rumble in the Jungle 2017.

“Do you fancy going out to Sri Lanka for The Rumble?” was a bolt out of the blue from my friend, the Race Director at Yak Attack(MTB Worldwide), Phil Evans. “In fact we’re going out three weeks early to recce the trails if you fancy that too?” was his second question.

“Erm… not sure. I’d like to… err… fuck it, yeah” My initial hesitation was due to the fact that I had an impending shoulder operation (which I’ve been putting off for four years) and really I needed to get it done. However, the “fuck it” principle came into effect and bypassed any modicum of common sense.

The timing was also perfect, I was working away in London and we would be flying out exactly a week after my contract finished.

Less is more. Finding Nemo.

The Final Frontier.

Last year I awakened a whole new passion: singlespeed mountainbiking. I hadn't ridden a singlespeed bike for well over 20 years.

I brought a cheap, but good value, Vitus Dee 29er from Chain Reaction Cycles for commuting. it proved to be something of a personal revelation. I had been a bit of a sceptic when it came to singlespeed mountainbikes, partially dismissing them as ridiculous, and a hipster fashion accessory. I was wrong (well partially wrong, they're still a hipster fashion accessory).

After 15 months of regular use I decided to build myself something a bit more suitable to my all round needs, a bit more trail friendly if you like. Fortunately I have a shed full of components stuffed in boxes or just laying around so the actual build hasn't cost me an awful lot of money (well it cost me money once upon a time but not on this occasion).
Also considering the support I have had from Alpkit over the last few years I thought it was about time I stepped across one of their very highly regarded Sonder machines.

So my starting point was their new entry level hardtail frame & fork bundle - The Frontier - a bike they have designed as an all-rounder for everything from "campsite and crag" to "trail centre and bikepacking". It's sound like just the bike for me, plus I was particularly enamoured with the "Nemo" blue colour scheme, and the ability to run plus sized tyres should I wish to. 

The Peaks 200 - by Mitch Bryan & Pascal Lally

Rainbow Chasers Mitch Bryan, Martin Tansley, and Pascal Lally recently took on The Peak 200, an Individual Time Trial (ITT) that circumnavigates most of The Peak District National Park. This is their account of an epic days mountain biking. I really enjoyed reading it; I hope you enjoy it too.

Mitch takes up the first half of the story:

"What time do you reckon it is?"

"Erm... 22:30?"

"You what! Try 01:30"

"Oh"

Where had the time gone? As I lent against the fence trying to force down one more gel into my grumbling stomach I pondered how time had run away from me. It only seemed like an hour at the most since Pascal and Martin had switched on their lights as we began our final technical descent into Roych Clough. And yet now here we were taking a moment to refuel after pushing our not so laden bikes up the steep sided valley out of Chee Dale.

I could hardly believe that over twenty hours earlier the three of us had set off from the pub car park at Rowsley full of apprehension for what the rest of the day had in store for us as we attempted to complete the Peak 200 ITT in under twenty four hours, although I hadn't told Martin and Pascal this as it thought it might have put them off. 

Alpkit announce their #ContinuumProject

Perfectly in line with their "Go Nice Places, Do Good Things" tagline the good folk at Alpkit have announced their latest social & environmental initiative through their Alpkit Foundation.

The Continuum Project is a partnership with several other organisations to donate, recycle, and redistribute, your old and unwanted outdoor gear to those people in society who are less fortunate.

Here at Chase The Rainbow we love things like this and we'll be digging out as much of our old kit as possible. If you have some stuff kicking around then why not donate it to a good cause; you'll feel good about it and so will the people who benefit from your generosity :)

You can read all about the project here:

The Alpkit Continuum Project

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Consume less, live more. Plant more trees.

A Daring Deed indeed.

The stunning Rara Lake in Western Nepal.

Because I have been quite lazy of late I thought I should probably post a little update. I am in the process of writing several pieces for the blog. At least one covering some of my extended visit to Nepal and another one with some very exciting news to share.

Watch this space.

I have written a couple of pieces for Alpkit's Daring Deeds section. The first was a preview of my recent trip to Nepal...

Coffee, Curry, Cake, Beer, and a Bicycle.

...and the second is a travelogue of our time exploring the area around the rarely visited Rara Lake National Park in the Wild West (just click on the links).

Rara Hurrah

A curious couple and a curious cottage - Western Nepal.

It's not much of a blog post but there is plenty to come over the next few weeks as I get caught up.

 You can follow Alpkit here:

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My first YouTube video - Welcome to Chase The Rainbow.

I posted my first video on YouTube. It's crap, but it's a start :)
I'm a one-take wonder. One day I'll learn how to edit and stuff.
Damn, I look an old git on camera :D

You can also follow Chase The Rainbow here:

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Thank you for looking, see you soon.

Please don't forget to Like, Share, and Comment, if you enjoyed it :)

Consume less, live more. Plant more trees.








Neil's Mountain Bike Indispensables.

I've spent a lot of money over the years on Mountain Bike kit and components. Not all of it proved a wise investment. I bought a few turkeys in my time, so I've put together a little list of the things that I have found to be indispensable in recent years. I appreciate that many of them are quite high-end products but for me it is value for money that counts and everything here has proven itself over and over again for bombproof long-term reliability. 

Review: Alpkit Bikepacking Luggage.

Over the last ten years or so there has been a growing trend (or sub-culture) in cycling for Bikepacking.
(I have added a few useful links at the bottom if you are interested).

If you're not familiar with Bikepacking then it's a bit like off-road bicycle touring encompassing anything from an overnight adventure with a bivvy, multi-day (or multi-week) racing like The Tour Divide, right through to global adventure travel. The great thing about Bikepacking is that it can take you as far, or near, from the beaten path as you desire. It has developed alongside the desire to have these adventures.
Pioneering routes like The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route or The Israel Bike Trail have given more mountain bikers a thirst for just such an adventure.

Hand-in- hand with its growing popularity are a bunch of companies innovating solutions to packing gear on a mountain bike. The age old practice of fitting pannier racks on a cycle tourer just doesn't work on a mountain bike.
This is where the likes of Alpkit, and others, have stepped up to the plate and filled in the gaps.

Destination Unknown. A little road trip in the making.

My new project, a bargain basement hybrid for a budget bike tour.

In recent weeks I've had my eye on bargain basement hybrid bike for commuting, during which time a spark of an idea has been forming in my mind.

Given that I've had to defer my Tour Divide attempt until another time I've been musing over other adventures.

I'm also embarking on a little side project that I am tentatively calling #DestinationUnknown (or maybe #NewHorizons) in which I'm trying to encourage the ordinary holidaymaker to embrace independent travel and try a little adventure of their own.

As a consequence of that I have bought said bike with the idea to show that it's perfectly possible to do a budget bicycle tour on a £200 (ish) bike, and to share the planning and the journey with you.

Fabulous Fatty!

Phwoar! Check out this beauty. 

The new Alpkit Vir Fortis Adventure Fatbike.

I spotted one finished up in the final build over at the Alpkit showroom the other day

It's a beautiful beast! I think I want one :P

It's definitely gone on to the "Most Wanted" list. 

Take a look at it here

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Thanks for looking :)