I'm for sale

Sam sent me this link with the subject title 'look who is for sale!' and it made me laugh.

Head to the charity auction for Photovoice and support their work. That's me upside-down on a swing in a print donated by Elaine Constantine. That photo was well worth shooting it seems... It was in The Face first, then Samsung used it for an ad and now its gonna earn some money for Photovoice, an award winning international charity who use photography as a way to transform lives.

Halloween

Forgot to post Franketcat pics! Here we are!

Hell Yeah in Helsinki

Continuing my trend of mainly stocking Hell Yeah in places other than the UK, you can now get Hell Yeah in Finland, well Helsinki to be precise.

Head over the the small T shirt boutique, My Cup Of T to make your selection from the nice range of shirts they have.

My Cup Of Tea - Iso Roobertinkatu 34, Helsinki

Some love for LA

New Hell Yeah shirt really, really is on its way. I've just got to......order them..... keep meaning too....its good, honest! In the meantime, check out this shirt coming out of LA - Death Rides A Pale Horse, available here.

Also stateside is the premier of my buddy Grace's film about the London to Paris ride that Ted went out earlier this year to as part of the launch of a shoe some fixed gear dudes did in conjunction with Nike. I don't know much more than that apart from the fact that Fixed Gear London were pretty stoked on meeting Lance Armstrong in Paris so if you want to find out the story behind the trip, go check the film on Oct 29th. If you are in NYC, that is!

I just got some more nice pics of me riding in Portland through from Brenton Salo too, so if you are trying to waste some time at work browsing the internet, head over to my Hell Yeah blog here and check em out.

Final days in America

I have no idea why this writing is coming out underlined. Its really annoying as I can't switch it off for some reason.

Anyway....!



I spent a final couple of days hanging out in Portland. Patrick's dog, Beans had fully accepted me my the end of my stay and had stopped grunting at me whenever I entered the room.

It was meant to rain a lot but we were really lucky with the weather and shot quite a few pics. These are by Brenton Salo. Thanks for sending them through, Brenton!








 

I had a good night out with Sara playing pool at the Sandy Hut and later at Dee's. Sara and I managed to keep out winning streak going beating Brenton and Patrick six - nil and leaving undefeated. Woo, England!

On Saturday I went over to get tattooed at Sandy's. Clay got the outline of his done on his forearm and I had to grin and bear the whole of mine in one setting. Now I don't know if I was just being a pussy that day, but by the time Sandy got to putting the finishing touches to it I was hurting a lot. I just had to try and hold on and let him finish as I'm not sure how soon I'll be back in Portland. Looks good though so I'm happy it was worth it!

Sandy's opening a new custom tattoo studio soon at 30th and Burnside in Southeast Portland which is gonna be called 'VIRTUE HAUTE TATTOO'. Not sure when though. I just read it on facebook.

After Portland, I headed back to SF for a couple of days. On the Sunday we had a fairly chilly picnic in Golden Gate park where everyone kept telling me how sunny and warm it had been the day before. The next day it pissed it down so we did a bit of sightseeing and holed up in a bar with bloody marys and beers.

I was reading the newspaper the next day and came across this advert encouraging the use of weed. Pretty amazing! In case you don't know, in California you can get a prescription for medical marajuana which allows you either to pick up your supplies from a clinic or grow a certain number of plants yourself each year.

So now I'm back in London, battling the jetlag and trying to get some work done. Thanks again to everyone who made my trip so much fun, to all the great people I met who helped me out, put me up and showed me a good time.

Portland

I've been super lucky with the weather in Portland. It was meant to rain all week - in fact I almost didn't come when I saw the forecast! I'm glad I did though as I've been having a great time and hanging out with an awesome bunch of people.

I decided to try a bit of a different set up and put on these Volume trickster bars, just to see how they felt. I like to switch stuff about quite a bit to see how it affects the Scissor (which I LOVE!!)

They feel really good - a bit higher than the ones I had on previously. Feels nice for wheelies but the slightly different position has thrown my barspins off a bit and I keep banging my left knee on the way round! The Chicago Wig straps with Starfuckers pedals feel ace too! The straps stay rigid unlike some other similar ones which means you don't have a problem getting your foot in if you stamp on the strap by accident. The large pedals feel nice for doing tricks and for hauling ass. I'm gonna see how this set up goes in SF when I get back there tomorrow - I wonder how I'm gonna like this more trick orientated set up on the big hills! I kinda like having cages and doubles for security when I'm going fast down hill!

We've been riding down by the waterfront quite a bit where there are some little steps to jump and sheltered areas for when it starts drizzling. Brenton and I shot quite a few pictures which I'm really looking forward to seeing! I'm gonna post those as soon as I get them. 

I managed to jump off a loading bay and ride straight into a truck one day but other than that I'm not too battered and bruised thankfully! On the way down to the river near Burnside there are a lot of railway tracks which get super slippery and have taken out four of my friends since I got here!

On Thursday night we met up with my friend Sara, an English girl who saw the light and moved to Portland a few years back. We went to psychedelic bingo at some bar somewhere (I haven't really got to grips with where I am/where stuff is here yet) and Tim won this amazing prize....which is lucky as we were worried that the prize might actually been psychedelics which funnily enough we were not really up for! It was pretty awesome - accompanied by a fuzzed out guitar and the best MC ever. 

On Friday after starting our day with a good breakfast and some riding, we headed over to the Humane Society where Brenton and Jerry adopted two of the cutest kittens! Brenton's is called Count Dracula and weirdly ended up biting his girlfriend Ryen on the neck last night!

This morning we went out for breakfast and I decided that I had to order biscuits and gravy, just to check it out. I'd had one bite of someone else's in SF but I'd been told that this was the place to try it. I knew I wasn't going to like it as the mouthful I'd had before had kinda weirded me out... Biscuits and gravy is basically like scones with white pasta sauce on it. Why would you want that for breakfast? Or at any time for that matter? It literally made me nauseous.!

USA trip continued....

After a final breakfast in SF (love breakfast in America - its the best!), I jumped on a plane to Portland. Posy had to fly home for various reasons so from now on it's a solo mission!

I was thinking of getting the train from SF to Portland but apparently it takes 8 hours and runs over night so I decided to get a plane. It wound up costing me quite a bit more than I ha hoped it would so I will be eating beans on toast for the rest of the year once I get home!

When you take an internal flight in the States you have to pay about $150 EACH WAY to take your bike with you which totally sucks as it was free on the way out here as we flew with Virgin. Chris Fonseca told me to bullshit the lady at the counter and see if I could get away with saying my box didnt contain a bike. According to him it works 9 times out of 10, so I told the sceptical check in clerk that I was a tattoo artist and the giant case contained my 'work bench'. She went for it so I got away with paying $50 for the oversize case instead on $150. I hope I can get away with it on the way back to SF.

Yesterday I went for a ride with some new friends including Brenton Salo who shot the book, Rose City Fix and checked out some record stores. The record shops are SO good here plus there is no sales tax on anything so I spent a bunch of cash on 7 inches. Whoops.

Patrick who writes the site Pedal Consumption has been kind enough to put me up for my trip so we are gonna try out some great new products he's been sent to test. I'm gonna switch up some things on my new Scissor and see how I like it. Hopefully if the rain holds off a bit we can go out and get some good riding in!

day four or five or so - written by posy on juliets blog by mistake

the city adventures continue on Saturday ... feeling a bit better today for actually having some sleep.

so I busted out early to pick up this camera I wanted to buy... only to ride straight pass the shop, up a massive hill and get a flat tire.  total waste of time were it not that I stumbled into the Burning Man HQ out in some warehouses on 3rd.. I went and had a chat with some pretty trippy people (tweakers as I call them here) and now I really want to go next year... basically a massive weirdest arts and music festival in the desert where they build up a temporary 'village' for a week and everyone gets around on bikes... plotting the 2010 Burning Man Charge trip already.

check out some of the steeds from previous years.  I can imagine Ted liking this place.

so after that little adventure I headed up to the now familiar turf of the Mission, fixed my bike at Valencia Cyclery and went to meet Juliet and her buddy Tim at the Phoenix Bar for a bad ass Bloody Mary.  I'm a bit of a connoisseure of cold lumpy vodka soup and this one was excellent... garnished with asparagus, olives and pickled onions. yum.

so Tim works helping out with filming and that for the SF Mash crew, and has one of those Cinelli Mash SF collaboration bikes... goes pretty fast.  We met up with another friend and headed up to North Beach, which is where the City Lights bookshop is and the area that Kerouac used to cruise back in the hay-day.  Super nice bit of the city, lots of steep hills, cool bars and bookshops, colourful houses, good vibes.  After some pretty hefty sandwiches (egg, cheese, ham, slaw, chips, sauce... god-bless america style) we boosted down the Stockton Street tunnel into the Tenderloin area.

The Tenderloin district is famous for hookers, kinky gar bars and getting shot, but also has a really great gallery called Ever Gold - we went to check out a metal inspired art show called Von Doom... when we got there the people running it had disappeared for lunch, so we went to a freaky deeky gay club for a beer (why not eh?) ... you get an idea of the place from the flyer.  I think they thought we were nuts the four of us having a casual drink in there at 3 in the afternoon.

So after a bit of doomy art and few more drinks, we left Tim (who was pretty wobbly on the old Cinelli by now) to go home and be a rad dad with his two kids, Juliet and I rode back down to the Bart Station and headed back over to Oakland to meet one of Juliet's friends from Temple Tattoo.

Stasch and his buddy looked after us well, we had some food, then some drinks at Radio, followed by a late night adventure to a speakeasy bar in some basement in downtown Oakland.  Another great day; a motley collection of adventures that you only get to experience when rolling with the locals.. oh and I think I beat Jules at pool again... woo hoo...  AND - woke up without any new tattoos... which is a fair achievement after staying the night with an artist.

Thanks everyone again... look out on Juliet's Blog for the final San Fran post. 

San Francisco Day three. Or four? Hmm

Yesterday we woke up at a random house in the mission where our new friend had been kind enough to put us up so we didn't have to ride bike to Bay View in the dark after several whiskies.

We headed out to this great breakfast place, St Francis on 24th st where we started the day with a few mimosas. I love mimosas!

 

After eating we headed down to the skatepark which is kinda down the end of 24th somewhere. I'm not sure where exactly but it looked like a nice place to skate. My skating days are well and truly over now though so I just sat in the park, made some new friends and got myself some sunburn. Looking kinda pink today!

After soaking up the sun we hopped on the BART to Oakland. The BART is the Bay Area Transit system and it's a but like a subway system I guess but unlike London's Underground, you can take your bike on it. It takes about half an hour or so to go under the bay to Oakland.

Once in Oakland we stopped by a secret skate spot which our mystery tour guide has been building before heading over to said mystery guide's house which had a ramp inside it and was a super nice.
We rode around Oakland a little bit, heading up to Berkley and the university campus but then tiredness overtook us and we bailed, heading back to SF. We were meant to be going on a night out with some friends from Temple Tattoo in Oakland but tiredness won. Might head back there later today instead! But then again, really want to go to Frisco Freakout! Look awesome!

San Fran, Day 2

Posy and I are taking it in turns to blog so head over to her pagehere to see the first post on on our San Fran trip.

The second day in San Fransicso was epic. We started off by heading down to The Mission which is kinda like Shoreditch/Dalston, which you'll understand if you are from London but probably won't if you aren't from there. To explain - it's kinda like the latest hipster area where cheap rent brought in the young skintflints and trendies who now live side by side with the people who originally lived there. It's resulted in an area which is pretty diverse and full of people whose salaries, backgrounds and interests wildly differ.

 

We met up with our friend Josh who took us for burritos at El Farolito at Mission and 24th. I stupidly went for the 'super burrito' which turned out to be more food than I usually eat in a week and subsquently made my belly ache and swell for the rest of the day. Man, I was like a snake who'd just eaten a human and seriously uncomfortable for the rest of the day. It was tasty but portions in America are out of control!

After eating we went and soaked up the sun at Dolores Park before riding down a few block to meet up with John Cardiel for a ride.

We started off riding up Height - the hippy district, before heading heading into Golden Gate Park and riding down to the ocean, we hugged the coastal road and went up some serious hills... all the hard work was worth it when we got to burn down the hills on the other side... a totally epic ride. 

Me, John and Posy were all so hyped on burning around the city; we had such a good time. There's no better way of seeing everything, getting over your jet lag and just generally making yourself smile. Thanks for being such an epic tour guide, John!

Following a few beers at some amazing Tirolean themed restaurant that brewed its on beer (how wierd is that; we came all the way from Europe and end up drinking in a German theme bar) we headed on over to the restaurant where our buddy Josh works - Bar Crudo.

 

Bar Crudo serves up a lot of fancy raw seafood and seemed like a nice place but the first thing Josh gave us was bone marrow which I have to say I was not overly keen on. Posy suddenly became more strictly vegetarian than she had been previously and didn't have so much as a nibble. Wuss. She managed to avoid tasting scrapple when we were in NYC too!

At some point the jet lag overtook us and Josh kindly gave us his key and directions to his place which was nearer than where we were meant to be staying. Unfortunately we managed to both lock him out and lose the key. Whoops...