Author Topic: Rides 2016 — add yours here  (Read 40760 times)

geocycle

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #75 on: March 16, 2016, 09:44:15 am »
Lovely description Hoodatder.  I love those those dry chalk valleys like Thixendale and Millington.  Then from the tops those Hockney-esque big landscapes of the Wolds are uplifting.
 

Hoodatder

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #76 on: March 16, 2016, 10:10:08 am »
Glad that you liked Mr Fuller's gallery. How one transfers the intensity of fur and feathers through to the brush - never mind the colours - is beyond me. A fantastic skill.

And of course, David Hockney hails from the East Riding. I must investigate his paintings and interpretations of the Wolds.

Hoodatder

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #77 on: March 17, 2016, 09:10:24 am »
I have googled David Hockney and been most surprised at his work - pleasantly, I might add. I naively thought he would be a modern day Constable / Turner with his landscape scenes and not abstract, although not severely abstract. There is a video on youtube called "November Tunnel" which shows him painting "live" outside. It's amazing to see him get the perspective on to the canvas with each stroke and holding the brush at the very end. I know conductors hold their baton at the end, but they don't have to make it land with accuracy and delicacy to achieve the sound from the orchestra. Similarly, a violinist holds the bow at the end, but has the violin itself to receive the weight and pressure applied. DH has to move his brush with precision whilst composing his image in his head. Anyway, it's a treat to watch. And I was wrong - he was born in Bradford and now lives in Bridlington.

Hoot

geocycle

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #78 on: March 17, 2016, 10:22:36 am »
Hi Hoot, glad you like Hockney, I love the way a wet road can be seen in purple tones!  Here is a link to places in the Wolds linked to his art which might give you some touring ideas http://www.yocc.co.uk/
 

Hoodatder

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #79 on: March 17, 2016, 08:02:23 pm »
Thanks for the link, Geo,

I have only had time for a brief glimpse, literally, but I shall take a leisurely looks later. Those piccies are right on my stomping ground. I did take some snaps last year when I went up to Rillington, again, there are some gratifying views from there. I'll see if I can gig them out.

I liked the paint jobby he did of Sledmere. He must take the same medicine as me and in similar quantities :P

Hoot

John Saxby

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #80 on: April 14, 2016, 02:25:45 am »
Back in the saddle again, and it felt soooo good: first rides of 2016

‘Round about the nominal first day of spring in these parts, March 21st, we begin to feel like characters in Ursula LeGuin’s story The Left Hand of Darkness, living forever on a cold planet. We thought we’d done a time-consuming and expensive workaround this year, visiting our son and his family on Australia’s Gold Coast for Feb and March, and returning a week ago in early April. I was looking forward to getting Osi the Raven on the road, three-plus months after my last ride on Christmas Eve afternoon, 2015.

We are to the weather gods as flies to wanton boys, however—they torment us for their sport. (Thanks, Will—you’re cool with the minor adaptation, I trust?)  In the four days after our return, we had 35 cms of snow, along with rain, ice pellets, freezing rain, the whole nine yards. The weather began to break on Monday, and then yesterday the snow had melted enough to let me take a 90-minute ride in the city. Today dawned bright, sunny, and cool, but for the first time since we left Oz we heard birdsong when we woke, so we decided that yes, this is the Real Thing, and no, we won’t live on a cold planet for the rest of our days.

Over the last couple of days, then, I’ve done my first two rides of 2016. They were pretty modest affairs, to be sure, but being back in the saddle again after 3-plus months felt soooo good.

On Apr 12, I did a 90-minute loop through the city: East along the bikepath beside the big river to the north side of Parliament, a brief climb beside the locks (all seven of them) to the canal, a few kms south to the Experimental Farm, then back home through a dilapidated urban forest. No daffodils, no wildlife beyond the crows, no leaves on the trees yet; but happily, barely any traffic either. This is a route that will be awash with colour in a few weeks, when the tulips are in full bloom, but yesterday it was pretty drab, the grey sky matching the dirty remnants of last week’s snowbanks. I didn’t care – it was mild, there was no rain in the grey clouds, and I was on the bike again.

Here’s the loop:  http://tinyurl.com/z9xewwk  (If you look at the satellite view, or even better, the google street view, you get a nice splash of greenery.)

Today, with a bright sun easing the effects of a brisk northwesterly, I decided to ride across the river and into the Gatineau hills, hoping to follow my usual training route for a couple of hours at least. The river is in spate, although slightly lower than it has been in recent years: Photo #1 below shows some healthy standing waves. There were a couple of river-surfers at play—brave souls—and I caught one in Photo #2, in a sweet spot on the upstream slope of a big wave.  I carried on into the Gatineau Park, riding on the Parkway itself for a change. The bike paths still had several inches of granular wet snow in the northern shadow of trees, so were not really an option. The roads leading to the park, happily, were empty of cars, so I cruised along in 10-11-12, nodding to a handful of cyclists. It was too good to last, though: as soon as I got a couple of kms into the Park itself, the snow cover increased in depth as I climbed into the hills.  See photo #3.  No point in going any further; with any luck, in the next few days enough of the snow will melt to allow us to reach the lookouts at the summit. Still, the ride along the river to the Park was enjoyable. Lots of fat geese and ducks which had wintered here were waddling beside the paths, though there were no goslings or ducklings to be seen. The afternoon sun on the river is a marvellous sight at any time of year, and the sky was a magnificent blue.

Aside from helping my soul to regain its equilibrium, these rides, and those to come, will let me get back into training, and to test a few tweaks on my Raven. I’m planning a tour in the Western Mountains in late June and early July, and have made some adjustments which I want to check:

  • First is a change in pedals and shoes. In a search for shoes which I can wear off the bike, I’ve relegated my Sidi shoes and Look pedals to my day-ride bike, my Eclipse. The Raven now has a very nice pair of MKS Light Touring flat pedals, mated to a set of Bike Attitude plastic toe clips. (The latter as nowhere near as chic as proper steel-and-leather clips, but they do not rust, and even more important, they’re wide and boxy enough for my large feet. To go with the pedals and clips, I found a pair of Pearl Izumi shoes that promise to work well on and off the bike:  http://www.mec.ca/product/5045-822/pearl-izumi-x-alp-seek-vii-cycling-shoes-mens/?h=10+50002+50026&f=10+50002+50026 These have the necessary stiff sole, with just enough flex at the toes to allow some walking. The Sidis are brilliant for cycling, but they do only one thing.
  • Secondly, I’ve decided to change my charging-and-lighting setup. Until now, I have had dual charging and lighting circuits on the Raven with my SON28 hub powering both a Trelock 40-lumens headlight and a Sinewave charger. The hub works one or the other quite well for my requirements, but if I am using the headlamp for most of a day’s riding, there isn’t enough extra power to charge anything more demanding than my small candy-bar cellphone. So, following a recommendation in a thread on crazyguy, I’ve decided to use a battery-powered headlight (I’ve always used battery-powered tail lights) during the day, and to use the Sinewave charger to (re)charge an Anker Astro E-1 cache battery. The Anker will then do the necessary after the day’s riding: recharging my headlight or camera, AA or AAA batteries as required for tail lights or my small Garmin e-Trex, or my small cellphone. The Anker has a healthy capacity (5200mAh), and I use my battery-powered devices intermittently, rather than continuously. I think that, between the Anker and occasional use of the mains, I should be OK.  I’ll test all this in a couple of short tours in Eastern Ontario before I leave for the West in late June.
More to come as shoes, pedals, and lighting—not to mention my legs and lungs--get more prolonged and demanding use. (And more photos, too, as we move into spring and early summer.)
« Last Edit: April 14, 2016, 02:28:11 am by John Saxby »

Danneaux

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #81 on: April 14, 2016, 03:13:13 am »
Wonderful reports and photos rolling in with the Spring weather! Enjoying them all!

Best,

Dan.

Andre Jute

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #82 on: April 16, 2016, 07:05:41 pm »
I enjoyed visiting with David Hockney (he was humbly grateful for such tips as I consented to give him!) and John's river surfers made me shiver...

Unfortunately I have nothing so inspiring (or aspirational -- there's winter bay surfing near here...) to report, only a hard winter with few opportunities for rides. The photos -- from a mid-Apil ride! -- tell the story.

First two photos of a favourite ride, beautiful there and back -- you can see how agreeable here
http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLEKilmacsimon1.html
and here
http://coolmainpress.com/BICYCLEKilmacsimon2.html
-- but now more than a bit depressing:



And here there used to be a rough connecting lane with a bridge, a clear stream and lots of greenery. As you can see, they knocked down the bridge wall, made the lane wider, and roadworks here and further upstream also dirtied the stream. Even the gorse, the yellow bush on the right of the photo, a very hardy thorn bush, looks depressed. I hate progress.


Here, in happier years gone by, I'm lying on the wide bridge wall (a true benefit to tired cyclists) admiring my new cycle computer/HRM.


Immediately that photo was taken, an old chappie came running by, breathing laboriously, his knuckles dragging the ground.

I said to him cheerfully, encouragingly, "Keep that up and you'll live to be ninety, sir!"

He snapped, "I'm ninety already, sonny."

Oh well, that's a beautiful blue sky, I have a new stronger motor and a new double-size battery so I'll be able to go further, higher, and stay out longer to find some more of the pretty places that hide around every turn of the lane here, and stay ahead of the real estate deveiopers and their attendant wreckers.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2016, 10:28:28 pm by Andre Jute »

John Saxby

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #83 on: April 16, 2016, 08:11:27 pm »
Looks almost like an early-spring day here, Andre.

Quote
I hate progress.
  In one of Colin Fletcher's books on walking, he had this to say (I'm paraphrasing from memory): "People tell me, in defence of so-called development, 'You can't stop progress.' To them I say, 'No, but you can redefine it.'"

Andre Jute

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #84 on: April 26, 2016, 03:32:41 am »
Not actually a bike ride, and not from 2016, but a painting from my busman's holiday in March when I remembered riding on a dogsled through the desolate aftermath of a forest fire thirty years ago, and finally got around to painting it.


Andre Jute: The Farewell Burn, Alaska, an Iditarod Trail painting, acrylic on card, 320x230mm, 2016

There's more about the place and the ride on my blog at http://coolmainpress.com/ajwriting/farewell-burn-alaska/ or by clicking on the pic.

Hoodatder

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #85 on: April 26, 2016, 08:23:42 pm »
I like that Andre, I like it a lot. Did you use PVA to achieve the ripple effect?

Could you also do me a favour please? Now that we have seen the close up, can you post a photo of it taken from a  further distance.

All I can see (imagine?) at the moment is seeing a calf or a fawn in the background and I can't get the image out of my mind. A bit like those images you see, where one stares at it and sees something in 3D in the background.

And no, I haven't been on the medication - yet.

Hoot

Andre Jute

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #86 on: April 27, 2016, 03:10:26 am »
I like that Andre, I like it a lot. Did you use PVA to achieve the ripple effect?

Thanks, Hoot. A fellow of such exquisite taste should come again. Often! I think I know what you mean by PVA. In the version I've been meaning to try, the effect is achieved with cling film, but I haven't tried that either, yet.

In fact, I don't use anything except paper, acrylic, and a colour shaper (despite the name a clayworker's tool) in lieu of a brush because I don't care for washing brushes (except watercolour brushes), plus in some instances of this sort of work, water. But in this case I didn't even use water because the acrylic, staight out of the tube, turned out to be the right consistency, and the silicone colour shaper isn't washed but just wiped clean.

I worked straight onto one of the sheets from the tube. Then, because I wanted two sheets mirrored-imaged for use as endpapers in a book I'm making, for the "burnt trees" instead of PVC/clingfilm, I used a second, similar piece of card pressed onto the thickish paint, plus variable pressure so that the paint was not so evenly distributed that it turned into a homogenous mush.

Could you also do me a favour please? Now that we have seen the close up, can you post a photo of it taken from a  further distance.



I show you two photos taken from about eight feet away with a bit of telephoto and in various lighting conditions, because you ask. But these are misleading views. This painting will be pasted inside the cover of a book, and will be seen only under good light from a distance of no more than thirty inches. Well, I say "good light", because it's true, but it isn't all the truth. In fact the cover will turn, and so the light will catch it in various ways, and by the movement of the cover the light will reveal more of the painting's hidden content. It isn't an accident that I chose glaring metallic paints on a black background... it's a way of hiding a little something, and revealing it only in certain angles of the light.

All I can see (imagine?) at the moment is seeing a calf or a fawn in the background and I can't get the image out of my mind. A bit like those images you see, where one stares at it and sees something in 3D in the background.

My wife wants me not to name these enigmatic paintings because she thinks I'm giving hints to people who may be seeing something entirely different in them. But I despise those painters who name their noodlings "Abstract XMCVII". I always have an idea, something I want to say, even if I no longer say it in a way representationally understood by everyone.

So, yes, if you see a young deer in the background, that's the right thing to see. Whatever you see in the differently lit, unusually viewed versions you asked for is also what you're supposed to see. These paintings of mine are collaborations between me and the viewer. Some other time I'll post a picture to my blog. and put the URL here for those who're interested. of a painting of Livingston meeting Stanley in which I deliberately hid all the main features in the African foliage.

And no, I haven't been on the medication - yet.

Heh-heh. In my beautiful youth I used to be a realist, and for ladies who could afford me, flattering, portrait painter. But you overcome the technical challenges and become bored. Now that everyone has a digital camera, a painter really needs to bring something more to the table. (In that video of Hockney we saw recently, I could almost see him weigh every element of the untidy country lane before him and choosing which to put in and which to leave out as he turned it into a room in his memory palace.) Art is a way of discovering and seeing the improbable, sometimes even the impossible, without the aid of chemicals.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2016, 07:56:42 am by Andre Jute »

Hoodatder

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #87 on: April 27, 2016, 07:38:57 am »
Thanks for the detailed reply Andre. When Cherry - her who shall not be named ::) returns, I will show her your work.

If I can find the time and technical ability in between the planning of my tour, I will send you some pix of her acrylic work to your PM address and not railroad this topic.

Very interesting though and she will appreciate the advice, I'm sure.

Hoot

JimK

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #88 on: May 06, 2016, 01:47:15 am »
My ride today: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/13540902

That was my first time going over that hill in that direction. I have been over it in the other directions a few times over the years. I think the direction I went today is actually a little easier, but I didn't know that ahead of time!

Up almost at the top I got passed by a very racy looking fellow, bike and rider both very lean. But the guy did call out "hello" to me! Mostly these racer types ignore me utterly. I guess I earned a little credibility being at the top of a 900 foot climb! Though it hardly went over 10%. I have some nastier climbs closer to home that I ride a lot... but very rare to see another rider up on these back roads!

Danneaux

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Re: Rides 2016 — add yours here
« Reply #89 on: May 06, 2016, 02:03:11 am »
You have cred, Jim!  :)

All the best,

Dan.