A tribute to the big man

Slight change of tack here...

I will never have the pleasure of cycling with a fine friend I met this spring at my local tennis club. As a similarly young engineer with a love of bikes, he and I thought we'd try our luck as a doubles pair over the summer. His passing is a great loss to all who were lucky enough to know him, and the following is our team's tribute:

In spring 2013 Stan joined Moseley Tennis Club where his warm, sociable character and excellent standard saw him quickly gain friends, regular playing partners and a place with us in the Moseley 5^th team. He was a core team member in what’s been our strongest team to date, ending the summer season with promotion to the highest position we’ve ever reached. Stan himself achieved the best match stats of any player in the league:

As a player he was prolific and reliable, and would start each match with a hearty “Good Game!” followed by a booming serve we came to know as one of his ‘bombs’. He played a clever game, always composed and managing to tuck his shots into impossible gaps with a fine touch you just don’t expect from someone with his power.

Stan’s quest for the perfect racket setup never failed to amuse us, with an ever-growing collection of rackets (12 at the last count, we think) and his experimental approach to restrings seeing him try a new tension practically each week  - a luxury the rest of us might only indulge a few times a year! We’re sure this experimentalism in pursuit of improvement led him to become the brilliant player he was.

More than just being a successful player though, he was great to have around.  You couldn’t miss him coming with his bright yellow cap, big headphones and England shirt. He always met us with a smile, was sociable, easygoing and warm hearted - happy to play with anyone and happier still for a catch up afterwards.

Stan the Man, it won't be half as good without you.

How to not get hit by a falling tree

Sometimes I get myself into sticky situations. Most recently this happened during what was to be a delightful weekend cycle-camping in some of the UK's oldest woodland - the 'New Forest', named by somebody who lacked foresight. That weekend, I learned some new things:

• The New Forest is not new
• Trees sound like deer
• Clothes from Asda feel disgusting

Here's how I learned these things...
Planned to perfection, J, D and myself arrived early one November Saturday in the metropolis that is Basingstoke and set off west into the fresh autumnal wind for warmer climes. Anyone who has ridden a bike in the cold knows that the only way to get warmer is to ride faster, but doing so makes it windier, which makes your fingers, nose, ears and toes colder, at which point you reconsider and decide you'd rather slow down and enjoy the scenery. Fortunately, the scenery was delightful:

Eventually, with daylight all but buggered-orf we reached the New Forest, where I realise I have lied - coffee and cake is another perfectly acceptable way of warming up a winter ride. With lights that could dazzle Flash Gordon himself we ambled further through the forest in search of a hearty meal and couldn't help but be drawn to the curiously named 'Nomansland', where we were not disappointed...

Three gargantuan meals later we hit the road in search of a camping spot, and a few ill-thought turnings was all it took to find ourselves rattling down a sludgy dirt track (respect to D on a road bike) towards National Rail's excuse of choice - a fallen tree lying smack-bang across our path.  It seemed like a good idea at the time; well fed, cooling down, tired and unable to pass, we weren't going anywhere else -why not camp here?

Here's why not:
A lot of people know that the New Forest has many deer, and that in the Autumn the deer rut - crashing their antlers against each others in competition for the ladies. What not a lot of people know is that a tree trying to fall down sounds remarkably similar to rutting deer in the run up to a tree actually falling down. We learned this subtle distinction in the middle of the night when the deer rutting around our tent turned out to be an ancient tree falling down not too far away.

If your alarm clock ever stops doing the job - try going back to sleep in a wood on a windy night after hearing a tree fall down. Had it fallen on us, how would we have fared? It's hard to say - it was sold to me as a strong tent but I have my doubts.


So how not to get hit by a falling tree? Pitch your tent a little to one side.

It's been a long time a-coming...

Over 2 years have passed since we traveled to Norway and started this blog, writing enthusiastically as we pedaled south from the Arctic Circle.

Since then I've been ignoring a treasure chest of videos we took as we traveled, all along having the best intentions of creating a brief video documentary of the sights, sounds and souls we encountered and loved.

A couple of weeks ago, 2 years on, I stumbled across one of these videos and in a moment of excited optimism decide that this is it - the month of the video! It also dawned on me quite how easy it has been to postpone this creative stage for fear not doing justice to the trip (and our videos).

So in the spirit of the trip - now or never - I proudly present: Norway!

Norwegian solstice from Jeremy Woolley on Vimeo.