Photos From My Walk When Away In Hay On Wye

Last week I spent my the week away staying in Hay On Wye for the annual literary festival which is held there. Aptly named the hay Festival. I would absolutely recommend this anyone who enjoys; reading, science, history and learning as well a whole range of topics. Simply put, there is probably something for everyone there.

While away, We went on a walk. Here are a couple of pictures I took during a walk while there.

Bespoked bike show

What is Bespoked bike show?

Bespoke, in a nut shell, is a cycling event in Bristol where companies who painstakingly spend the time to hand make their bikes. Show them off .

They also have talks on various different things such as ‘cycling and sustainability’ and numerous more.

This year bespoked took place between the second and fifth of may. I travelled on the last day, to see what it was all about.

First impressions

I only attended the Sunday and I’ll admit that I definitely didn’t utilise Bespoked for it’s full potential. If you are looking at buying a bespoke handmade bike just for you but don’t know which frame builder to go to, Bespoked has it all. There are too many frame builders there for me to count and it would be worth looking at there website here. http://www.bespoked.cc/index.html

Unfortunately, I don’t have the money needed to splash out on a handmade bike made to my specification.

I attended a talk at 1’O clock which was a Q&A with 5 frame builders. Which I have to say I had a couple of issues with. The room we were in wasn’t the largest but sitting at the back, it was near on impossible to hear them. I wouldn’t expect frame builders to be good public speakers and to be able to carry there voice. However, a simple microphone for them would have helped. As well as this, it felt at times the frame builders were speaking to each other rather than the speaking to the audience which further exasperated the issue.

Conclusion

Bespoked is a fantastic event for anyone who loves bikes or handmade bikes. I would fully reccomend it. It’s best enjoyed if you are a potential customer and there were some talks on the Saturday, which I wasn’t able to attend due to football commitments. Stupidly, I didn’t think to bring my camera and only snapped a couple on my phone. To finish off I leave with you two bamboo bikes shown off there.

Part 1 of my bike restoration project – Pulling it apart

First off, what I’m doing is simply stripping the bike down until I’m left with just the frame.

Pictured above, is me early on in the process. Also yes, you don’t need to say. The room is extremely cluttered and messy. And no it’s not ideal nor does it make for the best photos! But it has to do.

So, as you can see (i hope) I have removed the saddle and the seat post as well. The wheels are simply done and for anyone who has ever had a bike and have had to change their inner tubes, which should be anyone who cycles will know how to do.

Removing the seat post, fortunately for me wasn’t the headache I thought it might be. As the seat post and the frame in old bikes can fuse togother making it a pain in the backside to remove. For me though, mine was amazingly easy to remove.

Next I’ll be removing the break callipers. These again is easily done. I used an adjustable wrench.

All you need to do is remove the nuts which hold it to the bike. You will also need to cut the ends off the cables as well. Dont do what I did and use cheap cutters which couldn’t do the job properly. I was left wrestling with wire for 30 minutes until I had finally gave up and headed to my local B&Q.

Thank you for reading, to be continued.

Vintage Bike restoration

The project

Usually my blog follows a day out I have done with my camera and I talk about the day and share some of my favourite photos. For a short while it’s going to be focused on bikes. More specifically, bike restoration.

My new bike, which i purchased for a humble £95 on ebay. This will be my first attempt at restoring a bike, so it will be a learning curve for me. Hopefully of it though I’ll have a greater understanding of our a bike operates and how to complete repairs myself.

The bike I’ve chosen is a viking road bike from the 70/80s. Nothing spectacular and in fact they aren’t worth much. So I’ll be keeping the budget as tight, as I’m not looking to sell it, I’m not too worried if I over spend. I know for certain I’ll have to buy some equipment to help me pull it a part and patch it up but i won’t include them in the costs required.

So if you’d like to see my progress of cleaning and fixing up the bike over the next coming days and weeks. Follow my blog to keep updated on my progress.

Llantwit Major Walk – Macro

This is the follow up to yesterdays post where, I displayed the landscape photos I took. Today’s post, shows macro shots, of things or just my zoomy in pictures of things up close

This is just my second day out with my 70-300 lens, so it’s a working practice and as I haven’t been using a tripod, it really makes it harder when zooming in to take a decent picture.

What these plants are, I don’t know but they were everywhere, so naturarlly I took pictures of them.

Here’s another one of these seedy/flower bud things.


These colourful berry esc pods were also seen along this walk.

This is just a green leafy thing.
To finish off the seeds again, but this time they have purple ends. Amazing.

Llantwit Major Walk – Landscapes

A walk, trudging through the mud, definitely broke my new walking boots in. If I wanted to return them, I can’t now.
This set of pictures will set up tomorrow’s. As the title suggests, this post will feature my landscape photos from this walk and tomorrow’s will features my macro selection.

The first picture is taken at Nash Point. Now, we cheated getting here. We started at Llantwit beach and walked as far as Atlantic College, where we bravely turned around and walked back and drove to Nash Point. We could have most definitely walked it: however, hearing how much worse the mud got we trudged back to the car and drove it.

My black and white of the mist. The original was so devoid of colour anyway, black and white seemed the obvious choice.

This clearly shows just how misty it was. Fortunately, the rain wasn’t too bad: just a dissapointing drizzle, which switched off and on as it pleased. Still, I was hesitant to leave my camera out for too long as it isn’t waterproof, and kept it tucked under my rain coat. My father’s camera came into its element, as he chose his partially due to its waterproofness.

Back at Nash Point, we attempted (and failed spectacularly) to get some shots of the sunset. Poor positioning and planning meant we weren’t in ideal locations to take advantage of the red sky.

To finish off, here is probably my best picture of the sunset which captures the sky at its most extreme.


Check in tomorrow to see my macro photos from this trip.

Post Boxing Day Walk

After this Christmas, my father, brother and I went for a walk up to Brecon, starting in the visitor center and walking left from there. Unfortunately my geography fails me, and that is all I can say. Our plan was to walk and take photos. Each of us went out with our entry level cameras, mine being the Nikon d3400.

Walking into the distance, my brother and father walk ahead, as I stop constantly to take photos, with most being dissapointingly rubbish. By the end of our couple hour walk, I had taken over 200 photos.

For Christmas, I recieved a new lens, which doubled my lens collection from one, to two. My first and only lens being the one that came with my camera, the 18-55mm lens. The new lens deffinitely allows me to take a good portrait photos without jamming the camera into people’s faces.

With the fantastic new zoom that the 70-300 lens brings, it also brings the ability to shoot macro photos. The lighting today wasn’t great, overcast and clouded, so a lot of my photos were noisy, especially as I didn’t use a tripod.

The 70- 300 lens, definitley has its advantages. Here is probably the best photo I took on my walk. This guy is trying to see what gear we have, with the rise in crime in brecon, it’s important not to let them see how expensive your camera is.

Spot the difference. Here is another portrait I took of my father.

Consulting the map, my brother and father debate whether we have enougth time until the sun goes down or wheter we should turn back. We chose the latter.

A new technique, pioneered by my brother, whether it will take off is yet to be seen. I can tell you however, it did not work on this occasion as you can tell by the look on his face.

Our return journey, our walk lasted a couple of hours although we didn’t get far due to repeated stops to take photos. We decided not to wait for sunset, which proved a mistake as it was a fantastic sunset. Fortunately the sun sets every night, so plenty more opportunities to come.