California 2

Since my last California update, not much has happened. Water levels are poor at present so we seem to be spending half of our time searching out white water which is in ..

California so far…

We arrived in San Francisco on a hot afternoon and I was glad to be off the plane and excited about my first time in North America. After sorting the hire car and bodging together ..

Hawaii-Sur-Rhone

I’ve just returned from a weeks boating on Hawaii-Sur-Rhone. It was a last minute decision (that’s what happens when two girls try and decide on somewhere to go boating) so I set ..

Off to California

After months of waiting I’m about to head off to California for 3 weeks to kayak in the Sierra Nevada mountains. A quick stop off to Alpkit on the way to LHR was required to pick ..

The training starts here

It was something like 18 years ago when I was first drawn into the giddy world of climbing. Early trips to the Peak District with Andy Simpson and Long Road Sixth Form College ..

SET 2 RISE 2009 : 12 hour enduro

With my race calendar looking decidedly thin on the ground and a few previous weeks of getting hammered at shorter distance events I decided it was time to get back to what I ..

Back to Melloblocco

We arrived Friday afternoon and hiked over to the car hire booth. I hadn’t even had the chance to stutter a word of Italian before our Panda was upgraded to a Volvo C30. That ..

Poorly!

Well I’ve been having an ongoing saga with my knees for quite some time! I had a fall at Stanage maybe three years ago where I broke a few things and since then I have been ..

Source to Sea - The River Tees

The weekend started by being dropped off up at Cow Green reservoir by some very understanding friends (at 11 o’clock on Friday night), we then dragged our boats part way to the ..

My Epic visit

The reason I am writing this is that Pete asked what we do on a trip like this, and couldn’t answer him immediately. That’s not because I didn’t know it’s just that it’s ..

Alpkit Review

5 years ago we registered a website. We were so pleased with ourselves that we decided to take a holiday in Sardinia. Our flight bags were stuffed with some sample Tshirts that ..

El Chorro

If you have never been or never even heard of El Chorro then this is definitely a venue worth checking out! It’s set in the south of Spain around 70km north of Malaga, a 4 hour ..

Catch 22

Just arrived in Dubai and given that it’s 1.00 in the morning it’s pretty busy, in fact very busy. I have a free internet connection - but why in the UK do we insist on charging ..

A fresh approach to training

This is possibly the only time of the year that the mountain bike season takes a break… the winter race series are done… the few early year races have happened and we are a month ..

Bank holiday surfing in France

After no days off work since the new year the double bank holiday weekend was a good chance to get away and relax for a weekend. After a little searching about the internet for ..

A weekend in the Fort

A flyer from work on Friday afternoon saw a group of us heading north to Fort William for a weekends boating and the Paddle Sports evening of this year’s Mountain Film Festival. ..

Skymasters 2009!

Friday at the outdoor show with Alpkit consisted of breaking the till, adding money up wrong, staring at the big moving/spinning volumes in anxiety and anticipation, spicy curry ..

A hectic weekend!

After picking Andi up in Nottingham we headed straight to the NEC to help on the Alpkit stall at this years Outdoors Show. The Friday is usually a quiet day but for some reason ..

GBR Freestyle Selections 2009

On the 14th March 2009 paddlers from across the country gathered at Hurley for the selections for the GBR freestyle canoe and kayak team 2009. The levels at Hurley were far better ..

Endurancelife Coastal Series Wins

It has been a while since Alpkit Adventure have been doing any blogging. This weekend saw the trio return to adventure racing action at the Endurance Life Coastal Series and ..

Climbing Works International Festival

CWIF is an international bouldering competition held at the Climbing Works, it attracts some of the top boulder’s from around the world like Jerome Myer and Tyler Landman.

The ..

Alpkit update

Well its been a busy few months, I’ve moved down to Nottingham and started a new job, I’ve finally got used to work and have got used to 15 mile round trip on my bike, for ..

Outdoor Showtime

Power tools charged and primed, dungarees cleaned and pressed, blueprints rolled out on the drawing board.. with just a few days until this years Outdoors Show it goes a little ..

Plastic Fantastic

Plastic Fantastic was held at the Nottingham Climbing Centre on Sunday 1st Feb, it was a mixed discipline competition and also a first for the climbing wall. It incorporated a ..

Flurries and slurries

We have had our fair share of weather over the past week. I guess it started a week ago when we flew out for the ISPO trade fair in Munich. The snow had hit the south on the day ..

Alps Massif trip!

Well this was to be one of the most action packed weekend I’ve had without falling off or injuring myself. Despite having a 20 hour drive at the start, with my friends fast asleep ..

Alpine Adventure

The adventure in the Alps with Alpkit was an amazing experience. I got the chance to try many new things in a relatively small period of time. Thus making the trip to the Ice ..

Team Training at the Westway

The weekend the 17th/ 18th January was the first British Climbing Team Training of the year. This is when everybody gets to meet this year’s team members for the first time and ..

Providing for the Team

There comes a time in a mans life when he has to prove to himself he is a man. This happened to me at the ICE festival. For the past few years we have been the only people to ..

Social Ice Climbing

When I casually mentioned to friends and family that Alpkit were taking me to the Ice Festival in January and that it would involve a bivvy at around -15 degrees the responses all ..

ICE Fest - 2009

This trip was a true team bonding experience, while also giving my Supersofts a chance to come out of retirement for another shot at the big league. 5 of us hit the road early, in ..

Sheffield Walls Bouldering League

A couple of Mondays ago was the first round of the Sheffield Walls Bouldering League, so some of the Nottingham Junior Team and I (and a few parents) took a trip up to The Foundry ..

6 days and nights with Alex

So we popped out to Fontainebleau for a few days which proved to be a mistake…
It rains a lot there! All in all we had a day and a half of climbing, although I managed to get up ..

Tyne Tour

The Tyne Tour is an event I have been attending for years. It’s an event that gets better and better every time and never disappoints. This year was no exception.

After a few ..

The OMM

I guess you heard about the OMM. We started early, before the rain… so perhaps went for fast and light, rather than taking a bit more kit. It was very windy on the tops and we ..

Fingers against Pessimism

Last sunday was a fingers up against pessimism day. I was desperate to go climbing this weekend. The weather report on Friday made Saturday look like a wash out, and a windy one ..

The Isle of Man End 2 End Challenge 2008

For the last six months I have been riding to work (nearly) every day as training for the End 2 End.  I’d like to think that it was my dedication at getting fit and in ..

British Team Training September 2008

Ahhhhh. How my stomach musles still ache- but, I shall be super strong with incredible core strength!
This weekend I attended the British Team Training weekend in Sheffield.
It ..

The Mighty Nene

A sunny September weekend saw paddlers from all corners of the UK heading to Northampton for the ever popular Nene Freestyle event. The course and gazebos were set up, the sun was ..

Monday Mission

At the Festival of Freestyle I was receiving phone calls the whole weekend from friends out on rivers throughout the country so I thought Id take the opportunity to catch the last ..

Festival of Freestyle

After a summer travelling around Europe paddling on beautiful blue water with mostly nice sunshine getting back to the UK was a bit of a shock. We arrived back to miserable rain ..

Hanging out in Yosemite

The weather is pretty tasty in Yosemite National Park right now, there is no way I am going to start complaining about clear blue skies and temperatures in the 30s after the ..

Val di Mello - Italy

So the Monday after the BBC’s we were all packed up and off on the 21-hour journey to the well dreamt of Val di Mello. My Dad and Karl drove through the night with a couple of ..

British Bouldering Championships 2008

The BBC’s feel like a distant memory now. A busy five weeks later and I’m going to try to remember it all.
The qualification round started and ended quickly. I felt strong and was ..

A summer in the Alps

This was started with the Tout a Bloc climbing fest, a fest that was amazing not just for the competitor but for the spectator as well, with so many hunks and honeys and ..

1st Old Salty Dog Weekend

It’s been a busy week for Alpkit over the last week or so. Ken and I went down to Devon for the 2nd Hard Rock Fest and Pete Dollman joined the company last Monday to help us out ..

Hard Rock Festival

The Hard Rock Fest, now in it’s 2nd year is small, friendly and probably the best conceived climbing festival in the UK. It is the festival we want, it’s based somewhere we might ..

Dog sitting

Amber joined us at the start of the week. In this short time she has proved herself to be an able member in the Alpkit team, quickly learning to never bite postie, to laugh at ..

Driving to the Mountains

Moggy at the cattery, CHECK. Fridge defrosted, CHECK. Passport in top pocket, CHECK. Car full of ‘essential’ gear, CHECK. August is holiday time for most of us and with two short ..

Saab Salomon Final Report

Saab Salomon Mountain X Race

Back home and sitting at our desks, it’s hard to recount the events of the past week. A week of extreme physical and emotional highs and lows, ..

Thur wave

After leaving Bremgarten early due to high water levels we eventually found the internet in Liechtenstein and realised that rivers everywhere across Switzerland and Austria were ..

Bremgarten

After weeks of river running I was itching to get back in my playboat again, especially with the World Cup fast approaching. Our travels took us northwards in Switzerland to the ..

The European OutDoor Show in Friedrichshafen Germany

What do people do at the OutDoor trade show!

The OutDoor trade show is where all the worldwide brands go in Europe to show off their products for next season. It is an ..

Playboating on the Silz

Since arriving in Austria we have seen water levels fluctuating quite a lot. The weather hasn’t been so good and we have had several rain storms bringing the rivers up. As the ..

Hamming around in Austria

Finally training has begun for the World Cup which is now fast approaching; we have been based in Austria near Hamming on the Inn. Have paddled a few runs and there is still good ..

Training for the World Cup

I’ve been out in the Alps now for 5 weeks and the time is flying past so quickly. We are currently at Bremgarten near Zurich getting some training in for the World Cup, which is ..

Scrap the Car! well maybe not quite…

Here at Alpkit GHQ the cars days are numbered as more and more often you’ll find the car park empty and sweaty cycle tops airing outside. 

When it comes to to-ing and fro-ing ..

The Welsh 3000ers - time to see how we worked as a team

There are 15 mountains in Wales over 3000 feet. Unfortunately they all lie just within walking distance of one another. The Welsh 3000s challenge takes in Crib Goch, Snowdon, the ..

Zermatt and the Matterhorn

Zermatt, what an incredible place. At first however, I wasn’t convinced. We arrived late one evening and were told that we couldn’t drive to Zermatt itself as no cars are ..

France Roundup

I have been kayaking in the French Alps several times before but even still this year the water levels were a shock to the system. We arrived at the beginning of June on the day ..

A day out with Jack

Not perhaps the most daring of deeds, indeed probably one of the most un-daring, chilled of this summer’s deeds….

On 2 July I escaped from Alpkit HQ for a grand day out in ..

Back to bike school

A month ago Jim asked me if a wanted to go on a Jumps and Drops mnt bike course at Llandegla, my initial thoughts were that I didn’t really need to go on a course. I have been ..

The sun is shining, the rivers are high, and we’re getting spanked!!

The day started well. We’re up in the alps helping Jason (editor of Canoe Kayak Magazine) photograph the Guisane. The upper was much longer than we all remember. Heavy rains just ..

Fitness Test at South Cerney

Time to test the fitness – my first Olympic Distance race of the season (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run) was the South Cerney Classic organised by votwo events, which took ..

Mountain Mayhem

In usual fashion the 69er crew rocked up to the Mountain Mayhem site near Ledbury, in glorious weather – after getting our base set up (we chucked our bags into the race pit ..

Kalymnos - a climbers paradise

I took advantage of a week off school by jetting off to sunny and extremely hot (around 30 degrees feels extremely hot when you live in England) Kalymnos with my parents and Scott ..

Time to test the fitness

My first olympic distance triathlon of the year took place on the 1st of June at Rothervalley. The race consisted of a 1500m lake swim, 40km undulating bike and a flat 10km ..

Student Boater X 2008

Saturday saw the third, now annual student boater cross on the l’argentiere slalom course on the Durance River in the south of France. The event is raced over a tricky section of ..

Stop. Hammer Time

Friday (13th) saw the first ever Slope Jam on the Fournel River, France.  The section paddled consists of four artificial weirs ranging in height from 1m to 3m and due to recent ..

Winning at Blenheim Palace

Great to be doing my first blog post for Alpkit. I recently won the Mazda Blenheim Triathlon - the second biggest triathlon in the UK, after the London Triathlon. With 5500 ..

The Alpkit family grows

Nothing gets you ready for the day ahead better than a good nappy change, it ranks alongside a strong coffee to get going in the morning… well maybe not quite, but Liz and I have ..

Closer to home

We have to admit we are a little outside of ‘the scene’. Despite early ambitious attempts Ilkeston has failed to become the extreme capital of the UK. The dry ski slope has fallen ..

Mountain X Team

With a cool beer in hand, I settled down on the sofa in order to look through a few emails before starting on the never ending DIY chores. My wife and I moved into our house in ..

The Perfect Combination

The British weather has been typically grim recently; this is beautifully demonstrated by the heavy shower outside my window right now.
However, today was beautiful, so some ..

Summer Scotland Uni Trip

With university finally finished for the year, a group of us headed up to Scotland for our annual summer kayaking trip. The group consisted of 5 experienced paddlers and 9 ..

Wasburn PFAKS

The 2008 freestyle kayaking season kicked off with a short journey from Teesside to the mighty Washburn River. The Washburn is a fast flowing, shallow river which is fed from the ..

Pyranha Rev

With Jim offering us a go in Pyranha’s new playboat, the Rev, Nic and I eagerly headed to Alpkit’s Nottingham headquarters to pick them up. With no rain about to try them on ..

BUSA No Polo 2008

The weekend of 11/12/13 April saw the annual BUSA Canoe Polo Competition at Hatfield Water Park, Doncaster. It is an event that sees teams of five chasing a ball around a swimming ..

Ignoring the bank holiday forecast

If the forecast was to be believed we would have been better staying at home doing DIY, however it had been a busy week and we just needed some outdoors time, we decided to risk ..

Slacking off

Spring has finally come to Alpkit HQ, regenerating Alpkit staff morale and stimulating early season training on the makeshift AlpLine. We are kind of learning with every fall but ..

A Gentleman’s Adventure

The plan was to circumnavigate anglesey, like all best laid plans, the weather had something to say about this!

On the drive across from Nottingham the weather had steadily ..

Rev’in it up in the wind.

I picked up a Pyranha Rev last week to test before we order them for the Alpkit team. I’ve paddle it a couple of times just down the road at the National Watersports Centre with ..

Climbing Works International Festival

An under strength Alpkit team arrived at the doors of the Climbing Works. Beth had deserted us for a team that actually stood a chance of winning, Ashleigh was poorly and couldn’t ..

Ice Ice Baby?

Now, I realise that striclty speaking this does not constitute as part of my climbing experiences, however, I shall continue. Earlier today I had my first snowboarding lesson. I ..

Skymasters and more

Well, I arrived at the Outdoor Show 2008 a bit later than the rest of the Alpkit group because I had to go to college on the Friday morning. When I got there Beth met me at the ..

Outdoors Show 2008

After a long drive from Teesside we finally arrived at the NEC on Friday. We had come along to help on the Alpkit stand and with the ‘have a go’ canoe sessions. Friday was pretty ..

Outdoor Show 2008

The 14-16th March saw the Outdoor show take place at the Birmingham NEC. We went down for the weekend mainly to help out at the Alpkit stand and also we took our boats to help out ..

SkyMasters Challenge

Hundreds of eyes stared at the looming, suspended structure. How could this be a indoor climbing wall?! The unusual obstacles ahead set the adrenaline flowing. Suspended above the ..

Training begins (with Gourdon’s help)

When I first began at Alpkit, I mentioned to Nick that I was planning on doing this year’s End 2 End on the Isle of Man, which is where I hail from.  This 75km mountain bike ..

NSRRRRRRRR 2008

This weekend saw the National Student Rodeo 2008 at Nottingham. The biggest freestyle event in the world, with student paddlers from all over the country.

The weekend started ..

Show build up

It has been a busy week at Alpkit HQ. I flew in on Monday evening fresh from a couple of days climbing in Val di Mello with perfect 22˚C temperatures and clear skies. My first ..

Summer in February!?

Blue skies and sunshine; it seemed too perfect. The first time out for ages and we were off to Beeston. Upon late arrival we quickly mounted the cool rock and belayed from the ..

Biking at Dalby

1st of March saw a sunny dry afternoon with no water and a bad ear, so we went biking! Dalby Forest in North Yorkshire was a great destination loads of single track and some ..

Learning to ski

When I first moved to Italy I immediately decided that I would learn to snowboard. So I bought myself the kit and got out on the slopes. One weekend after the other I visited ..

Gear Testing with the Smiff

Sometimes opportunities present themselves and you have to grab with both hands. Nick and I had arranged a meeting in N. Wales on Friday morning. Up early we were on the road ..

A great day out on the Vallee Blanche

4.30 AM is not unusual for an Alpine Start however hanging around in a cemetery car park felt a bit strange.

I had arrived first and there was not a living soul in sight.. I ..

Sneaking a quick one

Jim and I had a meeting in Llanberis (nudge, nudge, wink, wink…more of this soon). On the way back we managed to get a little product testing in, well to be honest it was a bit of ..

The Alpkit Bouldering League 07/08

Well the Alpkit Bouldering League has come to an end for another year and we’ve been more than happy to give some support again. Thanks to Derek and the team for putting on the ..

Single Track Awards

Saturday 2nd February saw us travel down to Corby, the epicentre for UK single track, to attend the annual Singletrack Magazine awards. We were unexpectedly up for Best Software ..

Weekend of activity

So the weather has been pretty good the past couple of weeks out here in Lecco. My time here is coming to an end so I have been pretty keen to make the most of these final days. ..