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.
Continue reading..

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 ..

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 ..

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 ..

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. ..

Back East

Well here I am again, sitting in the hotel checking mails and preparing for tomorrow’s visit to another Chinese factory. I’m out here to work on some subtle changes to existing ..

A new year just around the corner

Been struck down with a cold the past couple of days. Rotten luck since the weather is spectacular. Col reckons something is going around but he stopped short at the details. It ..

Yorkshire Fun

I am extremely lucky to have made some very good friends through my years at University in Leeds. My family and I have just spend a few days with them. enjoying the hills and ..

A day salvaged

Today the fine weather returned to the mountains of Lecco and like a complete idiot I lay in bed oblivious to it all. You know how it is.. you wake at about 6.30 and decide to ..

A short trip on my bike

Not having any boxes to deal with my day was pleasingly free of commitments. As much as I enjoy snow boarding I wouldn’t do it everyday. Often it is more rewarding to do something ..

A Christmas Ski

So the shops had finally shut and Christmas could get under way. I spent the Eve in the company of friends, durable friends like Joel who are happy to stand for hours over a hot ..

La Wrekin

Well following on from Kenny’s exploits on the high Via Ferrata, the Wrekin was in my sights for a Christmas Day run. I’d said I would be doing it over a week ago and all at ..

Extreme Filo Testing

Just over 3 years ago I gave up employment as I knew it to work full-time on Alpkit and at the same time became a father to the first Alpkid, Aimee. The 2 have grown very much ..

La Fiaccolata

T’was the last Sunday before Christmas. The moon was full and inviting, some nocturnal activity was on the cards and there I was ready to get after it. The funicular car park was ..

Customer service hero wanted

Alpkit needs your help – Customer service Hero required
We need someone special to help us keep our customers happy. You will have to answer a lot of emails, print out all the ..

Four Borders Expedition

Back in November 2006 student kayakers from all around the UK gathered in a small wet hut in the heart of the Welsh countryside. The aim of the gathering was to select the finest ..

A toast to Col and Liz

This weekend Alpkit Col (some of you may know him as ‘The Chunk’) is getting married to Liz. We couldn’t let him go without being sure he was of sound mind so a couple of weeks ..

37 degrees and 53 problems

“53 problems?! You have got to be kidding me! I don’t usually move at 37 degrees let alone climb!”

So, there we were in sunny Ailfroide for Tout a Blocs and contemplating how we ..

A Journey By Bike

Richard and Sarah are currently undertaking a 10,000km cycle journey through the Andes to Ushuia at the southern tip of Argentina. The journey will take in some of the most ..

Mello Blocco Air and Energy

Hmm, my first impressions on seeing the valley. Well, since I had never been to a large mountain range before, the excitement of seeing such an overwhelming beautiful natural ..

A Monks Life

To support our small article on the British Youth Climbing Team we invited Alan and Beth Monks to tell us what life in the team is like for a father and daughter ..

Travelling Monks - Kalymnos

This must be paradise. We had even travelled through purgatory with a cramped flight next to the toilet queue and a cold night on the beach chairs in Masticharri, Kos. But we were ..

Beth in Beijing

If you hear a group of climbers discussing Great Wall, you assume they will be talking about that classic rock climb on Cloggy scene of many an epic story. However, here we were ..

Travelling Monks - Arco

The rock climbing in Arco is similar in that you can; boulder, attempt short sport routes of every angle and style, “Trad” climb on long routes or do multi-pitch sport climbs. ..

Competition climbing in the UK

With Beth placing highly in international competition we take a peek behind the scenes of the British Junior Climbing Team to see what’s going down. To help us we have called up ..

Alpine Dreaming in Imst with the British Team

Why didn’t I hold it? I felt my fingers over the top hold, then the sensation of air rushing past at speed, as I spun downwards.
This put me in ninth after the first qualifier ..

Stanage in Spring

And then..
we went in the car to stanage
i knew what i was to do and then
we walked up to the crag with the smell of sheep in our noses then
my dad climbed left ..