Last night it was the kind of weather that I had hoped for on 5/10/10 so I went out on the FrankenKona (2000 Pahoehoe, Project 2s, skinny tyres on Mavic X221 rims and LX and Specialised hubs, Deore shifters, Easton EA50 bars and stem, Suntour chainset, XTR rear der, LX front) to implement my binned plan:
I love that picture. Off up Wideford Hill, taking in the beach at Scapa on the way. Lovely night, and I marvelled as ever at the lightness of the FrankenKona, it's far lighter than my Ribble road bike, even with the boat anchor Suntour chainset.
Got to the top of the hill about 8.45pm, and complied a vast 13 frame panorama as is my wont, sweeping through from north to south west in a clockwise manner:
http://www.theheddles.co.uk/misc/180panorama.jpg
A separate link as even at quarter scale its 8000 pixels wide.
I hadn't taken a picture of the bike yet, so put my back to the sun and photographed it next to one of these things with arrows showing the distance to Bergen, Toronto, London and Castletown (just added that for you Jamie- glad to see the restaurant arsonist has been called to justice), with a disused nuclear bunker behind it:
Facing the other way, you can see what a nice night it was. That's Hoy in the far distance, looking WSW:
That was at about 5 past nine. Since I was up there I hung on till near sunset, taking this picture at 9.15pm:
In your face Ibiza. However coming down it was freezing! And why do road bikes persist with useless calipers- V-brakes are far better, though the descent definitely involved some frame flexure when braking.
A nice night on the bike, with it still pretty light till 10pm. Yessss!!!
