Early in the year, I signed up again for the 2nd Dirty Reiver event, a 200km gravel race ( I rode the first one, which you can read about in my book). This is not really my normal type of ride, but I enjoyed it last time (funny how memory gets skewed over time) so thought I'd give it another go.

The date of the event was almost upon me as I realised I probably hadn't been doing enough riding. I also had a bit of a bug and wasn't exactly feeling brilliant. Still, this was no time to be mouping around, I checked my 29 hardtail bike over, oiled it up and drove myself over the hills down to the remote village of Kielder where I'd booked myself a spot in the camp-site for a couple of nights.

Some balls escape from others in a great story involving a Rube Goldberg machine.

Played on children's instruments. Filmed in Uckange in France

And here's the start of their interesting documentary: The art of protest:
"Arguably the most provocative band of the last 20 years, Rage Against The Machine have since their explosive debut, been the group most associated with the American protest movement. "

Doing this in a couple of weeks!

Dirty Reiver trailer from Orange Trike Media on Vimeo.

Ask your doctor if Impeachara® might help with your symptoms of T.I.A.D.

Impeachara ® from Sam Friedlander on Vimeo.

Some friends set out on a trip to explore the glaciers of Alaska. Instead of adventure, they found a man named Rick Brown, and a story of how climate change is drastically altering our landscape before our eyes. The glaciers that Rick calls home are now disappearing at an alarming rate — it only takes one month for them to recede the same distance that used to take hundreds of years.

GLACIER EXIT from Raphael Rogers on Vimeo.

Here's a interesting website giving a 3D view of the main route up Mount Everest

Click here

A dream-like bike ride.

DreamRide 2 from Diamondback Bicycles on Vimeo.

Why do so many people use the internet to harass and threaten people, and stretch the freedom of speech to its limits? Director Kyrre Lien meets a global group of strongly opinionated individuals, who spend their time debating online on the subjects they care most strongly about. Online platforms are their favourite tools to express the opinions that others might find objectionable in language that often offends. Do they behave in the same way when they come offline?

Almost stepped on this guy on a weekend trip up north.

Went for a great overnight adventure in the Lammermuir hills at the weekend with Jay and Markus (from bikepackingscotland.com). We were planning on heading further afield, but a broken down van scuppered that idea. Instead we headed south, riding from my front door.

Click below to read more

A video by the Russian band: Leningrad. "Kolshik" is an great bit of film.
It tells the story (in reverse!) of the destruction of a circus.

Another great video from this guy:

After drinking a couple of my more potent than intended home-brewed American IPAs one evening, I found myself signed up for yet another bike race, the 'Kielder chiller'. This one looked to be tougher than most. For starters it was 24 hours long, consisting of a roughly 10km loop with the winner completing the most laps. It was also in February, the depths of winter, at a time when the long northern darkness lasts for 14 hours and the weather is potentially at it's worst. Held on the high and remote hills of Northumberland in the very north of England, with the start/finish at Kielder castle, it promised to be one of the harder challenges of the year.