Stunning weather: still on the ground....

Back in Norfolk and the weather is stunning.  Julian went to pick up the plane from the trimmers this morning, whilst I built up the bicycle trailer, put the hitch on Julian's bike.  Added these neat magnetic lights to my bike (a magnet cycles past the light which is attached to the frame), and by a process of induction (?) current is produced causing leds in the light to blink, i.e. completely battery free, so a great backup.  I also attached the pump to my frame, changed my cleats to my travel shoes (no mean feat when the cleats and their bolts are no longer new) and did quite a bit of test riding.  The trailer is really quite fun, it makes the bike ride more solidly, the challenge is remembering that you are now a 3 wheeler and not bumping the kerb....  In the afternooon we went to look at the plane at the farm strip where the last works will be carried out.  It looks really fantastic.  The purple leather seats look exactly as I wanted them to: the trimmers did a really fabulous job of the interior, we are so pleased.  The paint looks pretty smart too.  So we're pretty close to completion now – just a little bit of bolting together to go :-)

Scarves

Well I've finally finished those scarves.  I found a web tutorial in how to create a hand rolled hem, which in truth is a lovely thing, but it took me 3h to do the hem on the pink & black spotted scarf (total length at fabric width of 1.4m & piece of 25cm wide = 3.3m of hem).  The other silk is a lot heavier and I just sewed a roll together and turned it inside out which was much much simpler.  But I prefer the spotty one.

The above is an image from a couple of weeks in the future.  I will put up some photos of the scarves on their own soon.

Functional travel wardrobe

Well this is my travel wardrobe (minus white long sleeve top, merino t, jumper, thermal under trousers & black mini-dress for occasions).  The big question is accessories.....

I was thinking of bringing my sneakers as well, but it looks like they won't go with any outfit.  The travel cycling shoes may get a bit draughty, although on the plus side it looks like I won't need any socks....

So I am relying on the lovely Leeyong of Style Wilderness, internet stylist extraordinaire, to help me out with making this capsule wardrobe more stylish.

Having looked at the contents of my new 'wash room' from Deuter, I think my clothing will weigh less if not take up less space than my toiletries, hmmm could this be a mis-prioritisation?  I'm sure we will pick up more clothes on the way as we get fitter & lose weight.

More functional clothing

Out of America, as per usual, designed to take the daily ride to work.

I love these pants, made by Outlier out of an awesome Swiss fabric (Schoeller) that is water & dirt resistant & breathable.  When I'm as thin as the model I will get a pair.  Note special seams so they don't rub.

Skiing Zermatt make that sitting on a terrace looking at the Matterhorn

It's a pretty stunnning place & a week's skiing is our reward to ourselves for having worked so hard on the build.  Oh well.  Cycling doesn't require knee stability anyway.  Below is a picture of what I can see from my terrace.  So it's not all bad..

And here's a pix of where we're staying from the path above.

And now one of Julian having fun in the snow.

Cycling clothing as functional touring clothing

After our 2 weeks trial trip to France last year the last thing we want is heaps of heavy and bulky cotton clothing that can only be cleaned using a washing machine & dryer.  So I have been investigating the world of fixed gear clothing.  They may not be techies about their machines, but they do have some nice 'normal' looking functional clothing.  My quest in a way started with a Patagonia level 3 merino base layer that is supremely comfortable, doesn't get smelly and (I believe) looks good too.  I was thwarted in my last quest to wear it for a week and test the smell situation by the glass fibres, but I will be retesting this.

I also did a handwash of my merino tops and discovered to my dismay that inside in cold weather they took 2 days to dry.  Which is probably much better than cotton, but isn't good news considering that I'm planning to take only 3 or 4 tops!

The below is a pair of water & wind resistant trousers I'm getting for Julian from swrve.co.uk, I hope he'll find them smart enough for the coffee shop, as well as being tailored for cycling.  Unfortunately brands seem to be reducing their range of women specific casual cycling clothing because of lack of demand.  So I will be wearing my Odlo thermals under my womens styled 3/4 length shorts from swrve on the cold days.  Which I fear will not be the style statement I would be preferring to make.  But when combined with one of my limited range of shoes on the trip it will truly be an unforgettable decision.

I find buying for Julian a solace as it's so much easier than buying for myself.  Below is a wool jacket from swrve that has jersey pockets on the back.  I'm getting him the dark blue version & will get him to model at some point.

Paintshop finally!

Now I have to admit that it is several days ago that we finally gave the plane to the paintshop.  Unfortunately our build supervisor took that moment to point out a couple of things we'd done wrong (it would have been more helpful earlier, but still, better to know I suppose).  So once we've finished our well deserved holiday it'll be back to the factory to fix up the fuel tank fillers.

We're both getting a bit tired of the build at the moment, but the windows were really fun to put in and they were the last 7 tasks we did before sending the plane off.  You glue them in with flock and hold them in place with some cable clamps that you screw to the body of the plane.  Anyway I hope that Murray Flint the painter has got the body of the plane well underway so that it can go to the trimmer (the guy who does the interior) not long after we get back.

The weather in Norfolk has been steadily improving, but the day we chose to test fit the wings with Julian's mate Nick who was visiting us at that time was less ideal.  There is a reason why planes have tie downs & it really seemed to want to undertake the first test flight on its own at times.  It's amazing how dry standing under the wings keeps you as you're frantically fitting the wing strut fairings (covers) before the storm really arrives.  So fingers crossed that the lines we drew were correct as we trimmed, fitted & marked then dashed.  Then went straight to the pub for a meal and a pint in the warmth.