now that i’m able to lift a finger to the keyboard without fear of collapsing, i can convey some sincere thanks for your support and generosity over the last week.

we’ve managed to raise almost £1,000 for Plan and their work in Kwapa, Uganda, in a very short time.  i’ve been incredibly touched by your show of collective munificence, so thank you again.

the ride itself was epic: nearly ten hours in (or around) the saddle, four and half of those climbing, and almost the same amount of time under rain.  the descents were slick, exhilarating and, once the fingers began to fail from the cold, more than a little worrying.  but what an amazing feeling, plummteting out of the clouds alongside a select group of lycra-clad nut-cases (proving there’s still some truth in the old proverb about shit and hills).

i managed to place respectably (1476 out of 4696 starters) from a position fairly far back in the pack (i was a little too honest when answering the questions about previous experience).  When i commented to Tash that next time i would do whatever it took to start near the front, i was met with a gaze of such withering intensity that i quickly realized i’m not likely to be hitting anyone up for funds again, any time soon.

so, there’s some further evidence, if you can be arsed, in the shape of:

• photos
• route and stats
• videos

you’ll be pleased to know, none of these show me in a particularly flattering light.

with thanks and salutations.

jay

p.s. tomorrow (Wednesday’s) stage of the Tour will follow our exact route — Pau to Bagneres-de-Luchon.  it would be nice to see the views on telly that were hidden by clouds on the day, but, if i’m honest,  i’d probably rather the pro’s got served a heaping plate of rain and suffering.  is that so wrong?

On 8 Jul 2012, at 11:13, jay johnston wrote:

Dear All,

after turning over the question of the dreaded fund raising email in my mind for some time, i’ve decided that i’m going to make a nuisance of myself after all.

Next Saturday, I’m due to haul myself over four French mountains as part of the Etape du Tour.   if folly has a name, it’s 200 km’s of riding through the Pyrenees over the course of a single day, with going-on-for 5000 m’s of climbing.

It seems silly not to parlay that kind of suffering into something beneficial.   also, given the training, diets, early mornings and long stints of boozelessness, it has become clear that i’m unlikely to attempt something this brainless again any time soon.

Jake, Noah and I have been raising money for Elvin Etyang, his family and wider community in Kwapa district, Uganda.  Elvin is eight and lives in a mud and thatch house with his parents and sister.  He fetches water for the family from a borehole,  and attends primary school at another village 45 minutes away from home.  The nearest health centre is over two hours away.   through Plan your donation would help fund health and education facillities, livestock programmes and water projects in and around Elvin’s  village.  Although we haven’t set ourselves a fundraising target, we believe that every little bit helps.

So, if you can spare even a small donation, pls visit our Just Giving page:  http://www.justgiving.com/jay-johnston

otherwise, i will let you know if i manage to survive the Pyrenean adventure, and perhaps afterwards, a photo or two will manifest itself by way of proof.

thanks for listening.

jay, jake and noah.

due in February. Gender unknown. Siblings would have rather gone to Disney Land. And, as my Dad pointed out, there goes Freedom Fifty-five.

All that aside, the results of the scan show there’s a healthy little person in there who, we hope, will bring a nice triangulate effect to the current head-to-head action going on in my house.

And we’re over the moon. I’ve opened an account at the Bank of Sleep and plan on making some deposits. happy Wednesday all.

It was a bit of an odd one for several reasons:

• weather – all four seasons rolled into one weekend that seemed to just keep rolling
• an all-media blackout come Sunday: worked the SLR, which died, and then the phone, which also died. but there was a lot of output from those first few days. namely:
  • 200-odd photos
  • some videos (some of which may get cut down any minute by the copyright bot on Utube)
• we met an owl
• mud in quantities not seen since the Somme
• despite yelling his name repeatedly, we never found Dan (or Darragh, for that matter)
• our neighbours packed up at daybreak on Sunday, citing a ‘Bad Glastonbury’ (we weren’t brave enough to ask if we contributed to the Badness, but, to our credit, we discussed how we could fix it for them for hours after they left).
• [Team, you know who you are, and you know there are more: feel free to contribute your own bits of oddness in the comments.....]

highlights, to name a few:

• Queens of the Stone Age – thanks to David, and his very generous back stage pass, i managed to sneak up alongside the Other stage and watch the entire gig from beside the smoke machines, about 20m to the right of the band. it was an up close display of some incredible guitar-based jousting, and probably the musical highlight of many a Glastonbury for me (a fact cemented by a chance run in with Josh as he came offstage, a quick shake of his massive, calloused, ginger hand and some effusive compliments from me)
• Absynth: the twister of many a face, stomach and, i’m sad to say, morning
• Fuck Off: it became the watchword(s) of the weekend, for which we discovered many interesting uses (including some that were actually kindly and pleasant). key phrase (Jamie): ‘I’ve got three words for you, choose two of them….and then leave…’
• Elbow: if ever there was a born festival band, or even more so, a festival anthem, these guys are it.
• the Sun: after three days of pissing rain, battlefield conditions, and an emergent case of trenchfoot, every last ray from that shiny motherfucker on sunday was like a taste of Life Everlasting.
• Somali pirates: who knew they could be expert Faffists with a penchant for Cider?
• here are a few other highlights:

\

\

there are, like, way more photos dudes. fill them boots.

10 Things:

1. A journey of 1000 miles really does start with that first step/stroke/revolution, although there are easier ways to prove it.

2. Americans, at least the ones that I met, were genuinely nice, courteous, friendly, fat and incredulous that someone would want to make such a journey. They also showed due respect to my two wheels, and, with the exception of two separate ladies driving Escalades, never even came close to running me off the road. Even when there wasn’t much of it.

3. Bike Fit! Don’t be tortured by various niggling elements brought about by second guessing the many parameters that need to be figured out in order to cycle pain free. Do your knees/back/arse a favour: pony up and get someone to measure it out.

4. Multiples: these mean what they say. Ten miles is a long way, one hundred is a hell of a lot further. No amount of dividing, adding and subtracting what it says on the computer is going to make you get there any faster. Especially if it’s windy.

5. I just assumed my brain would work loads of things out as i rode — characters, plot, the meaning of life. It didn’t. Mostly it was just sweating punctuated with the odd bit of groaning.

6. It is only just possible to live for two and a half weeks on American Roadfood. Much longer than that, and parts of your body will start to fall off.  Associated with this is my index of Evil Substances:  Gatorade -7, Redbull -8, 5-hour energy – off the Richter. drink at your peril.

7. Key West is multi-layered and expensive. If you want to get past the typical drunken Duval-street stumbling-and-Hemmingway experience, you will have to apply yourself to some persistent digging. Your reward will be freaks in surprising numbers (and frequently,  house coats).

8. Completing the trip doesn’t seem to have killed the desire to go further, longer, harder, dumber.

9. Journey’s end was surprisingly anti-climactic. I realise that I was operating at greater-than-average levels of excitement throughout and that, in itself, was the reward. As with most things, the journey really does trump the finish.

10. Tubes. You never have enough of them. (a sub-clause of my own particular mechanical law:  whatever tool you need, you’re almost certain not to have it.)

Chronological:

the whole trip becomes a little more coherent when viewed in order.

Televisual:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

over and out.

here is the evidence as it currently stands.

if i had to pick a favourite, i think it might still have to be the portrait of a self-professed Conch lunatic.

Two Lessons: Avon Park – 12:23

Always trust the GPS (Although you should aggressively resist this advice if you find yourself being directed over the edge of a cliff). In my experience on this trip, the machine just seems to have a nose for the better roads — which is good, since my usual routine involves scratching my head for a while at the crossroads, then unerringly opting for the traffic-clogged straightaway. Current theories (what else am I supposed to think about for all those revolutions?) is that the software grades the busyness of each road, or it’s following the shortest non-highway distance between two points, or i’m just a bit of a doughnut when it comes to route selection. All three could fly.

Case in point, the SH64 pretty much wins the derby for the ideal Floridian cycling road (and i would have completely missed it if i had listened to GoogleMaps, which told me to continue north on the reliable but somewhat staid 17). By contrast, the SH64 has been showing off its gentle topography like a giddy pubescent, rolling through gentle farmland with cows that calmly mark your passing with a quizzical look and a few more chews on the proverbial. There is an almost total absence of cars, and the tractors make you feel genuinely quick for a change. The houses, where there are any, are set well back from the road among orchards, fragrant fields, rusting cars and peeling For Sale signs. It seems like quite a pleasant place to spend a few hours, though of course, that may have something to do with the fact that it will only be a few hours.

Also, bizarrely, at times this morning it has felt as though I have been slyly wetting myself. This is possibly because I started fiddling with my seat position again in Arcadia and now I seem to have hoisted it into a position where it has pinched a nerve leading from one dark and fusty place to another, thereby killing all feeling but for a slow, spreading tingle that feels remarkably like you’re wetting your down belows. This ongoing palaver with saddles, seat posts and the like has definitely decided me in favour of a professional bike fitting when I’ve got the chance (and £200 to spare). I’ve only heard good things about the results, and I have a feeling a very long queue of body parts would assemble to thank me.

Clermont – outside of Publix – 9:30 pm

Playing at Homeless.

I have been masquerading as a tourist with some measure of success, but anyone possessed of even modest powers of observation would notice the telltae signs: spending a little too long in the restroom, emerging with a wet face and pockets bulging with stolen toilet paper. Or changing out of my shoes and into my flip flops while waiting for dinner in a Chinese restaurant. Charging a whole range of devices in a publicly-accessible power outlet, or even now, scribbling in my book on a bench outside of Publix, sipping a large Corona wrapped in a paper bag. Because tonight is the last night of my bicycling epic and the fourth time I have chosen to go without legitimate sleeping arrangements. But for a small copse of trees two miles back down Highway 27, where my hammock is strung between two of them, I have no home.

And this much I do know: that no matter how enjoyable I find it trying to live by my wits at the margins of this affluent consumer society, tomorrow night I have a bed to sleep in and a credit card should anything truly untoward happen. I have medical insurance and a valium if I find it overly difficult to sleep. And now I also have a newfound appreciation for just how difficult it must be for anyone who has to do this night after night, worrying about where to sleep or getting moved on, or how to get clean, or where the next meal is coming from. In other words, for the truly homeless.

the final 100 meters….

Before resuming the nearly stone-cold thread of this subtropical cycling epic, let’s have a quick round of applause for my humble macbook, only just back from death’s door after having weathered many thousands of miles over at best, asphalt, and at worst, plain old ass. but it is back, and collectively we are in business. it required a two week trans-american journey to some miracle worker on the west coast who possessed the last of the weapons grade logic boards. Miraculously he was convinced to part with one of them for the modest sum of $300. But, as i say, what’s $300 between a man and his laptop?

so please forgive the interlude. I hope this makes it a little more comprehensible to the one or two of you left out there reading this thing. And so, we resume.

Arcadia – March 12th, 21:20

Just got in to Arcadia, after a brutal 70 mile pull straight into the wind. many things hurt. I have found a cheap ass hotel run by a Gujurati family. it’s the usual trade off: shabby, breeze blocked, some atrocious design decisions, really poor finishing – but cheap. $30 per night.

The town itself is a total throwback. Some super-outlets and fastfood restaurants at the intersection of two highways are the main concession to the current planning craze in Florida. But there is a charming old Main Street (completely abandoned at all hours of the day) and a smattering of older style bungalows which are slowly falling into disrepair as the town creeps closer to the WalMart . I’ve heard rumours of a Rodeo somewhere to the west.

After a day that hurt more than it probably should have done, I’ve been totally foxed for a decent place to have a beer. Had to resort to buying a six-pack of Yeungling from the grocery store – this one’s rather charmingly called Sweet Bay – and now I’m sitting in semi-darkness on a bench outside, sipping furtively at my beer, wrapped in the obligatory and specially-provided brown paper bag (the outdoor liquor laws in Florida seem to be somewhat vague on this point. From all of the brown paper bags i’ve seen wrapped around beer cans, it seems like it must be illegal, yet at the same time, the bag seems to confer some sort of legitimacy. Like: ‘I know i’m doing something wrong here folks, but look how dang discreet me and my paper bag can actually be!” Oh well, whatever works.).

Looking at the predominantly BMX-and-mullet-based traffic circling through the parking lot, i’m wondering if this is as good as Saturday night is likely to get in this town. Six thousand souls (according to wikipedia) and I find myself guessing how many of them are cousins.

Strangely enough, I have two Chinese restaurants to choose from. Both are buffets. I’ve only set foot into one of them, since through the window of the other one it was clear that the client base hasn’t risen above zero for quite some time. An hour before closing time, the place was empty, the chairs were on the tables and the ratty carpet was getting thrashed by a small girl and a hoover.

Sadly, the other one – King Buffet – seems little better. This is too bad, since I have concluded on this trip that Chinese is the (non-breakfast) food of champions. However, things didn’t exactly start out brilliantly chez King, since I was no more than three steps into the place before being informed that soda or juice were my only two beverage options (i.e. no beer). Moreover, a quick nose round the buffet revealed hours-old tureens of sweaty crab legs and noodles that had long since given up the right to be referred to in plural. I was glad and repulsed in equal measures to finally discover the source of the rancid stink that had been making me seriously doubt my own sanity for stopping there. It was cowering in the very last row of the buffet at the back. Up close it smelled like a cross between curdled milk and a festival sweat sock. The few hummocks that remained were huddled shamefully in their stainless steel tray as if they were only too aware of their disgraceful state. I’m talking about you, bacon-wrapped shrimp. thankfully, the smell seemed localised enough that I felt safe with (some of) the other foods (plus i was so hungry i kept having to negotiate with my stomach to stop it from eating itself). Still, it seemed a useful lesson: if, for whatever reason, you need to fake a convincing illness, waste no time in whipping yourself up a dish of bacon-wrapped shrimp. Neglect before eating. It’s certain to do the trick.

The Clock Restaurant – Revisited

I do love the Southern inflection, especially when people get excited (this, I’ve found, is usually on account of dogs, trucks or guns). I just heard this phrase, which jumped out of the restaurant hubub somewhere behind me. I had to turn and look and discovered that the speaker was a rather sizable white man with white sneakers and a grey Hitler moustache:

“You can’t do nothing when that dog’s got hold of you.”

But, in his giggly excitement, it came out as “Ye can’ do nuttin’ when that dawg’s got hold of ye!” This over three octaves in exactly the kind of tones that make you want to slap your knee at the end of it. Just as he was doing.

There’s now another huge drama unfolding behind me, as a lady discovers that she has lost the winder to her watch – “it cost me forty-nine dollars!”

It’s certainly a credit to the good people of Arcadia that just about everyone in the restaurant is now crawling around on the filthy carpet trying to find the thing. The manager is on his knees under the table and people are offering theories left and right:

“You need a magnet!’

“Get the vacuum cleaner out. You’ll hear when you git it!”

“It would jam the darn thing!”

“it woodint jam a vacuum cleaner!”

“You shore would hear it, though!”

“Yup, I reckon you would hear it…”

And so on….

After two nights slung between trees, I was ready for a bit of comfort, and, on my last ninety miles through the Everglades, it was incredibly cheering to think that my next stop would put me in the company of family.

That my brother Jeff was in Florida with his family was a coincidence that we just couldn’t pass up. Hence the somewhat migratory pattern across southern Florida, taking me to a lovely corner of Bonita Springs, just north of Naples.

When I got there, it was a joy to see my brother, his wife, and my niece and nephew, who I hadn’t clapped eyes on for almost two years. Unfortunately, i was slightly too fragrant to trade anything more than handshakes at first, and was given a beer and promptly ushered inside for a wash.

What followed were a brilliant few days hanging out with the kids, stoking up the sauna, chasing tennis balls and eating food that didn’t come out of a cellophane wrapper.  Brilliant.

Taylor and Calvin: a sight for sore eyes

Buddy takes one for the team and squeezes into the back

Unlike my crew, these are good eaters, all

iPoke: irresistible to little fingers

The Ballad of George’s Meatball

after carrying them 800 miles, i was not going to miss a chance to wear my ‘finest’.

this turned out to be my only opportunity.

08/03/2011

I really wish I hadn’t asked Eddie, the guy at the Subway, if he knew anything about Highway 41 going west through the Everglades.

“Gators,” was his first word “People tend to carry a stick so that you can push ‘em out of the way.”

After much deliberation about where to spend tonight, having discussed several options with various bikers and truckers, called around local hotels called things like the Micosukee Resort  I finally decided to try and make a go of crossing the Everglades, with a likely bivouac when it started to get dark.. Last night’s bivouac in Key Largo had been unplanned. I took a sneaky whiff of the local atmospheres and instantly regretted it.

I was hoping that Eddie’s words would confirm my suspicions about advice you got in Florida. The more confident and knowing the tone,  the more likely it was to be a complete pile of fiction. I was in my current predicament for exactly this reason:

“Do you think I’ll find many hotels up around Tamiami Corner?”

Mexican Chef guy: “Oh yes. Many hotels. Very cheap.”

I somehow doubted that by ‘many’ he meant the Miccosukee Gaming Resort, and by ‘cheap’ he meant $175 per night.

And here was Eddie wanting to know what else to put on my sandwich. “Ummm…Lettuce, please. And some olives. Now, when you say alligators….”

“Oh and pythons too. And don’t wear any scent. No cologne or nothing. The insects will eat you alive. Anything else on the sandwhich?”

“Emm….nope. That’s it.” I had a brief picture of what it might mean to be the middle bit in an Everglade sandwich; strung up in my hammock, fighting off pythons from above and alligators from below. “Thanks Eddy.”

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach and reminded myself to steal some toilet paper from the bathroom.

The Everglades – At Camp

A few words while there is yet light and wine, and the residual buzz from Henry Miller in full bombastic flight in Tropic of Capricorn. I feel I should at least try to capture something of this feeling. Dusk is closing in and my heart is still racing from a fearful twenty mile sprint west into the Everglades. Would I find a place to stop? Would I get pulled over by the police and asked where the hell i thought i was going (the map showed very little ahead for the next 60 miles)? would Eddie’s talk of Gators and pythons prove true?

So here I am, about a hundred yards back from the road and once again the lonely power substation has come to my rescue. I’m currently trying to ignore some crackling sounds in the bushes behind me, but now (thanks again to Eddy) at least i have got a big stick to hand. At any rate, for much of the twenty mile sprint, there looked to be very few places where I could sling a hammock without having to hang my arse a few feet over the water. The image of an alligator biting of me through the hammock had already replayed itself a few too many times in my head to make a comfortable sleep likely.

to make matters worse, the bugs have started coming out in fearsome numbers and the crackling sounds in the swamp behind me are getting louder. one sec. i think i need to hitch the hammock up a few notches….

9-3-11

The Everglades – Siwash #3

One of the most terrifying dreams I’ve had in years. Should have known how it was going to unfold, given that I pretty much spelled it out last night. I dreamt that I had actually woken up in my hammock as I was being attacked by an alligator. It felt so real because the dream was happening in the place where I was sleeping. The Gator was attacking from the swampside of the hammock, the precautions I had taken in hoisting it even higher had not taken into account the animal’s ‘rearing capabilities’ and in my dream the bastard was snapping away at my ass with gusto. I kept tring to scramble into a kneeling position – never easy when you’re in a hammock — and i couldn’t be sure whether it was my real legs or my dream legs that were failing me. I woke myself with my own terrifyied moaning, then passed the rest of the night in that interminable state which is neither sleeping nor wakefulness. As the night deepened a heavy dew fell, and I could feel my arse (still sensitve, no doubt, from its imagined mauling), growing chill with the condensation it was attracting through the hammock. In short, not a restful night.

Had I known that I was a mile from the Miccosukee restaurant, I might have put off eating breakfast, but have now piled on a follow-up of eggs, coffee and pancakes to the soggy half-sub that Eddy made for me while predicting my imminent demise last night.

Interesting to see a few Indians around in more traditional dress. There is an old tribal lady here in a colourful beaded denim skirt, and long white hair who carries herself with incredible bearing and dignity. A lot of the other Indians in the restaurant, both workers and customers, have wandered over to pay their respects.

Music

For days the iGod has been serving up a right old mishmash of tunes, but with a rather quirky – and some would say inspired — bias towards Talking Heads, especially given Mr Byrne’s well-documented bicycle fetish. In the last few days we’ve had ‘And She Was,’ ‘Psycho Killer’, ‘Nothing but Flowers’, ‘Once in a Lifetime’ and many others, surfacing with seeming randomness from a collection of 20,000 songs (sadly, not ‘Burning Down the House’ which may have disproved my theory) .

Out of loyalty to David (and his rather excellent Bicycle Diaries) I was reluctant to give the Heads the old Tramp’s shuffle, but the truth is, they are just not the right tempo for someone straining to get every last calorie out of their aging legs. Then today, as if I needed to ride six hundred miles to discover the answer to this pressing question, I finally stumbled on the perfect cycling music, buried so deep on my ipod that I had forgotten it was even there. And at just the right moment, since I had just hit a 40 mile stretch in the Everglades without any hint of habitation, let alone someone who would sell me a Gatorade.

What was this magical noise, you ask? Only The 808 State Radio shows from 1992. 140 BPMs of low fi, old school, hard core raving. Still kicking around up there, so here’s a link.

]]> http://shambolic.com/blog/blog/2011/03/23/gator-aid-in-the-everglades-days-9-10/feed/ 0 http://shambolic.com/blog/blog/2011/03/16/in-pictures-2011-the-front-end/ http://shambolic.com/blog/blog/2011/03/16/in-pictures-2011-the-front-end/#comments Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:56:57 +0000 jay http://shambolic.com/blog/blog/2011/03/16/in-pictures-2011-the-front-end/ Many compromising photos now uploaded for the months of January and February

(don’t be afraid to click-a-dem links)

(finally. a tattoo that serves a purpose.)