Equipment Outfitters

Caravanning and Camping Barbecue Units

Portable barbecue are becoming more popular among travellers as the designs become more sophisticated and the products lighter and more efficient. Kettle barbecue are a good example as they are lightweight and long lasting. They come in a wide range of manageable sizes and can be used to make a wide variety of foods. With the lid on, the air flow can be finely tuned and they are mercifully easy to clean. More important, they contain heat well and are considered a perfectly safe place to make a fire when there are non-permanent places available. Their ideal fuel is compressed charcoal brikettes, which are light and conveniently packaged. Read the rest of this entry »

Off-road riding is a popular pastime with many motorcyclists, and involves the dual-purpose trail bikes — motorcycles that are at home on both roads and the dirt. They are designed with greater ground clearance, greater clearance between tyres and mudguards, higher footrests, longer suspension travel and ‘knobbly’ tires.

It is an excellent hobby and can be a very good way of keeping fit. A tough ride requires a lot of physical strength and endurance. Read the rest of this entry »

Use of the Motorcycle Throttle

Smooth motorcycle operation of the throttle goes hand in hand with smooth motorcycle clutch control and machine appreciation. Harsh motorcycle acceleration can cause motorcycle wheelspin or wheelies; great for posers and fly boys, but bad for professional and caring motorcyclists, and bad for the general image of motorcycling.

Excessive use of the motorcycle throttle, when not absolutely necessary, is also very expensive. The cost of motorcycle fuel is always rising, so the less you open the throttle the better for your pocket. Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping hands warm and dry in cold wet weather is the curse of all motorcylists, and everything from plastic bags to rubber washing-up gloves has been used.

In warm weather motorcycle ride gear gloves are still important, and a thin pair of unlined motorcycle ride gearleather ones is the normal type worn. Read the rest of this entry »

Proper care of motorcycle visors and goggles is essential if perfect vision is to be maintained.

The following three precautions will extend the motorcycle life of your visor and ensure that scratches are kept to a minimum:

Never wipe your motorcycle visor with a glove or overmitt ; any dirt particles will scratch the soft visor. Read the rest of this entry »

Motorcycle Rider Concentration

Motorcycleriding concentration is defined as the complete application of motorcycle rider mind and body to a particular endeavour, and the exclusion of everything not connected with that motorcycle endeavour.

Today’s road and traffic conditions demand that all motorcyclists exercise full riding concentration every time they venture on to the road. Read the rest of this entry »

Off-road riding is a popular pastime with many motorcyclists, and involves the dual-purpose trail bikes — motorcycles that are at home on both roads and the dirt. They are designed with greater ground clearance, greater clearance between tyres and mudguards, higher footrests, longer suspension travel and ‘knobbly’ tyres.

It is an excellent hobby and can be a very good way of keeping fit. A tough ride requires a lot of physical strength and endurance. Read the rest of this entry »

Dome Tents

The most popular tent shape is the dome. It is the result of extensive research, and dome tent designers make the best of many modern materials such as carbon fibre and Ventex to produce ranges in all sizes. These materials make use of advanced technology to provide shelters of unparalleled resilience — in many cases they have a strengthto-weight ratio that can only be described as phenomenal. The dome shape is intentionally aerodynamic, and the stiffeners provide a good degree of flex; such tents can survive strong winds, even if these are accompanied by snow, hail and sleet. Many come with a built-in wind-deflector as part of the fly sheet, which, if correctly positioned, provides additional shelter and helps keep gusts away from the main opening. Read the rest of this entry »

Walking, scrambling on all fours, and crawling on your belly into the moist darkness of a cave is not everyone’s idea of a good time, but it is certainly extreme. The labyrinth-like tunnels that can lead to huge sheer drop offs or expansive chasms are not for the faint of heart. Those prone to nightmares from watching too many reruns of Dracula also may not appreciate the propensity of caves to attract legions of bats.

Appropriately, those who do cave (serious cavers do not refer to their sport as spelunking or potholing) always travel to the inner depths of the earth in groups of two or more. Not surprisingly, cavers are subject to many dangers that one would expect could occur in a cave, such as death by starvation, falling, asphyxiation, drowning, and hypothermia from exposure. Read the rest of this entry »

Mountainboarding is a newcomer to the world of extreme sports, although I can track its lineage to a few other more “established” extreme sports like snowboarding and mountain biking.

Essentially, the mountain board creators developed a hybrid skateboard/snowboard that allows aspects of each sport to be used on terrain where neither can be practiced. Which isn’t to say that skateboarders have not tried using fat tires on their skateboards so that they can ride on loose sand and gravel—they have. Read the rest of this entry »

Charging down a hill at warp speed on a bike is a rush that most of us have enjoyed at some time. As bikes developed they headed down the path of tradition, and for a while, all a bike buyer could find was a road-racing-style bike or a cruiser. Road bikes were fine for speed and offered a broad range of gears. But road bikes offered little comfort and didn’t take very well to rough surfaces. Cruisers were very comfortable, but heavy and not geared very well. All that changed in the early Eighties when a Japanese bike company by the name of Specialized purchased a unique bike made in Marin County, California, and took it home for a closer look.

The mountain bike can trace its roots back to when a small and unknown group of riders in Marin County, California first began riding stripped down and beefed up Schwinns on mountain roads just prior to WWII. One can only assume that the natural propensity of extreme oriented riders continued to pursue downhill riding until a few notable pioneers of the modern mountain bike began simultaneously experimenting and redefining the equipment they were riding. According to one of those pioneers, Gary Fischer, the early Schwinn “Ballooner” Cruiser bikes everyone was riding were so heavy that they were pushed, not ridden, uphill. Fischer is reported to have been the first to equip a Ballooner with multiple gears, an act that made it easier to pedal uphill, but also added 25 lbs (11.35 kg) to their weight. Read the rest of this entry »

The ice luge is an Olympic sport with which most of the world is familiar, and which few would deny is extreme. Enter the pavement version of the sport, street luge. While street lugers don’t have specially-constructed tracks for their use, they do find steep and winding roads to roar down at speeds exceeding 70 mph (113 kph).

Like ice luge, which can trace its roots to traditional sledding pushed to the limit, street luge is an extension of another form of downhill pavement travel…skateboarding. In fact, skateboarders have traveled downhill on their boards at speed, both tying down on their backs like a street Luge, on their stomachs, and standing up. Read the rest of this entry »

Swimming into the deepest reaches of the ocean is a feat that many divers have experienced to a degree. Some may go below 200 feet (60m), others deeper. All would be lost without the air they bring with them. There is a special breed of diver who can go deeper than most, without air tanks. These freedivers have pushed the limits of unassisted breathing dives to below 400 feet.

Tofreedive to depths of even 50 feet (15m) is an unsettling prospect for all but the strongest swimmers. To dive much deeper requires holding a breath for minutes. In fact, the world’s best freedivers hold their breath for periods that rival many marine mammals. Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-trip checks

The first step is to take pen and paper and make a list of each and every item you intend to take, including food and water. Put in quantities and weights.

When I buy any new item I enquire about the weight. When I get home I weigh it again, both as a check, and to get a filled weight for such items as petrol stoves and water bottles. The new item and its weight are added to a list I keep pinned behind the equipment cupboard door. This list has proved extremely useful over the years and I suggest you prepare one.

Having compiled the list for the trip, criticize it. Is there anything you can leave out? Add up the weights. It concentrates the mind wonderfully to realize you may be planning to do 20 miles a day over mountains carrying 5o lb. of gear. Should you reduce the load, shorten the stages, change the route, or abandon the trip? Take only what you need, for it soon becomes clear that something must be changed. Having reduced your load to a reasonable, but not dangerous level, check every item carefully. Read the rest of this entry »

Avalanche precaution

The best precaution is to use your common sense, observe avalanche warnings, and never travel on closed routes. They have been closed to keep you out of danger, and even if you take the risk and get away with it, your tracks may tempt others into danger and they may not be so lucky.

Most avalanches occur at known spots, and when avalanche conditions exist, a warning is issued, ski pistes are closed and the emergency services stand by. Providing the skier does what he is told, and stays out of danger, little harm can come to him. Read the rest of this entry »

Many outdoor enthusiasts avoid the winter entirely, put away all their gear, and go into hibernation until well into the spring. This is quite unnecessary and rather a shame because in spite of generally inclement weather, winter has a great deal to offer. It is a challenge to your skills and the crowds have either departed or are much reduced. When the snow and cold weather set in, a whole new range of knowledge and technique is necessary to ensure your comfort and survival.

As a personal choice, I prefer the winter season, and would urge all outdoor people to extend their season beyond the autumn and see what the cold-weather camping has to offer.

The challenge

If you live in temperate latitudes with few extremes in the weather, then the winter is less of a problem, except where, as in the U.K., the weather is always unpredictable. Where winter sets in with a vengeance, in such northern latitudes as the Eastern U.S.A. or Canada, or in the high mountains, then your complete range of equipment, clothing and technique must be extended. All must be capable of coping with whatever weather can hurl at you. Read the rest of this entry »

Will and perseverance

If, in spite of your precautions, you get into trouble, you must adopt an air of hope. Even if you feel the situation is desperate, don’t give in to panic. There is a way out of most situations, so keep calm and try to think of it. Panic can spread alarmingly among tired people, but only makes a bad situation worse. You must, as an individual, exercise control, consider the facts, arrange your priorities, and then act. If you are theleader of the party then you must, in addition, set an example of steady nerves to the other members.

Precautions

When problems start to occur on the hill you may also fall prey to the ‘if only’ factor. This is the train of thought which begins ‘If only I had told Mum; if only I had left a route card; if only I had asked Bill; or brought a tent‘ — and so on. To save yourself from any such bitter reflections, check that you have these requirements before you start: Read the rest of this entry »

The Stimulator is a favourite dry-fly pattern, which, coming from someone with vastfishing experience across the globe, says much for its effectiveness. It will take fish under varying conditions and Randall uses it on lakes and streams, but is at its best in fast water. The Stimulator is a combination of several attractor and exciter patterns and imitates caddisflies, stoneflies and, at a pinch, grasshoppers.

What makes the Stimulator so effective? Like many successful dry flies, the Stimulator imitates several food forms in general, yet nothing in particular. By varying tail, hackle, body and wing colours a variety of insects — both terrestrial and aquatic — can be matched. The Stimulator combines the general shape and characteristics of patterns such as the Trude series of flies with the attributes of more established downwing patterns such as the Sofa Pillow, all of which were designed initially to imitate the adult stoneflies found on rivers in the western United States. Kaufmann’s Stimulator, however, is not limited to the imitation of stone- fly adults: it is used with great success to imitate other aquatic and terrestrial insects, including adult caddisflies and terrestrials such as grasshoppers and cicadas. The Stimulator has all the characteristics of a western-style dry fly designed for fast-flowing freestone waters and consequently is ideally suited to the fast pocket-water stretches of South African rivers and streams. Read the rest of this entry »

Most people want fame and fortune and if you anything likes those people in the ally you most lightly enjoy getting into a bit of a tangle and letting off some stem. Well if that sounds good to you, you should try boxing.

Well if you thinking of trying out boxing there are many facilities that rent out the boxing equipment, you do not want to by all the equipment and then find that it is not a sport you enjoy or maybe you not that good at it. So fist try rent the boxing equipment or join a club and you can use there boxing equipment and if after a wile you find that you enjoying boxing and you want to get more involved you can buy your own boxing equipment. Read the rest of this entry »