Southsea Rides For Japan raised £358.60

What a great day! A huge thanks for everyone who made it and bigger thanks to your generosity. Organisers Cass Gowing and Charlie Thompson helped raise £358.60 for the British Red Cross with all proceeds going to the Japan crisis. Big thanks to Ben and LJR for hosting, oh, and a shout out to Pac Man! That was pretty random.

If you couldn’t make last Sunday’s ride and you’re in the mood for a little cruise then a few of us are meeting at the end of the month at The Bridge tavern. Pop along. It could be FUN.

Main Photos: Tristan Savage and Seafront Photo: Charlie Thompson

Pompey Bug Winter Events

The Portsmouth Cycle Forum (Pompey Bug) have a bumper edition of their newsletter to round of the year. In it you’ll find details of all forthcoming events, including the launch of the Eastney Family Bike Club on 27th December. A downloadable PDF version is also available HERE.

Christmas Cycle Quiz – 9th December
Who invented the bicycle? Where does the North Sea cycle route go? What colour shirt does the Tour de France leader wear? Join us for our fantastic cycle quiz night at the Eldon Arms from 8pm on Thursday 9th December.

Healthy Pompey Santa Sleigh Run – 18th December
The Healthy Pompey team are organising a Santa related bike sleigh fest at the Mountbatten Centre, Alexandra Park where Healthy Santa will be joining in on a festive sleigh run. He will be dispensing Healthy Pompey presents, and at the final stop there will be free festive refreshments for every rider. The fun starts at 1pm! Information on this and other Healthy Pompey events can be found at http://healthypompey.com/news-events/

Eastney Family Bike Club Christmas Bike Party – 29th Decemeber
If you’ve got a new bike for Christmas or if you want to cherish and love your old bike then come along to the Community Centre in Bransbury Park on the 29th December from 12 until 2.30pm for a great party to celebrate the launch. There’ll be bike games and challenges for all ages, free Dr Bike checks, looking at routes, short rides and security marking. You can improve your cycle skills and have a good laugh at the same time. Everyone is welcome: Mum, Dad, Grandma, Grandad, aunties, uncles, nephews, nieces….. you get the idea. All you need to do is bring your bikes….

Photo: Tristan Savage

Footage from Sunday’s coincidental Bike Ride

Thanks to Cliff Young who sent over this incidental capture from last Sunday when dozens of cyclists happened to take a casual ride from The Bridge Tavern, along the Seafront, and back to Spice Island.

What are the chances?

So a few of us rode our bikes to The Bridge Tavern for a bite to eat and a beer to sort ourselves out after Southsea Fest, and as if by pure coincidence so did quite a few other people. What are the chances of that happening? I took some photos in case you think I’m making up this random turn of events. Feel free to tag yourself on Facebook or check them out on Flickr. What a great day. Nice to see so many people enjoy going for a ride together.

Congratulations to Amy & Chris who got engaged on the Seafront. Chris’s proposal and walk back up the beach with Amy in arm was received with huge cheers, hugs and dozens of clapping hands. Nice one Chris. To the lovely couple. See you soon.

I Like To Ride My Bicycle!

So it turns out there are quite a few people out on their bikes this coming month and what with Southsea Fest coming up on the 18th September I’m definitely in the mood for a little light refreshment at The Bridge Tavern and a casual cycle along the seafront and back to help me shake off the hangover on the 19th. I might even end up at Spice Island for a cheeky tipple after. I reckon I’ll get to the Bridge Tavern for a bout 12pm and set off around 2pm after some lunch. Give me a shout if you’re in the area. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.

I still feel like going for a bike ride!

So it turns out there are quite a few people out on their bikes this coming month and what with Southsea Fest coming up on the 18th September I’m definitely in the mood for a little light refreshment at The Bridge Tavern and a casual cycle along the seafront and back to help me shake off the hangover on the 19th. I might even end up at Spice Island for a cheeky tipple after. I reckon I’ll get to the Bridge Tavern for a bout 12pm and set off around 2pm after some lunch. Give me a shout if you’re in the area. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.

Ye Olde Bike Shoppe – Tour de Trett

Yesterday was a delightfully sunny day for a bike ride and that’s exactly what a few of us did.  Stuart who has just set up Ye Olde Bike Shoppe has now moved to a new workshop in Southsea after very quickly out growing his last one.

To mark his move he organised one of his ‘Tour de Trett’ cycle rides, this time involving the 14.2 mile round trip of Portsea Island.  This is not to be a one-off either with Stuart planning to host a ride once a month in conjunction with Ye Olde Bike Shoppe, taking up a different route each time.  Keep posted on Stuarts Facebook page for details on future rides.

If you are interested in anything bicycle related be it repairs, restoration or just want to get advice or exchange tips, Stuart can be contacted on 07887 973014 to arrange a meeting.

I feel like going for a bike ride!

What with Southsea Fest coming up on the 18th September I’m definitely in the mood for a little light refreshment at The Bridge Tavern and a casual cycle along the seafront and back to help me shake off the hangover on the 19th. I might even end up at Spice Island for a cheeky tipple after. I reckon I’ll get to the Bridge Tavern for a bout 12pm and set off around 2pm after some lunch. Give me a shout if you’re in the area. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.

Photo: Andy Hall

Your Twenty Four No.01 : Paul Gonella

Your Twenty Four is a new regular feature for Strong Island and each instalment will contain up to 24 photographs taken over a 24 hour period within Portsmouth by different people. You can shoot one roll of film or take out your digital camera and just document what you got up to. I’m going to start off with a sunny Saturday morning’s beachcombing in Langstone Harbour followed by a bike ride along the seafront to Bored, including a look around the Marine Museum grounds, one of the forts, the pier, etc. All shot on one roll of film in an Olympus Pen half-frame camera.

We are looking for contributions for future Y24 posts so if you are up for documenting your day please get in contact.

(Click Read More... to see the rest of the photos)

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75km Bike Ride Around Sussex & Hampshire

This Sunday Myself, Danny, Rory, Greg, Bruce & Dr.Nick all met up at 8am and went on a circular ride out in to the Sussex countryside. With an average speed of 15.5mph we smashed it in 3 hours including a few pit stops here and there. Check my Flickr for a few snaps.

PRIMARY – Extended & Improved

We have some great news about our PRIMARY phonography exhibition (find out all the details here) that we can now announce:

- The deadline for submissions has now been extended to Sunday 4th March. We have had some incredible submissions but want to set aside more time to make the exhibition something really special.

- The competition is now open to up to 10 submissions from each individual. With the ability to capture many photos on your phone over the next two months we we want you to not feel restricted to just three. The same rules apply about the photos conforming to compositions using the primary colours though. If you have already submitted feel free to send more photos over as and when you please.

- The exhibition will be hosted by Albert Road’s own Bonzo Studio who are also partnering up with us in the creation of the exhibition space. More news on this soon!

- Finally, we will be running a competition as part of the exhibition where the best three photos submitted will win some incredible prizes. We will be announcing the prizes available very soon but got to say, these will be the best prize haul we have ever offered.

- We will be putting together a poster for the exhibition that will be on sale on the opening night. The poster will feature some of the best submissions and all profits from the sales will go to a local charity (details to follow soon). Due to this we need to say that any photos submitted to PRIMARY will involve you giving us permission to use them for commercial purposes, if you do not want your photo used in this way simply let us know via email.

Well, that is it for now! We really hope to drum up as much coverage locally for PRIMARY in the next couple of months so if you could Facebook/Tweet/+1 about the exhibition we would really appreciate it. We would love this exhibition to be a real reflection of the whole population of Portsmouth with everyone taking part and feeling involved.

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage