Well fancy meeting you here!

Arriving at The Bridge Tavern on Sunday at just gone 12pm to see a lone Jody sat waiting was a good moment in my day. I could hardly hold my hangover together after Southsea Fest let alone sit by myself in anticipation that nobody else would arrive as I would have have to suffer in the cold as I nursed a very heavy pint.

Thankfully more Strong Islanders slowly arrived, braving the temperamental weather and all in good spirit. Despite the odd hangover…

Rather low numbers from the incredible 200+ seen at past rides, but nevertheless 30 of us set off on the very wet ride, stop for a photo and adjourned early at the Little Johnny Russells for some light refreshment and tea.

Well done everyone.

Video: Chris Ballingall & Photos: Tristan Savage

Better late than never…

Southsea Gent Mr Mark Persaud just sent me these awesome panoramic photos from last years Strong Island Bike Ride. It’s really great to see the full group photos and get a feel for how big the ride really is. Good work mate. Look forward to seeing this years too. Click the lower panoramics for a closer view.

Anyone fancy a little bike ride?

With the April 24th Bank Holiday Sunday very nearly upon us it’s put me in the mood for a little light refreshment at The Bridge Tavern and a casual cycle along the seafront and back to get me in the mood for the Summer ahead. I might even end up at Spice Island for a cheeky tipple after. I reckon I’ll get to the Bridge Tavern for about 12pm and set off around 2pm after some lunch. Give me a shout if you’re in the area. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.

Strong Island Bike Rides – Reminiscing

Ahhhhhhh, remember the good old days. From it’s humble beginnings in 2008 to over 250 happy cyclists last year, the Bi-Annual Strong Island Bank Holiday Bike Rides had become a definite diary entry for those in the know. Shame it all had to come to an end. Public liability and all that. Oh well. I still do the route for fun and will do again on the 18th September. Who knows………Here’s a little look back at the last 2 years since the bike rides started.

Strong Island Summer Bike Ride from Tristan on Vimeo.

Strong Island Roundabout from Tristan on Vimeo.

Bank Holiday Bike Road from James Sharp on Vimeo.

Strong Island Bike Ride Facebook Failure

So I was updating my iPhoto library last night, a bit of a spring clean, and removed my Facebook export libraries whilst keeping my main libraries safe. However, safe is no the word for the Facebook photos. They all got deleted from my photo albums page. I was able to put all my albums back but all the tags have been lost.

I had dozens of tag requests for the bike ride and well over 100 tags in total over the whole album. If you want to tag yourself again feel free and head over to my Facebook album HERE. Sorry.

Bike Ride Panoramics

We will have loads of photos and stories from Sunday’s hugely successful Strong Island Bike Ride and to get started we have some huge panoramics taken by George Crick. Sadly we can only show some of the small versions here that do not do them justice so be sure to visit George’s website to see the all of the photos in full size, and spot yourselves in there!

George’s panoramics will be available to buy in Wallspace Gallery in Albert Road from Saturday for a bargain price of just £35.

Bank Holiday Bike Ride After Party – Call for films

Graham had kindly organised an After Party for The Strong Island Bike Ride this April 4th at The One Eyed Dog. There is an opportunity to have films projected for the evening in the Duck side of The Dog and I thought this would be a good platform to see is anyone would like to contribute or has some cool bike films we can play. Any bike film/short/videos would be cool. If you think you can help then either speak directly to Graham or drop an email/comment to Strong Island. Thanks for your support.

Smell The Roses from Zack McTee on Vimeo.

Strong Island Bike Ride Teaser

Just a little teaser to get you in the mood for the next Bank Holiday Bike Ride. Keep in touch over at Facebook. Have a great weekend everyone.

Strong Island Summer Bike Ride from Tristan on Vimeo.

Strong Island Bank Holiday Bike Ride

Okay then fellow islanders and friends alike. Following the even HUGER success of the last Strong Island Bike Ride in September 09, and all the amazing feedback I’ve had, I think it’s time to start thinking about the next one.

I’ve initally gone for April 4th, the Bank Holiday weekend. This means no work on Monday, for most. Like before, this ride is by no means a political statement, critical mass, reaction towards the council or statement of any kind and is by no means an event, just friends in Southsea getting together for a bike ride to the beach. All very innocent. It’s all about Sunday fun with friends and bikes.

Initial thoughts are to ride pretty much the same route as before but a little longer again. Nothing major, just a few more miles as feedback seem to point towards a longer ride, yet still not too long for everyone. Standard roundabout fun and Eastney stop off for a beach photograph. Initial thoughts are to end either back at The Bridge Tavern or Spice Island. Many people asked for something at the end, but as a non profit site this is very hard to arrange. Even grouping people on the common would mean getting the Council & Police involved……

THIS is last years route along the seafront and back. Let me know any thoughts on extending it, changing it, ending somewhere else, anything.

Make sure to sign up on the Facebook Events page to keep up to date, or keep checking back here of course. All the best, Tristan.

Matt Saxey’s Bike Ride Photos

Head on over to Matts Flickr and check out a few more photos from last Sunday’s ride. Great photos that really help capture the event.

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