ICE Bike Winter

ICE bike is the trade show held by madison to show off their latest kit to dealers and the press. This year they deiced that one show a year wasn't enough so as well as their February show they held one in the summer. To show of their winter kit...

This time instead of just enjoying the free food and chatting to people about bikes I did something a bit more productive. Check it out here.

Graduation

Last Friday I graduated from Staffordshire University with a 2.1 in Journalism. Thinking about it I really don't know how I managed to get a decent grade. I started writing articles for IMB in December and found working for them much more fun than my modules so put everything off until the last two weeks before hand in.

I wasn't really fussed about the graduation ceremony beforehand but it actually turned out to be a really fun event. Even more fun was having a few drinks with some of my tutors afterwards and going for a night out up Hanley duck.

Video Editing

When I started putting videos together it used to take me weeks and weeks. Thankfully now it doesn't. One of my house mates taught me to be more brutal when choosing what clips to use and the best ways to link them. Now the hardest part is trying to find music to go with the riding.

I'm still using iMovie. One day I'll be able to afford a macbook pro with final cut. Until then iMovie works fine. Apart from it wouldn't load up the 'MTS' files that Pete's camera saves videos as.

If anyone knows how to convert files to '.Mov' for free without getting a massive watermark in the corner of the clip give me a shout. Here's a sneak look at the video for Winterberg. The real version will be in the next issue of IMB.

Trips Away

Holidays, I mean work trips, for the magazine are awesome. Packing isn't. This is how things were looking before my visit to the Cube headquarters in Germany. When going away the three most important things to pack are your camera charger, laptop charger and phone charger. Forget one and things get a bit tricky. Forget two and you're screwed...

And if you forget all three and your house key so you can't get in when you get home then you may as well just give up. Lesson learnt I suppose. Also if you're going to be testing bikes take your own pedals. No matter how good your shoes are you won't get any grip on plastic pedals.

Note Book

I know we're living in a world of netbooks, dictaphones and apps but having a simple notepad is seriously useful. Scribbling down a few words at the end of the day really helps when you come to doing a write up on what you've just been riding.

It doesn't matter if you're in the passenger seat of a van on the motorway or sat on a balcony overlooked by mountains. Notepads are awesome.