Nick Hand

The dying of the light

Yesterday we stopped in Arcis sur Aube in the Champage Ardennes region, riding through a string of little villages with half timbered cottages and farm buildings.

Rural France isn’t the place to set off without a good stash of food in your panniers. So two days running now we’ve done just that and ridden four hours before finding anywhere open. Being a big bloke and riding a big heavy bicycle you burn through the calories. I really struggle when I’m low on food, and poor old Robin got the grumpy side of me yesterday (wrong really, especially as was offering some Nuttella to see us through). Anyway, we happened upon a mushroom festival just in the nick of time that offered some food relief and a little entertainment with a powerpoint mushroom slide show.

When we planned this little adventure I hadn’t considered the shorter days of September and October being a problem. But after riding five hours or so and stopping once or twice the daylight left to set up camp, shower, eat and then do a print run starts to run a little short. So a few times I’ve found the light going and finishing the print in semi darkness.

Yesterday in Arcis sur Aube we tried a new strategy. We got up early and tried printing as it got light (rather than as it gets dark). It meant that the Dutch on the campsite got the odd sight of a bloke with a printing press on a bicycle in action as they went for showers. ‘Shpecial’ was the word one or two used of the bike in print mode. I encountered a new problem that the water based ink, got a bit wet and watered down in the dampness of the morning, and the oil based ink was a bit blobby in the cold. Still, we persevered and printed a card by Louise Cunningham, an illustrator friend from Centrespace in Bristol. Very nice it is too and the postcards will be winging their way courtesy of La Poste today.

Here are a few images struggling with the light. Also Robin and I riding around the huge cycle path circling Lac Der-Chantecoq yesterday a nice 15km part of the day.

Half way(ish)

We left Sées to head towards Nugent de le Trou, south of Paris and home to our friends at La Fin du Monde, the anarchist letterpress printers and musicians. We met them when they came over to our print festival in Bristol in May. Twelve of the group turned up in Bristol a day and an half early back in May, and they turned their time at the print festival into an impromptu residency at the Letterpress Collective.

Even with Robin’s expert map reading, it was a day of tricky little routes and getting a little lost. A long 80km plus day. The weather good – cool and sunny perfect cycling weather. The highlight was a 10km ride through Bellame Forest, low sun filtering through the tall trees, a lovely ride on a beautiful evening.

We arrived with our friends late and in pitch dark. Their place is a sprawling old mill, and nineteen people live and work on the site. As we arrived the group were working on a yurt, huge with its lovely wooden skeleton lit with folk silhouetted working on the structure. In all things the group pool their energy and enthusiasm and work very hard at whatever they are doing.

There was a few tricky moments when an older Romanian lady took a big shine to Robin, he decided to give the normal end of day shower a miss (no locks and with the Roma lady hovering, well). La Fin du Monde took up the challenge of making two postcard designs starting at about ten in the evening and working through to the early hours.

We went to the kitchen in the morning to find a beautiful linocut of the front of an old puncture repair kit which they thought kind of represented the repairing nature of the way they live. A lovely gift. Our friends waved us off and we headed 60kms to meet Hannah Cousins at 3.30pm in Bonneval.

Hannah is a talented illustrator who I met through our good friends at Hiut Denim and the Do Lectures. She had travelled from London in the early morning to meet us (oddly we arrived spot on time on the bikes – not a common thing that) So it was very nice to sit in the lttile town square and watch her make a beautiful lino cut of Paris from sketches that she had made earlier in the day.

We waved Hannah off and back to London via Paris and headed to the campsite up the road to print the lino. Which went really well using water based inks that our friend at La fin Du Monde gave to us. We have been having trouble drying the prints and the water based stuff drys much quicker. It was an impressive feat for Hannah to get to us and home in a day, and it was so nice to meet up with her.

We stayed at the little campsite up the road from Bonneval town centre and we headed back to the town in the morning to sit for an hour or two to put stamps on and sort the cards. We were able to send two sets, Joe McClarens brilliant ‘h’ block illustration and one of Hannah’s somehow she had managed to make two.

I had also noticed that the rural French seem to like cut flowers as the florists are always open. They also excel at stationery shops and (since Harriet introduced me to the wonder of the stationer) I like to look them out. Well, the French stationery shops do not disappoint, always well laid out, they also have some interesting and quirky little things. I had already bought three two inch flattish comb binders so that printed cards could sit edges on and dry.

The next two days riding were through a huge flat landscape with huge fields stretching as far as you can see in all directions, they have either just been cleared of its crop or in the process of being. The crops are single products like beet, onions, or more often sweetcorn. It’s how I imagine Kansas is (though just a guess really). Huge tractors loaded with product or returning for more roar along the roads and through the quiet scattered villages.

That night we had to abandon the print effort, due to a few things: bit of rain, darkness and mostly using the wrong ink on a zinc plate. Ho hum. We stayed in a very odd little place, kind of like a big campsite in a forrest that has been closed up for the winter. Just a few folk camping for free and using the hot showers (that had kindly been left for the stragglers). Autumn is really here and the last two nights have been properly cold with the mornings a bit creaky and tricky to get going.

Finally, yesterday was a kind of odd short day. We rode 30km to a little town called Malesherbes where there should be a campsite and also a train to Paris. The campsite is closed (no idea why) so we’re poshing it up and staying in a little hotel (very nice) with the bikes stashed in a storage shed out the back. So nice to wash riding stuff and dry it on a radiator. And nice for us to have a bit of space for a day. Anyhow, off I trundled off on a lightening stop to Paris to collect a lino cut left at a brilliant little bookshop called Le Monte-en-L’air at 2 Rue de la Mare. Once I got my bearings and worked out the metro, it was straightforward. The lino was from our friend Olaf Ladousse, a brilliant French artist who lives in Madrid and has helped a lot with work for the Hiut yearbook and also David (Hieatt’s) Do Purpose book this year. It was definitely worth the trip in, the lino is brilliant as some of you will see in a week or so.

The montage is a kind of mix of stuff from above, including pics of the Print Bike in action and on the road (pics courtesy of the ever excellent Robin Mather), and also some of our friends at La Fin du Monde, one of Robin riding through the forrest in the evening, a bunch of old guys from a riding club on the plains south east of Paris. And one of Hannah, who met us in Bonneval and made a linocut in the square as we drunk coffee, and a beautiful thing it is too.

Getting wet

We’re now six days into our Print Bike trip from Bristol to Mainz. The other night I could see flashes of lightening and it didn’t bode well for the next day of riding, when the storms finally caught up with us. It also coincided with my breaks semi-failing on a big downhill stretch into Thury-Harcourt (they call it Swiss Normandy). So we arrived pretty cold and wet and Robin (being Robin) offered to put the tent up while I had a shower. Oddly the lights in the shower block were on a timer and it went pitch black in the shower (sort of an odd experience). So we headed out towards Sées in a drizzle where I am now with newly fixed disk breaks (another gold star for Robin). We had a long 50 miler in the saddle. Sées is a really beautiful little town on the Orne river with a beautiful gothic cathedral (that Robin accurately says looks like a carved pumpkin).

Today, we head towards Nogent le Retrou to meet our anarchist French printer musician friends (La fin du Monde) which is very exciting. They came to the print festival in Bristol in May and became an informal residency in the Letterpress Collective. They are lovely folk and I’m sure it will be a great stop off.

Last night we printed a card by the artist Joe McLaren. We had an audience of British bikers who had been to Le Mans (one of whom knew about the print bike already). Also an old French boy who stood and looked for a while and shuffled off shaking his head saying ‘curiosité’.

 

The road to Sées from Thury Harcourt (bit drizzly)

Robin on map reading duty (he is brilliant at this).

British biker friends and Robin watch the print bike in action in Sées last night.

The Printing Bike Project: the first few days

I’m sitting writing this in a municipal campsite in a small town just south of Bayeux in Normandy. It’s a nice camp site, pretty much empty this time of year (September 20), good facilities. Except it’s a little odd, no toilet paper - the local town free paper came in handy there. Also the chair I’m sitting in is screwed to the wall, so I’m basically sitting in the middle of the gents, like a toilet attendant with a laptop on my knee.

So here are some notes and pictures from the first few days of our brilliant little Printing Bike adventure.

If you are new to this. The story is that after many mornings drinking coffee with my friend Robin Mather, we hatched a plan to build a bicycle to carry a small printing press. We would then crowd fund the project and cycle through England, France and Germany to the home of modern printing (well technically moveable type), to Mainz in Germany where Gutenberg invented the thing that changed the world (at least as much as the computerwould five hundred years later) in 1440. On the way printing postcards of work by friends, artists and poets. Simple.

The first day
The last few days before we headed south to Poole and then across on the ferry to France and onto Germany were a blur of weddings (taking photos for a friend), late nights getting bits of work done, celebrating (wedding and getting bike made) and getting ready to leave.

Robin (print bike maker and print bike journey companion) had decided to make himself a touring bike in the time between the printing bike going to the painter and us leaving (under a week). So late nights got later with the final night being a 2am finish. Muriel (Robin’s girlfriend) and my wife Harriet had joined us for the late night session to help prepare the postcard addresses and pack them into little packages to send to the folk on the journey.

We had arranged to meet a few friends at our local coffee shop, Small Street Espresso, at 7.30am before we set off.

By this point though, we had decided to head back to Centrespace to finish loading and packing. Robin, who had finished his (very nice) tourer the night before, had offered to load his bike with the camping and heavier stuff, leaving the printing bike free for the press and type, paper, ink, quoin keys, furniture (no not that type, it’s the little wooden and lead stuff to lock things into the printing chase).

Our friend, James Bowthorpe had made the nice little (not so little) box for the front (to carry paper, ink, blocks etc) and the rack on the back of the printing bike to carry the Adana Press and it had arrived (thanks Hannah) late the day before. So the folding and packing happened and seemed to be fairly straightforward.

Our friend, James Perrott was joining us for the first day as was Muriel. So the four of us rolled off from Centrespace about 12.30, almost immediately my handlebar got an uncontrollable wobble, a bit like a kind of circus bike thing. Resolving this meant moving bits of weight and test short rides along a busy St Nicholas Street. This was an hour of fiddling and adjusting before the bike was balanced enough to head off. By this time Muriel had nipped off to get some sandwiches which we ate in Castle Park (about three hundred yards from Centrespace, and not enough distance to even register on my gps).

It was a beautiful day to set out. And we rolled happily along the Bristol Bath cycle path to Bath (more coffee).

And then made for Frome where we headed to the brilliant Bicycle Academy, set up by Andrew Denham two years ago, and where Robin teaches folk how to make bicycles half of his working time. It has become established as one of the best places in the world already to learn how to make a bicycle frame.

Luckily my cousin Chris, who lives in Frome, was around and happy for Robin and I to sleep on his sofas. He also treated us to a top bit of Italian nosh in a local place. Morning, and my generous cousin bought us a full on breakfast beofre we rolled out of Frome towards Poole.

First day was about 28 miles, which meant a long 58 mile ride from Frome to Poole. Both bikes are extremely heavy (Print Bike takes two to lift), which means a slow heavy ride. The Print Bike though, is lovely to ride, on a flat and downhill you can get a real nice roll and hills, with plenty of gears are good too. We hit a few bigger hills in Dorset and one monster, which involved three recovery stops for me (Robin though chugs up them all, no worries). The first days are real leg testers and it takes those days to tune in to long days on heavily loaded bikes.

Lunch and we met up with our good friends Jilly and Simon from Centrespace (where we both have workshops). We met in Dorset at a little pub about 15 miles from Poole. It was great to see them, both good souls and it was a kind of party like atmosphere eating a picnic by the little stream in the village.

We arrived in Poole, about sixish to meet Simon and Jilly agin, and they had offered to cook supper and were also camping with us that night. By the time we had set up camp and the print bike, we were losing light and the first little print run (of Simon’s alphabet people linocut) it was printing mostly with head torches in a field (not ideal). Anyhow, it was very enjoyable and exciting, though a little testy. We laid the cards to dry in the back of Jilly's car (making a mental note to buy a washing line and pegs for drying cards in France and Germany)

We ate a nice Thai curry (thanks Simon and Jilly) and slept well in the tents for the first time. Robin and I are sharing a tent (saves weight) much to the amusement of the Centrespace folk.

Morning and an early rise to catch the 8.30 ferry, we lined up with all the leather clad bikes to get on the ferry and managed to catch a glimpse of lovely Jilly and Simon on the quayside.

Arriving in Cherbourg at 1pm, we rode into town and ate at a little place before heading off onto French roads for the first time with the bikes. We got only about 29km riding in before setting up camp at our first municipal campsite in a little town in Normandy. I cooked a lentil veggie stew which was could only generously be called a bit average. We were just too knackered to print that night.

Next day, Robin fired up the brilliant coffee using gear from our friends at Full Court Press and coffee from the brilliant Small Street Espresso. The coffee was totally brilliant and felt like a rocket fuelled start to the day. The mistake though was Robin buying a sausage from the little street market in the town (poor bloke suffered all day from that). Still we rolled out of town about ten and got a good 80km ride in during the day to take us very near to Bayeux, which is where we are now.

We got into town about 5.30pm, enough time to set the Print Bike up and print a beautiful lino cut from Jon McNaught. We had set up the newly acquired washing line to dry the prints for a few hours before walking into town to eat. I got a little nervous about leaving the prints to dry with the damp nights, so we layed
the prints out over clothes in the tent before heading to town. By the time we got back they were dry enough to interleave ready for posting in the morning (today). Well we’re already into day five and headed south towards Paris and a meeting with our friends the French anarchist printers, of whom I will tell more later.

Here are some photos from the first few days.
(its 8am now, and I’ve evacuated the Gents toilet and made for the picnic bench outside, the gents toilet isn’t a good place to be working at a laptop at the best of times).