With both my Ultimate Turfing Bicycles, dare I say, totally complete, having just added rear carrier racks to both and bought a pair of small 10-litre Alpkit panniers, I’ve moved on to my next project, the Ultimate Turfing Kick Scooter, my Swifty Air. The manufacturer, Swifty Scooters, have gone into administration, so absolutely no chance of them bringing out my preferred disk brake titanium frame version, so I set about creating the next best thing.
The Swifty Air, or any similar kick scooter is great for turfing. Firstly, it’s small, relatively lightweight, very fast and nimble. There’s no messy chains to lubricate and get all over your trouser leg or tattoo your shins, gears to crunch and you can scoot on the pavement, though do use some common sense when doing so. And you will get a far better workout than walking or cycling. An hour on a kick scooter is like a 30-minute session at the gym. Well, sort of, if you know what I mean.
First task was a decent paint job – my amateur efforts with spray cans and bright colours was not wearing well – so I had the Swifty powder coated in a nice hard-wearing green colour. Then, after re-assembling with a new headset, upgraded the brakes with a pair of Magura HS11 hydraulic brakes. What a difference these make! Not only can I lock either wheel effortlessly but could go head first over the handlebars if I wasn’t careful. Love them.
You might be wondering why I’ve bought panniers for the bikes. Well, before Turf came along one thing I liked to do was to head out on the bike or kick scooter, find a nice scenic location and have a brew. I used to call it Brew With A View. I would also do the same at night and as there was usually not much of a view, called them Tea In The Dark. The rule I used to follow was that I must always make the brew fresh, be it tea or coffee, at the location, ideally boiling water with my mini Trangia stove. Occasionally a flask might be used but much prefer the stove as it makes you take your time. Now I’m going to do the same at selected Zones With A View. Should be fun.
Sometimes I find myself loosing interest in turfing but found a good way to rekindle my enthusiasm is to create a turf action list. Kind of a reminder that there’s still plenty of turf-stuff out there to be getting on with.
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- take remaining Midlothian zones. 423 of 473 taken.
- take remaining East Lothian zones. 647 of 687 taken.
- take remaining City of Edinburgh zones. 1098 of 1293 taken.
- try to better Eager Ferret time. Current time is 7:45.
- track down more turfer unique zones. Total so far is 402.
- keep an eye out for new FTT zones. Total so far is 31.
- take Water zone, GladOfASwim, on Gladhouse Reservoir.
- try for promotion/maintain place in the League.
- collect points for next Rank. Current Rank is 56 – Turf Angel.
- take Monument zones. 44 needed for Monumental medal.
- try for Diversiest medal. 1000 round unique takes.
- try for El Staminatore medal. 200 takes in 24-hours.
- try for Region Star medal. 3 Regions required.
That’s all folks. Back soon.
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