[Authors notes follow] Join Big Mountain Adventures in one of the most amazing places to ride a mountain bike on the planet - Peru. Fascinating culture, local professional guides and mind-blowing trails. Travel with the world's premiere mountain bike tour company. Go to www.ridebig.com for all the details.
[Authors notes follow] The Mustang region in the Himalayas of Nepal is a land so beautiful, it has long been the ultimate dream for adventurers all over the world. Here, the sacred peaks of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri - shining with snow all year round, tower over the Kali Gandaki River, forming the deepest valley on the planet.
Follow local rider Mandil Pradhan as he rides in the shadows of the world's highest mountains, through mystic Himalayan villages, on trails that have been trodden upon for centuries.
A Himalayan Rides Production (www.himalayanrides.com, www.facebook.com/himalayanrides) A film by Gaurav Man Sherchan (www.gauravman.com)
Rider: Mandil Pradhan, Himalayan Rides Music: Radical Face - Welcome Home (www.radicalface.com) Edit: Gambhir Rajkarnikar, Mokshya Production Driver: Ram Bahadur Magar Porter: Purna Bahadur Pariyar
Special thanks to: Nepal Tourism Board Yeti Travels Pvt Ltd Trekker's Inn, Jomsom
An attempt to give some of the flavours of the ocean and try to explain what motivates me to relish challenges such as rowing across the Atlantic Ocean.
Ben Saunders talks about weight saving techniques, his equipment design choices to launch a record-setting expeditions to the North Pole. His expedition has been delayed by ice composition changes in the Arctic. If we think about global warming or inter-glacial melts, the logistics of Arctic life for natives and explorers is fast changing and challenging the traditional ways the northern communities have lived, who visits them, and how they sustain their lives in the warming polar and arctic regions of the northern hemisphere used in this example.
Ben Saunders - Solo & unsupported North Pole Speed Record 2011-2012
www.bensaunders.com | www.twitter.com/polarben
Filmed and edited by Temujin Doran - www.studiocanoe.com
Additional footage by Andy Ward - www.flickr.com/photos/averylongwalk
[Los Angeles Times] "Caine's Arcade" -- a short film about a 9-year-old boy who built an elaborate cardboard arcade in his dad's used auto parts store in East L.A. -- is one of the sweetest videos we've seen all year.
And now it's going viral: The 11-minute video has picked up 1 million views on Vimeo in just two days, and another 438,000 views on YouTube.
"Caine is a killer," filmmaker Nirvan Mullick, who directed the video, wrote in a recent tweet. "He has been making thousands of grown men weep at work."
The star of the film is 9-year-old Caine, a precocious little boy who spent his summer vacation at his dad's used auto parts shop in East Los Angeles.
To pass the time, Caine -- who loves everything about arcades -- started building his own arcade entirely out of cardboard boxes, eventually taking over almost the whole store, while his dad sold auto parts on eBay in the back.
The first game was a basketball game with a little plastic hoop that he got at Shakey's and taped to a cardboard box. He also made a soccer game with two little plastic green army figures acting as fixed goalies, and he even created a claw machine with an s-hook and a piece of yarn.
Since school started back up, Caine's Arcade is only open on weekends, when Caine gets out his turquoise Caine's Arcade T-shirt that he designed himself. It says "staff" on the front and "Caine's Arcade" on the back.
Caine charges $1 for four turns at the arcade, but for $2 you can get a handmade fun pass that allows you 500 turns for one month.
When you win a game, Caine will climb inside the box and push tickets out a slot. The prizes include his old matchbox cars, silly sunglasses and bubbles.
He also attached calculators to each box, which he uses to verify the validity of the fun passes he sells.
In other words, it's just like a real arcade, except a million times better.
Mullick discovered the homemade arcade when he fortuitously stopped into Caine's dad's auto parts store to get a handle for his '96 Corolla. Smitten with Caine and the arcade, he asked Caine's father, George, if he could make a film about the arcade and the answer was yes.
But the father warned the filmmaker that Caine doesn't get many customers.
"Well, actually, it's kind of like a joke around here because you are his only customer," he says in the film. Well, Mullick changed all that.
In the film, he explains how he decided to create a flashmob of people who would arrive at Caine's Arcade eager to play some games.
He created a Facebook event for the mob, which got posted on Hidden LA, and then got posted on Reddit, and suddenly people from around the world were lamenting that they weren't able to go to Caine's Arcade.
It's worth watching the video to see Caine's reaction to the crowd of people lined up outside of his cardboard arcade, but we suggest you have a box of tissues nearby.
When it was all over, Caine told his dad that it was the best day of his life.
And if this story isn't sweet enough, Mullick set up a scholarship fund for Caine, which has already raised more than $80,000.
This video is a 6 minute, 33 second trailer part of the HimalayasX2011-2012 expedition project on a mountain bike. Last summer, I completed 3200km (1988 miles) exploring western China, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and crossing Himalayan sections of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.
Brian Perich is now an English a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher, father, and adventure cyclist based in South Korea.
Between 1994-1998 - Brian completed his own adventures with motorcycles. His motorcycling marathons took him across the United States and central/western Canada, while traveling solo over an astounding 24,000km in 60 days! He endured 900 mile/1300km days in the motorcycle saddle and apparently loved every minute of those adventures.
Today, he has given up motorcycle adventures altogether, but finds an outlet for his enthusiasm in outdoor recreation while bicycle touring and micro-blogging about those experiences.
While employed as an English teacher in South Korea, Brian has became an advocate for bicycle touring on his mountain bikes. The Korean-World blog originated from those small adventures in Korea, now expanding to covering his recent HimalayasXexpedition across western China, the Taklamakan Desert, the northern Himalayas of Xinjiang/Uyghur Autonomous Region, the corrugated back roads and mountains of Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces. Brian successfully completed his expedition with 3200km/1988 miles of pavement, on/off road MTB adventure cycling.
Brian is now supporting several non-profit foundations through expeditions: IDEAS Foundation of Canada IDEAS is the acronym for Intestinal Disease Education and Awareness Society which supports the IBD community, those suffering from IBD-inflammatory bowel disease, also known as Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis.
The second non-profit foundation is ETE.ORG - Education Through Expeditions, UK which supports educational outreach programs inside schools around the world. ETE connects explorers with students in the classroom, through an interactive online program in development (Beta).
Brian is asking his readers support for sponsorship to begin his upcoming 32000km 18000 mile expedition across the Americas - Arctic2Argentina2013, and needs your support! Please contact him if you are interested in helping out.
