return to discovery

Well it's been a minute since I was last jamming pixels into this b-grade text editor and I'm certain that 2 years and 3 months ago I certainly wasn't concerned with the quality of a text editor but I certainly was concerned with what appear to be my first seemingly comprehensive existential crisis. It took me a good while to log back in to this very text editor, Seemingly a result of the data-retention goal posts changing since i was last here… something I am concerned with these days....

Swatch of the Australian Magpie/world's most epic bird 

I’m sure there is a great number of things I wasn’t concerned with and in retrospect, it feels like I was driven by the very act of not being concerned, with much, or anything at all and in recent times I was led down a thought-warren regarding maturation and how my 2009-2015/16 self was seemingly existing in opposition to the idea of it, but I only feel this now, at the time I thought I was doing it (maturing). I think maturing and learning/experience are similar but exclusive as I’m of the opinion that learning/experience is something thrust upon you, by time, your self or way of culture and schooling. Ignoring the fact humans are fiercely judgemental, I feel maturity is a yardstick defined by the self, a measure that appears to have inversely proportional potency, in that more age = less concern for maturity? I don’t think it’s as simple as boiling it down to wanting what you can’t have but that universal truth is striking ever increasing chords in my emerging desire for simplicity. I was, once again, postponing my happiness, instead of working towards being happy.  I’ve been very lucky in my life, to have experienced much joy but it all came very easily and I think the result of that was not knowing how to find it and also that I NEED to find it, shit doesn’t just fall in your lap, you’ve gotta sit under the asshole.

In the depths of this intrigue I began to realise I was resisting the very things that made me me, or at least the things about myself that I enjoyed most, as my naive self thought the unknown-growth I was pursuing was most quickly attainable through shedding my previous self; this very idea is perhaps founded in my habit of defining borders in my timeline as moments of change.  Sure there are defining moments in life but we’re all a sum of previous instances combined and to assume that one can develop and mature by simply placing an imaginary border between two moments is pretty ludicrous. I recall my 5th birthday and how I was bummed that I didn't wake up taller, so really, I learnt this lesson 24 years ago...

Brisbane Sunset, looks like winter. Ektachrome 100vs 135

A desire to avoid specificity is implicating this rant with incompletion but to summarise, for the sake of my diary-esque desires for this journal, what’s been going on since my last post has been extremely transformative. I became reclusive and struggled with a feeling of isolation from self and the people who were close, probably resulting from the travel - which I’m now thinking might be an unconsidered/unspoken downside to travelling over a number of years.  Travelling, perhaps not just for me, is a hyper-cultural experience whereby you’re saturated with intrigue and bombarded by the unknown and I’m not sure one can experience these extreme learning environments at home. As a result, it created distance between my home pals who were on their own epic trajectory and seemingly more so than ever as I was unaware of their own blissful progressions and I didn’t realise this at the time, but was probably why I didn’t like talking about trips I went on.  In my own experience this was happening in both worlds, as I was on the road with a relatively consistent bunch of dudes, meaning I felt separation from my home pals and my away pals, living in a state of perpetual catch up.  I guess the difference was the guys who I was roading with were living in a similar relational state of separation, so perhaps there was more solace for this struggle on the road than at home.  In 2017, when I was last here (this blog), I was probably in the thick of the my doldrums and defining my life by how much time I spent thinking/doing work.  Escapism probably.  I was learning and growing etc etc but I didn’t feel it, I felt the opposite.  I struggled with contentedness, perhaps another curse of my travelling and began resigning from the chase.

Stormy Sunset in the Lost World Valley

I definitely wasn’t prepared for the next stage of lamb life, something I didn’t realise until I was coming back up for air. I put all my eggs in other peoples baskets and only very recently realised the best basket was Mary Lou and that the best place for my eggs were in her and I feel like those eggs are hatching right now. We’re on the verge of a new epoch and it’s the most excited I’ve felt for a number of years now and this epoch will be defined by a return to simplicity, a rejection of happiness as a thing that occurs, instead it’s something that results from effort. But that kinda sounds weird, kinda sounds like work, which makes sense as I’ve spent the last 3 years totally driven by and to work.  As I felt more work = more maturity (not experience or wisdom, only maturity) and managed to work alongside some very accomplished people however I didn’t realise accomplishment was resulting more from experience, than it was from the actual work, let alone capacity or capability.

Lorenzo Borri, from Italy, surveying the Flatrock Green Zone

One thing I’ve just now noted is that my time entrenched in diving fell basically within my text-based-introspective-hiatus, and as much as I found comfort in hanging with the fish, I think they weren’t the best sounding board.  I’m excited by the idea of journalling some diving, and I think I need to approach this thing more lightheartedly, and less like a therapy session.  As much as it helps, I think I enjoy the act of expression and writing more than I do therapy, I figure bliss is somewhere in the middle.

Fraser Island vortices.

Clouds of Solace

In a restless world influenced by an seemingly infinite number of external factors, we humans strive to resist the entropy that defines living existence, a futile battle against certainty but one which motivates our existence..   If we, as a species, were happy sitting around watching the clouds float by than I doubt existential notions would have never came to be a thing and i'd most certainly not be sitting here worrying about self-imposed irrelevance and the desire to spend more time thinking than doing, which is currently my biggest concern, being concerned....  

I spend a lot of my time these days thinking about how to translate my historical desires and passions to become relevant to current day Lamb all the while feeling restless and unsure of where I want to be heading so really it's a bit of a concentric nightmare..  Over these awols i've noticed my ability to write suffers the most, but not due to actually writing ability but concerning myself with portrayal and not the content, the stuff that actually matters and the reason I want to be on here again- analysis paralysis sucks.    Through professionalism I exchanged love for dollars and I eventually realised that in the long run [outside of lucking into fads] was never going to be worth it.   

Now that I've moved away from photography as my main job all I want from it is the unbridled desire to explore that which used to come during early days in my freedom [getting a driver's licence] and with that I've realised I need to bring context back into this bessbee, not just jargon and jargon photos and ill-considered everythings..   I either tackle this with series or extendo captions, i feel introspective ranting usually just ends up in circles.. I think im also going to stop reading over what I've written.. it's my standard at the end of the day haa

mowers

Karla ponder's her impending physio session.  She was born with hip-dysplasia and has since about the age of one required weekly physiotherapy to maintain her mobility, she's stoked.

Willow was the height of rad kitty, if only her restlessness had never got the better of her.

....

this Pigeon was not only endowed with both legs but also cunning...

Sit down with Henry Brydon from 'We Are Explorers'

Last week I sat down with Henry Brydon from 'We Are Explorers' to chat about downhill and it's inherently exploratory nature.  I've included a transcript below but I suggest reading it on the site, it's all dolled up and has a bunch of pictures.

http://www.weareexplorers.co/this-is-why-you-should-try-longboarding/

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Jacob Lambert travels at 100kmph on a small piece of wood down very long, very steep roads in some of the most beautiful locations around the world. At 26 years old, this Brisbanite is cut from a very different cloth to most of us, and we caught up with him to find out why we should all try (and probably love) longboarding.

So firstly, how did you get into longboarding?

I’ve spent most of my life skating a traditional skateboard but it wasn’t until mid 2008 that I first started noticing the downhill stuff. At the time I worked at a rad surf/skate shop in the Gabba and we started seeing some interest in the gear and by the time we were getting in stock I was totally hooked.

Billy, Troy and Dillon drop into the most technical of Transalpina's plethora of run.

What do you love so much about this hobby?

There’s a lot of intense feelings involved with riding a board down a mountain and I feel the adrenaline was what got me initially, but as i started to ride more and in different locations my joy shifted towards faster lines, better style and a mentality that is best said as ‘skate to skate tomorrow’ and it was then that I truly began to love it.

The notion that you’re battling gravity and if you can control it, you win, gives me a very holistic sense of reward, contentedness and stoke.  Here you’ve got gravity and a skateboard without a brake and if you send yourself down a hill without the ability to control your speed you will maybe die in the first corner, but getting to the point where you know (even without seeing the hill) you can roll down it and, short of unforeseeable disaster you’re going to make it down safely is an incredibly empowering feeling. It took skating a 33 hairpin, 20 minute run in the Italian Alps to first really understand that feeling. However, I definitely do not recommend blind runs, you never know if there’s gonna be a wet patch in a corner that’ll send you off a cliff, or a pack of tree loppers felling logs on the road, like in Korea one time D:

Where are some of the best spots you’ve skated in Australia?

That’s a tough one. The most memorable spots are generally so because of the scenario, not just the road itself, but if i had to say it’d be Kangaroo Valley south of Sydney.  The Snowy Mountains [both NSW and VIC] have some epic roads but they pale in comparison to the surrounding scenery!!  Brisbane city and it’s surrounding coasts have some of the gnarlier roads around but it’s situational, lots of driveways and blind corners. It’s danger riding so the adrenaline runs thick.

And internationally?

I can narrow down it to 2 roads.  The first is a road deep in the wild wild west- about 4 hrs from Seattle or 2 from Portland- along the Columbia river in Washington State called Maryhill Loops Road.  Most of us may recognise the road through car adverts but this road is so much more than a picturesque piece of bitumen.  The road was built in 1912, it was the first road built west of the Mississippi and an experiment into construction mountain passes.  The road has 3 brief straights but apart from that it’s seemingly infinite corners, with perfect camber and apices, it’s gradient varies barely +/- 1º and there’s not a downhill skater that could’ve dreamt something radder. It’s truly special, and it’s a museum so it’s shut to the public!

Although Maryhill may be the perfect downhill road i was lucky to travel through Romania last year and there we found the Transalpina, not to be mistaken with Top Gear’s favourite road [the Transfăgărășan]. The Transalpina is essentially 6 different runs on the one road, it winds up from forested valley until well above the tree-line in the depths of Carapathian Mountains.  Picture lunar like landscapes, endless peaks, wolf packs and a road so perfect I’d be happy to skate nothing else.

Any dream locations on the hit list?

There’s a road in Japan, it prompted myself and 3 others to go hunting for it in 2013 but we were hoaxed due to residual winter but it’s the most novelty looking stretch of switchbacks ever (it’s got about 40 repeating switchbacks and a Shinto Shrine on top). Although we didn’t get to ride that one,  we did get to skate the Initial-D road, Irohazaka, but it was wet and the potential to slide under a guard rail and off the cliff was pretty real. We ended up waiting 3 days for the rain to pass, but it never did.

So what’s the fastest you’ve travelled on a longboard?

It’s hard to tell and generally it feels like you’re doing about 30kms more than you actually are but i’ve skated some hills in the states with reported speeds of over 100kms/h.  There’s a couple around Brisbane and the GC too.

Which leads me to my next question: wipeouts. You must have had a fair few over the years?

Oh yeah, it’s the nature of the beast really. Of course none of us actually wanna crash but it’s this thought that sits in the back of your head which makes bombing hills on skateboards produce such crazy elation. Narrowly avoiding a crash is kinda the best bit because at the end of the day we’re all adrenaline junkies.

I’ve been exceptionally lucky in my time; i’ve stacked a bunch, fractured a few fingers, maybe an ankle and i’ve hit a few cars but never gone under them or had a serious injury. I started riding in 2008 and it was between then and 2013 that i bricked myself most regularly. In 2013 I began to take the photo side seriously and since then i’ve regained notions of self-preservation. Moving into the photo side of things was a major power play because I realised that being the photographer meant I got to go on all the trips! Instead of having to battle with riders that are better than me, plus it meant i got paid!!

Yatedawg on the Bruneau Dunes

Any standouts?!

I used to live on a hectically steep street, about 30% and the 4th steepest street in Brisbane – it was were I started to really get into doing skids and began to understand the stopping component.

Living on it and skating it every day lead me to get pretty complacent, perhaps too comfortable and on one occasion I tried to do just one skid, normally I took 3 or 4, and upon kicking it out [about 55-65kms] I high-sided and flew forward.  I managed to get a foot on the ground before hitting the road which helped me position myself to fall properly (we wear gloves with chopping board on the palms so if you manage to fall in a ‘push-up’position you can take most of the friction on your shoes and gloves, not your skin). I managed to get in that pushup position but the camber of the road pushed me over to the gutter, as my hand entered the gutter it was ripped from underneath me and I flipped onto my back, in the gutter.

This is were it got nasty. The gutter was heavily leaf littered so there was no friction, which was great for my back but the lateral force of the camber pushed my side against the gutter and I slide down the gutter for about 25 meters, with the coarse concrete gutter taking the skin off most of my side, about 12% of my total skin (your palm equals roughly 1%).  My leg, arms and chest were all torched but the worst part was the internal bruising from getting that foot on the ground before I fell over. I was bed ridden for a week and for the next year, maybe more, I couldn’t jump onto it.

Bloody hell, that sounds horrific. If someone still wants to get into this as a hobby, do you have 3 tips!?

get a helmet

get gloves

learn to stop!!!

Any recommended gear and brands?

I ride for landyachtz longboards, bear trucks and hawgs wheels so I’m biased but there are some rad new brands popping up too. Perhaps I’m cynical but this is how i consider componentary.  The board doesn’t really matter so long as your feet feel good, i’ve ridden boards from over a meter to bombing hills on a 35cm piece of wood but i only managed to do so because of the trucks.  The trucks are the entirety of the setup IMO, they define stability and agility, the two factors which actually matter.  As for wheels personal preference!  There are good wheels and bad wheels, most wheels are good and in order to love them you just gotta learn how they ride, for about 2 years i didn’t ride the same wheel twice and each new wheel was better than the last, but i realised it had nothing to do with the wheels themselves.  I’m happy to answer anyones questions if they want some real tech info, i’ve worked in downhill at all levels, from retail to operations and I’m stoked to pass on the knowledge