The crossing of Spain and Portugal will have to wait. A few weeks ago I was chatting on Skype with a German friend of mine when he invited me to join him on his trans alps cycle ride that they do every year. Honoured to be invited (last year I think Christian was of the impression that I wasn’t up to the job, but my Madrid to Valencia ride might have gone some way to convincing him otherwise) I set about finding out if it was a possibility. I now have the time off work arranged, flights booked and I…
I’m getting more and more into my mountain biking, and spend a lot of time thinking when and where I will go next. I’ve just returned from the centro joventud (still got a few weeks before I hit 30) in Alaquas where I was trawling through all their mountain biking and trekking route guides. While there I discovered the GR10, one of many of a network of trails all over the country. This particular trail, also part of the European E7, works its way from Med coast near Valencia to the Atlantic in Portugal taking in some pretty stunning scenery…
As you may have noticed, I’ve become mighty slack in updating this blog. The real reason for that is time. I love my job and work more hours than I should. Also, unlike my previous job, I don’t have time to surf the web, build websites and do other personal things while “working”. For these reasons I will be updating the blog in 2009 even more infrequently than I did in 2008. That said, here I can offer a huge entry to keep you going until I do get round to posting again. This particular post has been a long…
Evidently encouraged by recent trips to the Nurburgring and Castle Combe, here I was fantasising about / pondering what my next car will be. The current shortlist goes like this: Ludicrously powerful Mini Peugeot 106 Rallye MG Midget Lotus 7 replica The trend of small lightweight and fun is reoccurring in all of them. But then I found myself thinking what is the point in spending all this money when there are so few opportunities to enjoy them. Trackday’s, with the huge increase in popularity (due partly to the number of speed cameras in this country) have seen a like…
At the end of September Espe and I went over to Castle Combe circuit to watch the Mini World Action day where hundreds of UK minis come together to be thrashed around the west country circuit. It was an entertaining day watching various Minis being hurled around the track, with interesting consequences at the chicanes. The somewhat sick noises of bike engined and massively high boost turbos was incredible. Of further fascination in and around the paddock, for me at least, was seeing the impressive engineering feats of shoe horning big engines into very small cars. Given how, since the…
The words Nurburgring and Nordschleife will set the blood of any proper car enthusiast flowing. This place is motor sport Mecca and I had the pleasure of taking my first petrol head pilgrimage to the place with Niki and a whole load of his Lotus chums. I received an email from him in June asking if I’d be interested in joining him for a long weekend in August. I didn’t have to think twice about that one, even though I knew it would only be as a passenger. Once I´d got the OK from both bosses I was set to…
Well, I said I’d do it, and despite numerous people telling me that I was crazy, I did. After four or five days in Madrid catching up with people (including this unlikely rif raf pictured below), playing far too much GTA IV on Jon’s PS3 and stocking up on Maps at the wonderful Tienda Verde, I set off in the general direction of Valencia. Day 1: Arganda del Rey to Algarga Distance: 59km Highest Point: 760m Lowest Point: 550m I had no maps for the first part of the journey as I’d found much talk on t’interweb of this Via…
Having worked pretty hard over the spring and summer, the time has come for a well earned holiday. An opportunity to find some Sun and forget about the abysmal summer we had in the UK. Originally I planned for Espe and I to take a road trip around Belgium, Holland, Germany, France and Spain visiting as many friends as possible. The plan was to be in Valencia for a wedding two weeks into the trip. I had a long list of people and places to visit but due to the lack of money and, more importantly, the lack of a…