Category: Cycling

June 19, 2011 Andy 0 Comments

Day 3. On paper the shortest distance, but the biggest climb, pretty much all of it relentlessly in the first 10km with no rest. A real mix. Woodland, moorland, wide continuous downhill, tight technical single track. An amazing ride, definitely glad we did this one last.

June 18, 2011 Andy 0 Comments

Day two. Even hotter, greater altitude gain, but a shorter distance overall. We cycled up and around Catalunya’s most distinctive landmark, Montserrat. It really is quite amazing, but I’ll let the photos show you that… A great ride, tarnished only by an impassibly overgrown section of technical single track which we had to walk back up again once we could get no further.

June 17, 2011 Andy 0 Comments

It was a pleasure to have Christian come to visit. We’d been planning it for a while, and although the initial April trip was cancelled, Christian made it over with his bike ready for a few days riding in Catalunya. Having been out on the bike very little, I was worried about my level of fitness (last time I rode with Christian we crossed the Alps… I was the fittest I think I’ve ever been, and he still left me standing). I was relieved to here that with him studying for his finals he’d done very little exercise too. Over…

February 16, 2011 Andy 0 Comments

I wasn’t able to fit my bike into the car when we moved back to Spain, so I had to bring it on the plane on my way back after Christmas. One of the rules for packaging up the bike is removing the air from the tyres. Once unpacked, I discovered that my bike pump was broken. Visiting my local bike shop to get a new one I took the opportunity to find out about good routes in the area. Not only did they point me to the excellent www.wikiloc.com, but let me know about the monthly excursions they put…

January 17, 2010 Andy 1 Comments

The alarm goes off at 6:25 am, but this time it isn’t for the dreaded 7am Spinning Class… In terms of physical punishment though, what I’ve got ahead is far more tough than that. Getting up this time was easy though, as I was excited by the prospect of a two day, 155 mile ride from Bristol to London. I made my way down, somewhat clumsily, in the dark with both day pack and back pack, to Bristol Cathedral where I was greeted by a multitude of fluorescent jackets and the bright lights of a BBC TV crew. After registration…

December 2, 2009 Andy 0 Comments

Right… tomorrow morning I’ll be setting off for London on my Bike. One of the other riders will be updating twitter as we go so you can follow our progress here: http://www.twitter.com/bristolwaveride Must go to bed now, as I have to be up at 6 tomorrow to get ready for the ride…

November 28, 2009 Andy 1 Comments

Espe and I finally got around to watching the Age of Stupid on Saturday which is a pretty hard hitting film about climate change (not an uplifting weekend film wise, we’d been shocked and saddened the previous night by a Swedish film Lilja 4 Ever which deals with the horrific subject of the sex trafficking trade). Seeing Age of Stupid renewed my interest in alternative energies (something that dates back to Geography and Science lessons as school), and served to remind Espe and I that we need to do more to combat climate change. The little things we can around…

June 25, 2009 Andy 1 Comments

What can I say? I love mountains, I love mountain biking, and I’m starting to get into this personal fitness thing. So, based on that, this holiday could only be a great thing. Despite all the training I threw myself at, the trip was physically very very tough. Quite possibly toughest physical exercise I’ve ever done. Rubbed in by the fact that everyone around me was much fitter. Still, I feel pretty proud of what I achieved. We covered over 534km in total, with a cumulative elevation gain of 11,096 metres. This was the third trip for Christian and some…