Tomorrow, I set off for London before flying to Munich. The Trans Alp trip I talked about previously is upon me. I’m feeling pretty fit after six weeks of pretty hardcore training, by my standards at least: Circuit training, spinning classes, gym sessions, swimming and core / back workouts all part of the weekly routine. I never had myself down as a gym person, but with the right motivation, I’ve really made the most of it. That said, I’m still daunted by the task ahead. Seven days of riding through the Alps with several very fit German Trans Alp veterans…
With trips to Peru, New York, Valencia, Barcelona and a 30th birthday celebration I’ve had plenty to write about this year. Unfortunately I’ve had no time to do just that. I’ve just totalled it up, and entering the sixth month of the year, I’ve only had six weekends in Bristol so far. If fact, I’ve turned down the opportunity of going to Wales for The Adventurists Off Road Festival this weekend, as if I had I’d be in the middle of a run of 5 weekends out of England. I’m not complaining, it’s just that sitting back on the sofa…
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…
Take a load of amateur musicians from you tube and some creative genius and you have http://thru-you.com. Awesome stuff.
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…