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This is the first blog post for a while. Primarily because I was organising SSUK in what would have been any free time that I had. And this is going to be a bit of a rant. An indulgence of having a blog, and something to do since I can’t get to sleep. I’d say . . . → Read More: SSUK and the elephants [singlepic id=129 w=320 h=240 float=] With various sites and smartphone apps offering to provide friendly bike routes, I thought I’d give one a try. The results were interesting rather than straightforwardly successful… One of my jobs is teaching Bikeability courses at schools in Harrow. That means my commute ranges from 15 to 18 miles, depending . . . → Read More: An Experiment in Bike Commuting It’s hard to know how to look back on the year so far. I’ve managed to get pretty fit, met some great people, and been to some incredible places. But… and it’s a big “but”, I’ve ended up being the plucky loser. Which is certainly better than being a diffident loser, but it’s still inescapably . . . → Read More: West Highland Way and more frustration [singlepic id=124 w=320 h=240 float=] I don’t normally do kit lists. But, my Divide kit worked out pretty well this year and there isn’t much I would change. So here’s what I took: The Bike Singular Pegasus singlespeed frame On One carbon fork Hope Pro 2 / Stans 355 29er wheels Maxxis Crossmark LUST rear . . . → Read More: Tour Divide Kit List My pictures with slight commentary. Mostly taken when riding with Josh (hence not much after Silverthorne): Robin shows me around his local singletrack in a Banff shakedown ride. [singlepic id=104 w=320 h=240 float=] Josh pushing through snow on the Whitefish reroute. I think it was over 10 miles of snow, but at least it was . . . → Read More: My Tour Divide in Pictures It’s all over and I came in 6th place. I’m currently staying at Jamie’s house (Jamie seems to know everyone in Silver City) along with Kurt Refsnider. It’s a very nice place to be hanging out post-event. There are all kinds of thoughts, pictures and words to get out there. First, something that I spent . . . → Read More: Tour Divide Decompression Begins So everyone has started the tour divide and with diversions to the normal route due to snow and floods they are all doing well. Aidan is storming along and doing really well. Whilst I am writing this, it appears that Aidan has bivvied for the evening with a guy called Robert Gianni just alongside the . . . → Read More: Good bye Canada roll on Wyoming Possibly not the best formed words ever, written on a phone in a coffee shop: On Saturday, I went for what could be considered an unwise training ride. 5.5 hours of Surrey Hills singletrack in warm temperatures with all my Tour Divide gear on the bike. Probably 50 odd miles, but my GPS fell off . . . → Read More: Unwise Training The Tour Divide is approaching (starts on June 10) and it’s slipping into just about every thought these days. Getting the kit right. Organising logistics for before and after the race. Figuring out the navigation. Training. Fretting. It’s pretty consuming, but that’s half of the fun. The Divide this year is quite a different prospect . . . → Read More: Getting the right attitude For the longest time, I believed that running was the tool of the devil. It was boring and painful and why would anyone do it when you could instead be mountain biking. After all, mountain biking is the best of all sports. In 2006, running did me a lot of physical harm but ended up . . . → Read More: How running has helped my biking |
