Riva del Garda

Finish foto's

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Peter Musch ©

Bene Altschuh © http://www.marathon-photos.com/ ©

Ready to go!

Tomorrow morning we leave rainy Belgium for rainy Fuessen, Germany. On Friday we'll do some sightseeing, and maybe a few miles on the bike to remind our legs what cycling is like. Next post may only happen after our return to Belgium, so feel free to follow our progress via the daily updates on http://www.bike-transalp.de . To all our competitors: good luck!

Houffalize...Tatra...

All the training is done. Time to get the bikes set up and prepare our bags. Time to study some stage information, looking forward, and thinking back on past experiences as well... Remember the nineties: rides in the Ardennes (camping in Houffalize) or across the Karpati and Tatra mountains. We got some skills there. Now we're older and stronger and ready for the sublime Alps.

Dave Lloyd Mega Challenge

227km and 5416m of altitude gain, add some downpours and headwind and you've got the Dave Lloyd Mega Challenge in North Wales.

Catching some early starters at World's End. Click on the picture to enjoy the scenery, and note the road in the distance.

The Manchester Wheelers train cruising on a rare section of flat road.

Mountain Mayhem

What an experience! The funny sight of 600 bikers in cycling kit running in the Le Mans start, the team effort, the little moving lights scattered over the hillsides at night, the atmosphere around the start/finish area, all night long, the cheering for the solo riders disappearing into the dark night for yet another lap... 24 hour mtb racing is tough, especially when the weather turns nasty at 2am, but such a thrill!

Our "Manchester Mixed Bag" mixed team (Jerry, Viv, Mick, Harsharn and myself) did rather well, with a 16th place out of 146 teams. We'll be back for that top 10 spot!

Agenda

For the coming weeks, highlights will be a 25 mile 4UP team time trial with the Manchester Wheelers in Warrington. My team mates manage sub-hour times doing this distance solo (i.e. above 40 km/h average), so I'll be the weakest link. I guess I'll just try to hang on.
The weekend after that, I may have a spot on a Mountain Mayhem team. That's 24hours of continuous mtbiking, from saturday noon till sunday noon, in teams of 5 riders. Especially the dark hours will be interesting...

Marin Rough Ride

I did my first ever mtb marathon the past weekend. Race of choice was the Marin Rough Ride in South Wales. The course was 80 km long, with about 7000 feet of climbing, mostly on grassy moorland. It took me 5h10m33s, good for 16th place out of 360 riders riding the long distance (880 participants in total). My new bike performs brilliantly!

Tour of Wessex

During the past bank holiday weekend, I participated in the Tour of Wessex, a 3-day, 300 mile sportive in the Somerset and Dorset area. Excellent scenery, good groups to ride with and weather going from sunny to floods. I managed a final time of 16:38:45, good for 11th place out of 792 starters and 97 finishers.

Through the Vineyards

Around Leuven there is a small chain of hills. 15 000 000 years ago these hills originated from sandbanks. The sea draw back, and now we have more than one ‘berg’ for some nice MTB-training. The south slopes are also used for local wineproduction!

New bike

After yet another predicted delay in the delivery of the Liteville 101 I ordered in january, another solution had to be found. Here it is: a Cannondale Taurine 2, upgraded with Crossmax ST wheels, Geax Barro Mountain tires, a Syntace P6 seatpost, a Selle Italia SLR saddle and PRO bar ends. Weight (ready to ride) is 10.6 kg.

Mallorca

Our training week in Mallorca was a great success: lots of sun, miles (400+), elevation, good food and great people! More pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/mcr-in-mallorca/

heavy week

Today was the 6th day on a row which included some bike training, and with 130km of mixed terrain (towards Rivington), not the easiest. I'm now ready for a good rest day.