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.

Snake Pass and Mam Tor

With the sun shining on a landscape covered in snow, today was a great day for a bike ride. Our 100km trip took us over Snake Pass (5km at 7% average) and along the abandoned road up to Mam Tor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mam_Tor). The two weeks at altitude appear to have improved my LT power (though I didn't do any specific training on that yet), but my endurance has suffered from not being on the bike for a month: I'm on the couch now, almost in a coma.

Synchro

Easternholiday. Spring is in the air? I hoped to do several endurancetrainings on the hilly roads of the Ardennes, but it started snowing! For a whole week weather was bad. Though on Belgium's highest peaks (Hoge Venen, EASTBELGIUM.BE, 630m) people were verry happy. For once one didn't have to go to the Alps for some ski- or snowboard fun. A Belgian Championship Langlauf was rapidly organised as well. I had some intentions, but finally didn't participate. I had a heavy work-out on the Technogym Skier in stead. http://www.geocities.com/bomer_bvba/fitness.html

Starwalk

First full day on the mountain. Just went for a short run (30min) on the Starwalk trail, which takes you from the hotel to the summit. It's pretty exposed: 2500m altitude, 0% humidity, and no other life forms, just desert.

James Bond

The next 2 weeks will take me to Paranal, Chile for 6 nights of observing on the VLTI. The only training facility there is the tropical pool in the hotel (it's real function is to regulate the humidity in this otherwise desert-dry environment, but you're allowed to swim too). On the upside: the new Bond movie is being filmed there right now, so there might be some Bond girls joining me in the pool...

Manflu

My 2 weeks in Austria turned out pretty bad, at least as far as my physical form is concerned: I caught a nasty version of the flu halfway through, which put me in bed for just about 6 days. The only thing close to training was 2 hours on the ice skating arena at the Rathaus in Vienna.

Mileage

Managed 2 good rides this weekend: 85km flat(ish) in the Cheshire plains on Saturday and 122km hilly (1500m) around Saddleworth on Sunday. Next week is rest week, which I'll spend working in Vienna, followed by a week of skiing in Zell-am-See.

Cyclocross in Flanders

It wasn't a hard winter. Ideal for training. The following pictures, taken on a XC-ride around Leuven (Lubbeek), show one of the rare mornings that had alpine characteristics. Companion Rudi Torrekens (Grand Master, Tyco Cycling Team) used his Canon on the slopes of Bollenberg, Heurbeek, and Grotendries to produce these images.

Club ride 10/02

Great club ride yesterday: sunny, hilly and a great bunch of people. The photo was taken at the top of Brickworks.

Training diary

Today was a productive day: I pre-rode the club road ride that I'll lead tomorrow (up Brickworks) and I made a training diary template which I'll use from next week on:

Stress

We received the first information package, with road books, altitude profiles and some pictures. Images like this one make me very nervous indeed...

Mallorca training week

I'll be joining the Manchester Wheelers and the Manchester triathlon club for a training week on Mallorca from 19 till 26 April. We've rented two nice villa's as there will be 17 of us:
http://puertopollensa.com/canclarissa/
http://puertopollensa.com/villafrancisca/

Let's hope the sun will be out!

Annual Training Plan

My annual training plan is now ready up to the date of the Transalp. It is based on Joe Friel's Training Bible.

Back in the UK

I'm in the UK again, with everything I need for the coming months: race bike, rollers, free weights, hrm, training books,...