Drenthe 200 : Chasing 16.7

A shot fired at 6am and the first wave of the Drenthe 200 was off. I stood shivering gently for another 20 minutes waiting for wave three to start. My guts churning, toes cold and anticipation rising. I had no idea this racing thing could be so nerve racking, I was apprehesive of my ability to finish this now infamous 200km off road ride with [...]

Shane Cycles the Freedom Challenge?

The Race Across South Africa takes place in June/July each year. It is a 2300 km ( with a total cumulative ascent is over 37000 metres), non-stop, self-navigated mountain bike race starting in Pietermaritzburg KwaZulu-Natal and ending in Wellington near Cape Town. Riders are allowed a maximum of 26 days to complete the ride. For year [...]

Pt 2 :Bikepacking the GR 5,Trans Arde...

(Pt.1 of the story can be found >>here<<) I’d heard hikers arrive late in the night so thought I’d make their day by leaving my spare 4 eggs and extra coffee just outside their tent. I know how much it can suck to wake up hungry and still need to find an open shop, even more so when hiking than cycling. My half day res [...]

Pt 1: Bikepacking the GR 5,Trans Arde...

Inspired by the write up on Bikepacking.com I’d considered having a crack at the GR5 (hiking route) for a while. The last line of the blog “Continue on the GR5 in either direction to lengthen the adventure” intrigued me. When my current contract abruptly ended and knowing I’d be starting a new permanent job less than 2 [...]

How a #LCHF lifestyle changed my life...

The merits of a Low Carb Healthy Fat diet for cycle touring. Note 1 : If you’re totally convinced that you need carbs for sport and blindly follow government guide lines on diet and ” Science” and have no intentions of entertaining a different theory, you may want to quickly leave and save yourself some time. If you have Ly [...]

Bike packing the Scottish Borders

Advertised as a challenging 3 day ride (+/- 240km/ 5000m climbing). I’ve been eager to try The Capital trail route since hearing about it. By starting in Berwick upon Tweed I was also able to add a couple of days and included an option to do the “Peebles loop” if I had time left over. By combining my traveling days straight [...]

48 hour Ride eat sleep challenge

Ever sat in the office and ask yourself ” How far could I cycle this weekend and be home for dinner on Sunday?” Well I have, and often. I’m smack bang in the middle of a busy summer at work, sick of looking at smelly noisy planes, not cycling enough (mainly due to a recent knee infection) not camping enough and desperately m [...]

Transandalucia Pt 4: Feeling the cold...

What should of been a slick early morning get away from the closed hotel I’d been allowed to sleep in was delaying by half an hour stumbling around in the semi dark fixing a puncture (no comments about tubeless please Mr Rissik). With a quick stop at the fuel station for a sugar and artificial flavour breakfast I quickly got moving to g [...]

Transandalucia pt 3 MTB fun

My rest day in Ronda had me refreshed, and happy to have taken a hotel as the Spanish weather was anything but Spanish (but what can one expect in early February). Being in a tourist town was also a refreshing break from making a fool of myself with my 10 Spanish words every time I wanted a meal. The morning ride was a cheeky 600m ride up to [...]

Transandalucia Pt2 into Malaga

Refreshed from my day off it was time to hit the road again, the wintery storm was still in full swing but was forecast to die down by lunch time. But before lunchtime I had many muddy kilometers to get through. Though hard work the short climb out from Puerto El Bujeo on the boggy forrest road was a nice warm up for things to come. Between [...]

Transandalucia Pt1 (Seville-Cadiz)

It was a cool sunny morning in Seville, after a quick ride around the sights I was eager to get cracking. The decision a fortnight earlier to do my first bike-packing trip in Spain had brought with it a lot of last minute packing stress and making my own frame bags had taken much more time than I’d hoped. The constant packing and re-pac [...]

Packing list 3 weeks bikepacking in S...

Just a couple of days until I fly to Spain to cycle about 1200km (3 weeks) of the Trans-Andalusia mountainbike trail. This is my provisional packing list, based on wild camping down to about freezing point. List is excluding on bike cloths 1. Front roll/harness (2.8kg) : Msr Hubba 1p tent (only outer tent and footprint), Thermarest neo air m [...]