Cycling travel tips, resources and product reviews
“What time?” was Kate’s incredulous response to the, I thought, innocuous question of what time we’d have to be up to head to Kingscliff from our place, for a 7AM start of Wiggle’s Speed in the Tweed. “You’ll be right, luv, I’ll bundle you in to the car with a mocha.” So, off we set, […]
Day 7 Moss Vale-> Sydney: 168km, 1763m, 6h Ride Director Tim made a very insightful point at the last night’s speeches where he said that after an event like this it was easy to feel down upon returning to the real world. Whilst I’m sure everyone was excited to be with family and in their […]
2013 Chain Reaction Charity Ride Day 6 Canberra -> Moss Vale: 183km, 1468m ascent, 6h40m. Wow. What a day. Canberra is collllld on departure (a common theme on this trip. Cold. Not Canberra). One thing I am really enjoying about this trip is learning a lot about the country we live in. Below is a […]
Ahhhh-brrrrrrrr. What a cold morning! And hectic! We are late, again, despite us arising at 5.30am. We head off into bracing high-plains air with my Strava KOM from the night before safe (always wait for the group to go through before uploading it! ;p ), and roll through endless hills until we reach the Monaro […]
Day 4 – Corryong to Adaminaby WOW. Central Vic and the Snowy Mountains truly are (probably) God’s country. Forget “The Shire”, this is -real-. There is no plasticity, no materialism. It is man, and nature. (Best personified in The Man from Snowy River.) Man’s footprint is minimal. What footprint there is is one of almost […]
2013 Chain Reaction Charity Ride Day 3 arrives with some quietly ominous looking clouds. And it is BRISK. Best breakfast of the trip, with croissants close to being as good as French ones (maybe with 70%, which is about as good as it gets in Australia). The riders head off from Milawa toward delightful Beechworth. […]
Click here for day 1. A semi-civilised 7AM start, 5.45AM alarm. Less that perfect sleep due to an attack from a squadron of persistent mosquitos. Quick breakfast and we assemble for the start. An ethereal light creeps across the hill tops, casting the dry, slightly yellowing countryside with a slight purplish hue that is quite […]
As I wrote in the post about local cycling trips you don’t have to spend a lot of money on cycling adventures. This week I am doing support for the Chain Reaction Charity Ride from Melbourne to Sydney, which gives me a chance to follow and help 40 executives from Westpac, CFS, Westfield and Gadens […]
July 20 L’Etape, plus transit to Bourg St Maurice So, the course for L’Etape was as the pros did it. Epic. Ok, so the logistics around this L’Etape were an ABSOLUTE nightmare. Montelimar is about 100km (the short way) from Ventoux and we had to have our van on the hill the day before, with […]
July 22 2009, Stage 17 Tour de France – Bourg St Maurice > Le Grand Bornand Woke after a big sleep still very, very fatigued. The 3 Ventoux climbs, L’Etape, Col du Petite St Bernard climb the day before and poor dietary profile (no protein) had created a serious kilojoule deficit and leg muscles was […]
July 21 2009, Stage 16 Tour de France: Martigny > Bourg St Maurice Today I woke VERY sore after L’Etape 2009. We had (what I thought was) a piffling little 12k climb (oops – 32km) up to the final Col of Stage 16 – the Cat 1 Col du Petite St Bernard. I decided to […]
July 17 Stage 13 of the Tour de France We awoke to very humid and pre-storm conditions after heavy rain (subsequently cleared) that night. Heading out of town on the tour route, we found a coffee bar, having now find out that they don’t do lattes (particularly soy lattes) in France. We worked out that […]
Site News This is the final instalment in the 2011 reader trip reports from France. I got some great feedback and reports as well as some good content ideas (David J, Sean M, Mario, John C) I’ll have something in place soon to make it easy for you to submit your own trip reports. Thanks […]
That’s right, this one is from Eugene, AKA HugeMutha HugeMutha dropped me his trip report from Etape Issoire, aka Etape II. Upon reading, I am sure glad I did Etape in the Alpes (circa 30 degrees and sunny). Hi Tim I awoke to grey skies and rain on the morning of the 17th July somewhat […]
Sean from Australia sent me this great report and some cracking photos. And the best part? He’s only just started and is going back next year. Awesome! Hey Tim, here a few pics from the Etape. I was stuck in the back, pen 11. Pretty cold by the time we moved after 8. Stuck mostly […]
Steve M, UK Steve M was one of the hardy individuals who did both Etapes. Pretty good effort considering the weather in Etape 2. Check out his Etape stories here and here. John Hodgart John sent me an awesome email. I love getting emails like this. A new-found love of cycling, raising money and back […]
Damien is a guy from NZ who emailed me pretty bummed at how far back the Etape had put him at the start. He sent me through his Etape report which is pretty hilarious reading. Thanks Damien! By Damien Kearney – NZ Here’s the email from Damien that accompanied his report. Didn’t end up doing […]
Day 28 – Bedoin After yesterday’s epic Ventoux 3-peat, today was an absolutely nothing-day in Bedoin. Slept, recovered from the Ventoux 3-Peat, ate pizza and salad. Day 29 – La Barroux We unfortunately had to start heading north for home, and had been told by VeloNomad Steve to check out La Barroux which has an […]
Les Cingles – a Ventoux Three-Peat – descent into madness Read how to do Les Cingles in my special article. Ever since my 2009 trip, I’d planned on doing Ventoux 3 times in one day. Ventoux is one of the toughest climbs I’ve done (but I love it) and the three peat is officially called […]
Day 24 – Cadques to Argeles-sur-Mer After leaving delightful Cadaques, we headed north. The area between Cadaques in Catalunya and Argeles sur Mer is just epic riding. If I had to pick a spot, I’d base in Cadques or Banyules sur Mer then just do endless riding, swimming, relaxing and exploring. None of the riding […]
After leaving L’Escala, we headed via some flat roads – full of cyclists – and checked out a place called St Pere Pescador. Unfortunately the camping grounds were waaaay too touristy and miles from town. I did have a decent coffee and croissant though! The road rose up a small mountain and at the top […]
Day 14 – Into Spain, Boltana We headed off early and continued to be interested by Andorra; it’s certainly an interesting (and wealthy) place. We had had a crap sleep as there seemed to be some sort of dance party all night in town. I think it stopped at 6AM, and was characterised by bloody […]
Day 12 – The Peyresourde and driving to the Plateau de Beille for TDF Stage 14 Day 12 dawned sunny and quite cool and I snuck a Peyrasourde ascent in. The Bagneres de Luchon side (Arreau, where we were, is on the opposite side) is harder and more picturesque, then headed down so we could […]
After a couple of days we drove over the Col du Portillon – a Bucket Col from both sides – into France, through Bagneres-de-Luchon. Our aim was to see the TDF head up the Ancizan on Stage 12. We arrived into Arreau, got a park and pizza’d up. The caravan started rolling into town as […]
Day 8 – Etape du Tour 2011, Etape Alpes I’ve already published the horrendous story of my Etape Alpes effort. Check out my Etape du Tour 2011 Etape Alpes report. Day 9 – Spain and the Pyrenees After Etape Alpes, we hightailed it down via Grenoble to get to Spain. We parked for the night […]