Cycling travel tips, resources and product reviews
What is La Maratona Ah, Italy! The home of pizza, pasta, (apparently) good coffee, history, stunning landscapes and one of the homes of cycling (yes, there’s Belgium too). Italy is also home to one of the sportifs second on my bucket list: La Maratona dles Dolomites. (Those curious about my bucket list: Haute Route, La […]
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 […]
La Marmotte is a gran fondo sportif organised by Sport Communication, covering an epic 174km loop through the High Alps in France. Although L’Etape du Tour (arguably) has a bigger public profile, a bigger field and is a larger event than La Marmotte, La Marmotte is one of – if not the – the hardest […]
This 2012 Haute Route report is by Reader Steve. Reader Steve is a bit of a madman. He travels the world for his work, runs his own custom cycling kit business and in just his second year of cycling, tackled a bunch of epic sportifs. Steve was kind enough to share his epic adventures through […]
Knowing how to choose an airline for a cycling trip isn’t just about choosing the lowest cost airfare; you’ll have to have a think about a few variables in order to choose the right airline. By knowing How to Choose an Airline you’ll avoid this situation: “I am very sorry sir, that will be $400 […]
How to Choose between the Alps and Pyrenees James in New Zealand Google IM’d me the other night wanting to know how to choose between the Alps and Pyrenees, and if the Alps or Pyrenees was better. James recently bought the Cycling in France Guide and was beginning to plan his trip. He had a […]
I’ve just come in from 8 hours of chainsawing, felling wild tobacco, mowing and whippersnippering the quarry on our 10 acre property (yes, a mini quarry). It is full of lantana, wild tobacco and wild rasperry. (Wild raspberries, incidentally, are delicious and nicer than normal raspberries. They get horribly out of control. But the smell […]
I had a recent request to review Sukkie, so put an email in to their contact email from their website and was promptly called by their founder Leon. We ended up chatting for an hour or so about Sukkie and I thought it would be awesome to bring his obvious enthusiasm, passion for his brand […]
It was hot and sultry (yesterday was dark and stormy, today, hot and sultry) out on the road today. You realised this was madness. Fun, yes, but madness. And, maaaaaan, was it ever brutal. Brutal and mad. Like a 10th century warlord. Is this what cycling was about? (Turns out, yes. Who knew?!) From the […]
For most people, gearing for Etape du Tour will be as simple as putting compacts on! I’ve done Etape enough times as a rider with pretty solid race fitness to tell you that compacts make sense. Here are my Etape du Tour reports from 2009, 2010 and 2011. And just to put the frighteners into […]
For most people, gearing for Haute Route will be a simple consideration – use compacts! There’s no point being a hero and rolling on full sized cranks (even with a 27). Sure you might look tough and it’s useful on the downhills (how much time can you make up on descents…hint: not as much as […]
When I was at the Tour Down Under (VeloNomad Tour Down Under information page) in 2010, I remember wandering through the village and stopping by the awesome Oakley Custom Bar, where you could customise Oakley sunnies into a mind boggling array of different colours and configurations. Oakley are going to be back at the Tour […]
It was truly serendipitous timing to receive two pairs of Oakleys for an Oakley Holbrook Review and Oakley Frogskin Summit Review sunglasses at this point of time. My poor old Oakley Andy Irons Hijinx are battered from being used as “gardening” glasses. Perhaps it’s a tribute to the longevity and robustness of Oakleys that they […]
Knowing how to avoid Overseas Prepaid Mobile Internet Problems involves a lot of research and some experience. Most long time readers of the site know I am obsessed with finding the best data and SIM card deals so you can have the internet on your smartphone when overseas so you can have a hassle free […]
With the new year now here, I thought it would be fun to consider a cycling holiday a little outside the square of the usual France and Euro focus by looking at Vietnam tours by bike in this guest post by Dave Elliot. One of the very best ways to get to grips with any […]
I get a lot of questions from the VeloNomad trip planning consulting clients about the ins and outs of watching a TDF stage and whilst the basic tenets of watching a stage irrespective of the year are the same, it’s worth looking at the specifics of 2013 Tour de France vantage points. Get this article […]
The 2013 Alps Haute Route Course has now been announced and boy am I jealous that I won’t be there (it’s number 1 on my sportif bucket list). How hard will the 2013 Alps Haute Route Course be? Ridiculous – 21000+ M of climbing, 866km, over 7 days. The 2013 Haute Route will start as […]
How to train with limited time I had an email from VeloNomad reader Rob the other day. Rob wanted to know how to train with the very limited time he has. Rob is 8 weeks into his first block of the VeloNomad Cycling Training Program but Rob lives in Canada where the days are short […]
How to know if a nutrition product works In this article I want to touch upon how to know if a nutrition product works for you. In particular I want to talk about hydration and electrolyte products as I live in a hilly, hot, humid area where long rides really drain you. As cyclists, many […]
Most readers of VeloNomad know I am obsessed by quality food and great nutrition (nutrition plan for cyclists, are you wasting money on supplements, nutrition myths) as it’s quality eating (yes and exercise) that helped me lose 25kg. Anyway, one of the things I really enjoy is cooking (especially the experimentation side) and recently I’ve […]
A big thanks goes to Cell Bikes who sent me the bag for this BikND Helium review for free to review, (and keep). Cell Bikes received some advertising on the website in return for providing the bag, as well as some advertising on the mailing list for a few months. If you’re an Aussie, show […]
A heavy focus of VeloNomad is on Etape du Tour (with an increasing focus on Haute Route and Marmotte) and am important part of Etape du Tour is training for Etape. Most people can effectively train for cycling or a sportif like Etape du Tour using a heart rate targeting plan, but the most benefit […]
The Dakine Split Roller is my go-to bag for overseas and domestic travel. Tough, light, not too big, great quality and made to last and great value for money, you can’t go wrong with this bag.
Whether you’re training for Etape, training for Haute Route (yikes), training for Marmotte or training for some other big sportif – probably involving lots of what normal people would call a stupid amount of riding up epic alpine mountain faces – the same basic training can be applied. I’ll talk mostly about Etape in this […]