Back in Feburary I blogged how "I threw in the towel" on trying different tyres because I was getting so many punctures and ordered some Continental GatorHardshells. These are a little more expensive than most of the tyres I have tried but as we were heading out of summer I felt some winter tyres might just be the…

Sponsored post from Cycle Indonesia

Colin Freestone and Cycle Indonesia are taking bookings again for their Central Sulawesi cycle tour this September.

Colin has been cycling in Indonesia since 1995. Beginning 2009 when his touring business began he's led 9 trips with 80+ riders on Sulawesi, which is that spidery shaped Indonesian island north of Bali and east of…

It’s been mentally a very hard 8-12 months let alone physical. Some may remember my superman heroics flying off Montacute Rd just after the corkscrew in August last year, lying upside down with two dislocated shoulders and one broken shoulder, unable to move and waiting over an hour till someone finally heard my calls for help and rescue me; I thought I was the luckiest man alive. Nine months on and still battling shoulder pain and now the realisation that feeling to two of my fingers will…

The main discussion on the Training and Nutrition forum over the last month has been the Mount Haleakala hill climb in Hawaii, which is a 55 km ride to an altitude of 3050 m (5.5% average grade). The forum discussion briefly mentioned the challenges of exercising at altitude and the possibility of using altitude training to prepare for travel to a high-altitude environment. As an Accredited Sports Scientist and operator of…

Rode to Semaphore last night at 8.30pm, 

Later that day I got to sneak out for a quick ride before dinner. Strava wasn’t much help with route choice so I just picked a loop starting right in the village, not really knowing what was in store. After a solid climb right at the start, I topped a ride to get an incredible view – two parallel ranges (big hills/small mountains) with green valley between.…

We had a four day long weekend in mid May thanks to a festival on the Thursday which created an unofficial holiday on the Friday. The Pyrenees are a long 8-9 hrs drive away - too far for only four days. However there is a relatively little known set of mountains called the Picos de Europa (literally Peaks of Europe) about half way between Santiago and the Pyrenees. I’d heard wonderful things about it from a number of cycling and walking friends so we decided to head over there. Luckily for…

My final ride in the Picos was up the famous Lagos de Covadonga climb. Starting, not surprisingly, in the small village of Covadonga the ride is 11km to the end of the sealed road at the only two lakes in the entire Picos. The climb has featured at the finish of multiple Vuelta stages and unlike most of the other climbs I have been up, has a reasonable presence on Strava. We drove up to the Lakes in the morning for a walk – its an incredibly popular place so you get a lot of traffic on the…

The usual north west coast Tasmania group ride on Thursdays did not eventuate today with many away / holidays / working etc. I took the opportunity to take out my restored steel frame Kuwahara Triathlon ( see my pics ), for a good run. Starting from home just west of Burnie, I headed east through the town and along the coast, through Penguin and on to Ulverstone. Weather was perfect, a sunny day, light  breeze and 20 C.

One lap around the town of Ulverstone and then headed back home.…

Been a while since I posted a blog.

Of late, I have been enjoying my riding a lot more. I've been mixing it up between getting out with the SSRC guys, riding with my regular buddies Andrew, Colin and Andre. I've been doing a mix of hills, fast flats and just pootling in general. I find mixing it up for me adds variety. I don't want riding to become a chore like I 'must' go out or I will lose what I have gained mentality.

I often remind myself of the reason why I ride. Initially…

I know what this is going to provoke - so I'm just going to post the link, and stand back and watch the fireworks....

http://theconversation.com/bike-helmets-an-emergency-doctors-perspective-13935

In the weeks leading up to the Milano Classica I had reduced my climbing to a single climb a week in favor of training to ride at a faster pace and for longer.  On balance I chose the right direction I believe as these were the major attributes required for the ride however I still suffered a little because my climbing was a little weak and showed on many of the undulations encountered along the 230 km's we actually completed.  After coming to this conclusion I have decided…

The Flinders Ranges Outback Epic is a point-to-point mountain bike race in the Flinders Ranges run by Event Strategies. There were three distance options to choose from: 205km, 109km and 64km (PDF map). All finished at the Wilpena Pound Resort. The 205km race started at Wilpena (one huge…

It seems the hot topic on the Training and Nutrition forum over the last month has been whether power meters provide better feedback about exercise intensity than heart rate (HR) monitors. As an Accredited Sports Scientist and operator of a sports physiology practice (Adelaide Human Performance), I thought I’d provide my thoughts on the topic. 

But before I discuss power output and HR as methods for monitoring…

What was it!

Its best to checkout the official web page at "2013 Milano Classica – 28 April 2013 « Redline Cycling" to get an idea what was planned. It didn't all go to plan even though it had been well organised. The support was great even for those that went astray! I would personally recommend rides organised by these guys for anyone as long as you thoroughly  checkout…

I hadn't planned on writing a blow-by-blow cyclingn blog, but I had such a fantastic morning in the bike I just can't help writing it all down while the endorphins are still running high.

I managed two pre-work rides this week, both entirely in the dark, arriving home before sunrise. Being on central European time but further west than Ireland, means there is scant daylight before 730am, even this close to the summer solstice. I've been using a combination of Strava, google…

I hadn't planned on writing a blow-by-blow cyclingn blog, but I had such a fantastic morning in the bike I just can't help writing it all down while the endorphins are still running high.

I managed two pre-work rides this week, both entirely in the dark, arriving home before sunrise. Being on central European time but further west than Ireland, means there is scant daylight before 730am, even this close to the summer solstice. I've been using a combination of Strava, google…

For some years, I had been investigating buying or building an Ebike as a replacement for for most of my car-as-driver-only journeys from the city to Upper Sturt, a sort-of "reverse commute".  It was in doing this research that I first stumbled upon AC.

My investigations revealed that for my purposes, a mid-motor, chainwheel drive arrangement would be best, as this makes the bike gears available to the motor, unlike hub motors of any sort, and, incidentally, unlike all petrol motor…

The weather forecast was 80% chance of rain for today and they were right it was quite heavy in the morning so we decided on a afternoon ride and started the ride of in Glenelg at about 1:30pm. I was a bit on the cool side today and I was keen to give my A200 Skins a test ride on the bike so I pulled them on over my cycling shorts, I must say they performed really well and I remained very…