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…

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.…

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…

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…

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…

I’m writing this blog in response to quite a few questions on how I am.  I thank all for their concern and their regards.

Its three months since I crashed and damaged my left hip and shoulder.  Very inconvenient for a left-hander and a disaster for a cyclist.

The hip recovered and I have been able to walk without my walking stick for seven weeks now so at least I’m mobile.  Still can’t drive though…

The collarbone was repaired 5 weeks with glue and mesh and stainless…

Hi Adelaide Cyclists - I've been off-line from this site for most of the summer but thought that I would share this piece that I wrote for The Bicycle Institutes newsletter, Pedal Update.

The madness that is March in Adelaide is fast receding into memory. The warm nights and hot days are flowing into the autumnal cool that promises winter soon. For us more hardened transport cyclists, the arrival of the cooler…

One of the nicer benefits of where I work is that I can travel and work overseas for 6-12 months at a time. For the first time I've grabbed the opportunity to do so, and, with family in tow, I've moved to Spain to live for around five months. We have settled in Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia in north western Spain.

As this is a cycling forum I won't bore you with the historical…

Today's Outer Harbour ride is the last one I will attend before heading out on the Milano Classica on the 28th. I have already decided to taper my rides as I am only 8 days out. For this, I drove to Glenelg to limit the ride to just Outer Habour and back. It was quite fresh when I arrived at 7:40am so I did a short spin along Adelphi Tce so that I might warm up my legs. Wearing long bib nick's and arm warmers, well actually sun sleeves I felt warm enough but my legs seemed…

Another tough ride today of 53 km. Approx 35 of that was hills, with about 600 metres equivalent total in altitude of climbing, and I now feel that the combination of hills, wind, cold and old age should be avoided !  I did manage to do my turn at the front, and made up for that by hanging off the back on more than one occasion. Some areas inland have had a dusting of snow, and as the wind was from the south, we all felt the effect of those conditions - - I am not sure if this rider wants to…

Starting in Willunga is the most local an event ride gets to a dweller of the Deep South. After completing all of 38km of the previous Grand Slam at Mt Torrens and also having recce'd both loops of GS2 in the intervening period I was fairly sure that I could complete the full ride and had few excuses not to. The number of kilometres I had ridden in between GS1 and GS2 had increased markedly and a bit of weight had come off also, so this further added to my confidence level. Still, this was…

Didn't I ride with them to Outer Harbour yesterday! Yes, I did and Kane McCard during the week had asked if I was going to do the 100 km ride on Sunday to which I replied what 100 km ride?  He told me they were going to duplicate a ride they did on the 1st December 2012 which could be seen at http://app.strava.com/activities/30332313  Kane is doing the  Milano Classica with me so I thought it was a good chance to ride with him…

I am writing this entry to my blog only for completeness as there isn't a lot to actually say. All planning for Milano Classica training is going ok and this is just another Redliners Outer Harbour ride, or is it!

Actually it's all about getting ready for the Milano Classica, getting km's in the legs in preparation for that epic journey of 290 km's in one day!  Of late I have concentrated too much on average speed to the detriment of my cadence.  I have been producing long'ish rides…