Ride Report–Etape Cymru

Ever in search of new experiences, the Etape Cymru presented something of a novel end of season challenge to Team Spongebob, both taking place on closed roads and covering the hithero unconquered territories of the Clywdian range and Dee Valley in North Wales. We had booked this one early in the year, so early in fact, that I had somehow overlooked the fact that the event rather inconveniently coincided my first wedding anniversary. Fortunately, my lovely and understanding wife fully appreciates that it is but for the prize money that I earn and sponsors on my jersey that we have a roof over our head. And after a crisis meeting with the race organisors and sponsors the requisite wife tokens were issued at the 11th hour.

Our seven o’clock start time saw us up at the unfeasibly early time of five thirty, which greatly delighted fellow team mate Simon ‘early bird’ Rushton, who at one point could only growl at the other B&B guests as they tried to converse with him at the breakfast table. We swiftly abandoned our plan to cycle the 4 miles from the B&B to the start line due to the almost sub zero temperature, but thanks to the excellent event organisation, we were parked and lined up at the start time with the second wave at quarter past seven in no time.

The first section of the Etape was a gradual uphill drag on narrow country roads and there was lots of excited sportive riders sprinting up every incline. Simon was feeling the calling and tapping out a brisk pace, but my still half asleep legs were telling me to ease off as my heart rate crept up to over 85%, so I bid my team mate a silent farewell as I gradually let him slip off ahead of me at around mile 10.

I had only had a cursory glance of the course at registration the day before, but I knew that it was basically just up, down, up, down the whole way with a long gradual descent to the finish. The first climb of note was the Horseshoe Pass, so called because it loops round in a semi circle as it ascends the Denbighsire countryside. I had read that this would be a timed climb, but was somewhat oblivious to the start of the timed section and it was only when I was halfway up having been passed by many riders who seemed to be going up much harder than I was that I realised what was going on. I decided to keep it steady and keep the legs fresh.

By the thirtieth mile I was starting to hit my rhythm and things were also starting to settle down around me as I found my self yo-yo’ing constantly between the same set of riders on the ups and downs. I had imagined on bombing along in a paceline on fast B-roads, but the reality was very narrow and twisty country lanes. This made for some fairly technical descending, which my dolomites honed reflexes consumed with relish. A couple of riders complimented me on my descending, which was a novelty as its not something I’m known for.

The rest of the ride was something of a blur, a relentless series of steep ups and tight twisty downs. This was all set among some lovely scenery which ranged from rolling hills to craggy cliffs and then finally an long uphill across moorland before a final barnstorming ten kilometer descent to the finish line where I got the only decent draft of the whole ride as we were pulled along by a beast of a rider on a specialized venge. I finished the last couple of miles on my own as I made the mistake of taking too long a turn at the front and being unable to hold a wheel as the group surged past.

I finished the ride at 5:25:04, coming in six minutes behind Simon and 172nd place out of 1500 finishers. This was a pleasant surprise as I’d not really had any impression of going well during the ride, mainly due to being in one of the early groups without many riders to pass further up the road. Furthermore the speedo was only registering a modest 16.4mph average at the end of the ride but in hindsight this was a slow, technical course with lots of climbing and very little opportunity for fast group riding. All in all, it was a great way to finish the season. It would have been a tough ride under normal circumstances, but our week in the Dolomites had given our legs epic strength for taking on lots of steep climbs. If only one could bottle and save good form!!!

Ride Report–Dragon Ride 2013

Time for the 2013 edition of the Dragon ride. We had boycotted 2012 in protest of the timing chip and start time fiasco of 2011 and, if we were being honest, apathy. But we’d heard some reassuring feedback that the problems had been solved for the 2012 ride. I’d had most of May off the bike due to a holiday in Asia, so wisely decided not to take on the rather horrible looking 130 miles Gran Fondo route, electing for the 85 mile easy option instead.

The ride was conducted in glorious sunshine, with none of the problems of the previous years. Simon and I started out together, but he was going strong and dropped me like a stone on the first steep climb. The rest of the ride was typical Dragon fayre, a mixture of fast B-roads which allowed some decent group riding (if one was lucky enough to chance upon some riders going at the right pace) and the usual signature climbs up the Bwlch and Rhigos, but this time in the opposite direction as from previous years.

My legs started to cramp up in the final 10 miles, which meant that a bombastic sprint finish was off the cards. I finished in 5:19 for the 85 mile medio fondo which was just outside of the Bronze cut off time and a somewhat mediocre result compared to previous performances. I’m sure I’ll be back for future Dragon rides, but it would be good if they shook up the formula a bit with some new climbs.

The power of Blurb.com

Upon our return to UK, both Si Phong and I were gainfully un-employed just long enough to put all of our photographs and blog posts from the travels in to a book. What started out as a quick photo/text dumping exercise quickly turned in to a bit of a labour of love.

You can view it here:
http://www.blurb.com/books/1931111

It comes up a bit small at first glance, but you can zoom in via the "View Fullscreen" button on the bottom right and get a full sized view of the book if you have a large enough screen!

This is my first experience of using www.blurb.com and the possibilities blow me away. Now, everyone can be published! Write your book, put it up on blurb, share with your friends via facebook and blogspot...its a perfect example of how the internet is allowing all of us to create and to have an audience, no matter how big or small.

My first attempt is pretty amateurish (and so it should, its just a collection of blogs) but there are some spectacularly good books which have been produced by others on blurb. I'll be making more books in the future; there's nothing more pretentious than the strategically deployed Coffee Table Book. Well what could be more pretentious than one that was authored by yourself!!!

In creating the book, I went through the thousands of photo's that we took and came to the conclusion that I'm a lousy photographer. There were very few photo's from our travels that were of genuine publishable quality. The good news, however, is that even mediocre photographs can come to life with some considered page design. That said, I'll be doing more to develop some photography skills before the next project as I'd rather drop a few diamonds than polish a multitude of turds.

I've also written about our last few stops on the travels. Will put these up shortly.

Back in UK, a long overdue update

Apologies for the lack of updates…since Sydney we’ve been to Melbourne, Singapore, KL and inevitably, back to the UK. The wheels came off the blog updates as when the end came in to sight. At some point, I’ll probably write up our experiences in these places.

In the meantime, I’ll also be using the blog to document our battle against clinical depression as we adjust to life back in the British winter.

Thanks for reading!

Ming

05/12– 6 nights in Sydney

Having reached the furthest point of our travels in New Zealand, we are now slowly working our way back to our inevitable reunion with the UK and life back in the real world. We stopped over in Sydney for 6 nights and will then move on to Melbourne and Singapore before checking in with my family in Kuala Lumpur and our flight back to Blighty. This series of big cities signals our winding down, with nowt else to do but plenty of eating, shopping and the occasional bit of leisurely site seeing.

Sydney is famed for being one of the great world cities (whatever that’s supposed to mean) and I hoped it would do much to dispel the less than fond memories of my last visit to Australia. Thirteen years old at the time, I went on a road trip with my parents from Darwin down to Ayers Rock. Anyone familiar the northern territory will know that this was never a great idea, and all that I remember of this are endless miles of red dust, flies, blistering heat and even more blistering rows as we argued over directions (this was the pre tom-tom era) from the confines of our rented Ford Taurus.  In the end, we never made it to Ayers rock, aborting the road trip due to crack in the windscreen…though I think the cracks in everyone’s patience played just a big a part in the decision.

I had a pretty clear idea of what to expect from Sydney; a sunshine harbour city that is cosmopolitan yet sporty. I imagined it to be a place inhabited by the beautiful people, strapping surf dudes and leggy blondes. I obviously didn’t get the memo that Sydney had been annexed by China. Such is the proliferation of Chinese and Asians that there were times in downtown Sydney that it felt like we were back in Hong Kong again! This was no bad thing, however, as we were missing Asia and this halfway house offered more opportunities for some top notch Vietnamese and Chinese food.

Unfortunately, there’s not much else of interest to show or say about our stay in Sydney as it was all very pleasant but also terribly generic. We visited the Sydney Opera house, and caught a riveting performance by the Chinese Folk Orchestra, wet our feet on Manly beach, visited various museums, galleries and markets and ate some fantastic Vietnamese and Chinese food thanks to Leanne, Si Phong’s friend and our gracious local guide. It probably speaks volumes about what we’ve been getting out of our final fortnight that the highlight of our time in Sydney was the lobster noodles that we had on the last night…which easily knocked Bayswater’s Mandarin Kitchen in to a cocked hat.

We did manage a day trip to the Blue Mountains, another UNESCO World Heritage site. As you can see from the photographs, we didn’t get to see a heck of a lot on account of the heavy fog.

30/11–Leaving New Zealand

We’re back in Christchurch, having completed our loop of the Southern Isle. Given all that we’ve seen and done over the past three weeks, it was rather a strange feeling ending up right back where we’d started for our flight out to Sydney. But on the upside, after three weeks of eating in hostels and burger bars, it gave us the opportunity to unleash our pent up food cravings, embarking on a 24 hour orgy of asian food that will leave local restaurants depleted of sashimi and bibimbap for many months to come.

Being “the country after China”, New Zealand always had a very tough act to follow. Initially, it felt like something of a come down, coming from the crazy, epic and chaotic rush of China to the tranquil lushness of New Zealand’s south island, which at times felt eerily like the United Kingdom. However, to bang on too much about this would be to do New Zealand a massive disservice. Once we got in to our groove here, we found New Zealand’s south island to be a beautiful place that’s filled with friendly people and many unforgettable experiences.

Don’t even think about trying to do New Zealand in a fortnight, unless you’re prepared to make some big compromises. There’s no point having all of this stunning scenery if its just whizzing past you from a coach window. Best to take at least a month out so that you can spend some quality time in the nice spots, of which there are many.

There are some countries where one visit is enough, but the not so with New Zealand. There are so many things that we didn’t get to fully explore, such as the many 4-5 day walks and Fjiordland. It’d also be a fantastic place for a cycle tour and we met a Canadian guy in Tekapo who was doing just that. We’ll be back one day, I’m sure.

28/11–Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park

At over 3500 meters high, Mount Cook is New Zealand’s highest peak. It was used by the celebrated Kiwi, Sir Edmund Hillary, as a base for training while he prepared to become the first man to climb Everest. It is not a mountain to be trifled with and the remembrance books at the visitor centre document the many lives that the mountain claims each year.

As we had a couple of nights in nearby Lake Tekapo, we were able to take a day trip to the Mt Cook national park. Of course, we neither had the skills, the equipment or the bottle to get up the mountain itself, but there were plenty of walking trails at the base, where under Mt Cook’s baleful stare one could soak up the views without risking life and limb.

Having navigated around lakes Tekapo and Pukake, the remaining drive to Mt Cook is along a flat valley bordered by mountains. In previous weeks, we’d had glimpses of Mt Cook from the west coast on the Magic Bus, but it had always been from some distance away and partially obscured by the clouds and other closer peaks. Approaching the national park, Mt Cook was finally revealed to us in all of its glory, standing head and shoulders above its neighbours under a clear blue sky.

Despite my weasel words of assurance, Si Phong was quite rightly still not at ease with being out the wilds with me as her guide after the experience at Abel Tasman. We therefore opted for a nice, safe, four hour walk from the visitor centre over to the terminal end of the Hooker Glacier, at the foot of the mountain. Ever conscious of our 4pm pick up, any dallying or stopping for photographs was met with a deathly stare from my beloved, and a scathing reminder of the already costly compensation package that was owed to her upon our return to England.

So briskly we tramped along the valley floor, with nary a spare moment to take in the stunning views or rock, stream, flora and blue sky. When we reached our destination at the terminal end of the glacier, it was a quick 10 minutes to gulp down some sandwiches while small icebergs cracked and bobbed in the glacial lake in front of us, before a quick about turn and march back to the visitor centre.

I felt like a small dog on a leash, being dragged along by its impatient owner, when all I wanted to do was stop and have a good sniff around. But we got back with plenty of time to spare so it looks like it was a good call from the missus.