Montreal update

I just went for another ride and found some cool trails. Prehaps not entirely legal, but heaps of slick mud and roots. Lots of fun......so Montreal is looking up.

Farewell Luchon

Here is a little col-lage of some of the big rides i did in Luchon.

Isn't this a beautiful site? That's Ian Potter back in his hayday.

Lunch stop for the group that i helped guide in Luchon

Another luch stop in the Pyrenees

And yet another

Rosie got me a flight in a gilder for my birthday, it was awesome.

View of Luchon from the glider

Our stay in the Pyrenees was terrific, but sadly all good this must come to an end. Luchion was a good place to rest up after a solid block of racing and to get back into training with plenty of big mountains around and some epic mountain bike trails (i don't like to use that word, but 'epic' really is the only way to describe some of the rides that Ian & Kate dragged me on).

After a week of doing very little riding post-madrid i hit the training pretty hard with a three day block that took me over 11 cols and a total of 9000m of climbing. The final day was the biggest with the idea being to ride most of stage 8 of this years tour which involved riding over the Col de Pereysourde, then the Col d'Aspin, then the Col du Tourmalet....then home again for a total of 4500m of climbing in 150km. During my stay i also rode the Col du Portillon, Col de Menté, col de Portet d'Aspet, Col de Port de Balès, and the Col des Ares, not bad.

I also spent a week helping Ian out guiding 9 British mountain bikers around the trails of Luchon. It was heaps of fun and the group was really strong so we got to ride heaps of excellent tracks. Plenty of climbing and some huge descents that left my poor little 140mm rear rotor blue and smoking.

Last week was my 30th birthday and Rosie shouted me a trip up in a glider. It was a great experience. We took off from the little airstrip in Luchon, towed by a small plane. After we disconnected we spent about 30minutes circling around in thermals and flying around a few of the close valleys. By chance we even flew directly over a couple of mountains that i had ridden up and down the few days prior, i think the pilot was pretty impressed.

Anyway like i said we have now left Luchon and are currently in Montreal, Canada. My first impressions weren't great to be honest. After being spoilt by the Pyrenean mountains this place is very flat. However today i managed to find some trails and roads on a small mountain that should suffice for training and i am now feeling much better about this place. I think i was just grumpy before because yesterday i was largely unsuccessful finding suitable trails during a 4 hour ride in the rain. I'll have to buckle down now and get some solid training in before the next block of racing starts in the start of July.

Carcassonne

Just a super quick one today to put up a few pictures. One from the race at Madrid and a few from a little day trip today to Carcassonne. Wow, that is one nice medieval city...chockas with culture. (Reeny and Davo, we went passed the Canal du Midi too, and thought of you).

I am really starting to miss Benjamin too. I had really grown accustomed to him greeting me each morning in Madrid with Spanish phrase i taught him: "buenas dias, mi amor" (good morning, my love). I wonder if he didn't realise that i had used a little artistic licence in the translation or if the little fellow was rather fond of me, i guess I'll never know...we will always have Madrid.

that is definately a grimace

La cité de Carcassonne

The city ramparts with the gothic cathedral in the back

one of the many gargoyles

Another gargoyle....scary.

You don't see drain pipes like this back home....yes, that drains straight out onto the footpath!

World Cup #4 - Madrid

After preparing for the typical hot and dust conditions at Madrid it was pretty surprising that a huge storm came though on the Friday night and saturated the track. There were more showers through until race day which was overcast and not super hot (good for me). The rain had eased and after the women had dried out the track for us we had "hero traction" for the mens race.

I decided that in this one i wanted to race less like a tortoise and more like a hare. Although i have been fairly consistent and getting some good results with the old "slow and steady", i want to go faster, so i tried to go out hard and see if i could hang on. The traffic on the first lap was farily bad with a few scary moments and some bottle necks in the early singletrack i came through in about 95th in a small group after one lap. I managed to move up a few places into about 85th by the end of lap 4, but i was starting to feel tired. I really turned myself inside-out on the last 2 laps but i wasnt really moving fast up the hills. I lost a couple of places and then had a crash and lost another. In the end i rolled across the finish in 89th. I am quite happy with how i raced, i may not have quite finished it off but i did ride quite fast for the first few laps. I still need to get faster, but hopefully i am on the way.

We are now in Bagnieres-de-Luchon in the French Pyrenees for 3 weeks with Ian and Kate Potter. I am looking offward to not travelling for a while and getting some quality training done. Looks like i will also get a bit of work as a mountian bike guide for Kate and Ian's company, www.aquickrelease.com.

Heubach Bundesliga - Germany

hey there, unfortunatelty Sunday was another tough day for me at the hors category Bunbesliga XC race at Heubach. The course was bloody tough with one blutal climb followed by a long slippery descent creating a piramid of a course profile. We were to do 8 laps (which would have been an epic race) so i tried not to blow for the first 4 laps. i was starting to think about ramping it up for the last half when i got pulled...4 laps down in 26th. rubbish. Anyway, it was a fun course and most of the field got lapped. It was quite a nice weekend too, we stayed in the nearby town of Schwarbish Gmund were we met a nice Italian lady called Isha, in the restaurant we ate at twice. She is also allergic to gluten so she & her boyfriend, Jan, invited us for a nice dinner after the race. Authentic Itatalian gluten-free pizza, well tasty.

We are back in Annecy now for a quick catch up with Yohann, Estelle and Aurelien. We fly to Madrid today.

More from Deutschland

Well, not too much news from Germany. I have just been training. Oh we did visit the factory/office of Canyon Bikes, that was awesome. They have a great set-up about 20km from here with 170 staff; all the design, protypes and assembly are done there. They have a roady that weighs 3.8kg, it is a one off but that is crazy. We also visit the Marksburg Castle. That was nice. We are off the Heubach tommorrow for a Bundesliga XC race. Bye for now, until next time here are a few more pictures:

Benderson and i behind the car

A lovely little castle in the middle of the Rhein

Our favourite little tearoom


The "horseshoe" bend on the rhein




the Marksburg Castle

"i wonder how this town got its name?"

I'm not sure what Leanne Henderson buys down Monash way, but i sent Benny out to buy TP and he came back with kitchen paper! Johnny's arse isn't that big, is it?

Weiler-Boppard, Mittelrhein

hey they, just a quick one. We are quite enjoying it here in Weiler, it is a cool vilage right near the Rhein...heaps of castles. From any spot on the river you are doing something wrong if you can't see at least two at any time. There seems to be some good training here with quite a few hills around and nice flat riding along the river. We found some mtb tracks today, hopefully we will find more soon.

Rosie took us motor-pacing along the Rhein today, which was pretty fun. It workd really well with the back door of the Kangoo open so we could talk to the pilot. I thought i'd try putting a little video on my blog, check out the little castle on an island in the middle of the river.

here are a few pics too:

this is the view from our house

we found a stationary bike in town so i busted out an impromptu ergo session!

this is the town of Boppard

Hendo with Boppard in the background