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Africa, around home, bikepacking, bikes, Canada, combe raiders, Europe, family, friends, London, MTB, national park, roadtrip, snow, travel, UK, USA

Five and a half years

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Well, my bike is packed up in its bag again, most of my possessions were collected yesterday for shipping back to New Zealand and, really, I’m a bit bored of packing. I leave London for NZ – five and a half years to the week after I left to see a little bit of the world – curious if I can settle back in a beautiful country far at the bottom of the globe. At the least, I should get a good summer of riding in. Over dinner with Trish at our favourite local Italian pizzeria the other night, there was plenty to reflect on – many excellent things, only two or three not so great happenings, all memorable.

So excuse me while I try to remember most of them and jot them down for posterity. Naturally I’ll start with the highlights in no particular order, as there are many.

As I delve into the archives, this is proving more difficult to narrow it down than I expected, …

My first port of call was the States – little did I know that would be the first of four visits and about six months in total in the country, it turns out the west is fantastic for scenery and mountain-biking.

A west-USA road-trip with plenty of mountain-biking was always a pipe-dream for when I was in my forties or fifties – thanks to living in Canada & the company of my aunt, Valerie, it became a reality much earlier.

The best biking holiday was my return to Moab last year – fantastic trails, great company & beautiful scenery – click on the photo above to watch the video Megan put together.

I also never intended to visit Africa four times, but somehow that happened. Each of the four safaris were quite different, but all excellent.

But the first one in the Masai Mara was the best.

Seeing the Pyramids on Christmas day was excellent – not very crowded either.

I only briefly went to Asia, on a visit to Turkey:


Gliding over the spectacular landscape of Cappadocia in a hot air balloon is indelibly in my memory.

Five weeks’ vacation almost five years ago in the Canadian Rockies saw me learn to ski, a bit, and then all of a sudden, living in Bow Valley for a year of mountain-biking in the summer and skiing in the winter.


Returning to the UK, I managed to settle into a job that I quite liked – that was, until the rather horrible drawn-out experience of plant closure & many redundancies. It was a good base for travels near & far while it lasted – the long, dry & hot summer of 2013 was especially good with many mountain-biking trips around the south-west. Always good to visit Taunton & also ride with my Somerset riding buddies, the Combe Raiders – whatever the weather.

That summer saw me enter a few biking events too – a six-hour solo (nice trail, but boring riding round & round the same thing for six hours), a couple of marathon events, & culminating in my first multi-day stage event.

That event, as you can probably tell from this photo taken while riding along, was in Africa.

Apart from the redundancy experience already mentioned, only two other notable low-points are worth bringing up. The mugging incident in San Diego the day after I left NZ is still the best if I ever have to tell one story from my travels. The ongoing shoulder dislocation saga was painful in a different way – but after four dislocations I had surgery and it’s been fine ever since.

With all the trips to North America & Africa, I perhaps didn’t see as much of Europe as I originally hoped. But I managed a fair few trips – with Italy being the most visited country, five times now I think. I also loved the time spent living in London wandering around all parts of the city & delving into the history. Due to the demise of work, my bikepacking tour of western Europe was brought forward to this year & shortened (& then shortened even more when I got sick of travelling alone in the August rain & mud).

Straddling the German-Belgian border somewhere.

One of the most pleasing & proud parts of the trip was crossing the Alps over Great Saint Bernard Pass – because my grandfather did the same on a bike sixty-five years ago.

Somehow I ended up spending four weeks living & working on a small vineyard in the north-west of Italy – eating a lot, hiking a bit, making new friends & thoroughly enjoying myself. Learning a second-language, Italian – thanks to work, was something I never thought I’d do – but it turned out I really enjoyed it.

Hiking near Monto Bianco.

Oh, almost forgot the whirlwind two-week trip back to NZ (the only one) for some friends’ wedding, and coincidentally my thirtieth birthday & many celebrations with friends & family all over the country. Hectic, but most enjoyable.

The visit also coincided with my shoulder being declared fit – so after six months of no biking, it was great to be active again – here skiing near Wanaka.

I’ll be back with these fine folks next week – hard to believe we’ll have our first Christmas all together since 2006.

That’ll do for unashamed self-indulgence – thanks to all the family & friends that made all this possible in many different ways (usually providing somewhere to sleep & plenty to eat). Biggest thanks goes to cousin Trish in London for repeatedly opening up her home to this often-vagabond – all this would not have been possible or lasted nearly as long otherwise.

bikepacking, bikes, combe raiders, family, friends, MTB, UK

The South & South-West Farewell Tour

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With redundancy rather inconveniently (in more ways than just timing, it must be noted) for me being timed for the middle of summer, I didn’t waste any time in moving out & leaving the area before heading off on my European bike travels lest the weather get colder.  As such,  I never really said a proper goodbye to all the people in the south & south-west that I’d spent so much time with over the previous three years.

So, another little bike tour was in order to do so.  At least as winter approached & then took hold, I had the luxury of knowing I’d be staying with friends & family – & therefore could carry more clothes in place of sleeping bag, mattress & tent. Luxury. I managed to see many people & almost all that I really wanted to see.  Most of the riding was a means-to-an-end (except for two great final MTB outings around Winchester & on Exmoor), but pleasant as the leaves are all sorts of shades at the moment and the English countryside doesn’t fail to be pretty.  I also managed to time rides so that I’d mostly miss the rain.

Schedules dictated I depart a day earlier than I intended, but as the weather was strangely warm and the first of only two big days was spent riding all day & into the night in shorts & short-sleeve top.  Threading my way across south London & then beyond I followed the Basingstoke canal to the eponymous city before taking the train to Bournemouth.

The next morning it was around 20oC, so I hardly needed much persuasion (actually, it was probably my idea) to get some gelato.

Popping back into the plant (former-work) that afternoon, it was eerily quiet and all rather strange. A couple of hours was enough it was so silent. But it was nice wandering around chatting to those that still survive, for however long that may be.

Great to get out for one last ride on the trails around Winchester with Dan & Chris – my only regular riding buddies I had in the area.

Chris recommended an American burger joint, Seven Bones, excellent food & value. Once again, riding so much just provides an excuse to eat excessively.

Due to timings of visits, I ended up crossing the New Forest four or five times – here along the Bournemouth beachfront as the sun sets.

And my last look at the Isle of Wight – I had some nice long & hilly MTB trips out there.

After a couple of nights in Poole, I used the other half of my return train ticket to get back to Basingstoke and ride north of Reading to Rich’s.

I’m going to miss the history of being in Europe; this a typical discovery while just riding along – a Roman amphitheatre seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

As I was riding through a park in the north-west outskirts of Reading I heard a loud & obnoxious ringing – eventually I saw that it was coming from a phone on top of a bin. Thinking that someone had probably lost it, I answered it feeling I was in some strange bicycle-touring Spooks crossover. I was right, a woman had lost her phone & I tried to describe where I was not really having much idea. I wanted to hand it in at a nearby business and carry on my way as the light was fading fast, but she insisted I wait ten minutes. Eventually, a rather old Ford Galaxy rolled up and I was almost forced to take a tenner from a large roll of cash as payment for my waiting around doing nothing. All rather weird, but it paid for my lunch.

Startling pheasants of the game variety was becoming more normal as I continued; I must note that the pheasants in Berkshire and Oxfordshire are much more handsome – darker colouring. And just rolling down the hill to cross the Thames, again, on a quiet country lane I came across the largest bouquet (who knew?) of pheasants I’ve seen.

The goal for the next day was Bristol & it promised to be one of my longest on a bike.  But as I planned to do most of it alongside the Kennet & Avon Canal, it wasn’t to be too hilly.  Rich kindly plotted a route for me to follow on my GPS that would take me most-directly to the canal on quiet roads.  With rain overnight, the tow-path was decidedly wet – and the rain that continued to fall didn’t help all that much.  Unfortunately, the National Cycle Route I was following left the canal for quite a while and seemed to insist on gradually climbing into a stiff sou-wester – not some of my favourite moments on a bike.

In time I reached Devises and what turned to out to be the end of the climbing. Deciding I was much too muddy & wet for the cafe recommended by a passing cycle tourist, so I quickly snacked before rolling quickly down beside the Caen Hill Locks.  With sixteen locks all in a row here, they do form a rather impressive staircase – navigating in a boat must be tedious, five to six hours apparently.

Caen.hill.locks.in.devizes.arp.jpg

The rest of the way into Bath was pretty flat, but with about twenty miles to go on top of what I’d already done wasn’t particularly fast. As the night closed in I decided I didn’t have the light or energy to ride for another couple of hours – so I took the train to north Bristol to arrive at Laura & Luis’s. I was quite pleased with about 145 km/90 miles for the day and over eight hours moving time. While I had remembered that L&L’s first house is undergoing extensive work, I’d forgotten there was no shower – one was much needed after all the mud & work into the wind. Never mind, nothing a walk in the rain around the corner to the gym couldn’t fix.

A most enjoyable weekend catching up, watching the All Blacks narrowly beat England, checking out a local fireworks night, ripping the kitchen ceiling off and popping down to the centre of Bristol to learn a bit of the city and walk in the sun. I’m still of the mind, if I was to come back to England for any length of time, this is an area I’d try to live.

Builders turning up early Monday morning meant an early start to my departure from Bristol for Winscombe. But this did mean that I got to see the day dawning on Bristol as I rode across the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Carrying on through Ashton Court I enjoyed trying to spot bits of the course I rode & rode for six hours last year in the Bristol Bike Fest – six hours of riding the same short lap is rather boring. It was a pleasant dry morning for a ride across Somerset Moors and through cider country; I was pleased to do the half of the Strawberry Line that Mum & I didn’t ride in April (that is, the Yatton – Winscombe half).

While Andy & Jo were still at work I managed to occupy myself getting stuck into War & Peace, wandering around the village, cleaning the mud off my bike (an exercise in futility considering the subsequent ride to Taunton), sitting out a truly miserable Tuesday of rain and generally relaxing. Somehow I found myself recounting my travels since April (my previous visit) in greater detail than anyone else has been subjected too – for once I became a very slow eater.

Across more of the moors on the Wednesday I once again escaped the rain before reaching Taunton – which must be one of my most visited places over the last five years, considering how much John & Anna have had me to stay under the guise of popping over from Hampshire for many great rides in the south-west with the Combe Raiders. Unfortunately, Thursday was rather wet so John & I couldn’t get out for a long ride while Anna was at work and Lydia & Esther were at school – a much needed bike maintenance session wasn’t all that successful for my creaking pedal.

The Final Pheasant ride for the Saturday Combe Raiders outing was back on Exmoor – where I first rode over six years ago with John, Andy & Rich. It was great to have all of them back for my farewell ride and with a few others we had a good group of eight to head out on a day that promised all sorts of weather. A very enjoyable and memorable ride that had some decent climbs, stunning views over the Bristol Channel, some rain, the standard navigational debate, a short very muddy hike-a-bike section (that turned out not to be on the route) and much fun on some long rocky descents. Near the end the cloud really rolled in and above Dunster the woods were so misty one could hardly see twenty metres in front – it was all rather eerie. With one last pastie stop in Dunster my Combe Raiders riding career was over; I’ll miss it all the more as I don’t even get to defend my Christmas Hill Climb title this year.

Map discussions – my stopping to take photos was rather woeful throughout this whole trip.

Before long I’d said all my goodbyes to many friends & family in the south & south-west and I was on the train back to Paddington and then riding across London (which I really enjoy, I suspect I’m in the minority) – home for a couple of days’ breather. Thanks to all who took the time to see me & especially those that had me to stay – it sure beat wild-camping in winter! For the record – it was quite a leisurely tour: nearly 800 km/500 miles in two and a half weeks, only two big days over 120 km, the rest nicely between 30 and 70 km.

bikepacking, bikes, Europe, family, GPS, travel

Great St Bernard Pass

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I crossed the Alps on my bike – via the Great St Bernard Pass. While hardly the Andes by frog, as far as my modest cycling achievements go – in an absolute sense (of metres climbed and time spent climbing) it’s one of the biggest and also most memorable. It was made all the more special by finding out only the day before that my grandfather used the same route, albeit it in the opposite direction, some sixty-five years before me on his European cycle travels. While I had hoped to cross the Alps by bike on this trip – it was further east on an off-road route taking several days that initially had my interest. But as I no longer wanted to wait so long to head into Italy, this route looked the best option.

While I’ve had the odd big day of climbing on the bike, I’ve never attempted two thousand metres with no downhill respite before. As such, I had no idea how I’d go – with or without a laden bike. My small amount of research beforehand, while checking exactly where to go, told me that the gradient wasn’t too steep, only kicking up a bit at the end after the main road enters the tunnel and the original road continues to the pass. I wasn’t overly concerned, but prudence had me up early just in case it turned into a really long hard day. Another reason for staying in a hotel the night before, besides getting a decent sleep, was the free breakfast – well fuelled up, I headed out into the nicely overcast morning.

It was cool seeing the road signs giving such options as the pass, Chamonix or Verbier. Another time, in different circumstances I could have been in either of those last two mountain-biking or even skiing. But there was only one objective for the day. The climbing started straight away, but it was easy to stick to my plan of just spinning away, and not wearing my legs out early by using a gear slightly harder that would have me really pushing on the pedals. It just happened that it was the weekend, so there were few trucks/lorries on the road – all the cars, motorbikes and coaches gave plenty of room too as there was rarely a cycle lane.

Eating breakfast I had seen a couple of mountain-bikers ride through town, I caught these two up sometime later. The pair were from Germany and heading to Nice with all their luggage carried on their backs. It was nice to chat about our respective trips and good ways for carrying luggage on a MTB. We parted ways as they headed towards Verbier to ride a different route with more off-road over – I was tempted to join them, but the mention of significant hike-a-bike and staying in a hut many kilometres short of my intended destination put me off; plus emulating Grandad’s ride was also a priority. With so many hours to while away going up one hill, there was plenty of time to think of grandparents and all the stories and things I could have learnt from them if I’d have spent more time. But I suppose that is the way – you don’t realise such things when you are younger.

Still pleasantly mild, the cloud hadn’t lifted much so my view was limited to my immediate surroundings. I didn’t bother to take a photo until stopped at some roadworks. Down to single-lane traffic and long traffic light phases, this gave the nice affect of spacing the traffic passing me out thereafter into something like y = (sin x) + 1 (I had a lot of time to think).

I carried on my merry way as the cloud started to dissipate, concentrating on tucking my elbows in a bit thus relaxing my shoulders and therefore the lower neck that always seems to get so tight. As it threatened to get rather warm (most of the way it had only been 15 oC) I was sent into a few kilometres of galleria – those tunnels open on one side. While cool in there, it did amplify the noise and made that aspect less pleasant – especially with large coaches or packs of motorbikes passing. The main road left for the tunnel and those not simply transiting through the Alps were left on the road to the summit.

The Ogre resting in the sun, briefly escaping the galleria.

The road kicked up a bit, some sections apparently up around ten percent gradient – but I happily span away with gears to spare. Every so often at significant milestones (2000 m for example) I promised myself some water or a snack – I was surprised later to realise that I did all of this on a Snickers bar, a few handfuls of nuts and about a litre of water; a good breakfast sure does help.

Napoleon had crossed the pass in 1800, so there were occasionally signs and large pictures of attesting to the event. I was pleased not to be bringing forty thousand troops with me. Since the galleria, a pair of Germans on road-bikes also on tour (smaller backpacks than the mountain-bikers) had been around. I was slightly slower than one, but happy to be slightly faster than the other. Only now, with a couple of hundred of metres left to climb did I relent and use my easiest gear – even so, I rarely had to stand up and push the pedals; only sometimes standing briefly to have a little relief from the saddle.

There wasn’t a lot to see at the top – but at least there was a sign to pose with. While not the hardest climb or ride I’ve ever done on a bike – being back in such big mountains (it’s been too long) and getting such an ascent completed was vastly satisfying. I hope Grandad can understand that I’ve done so – although I strongly suspect that he had it a lot tougher riding up from the Italian side in the forties. I’ve no idea how much he was carrying on his European tour, but for all I know his bike back then could have come close to mine in mass.

The view down to the lake on the other side of the pass was quite nice. The buildings at the other end are just over the frontier in Italy.

I resisted eating at the top, preferring to start the exhilarating descent down the road to Aosta – often sitting at fifty kilometres per hour, sometime breaking sixty, it was all a little surreal on my bike. Only pedalling to pass cars, such fun, I had to stop every so often to take in the view. At such speed, the wind was amplified so in brilliant sunshine the arm-warmers and then my jacket went on. I passed a small eatery that seemed to be built in a hovel in the side of the mountain – it looked good enough that I turned around and rode back up the hill. A hearty country meal of many small spicy sausages and polenta hit the spot.

Stopped at more road-works – outside the village, Saint Rhemy, that Grandad records in his album as the last heading out of Italy.

Further down the valley, the roofs had changed again.

Although I could have bypassed Aosta itself as I was going a little down the Dora Baltea valley, I wanted to get at least a brief look of this largest city in the Aosta Valley region. The region, in the extreme north-west of the country, is the smallest and least populated of all the Italian regions – it is so small, it is not even divided into provinces. It’s obviously mountainous and has the Italian slopes of Mont Blanc (now Monto Bianco), Mont Rosa and the Matterhorn on its borders. Aosta had a large piazza in its centre that was very busy for a Saturday afternoon. Down in the valley it was a lot warmer with a strong wind blowing up from the east. I didn’t need much excuse for an ice cream.

Finally, as I rode into that wind for ten or so kilometres, my legs started to voice their opinions on the efforts of the day. Climbing off the valley floor my cycling day ended when I found the family-run vineyard at which I will spend a week. More of that in due course, that rounds out the biking related events of what I expect will be a day memorable to me for many years to come.

city, Europe, family, food, hiking, travel

A family week for a Chianti wedding

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The main impetus for a month of family visiting me from the Southern Hemisphere at this particular time was that my second-cousin (that is, my mother’s cousin’s daughter) Catherine and her fiancé Chris were getting married in Tuscany after a lot of planning. As well as the parents of the bride, & Mum and Adele, also along for the week in Chianti from our side of the family were two cousins, Trish (from most of my previous adventures in & around London) and Keith, and my aunt Valerie from Sydney (who’d I’d last seen on the our big west-USA roadtrip three years ago). Sorting out all the flights, accommodation, rental car etc. between such far-flung people was not particularly easy – but it all came together in the end, with different people sorting various things out.

Many of the wedding guests stayed in the same building, four separate apartments, for the week with others joining us later in the week staying closer to the castle. I was excited to be back in Italy yet again as I really enjoyed the week when my Kiwi cousin got married nearby six years ago and also since then I’ve learnt a little bit of Italian at work. Plus Tuscany is beautiful and the food and red wine excellent. At least this time, being six weeks earlier in the year, was more moderate in temperature – mid-twenties is much better than high-thirties.

With the wedding later in the week we had a few days to amuse ourselves. While I still had some enthusiasm for driving a large people-mover on windy & slow Tuscan roads we did a couple of day trips to Siena and San Gimignano. The weather wasn’t as good mid-week, but by then I was keen to explore the pretty hill-top villages that one could see from Castello di Meleto – Adele was happy to oblige and come along for some big walks exploring the local hills, tracks and restaurants.

Home for the week

Looking down to the castle

And out over the Chianti hills – much hillier and more wooded than around San Gimignano, where we stayed last time

Siena – while eating the most expensive, but not necessarily the best, gelato of the week

Siena Duomo again

Back looking at the towers in San Gimignano – where Mum, Adele & I somehow managed to bump into our fourth-cousin (we share the same great-great-great-great grandparents, I think) from NZ & her fiancé completely unexpectedly

The ground around where we were staying (that’s the villa at top-left) was so rocky only grapes or olives were any good for cultivating

I’d had my eye caught by the large walled village right across the other side of the valley – as it wasn’t on many maps, I was intrigued. To walk off lunch & the early wine-tasting Adele & I set off in that direction happy to explore small lanes. Perhaps the road we chose was steeper than we bargained for, but we were enjoying ourselves. We did get to the village and unlike the previous ones we’d been to, it was pretty much deserted with a church and single cafe seeming the only public buildings. A couple of lost bikepackers rode in, so that was encouraging (that there were bikepackers in the area, not that they were lost); we had more ice cream in the sun.

Buoyed by the success of Tuesday’s exploring we set Wednesday aside for a more ambitious route – thanks to the big map boards in Gaiole-in-Chianti central car park, we had plenty to choose from. These well defined routes went some way to explaining why there seemed to be so many people randomly walking and mountain-biking through the estate during our stay.

We’d reached our objective, Barbischio (another village we’d seen across the valley on the previous day’s walk), by lunchtime. Perhaps spurred on by the wine and the grappa/limoncello, it was decided it was a good idea to walk up another big hill to a small ruined keep that had been taunting me like a French knight. It was a good idea, but our chosen route took us to the top of the wrong hill – leaving the keep to “taunt us a second time”. Still, can’t complain about six hour walking around with great company in the sun spotting deer, wild boar, snakes and multitudes of lizards and admiring the landscape.

Half this tower had fallen down, so someone had built their house inside the shell

Like a few other complexes we’d seen around, these four or so new houses were all but finished, and completely deserted

The morning of the wedding (four o’clock service) I could stand the taunting of the keep no more, so Mum, Valerie, Adele & I drove up there (having worked out how to get there). It was pretty ruined, so we had fun pretending we were like the Famous Five, or some such, exploring it. The views back down to Gaiole & beyond were worth it too.

We popped into another small town, Radda-in-Chianti for a little wander, a quick bite and more gelato – I made the mistake, not to be repeated, of not getting lemon as one of the three scoops. With what was supposed to be plenty of time, we returned home to eat & prepare for the wedding; that is, until Adele found the first of her five flights home starting the next day had been cancelled due to strike action. So cue a couple of hours of stress trying to find a nearby flight that would get Adele to Heathrow after the wedding, but before her intercontinental journey was to start. Somehow we both managed to sort that out and still get to the wedding scrubbed up, all will be well when the travel insurance stumps up.

Earlier concerns over the weather for the outside service proved unfounded and it was good in such a beautiful setting. Now is when I find that I really did leave all photography of pretty much everything wedding-related to those with better cameras and ability – all I have is this pre-shot of the strings. Shocking. Still, I’ll have to go off my memory of a simple & elegant service, with some nice readings and a very beautiful happy couple (that was mostly Catherine, but Chris scrubbed up pretty well too).

So much food, again. Canapés & cocktails on the lawn while the photos were being taken; dinner and speeches in the castle; and finally cake-cutting out in the garden as the night drew in. Great night.

Adele managed to get all packed up the morning after the night before and we, Mum & Valerie too, were off to drop her at Pisa airport. It was supposed to be the relatively close Florence airport, but flight rearrangement meant a lot more driving – but we got to see the tower again. With goodbyes, lunch, final Italian gelati for a while & the sightseeing done we took a rather roundabout route home via Lucca as I forgot there was a difference between the autostrada and highway between Florence & Pisa. Nevermind, we got to see the huge thunderstorm pummelling Chianti as we drove towards it.

That was about the week really – a fantastic one spent with family in a stunning setting with plenty of top-notch food & red wine and just enough exercise to offset it and stop me going slightly more crazy.