Hello from the national bike show in Birmingham! After a long day yesterday, we’re back at our stand (103) today for the second half of the show. It’s been a fun couple of days here but I’m sure our legs will be happy when it’s over!
If you’re paying a visit to the show make sure you pop by and say hello!
Guy
Well it’s been a tiring week, but definitely a good one. We’ve honed our navigation skills, wild camped, learnt lots of belaying techniques, and loads more too! The night navigation was a fantastic experience, and we’ve been to some incredible places. Our instructor Alex Williams was fantastic and the other people on our course, Greg and Phil were great guys to spend a long six days with! Now we just need to practise everything and get in a lot more walking and camping. We can definitely recommend www.climbmts.co.uk for anyone wanting to do anything similar.
So today…a rest? Well not quite, a friendly neighbour of Guy’s uncle took us out for a few hours riding locally with a long climb and fun descent as well as some amazing views - when the mist cleared! Then tomorrow we’re up to Aviemore for some riding with Jules Fincham of Cycle Wild Scotland. No rest for the legs just yet!
Well we made it to Scotland safely and through the first day of our ML training. The other guys we’re doing it with are pretty cool and our instructor seems to know what she’s doing! Had a great day out on the hills today practicing navigation, and then a quick run through on ropes and knots to prepare us for steep ground and rope work tomorrow. We’re really lucky with the weather as well - there’s some high pressure set in so we’ve got mostly clear dry days and it was pretty warm today too! So far it’s looking set to be a great week and we’re looking forward to getting back out tomorrow.
Highlights….well finding today more enjoyable and informative than too tough/worrying(!), and getting some fantastic views!
897km to be precise… driving to Zeebrugge tomorrow - actually in about 6 hours time we’ll be setting off.
Then it’s an 18 hour ferry journey to Edinburgh (we prefer to call it a “cruise” - sounds romantic!)
And so on Saturday at about 2pm we’ll arrive in Perthshire ready for our Mountain Leader training to start on the Monday.
Good bye sunny Morzine - we’ll be back in a month!
(this also means we’ll be a bit slack on our email responses for a while…)
First road biking… then walking… whatever next?
Well, we’re embarking on the long road to become IMLs (that’s International Mountain Leaders) - the first step along the way is going to a British Summer Mountain Leader training course - starting next week up in Scotland. We thought it best to actually go for a walk instead of a ride! Just to dust off the hiking boots & try out yet another new rucksack (we’ve now got one for every possible use, from 5litres to 85litres! - the new one is 40L - you can never have enough!)… In three years time we should have the IML qualification. Like I said - it’s a long road ahead.
Here’s me (check the two tone trousers - can you tell I don’t use the bottoms very often!)
And here’s some more pics (including a rather scary 12m ladder!)
Just got back from a road ride (shock horror!) up to Avoriaz. Just made it to the top under the hour mark…
a good 10 mins slower than my best time at the end of last year.
Winter has not been kind. Must do better.
Thought I’d take advantage of the sunshine to head out on my bike again. This time sticking a little lower by the river and up to Lac Montriond. The path around the lake is still a little snowy on the north side but only in patches and all ride-able over. I haven’t done this ride since the autumn and forgot how nice it is, nothing too tricky, but some short steep rocky climbs, and a fun descent. Just being out and hearing the river gushing over rocks and seeing the silent ice covered lake surrounded by cliffs is a great way to start the day. Definitely better than my gym session last night!
Yesterday afternoon after a busy day in the office Guy and I decided to head out for a ride. A long slog up the road to the top of the Super Morzine telecabine (which so handily takes us and our bikes in the summer!) had my heart rate going nicely. We cut off to the great fun zig zag track expecting a little snow to start with. At first we had fun riding across the snow, but then hit thick sticky snow and sunk in - a little more snow than we anticipated! Still it was a funny walk, sinking knee deep at times, till we cleared the snowy patch and descended all the way down taking in loose rocks, roots, ruts and some nice tight loose switchbacks.
Not a bad couple of hours out.
We’re really excited about the skills days that local MTB guide and instructor Joseph Pauly will be running with us. It’s something we’d wanted to do for ages, and had been looking around for a good local English speaking instructor when Jo approached us! He’s a great guy and a great coach too so we’re anticipating these days to be pretty popular.
More info’s available here
