2010 biking season
While most of Europe is preparing for the 2010 biking season they can’t even keep the biking lanes snow free here in Helsinki. Today I went for a 40k ride on snowy roads amidst the car traffic. Not that nice and the avg speed of 19.7k/h on my cyclocross bike says it all. I’m eagerly looking forward to my training week at the end of March in Belgium and the Sunday stop at the Tour of Flanders.
On the mtb marathon front this year the first mark on the calendar is the Cape Epic. No revenge for the 2007 participation this year but always nice to follow and this year there are even more top class riders participating. Hope they again have the Polar-GPS tracking installed so we can follow the race in real time.
Full support this year goes out to the longtime buddies from teamskelle participating in the Transrockies 2010. Yes we are a little envious because it is one of the top 5 stage marathons in the world and every biker wants to participate. I’m sure Fili and Skelle will achieve their goals (first half of the pack) – their training plan looks impressive. Follow and support them on the teamskelle site!!
Myself I’m planning a Transvosgiènne end of June, more info to come.
Spanish Pyrenees – the report
After taking on the Alps, La Palma, Lake Garda etc it was time to hit Spain so we went for a 8 days “walk in the park” in the Pyrenees. Our GPS track was drafted by our longterm mtb friend Fili who unfortunately broke his leg 6 weeks before departure – hope to see you back on a mtb really soon! The track was a mixture of stages in the Nocito-Boltaña-Laspuna area parts of the Pedals the Foc track and a little desert stage on the last day.
First day around Nocito was really difficult, you get on your bike and from kilometer #2 you know it’s not going to be fun… Main reason was the 35C on the thermometer- coming from a mild 16C in Helsinki a bit of a shock. Untill day 3 we didn’t go higher than 1500m, each stage had 2 or 3 climbs and we gathered between 1200 and 1500hm each day. Mainly jeep tracks but surprisingly enough a lot of forest roads and a daily bonus of 5 to 10 kms of genuine singletracks on walking paths. In short a nice region suited perfectly well for (technical) mtb riding.
On day 4 we did our first long climb (over 800hm) in Laspuna and were rewarded with a nice descent, my 4th(!) flat tire of the trip, and a challenging singletrack next to the river – check the video. The day after we hit the Pedals the Foc track starting with a shortened stage due to a thunderstorm in the early morning. Only 1300hm on this day but the 3km climb to Castellar at 12-15% remains on of the most painfull moments of the trip. Day 6 was arguably the stage with the best panoramas climbing all the way up to 2300m between Les Iglesies and Espot, 60kms and over 2000hm. I skipped day 7 as the stage of stages was still to come on day 8 – and make no mistake: it was.
Between Bagergue and Vielha we had to climb all the way to 2450m and then descent back to 1000m over a walking path… I wondered if our guide had mixed his biking and hiking maps as it took us 5hrs to cover 25kms… At the Refugio they seemed slightly surprised to see us coming from that direction – the fact that a mtb guide died there last year made us decide that although the views are astonishing this is maybe not the best track for biking.
In Vielha we had a well deserved beer and concluded that this part of the Pyrenees, although not as popular as the French side, is worth the visit for some true mountainbiking. I’m pretty sure we will be back…
video is here
check more here:
post-Pyrenees
…and back at the office.Luckily it’s nice and warm in Helsinki (26C!) so the biking Summer can continue. I haven’t had enough? No I haven’t. A small teaser for the upcoming photo album and video just to show how great it actually was. Somewhere round 1800m on a really tricky descent to Vielha. Stay tuned for more.
Spanish Pyrenees – before departure
Saturday morning we are finally leaving for the long awaited trip to Pyrenees. 450 kms of mtb’ing from Nocito to Vielha with around 15 000 hight meters in 7 days. Preparing the bikes, checking and double-checking the luggage and spare parts, a 14 hour drive and into the oven… 30C at the moment, exactly my thing. Daily updates and images via Twitter for those of you who want to follow and more reports on www.skelle.be from the other 5 skellebikers.
