I’ve been a bit quiet on this blog recently – a little winter hibernation, I guess.

Happy New Year to everyone – may it prove to be a golden year in pursuing your dreams, whatever they may be.

Since participating in the Furnace Creek 508 race in California last October, I was travelling via work and generally off the bike until 1 December, when I formally began work with my cycling coach, Paul Mill, who has been fantastic so far in giving daily, weekly and monthly structure to my training – it is proving to be the best cycling decision I have made to date.

Island in the sun-
I am currently based in Lanzarote for 25 days where I am working on remote basis while completing my early stage base training and have got almost 600 miles completed so far this month. Having never been to the island previously, I didn’t have any real expectations about the place but I have been mesmerised by the island’s beauty, friendly locals and general great environment for cycling. It’s difficult, if not impossible, not to get inspired for daily training here due to the sheer volume of cyclists or other athletes that are training here at this time of year. Even my flatmates here are sports obsessed– 2 female Triathletes and fitness instructors from Denmark who are living in Lanzarote and completing their training for Ironman events. I will be sad to leave here on 26th January but hope to return at some point.

After Lanzarote, I will be returning to London fulltime for work reasons and am currently in process of finding accommodation there. It will be helpful to be in same city as my cycling coach and it will also be great, from a general training habit perspective, to know that I will be in one location for longer than 3 weeks – the longest I’ve been in a place at any one stage during past 12 months.

2013 Races and Training-
After much deliberation, and input from my coach, I have decided not to do the 900 mile Race Across the West in June. Instead, to keep things focused, I will target the September edition of Race Around Ireland as my key event in 2013 with all other cycling events this year being used to build up to the demands of the Ireland race.
Preparation for September will involve 1-2 races of approximately 24 hours duration during the summer and several training camps in European locations where I spend a week or more training in a controlled environment that allows my body to build up to the demands of the Ireland race.

Areas to address-
I’m extremely excited about the year ahead and working with my coach, Paul. The only key physical limiters on my cycling at present are (i) my neck pain – a direct result of my bike crashes in 2012, but which I am confident of fixing; (ii) pain in hip/sit bone area after only a few miles – the root cause of which remains unclear and will be explored further via physios etc when back in London; and (iii) more core and flexibility work is needed – this will be achieved by joining a gym and Bikram yoga courses while in London.

508 registration with my lucky bear ...Neddy Tedddy

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill

Another race for me, another DNF for me, this time in the Furnace Creek 508 which travels from Santa Clarita, just north of LA, on to various Californian landmarks including Townes Pass, Death Valley and Badwater and carries 35,000 feet of climbing. I withdrew from the race at mile 305 due to same neck problems that plagued me in the Race Around Ireland, heat problems and also asthma respiratory problems caused by the hot dry air in Death Valley and Badwater having failed to shake off a minor chest cold pre race.

Am I disappointed? Only in a small sense. After identifying my current limits in the recent Ireland race, I started the race knowing that I am still lacking race endurance and race speeds beyond 150 miles and I primarily wanted to use the experience to build my fitness and explore how my body reacts in the hot desert in advance of next year. I learnt so much and also had so much fun so I have no complaints at all on performance grounds. The beauty of the race course was mindblowing at times.

My races for 2012 are now over and it is time to look forward to 2013. I have lost no faith in my ability to come good and win many ultra races over next 5 years as I get stronger, or rather wiser. I will decide in next 3 weeks whether I particapate in the Race Across America next summer but it most likely will be the 860 mile Race Across the West. I have now (almost official) got a cycling coach on board and will use his expertise to build a solid foundation and then race at hopefully new levels for me. I am also locking in training partners and a strength/conditioning coach for coming year – my body is currently too fragile even without this years bike crashes.

I am also super grateful to my crew during the race – Tom, Keshav and Apurv who kept me smiling and in good spirits throughout. Thanks so much guys! You rock!! Tom, a veteran of the race and principal engineer at Dexcom, tested Dexcom’s glucose measurement device on me during the race and it was good to see that my glucose levels remained stable around 110 with 150 being the max level reached I believe. Hopefully it wont be long before such glucose measurements are seen as standard for athletes during races in understanding how their body glucose levels are either rising or falling too raplidly. Next June, we can hopefully test the latest device model with an eye on it soon being built into bike computer systems such as Garmin via ANT protocol.

Here are some lessons I learnt from the 508 and a few highlights:

• Nail your sleep in advance - I slept well for much of the week pre race but failed to sleep at all in the 2 nights before race. I lay in bed full of nervous excitement, nerves being caused by my unknowing of how my body would cope in the desert heat (I was melting in heat during rides up Mount Palomar in week before race). Sports psychology sessions may assist on this issue in future (relaxation methods) and I will also take lots of valerian root drops to assist my entering sleep mode. I will also spend more time in advance acclimatising to the heat to remove body conditioning nerves.
• Keep an eye on hydration - I surprised myself with how well I did on this count, drinking in excess of 1-1.5 litres of water most hours. One of my key allies were coconut water and home made watermelon gazpacho (beautiful zesty taste that tastes great when your mouth goes dry). Nonethless, I suspect it was not enough. Training the body to drink up to 2 litres or more of water in the midday heat each hour is a skill I must adapt to further berfore next summer.
• Watch out for effects of the hot dry air - I wasn’t expecting the problems this caused in triggering my asthma and breathing problems. I have since reserched the issue and it is a common issue for asthmatics but may also affect others. In future I wil seek to address this via having lots of breathing assistance apparatuses on hand and also spending more time in that environment pre-race to better acclimatise.
• Race your own race - The more races I do, the more important I see this. In every race there will be many racers who move out of the blocks fast and later slow down. While I was never in a position to challenge for a top finish at the 508, I did race my own race which involved going out slow into the daytime heat and then getting stronger and faster as the sun went down, climbing 20 positions in the night before my withdrawal. In future races such as RAAM or Race Around Ireland, I will continue to do the same because those races only begin at earliest mile 400.
• Spec the route in advance - I had great advice from Tom in advance of the race but was still a bit wary at times, particularly when descending the 17 miles from top of Townes Pass into Stovepipe Wells at 46mph. Many people hit 60mph while descending but in the dark I was perhaps overly cautious in the first few miles as to prevent overcooking any of the corners given my bike crashes this year.

On day of withdrawal, I was upset and seriously questioned my abilities as a cyclist and whether I should continue to chase my cycling dreams to 2018 given the lack of any signs of progress, result wise, in past 2 years. But 2 days later and ever since, I have felt reinvogorated knowing that I would never be happy if I sacrificed my cycling dream when the causes of poor performance this year were largely due to either injuries or bike crashes. Akin to how I failed in the 2009 ireland rcae, I now have a deeper desire to restore pride in 2013 and am looking into taking on a cycling coach to ensure that I stay on track each week and will be using this winter to rebuild my body into a cycling machine – I need core, flexibility and strength work to pull some muscles and back posture back into alignment – areas that I unfortunately paid too little attention to in past 12 months, a mistake that I now know cannot be repeated. The mind is willing, the body must follow.

I will post further updates over the winter on my efforts to rebuild my body. Only when I achieve that will I know that I can challenge for the outright win at these ultra cycling events. Finally, THANK YOU THANK YOU to all my wonderful race crew and supporters and the RAI officials who, despite my poor result, made it into a wonderful experience with many lessons learnt. I am officially addicted to the Race Around Ireland and hope to be at the start line for many years to come!

I flew from Girona, Spain on Sunday and will not return until mid-late October after my participation in the 1,350 mile Race Around Ireland the 508 mile Furnace Creek race in California.

I moved there in March this year to focus on rebuilding my body and cycling performances after a poor run of injury form in 2011 that left me highly frustrated and sometimes questioning whether I would ever rediscover my early promising form from 2010, my second year of cycling. But living in Girona, the base of many professional cyclists, has been a great experience for me and I have noticed great improvements in my cycling abilities and I have no doubt that were it not for my two bike crashes this year, I would be in a very strong position to challenge for honours at the Ireland or California races. As things stand right now, I feel privileged just to be alive after my April crash and having a second chance to getting things in place so that I might eventually end up with my targeted wins en route to my 2018 long stop deadline date. After all, nothing great in life comes without having to overcome some obstacles!

So, what’s so great about Girona? Well, for starters, it has almost constant sunshine year round with low levels of rain (the scourge of many a training ride in more northern parts of Europe) and it also has some excellent road surfaces for cycling along with a beautiful mixture of hilly or flat terrain depending on your cycling preferences. Add in the quiet traffic roads and majority of drivers in automobiles that are respectful of cyclists and it really is among the best places in Europe for cycle training.

I’ve managed to cycle to lots of different zones around Girona region but the following are my favourites:

1. The Volcanic Route – this has been my favourite and the course I used on 80% of my training rides, usually in early morning before starting work. Starting from Banyoles, you are immediately onto the quiet and smooth surfaced GI-524 back road that takes you higher and higher into the Garrotxa National Volcanic Park (dormant volcano region surrounded by beautiful valleys and forests). After 25km of interrupted climbing, you hit the beautiful village of Santa Pau before a further 3km of climbing and then a 5km descent into Olot (itself a beautiful town). Normally on my training rides I ride just past Olot to end outskirts of the Garrotxa National Volcanic Park before turning around and beginning the 5km gradual climb from Olot and then a series of fast descents interspersed with a few flats and climbs before arriving back at Banyoles for a total distance of approx. 70kms and an overall ascent of 1,000metres. The best feature of the ride is the ability to ride at threshold for several kms en route to Olot on roads that make you feel like you are a professional cyclist climbing into the mountains on a closed off road. And I also love the descents on return leg with several sharp bends that improve your cornering abilities. In short, I love it. I miss it already!

2. Rocacorba and Mont de Mare Del Deu – these two climbs are 1,000 metre monsters and are done on days when wanting to ride at and above threshold for 10km or more uphill! Many people claim that the 13kms of Rocacorba is harder but I am not so sure – I have found Mare De Deu Del Mont to also be brutal, often far worse because although the base section/first few kms are easy going, the remainder of its 19kms prevent you from forging a solid power output or cadence rhythm. Foolishly, maybe, but I have normally ridden these climbs at lunchtime in the midday heat (hottest recorded was 37.5 degrees celsius – cue many expletives on each rising hairpin and a sweat level that is just not healthy). One thing is for sure, the views form the top are breath taking and a just reward for the killer efforts that preceded it. On balance, I prefer Mare de Deu del Mont due to the beautiful route that leads you to its base – from Banyoles into Esponella and Crespin, good roads for some aero bar time trialling and with opportunity to pass through beautiful historic medieval town of Besalu on return leg. Very breathtaking.

3. Finally, my other favourites would be the longer rides to Valter ski station on French border or the gentler looped ride out to the Mediterranean coast which takes you to into Cap de Creus national park area (can be windy but with great views of a monastery and sea views to be had). The Valter bike ride can give you over 3,000 metres of climbing if doing an out and back loop of approx 100 miles and I almost died on bike getting there during one August ride due to the suffocating heat. I had also sought to complete the 112 mile, 5,000 ntres of climbing route from Olot to Port-Aine which featured in stage 3 of this years Tour de Catlonia but that will have to wait for another day given its long traverse across some of the main N roads.

In summary, I love Girona cycling roads and if you want to explore the above routes any time, I suggest you contact Gareth or Fiona at Girona Cycling who will accommodate you and give you detailed analysis of the above routes along with the countless others that exist depending on your tastes. They are the masters when it comes to detailed knowledge of the Girona roads.

Details available here. In the meantime, check out this awesome video of the 59th Japanese Keirin final

3 weeks to go Ireland race. I am very excited at taking part but also somewhat frustrated in knowing that despite killer training sessions I will not be 100% physical in terms of fighting it out for a top 3 finish.

Since finishing the 2010 Race Around Ireland and grinding out a result, I seem to have been beset by on-going injury concerns and I have been around the houses in getting professional opinions on the root causes. Unsatisfied with responses and bowing to my lawyer tendencies towards finding answers, I began distance diplomas in a few areas this year, including Anatomy and Physiology, to better understand my body so that I can take full control of matters.

I now know that one of the key recent causes of pain is due to a pelvic asymmetry, most likely exacerbated by my two bike crashes this year. The symptoms of this are an unusual amount of pain on my left sit bone area which leads me to adopt a Quasimodo back arched position and compensatory pedalling technique on right side of body after approx. 50 miles, as well as having to sit upright and out of the saddle far too often, causing ripple effects throughout the body, including more pain in my upper neck/shoulder area. Previously I had overlooked this basic biomechanical issue, focusing instead in grinding out miles on the Girona roads and hoping the pain would dissipate by virtue of increased mileage, but with upward of 20,000 metres of climbing done in past 2 weeks alone I know that increased mileage is not the answer.

Right now, it’s hard to predict how upcoming races in Ireland and California will go – I know that my root problems will likely take upward of 4-8 months to correct themselves from an anatomical perspective (additional hip flexor, glute and hamstring strengthening for starters). Nonetheless I want to take part in the races so that I can test myself in the fire (I still plan to Race Across America next summer) and if I end up completing the Ireland or California race, I will know that I have the mental strength to beat pain.

On a more positive note, my endurance has improved via regular sessions in the Girona mountains and my body weight is down to 73.5kg which is almost at race weight (72kg) and my body fat is approx  8% (race target 6%). I have also improved my average pedalling cadence from 80rpm to 90rpm over past two months so that I can rely on my aerobic engine more rather than muscular leg strength. This has been part of my long term plan to improve my overall sped in ultra events, having started this year at close to 80kg and 13% body fat. I don’t see myself going below 5% body fat but the fat loses this year are nonetheless significant because a pound of excess flesh requires 2 extra watts to get up a hill. Lose 10 pounds and you can ascend a hill 7-10% faster or put another way, you can gain at least 0.5mph faster speeds.

Next steps:
• Solve biomechanics problems once and for all - I’m done with denials and no longer want to race ineffectively. So I plan to spend a month from mid-October onwards in getting my body functioning correctly, via targeted supervised strength training and yoga, pilates, basically whatever it takes. Ideally, this might take me to the Paleo Centre in Lanzarote before resuming winter training somewhere and entering 2013 with a body that can cycle fast, and pain free, for not just 50 miles but 500 miles.
• Consider getting a coach – my power at lactate threshold (not tested this year) appears to be still hovering at 2010 levels of approx 215 watts at 140bpm which is approx 70% of maximum heart rate levels. By comparison, a top level cyclist in tour de France will have it closer to 80 or maybe 85% or higher. Injuries, crashes and interrupted training aside this year, my 2012 power levels need to improve by quite a margin if I am to seriously challenge at Ireland race in 2013 as well at the race Across America. This is far more important for my endurance events than boosting my VO2 max levels which, due to heavy sessions on turbo when injured during May, likely is just above 2010 levels of 76mL/kg/min when at 73kg.

I have travelled with bikes for several years now and have used everything from cardboard boxes (with consequent long annoying process of having to wrap bike in bubblewrap), foam built soft case bike packs (again, needing annoying and lengthy bubblewrap maintainence) to several hard case boxes. If you are truly in a fix, then nothing can beat the simple solution of using a cardboard box and bubblewrap and/or plumbers hosing around the bike frame parts. But even then, you are always still at the mercy of airline baggage handlers and their reckless approach to parcels, even when marked with a ‘fragile’ sticker. Hard case bike boxes are truly the only solution when you want to guarantee that your expensive trusty steed will arrive in end location in one piece. However, not all hard cases are the same, a lesson I learnt in 2009 when lugging my bike in a sub-standard hard case across Portugal, much to the amusement of my travelling companions – it was super heavy, the wheels fell apart after 1-2 days…cue many expletives on my side, not to mention the heavy clunking noises from dragging such cases across cobbled streets that sounded more like a 19th century train arriving into a station.

So, it was an absolute pleasure to me to use the Bike Box Alan case this weekend in Switzerland and find that it not only looks quite cool and grabs everybody’s attention, it also functions like a dream. Packing a bike has now gone from a half or full day long mission to being a 1 hour job at max. I’ve posted 2 photos in this blog to show how the case appears when packing my bike and wheels along with a photo of it when fully closed and ready to wheel away.

Perfecto! Pure ergonomic brilliance. My travel pains are finally over. Thank you Alan at Bike Box Alan! Ole!

Here is a link to a shortish video on how you quickly (and pain free) pack your prized joy away.

I was in Switzerland for my first time, it was my first race of 2012 and my first attempt at using my new revised formula of fruits and certain plant based superfoods as my race fuel.

And even though the 720km race was meant to be a gentle step back into ultra cycling, somewhere it all went wrong….my newly installed 12-27 cassette went bonkers from early on, making creaking noises and causing chain slipping from the start. My Garmin display stopped working and led me to going out too hard. Then the heat and humidity rose to about 36 degrees and after my follow crew car carrying my supplies took a wrong turn and ended up on wrong side of the border in Germany at one stage, dehydration followed and my later vomiting at a checkpoint. My biggest problem in terms of localised pain was in my neck and collarbone areas which clearly still needs strengthening after my bike crash in April. I ended up having to withdraw from the race, knowing that my body had been broken at too early a stage. And as for the bike crash – it was entirely my own fault this time, totally missing the large sewage crater on side of road that gobbled up my front wheel and sent me flying into the nearby field with what appeared to be a fractured rib and possible rebroken collarbone.

Luckily, have now got analysis from doctors in Spain that nothing is in fact broken and that I can resume training shortly (hopefully this Friday when I will have my bike back from the surgey workshop). I am super relieved to hear that news. Things could have been far worse so for now, it is onwards and upwards, learn from mistakes and here we go!

Next steps:

• Rebuild muscles in neck and upper back (my current most critical item in terms of the upcoming A-priority races in September and October). To achieve this, I have a mixture of ideas, mainly centred on fascia stretching as well as yoga and strengthening workouts.
• Build my muscular endurance – Basically, I need to build up lots more mileage because my hours of turbo training in May and June have left me physically strong for short periods only. I will be borrowing a leaf from Bradley Wiggins’ strategy and will be doing up to 12,000 metres of climbing on certain weekends during my training rides in Girona area, Spain and/or around Surrey in south London. Have a look at this article to see what Wiggo attributes much of his 2012 cycling successes to.

I’ve set out below what I have found through several years of trial and error to provide the best results for a pre-workout meal. Contact me if you have any follow up queries and I am happy to clarify details or provide more data or alternative meals. I strongly feel that everyone should sample a few options and see what personally works best for them because as the famous Nobel Prize winner Richard P. Feynman stated “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong”. Hopefully, if you adopt the guidelines below, they will work perfectly for your own personal training experiments.

1. Ensure you have had adequate sleep and recovery from your previous training session
I will post a separate blog on this issue in coming days which outlines my suggestions on how to recover from training faster and how to improve sleep quality and timing of meals.

2. Ask yourself whether you actually need a pre-workout meal
There is no such thing as a one size fits all and the same applies to your weekly training sessions. Some days you may be completing an intensive hour long strength and conditioning session in the gym or on a turbo trainer whereas other days your training session might involve a 2 hour plus endurance session of running, cycling etc.

For at least one of my weekly endurance training sessions (and a maximum of 2 sessions), I don’t eat any fuel in advance. Why? Because on those days my goal is to tap into my fat burning zone and this is best achieved when your fast carbohydrate source/glycogen stores are depleted so that your body has no option but to immediately switch to body fat stores. Your end goal is to be able to run or cycle 1-2mph faster at a given intensity using body fat stores as your primary source of energy. For triathletes and endurance cyclists, I see 1 x weekly training session at this level as being critical with a pre-workout meal/drink being used on remaining days.

Those training for short distance sprint work will likely be best served by always using a pre-race meal so that glycogen stores are topped up for each explosive power session.

3. Consume a mixture of fast and slow releasing carbohydrates
On days when you take a pre-workout meal, your goal should be to deliver your body with a mixture of fast and slow releasing energy. The Glycaemic Index of a food is useful in revealing what foods have a high GI (and thereby fast releasing energy) but it should not be assumed that all high GI foods are useful for exercise – breads or other starchy carbohydrates are generally a big no-no because your body will have to work overtime to convert them to usable sugars. Always aim to supply your body with 1 step nutrition ie fuel that your body can use instantly without need for wasted processing/conversion energy.

Personally, I have found a mixture of dates and virgin coconut oil to be a great combination for a pre-workout fuel. The dates have a GI index of approximately 94 and consist almost entirely of glucose which will immediately provide energy and support your working muscles. Each date may contain up to 80 calories depending on size and species (I recommend medjool dates). The coconut oil has a GI of approximately 35 and will supply slow burning energy throughout your workout. It is also treated favourably by your liver as well as containing healthy fats.

4. Stock up and replace your minerals that will be lost in sweating
As you sweat, you lose electrolytes that require replenishment. However, simple sugar overdosed Lucozade or Gatorade drinks being sold in the supermarkets are definitely not the answer if you truly care about fueling your body in the short and long term.

My experience has led me to either use celery sticks or Himalyan salt or dulse flakes (not to be confused with standard table salt sold in most cornerstores) along with half a teaspoon each of Chlorella and Spirulina. I find this mixture supplies my body with adequate minerals and nutrients with added benefits of extra energy and blood cleansing being provided by the Spirulina and Chlorella.

During my training session, I always aim to consume at least 400ml of this mixture every hour, even in cold weather or 100ml every 15 minutes. The drink should be gulped rather than sipped because gulping and the consequent stomach pressure assists in gastric emptying.

NOTE: Another alternative in obtaining natural based electrolytes is to soak some dried fruits in water overnight – the sugar and electrolytes from the fruits will soak into the water due to osmotic pressure.

5. Fuel your brain
I am always amazed at how little emphasis people put on adopting nutrients into their daily diet, and particularly their pre-workout meal, with overall aim of improving their concentration and mental focus. To me, it is critical to feed the brain when embarking on an endurance workout that will last longer than 90 minutes.

For that reason, I like to add a teaspoon of Matcha Green Tea to my pre-workout meal. It is rich in antioxidants, chlorophyll and fiber but with a moderate caffeine rating of approx 70mg caffeine per 240ml of water. It contains the amino acid L-theanine which when combined with the caffeine, supplies a smooth calm alertness during exercise. Coffee should generally be avoided as it has negative effects on the stomach and adrenal glands.

6. Putting it all together
I tend to complete my main workout in the mornings as I like to know that I have got my daily exercise regardless of any urgent work or social situation that arises later in the day. If you follow a similar approach, then I would suggest always using a blender to prepare your pre-workout drink so that it enters your bloodstream more quickly as opposed to consuming a solid meal. If using a blender, you can start your workout 20-30 minutes after consumption.

For those who want minimum fuss, I would suggest a handful of dates (approx 4), 1 x tbsp. coconut oil, 1 x tsp matcha green tea, ½ tsp spirulina, ½ tsp chlorella, 1 celery stick and 500ml of water (or your favourite juice until you adopt to the taste which can take a week or two – after that, most people don’t seem to mind the taste of spirulina etc and often grow to like it).

All of the above ingredients are available from good healthstores or online. As you adapt, you can add other superfoods to your pre-workout drink. Chia is a great favourite of mine but there are countless others which can be used – it really all depends on how balanced and nutritious your remaining meals throughout each day are.

Note: dates can be a natural laxative and therefore you should bear that in mind when first starting to use them in your diet. I suggest aiming to have a toilet break before your workout, especially if going for a morning workout when your body will be seeking to clear out toxins from previous day.

Let me know what you think or if anyone has any suggestions on how to improve/what works best for them etc. Happy training!

I am currently spending some time at home with family in Galway while I recover from my recent bike crash. My main focus is on reducing the swelling and general tiredness that arises from having your head bounce around on tarmac and so I decided to take some time off work to allow the brain to switch off and recover faster – as things stand, I still have no memory of the accident.

1 week after the crash, I was still feeling pain in my neck and shoulder area and requested a new x-ray which confirmed my initial suspicions – my right collarbone was broken despite the initial all clear from doctors just 1 week earlier. It’s safe to say that I was not a happy bunny at hearing that news, mainly because it definitely rules me out of my first planed race of 2012 at start of June.

That said, I always like to look at the positives and I think the recent crash may turn out to be a good thing for me – it is forcing me to focus more on my yoga, meditation and other matters that I view as key for my ultra-cycling exploits. It is also giving me time to make some detox diet modifications, catch up on reading as well as seeing my family and friends. And a big thank you to Chain Reaction Cycles for their speedy delivery of an indoor turbo trainer which I can now use with my back up Colnago or Giant cycling bikes. Ole!

This saturday I will attend the first Cycling Show to be hosted in Ireland – it will be good to meet some of various faces involved in Irish cycling and who knows, it might even throw up someone that can assist with my cycling events in 2013 when I will participate in the Race Across America and also embark on my sub-100 days around the world cycling trip!