Alpine Raid

A while back, Jean signed me up to complete the 250k Alpine Raid as a present.

I thought, given that we get two days to do it, and folks do do it in one, how hard could it be?

The answer, hard. Very hard.

About 4500 meters climbing over 250k is pretty tough, but the raid feels harder cause a lot of the "flat" sections are actually mini little killer climbs or rollers that don't quite let you roll.

This is especially true of the stretch between Hotham and Omeo, which is the second part of day two. It seemed to defy the profile completely (which made it look downhill) and go on forever. Or maybe we were just more tired than we thought after the climb up mount Hotham.

This was my first serious climb in yonks, and I actually found it really nice and not too tough.

The weather was loverly, the traffic not too bad, and the relaxed start to the day that Audax gives you in this event was all very pleasant. The climb itself is long - 30k+, but only really steep in a couple of bits. I had been warned that the finish seems to take forever, but knowing the distance on my GPS, I knew not to get too excited.

For those interested, this site goes into the climb in a lot.

Day two started off easily enough, and had some of the quietest and most peaceful cycling imaginable along the Omeo highway towards falls creek turn off. It was another beautiful day, and I was feeling none the worst after yesterdays exertions, including several beers to aid recovery. Eventually we came to a stop at the turnoff to the well named WTF corner - the start to the climb up the back of falls. It might not look it in the pic, but there are several 15% pitches in the first few kays to really make you suffer. It was one of the tougher climbs I've done - only the Thailand climbs and maybe Hautacam had sustained pitches this steep. Though after half way, the going gets a lot easier, and I was still waiting for the final tough bit when I realised I was coming into falls creek, our lunch stop, and the start of some serious downhill.

Michael and I met up with Sally and Simon, who were doing a 130k 1 day ride to Hotham and back, so we descended more or less together, and up our final climb, Tawonga gap - not the hardest climb but after what went before, and in 37 degrees, it felt a lot like Alpe D'huez last summer, all over again!

Around the bay

Sunday for the first time I took part in Melbourne's biggest annual cycling event - Around the bay in a day.
It was definitely something I wanted to experience, but I think now that I've done it, I won't be rushing back.
The main thing that puts me off is the lack of road closures. It's pretty much as normal, other than the fact that we get one lane on the west gate bridge. So a lot of the ride is stop start, which really breaks your rhythm.
That, and the messy ferry setup (too few boats, too many passengers), a handful of idiot motorists (and a few stupid cyclists) and far too many punctures (I didn't get any, but Coops and Steve got several - not helped by locals laying thumb tacks and nails) took the edge off what could be a great day.
I still enjoyed it (a lot in parts) but I think for the money (and effort) there are better ways to spend a day.
Ride wise, it's pretty flat - the nicest part of the ride I normally do - along the coast to Dromana - is skipped, presumably cause of Vic Roads reluctance to offer to close this section. The stretch along the motorway from Geelong is definitely forgettable, though at least we had a nice tail wind (and no lights, so we could bet a bit of speed up). It was nice to roll into the finish, knowing you had completed a large geographical circle on your own steam (well, with the ferry's help). And the ride over the bridge was cool, though it's just a shame this is about the only time cyclists can experience it. I think of San Francisco, when you can walk or cycle across the Golden Gate almost all the time. Oh well, maybe one day?

Garmin details:

The Highlands by bike

Day 1: Chiang Mai to Pai.

My guide Marcus is going to take me around northern Thailand's challenging cycling loop, which should act as good sharpening for the forthcoming Etape in the Alps.


Apparently day one is one of the easy days, but it's still really tough.
Partly from the hot humid weather (bit of a shock after Melbourne winter)
the distances and elevation gains, but mostly from the pretty savage gradient changes that the roads here throw up constantly. There are very few flat sections, and more than a few 10-15% climbs in the first, easy, day.
What's the rest of it going to be like?! Though having driven this way on a moped before, I really don’t have any excuses.
Marcus took a couple of detours from the main road to avoid some of the traffic, and to throw in a little more rural scenery, which really made the trip.
Apart from one steep climb when the sun was beating down, I felt pretty good and arrived in Pai just nicely tired, and ready for a cold beer, some food and a massage.


Day 2 - Pai to Mae Hong Son.

Not long out of Pai began a long, long climb with several more savage sections.
Yesterday the rain held off mostly till the last 30 mins, but today we got a little soaking in the first 30.
When we made it to the top of the climb all we could see were clouds, and the rain was getting pretty heavy, so we considered putting the bikes in the van for the descent. Luckily the weather changed and we got a lovely view from the top, followed by a long and challenging technical descent with more than a few hairpins. Definitely not somewhere to let the brakes off.
Apart from the main climb, there were many, many smaller ones, mostly with the usual steep gradients to test the legs and lungs. My neck was pretty stiff from all the concentration on the descents, so I got the Masseur to concentrate on it, but she was a little over eager and I think it's far more sore now from the bruising than before.

Day 3 - Mae Hong Son - Mae Sariang.

Today is the 'flat' day, if you can call it that - still over 2000 meters climbing, and 165k to boot. I guess undulating might be a better word, but it's certainly full of lovely, varied scenery, and the relative flatness allowed us to let off the brakes a fair bit on the descents, with some pretty fun sections. We also passed some more cute local villages, and at one place where we stopped to refill water, were invited in to share some Tea and cooked banana breakfast, which was cool.
After 6 and a half hours in the saddle, I was pretty much spent that evening, and only had enough energy to wash the bike and eat, before hitting the sack.

Day 4 - Mae Sariang - Chom Thong

Clothes cleaned and dry-ish, we headed out of town and began climbing for almost 20k. It wasnt actually that steep, and normally I reckon it would have been an easy enough day, but I was absolutely knackered. Three long tough days had taken their toll, and my body was starting to rebel. I think Marcus was only slighly better off, and I didn't argue when he suggested going really slowly. About 2/3 of the way up, we hit a section of mud covered road,
reminiscent of the scenes in the Giro thought the Strada Biancha. We had to stop several times as the mud was caking up under the forks and stopping the wheels turning. After the climb, we had another 50k of undulating road - though thankfully not as steep as previous days.

Still, I really struggled to get going, my heart rate refusing to go much above 150. At this point we stopped at a little village for lunch, and we met up with two guys that were joining for part of the trip. thankfully from there we enjoyed a fantastic long fun descent which seemed to energise me a bit, and help me make it to Chom Thong.

Day 5 - Chom Thong to Doi Inthanon

After four hard days, today is the really hard one! A tough climb up to Thailand’s highest mountain, at 2565 meters. Not only is it long, but it’s really steep. Marcus has us forewarned that the last 10k are particularly brutal, 5k at 15% gradient and the last 5k only easing in parts. We rolled out of town at a leisurely pace, and the first part of the climb wasn’t too bad – though I was struggling to keep up with the others a bit. After a short break with 16k to go to refill water and take on a little fuel, the really painful stuff started. I think having done the other days prepared me somewhat, so I wasn’t shocked by the steepness. On the other hand, I was also pretty tired. At one stage I turned a corner into the wind and the gradient ramped up even more – I think maybe 20%, and I was very close to getting off the bike. But I managed to trundle on (at one stage at 4kph – walking speed, just!) and somehow made it to the top, which was shrouded in mist. Probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done!

Definitely earned a beer or three tonight to celebrate.
Despite the pain, the tour was great - Marcus and co are super friendly and run a very professional operation. I might check out one of the easier itineraries next time though. I reckon after this, myself, Ben and Jarrod (who are also doing the Etape) will find the alps easy!

On the road again

After almost two years of no overseas travel - something of a record - I've left Australias's shores for a few weeks of cycling and catchup with the family. Normally when I travel, I travel as light as possible. So it's something of a shock to be laboured with the Elephant (Jean's name for my Evoc bike bag, with my Cervelo inside).

It's actually pretty good, and fairly manouverable, but it does definitely change my travel style just a bit. I arrived in Bangkok on time, and was pleased to see the Elephant arrive safetly to the oversize baggage section.

After only a minor amount of confusion and waiting I found my Hotel guy and was whisked away to my pad for the night, The Kriss residence.
It's ok, basic, slightly souleless but clean, 10 mins drive from the airport and they have internet.
They also seem a bit obsessed with guests stealing/breaking the room contents.

I was met off the mornings short flight to Chiang Mai by Marcus from
Crouching Tiger cycling tours, my guides for the Thai highland tour.
It's a pretty challenging looking tour looping anti clockwise from Chiang Mai

through Pai, Mae Hong Son and several smaller Thai towns, before finishing with a climb up Thailand's highest mountain.

My diggs in Chiang Mai are really nice, and I was relieved to open up the Elephant and find all my bike parts intact. A few minutes later, and with the help of a local guy, who spotted me trying to put the pedals on the wrong way, the Cervelo was ready to roll. Nothing left but to sample some of the traditional local cuisine.

Serendipity

I'm back in KL again, after a wonderful week on the serendipitous island of Sri Lanka. I really had no idea what to expect - I was going simply on the basis that it was one of Air Asia's cheapest flights from KL, and I hadn't been before.
Arriving in the airport I had one of my regular blond moments on the start of these trips, walking out of the airport with a large wheelie suitcase, that a) wasnt mine and b) couldn't have been as the one I had was safely back in storage in KL. Anyway, a bit of sweet talking and I was let back in to swap bags by the helpful airline security.


The first thing you notice on leaving the airport is the number of well armed cops and soldiers everywhere, a reminder that the war has only just finished. My first stop was Negombo, a beach-side town that, although fine, would probably not be on many itineraries were it not for its proximity to the airport. There didn't seem a lot of tourists around at all, but it was fun wandering about, getting a feel for the country and watching the kids playing cricket in the fading beach light.

Next up was Kandy, Sri Lanka's second city a few hours inland by bumpy bus. While the bus station was a bit of a mess, the journey was good fun and finding suitable digs in Kandy pretty hassle free. I set myself up in the Olde Empire hotel to sample some of the faded colonial ambiance at rock bottom prices. It's amazing how quickly you adjust to hard beds and cold showers again!


Kandy was a nice manageable city built around a pretty artificial lake frequented by loads of birds including egrets, pelicans, ducks, cormorants and loads of small waders, as well as numerous locals strolling around and the odd tourist, only really noticeable in evidence at the Kandy Dance performances. It's also home of Temple of the Tooth, purported to hold a tooth from the Buddha himself. The temple itself is a pleasure to wander around in the dawn light, but gets thronged with worshipers pretty quickly.


Having sated any cultural urges, I made a beeline south for Hikaduwa, an erstwhile hippie beach resort that sounded a bit overdeveloped by now. However in reality, it was almost empty - it is low season - and still quite pretty, IMHO. I spent a couple of blissful days swimming, surfing and playing with turtles. And it was nice tasting the various Sri Lankan specialties, deviled fish curry being my favorite.


I also met my first real tourists, Tim and Sarah, an Aussie couple who had been sweethearts since sixteen (awww!) and had even been in the same playschool together! We also encountered Christopher, an American on a quest to avoid repaying his substantial student loan by endlessly studying all manner of nonsense in places like Finland and Romania, in between traveling on 5 euro a day (think lots of hitching and couch surfing).


Enough beaching, time for a bit of colonial culture and Galle, whose European influence is obvious in it's Fort and crumbling colonial Dutch buildings, many of which are well preserved. We ended up staying at the Fort Inn, a pretty nice place and run by the brother of a tuk tuk driver (seriously, he was his brother -what are the chances of that! - Sri Lanka is definitely a bit less scammy than India, or even Thailand, for that matter). It was a pleasure just wandering the streets, or the Fort walls, shared with hundreds of jolly local kids, courting couples and the Jumpers who dive precariously off the ramparts into a narrow shallow target below for a few dollars.



Regretting not giving myself longer, I was left with only enough time for a quick day trip to the very beautiful Unawatuna beach town just south of Galle, before I border the train north back to Negombo and one final sunset. The train was great fun - though a bit of a scrum to get a seat - and the combination of the clickety old carriages and friendly locals made the journey pass in no time at all.

Australian Update

Been busy with work and stuff, so havent updated in a while -
Have done some work on my wedding photography Melbourne site.
Also check out my melbourne photography blog. I'll keep this blogspot one for travel.
Not sure what to with my other wedding photographer site.

Out through Asia. Again.

After very brief stops in Dublin, Frankfurt, Munich and Singapore, I arrived in Malaysia to meet up with some friends. I hadn't been to Kuala Lumpur before, and it's a surprisingly modern city. Not cheap, but good nightlife, food and some fairly interesting old meets new, east meets west architecture.


After a couple of days the lure of Thailand was too great and I found myself in Krabi, via an overnight bus to Surat Thani (eveyone's least favourite Thai town) and a minibus. On said bus I bumped into Nick, the manager of the Nunnery in Melbourne where I'd stayed a few months back. Small world. I was on my way to meet Pat and Sarah, who are nearing the end of 2 years traveling. We stayed in Ao Nang, the ritzier side of Krabi. Personally, I prefer the more down at heal places, but the sunsets are still pretty nice.


After a couple of days we decided to head to Phi Phi, as both Pat and I fancied some scuba. It was even busier than Krabi and tough finding any sort of reasonably priced digs, but after a few days we had devised a schedule to offset the high rent by timing our wanderings to coincide with all the free food and drink going in different bars. And we found a nice quiet area of beach for daytime relaxation far from the madding and often maddening crowd. Passing on a trip to the Similian islands for cost and weather reasons, we settled for a local day's diving, which was pretty good and worth waiting for the improved conditions.


Enough beach pampering. Next up was Mae Sot, a Burmese refugee camp north west of Bangkok, and the place where Mike Cariaso from my Genelogic days was calling home for a few months. He's on his 3rd stint there helping with the kids computer education. Its a really nice setup, a lot more organised and less impoverished than I expected.


And I must admit the kids are adorable. We also did get to see some of the darker sides of the area, including a ward where amputees craft their replacement limbs, as well as the local "sport" of cockfighting. Although not near as gory as I imagined (about on a par to a boxing ring), I still think anything involving needless cruelty to animals isn't really kosher. We also got to see some of the local expat characters, who are always interesting (and usually a little odd) in these kind of locations.


All too soon my Thai visa was up (again) and it was time to move on. Tickets to Melbourne through Vietnam were cheap and allowed me to catch up with Tim and his Vietnamese girlfriend, who I had traveled with last year, as well as Sean (and his - do I sense a theme here...) who I met in Japan. Mostly we just drank lots of bia hoi in Saigon, but we did get away for a couple of days to the busy beach resort of Vung Tao. With hardly a western in site, it's certainly a different beach vibe than Ko Phi Phi!

home unexpectantly

Although he hadnt been well for a while, I was still a shock when I realised my Dad was going to die in December. Being on the other side of the world doesnt help in these situations, but I managed to rearange my flights in time and leave work for the moment, without a return date. I only just made the funeral as my flight was delayed 8 hours in Melbourne. Everything went as well as possible in these circumstances, and it was really nice seeing the family again.
When I made it back home I thought Joey was going to have a heart attack, he was so excited, but after a while he quickly returned to his favorite entity in the world.


He did accompany me on a lot of early morning walks, and the weather was surprisingly nice and sunny. If was cold but not exceptionally so, all quite pleasant, and a lot better than many Irish summers! Mulling things over, I decided to jack in the job in Melbourne, and decided to pursue a new career in photography of some sort. Somewhere. Some time. Life's definitely too short to stay doing something you really don't like.


Well there seemed little point in doing anything too quickly, what with Christmas just around the corner, so I decided to take it easy for a few days and contemplate my future. Christmas was a nice affair, nothing too high key, as you can see by the look of boredom on out two youngest participants.


Apart from several Galway trips to meet Martin, I made one trip to Dublin to meet up with Anna who I knew from Estonia. It was fun being a tourist in your own country for a change. Having decided to head back down under, and with no cheap flights to oz, I booked a one way ticket to Asia, where I planned to meet up with a couple of friends en route.

Down Under

I figured it was about time to update this blog. Well, seeing as I'm probably going to start real work for the first time in ages, if I don't do it now I probably never will. At the moment, I'm recovering from my exertions yesterday in the Melbourne mile, as well as my extractions a couple of days ago in the dental surgery. Ah yes, my gallant tooth that's been worked on now in 3 continents finally gave up the ghost, and all I've left to show from 8 dental visits is a large hole in my mouth and a larger hole in my bank balance. Still, it was fun while it lasted. Kinda.

So what have I being doing with myself for 2 months you might ask? Well, a fair bit really. Last week was spring racing, and the Melbourne cup, a good excuse to put that suit to use, now that the interviews have (hopefully!) stopped. It was a smashing day out, helped by the mid 20s sunshine. Certainly a far cry from the Galway races, even if half the crowd (and horses) seemed to be Irish.


I've also been spending time just wandering about and becoming properly acquainted with my new home and its inhabitants. While not possessing the stunning scenery of the likes of Sydney, there's still some really pretty sights, especially along the Yarra river. Some of the best fun is exploring the smaller lanes and alleyways to find hidden gems, even in the CBD, and of course the surrounding neighbourhoods, such as Carlton and Fitzroy, are great for lazy wanderings at any time of the day or night.

Speaking of Sydney, I took a break from all the job hunting and spent a few days up there. It has to be said, the beaches are truly world class, and a nice day on Coogee is hard to beat. It was great to catch up with friends and recover from all this job searching induced stress.

I finally found a home recently, after staying a bit longer than planned with Mike and Steph. I'm sure there relieved to see the back of me, but I think little Herbie misses me, even if he's too shy to say it. It was a great few weeks though, and really helped the settling in process (esp. considering my employment status).

My new location does make it easier to take advantage of Melbourne's great bar scene, though I'm not sure that's such a good thing...
Other than boozing, I've spent a fair bit of time visiting the MCG, what with Sean and the Finnish lads over to play in an international development series, as well as the Ireland-Australia compromise rules, and witnessing Buddy's 100 goals in a season (hence the crowd invasion, pictured), I hardly every seem to be out of the place.

Talking Japanese

In some ways, Japan was just like I expected it to be. Tokyo is definitely a visual assault. The city is massive, and the 1.5 hour train trip from the airport seems to go on forever. Getting around isn't too tricky, but conversing with the locals can be, especially if your knowledge of Japanese doesn’t go past 5 words. The place seems kinda familiar, in the way that New York does to a first time visitor. The amount of people, advertising and neon everywhere can't really be captured in single shots.
It's pretty incredible

After a couple of days of jetlagged wanderings around Tokyo, it was time for the bullet train to Kyoto. In contrast, Kyoto is a relatively relaxing place, with countless peaceful Buddhist temples and Zen gardens in the areas close to town. Many of which are Unesco world heritage sites. And tonnes more that probably could be. Indeed the less visited ones are actually some of the nicest.

Apart from temples, Kyoto is also famous for it's Geisha's, though most of the Kimono clad girls you see around are just apprentices learning their trade. It's surprising to see the practise still alive and kicking in the 21st century. I did manage to see a couple of real Geishas on their way to appointments. Memories of Memoirs of a Geisha.
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Then it was back to Tokyo for a couple of days before departing for Melbourne. This time I based mysjavascript:void(0)elf in the relative tranquility of Asakusa, away from Roppongi, the main areas where foreigners go, and a bit of a nightmare IMHO. A couple of almost relaxing days and it was time to validate that Ozzie visa. With all of 2 days to spare.