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Last week I went on my first supported cycling trip. Supported means that there are cars carrying your luggage from one hotel to the next one. They provide you with food on the tour, space for spare clothes and help out when needed. They also take pictures and sort out random stuff that comes up. It was quite a spontaneous decision on my side and I had fixed dates for the holiday, so the choice of providers of these trips was limited. My first idea for a destination were the Dolomites, but this would have required flights and more organization on my side. In the end I went with Canigou Cycling, who conveniently provide a Barcelona Airport pick up service - or for me a pick up from home. ...

Last weekend I travelled to London for the Prudential RideLondon 100. It is a 100 miles (160km) sportive going through London and the Surrey Hills. This one is held on completely closed roads and is also the biggest sportive I have ever attended, with around 30000 cyclists on the road. I stayed in an Airbnb in Homerton, which I mainly choose because it was near the Olympic Park, where the start was. And it was good to be close, because I had there by 6:40 latest. You are assigned a colour and a starting wave. They stagger the waves to avoid congestion on the road. I think faster riders will also be in the earlier waves. I guess I was somewhere in the middle. It rained all night, so the roads were pretty wet, but the sun came out a bit later. ...

The year comes to a close and it is time to see what happened to my New Year Resolutions. Yoga Everyday Well, this didn’t go so well. Overall I managed about every second day, though I have done most of it in the first half of the year. But it turned into a habit now, so I tend to do it a few times a week. Cycling Mini Adventures I managed to do quite a few and had fun doing them. ...

Short tip this time, just to confirm to anyone googling for the 144 hour transit visa for Shanghai that it really works. I have just been to Shanghai using the 144 hour transit visa. My trip was from Barcelona via Dubai to Shanghai and finally Manila. You can find more information on the net, but this is how it basically works: you can stay only 144 hours (there are some rules on when these begin and end) it has to be transit, you can’t just return to your origin after the visit. you have to go to a third country (Hong Kong doesn’t count either) you have to use one of the two main airports in Shanghai, you can’t just use any odd border (I think there is a port option too) it doesn’t cost anything you have to have a passport from certain countries Europe/Schengen and USA are fine for example The main problem of the transit visa is that nobody knows about it. The Chinese consulate here had no idea and the Emirates staff also had not heard about it. ...

Amazingly this is the first multiple day cycling trip that I have done alone so far. I had the weekend for myself and decided to use it to explore some new roads in Catalonia. After asking my cycling friends for some tips I decided on using Ripoll as a base. It is a two hours and €8 train ride from Barcelona and surrounded by nature parks and nice mountains. ...