Travel

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. The tour started in Sort, stayed a bit on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees west of Andorra. There was a rest day after three days and then we continued on the French side until returning to Spain on the last day. We hit some famous climbs: Col d'Aubisque, Col du Tourmalet, Col d'Aspin and Col de Peyresourde. You can see the Strava activities below. The group consisted of ten riders and three support staff with two cars. We were mostly Germans plus two Americans. Amazingly I was nearly the youngest rider, not so amazingly I was not the fastest. In fact I took it quite easy over the days and enjoyed the scenery. We were quite lucky with the weather, having only one rainy day and the temperature was also perfect. The hotel selection was pretty good. Because I was traveling alone I always had a single room, which did cost a bit more. Dirk from Canigou Cycling did a good job and was always really friendly and helpful. The only thing I would improve would be the communication. If you spend this kind of money upfront, you really want to be more informed and see something happening on their facebook page and fast response to emails. I would do it again, though the next time I really would like to see the Dolomites and maybe go with Velodrom Bike Tours, who are based in Barcelona and I know already from their shop. I probably forgot something, just ask in the comment section. Route Sort - Taüll Taüll - Aínsa Aínsa - Sabiñánigo Sabiñánigo - Argelès-Gazost Argelès-Gazost - Arreau Arreau - Vielha Gallery

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 route went through London, past the sight seeing attraction like London Tower, the Thames, Richmond Park (saw one deer), Parliament, Big Ben and so on. I don’t have many photos, because I really didn’t stop a lot. This one is from the Surrey Hills at a food stop. ...

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. It is best to bring a printout of your flight tickets to Shanghai and continuing to the next country, plus a printout of the the hotel you are using in Shanghai. When you do the check in at your point of origin the airline staff will ask you for your visa, which obviously you don't have. If you then say transit ticket they might insist that it is only for 24h, you will just have to convince them. Once you land in Shanghai it is much easier, there is a special queue just for the 144 hour (and 72 hour) transit visa. In my case it was just about ten people, but it still took about an hour to process. Mainly because most of those people didn't full fill the requirement of the visa and were for example travelling back to the country of origin and not a third country. As I had everything correct and the printouts ready it only took about two minutes and I was in Shanghai. Leaving is equally quick, no hassle at all. Again for the check in at the airline desk you might want to have the printouts of any following flights, depending on where you are going. In summary: a very nice visa and a good idea, but it has to be wider published to be really easy to use

For some reason this year turned out to be a year with a lot of time spend on bicycles. While I have been cycling more since I changed to a company which allowed me to park my bicycle in the office, this year I increased this even more. One part of this has definitely be Strava, which allows me to track my riding and improvements (or not) over time. Some numbers for 2014, 2013 in brackets: Rides: 340 (276) Distance: 7434 km (3311 km) Elevation: 127496 m (66689 m) Time: 411 hours (209 hours) Rides on the mountain bike stayed the same at about 900 km, but rides on the road tripled. A good reason to finally buy a road bike. I also participated in my first ever race, just a hill climb organised by a local bike cafe, but still pretty fun and exciting. Another fun part of Strava are the Challenges, which take a random set goal and allow everyone globally kill themselves trying to finish them. These year I managed to finish some of them, the most difficult one being the Rapha Rising 8800m elevation in 8 days, others were easy, but all were fun. I also spend a ridiculous amount of money on bike toys, but mostly on clothing. On the bicycles themselves I only replaced a few chains, cassettes, bottom brackets, tyres and tubes. For 2015 I have subscribed to three Sportives / Gran Fondos, in the hope that my new bike arrives before the first one of these. I also want to find a higher hill to climb than my current record (974 m), probably in the Pyrenees and maybe ride somewhere outside of Catalunya or even Spain. ...

International Wheeled Office with cable pouch To go with my new Lenovo T510 I now also bought a carry-on with space for the laptop. As it goes with purchases like this I spend a lot of time researching them on the net, it just seems to be the German or nerd to do. Also quite typical for a German is to choose something which is of better quality than you need, but also not the most expensive one out there. Other bags I considered where by Rimowa, Victorinox, Samsonite and Briggs & Riley. The reason why I am writing about this at all is that the Tumi website doesn't include the information I needed and there seems to be a lack of information about this bag on the, so this is more about the facts as an actual review. Size: height: 54.6 cm, width: 37.5 cm, depth: 25 cm ( compressed ), 28 cm ( normal ), 32 cm ( expanded ) Weight: 5kg ( including cable pouch, lock and bits and pieces ) The size and weight might be a problem if you want to use it as a carry-on, because some airlines are annoyingly strict with there size and weight restrictions. Some have a 20cm depth limit or a 8kg weight limit. Easyjet and BA are probably OK, Germanwings and Ryanair maybe not so (but you shouldn't use Ryanair anyway). The protected laptop compartment fits the T510, but the laptop is a bit wide which makes it a tight fit. Using the 9 cell battery is not a problem. A 15" Macbook Pro should fit without problems. If you decide to buy it, try to get it from the US as the prices are tumi.com: $695 (528€) , tumi.de: 725€, uk.tumi.com: £695 (818€). Review: it is quite nice If you need any other details or measurements, give me a shout with a comment.