Having sampled a numerous Skedaddle weekends and mountain biking holidays in Europe, we decided it was time to try something a bit closer to home and setting aside all concerns about the Scottish weather, booked on the July Scottosh Highlands Coast to Coast moutain biking holiday. 

After the customary enthusiastic welcome from the Skedaddle guides in the form of Steve, Tony and Charley, we were immediately put to work trying to reassemble our bikes with the added interest of turning it into a bike building time trial - successfully completed from our point of view with only a minor need for adjustments by Steve !!  First place went to our token German but at least we didn’t come last (hey John !!).

With the Skedaddle van and landrover being replaced by a comfortable bus we then headed northwards to the Highlands.  After a stop off in Fort William to stock up on Avon Skin So Soft (Tony and Steve preferred to keep their body soufflé to themselves) as a first defence against the midges, we arrived at our first hotel in Glenshiels which set the tone for the holiday – great accommodation, good food and a wonderful setting. Our first days biking: woke up, brushed hair, showered, dressed and went downstairs for bacon and eggs ……During breakfast we were informed the day would comprise a sample of all the riding we would experience over the week.  We weren’t disappointed – thrilling single track, rocky ascents/descents and the customary Skedaddle beer challenge – those impossible hills thrown in to perfect bike carrying techniques. After a great days introductory riding we arrived at Tomdoun.  A beautiful hunting lodge hotel with great views and some nice Spanish bar maids to keep the boys happy.
Next up was an easier day with a beautiful ride along the Caledonian Canal ending the day at Fort Augustus, finishing early to prepare for day 3 and the Corrieyairack Pass – the start of the 3 best days of the trip.                                 
 
Despite some apprehension about the prospects of climbing the Pass for hours (can’t remember the time taken or the height gain) it was a great ride – taken in easy chunks with plenty of jelly baby provision from Tony.  With great encouragement from the guides, it was a challenging but doable climb leaving enough energy to enjoy the scenery.  The descent was without doubt one of the best descents we have ever ridden (or not) and waiting at the bottom was Charley with lunch.

“The next 2 days provided great diversity in the terrain covering technical singletrack, woodland paths and rocky ascents/descents not to mention the odd river crossing and swim in the case of Charley.  Supportive as always, Steve proved unplanned exits can happen to anyone with an over the handle bars into a peat bog.  The guides had again arranged great accommodation and evening meals in Tomintoul and then in Ballater.Starting to feel overfed (although over generous measures of recovery drink may have had something to do with it), we needed a mountain to climb and conveniently found Mount Keane en route.  There was no way we were going to ride all the way up this one – even with encouragement and jelly babies!!  After a good effort riding ¾ of the route – on and off – we put our practiced bike carrying skills in to play and were rewarded at the top with panoramic views of the Cairngorms National Park, Glen Tanar and the Spittal of Glenmuick (we think according to our reference map).  Again a fantastic descent and quite manageable despite Tony’s lecture on the drainage ditches !!

With only an easy 15 miles left for our last day - a distance for which apparently snacks are just plain greedy (although we know Steve was trying to prevent us from buying extra large shorts next time) we had a leisurely road ride to the sea and the end of our coast to coast trip.The organisation on the trip was excellent and the riding sensational.  We just wanted to do it all over again. For more reviews of the trip click here Vicky A. (UK) and Victoria J. (Australia if they win the Ashes and UK if not)
      
Next year and we are heading to Sardinia to do the Transardata or maybe Portugal’s Roman Trails…here’s to 2010!!!

I am just back from an 18 day cycling holiday to Japan, and what a blast the holiday turned out to be. The holiday was organised by Saddle Skedaddle, a cycling tour company based in Newcastle, England. (Check out www.skedaddle.co.uk – they have some fantastic holidays). I was going to post a blog of the trip on the Wheelers’ website, but Japan is surprisingly short of internet cafes and it was impossible to find the time or place to get any notes posted. But what a trip it was! Japan is a place that I’d always wanted to visit and it didn’t disappoint.

First off, we were blessed with the best cycling tour guides I’ve ever met. An Australian by the name of Vincent Flanagan (I wonder where his ancestors came from) and a local man named Maso Tanaka. Vincent is a retired professional cyclist who still works with Trek cycling in Japan. He has lived in Kyoto, Japan for over twenty years, speaks fluent Japanese, and was great at helping us to understand the nuances and subtleties of Japanese culture. The cycling itself was an absolute treat. Some road cycling, some off road and a few singletrack outings kept us busy. There were a couple of serious climbing days too, with one particularly memorable ascent to the rim of the active volcano, Mount Aso.

We tried our hand at Japanese cooking, calligraphy and the inevitable karaoke bar. All of these were great fun, but the things I liked best were the Japanese food and, oddly enough, a chance to travel on the Shinkansen, the famous bullet train. I love Japanese food anyway, and it is so beautifully presented that it almost seems a shame to eat it. It’s not often that I photograph my dinner before I tuck in, but I felt compelled to do just that on several occasions. (The only previous time I photographed my food, it had been prepared by my present wife (The War Office) and I just thought it might be a good idea to have a photo for use at any subsequent inquest). I tried almost everything that was put in front of me, but I just couldn’t bring myself to eat raw horsemeat or a plateful of sea snails. Other than that, I gave it a go and it was fantastic.

Travelling on the bullet train was an experience in itself. (So is travelling by British Rail, but for different reasons). The train pulled into Kyoto at 30 seconds before the scheduled departure time, and took off precisely on the minute of departure. We rocketed towards Tokyo at over 300Kph, but without any sense of speed or drama. I read somewhere that the Shinkansen have operated in Japan since 1964 without a single accident – an incredible statistic!

I haven’t even mentioned the scenery yet (beautiful and ever changing, especially on the southern volcanic island of Kyushu where we cycled for a week), the temples and Geishas of Kyoto, the politeness and grace of the Japanese people, the cleanliness, the complete absence of litter, the beautifully furnished accommodation, the fact that vandalism and street crime are unknown in Japan, the staggering experience that is a weekend in Tokyo (female Wheelers would kill for a shopping trip to Ginza), and, best of all, the Onsen.

The Onsen are traditional public baths (cleanliness is a national obsession in Japan) where you go to unwind after a busy day. You have a shower before entering, and than relax in naturally heated water from local hot springs. The water usually contains sulphur and other minerals and it was just blissful to climb off the bike after a hard 80km and luxuriate for an hour or so in a hot communal bath. Therapy just doesn’t come any better than that.

Downsides? Well, it takes about twelve hours to get there, and it was expensive. But think of it this way. You could go on this holiday or spend the money on smoking twenty cigarettes a day for a year. I know which I’d rather do.

Once again Skedaddle mountain biking holidays are sponsoring the Gorrick Spring Series and giving away some fab prizes for the lucky category winners and random spot prizes too. The series kicked of on 14th February and here’s the news of all that occured…

“Well dear I thought for this Valentines Day we could pop over to the woods for a few hours and get a bit dirty….” and so the first Gorrick Skedaddle Spring Series finally got underway at last and now with Tunnel Hill temporarily renamed The Tunnel of Love, riders were again in for a singletrack love fest as a perfectly crafted 5 mile circuit complete with a romantic interlude, plus plenty of the famous ‘Gorrick’ swoops and descents, balanced with a couple of killer stings in the tail lay in wait. Another perfect day out for well over 550 riders was in store that not even a quick smattering of snow could deter!

On the dot of 9am it was soon time to get the XC racing under way and pride of place to cutting up the trails went to the Youth riders followed by the juveniles, while the uber keen under 12’s & under 10’s waited patiently to get stuck into a shortened version of the big course. Matthew Lewis made short work of his two laps in the snow taking the first win of the day in the Youth class, whilst Gretel Warner romped away with the win in the Juvenile girls race.

Then it was a steady conveyor belt of perfectly timed races, as one category after another were unleashed. As one batch finished another was already underway painting the trails with brightly coloured garb that fleetingly looked as if spring had arrived early and certainly cheered up the drab winter colours! Just in case proceedings weren’t colourful enough and the sprinkling of unforecast snow not delivering the right amount of romance, the thoughtful Gorrick crew had kindly set out a plethora of red balloons and heart festooned ribbons and a canoe…. All as a homage to Valentines Day, and so ‘Canoe – darling Corner’ was born!

As each race unfolded it was soon clear that along with plenty of old faces there was a considerable showing of new faces along with a new tempo. After a winter of enduro races these riders were keen to quicken the pace and shorten the distance ready for the new season of XC racing. Many of the categories were taken to the line with everything to play for as competitors dug deep looking for their racing legs that for some had been well buried over the winter!

It wasn’t just the winners of each category that went home delighted with a days work, plenty of riders were buzzing with enthusiasm over the fantastically fun course as they laid siege to the catering van drinking them out of hot beverages and eating them out of bacon butties. A few other riders had more reasons than most to be happy with their day in the woods, especially Sport rider Adam Westhead who took home the Saddle Skedaddle Mountain Biking Holiday break and Howard Dale in the Fun race who won a 1:1 Skills session courtesy of Gorrick, Purple Bike Shed and InsideOut Fitness.

Round three will be with us on 7th March at Crowthorne and with Mothers Day just round the corner will we find homage to daffodils and bunnies? I know for certain we’ll find some amazing trails and a whole lot of XC fun!

Chief Skedaddle mountain biking guide Steve Woods will be at this event, ready to have a chat and share his thoughts on the merits of brown sauce as opposed to red on his sausage butties, so look out for the Skedaddle landy and he’ll be knocking around.

For more details of the Saddle Skedaddle Spring Series please visit: www.gorrick.com

Full results can be found at: www.timelaps.co.uk while you can relive the whole race through pictures at www.joolzedymond.com

Rule number one of camping in the wild: don’t presume the wild animal attacking your toes is the hyena that wandered through the camp earlier in the evening. In all likelihood it is the poor sucker who drew the 01h00-01h45 shift, waking you for your 45 minutes sitting as close as you can to the fire, listening to lion telling their mates about the latest hunt. Damn, they sound close…
This cycling holiday in Botswana / South Africa is possibly the best biking experience I have had in nearly 30 years of riding bikes. Mashatu is a 75 000-acre reserve in the Tuli Block, the pointy bit on the eastern side of Botswana, where that country meets Zimbabwe and South Africa. Getting there is simple - drive north from Joburg, turn left at Polokwane - make sure you don’t miss the right turn onto the Alldays road, the sign is removed by errant taxis fairly regularly
- and keep going until you hit the border.

The first clue that this is no ordinary ride is the massive rifles the guides ride with, strapped to their backs. Bullets as thick as your thumb, just in case. not exactly the most comforting of sights. But the guides’
knowledge and experience shows from the first pedal stroke, and the best news of all is that they love riding bikes as much as we do, but are allergic to anything that looks like a road, so for four days you ride a mixture of open grassland and fine singletrack crafted by generations of animals making their way to water.

The beauty of this trip is that, with a maximum group size of eight, the route can be tailored for any and all abilities. There is plenty of technical, loose trail here, but there is as much smooth, level riding. You won’t find 60kph downhills or hour-long climbs, but there is plenty to keep the heart rate up, without blurring your vision as you search for large beasties. We chose a particularly hot week - and operations cease for the really hot summer months - where temperatures in the 40s meant we rose early, rode through to lunch and then collapsed for the rest of the day, but the winter months are more suitable for a visit.

The accommodation completes the African experience - sleeping under the stars, everybody taking turns in keeping the fire burning (flashbacks to army guard duty guaranteed!), and eating hearty, wholesome food prepared on site by the talented chef. You certainly won’t go hungry, and will more than likely end up having dinner with some locals - our first night was enriched by the presence of the local hyena - was he laughing at my cycling tan, maybe? - and day three’s lunch was spent alternating between checking on the boomslang in the tree next to the lunch table, and the breeding herd of elephants browsing, snorting and rumbling less than 50m away. But it is not just about interacting with these animals. We were exceptionally lucky on our trip - lion at 100m, a croc rushing into the water so close we could swear we got splashed, last-second route changes to avoid large, grumpy elephants and following the trail of where a hyena had dragged last night’s dinner - his, not ours - away from our camping area were some of the highlights.

This place offers so much more: peace, relaxation and regeneration. Magical sunsets, no cellphone reception, and silence so complete that we could hear the wind in the feathers of the eagles playing hundreds of metres above us when we stopped for a puncture, make this trip the complete break we all need, and deserve. And it is on bikes. What could be better?

Check out the Skedaddle South Africa and Botswana trip!

Cycling in Japan photos. Check out these photos from the Skedaddle cycling holiday in Japan.

click here or to see a selected few on facebook click here

Many thanks to Andrew Pentelow for allowing us to use these photographs!!!

He can even now write his name in Japanese!!

September in the Rockies
There cannot be many places in the world where in the space of two weeks, in more or less the same mountain range (OK, so I am not a geographer), you will see such a variety of different landscapes. From the granite faces of Banff, through the red rocks of Glacier National Park and high grasslands of Montana, via the brittle, yellow, steaming cliffs of Yellowstone, finally to the awesome beauty of the Grand Tetons around Jackson Hole. We certainly did not expect that almost every day of the trip would at one point or another take our breath away.

This superb desert biking adventure focuses on the deep south of Morocco, a land of big skies and stark mountain ranges where mud-brick kasbahs appear to rise up out of the desert, sitting in tranquil palm oases and framed by dramatic backdrops of snowcapped mountains. We ride along Morocco’s dirt roads, taking us from Marrakech to the Tichka Pass, the highest in the High Atlas, and then southward, descending along the Draa Valley to the fringes of the Sahara Desert.