Just thought I would catch up the crew on what has been going on on the other side of the pond as I know that a few of you are looking at travelling in the future.
After living in London for about nine months the endless concrete and polution was giving me the shits too much so we have moved up to Edinburgh. The theroy is that we can get out and do more stuff here (like ride off road). I am working in a local bike shop, Alpine bikes which is pretty cool getting trade prices etc but the money is pretty ordinary. Generaly if you have some kind of skill, (medical, it, accountancy etc.) you can expect to earn upwards of £12 -15 per hour.
We are just in the process of buying a mini to get around in and out to all of the great riding areas. The foresty comission here spends thousands on building and maintain trails through the forest, something Aust could learn from. The master plan is to then follow the old London to Sydney rally route home in the mini, through Europe, Russia, down through china and asia and then home.
As fas as travelling goes our most recent trip was about 6 weeks ago. We went across to Italy and saw the San Remo WRC. This was a great experience but it really showed me what a top job the tv coverage does of bringing the rally to your loungeroom. We met a spanish guy at the campsite who drove us up to all of the stages. It turns out that he helps the Ford and Subaru wrc teams when they are testing in Spain and is going to line up a tour of the Ford workshop in Northern England for me.
We then spent a week camping around Sardenia (an island to the south of Italy) before meeting up with my parents in Rome. After that we headed north to the Cinque Tere which is a string of five fishing villages. This is without a doubt the most incredible scenery I have ever seen. There is riding to be done around the area but we did a coastal walk between the five towns.
After a few more days with mum and dad they flew onto the UK while me and my girlfriend and a mate from brissy stayed on for another week. We ended up in Final Ligure the day before their 24hr race, they were expecting 3500 competitors. The local bike shop was trying to get us to join thier team but we had our flights booked so had to give it a miss. We did hire some bikes though and was pointed in the right direction by the locals. After about four hours of riding we headed back down a really nice singletrack descent until my mate managed to rip the rear mech from the frame. For some reason I had packed my multi tool so was able to make a single speed conversion. Luckly the shop wasn't too phased about breaking their gear and didn't even charge us anything.
So that is about all the news from the UK at the moment. Things are starting to get a little cold here now and am just waiting to breakout the snowboard.
more updates soon
After living in London for about nine months the endless concrete and polution was giving me the shits too much so we have moved up to Edinburgh. The theroy is that we can get out and do more stuff here (like ride off road). I am working in a local bike shop, Alpine bikes which is pretty cool getting trade prices etc but the money is pretty ordinary. Generaly if you have some kind of skill, (medical, it, accountancy etc.) you can expect to earn upwards of £12 -15 per hour.
We are just in the process of buying a mini to get around in and out to all of the great riding areas. The foresty comission here spends thousands on building and maintain trails through the forest, something Aust could learn from. The master plan is to then follow the old London to Sydney rally route home in the mini, through Europe, Russia, down through china and asia and then home.
As fas as travelling goes our most recent trip was about 6 weeks ago. We went across to Italy and saw the San Remo WRC. This was a great experience but it really showed me what a top job the tv coverage does of bringing the rally to your loungeroom. We met a spanish guy at the campsite who drove us up to all of the stages. It turns out that he helps the Ford and Subaru wrc teams when they are testing in Spain and is going to line up a tour of the Ford workshop in Northern England for me.
We then spent a week camping around Sardenia (an island to the south of Italy) before meeting up with my parents in Rome. After that we headed north to the Cinque Tere which is a string of five fishing villages. This is without a doubt the most incredible scenery I have ever seen. There is riding to be done around the area but we did a coastal walk between the five towns.
After a few more days with mum and dad they flew onto the UK while me and my girlfriend and a mate from brissy stayed on for another week. We ended up in Final Ligure the day before their 24hr race, they were expecting 3500 competitors. The local bike shop was trying to get us to join thier team but we had our flights booked so had to give it a miss. We did hire some bikes though and was pointed in the right direction by the locals. After about four hours of riding we headed back down a really nice singletrack descent until my mate managed to rip the rear mech from the frame. For some reason I had packed my multi tool so was able to make a single speed conversion. Luckly the shop wasn't too phased about breaking their gear and didn't even charge us anything.
So that is about all the news from the UK at the moment. Things are starting to get a little cold here now and am just waiting to breakout the snowboard.
more updates soon
