Over the new year, on our family holiday, we took a few days out in Siem Reap and I was very surprised to see how different the cycling scene was there verses our trip to Tanzania last year. Whereas in Africa, where most poor people were walking and some people had access to bicycles and even fewer to motorised transport, in Cambodia our impression was that even a lot of the poor have access to a motorised bike of some sort. Fewer people then were on bicycles and seemingly even fewer actually walk. Motorbikes/scooters were everywhere. The congestion and pollution...

Recently I travelled to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro and to go on a safari. So although my trip was not at all bike related it did not take long to be reminded of how important the bike is to many people around the world. I (and many people I know) take our bikes for granted. Many of us will even have multiple bikes for different types of riding and different conditions. But for many people the bike is a luxury that helps improve their lives no end. While I was training for my mad ironman/triathlon season a few years ago...

Winter is here and for many (often myself) this means that the cycling season is over. I feel I have a little bit of an excuse as where I live there is snow on the ground for most of the winter, but really, it is no excuse. There are many thing you can get to make sure that winter cycling is doable, safe and even enjoyable. So, first thing you can do, and my prefered option, is to get an indoor trainer set up for the winter. This often requires both a reasonable investment in a trainer and space to...

Cameras and biking are become something that goes well together. People love taking photos of their bikes, of themselves or friends with their bikes or just the scenery seen from their bikes. This can be seen on Instagram with the over 19 million photos tagged as #cycling https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/cycling/ As well as the tradition photos takes with camera there is an increasing number of action sports cameras to record the many cool activities you can do on your bike (or for the more normal of us, record the little adventure we have that seemed cool to us but boring to...

This year I decided I would push myself and step up from the half Ironman distance and go the the full ironman (why do I do this to myself) Training started a full 6 months before the race. I got myself a training plan to follow that I felt I understood and could follow and got the wife to sign off on training so much. This was the hardest part as we had a 1 year old and our second was due during the training plan. http://www.220triathlon.com/downloads/6monthIronmanTrainingPlan.pdf At the start it was all go. Get my session in, do...