Well, Berlin is one the most bike friendly city I´ve ever seen, you immediately get a sense of safety and security, but it´s slightly different in concept (biking as sport vs cycling as transport) and subsequent implementation of bike infraestructure. I mean, I´ve never felt insecure riding along Madrid even when there is not such an extensive number of bike lanes as in Berlin. You´ll find bike lanes all over Berlin where people of all ages get on their bikes to get to places in the city. That means cycling culture. Bikes are inexpensive, crappy (compared to ours here in Madrid) models but very functional as well. The aim is to get around the city and to that purpose a 80 euro city-bike is just enough. I didn´t see an expensive bike in the whole time!. Madrid is just the other way around: We think of cycling more as a sport activity, (tho I´ve to say every day more people commute by bike), so our bikes are by far better in terms of build quality. Besides Berlin is completely flat and has wide streets, not the best place in the world to stay in shape facing challenging uphills but great, again, to just get around. Almost everybody there ride their bikes not wearing a helmet. It´s not mandatory. Madrid public transport is probably second to none in the world but Berlin has a great system too, where you can take your bike on tubes and trains. While parked in the street, bikes are generally locked with thin wire locks. Bike rent shops are visible in almost every corner!. Not an expensive city too: to rent a bike costs around 10€ a day and the food is incredibly crazy cheap: Main daily dishes at just 7 euros!!! Don´t really know what "Casa España" is. We were riding from point A to point B, saw that facade in the middle of our way, got a picture of it and went on riding to our destiny. From time to time it was nice to see people in Berlin speaking Spanish (mostlty tourists and students from Spain and Hispanoamerica, some businessmen too) and all kinds of references to our country, like that on the facade. I did feel like at home there. Riding in the rain near Alexanderplatz in the core of the city. Fancy a ride in an old Trabi? These are communist icons! Cheers!
Berlin - class city. Enduro racing looks fun... http://singletrackworld.com/2013/09/the-dudes-of-hazzard-the-spirit-of-enduro-race/
Inter, maybe bike commuting will catch on here, especially as electric bikes gain in popularity. People will be less intimidated by the uphills if they have a motor and a charged battery on their bikes. Mackem, good video, really does look like fun!
:ups It´s a good thing that my enduro spirit is not awake yet or playing hide and seek with me. Lack of room at home for a new full-sus bike could be a real problem. So deep inside I prefer my enduro spirit to be calm and quiet. Much safer too ;-). We have a XC ride scheduled for tomorrow. Will the forecasted rain in Madrid arrive on time?
We finally adventured off to a ride together not being caught in the rain. Dark clouds were coming up on the horizon thickly from the westward so we took advantage of every minute we had and we really had a blast. From now on we must check the weather out before we go. Fall is coming. The three of us. Ver el archivo adjunto 3535178 Chain takeoff. Ver el archivo adjunto 3535185 More fun rides to come! ;-)
So Inter, another friend, and I managed to go for a ride today in el Pardo, fortunately we hardly got any rain. It was actually quite a satisfying ride. I think we were all surprised how far we went in just three hours, which is how long the ride was. Like I say, for me it's gratifying that I seem to be in good shape in spite of taking five days off after my fall(s) two weeks ago. And I was feeling good technique-wise too. So we kept up a good pace, did some challenging uphills (and downhills), and even had time to take some pictures. Inter offered to photograph me doing a jump, and here's one of the pics: take off! So we did all this in three hours! Surprising and satisfying. Next Saturday I start working in the evenings, but I could easily go for a ride like this one beforehand.
We´ve named the photo "take off" practically at the same time!. Don´t worry about future rides. We´ll set them up in accordance to our own availability so that most of us can get along together and it doesn´t conflict too much with our work.
Yeah, I noticed that we gave the photos the same name. What a coincidence! Thanks for taking the pics! I have a lot to share this time, like this one: flying. About future rides, I'm going back to my winter timetable now, so I talked to JC and we're meeting up on Friday morning (weather permitting) at 10:00 by the Caprabo on our road bikes, so if you want to come along we should be going by the bridge at 10:20. In any case, we can put this up on the forum in our neighborhood thread a day or two before.
Great! That´s back to our road bike day and habits which we had left two months ago. I insist on saying that -at least for me- road biking is harder than every other cycling activity I´ve tried but that´s why it´s so worth it to regularly find time to practice (hey britons! or do) it. Starting this very Friday, count on me for every ride I can afford. It´s not the best day to get everybody together as not everybody can take the morning off but you know,trying to find the right moment to do so considering how many people are into road biking, is almost impossible. ;-) How did it go with your enduro day at the Sierras?
Actually this is a little embarrassing but I don't think I've been on my road bike since we went to La Pedriza last September 5. Well, I'll be getting back into the routine of my Friday rides now. Today we went to Moralzarzal. Had a good time but I think my crash two weeks ago is still affecting me, still haven't regained my confidence when it comes to really technical stuff. In any case, a good ride in the mountains and we didn't get rained on. That's the Navacerrada Water Reservoir in the background. And afterwards, the town festival! Party! So what about you? Did you get out on your bike today?
Truly nice funny pics! Mmm, I see what you mean by regaining confidence. Anyway I think you should regain confidence to a certain extent in which doing technical stuff does not imply playing Russian Roulette or fliping a coin into the air to see if you get faceplanted. Our skills always have room for improvement and then comes the point of no return. Beyond that point remember everything is hazardous to your ride!!! No road biking since Sept the 5th? That´s not new to me. Lately I myself haven´t been too active on my road bike. Didn´t either have the time to ride yesterday. JC is getting stronger and we are horseplaying. He´s doing serious stuff on his roadie while we are goofing around. It´s time to get back on the road again to make up for the time we´ve been away!!! ;-) But wait a minute... Have you seen the weather forecast for Friday? :compress Let´s wait and see how the rest of the week goes.
Is there such a thing as a ¨lazy legs syndrome¨?. During the last week of August and the first week of September I rode on a every-other-day basis and I felt I reached my peak. My legs got used to the increased road bike cadence and burden as never before in just the two weeks I got out to ride this frequently. Something I noticed, kinda obvious but looked like my legs were getting used to it and road biking was a lot easier as I was putting in more and more kilometers. It took me just two weeks to make a record of how important perseverance is. We could name this as the ¨expeditious legs syndrome¨ ;-) ;-) ;-). But today, after not riding my bike any significative distance for the last two weeks (just the other way around), I wonder if I´m under the lazy legs syndrome. Neither had the chance to ride a road bike in Berlin, nor afterwards indeed, and I can feel my legs not so cadence-proned as they were two weeks ago. It takes too little time to leave things the way they were... I´ll check all this out time permitting on Friday, our road bike day! ;-) Cheers.
Actually I think there's something to what you're saying. You know, we all have our ups and downs, like technical uphills, fast track downhills. You know, life is cyclical, especially on a bi-cycle, it's only obvious you're going to have more cycles than other people, it's just the nature of the beast. I'm in a bit of a low ebb myself, maybe a bit of autumn blues, shorter days, less light. Oh well, as always we'll pull through! Hope the weather is OK for our Friday ride.
Today was a beautiful day in the Sierras, and an excellent day for a ride. Actually I don't know all the place names, but we started out in El Espinar and rode up to La Gargantilla, then on to the Refugio de Salamanca, down the GR 10 trail, then on to Loctite Meadow. Funny names they give these places, Loctite because the ground is sticky, especially when it's muddy, tho today is wasn't bad. Anyway, we went on and did a bit of the Ingeniero Trail, then the Picachu trail back into El Espinar where we'd started from. Really nice. I may be getting more pics, but for the moment, here's one of us standing in front of a mountain where the famous Cueva Valiente is. Notice I didn't say Cueva Caliente, which is what I thought it was called until I was corrected. Actually haven't been there yet, but I'm getting to know the area!
Hi guys! I know it's a long time since I last took a walk around here. As I can see, activity here is feverish once again, isn't it? In my case, I was on the brink of getting back to normal activity, even I started to feel myself a bit fitted on my bike... Until during my last ride I had a hard affair with the ground. Luckily, my clavicle is not broken, but my muscles around there are everything but ok, the same about my back and my neck :crybaby This happened a month ago, and it's getting difficult to see the light at the end off the tunnel, but I hope to be back to start with the preseason, ha ha.
In winter´s better to be Caliente than Valiente not to freeze to death in those mountains!. There are a lot of funny names, people tend to get creative in naming. Very nice pic, Chain, It´s a lovely place there accesible only by bike. You´re getting the most of your double boinger. Cool!!! :biker Getting back to normal? Oh, So sorry to hear you´ve fallen off your bike and landed on your neck and shoulders, you know, the biker´s weakest parts are always the upper limbs but I´m glad you´re not really injured but shaken, strong enough to handle it, keen to quickly get back into business. I know you have to pray to stay injury free, but there is always something we can do by reducing the potential incidents, anticipating situations, practicing slow speed handling, or by finally learning how to safely and instinctually bail on our bikes in a split second, because we just don´t have the time for any plan when we fall head first nose down or when we slip sideways... Rolling sounds like spectacular but a good method to dissipate energy of a fall but it requires practice and man, we just don´t have the time to do it all except if you are into martial arts! I hope you recover soon, you are a strong rider. :razz: Cheers!
Hey, good to hear from you again! And sorry about your unfortunate encounters with the ground. If you're looking for a sympathic ear, you've got mine! Unfortunately, I have plenty of experience falling off my bike. In fact, my last fall was just a few weeks ago. I can't be grateful enough for my helmet, it really saved my ass. No, that's not right! It saved my head, ha ha. So, I'm really glad you didn't break your collar bone, and if your tendons are OK, then things aren't really so bad. All you have to do is wait for the muscles to heal. It can take a while, I was off my bike for five weeks last April-May due to a muscle injury to my hamstring, and after I got back on my bike it took a while to get back up to speed again. Don't forget the P word: patience. In English we say, Patience is a virtue. This reminds me that's it's getting cooler in the mountains and I can start wearing my body armor again ('peto' in Spanish). That'll go a long way to reducing injuries to my shoulders and chest. In fact a lot of my enduro buddies wear it, and of course knee guards and even hip padding. Of course, this stuff isn't 'in' for XC riders cos you want to keep weight down, and you're probably not doing really technical stuff. I think injuries often happen when we're at our limits, so falling is normally a learning experience. We're finding our what we can do. The thing is that we never stop learning, so maybe that means we never stop falling :scratch
I've been quite lucky, to tell you the truth. The point is that my neck seems to have dealt with the worst of it. I've a little deviation on it, and maybe as a consequence of this my muscles are still aching. The ones on my back and the ones from my shoulder to my neck. But this is not all, because I need to take a look at my right wrist, apart from a tendonitis on my right shoulder... I'm afraid I'll be off some time more than I want. The worst of this fall is that I was specifically thinking about that place, because I had been in troubles some other times. The point is that I didn't realized how fast I was really going down... then it was late :crybaby At least I will continue reading your adventures until my recovery. :bye
Bike accidents tend to occur when least expected. If you were well aware of the risks of riding over there and had taken steps (but speed) to stop any damaging, man, that means it´s dangerous to ride through isn´t it? :shock: Well, our next adventure includes to road-biking (a not so dangerous activity here!) along with a friend´s friend from Galicia. We´ll take him ´to our turf ( I mean our favourite 607 road bike lane) and see how he deals with it. That will be on Friday the 11th. :rally Meanwhile keep on with a good recovery! ;-)
