Last race of the season

My last race of the season is the Abu Dhabi Tour. It's a 4 days race event in and around Abu Dhabi. 

Enduro Park Hechlingen

Booked a long time ago a 2 day enduro training course in the Enduro Park Hechlingen together with a friend. Finally it's that time. All packed and ready to go for our 850km trip direction the training facility in Germany. I booked in the Forellenhof hotel. That is very close to the training center. A typical German hotel with big rooms, good food and a lot of beer for the ones that loves that (i never drink alcohol so i don't know if that's a good thing or not). 

Day 1:

Meeting at 8:30 in the headquarters of the training center. The instructors giving us some guide lines and they put us in groups. 

After that we went to the garage where all bikes are parked with name tags on of every rider. 

We start with 9 riders but already very early 2 guys drop out because there skills are not good enough to follow us during the low speed balance course. 

After that we do a loop on the beautiful course using the different techniques that we have learned. We are lucky to be in a small and good group. Everybody knows how to handle a bike so we don't have to wait to long for guys getting dropped our fall. 

But at the end of the day you see left and right guys making small mistakes. Probably that have to do of the intensity of the training and some getting more and more tired. 

So day one is in the pocket. Back to our hotel at 17:30 to refresh our selfs. At 19:30 we have a group dinner. At the end of a very nice buffet the instructors are giving a presentation about other activities that they provide during the year. 

Day 2:

Back at the training facility where we do a group warm up at 9:00 on the parking lot.

everybody is warm and ready to jump on the bike to adding and training some more techniques and skills. Starting with the 'sahara' sand bank. Not an easy thing but after crashing and getting back up we start to know how to handle the bike is these deep sand banks. 

Getting some thing to drink and eat for 5min and hopping back on the bike to do some more loops on the beautiful training course.

In these 2 days i have learned so many things. A real must have to do if you have the change.

I have made a small movie. Feel free to have a look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVjlnz5IKSE

La Vuelta

Currently i'm in Spain for the 3 week cycling race La Vuelta. This year the race starts in Ourense. What is 1800km from my place... so traveling everything by motorbike is not always as easy then it looks. The first 10 days we had some nice roads but nothing very special. But then Stage 13 on a Friday. Starting in the beautiful city of Bilbao with his nice buildings we are riding direction Eibar. From there on we follow the beautiful coastline with his nice beaches and landscapes straight to San Sebastian. Once we past San Sebastian the first of 4 mountains start (Alto Monte Igueldo, Alto de Aritxulegi, Alto de Agina and Puerti de Lizaieta). Twisted roads in between the forest and flirting with the French boarder. Just beautiful

Fight for yellow

In the tour it's all about the yellow leader jersey. Yesterday Belgium rider Greg Van Avermaet took the win and yellow jersey. Knowing him good we took some funny picture yesterday

Tour de France

The Tour is starting today in the Mont Saint Michel. The fight can start for these colors

Criterium du Dauphine

It's getting a bad tradition. Being in France for the cycling race Criterium du Dauphine and having for the 3th year in a row a flat tyre. A small peace of metal went in my tyre...

Giro d Italia

All the spring classics are over and now we start with the stage races. 

I already did Tour de Romandie and the week after that we started the Giro d Italia. For me is one of the nicest stage races there is one the calander. 

Strade Bianche

My first time that i did this race in Tuscany, Italy. And love it. Start and finish in Siena with in between more than 50km dirty gravel roads. A real must have for every adventure and cycling fan to ride once over these historical roads

Dubai

After our trip to Argentina we are now in Dubai for the 3th Dubai Tour. This is a growing race and is really good organist. But getting some good images isn't always easy. On the picture you see me helping out the tv crew getting out of the sand

First race of 2016

The 2016 season is started for real. No more trainingcamp and studio photoshoot but bad ass racing. The first race we do is Tour of San Luis in Argentina. Riders come over here just for the good weather. Knowing that for the moment in Europe it's cold, freezing and snowing in a lot of places and here we have 30 degrees

It's the 4th we are here so we know somebody how can deliver a motorbike for this week. This was not easy to get the first time we arrived. You don't have rental shops where you can walk in to and ask for it. You have to take somebody from the street and make a deal with him. Same like last year i will be riding a kawasaki ninja 250. It's not the best but it does the job

Trainingcamp Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise

First trip for 2016 is back to Spain for a few days with cycling team Topsport Vlaanderen Baloise.
We had to do there the official team pictures and follow them on training