caitelliott.co.uk » road cycling

Alps! on & offroad

Cait — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 20:02:54 +0000

Summer has arrived, the snow has almost disappeared, I’m living for the weekends.

Enduro mountain biking in Davos

Mountain bike adventure at the Walensee - 2500m climb and straight back down

Klausenpass – 29km road climb up to 1900m

Steiner Bäckerei Wetzikon – Argon 18 Cycling Team

Cait — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 20:35:08 +0000

This year I am excited to be representing Steiner Bäckerei Wetzikon – Argon 18 Cycling Team, one of Switerland’s most sucessful Jedermann/Gran Fondo (amateur) road racing teams. With a mixture of nationalities and experiences, the team has a great set up with lots of top quality sponsors and some very quick guys to train with. It will be my first time road racing outside of Ireland and I’m hoping there will be plenty of big hills involved. Give them a like over on facebook to keep updated!

Here are some shots from the team photoshoot in the Steiner bakery and up in the hills in sub-zero temperatures at the weekend:

Don’t worry I haven’t given up mountain biking. My calf injury is improving but still not resolved and at the moment the road bike tends to do less damage to my legs as I can wear the crazy midsole cleats. It will be a season of experimenting and adjusted goals, hopefully I can survive the length of a race without calf explosions and will get some mtb racing in too (maybe a new bike and gravity enduro is they key!). Either way after 18 months since my last race I will be a major bag of nerves on the first start line in a few weeks time!

Swiss road biking

Cait — Sat, 12 May 2012 07:38:43 +0000

after work ride

Zürich is a bit of a paradise for road biking, on either side of the lake there is a long, small but steep ridge of hills that you can zig-zag up and down for lots of 10-15 minute climbs. The roads are silky smooth and overlook the lake and the Alps. There is something pure and simple about riding uphill on a roadbike, especially if the climb is long and you have to attack out of the saddle around every corner because its so steep. I can combine a few of these hills for an after work loop of less than 2 hours but getting well over 1000m climbing.

Of course the descents are the best part, completely pothole free swooping hairpin bends, some open and flowing where you can pedal flat out to hit 60 or 70 kmph, others incredibly tight and technical with huge drops off the edge meaning mistakes could be lethal. It’s amazing to ride them as fast as possible, tucked on the drops, minimal brakes, hanging off the side of the bike willing it to go around the corner and hoping like mad your skinny tyres won’t give way.

roads above Zürich

For longer rides there are Alpine passes within riding distance of the city. Similarly insane roads except climbs and descents go on for 10 or 15km and the surrounding scenery gets more dramatic. I’ve ridden the local ones (at first surrounded by skiers and 2m of snow), but in the next few weeks the really hardcore passes will open up so there is more exploring to be done. There’s signpost for the Gotthard at the bottom of my street that’s been tempting me all winter…

road to Schweiz

The weather is starting to get really hot (when it’s not torrentially raining) and now that its ‘cycling season’ there are roadies everywhere. Seasonal cyclists mean I’ve never seen so much blinged out carbon moving so slowly but there are also plenty of really fast people with lots of top pros based in the area and turning up on local group rides. Strava also adds a whole new dimension to road riding, I’m trying to convert the world – get on it!

It’s actually highly dangerous, I’m a mountain biker, I really shouldn’t be this enthusiastic about road biking!

Greifensee, Zürich

Spring evening ride

silky smooth roads

view above my house

after work ride

chilling after a ride