Good bye 2016 // The last spin of the year

At my favourite spot: the lake is frozen

After a cold morning it turned out to be ...

... a beautiful day! 

Let this view be the last one from behind the handlebars in 2016 :)

Savage winter spin

Wow, what an awesome spin it was!! One of the last rides in 2016 and it was a brutal good one indeed. It was really nice to be out on a proper spin again after all the heavy Christmas meals. :)

What can I say: it was a mild and sunny day and we hit some of the favourite local trails. What more could I ask for? :)  

I miss riding on Irish trails...

Christmas in my home

The tree is dressed nice & good

Belgian wheat beer

The coolest present this year in case I would drool over some sweet bike parts! :) 

Christmas  MTB ride

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Something different

Yep, it's a bit different alright! I just had a cool evening last night when we went ice skating. It is definitely my favourite winter sport and it was such a refreshing feeling to be on the ice after a very long time. Fun, laughter and maximum effort...this was my check list for a savage winter evening!! :) 

The forecast is looking good!

The Stache // Half way through Movember

It's that time of the year again...and since I've been planning for ages to participate I teamed up with few of the lads at work and started Movember 2 weeks ago. Did the job as it supposed to be done: shaved fully on the 1st and will let the bastard grow till the end of the month. 

I'm through half of it at this stage, 2 more weeks still to come! And I have a feeling it'll be outrageous by the time I'm done!! :) 

Thursday evening in The Shed

It was such a nice evening in The Shed: burning fire, good music and some bike maintenance. Got the rear wheel and the headset sorted and also got a new chain fitted on the Niner. Long story short: I like evenings like this!! :)  

#mountainbikesaturday

You gotta love long weekends!

I do like the long weekends...I do like them a lot! There was this 4 days long weekend with an absolutely cracker weather, so I got the single speed beast out of The Shed and managed to get 2 proper savage MTB spins in! 

Here's what happened:

95 km, 4 hours and 45 minutes and 1100m elevation gain

Yep, it was a good weekend alright! It's nice to be able to sneak out for a bike ride more than once a week! ;)

Another cool cabin on my training route :)

Cool little cabin

What day is it?! It's MTB Saturday!!

The Shed Project // The log bike rack is ready

Here is the latest "upgrade" at The Shed. I picked up a massive 120 kg log at the local lumber yard (well, they actually got it delivered to my house) to create a useful and natural looking rack that will help when I wash the bike and it will also be handy in front of the building just to seat down a bit. 

So, lets see the project step-by-step:

A nice piece of wood

Measure it twice, cut it once

Chainsaw...perfect for the job

Need to cut deep enough though

The unit is ready

Nice & simple

Holds the rear wheel on the left side and the cut off end will be handy to hold the cleaning stuff

Yep, just the was I planned it! :) 

Operation Stem Slam // Inverted 17 degrees

I just finished my latest project in The Shed a few minutes ago. I have been searching for a -17 degrees stem for a while and luckily I managed to get my hands on this lovely piece recently. It is not a very common size the least to say, so I am pretty damn happy to see this beauty on the bike. 

Nice & low... just the way I like it :)

So, I fired up the good 'aul woodburner and put on some savage metal music. Oh, and got the stem fitted on the Niner without wasting a single minute!! :) 

Looks the business alright and I can't wait to go for a test ride with the new setup. I'm not sure when that's gonna happen but I'm sure I'll love the agressive low front! 

Celebrating a huge milestone today!

This post is my 500th post since I started to write this blog. It is a big milestone but what is even bigger is the fact that the blog has reached the 200,000 pageviews! 

I'm truly amazed to get this far with the whole blogger game I have to say. :) And I would like to say a massive thank you to all of you who keep reading this blog, to everyone who left nice comments and to all the people from around the world who are visiting the page. Thank you, I appreciate it!! 

Ahhh, that's a good one!

(source: I Love Cycling)

The Big Bike List

I was talking to a good friend of mine just a short while ago about old bikes and all that good stuff. And then the question was asked "Dude! How many different bikes did you actually have?!" 

So I figured it would be fun to make a list that has all my bikes over the last 15 years or so. Here we go!

Mountain bikes

- BCA steel MTB (my first bike)

- Magellan Polaris

- Magellan Crux

- Magellan Pyxis Team

- Specialized Stumpjumper

- Specialized Epic

- Tomac Taos

- Giant XTC

- Look 986

- Giant Anthem 650b

- Cannondale F29 Carbon 3 29er
- Niner E.M.D. single speed 29er (my current bike)

Cyclocross bike

- Giant TCX


Road bikes

- Trek 1.5

- Sintesi Infinity

- Trek Madone 4.5

Commuter bikes

- Peugeot steel (single speeed)

- Tomassini Super Prestige (fixed wheel)

- Some retro steel frame road bike (fixed wheel)

- Giant (fixed wheel)

- Torro TenFour (fixed wheel)

So, when the list was complete I couldn't believe that I've had more than 20 bikes since I started this whole "being a cyclist game". And I also have that feeling it won't be the end of the list either! ;)  

I warned you!! :)

#wineyard #grapes #bestsnack #yummyumm

Mountain biking in Hungary VS. Ireland

I've had this post in mind for a long time, so I guess it's time to get a little comparative post about the two, very different countries to ride. There will be a bit of everything: terrain, conditions, races and whatever else comes into my mind.

IRELAND

I think mountain biking in general is quite popular in Ireland. It is an absolutely fantastic place on Planet Earth, so this is no surprise at all! :)

Amazing

After riding off-road in Ireland for 10 years the biggest difference compare to Hungary was the terrain and the trails conditions thanks to the not exactly biker friendly weather. There are no big mountains in Ireland, the altitude is pretty much the same as it is in Hungary. But the trails are more technical much more technical!! And to add the savage weather to the mix it creates a truly unique and challenging riding experience.

It doesn't rain all the time but it rains a lot I have to say. Thanks to this the trails are muddy, wet and slippery most of the time. Now, it takes time to get used to these conditions and also takes a soul to love it, but I think I can say that I learned to appreciate the whole lot over the years. 

Lets see the racing in Ireland. The races are absolutely brilliant with strong & good organizer clubs. Even the bigger XC and Marathon events have an atmosphere that feels like you are part of a big family where everyone knows everyone. The race courses are tough and technical with usually bad weather and trail conditions. 

Of course mountain biking in Ireland isn't about the bad weather, not at all! When you get a nice day for it and you let the trails to take you then you get to experience breathtaking views and places that you didn't even think they exist. Freakin' amazing!! 

HUNGARY

The mountain biking sport is very different in many ways. The trails are very different and the trails conditions too. The sport is popular and it seems like it has been growing since I left. 

The local trails are fast rolling forest trails with some proper technical sections. The overall riding experience is absolutely awesome but definitely more simple compare to the Irish trails. The factor that I can't miss is the good weather. Stone splitting sun & dustry dry trails are something that I just can't ignore. :)

The weather is more steady and it doesn't change too quickly. It's also nice to ride in different seasons. I mean proper seasons. Each and everyone of them has their own beauty that makes mountain biking awesome.

Lets check out the racing scene in Hungary. It's definitely bigger here with much more XC and Marathon events. The races are very well run with super atmosphere and a massive crowd especially at Marathon events. Some of the Marathon events can look back to 15 years of history and they really are good! 

Hungary is a great place to be a mountain biker. Mostly predictible trails and trail conditins, beautyful places to see and awesome trails to ride!

Do I like riding in Hungary? Sure I do! Did I like mountain biking in Ireland? Hell yeah, it was awesome! But if you ask me which one is better I'm in trouble to answer... both of them! At the end of the day the bottom line is this: I ride my bike on every trail that comes in my way! :)