Blog Posts in Category: Cycling

2025 in 100 Photos

Alastair Begley100 Photos, Africa, Austria, Bavaria, Dolomites, General, Germany, Italy, Landscape, Mountaineering, Namibia, Paragliding, Road Cycling, Skiing, South Africa, Wildlife Short Link

2025 was certainly a year that I couldn’t have predicted at the end of 2024, it started with difficulty as Becky was not able to be very mobile due to an operation on her second knee. She was then allowed to ski prior to the end of winter, but in spring still wasn’t really allowed to do much walking, so she focussed on road biking and I focussed on paragliding. As far as a paragliding season goes, it was a pretty spectacular one, with my absolute highlight being flying 200km through the alps while crossing the main alpine ridge with spectacular views over glaciated peaks from above. I also completed my first two competitions which was a great learning experience. During the year I knew that this was my last year on my secondment, but as I didn’t want to leave Munich I explored my options to get a local job here. In July I was successful which meant that at the end of the year I left Rolls-Royce, a job which I have loved and thought would be my forever job. When I left in December, it ended over. Read the full article…

West down the Pustertal from Sillian

Alastair BegleyAustria, Road Cycling Short Link

For ease the next day, we decided that we would do another cycle from the campsite, rather than having to move the van. So instead of heading east down to Lienz, we headed in the opposite direction with the plan of cycling around 60km. Again the route was excellent with mostly very good surfaces and almost no cycling on roads.

Sillian to Lienz and back

Alastair BegleyAustria, Road Cycling Short Link

After wild parking in a beautiful location on the first night, and enjoying a wonderful pizza nearby, we definitely wanted to be in a campsite for the next night given the heat. Therefore we decided to head to near Sillian where there was a nice campsite which was still reasonably priced. Unfortunately we could not check in until the afternoon, so we parked next to the campsite and started our cycle straight from there. The plan was to cycle along the Pustertal cycle path down to Lienz, which was all on an excellent surface and all either car free or on very quiet roads. The cycle was really beautiful, the only downside being that it was down all the way out, and up all the way back!

Chiemsee Runde

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Road Cycling Short Link

We decided to make the most of the sunny and hot weather by heading to the Chiemsee, with the plan of cycling around it. Unfortunately it turned out that in my route planning I had looked at one route which was entirely on asphalt and then managed to download an alternative route which contained a lot of gravel. The cycle was very nice, other than the gravel, with lots of excellent cycle path, nice views over the lake and towards the mountains. On the first half of the route we ended up doing the majority of the gravel, but by the middle of the cycle we started to manage to avoid most (but still not all) of the gravel with some deviations.

2024 in 100 Photos

Alastair Begley100 Photos, Alpinism, Arco, Austria, Bavaria, France, India, Landscape, Mountain Biking, Paragliding, Rock Climbing, Scrambling, Ski Touring, Skiing, Via Ferrata, Walking, Wildlife Short Link

It seems hard to believe that another year has passed by, but having just had another overindulgent Christmas and new year it is somehow already time to summarise the year in another 100 photos. It was a very busy year with both free time activities and work with many more business trips for me than usual. Winter The year started off with the ski season, we did a lot of alpine skiing and certainly made the most of our Tirol cards, I think I did around 25 days overall! Becky’s skiing has continued to improve and this led us todo our first ski tour on the Kleiner Gamsstein. Unfortunately the snow over the winter was difficult for ski touring, especially for beginners so there was limited ski touring for both Becky and me. I managed one ski mountaineering weekend, but we suffered with terrible snow conditions as well as weather. It was nonetheless enjoyable to spend a weekend high in the mountains. Spring It soon turned to spring, which was unfortunately a bit of a washout along with the start of the summer. This resulted in us not spending that. Read the full article…

Mountain biking in Regensburg

Alastair BegleyBavaria, Mountain Biking Short Link

Having ridden my mountain bike once in the last 4 years, I was persuaded to go to a bike testival at Regensburg by a friend. This was a fairly harsh re-introduction to mountain biking as it was all technical trail riding, with the brakes the wrong way around! We did three bike tests from the test centre, two of which were with lightweight e-bikes and the third with normal bikes. The lightweight e-bikes were barely heaver than my normal mountain bike! I now certainly understand e-bikes for this type of riding, as my heart rate average was very similar for all three outings, just with the e-bikes we covered an awful lot more ground and there was much less anaerobic use of the legs, which meant less time recovering at the top before the descents. Unfortunately lightweight e-bikes are somewhat out of my price range at the moment, but the day out certainly made me want to repair my mountain bike so that I can actually use it.

2022 in 100 Photos

Alastair Begley100 Photos, Alpinism, Arco, Austria, Bavaria, Dolomites, General, Landscape, Paragliding, Road Cycling, Rock Climbing, Scrambling, Ski Touring, Skiing, Via Ferrata, Walking, Winter Climbing, Winter Walking Short Link

Thankfully 2022 was a more normal year than the previous two years, and our first full year with our new lifestyle living an hour from the Alps. A high point of the year was the number of visitors we were able to host, for skiing, walking, paragliding and climbing. We certainly made the most of living near the alps, with most weekends spend in the mountains one way or another. Winter Our winter was fairly dominated with piste skiing, where Becky progressed from tentatively skiing easy blue runs to confidently skiing red runs with the odd short black run as well! This was great to see and I am looking forward to her continued progression this year. Despite the focus on piste skiing we also squeezed some paragliding in and I managed to get 4 days of ski touring as well. General Through the winter we managed to squeeze in some paragliding, and on one of our final days of skiing of the year, I am managed to combine a morning skiing with my first proper cross country flight on my paraglider which was a very memorable experience, as I. Read the full article…

Lake Garda Road Cycling

Alastair BegleyArco, Road Cycling Short Link

After two days of climbing our feet were certainly starting to feel uncomfortable, so we decided to take a break for climbing and headed off on a cycle around Lake Garda. The route itself was around 89km of cycling, which was split up by a ferry across Lake Garda in the middle. We set off in the morning sun from the campsite and had a very pleasurable cycle down to Lake Garda on cycle paths with wonderful scenery. We then soon joined the road down the east side of Lake Garda which was very scenic but unfortunately not in the sun for most of the ride down the lake, although this did prevent us from getting too hot! The road was really enjoyable without much ascent, not too much traffic and excellent views over Lake Garda. All too soon we were at Torri del Benaco, where we caught the boat from. We arrived perfectly timed 10mins before a ferry left, so after quickly buying a ticket and carefully walking onto the boat in cycling shoes, we were soon off across the lake on a very smooth crossing. After we crossed. Read the full article…