Merry Christmas!

After a hectic final week at work, finishing reports and helping run Christmas parties, we flew back to blighty for a few days with Ali's family in Yorkshire. Despite the best efforts of the British weather, we went for a couple of lovely walks, caught up with friends and family and enjoyed all the usual Kennedy hospitality and Christmas fayre! I also learned to knit thanks to Ali's Mum so watch this space for my first creations...

Matt deep water soloing over a newly formed lake at Brimham Rocks... there'd been a lot of rain! 

Santa was incredibly generous and my stocking even had my name on it! :-)

A Christmas morning stroll around Emley...

Amazing bright red berries - very Christmassy :-)

Chef extraordinaire bastes his two turkeys... My roles were list checking, washing up and drinking mulled wine :-)

Ali enjoying the cooking - we even had a brand new oven to play with :-) 

The beasts are done! 

Dinner is served! In the true spirit of Christmas a ridiculous amount of food for four people!

Starting a bracing boxing day walk to work off some of the two turkeys (and of course work up an appetite for turkey sandwiches and more christmas pudding!) 

Mud, mud, glorious mud...

Up through the green fields - I love Yorkshire! 

Castle Hill! We've seen this from the car so many times, but this was my first visit! 

View over Huddersfield from the incredibly windy summit of Castle Hill...

Sheep with great haircuts! 

Cubells

Our first climbing weekend for quite some time took us to Cubells, a small crag overlooking the plains of Lleida. Driving up we encountered the dreaded Lleida fog (or "cloud of ming") that often lingers here and so the first morning was a pretty chilly and damp affair... but thankfully it burned off for the rest of the weekend making climbing far more pleasant!

Relaxing at the end of the first day. You can see the cliffs in the distance behind - they are better than they look! 

Views over the Lleida plains - beautiful when not covered in a blanket of fog! 

Local family enjoying the Sunday sun (and a ridiculously pumpy route!)

Eight new inner tubes please!

Well yesterday didn't quite go as planned...

We had a route plotted in the hills around Montblanc and set off looking forward to riding along exposed ridges and exploring the churches and monasteries... But within 10 minutes of the town my front tyre went flat as a pancake, closely followed by both of Ali's and my second. Four flat tyres! Closer inspection revealed they were full of really hard tiny spikes (I picked out around 30 from each tyre!). Carrying the bikes back into the town (which took a lot longer than 10 minutes) we searched for the source, even wondering at one point whether it was malicious as the spikes were so hard and so plentiful - like no plant I've ever seen! But eventually we found the little critters - scattered in a tiny section of car park on the outskirts of town. They just look like innocuous little pebbles from above - talk about unlucky! Anyway, having only two spare inners and tyres seriously full of spikes we headed back home and consoled ourselves with Sunday lunch and some sunbathing on the roof! Lots of inner tubes to buy and spikes to tweeze out before we're back on the bikes!

Setting off optimistically from the beautiful Medieval town of Montblanc...

A few of the many evil spikes! Note the flat tyre in the background!

A close up of the tyre-eating critters! Rock hard, unlike normal thorns, so the tyres had no chance!

Biking in the Pyrenees

Armed with our new bike rack we went up to the Pyrenees this weekend - a fair old drive but probably the last opportunity to bike up high for a while as this area will soon become a ski resort! We came in search of some big hills and Pyreneean scenery and as you'll see in the many, many photos, we got it :-)

After three months of no biking the routes (1816m of ascent on day one and 2025m on day two)  felt pretty hard going to say the least! However, it was worth the slog and sore saddle area, as we did two of the best rides ever along miles of track above the tree line, with mountain views with plenty of jingling cowbells! 

Day One: Cassibros to Pla de Nequa

The geeky stats: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1779961 

We started on the windy little road up the Val de Cardos, past the pretty village of Lladros sitting at 920m

The slog begins! Up the switchbacks to more quaint Pyreneean villages - Boldis Jussa and Boldis Sobira (1300m and 1450m)

The road up the mountain then turned into perfectly compacted farm tracks...

...complete with cows grazing in the meadows for that authentic Pyreneean experience! 

Stopping to admire the views and the villages below us (not because I was tired - honest!)

Nearing the top along the ridge...

A bit of single track (and carrying!) in places too...

The Col de Tudela! 2314m. Ali got there first...

Some time later I arrive :-) 

Then it was pleasant undulating through meadows and along the ridge

With nice views...

...and cool paths...

Christmas tree anyone?

Cruising downhill back to the valley... it's certainly a lot quicker on the way down!

Mind the horses! 

Day Two: From Llesui Ski Resort to Collada de Feixa Palomera

The geeky stats: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1795108

The day started out very cloudy so I packed loads of warm clothes in the hope this would make the weather improve... This strategy worked, which was great except I was then riding with a rucksack the size of a DofE student ;-) I know this will sound nauseating but this really was the best ride ever, up through the old ski resorts on amazing tracks - 100% rideable and 100% above the treeline.

The village of Llesui at the head of the valley - from here it's perfectly compacted tracks all the way!

Contouring first, though not for long....

Trying to get into a rhythm... Up up up the windy windy track... Up up up the windy windy track...

There were lots of old ski lifts on the way up - in two minds whether or not it's a shame they're no longer in use! 

Climb done - whoop whoop! Now nearly 20km of undulating tracks around the heads of the valleys!

Looking down on our path up

Mooooooooooo!!!!

Lunch stop! Sandwiches and homemade apricot flapjack - food of kings 

Did I mention I was happy with the track? :-)

It just kept on going :-)

and going...

and going (I'm on there somewhere I think)

sometimes up....

sometimes flat... 

Until we reached the Col de Feixa Palomera (2328m)... Our track down is behind me

One last pose before the downhill starts...

Squiggly spaghetti road all the way back down - switchback central!

Gnarly hairpins...

and so many more cool tracks to explore! This area really is amazing for biking.

Back in Sorre after 42km of fun! Bikes on the new roof rack courtesy of Graham - Thanks :-)