Monthly Archives: January 2014

First 950km of cycling – done!   I’m really happy to be here in Curitiba which is my second World Cup stadium city after Porto Alegre, but it was a very tough last leg to reach here yesterday… Cycling up the BR-376 toll road in 40+ degree heat is one of the most ludicrous things I’ve … Continue reading »

This might come as a shock after all the amazingness so far, but believe it or not something in Brazil didn’t live up to my expectations! And that place was Blumenau, aka Alemanha Tropical (“Tropical Germany”). Now I admit that my expectations were very high, since after watching the Michael Palin series on Brazil, and allowing … Continue reading »

Please help me to get the English press covering my #Samba Cycle! So far I’ve had great coverage in Watford and Porto Alegre and the Brazilian media are really interested, but apart from Colin Murray on TalkSport I’ve had almost no coverage from national press back home – but now is the time to get … Continue reading »

If you don’t know what an ‘earworm‘ is then clearly you’ve never listened to the legendary Shaun Keaveny on BBC 6 Music, tut tut. Since I began training for this trip I’ve found that when I’m out on the bike for long solo rides my brain passes some of the time by remembering snippets of songs with lyrics that … Continue reading »

Hi all, apologies but I’m gonna have to reduce the depth of info posted on here from now on cos it’s just too time consuming to upload/type/edit pics/videos/news about everything, I’ve mostly been doing it during the night when I should be asleep! So a slight change of approach, but hopefully still interesting and also … Continue reading »

Thursday to Friday lunchtimes saw me experience the following: first flat tyre, first thunderstorm, first time a truck has driven me off the road, first time I got lost, first time cycling in torrential rain! The flat happened after I climbed a hill and was zooming down the other side but ran over some debris … Continue reading »

#SambaCycle days 2&3… pretty visual update this, so I’ll start with a video: I can see the sea from Andy Smith on Vimeo. Of course I stopped for a drinks & ice cream break at the beach! Later I stopped again for lunch, and discovered ‘lanches’ which seem to be a cross between a toasted sandwich, … Continue reading »

Day 1 of the #SambaCycle and Luis & I covered 125km in 40+ degree heat! Sounds tough, was actually surprisingly easy, so let’s put that down to first day freshness/enthusiam/adrenaline eh. Get this – at 2.45pm I clocked my satnav’s temperature reading at a ludicrous 48.0 degrees celsius!! Stopped for a rest in the shade not … Continue reading »

(think the heat might’ve affected me today…)

Day 3 in Porto Alegre and this place continues to amaze me. Today I went for lunch with Denise Crawshaw-Pellin who’s the British Consul here, and she’s been really supportive of my cycling challenge, having arranged yesterday’s event with the mayor’s office. Also thanks to her it’ll be great for me to have contacts at … Continue reading »