Why we hate hearing “But you are so lucky!”

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outback Australia

Probably the most annoying sentence that one has to hear is “But you are so lucky!”

My daughter spent the last summer working in Portugal and then flew on to Shanghai to work. One son is training to be a joiner and loves it. The other son is working his way across Australia and has now been doing so for nearly a year. I have a job I love and enjoy at least one adventure every year. And all because we “are so lucky”. It is not luck and the record needs to be set straight. Continue reading “Why we hate hearing “But you are so lucky!””

Experience with a Polar Training Computer

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Polar FT60 training computer

Elsewhere I mentioned that an important factor in achieving your adventure is to make and then keep to your training plan. This applies equally to training new skills or to your physical training.

I enjoy cycling (mountain bike and road bike) and the last few years we have been doing a week long road bike trip each Spring. Obviously it is vital to have a route planned but, with routes of a thousand kilometers, it is your fitness program that decides between success and failure.

Since the beginning of 2014 I have been using a Polar FT60 training computer to plan and monitor my training. This article describes my experience. Continue reading “Experience with a Polar Training Computer”

Adding an Infobox at WordPress.com

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I was writing an article for this site and decided I had some text that I wanted to separate in an “infobox”. Ideally I wanted the infobox to take up about half the space on the right side of my column and for the text to flow round it. Checking in Google I found links to plugins that world achieve this but I also found that plugins can not be installed on sites hosted at WordPress.com.

This article describes how to achieve an Infobox as shown on the right.
Continue reading “Adding an Infobox at WordPress.com”

Make your adventure happen

The world is full of potential adventurers; people who have a plan to “get out there and do something”. But in reality most of them are waiting for a tomorrow that never comes. 

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“out of office”

A couple who had cycled to Nepal were giving a presentation to a packed hall. They cycled up to Finland, across in to Russia, took the Siberian Express (after smuggling their bikes on board) and then cycled across the Gobi Desert and through the Himalayas. After the presentation, some one asked what the most difficult part of the journey had been and the man answered “setting off!”

This article explains how to ensure that you achieve your dream. Continue reading “Make your adventure happen”

Easily creating a GPS bike route with free tools.

I well remember cycling across the Alps in “the good old days” using marked up maps that we had added our route to before leaving home. I remember the frustration as the map and the scenery differed and the freezing alpine river crossing that resulted from a navigational error.

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the good old days

You still see cyclists stood at a junction pouring over a route book or trying to open their map as the wind attempts to rip it from their hands. Some people just love paper and this article is definitely not meant for them. If however you have a GPS receiver or even a GPS enabled phone, then you have probably already tried following a route that you either downloaded from the Internet or received from a friend. This article will take you a step further by describing how to create your own routes with free software. Continue reading “Easily creating a GPS bike route with free tools.”