My bike adventures in 2022

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2022 was a great year with my back and my health in general and I manage to break all my cycling records. I rode many time above the mark of 100km this year, cycling more than 16,000 km!


 


However, I would like to remember 4 particular rides:

1. (Unofficial) 5 Dams Challenge: once again the event organised by WestCycle was cancelled again this year due to Covid. I and my friend Andrea decided to ride it anyway. It was a nice 202km ride with a nice company. At that time this was my longest ride ever.


2. Se^en (Nannup, WA): Probably the hardest event in Australia. Just 125km but off road with more than 3000m of climb. Another super epic event for me considering that this was my very first race in 25 years. my first ride on gravel and my first ride with my second hand gravel bike that I bought just a few weeks before the event. I could not qualify for the worlds for a few mins but I had the form of my life on that day. I will never forget it and I will not able to get better than that for sure.



3. Backroads: Gravel scares me but the nature side is so nice that I decided to prepare for another race in Nabawa (not far from Geraldton). This was my first experience in the middle of the canola fields. This was simply spectacular! Fantastic event with beautiful nature and nice gravel roads that were not as crazy and dangerous as in Nannup. The result of the race was not as I was expecting, I had a flat and fell into a stream (no consequences though), but it was fun.


4. Cape Heroic: a bunch of crazy people from Fremantle every year (in the last 11) catch up for a ultra cycling event. The "short" version of this event is "just" a 300km ride on a single day, starting from Margaret River and touching Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leuwin. An awesome experience with nice people. However a couple of days after it started to affect my back. It is now more than 2 weeks and my lower back is still sore. An old bio-mechanical problem that long time ago was fixed with a microdiscectomy to cut out a disc bulge that was causing a lot of pain to my sciatic nerve. Hopefully with a bit of rest I will be able to recover to be able to tackle my next adventures in 2023!



This was an awesome year that was made possible only with the help of my entire family, my physio and some friends. Thanks everyone that supported me !


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