Nov 22, 2025 Ticino, the Italian-speaking and southernmost region of Switzerland, has been part of my cycling life for as long as I’ve been pinning on a race number. My relationship with this place goes all the way back to the 1990s, when I was an amateur racer chasing early-season form on the other side of the Alps. Back then, …
Above treeline
Photos: Gavin Kaps / @ospreyimagery May 11, 2025 It’s 3pm, somewhere between Arvieux and Briançon. Those in the know will say that I’m climbing the famous Col de l’Izoard that links these two towns in the French Alps. In fact, I’m on the slopes of the lesser-known Col des Ayes, which crosses roughly the same ridge, a little further west. …
Alps Divide: let the fun begin
September 6, 2024 I am writing this in a train towards the French city of Menton. Tomorrow, I will start the Alps Divide: an ultra cycling race that should take me (if everything goes well) to Thonon-les-Bains, 1’000km and 32’000 meters of climbing later. This sounds daunting, however I feel this is going to be the easy bit. Just getting …
Long distance cycling: yes, but why?
Photos: kuwa.swiss August 1, 2024 About ten years ago, I got into ultracycling: stupidly long stuff that you finish in a pathetic state and that makes you look like an idiot when you talk about it at the family Christmas dinner. It started with a bang, when I signed up for the Transcontinental Race on a whim in 2015. I …
