2015 was a strange year for us.
We finally left Chamonix for good, signified by us collecting our last belongings and on reflection it’s a beautiful but flawed place to live. The hideous air pollution along with then transient population never made it feel like home.
We now reside in Scotland and have started exploring the country by bike and on foot. By exploring close to home, it felt like we didn’t really travel at all this year but on reflection we still visited:
Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, France, Italy, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and we spent days just feet away from Afghanistan and I briefly ran into China and back again!
In 2015 Ed started racing MTBs again for the first time in many years. He won more races than he lost which wasn’t bad work, including a UK Champion medal and Jersey! Marion entered her first fell running races and even tried her hand at Duathalons. She also helped us win our first team WeLoveMountains MTB race in the Ten Under the Ben event.
In November Marion dislocated her shoulder putting a dampener on skiing for most of this winter and meant slowing down on other adventures for a couple of months. 2016 is totally unknown with no firm plans but hopefully yet more new places to ride bikes and hike mountains!
So to recap the year I have selected 12 pictures from 2015:
1. A snowy Sunset from Blencathra in the Lake district, England.
2. Exploring the Pentland Hills from Edinburgh on the cross bike while looking for a job!
Cross border coast to coast in one day.
3. Playing in the spring snow while touring in Chamonix, France and then onto Italy.
Touring in Chamonix
4. Riding in Paris to Roubaix, was a whole lot of fun on the cobbles! Watching Bradley Wiggins in his last ever road race was a cool bonus.
Paris Roubaix
5. We bought new 29er race mountains bikes and enjoyed epic training rides in the beautiful and unexplored Scottish borders hills.
The Selkirk MTB marathon
6. Getting to know our new neighbours in Scotland. I ride past these cows everyday on my new 24 mile commute to work.
7. Exploring the west coast of Scotland by road bike.
Cycle touring Western Scotland
8. Climbing our new favourite mountain in Scotland – Suilven in Sutherland.
Bike ‘n’ Hike an iconic Scottish mountain
9. Our first glimpse of the Pamir Mountains from near Sary Tash in Kyrgyzstan, just as the light started to fade.
Cycling the Pamirs PT1
10. The most amazing coloured rocks on the Tajik/Kyrgyrz border.
11. Looking over the Wakhan mountians from Tajikistan. Simply a mind boggling part of the world.
Cycling the Wakhan PT4
12. Ed is the new UK 24 hour champion in his first ever and possibly last ever 24hr solo race!
Winning my first 24hr race