Hot Rides

February last year had me arriving at Anchorage airport amidst snow storms and sub zero temperatures . Hardly your standard summer vacation, but I couldn't wait to don my thermals and snow boots so I could get out and pound the snow. With less than a week to prepare for the Iditasport race I had plenty to learn about the Alaskan wilderness... and the local culture. 

John O'Groats is a miserable place - relentlessly punished by cruel Arctic winds. It's literally miles from anywhere and it has taken us a full day to ride here through undulating, featureless agricultural land. Its claim to fame is being mainland Great Britain's northern-most point, although technically that honour belongs to a little bay a mile to the east.

As reported in the last instalment of our North American odyssey (In Search of Maple Syrup...), raging forest fires had forced the 'not-so-famous five' across the border from Canada to the US. 

I started in Antananarivo, the capital, located bang in the centre of the country. From 'Tana' I headed south and west on the RN7 until I eventually hit Toliara on the coast.

A Canadian friend once cheerily informed me "if you're being chased by a bear, it's easy to figure out whether it's a brown or a grizzly. Just (quickly) climb a tree. A brown will follow you up the tree while a grizzly will stand at the bottom and push it over, or at least shake it hard enough so you fall out."

The gang of four assembled in Les Houches, near Chamonix - my husband Steve, our flatmate Karina, her friend Kirsty and myself. We were in town to circumnavigate Mont Blanc on the "Sentier Pedestre" hiking trail.

Tempted by undercurrents of burgeoning popularity, it was inevitable that sooner or later we'd feel the need to give Ground Effect a nudge in the USA.

The first thing you notice about Tibet is its assault on all previous conceptions of scale. The plateau is endless, the mountains massive, and it's capped by a piercing, limitless sky that by 9am has bleached every colour out of the landscape.

For those who don't actually live there, Taranaki is an almost forgotten corner of New Zealand. It's not really on the way to anywhere, and for many the only reason to venture there is when the Desert Road and National Park highways are closed by snow. However, tucked away in Taranaki are some of New Zealand's true mountain biking gems.

Perched on the slopes of the Carrick Range behind Bannockburn in Central Otago is the old gold mining settlement of Carricktown. Its ghosts haunt the remains of their industry from a century ago... old stone huts, water races, abandoned mine shafts, mullick heaps and a labyrinth of tracks. I have a longstanding love affair with this part of the country.

We allow ourselves to be consumed by truly important things at Ground Effect - like the art of pouring the perfect espresso, pursuit of the definitive muffin and scheming the next cycling adventure. Great mountain biking can be found in most corners of this flat earth and New Zealand boasts its fair share of classics. We reasoned "wouldn't it be cool to compress some of our favourite rides into a single mega road trip?".

In the last decade Ireland has reinvented itself as the tiger economy of a brave new Europe. We were keen to experience the country's uniqueness before the perils of globalisation quashed its weird ways. Plus it appeared to be small, green and flat - always good attributes for cycle touring.