As I’m currently “between jobs” I’ve been doing a bit of travelling around Slovenia . So far it has been great, if a little on the toasty side at times! Earlier in the week my wife and I hired a tandem and rode along the Slovenian coastline to Croatia, passing through olive groves, vineyards and the salt flats. By 11am it was registering 40 deg C on my Garmin!

At the moment we are at Lake Bled, at the base of Slovenia’s Julian Alps. I tried to hire a road bike but they were all booked so had to settle for a clunky, beat up mountain bike. Guess I can’t complain for €10/day.

While April was out paragliding this morning I rode up one of the mountains to the ski resort and sports centre at the top. For the ten mile climb I was cursing not having my road bike, but at the same time glad of the mtb’s low gearing. Some of the 18℅ drags near the top were real leg sappers! Luckily there’s no shortage of hearty recovery food and beverages to be had here.

Oh and April is now a “proper” cyclist – finding out the hard and painful way that the European’s cable their brakes to the opposite levers! First time using disc brakes too! She went right over the bars and ended up with the bike on top of her. Always the trooper though she was back on and riding again the same day, although I think in future we’ll stick to the tandem. She’s developed some monster bruises on her legs also to go with the road rash.

Got a couple of days in the capital Ljubljana before travelling west to Treviso (Italy) which is the birthplace of Pinarello!