Cyclopaat, An Alter Ego With A Twist
Mid April, I got my Canyon SpeedMax CF 8 Disc Sram Force eTap AXS and I’m writing this post to give you my impressions of it.
After the LBS put it together, I took it out for a first spin on April 15th.
I took some kit with me to make (minor) adjustments, as the bike was set to match the Sensa Dura Integra‘s position and I have experienced before that this never works out.
Well, as expected, we’re already over 3 months into 2021 and although vaccination has started, the outlook for any return to normalcy is still grim.
But, as there’s enough to read about that elsewhere and my blog is mostly about happy things, I want to share something else.
As I mentioned in my “New Year’s” post, I had my eye on the Canyon SpeedMax ever since I rode one in September last year.
To say that 2020 was different from any year I have lived through, is probably an understatement.
Nevertheless, it was also a year like any other, if I look purely at my cycling activities.
Sure, a couple of events I had entered to participate in, didn’t happen.
And we didn’t get to fly to Tenerife, where Paula would have been able to lay in the sun and I would have cycled El Teide 26 times.
But, Paula being the incredible kind better half I do not deserve, allowed me to get my cycling “holiday” anyway, as she offered to travel – by car – to Italy instead.
So, I had my own “Giro d’Italia 2020” and once again smashed all previous grand tours.
And myself…
From September 11 to 18, we spent a week in the area just south of Cologne, known as the Siebengebirge or Seven Hills.
We rented a cottage in the rustic (and rural) town of Bruchhausen, from where I plotted my rides in the area.
As you can read on the Wiki page, there are actually 40 hills, none of which get any higher than 460 meters.
The seven the area is named after are:
Großer Ölberg (460 m)
Löwenburg (455 m)
Lohrberg (435 m)
Nonnenstromberg (335m)
Petersberg (331 m, Former name: Stromberg)
Wolkenburg (324 m)
Drachenfels (321 m)
We have previously passed / sped through the area many times on our way to Austria, Switzerland or Italy and it has always been in my mind as a possible target for a short trip, not requiring a lot of travel (time).
It’s only some three hours from our home, which is just an hour more than going to the hills in the south of my own country.