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Walking The Snowdonia Way
Snowdonia, or Eryri as the national park is known in Welsh, had long been on my list of places to visit more thoroughly. Aside from a scramble up Tryfan after The Gravel Rally , a couple of road rides, and a breif holiday near Blaenau Ffestiniog a couple of years before, I’d not given much
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A Swiss Alpine Adventure – Part Two
I’m stood in the hotel lobby just outside of our bedroom door, and beside a dirty mountainbike. I’m tired, I probably don’t smell great, and I look somewhat akin to a child stood outside of their principles office, awaiting a good telling off. I hear another door open, and breifly lock eyes with a member
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More Than Cake
It’s 4:30am. I’m led on the floor of Sofie’s living room, and have just been awoken by the alarm of her housemate, who has kindly agreed to drive us to the airport. The alarm is a jarring and horrible sound, one of those Samsung stock tones, it’s really nasty, and considering it managed to wake
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Driving Your Own Rollercoaster
What follows is a disjointed account of how I’ve found my 29th lap of the sun. If you want a TL:DR… Make sure you are driving your own rollercoaster. Autumn is always a reflective time of year for me, the shortening of days, losing of light, and cooler weather all bring a sense of the
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Third Of Life Crisis Time
Don’t worry mum, I havn’t bought a fast car. A summarised timeline of Rob goes something like this: ‘be born, enjoy steam engines, go to school, do a load of skating, do a ton of bike racing, have a long term relationship, and get settled into the same job for 5 years’. This timeline took
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Back to the Borders
I spent a lot of 2021 riding big bouncy trail mountain bikes, riding in South Wales most weeks and taking a couple of trips up to Innerleithen, it ended up being a pretty big part of my free time and something i’ve missed doing. For a multitude of reasons that faded away a bit and
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On The Return To Four Wheels
A little history for those who don’t know me well… Before falling head over heels with riding bikes of all shapes and sizes I spent most of my teens seeking out the steepest twistiest smoothest bits of tarmac to ride down on my longboard. I took this pretty seriously, had a fancy leather suit with
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Fairlight Strael 3.0
I’ve been after a disc brake road bike for ages, but wanted to wait for standards to calm down a bit and for somebody to release my ‘goldilocks’ bike before pulling the trigger on anything. This is supposed to be a bit of a ‘bike for life’ if such a thing exists… Having pretty much
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Moelwyn Mawr from Cwmorthin Quarry
Meg and I have been aiming to fit in a few more short breaks this year. Its easy to underestimate how beneficial it is to spend two or three days away from home exploring a new area, even if the weather is grim. Last weekend we headed up to Tan-y-grisiau in the south of Snowdonia
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Freelance
Aside from my ramblings on this blog and full time mechanic work I am available as a freelance copywriter and mechanic for ad hoc or event work. Recent examples of my work can be found below. If you need spanners spinning or words writing and am interested in working with me, please reach out via
Rob Borek
borekthepencil.com 