A Cyclist's Life in Tenerife (Canary Islands)

Call me ignorant, but I had no idea how popular myspace had become. Just take a look at the growth statistics over the last year! Incredible! It makes me wonder: where have I been?

The best thing that happened to me today was that Stuart O’Grady added me as a friend on myspace. If you know anything about cycling, you know who he is! Thanks Stuey!

Actually, most of the content (pictures, videos, etc) can be found scattered all over the original www.Tenerife-Training.net page. I’m primarily doing this (networking) to increase web-traffic. Because more web-visits equals more customers. So if you’re on myspace, and you’d like to help, please consider adding me as a friend! It all helps! Thanks! 🙂

http://www.myspace.com/quintessentquirk

Tags: News Reel by Dr. Leslie Brown
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This week, we’re busy filming a new MTB video!! 😀

We still have another day of footage to shoot. And then it’ll take about a week or so to edit the video. A special thanks goes to Iván, a proffesional videographer who works for channel azul, who lugged his heavy camera + tripod all over the North valley of Tenerife (with the bicycle) during the filming. I lost count of the number of takes, and also the number of times he unpacked and re-packed his camera. 😐

For some reason I can’t embed the existing videos (even though I previously embedded that funny once lottery video advertisement in another post). Its a little frustrating… anyway, here’s the link to my youtube video page:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=quintessentquirk

Tags: News Reel by Dr. Leslie Brown
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I’ve finally figured out how to add a decent poll voting system to this site. One that is free, contains no ads, and is customiseable. I’ve also updated the permalink structure, hence the downtime just experienced. Please advise me if something is not working (eg: polls, posts)

[poll=1]

«Â Yesterday there were so many things I was never told. Now that I’m startin’ to learn I feel I’m growin’ old» – Guns N’ Roses.

Tags: News Reel by Dr. Leslie Brown
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Funeral de Nicolas Amador Bello

Nicolás Amador Bello of Club Taoro Fonteide dies in car accident, age 16.

It really saddens me to report this bad news: I just got a call saying that a young aquaintance of mine, Nicolás Amador Bello, a cyclist in the local Taoro Fonteide team died today in a grave cycling accident. This happened not far from where I live at a roundabout near La Orotava, Tenerife, Canarys Islands, Spain.

Actually although I am not officially a part of that team, I had ridden, trained & spoken with him several training rides… I still hadn’t even memorised his face all that well. I am quite literally lost for words. He was just 16, and this has really come as quite some shock to me.

My deepest condolences to his family, friends, and especially Jesús Martín Pérez (the director of the local Cycling Club Taoro sponsored by Fonteide), who always tries his utmost to protect those young aspiring champion cyclists in club Taoro. I will surely speak with Jesús tomorrow morning.

El joven fallecido en La Orotava pertenecía al equipo de ciclismo ‘Fonteide’ y chocó con un vehículo mientras entrenaba
El joven ciclista del equipo Fonteide, Nicolás Amador Bello, de 16 años, fue atropellado esta mañana en la rotonda de acceso a San Antonio cuando entrenaba. La Federación Insular de Ciclismo de Tenerife ha expresado sus condolencias a los familiares del joven y prevé aplazar la carrera prevista para hoy en el III Trofeo Ciclista en Palo Blanco en señal de luto.
El joven de 16 años que falleció hoy atropellado en la rotonda de acceso al barrio de San Antonio, en La Orotava, era el ciclista Nicolás Amador Bello, de la categoría cadete del equipo Fonteide y sufrió el accidente mientras entrenaba, según informó la Federación Tinerfeña de Ciclismo, que ha expresado sus condolencias a los familiares del joven fallecido.

Nicolás Amador Bello chocó con un vehículo en La Orotava y los equipos sanitarios de la ambulancia medicalizada y de urgencias desplazados al lugar del accidente no pudieron hacer nada por la vida del afectado, que presentaba varios traumatismos de carácter grave.

Tags: News Reel by Dr. Leslie Brown
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You may or may not have noticed – with the help of some other foreign cyclists I’ve been translating the Tenerife-Training site into Spanish & German. The first pages to appear are for bike hire… other pages will surely follow, but may take some time. Thanks for your patience.

I’m slowly getting on top of all my work; I haven’t had time to fix the guestbook yet, but I have added a cool visitor map at the bottom of this page. I’m currently figuring out the best way to add some voting polls (either to the site or this weblog).

Also, please be advised that the online bike hire reservation form does not function correctly yet… please send me an e-mail or call for bike reservations in the mean time.

One last thing: Please remember to update your bookmarks!

Thanks, Leslie

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Roads leading into Las Cañadas National Park have been cut due to the inherent fire risk. You can only ride up TF-21 until kilometre 15, after which, I’m told access is restricted to emergency vehicles… So far 4200 homes have been evacuated and more than 7000 hectares of forrest land have burned. The fires were intentionally lit. 🙁

Tags: News Reel by Dr. Leslie Brown
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Hello keen cyclists,

It’s taken me the best part of last week to update the existing Tenerife Training website. Its mean new feature is the Navigation menu bar, making it easier to access the cycling info & other Tenerife tourism information. As you can see, I’ve also added this new Tenerife Blog Page which will be updated regularly. I’ve added a New Cycling Tenerife Forum (which will no doubt take ages to get established) and there’s now the option of booking the rental bikes online.

 I still have several things to sort out later this week (update the site map and install a guestbook). NOTE: The guestbook is there now, the comments are recorded, they’re just not visible yet. In the meantime, if you notice any bugs in the new site, such as broken links / discontinuous format, etc, please do me a favour and let me know!

I’m also busy preparing an online survey and the first Tenerife-Training newsletter will also be ready soon.

One last thing: once you enter the new directory structure of the site, and the «update bookmarks reminder» disappears, please don’t forget to update your bookmarks!!

Tags: News Reel by Dr. Leslie Brown
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I’m busy behind the scenes updating & recoding the website, adding new pages such as this weblog page. I’ve got people working on translating the site into Spanish & German, and there’s a lot of information to get through. There’ll also be a new forum dedicated to the local cyclists coming soon (in spanish though).

I’m also preparing an online survey, where you can be in the running to win stuff (I’m just deciding what!) as well as researching other marketing and publicity avenues. All this reorganisation & newfound motivation means I’m now working between 12-16 hours a day. Those videos will have to wait a few more weeks!

Tags: News Reel by Dr. Leslie Brown
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