A Cyclist's Life in Tenerife (Canary Islands)

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Hey there, I just wanted to let you know that I have just initiated a new crowdfunding campaign.

I’d really appreciate it if you could share this with your family & friends + work colleagues, etc.

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I’m back! This time I have called myself «Fat Pinarello Rider» because it’s a stereotype that I never thought I would end up becoming. Perhaps I’ll do a quick video about that, yes.
I have had a long break from cycling due to a serious injury (total foot reconstruction). Perhaps I’ll do a video about that too, definitely.

I plan to make some more videos, I’m not sure how many. I’d also like to do a video about why I quit the www.Tenerife-Training.net cycling business for instance.

My intention is to make completly honest reviews (with no script).

Reason being, I don’t really like a lot of the fake videos that you see on some of the more successful YouTube channels. Yes they are well-edited and «professional» and filmed on location and everything, but they seem to me to be very staged and they are almost awkward to watch. I prefer to come across like I am in the same room as you simply talking about cycling. I would call it a «warts and all» approach.

I would also like to reveal what I personally like and also what I don’t like. I’ve noticed that YouTube videos with paid content are almost never critical of anything and I don’t like that.
I’d also like to document or capture my training progress, some of the hurdles I have faced recently and how I am overcoming them. I think this makes for interesting viewing.

The more views and subscribers I get, the more videos I’ll make it’s as simple as that really.
I already have #2 and #3 google rankings for the search term «Fat Pinarello Rider» (it was actually #1 a few days ago)… or maybe that was for the search term «FatPinarelloRider«. Hmm.
That’s something to be proud of I think.

That’s my update for today anyway. I hope you can join me.

P.S: I also have another Youtube channel about learning languages here:
https://www.youtube.com/c/learnalanguagewithleslie.
That has 154 subscribers as of today. 🙂

Tags: Inspiration., Island Life, Mental Anguish, News Reel, Spoke Bed, That's Business, The Bike Guru, Vida Enigmática // Add Comment »

You might be wondering «How can I save and invest money easily and painlessly?» Well Raiz makes it easy to save and invest money! I’m hopeless at saving but believe me, this makes it just about as painless as humanly possible.

Raiz automatically rounds up any purchases you make to the nearest dollar (well okay, they appear as their own separate transactions).

My favourite function is their “quick invest” button. I use that feature all the time, especially when I have extra money coming in.

You’re still able to to withdraw your money when you have to easy enough. This way is much better than having your savings account and spending accounts linked with the same bank though. I think it’s too easy to withdraw money from the same online bank and so I didn’t even set one up because I already knew this.

It’s not often that I refer any products, but this one is good, trust me. Use the link below to sign up and we’ll each get $5!
app.raizinvest.com.au/invite/EU74VE

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When I was working at Tenerife-Training.net delivering rental bikes, I saw a lot of things. One of the not so nice aspects of running that business were the accidents…

No one ever ‘plans’ on having an accident. That’s why they’re called ‘accidents’. Because they’re totally unexpected. Accidents happen when you least expect it. That’s the very definition of an accident I think.

One time a dog ran across the road and a cyclist tried to swerve around it and consequently broke his leg. Another time a man skidded off the road into some bushes while he was looking at the scenery.

Other times people were so keen to go fast that they didn’t even moderate their speed according to their own abilities!

This happened to my friend while we were riding. He literally flew right over the top of the safety barrier, narrowly missing two trees (as well as many volcanic rocks). I saw the whole thing. And the ambulance officers had some trouble climbing over those rocks with him on the stretcher.

This happened more than you’d think. With over 20 bikes in my fleet, accidents were a regular occurrence. It was almost inevitable that every season there would be some kind of accident.

One of my «unwritten business rules», was that if a person had an accident that was bad enough for them to end up in the hospital, then I would go and visit them.

Far from the usual rental service that sees an accident like some kind of business opportunity to make more money, I saw the accidents as very unfortunate incidents (especially while on holiday in sunny Spain). And so I thought that the least I could do was offer some kind of emotional support.

I can tell you that at least one of my clients was saved by his helmet. He inadvertently landed up-side down on his head and the entire helmet split in two right down the middle like a walnut shell!

So I’m going to share with you a very interesting link written by a personal injury lawyer about some bicycle accident statistics and brain injuries. This link was kindly provided by Lisa. I think it’s worth a look:

Is a Helmet Worth It? How Brain Injuries Affect Different Body Functions

Luckily, no one ever died while renting a bike with us. But I think it was only a matter of time before a much more serious (and permanent) accident happened. This worried me a lot. The last thing I need is to be sued because someone has died on one of our bicycles.

Besides, I would rather be eating pizza than visiting people in hospital (or attending funerals). And so I ask you to ensure that you always wear a helmet when you are riding or scootering and please take care!

You never know when you will have an accident.
Because they usually happen when you least expect it!

-Leslie

P.S this post is sponsored by Carey Davis at learninghaven.com. Thanks to this post, a young girl named Lisa is going to get pizza! Not just her but the whole group! Yay! How could anyone say no to that? Enjoy your pizza! This is not just one link, but a whole blog post dedicated to you!

-Leslie

Carey Davis // Sep 20, 2019 at 1:19 am

Hello,

My name is Carey and I volunteer at a youth center with a safety program for kids. I came across your website https://www.tenerife-training.net/Tenerife-News-Cycling-Blog/cycling-links-updated/ while discussing cycling, bicycle safety, and the importance of protecting one’s head. I want to say thank you!

One of my girls, Lisa, did some web searches at home and found this page that she brought in for me to see – https://www.dandalaw.com/is-a-helmet-worth-it/

I suggested that she share this with you because it had such great information and I also want to impress upon all my students that by reaching out and simply asking others, like yourself, things can be accomplished that the girls might not otherwise think can.

Would you please add the link to that resource for them to your webpage? They would be so proud to see that you included it. I also don’t think it hurt that I promised the group a pizza day if you did! Please let me know if you’d be willing so I can share the exciting news with them!

Thank you very much in advance.

Carey

————–
Carey Davis
davis.carey@learninghaven.com
Teacher | Volunteer
Behold the tortoise that only makes progress when it sticks its neck out!

 

Tags: Inspiration., Island Life, Mental Anguish, News Reel, Ride the Volcano!, That's Business // Add Comment »

Here it is folks, only a couple of days until the auction ends:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/112091635301

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As you probably know I previously owned a business renting out top-quality bikes in Tenerife, Canary Isands [unfortunately that is no longer operational, but the website still works]. And I also sell the world’s best cable housing for bicycles. So I am still directly involved with the bike industry, and I have been an avid cyclist for at least 20 years.

But the trouble with the bicycle industry today is that all of these hybrid composite materials cannot be easily recycled, recovered or reused. It wouldn’t be quite so bad except new standards are introduced at such a rate, they drive frames and components obsolete within only a few short years. What is the expected lifespan of a frame today? It used to be ten years or more.

The reason I first rode a bike to school (almost 25 years ago now) was not just for enjoyment and practicality, but also for the environment. I think the bike industry is falling behind in that respect… way, way behind. The industry is all too keen to introduce new wheel sizes, new bearings, new fangled ways of attaching seatposts, new axle widths. I’m still waiting for the humble pedal thread to get superceded. It’s… it’s… it’s an entire industry.

And most bike magazine reviewers certainly don’t help the matter either. Why? Because they encourage people to buy ever more shit that they really don’t need. Why? Well, because if they don’t, they’d be out of a job, that’s why. What makes me say that? Because they get a lot of revenue for bike component advertising. And no component manufacturer in their right mind would advertise with a company that promotes minimalism, would they?

One of the very attractions of bicycles is that they are supposed to be «eco friendly». When frames only last a few years because of the introduction of new standards, I think adults are forgetting why they started buying quality things to begin with. I think we’re forgetting why we all got into cycling in the first place!

One of my most memorable rides of all time was riding around Bora Bora on an old French steel bike. The thing only had one speed, but I enjoyed that ride more than all of the others I can remember. So we don’t always have the most fun or even the best experiencex on the most advanced bicycles.

I actually think bicycle companies should be more like Calfee Designs. If I could have my time in Tenerife again, those are the bikes I would buy today. Take a look:

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Last week I accidently updated wordpress without thinking and it automatically wrote over the top of some of my cutomised theme files.
In addition, I don’t think the newest version of wordpress was compatible with the old version of the theme I had, which dates back to 2009.
I guess I’ve been spoilt by my other much newer sites & wordpress installations that tend to see to themselves.

It’s been a few years since I updated the site, so basically the whole website went down, displaying some cooky error message like this:

Fatal error: Call to a member function hook() on a non-object

It takes a lot of work to be a website administrator. When things go wrong, they can really go very wrong.
Quite frankly, because tenerife-training.net is not my main priority at the moment, I just left it that way for about a week until I could find the time to investigate the cause.

The good news is that I finally have it back up and running again! Yay!
The bad news is that some of the custom style changes I made are gone.

It sucks because right around that time, someone was interested in buying the website off me. So I don’t know if the site going down had anything to do with it, but I never heard from them again…

I will need to reupload some from backups, but I am getting tired after working on this problem for about 2 straight hours.
So I will hack the code back to the way it was over the next few days… and it should be restored pretty much as it was.

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Please enter the coupon “20eco” at the checkout, and a 20% discount will automatically be applied to your order.

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I have a few bike bits for sale here:

http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/quintessentquirk/m.html

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I’ve had this post sitting in draft format for almost two years. It’s not an easy subject to write about. You see, earlier this year, I read the book «cradle to cradle; remaking the way we make things». It’s essentially a book about sustainable product design. I like to think of myself as an environmentalist. And I like to think of myself as a product designer too. So to me, this was one of those truly life-altering books.

I have always want to design and manufacture parts. Ever since high school, I can remember sketching time trial frames with aero cross sections. So reading this new book came as a bit of a shock to me. Because this was the first book that I read that questioned the status quo. It questioned the ‘sustainability’ of many of our current manufacturing processes. And the truth is, they are not very sustainable at all. I think we already knew that. But we don’t like hearing it. We block our ears or change the channel.

Previously, I used to only think about what things were made of. I would simply select the products that were made with the best materials (because I am a materials scientist). And that was it. I didn’t really question where all these materials even came from (although deep down I knew because I had studied it in subjects like «extractive metallurgy»).

Basically, we have got a big problem, because we are operating like there is no tomorrow. And it’s not good for the environment. Not good for the environment at all. Eventually, I think we’re going to reach a peak production volume. After that, I believe we must begin to produce less. Not just with bike products, but with everything. I predict that our entire global economy will be forced to sell more ‘services’ in lieu of ‘products’.

And I think the bicycle industry needs to look at itself very hard. Because it is making products and components that are bad for the environment. Aren’t bikes supposed to be good for the environment? Isn’t that why we all got into bikes in the first place?

With road bikes: How is hydraulic fluid good for the environment? What happens to all those disc brake pads when they are worn out? How is electronic shifting good for the environment? Indeed, how is carbon fibre as a material good for the environment?

I’d rather not be the one to tell you this, but carbon fibre composites are actually terrible for the environment. When you think about it, carbon fibres are not easy to make, are they? And the more forming processes they go through, the worse it is for the environment. There is more pollution. There is more energy required. More machinery is required. And what about the matrix, epoxy resin? That’s another nasty material. And these two phases, the matrix and the fibres cannot be readily separated for recycling when their life is over. Can they?

And what about bike frames? When a carbon frame cracks in two (and yes I have seen it happen), do we really repair it? Or do we simply throw it in the bin? I didn’t know what to do with my last pair of carbon tubulars when they wore out, so eventually I decided to cut them up into quarters and sold as «ultra-lightweight coathangars» (I have always tried to be zero waste). Yes, really! Someone out there now has a cupboard with a set of very expensive zipp 303 coat hangars!

So where do all of these carbon fibre parts normally end up? Land fill. That’s hardly what I’d call an advanced civilisation, making millions of things that make a one way trip to the bin.

With mountainbikes: How is continually developing new products year after year after year good for the environment? How about longer product cycles and real improvements please?

This is something I saw first hand renting bikes on Tenerife. The wastage was multiplied by a factor of 10x or 20x (or more) over a single rider. It’s not something you normally think about. And quite frankly I got tired of seeing it. One bottom bracket standard after another. It just makes it so much harder to keep spare parts… and more ends up in the bin, which is not good.

I think people must eventually come to realise that metals, ceramics and polymers must all come from somewhere. And where do they come from you ask? Well, they come from mines, that’s where. So every time you buy something new, you are destroying a part of the world. That is literally no exaggeration. It certainly doesn’t do the environment any good. Even when you buy an ecological vehicle, the raw materials must first be mined. So ultimately, buying nothing is almost always the best option.

The introduction of 29″ wheels was really one of the last straws as far as I was concerned… how are they any good for the smallest riders? And then as if to really fuck everone over good and proper, along came 27.5″ wheels. So these days I am just completely over it. I am happy with the bikes I’ve got and no one is going to convince me otherwise.

Now, I understand things must move forward and improve, but are these new inventions really ‘proven’ before they see the light of day? Or are they just design fads? I think product designers these days face a real challenge, and that is to make products that not only function well, look good and are reasonably priced, but ones that don’t harm the environment either. We are at the stage now, where that has to be considered. It just has to.

Half the problem lies with magazine editors. Yes, magazine editors. Because they often talk you into buying stuff that is simply not necessary. They do this because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t get as much advertising revenue, would they? There is a fundamental rule in many industries (not just the bicycle industry): you cannot speak ill of a manufacturer if they are paying your wages. It is like biting the hand that feeds you.

Not only does all of these mostly bullshit new products make your old ones go obsolete faster, but their manufacture taxes the environment more and more and more. So for every new carbon fibre part that is produced, new moulds must also be produced. The new moulds then have to be designed and fabricated. And those moulds must also be transported, too. And the transportation is happening with unsustainable transport methods, isn’t it? Right? That’s why I say the world today has got itself a massive problem. And I think it is one reason why so many people are depressed. It also explains why so many people in the manufacturing industry are climate change deniers, because if they admitted to it, then they would have to face a real dilemma that they are contributing to a worser future this Earth.

SO if you haven’t guessed already, one of my goals or aims in life is «to have a minimum impact on the environment». And I have an interesting story little about how I figured that out as well —I went on this horrible blind date and it turns out to be more like a job interview. You know, with fifty or more questions. And one of the questions was: «what is your aim or goal in life?» I was a bit taken back that someone would actually ask me that on a first date. Anyway, after a lot of thinking, we honed in on my life goal together. Well at least I got something out of it I suppose. LOL.

So I have an announcement: last year I started a new blog, called vida enigmática: «who speaks for Earth?». I hope to influence and inspire more people over there. Hopefully a whole generation, young and old, will tune in and take notice. I personally hope that it starts a revolutionary new way of thinking, so I hope to see you there.

I might as well add this here now, because I don’t update this blog much anymore. So the other site I have been working on is this one: my illustration and photography website.

Tags: Mental Anguish, News Reel, That's Business, Vida Enigmática // Add Comment »

This is the way to go if you’re heading over to Masca by bike. These days I actually suggest renting a car and starting around Garachico. But some people feel that is cheating, so maybe this post will interest you. There are a few ways out depending on where you are based in El Puerto. If you’re in the La Paz or Botannico district, the best way is something like this:

If you’re downtown near Plaza Charco, Playa Jardín, Parque Taoro, the best way is via El Toscal / La Romantica, like this:

Or via the coast, like this:

You can also get up onto the upper mountain road from around here. It’s a hard going getting up through Los Realjeos. The views from Icod El Alto are totally worth the effort though!

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I’ve decided to update the blog and publish some of the articles I’ve had sitting in draft format. Over the years, we’ve had to dramatically cut costs in order to survive. So I’m now going to share with you some cheapskate ways to save money.

• The first area you can save a lot of money is nutrition. The cost of powerbars, powergels and sports drinks really starts to add up when you’re doing lots of miles. If you must buy these things, buy them in bulk. There are also plenty of ways to make your own products.
• I personally use water now instead of power drinks. Otherwise you’re literally pissing that money away.
• Chain oil. Yes that’s right, chain oil. What did I use for my rental bikes? Plain old everyday engine oil. I used the lightest oil I could find. In fact it offered way better performance for MTBs (because volcanic dust dries out wax-based lubes). The only difference I find is that wax-based lubes don’t stain your calves quite so much.
• Repair inner tubes. I used to do this and got really good at it until people started compaining that «it wasn’t safe». The fact is, if you do it right, it is safe.
• If you have to read about cycling, don’t buy magazines – read books instead! Magazines are filled with ads. Books are not. Magazines will tempt you to get stuff when you don’t really need it. Books will tend to get you out on the bike more, be more motivated, not less.
• Buy 105, Ultegra, Deore, SLX, and XT. Beyond that and you’re really not getting a good cost-benefit ratio. Of course, you probably knew this already.
• If you do want to save up for a bike, buy a good frame. Focus on the frame, as a good frame can easily last you 5 or 10 years. Components on the other hand will wear out and need to be replaced. So invest in a good frame, make the frame the priority and then worry about the rest of the component spec. Buying a good frame will save you money in the long run.
• Insurance. Do you really need to insure that bicycle? Almost every average car in Spain for example is only insured for 3rd party damage (which is compulsory). Almost no one pays the small premium for fully comprehesive. Because quite frankly it’s a waste of money (except of coure if you have a lot at stake like repaying a mortgage / owning your own home). This is the main reason why poor people are uninsured — they know it’s not a fundamental need and one of the first places to cut costs.

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Pro Bike Hire is a well established business based in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. We have a proven track record of success which can be verified on paper. We have a large base of satisfied repeat customers and have created a very strong brand identity.

The main reason for the sale is that I am now living permanently in Australia. I’d like to finalise the sale of the business before the end of September. That would give adequate time for you to prepare for the next high season which starts around mid-October.

Our most recent offer is fast bottoming out at only €28,500!! Considering that we get daily bookings & enquiries for bike rentals and the van and bikes are included, I think this is an extremely good price… (más…)

Tags: Island Life, News Reel, Ride the Volcano!, That's Business // 7 Comments »