Travel – Blogged Down By Life

Trois Etapes 2014 – Part 2 – Suddenly! France!

Posted on August 18, 2014 by Chad Dobbs

Sunday, 3 August
My first night in Lourdes was shared in a room with two other Soldier On riders; a tight yet restful night after trying to get sleep the day before without much luck.  After breakfast Adam, Matt, Justin and I met Andy and Jodie for a coffee in down-town Lourdes. Although we were still down two riders (they were en-route from San Sebastian) a quick walk around the busy square followed before we decided a lazy spin to get the legs moving after all the travel was needed.

The easy 63.5km ride saw us head out to Luz-St. Sauveur for some sight-seeing and a taste of the Pyrenees’ weather. This was the ride in which it finally sank in that we had actually made it to France and in a few days time would be representing Soldier On in the Trois Etapes. The ride out was quite an emotional experience for me as it was the culmination of months of training, many set-backs (physically, emotionally and mentally) and a few late minute changes to the travel that threatened to delay our arrival. The ride was very enjoyable and we all soon found a nice rhythm riding together after a few weeks apart. Not wanting to push too hard on the first day in France, we headed back to Lourdes to catch up with the other two riders, Dan and Shane, as well as team driver Bruce.

Dinner was a casual affair at a local restaurant (not called a French restaurant in France) which proved challenging for this vegetarian; luckily salads are quite common in most European countries – albeit with an excess of tomato and cheese.

Monday, 4 August
The next day’s ride was a typical coffee ride that would see the entire team, and driver Bruce, explore some of the local countryside over a relatively easy 47km. There was of course a couple of ugly ramps leading up to a hill-top church including a nice little 28% stretch that left me trying to bite my front wheel!

For the first time since the Trois Etapes was confirmed, Team Soldier On had it’s full roster and was gearing up for the race in four days time.

Tuesday, 5 August – My 33rd Birthday
The plan was simple… Breakfast and then an easy ride to the Col du Tourmalet followed by a quick descent back to Lourdes. But like all simple plans; this one wasn’t. Not even 10 minutes into this ride and I was separated from the rest of the group thanks to some red lights and me not knowing the route out of Lourdes.

Suddenly I found myself riding alone and heading out of Lourdes towards the airport; definitely not the way to Tourmalet. After stopping and some back and forth messaging later, I decided I was too far away from the team and went for a solo ride instead.

I spent my 33rd birthday riding the French countryside; not a bad day at all.

Wednesday, 6 August
A very unexciting day of eating, resting and tapering for the three-day race.
Lourdes put on a fantastic day of sun and warmth; the perfect day for a slow and steady ride to spin the legs.

Thursday, 7 August
With the entire Soldier On team finally in Lourdes, photographer Matthew and manager Clare arriving the night before, it was time for us to have a look at some of the unknown sections of the race; this time in the cars!

We drove up the Col du Soulor, Col de Spandelles and Col du Tourmalet. I can honestly say after the day-trip I was dreading each of the climbs, especially the goat track that was Spandelles!

LOURDES 050 — .:Not a bad view on the way down from Col du Soulor:.

LOURDES 051 — .:Col de Spandelles was intimidating:.

MCP 005 — .:Team Soldier On and the Géant du Tourmalet:. https://www.facebook.com/matthewconnorsphotography

MCP 010 — .:Much beard and much hair:. https://www.facebook.com/matthewconnorsphotography

MCP 013 — .:Team Soldier On and manager:. https://www.facebook.com/matthewconnorsphotography

MCP 018 — .:Tough guys:. https://www.facebook.com/matthewconnorsphotography

In the afternoon we set off for another short ride to keep the legs fresh for the first stage of the race the next morning, this time we were joined by coach Scott Sunderland.

CVP 005 — .:For the first time on their bikes, the entire Team Soldier On together with coach Scott Sunderland:. Photo courtesy of Mark Howard

Trois Etapes 2014 – Part 1 – The Long Journey To France

Posted on August 16, 2014January 24, 2015 by Chad Dobbs

My journey to France wasn’t as simple as three planes, two trains, a cab and countless hours spent on a bicycle. My journey to France started on January 6, 2012; my last day as a soldier in the Australian Army. Over the previous decade I had made many friends, shared countless experiences, served on foreign soil, and ultimately returned back home when others did not.

My decision to leave the Army was a culmination of differing opinions on what my career path should have been, the lack of ongoing and adequate support for my mental illness and not wanting to force my future wife to live in the shadow of a Australian Soldier. Having spent my childhood as the quintessential ‘Army Brat’, I could not ask the woman who I would ultimately marry and have a child with, to follow me around Australia and put her own career aside. So I left the one thing that had provided, up until my wedding and daughter’s birth, the most defining moments of my life; both good and bad.

In mid 2012 I started mountain biking, something that would ultimately serve to fill the huge void that had been left in my life when I hung up my uniform. A tight-knit community of caring, encouraging and like-minded people enabled me to feel part of a team once again. And in late 2012 I approached a the contemporary veterans group ‘Soldier On‘ and asked if I would be able to fund-raise in a mountain biking event called The Battle of the Beasts. When the dust had settled and my aching body had calmed I had raised a substantial amount of money that would directly assist younger veterans like myself that were struggling with the visible and hidden scars incurred during our service in the Australian Defence Force.

2013 would see me design and commission a set of Soldier On cycling jerseys and participate in a full calendar of mountain bike events at which I would wear the Soldier On strip. I would assist Soldier On at various veterans events and fundraisers and ultimately become a very vocal advocate and critic of contemporary veterans issues especially veteran suicide; an issue that has directly impacted my life and ongoing recovery living with depression and PTSD.

.:Racing with the mk1 Soldier On cycling jersey:.

Throughout earlier 2014 I continued to race and commute wearing the Soldier On colours. For me wearing the Soldier On jersey was a way for the public to see Soldier On was active in the general community and to let other veterans know that they weren’t alone. It was because of my somewhat visible presence across social, print and visual media that I was asked by Soldier On to participate in the 2014 Trois Etapes Pro-Am in France. At first I was apprehensive as it would mean a change from my mountain bike to a road bike and many, many hours training.

First there was the Sydney to Canberra Remembrance Ride commemorating both ANZAC Day and the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Remembrance Driveway along the Hume and Federal highways. This was soon followed by two training camps, one at Thredbo and then followed by the second at Tweed Heads; and a long-term training program to follow. Of course life, work and injuries interfered with what could have been a relatively smooth timeline; but where would the fun be in that?!

Finally on Friday, 1 August 2014, after many months of training, preparation, stressing, emails and waiting… The time came for me to leave Canberra, Australia and travel to Lourdes, France.

I’ll spare you the intricate details of my trip, but rest assured 39 hours of travel is not an enjoyable experience. Why 39 hours? Well, as I mentioned before, there were the flights, the trains and the cab; and of course there was the the 30kg bag containing a bicycle and a very large amount of cycling related equipment and paraphernalia. It is a fact an EVOC cycle bag is just not train, train station or train passenger friendly. Combine this with French people, a language barrier, jet lag and a person with an anxiety disorder and you have recipe for disaster. Luckily nothing bad happened and we arrived at our hotel in the middle of the night.

After much stressing, a bad case of cankles and a long-awaited shower I finally went to bed knowing the next day I would be riding my bicycle in France!

Wellington NZ

Posted on November 5, 2013June 11, 2018 by Chad Dobbs

.:A few photos from my recent trip to Wellington, New Zealand:.

Training Week In Review – Weeks 12, 13 & 14

Posted on September 23, 2013March 12, 2015 by Chad Dobbs

I imagine opening the door to my garage, I walk past the two parked cars, the boxes of tools and up to my bikes; two hanging on their ceiling stand and the XTC resting against the wall. I look at my three Giant bikes, clean, serviced and facing the automatic door almost as if they are waiting to roll onto the asphalt outside. But the tyres are low and a spider has built a small but intricate web from the cold brick wall to the rear derailleur on the XTC. I look to the bench where my helmet, gloves and shoes sit; they are covered in a fine layer of dust.

My name is Chad and it has been 25 days since I last rode a bike.

It has been a busy three weeks for me. I drove to Melbourne and got married to the beautiful Carly and travelled to Cambodia and Vietnam for our Honeymoon. During that time I haven’t ridden a bike or conducted any sort of training outside of hiking around the countryside.

Before this break in training I was carrying a few niggling injuries including a relapse in my torn pectoral muscle. The time off the bike has been good and has helped me relax and focus on what I want to achieve leading up to the Battle of the Beasts and for the rest of the year.

I have lost some fitness and muscle tone so I won’t be jumping into any huge rides just yet; but with a 3 hour twilight race next weekend I will aim to spend a few hours off-road and doing a recce of the proposed course.

Our Asian Holiday – Day 17 to Kết Thúc

Posted on September 20, 2013September 21, 2013 by Chad Dobbs

Day 17: We awoke in our hotel room to the sound of the cleaner’s vacuum outside of our door. For our last morning in Vietnam it was almost a fitting way to be roused from slumber; an abrasive yet not out of place sound in incredibly hectic country.

Breakfast soon followed and then came the game of who carries what in which bag. I’m an incredibly light traveller. To put this into perspective my backpack and small travel bag weighed a combined 7.1kg when we left Melbourne 17 days ago. Carly’s suitcase failed early in the trip and she had been lugging around a sizable sports bag ever since.

At 10:00 the hotel reception called and told us our driver had arrived to take us to Han Oi airport for our first leg to Kuala Lumpur. We had an hour to kill before boarding and 200’000 dong to spend in the airport. So we enjoyed a coffee and a few snacks and were soon on our first flight back to home.

The flight to Kuala Lumpur went off without a hitch thanks to Angry Birds Star Wars and The Hungover Part 3. Fun fact: Malaysian Airways heavily censored the film.

With a 4 hour layover I tucked into a Whopper from Burger King while Carly watched on in disgust. But soon I was following her around different Duty Free Shops; awesome! We sat and had a coffee and tea before heading through security to our gate for boarding the plane to home.

I spent the rest of Day 17 watching Iron Man 3, John Carter and listening to music.

Day 18: The remainder of the flight was uneventful until we landed in Melbourne. Thanks to a sick passenger we were quarantined on the tarmac until AQIS cleared us and then we boarded a bus in the rain for the long drive to the terminal. Melbourne airport and I have had a love/hate relationship for a number of years; Fun Fact: EVERY time I have flown to Melbourne for work my baggage has been delayed and had to be delivered to where I was staying.

So after 10 minutes in a smelly bus we stopped next to the rubbish bin area of the international terminal and disembarked to clear immigration and customs. This was relatively pain free and as we pushed our way through the crowd outside the arrivals gate our Asian Holiday came to an end.

We both thoroughly enjoyed our short trip to Cambodia and Vietnam; but with all good things it has come to an end. It is now time for the inevitable trip back to Canberra and to resume the working life again.

Our Asian Holiday – Day 5 to Day 7

Posted on September 10, 2013March 12, 2015 by Chad Dobbs

Day 5: Our driver picked us up from our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City at 06:30 in the morning. Even at this early time the people of HCMC were out and about doing group calisthenics in the district parks, opening their shops and speeding down the streets on their scooters.

We arrived at the airport and checked in for our flight to Da Lat. The flight was quick and soon we were on our way to our new hotel just across the road from the lake near the centre of town.

Before we had the chance to get out and explore the city the rain came pouring down and we were stuck watching terrible Asian MTV in the hotel room.

When the rain finally stopped we went for a walk around the lake before a quick lunch while the weather cleared up and the blue sky reappeared.

The nearby markets were full of fresh fruits, flowers and random meats; some fresher than others.

Our fifth day in Asia ended with a quiet dinner for two in the hotel’s restaurant enjoying a traditional Vietnamese banquet and local red wine.

Day 6: We awoke to a sunny Da Lat morning and a few hours of touring some of the sites around town. Our first stop of the morning was the old Da Lat Train Station.

Next up was the Valley of Love…. OMG! If you are after kitschy over romantic, how do I say… Crap! Then this is your destination. This was one stop I could have done without. The views are spectacular, but they have removed all natural beauty of the area by erecting oversized love hearts, Cinderella statues and ugly bird houses.

After the Valley we drove to the Da Lat Royal Palace. It is quite interesting to see that the palace has been kept as it was in the 1950’s when the Royal family left Vietnam. By today’s standards it is reminiscent of an old military mess furnished with your grandparents antiques. In comparison to other palaces around the world, even in its prime the Da Lat Royal Palace and its gardens would have been quite tame and understated.

Our final destination for the tour was the Datanla Falls just outside of town. Aimed clearly at a tourist market the falls were somewhat impressive but the walk into and out of the rainforest was much more enjoyable.

After returning to our hotel we headed out for a walk around the surrounding suburbs to admire the French inspired architecture.

Before the afternoon rains rolled in we enjoyed a quiet lunch at a cafe over looking Hoa Binh square; enjoying the Vietnamese sweet milk coffee.

In the afternoon we visited the local markets again to buy some fresh fruit for an afternoon snack. As usual the market was a hive of activity.

We took the long way back to the hotel walking through the suburbs and saying hello to the locals while searching for a place to have dinner. As enjoyable as the tours have been so far on this trip it is far more rewarding to spend a few hours wandering around the town soaking up the Vietnamese lifestyle.

Day 7: Once again our day started early as we were flying out to Da Nang and then driving onto Hoi An. Our new guide Tuyet and her driver were at Da Nang airport waiting for us. She was very friendly and extremely proficient with English.

The first stop for the morning was the Cham Museum in Da Nang. After spending almost all of our time in Cambodia looking at temples and artefacts; it was very hard to distinguish between these 90 Buddha statues and the 1’900 I had already seen. I don’t think I will be going into anymore incense filled museums and temples for the duration of this trip unless it is something extremely special.

Next we drove through Da Nang to the Marble Mountain overlooking China Beach. Marble Mountain used to be mined for quality marble to make statues, tiles and furniture. Nowadays it is a backdrop for an immense marble market where the locals try to sell their wares to tourists. As impressive as some of the works are I have no need for a 700kg statue of Buddha in my lounge room. It is interesting to note that all of the marble being sold at these markets is imported from Pakistan and not sourced locally.

Soon we arrived in Hoi An, Tuyet being a local of 27 years, took us to a local restaurant, The Secret Garden, for a Vietnamese banquet lunch. Once again we were not disappointed with the fantastic food on offer.

After lunch we visited the centre of Hoi An and some of the local tailors who make measured to fit clothing. Hoi An is famous for its many, many clothes stores that make clothes to order or copy fashion trends such as “James Bond’s Skyfall suit!” After a quick size up and some clothes ordered for both Carly and I we headed to the hotel for check in before our tour of Hoi An in the afternoon.

By the time we left the hotel it was pouring down with rain which thankfully dropped the temperature a little. Tuyet took us around her home town and it quickly became obvious that Hoi An was filled with and aimed squarely at tourists. Any speck of traditional Vietnamese style or tradition had been glossed over with a generous helping of kitsch aimed at parting gullible tourists with their money. This is not to say Hoi An doesn’t have a lot to offer, it does, but you need to walk a few streets behind the clothes stores and the neon signs to find it. The street sellers and souvenir traders are more aggressive here and will only stop their attempts to sell you their products after several firm “no’s” or in the case of one determined restaurant bus boy who got in our faces; “fuck off idiot!”

As night fell and the rain continued we ventured out onto the streets for another visit to the tailor. A quick fitting of our almost completed clothes and we were off looking for a quiet place for dinner. By the time we headed back to the hotel at around 9pm most of the stores were closing and restaurants empty. In comparison to Da Lat the night before, Han Oi was a relative ghost town. With another early start ahead of a Vietnamese cooking class, tomorrow looks like another eventful day in Vietnam.

Our Asian Holiday – Day 4

Posted on September 7, 2013March 12, 2015 by Chad Dobbs

Day 4: Our final morning in Cambodia was spent wandering the street markets for a new travel bag for Carly. While packing her well-used suitcase the seam tore apart and with an hour until our driver arrived to take us to the airport, we went on a mission.

Luckily for us she found a bag that would accommodate her increasing number of clothes and soon we were on our way to the airport and on a plane bound for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

As we descended, the size of HCMC was astounding. It’s a huge city with an even bigger urban sprawl; life looked busy from our vantage point in the sky. Unfortunately for us we were about to spend the next hour and a half sitting at passport control waiting to have our visas issued. The paperwork was completed and submitted; we just had to sit and wait while a single person processed multiple plane loads of passengers wanting to enter Vietnam. Eventually we passed immigration and met our clearly pissed off driver who then proceeded to drive at break neck speed through the ridiculously hectic HCMC traffic.

Within an hour we arrived at our hotel and soon set off for a look around the nearby markets. Luckily for us we were inside the market pavilion when the heavens unleashed an almighty monsoonal storm.

Braving the downpour, we ran across the road and tucked into a fantastic dinner of Phõ followed by a tour of the downtown night markets. All in all our first night in Vietnam was a good one.

Our Asian Holiday – Day 0 to Day 1

Posted on September 4, 2013September 21, 2013 by Chad Dobbs

What a whirlwind the past few days has been for Carly and I. The Wedding went off without a hitch and was a huge day and night for not only us but for our family and friends. Carly spent the morning getting ready with her Bridesmaids, family and the Twin flower girls. I spent the morning drinking coffee, wandering around Elwood before finally spending some time with my Groomsmen, Mark and Evan by watching Robocop.
.:Meredith O’Shea is the most amazing photographer ever! Just do what she says!:.

Day 1: We flew out from Melbourne just after midnight on Tuesday morning and flew to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The flight itself was fairly painless and we both managed to get a few hours sleep before landing in Kuala Lumpur. The next 3 hours were spent wandering the airport checking out the duty free shopping before we spotted a Starbucks and leeched off their free Internet until our next flight.

We arrived in Phnom Penh just after 10am on Tuesday morning, 13 hours after we departed Melbourne. Sweet Baby Jesus it was hot!!! I like the cold, thus why I like Canberra; so needless to say arriving to 37’C with 10’000% humidity was a shock to the system. We paid for our visas, passed quickly through immigration and customs and were soon sitting in an air-conditioned car with our driver and guide for the day.

Our first stop for the day was the Killing Fields of Choenung Ek. In high school I did a fair bit of study on the recent history of Cambodia; in particular the Khmer Rouge regime. Although I have seen a lot of terrible and horrific things first hand over the past decade it is still quite sobering to experience something so huge that it has restructured a nation’s identity. The Cambodian people don’t shy away from discussing the days under Pol Pot’s genocidal rule; they embrace that this terrible chapter in their recent history has changed them forever and they strive to overcome the challenges of the past.

Our next destination was the Ohana Hotel across the road from the Mekong River. We checked in and grabbed a quick lunch before a quick walk through the nearby markets.

Our driver and guide picked us up a couple of hours later and we drove to the Royal Palace for a quick tour of the amazing gardens and buildings. Our guide Sam At was full of knowledge about his country, King and recent history. Sometimes he would even ask questions to see if we were paying attention.

For our final tour of the day we headed to the National Museum for a quick look around at the thousands of statues of Buddhism and Hinduism that Cambodia has amassed over the past several centuries. To be honest we were fairly statued out; but it was still a good opportunity to see how Cambodia has adapted yet kept its national identity after so many years of upheaval.

We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying a quick siesta before heading out for a walk on the banks of the Mekong River, a stroll through the markets and quiet dinner near our hotel.

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