It’s been a pretty good year for British cycling – our first win ever in the Tour de France, quickly followed by a veritable cascade of gold medals at the London Olympics (plus a huge number of world records on the velodrome track). Of course, as a Brit, this makes me immensely proud, but unfortunately it still doesn’t make me a cycling fan. Yes, we have a cycling machine at home, but that’s about as far as it goes.

The reason that I write about this today is because I am quite literally trapped in the house by the Vuelta de España! It passes right in front of our door, indeed I should have a bird’s eye view from our terrace later today, so no doubt I will be poised with my camera. Considering that we live in a comparatively small seaside town during the summer, we don’t do too badly for major sporting events. Today we have the Vuelta, and it wasn’t too many years ago that the Volvo Ocean Race made it’s home here in Sanxenxo. The problem is that the huge circus that follows this event, together with the construction of spectator stands etc., has closed all the roads around our house, and even if we could leave, I have no idea when we could get back in……”Working from home” I think it will officially be called – so thanks to laptops, mobile phones, the internet and wi-fi, it should not be too difficult (for a day at least).

Diagonally opposite where we live is the Hotel Sanxenxo, which last night and tonight is the home of the Danish cycling team – Team Saxo Bank Tinkoff Bank. (I confess that I’d never heard of them, and had to Google the name!) To the educated cycling follower they will immediately recognise this as being the team of Spain’s favourite cycling hero, and former Tour de France winner, Alberto Contador. I thought that I should hang around the door of the hotel (like an ageing cycling groupie), to get a photo, and then it occurred to me that I have no idea what he looks like! I guess I will have to stick to football.

It’s been a pretty good year for British cycling – our first win ever in the Tour de France, quickly followed by a veritable cascade of gold medals at the London Olympics (plus a huge number of world records on the velodrome track). Of course, as a Brit, this makes me immensely proud, but unfortunately it still doesn’t make me a cycling fan. Yes, we have a cycling machine at home, but that’s about as far as it goes.

The reason that I write about this today is because I am quite literally trapped in the house by the Vuelta de España! It passes right in front of our door, indeed I should have a bird’s eye view from our terrace later today, so no doubt I will be poised with my camera. Considering that we live in a comparatively small seaside town during the summer, we don’t do too badly for major sporting events. Today we have the Vuelta, and it wasn’t too many years ago that the Volvo Ocean Race made it’s home here in Sanxenxo. The problem is that the huge circus that follows this event, together with the construction of spectator stands etc., has closed all the roads around our house, and even if we could leave, I have no idea when we could get back in……”Working from home” I think it will officially be called – so thanks to laptops, mobile phones, the internet and wi-fi, it should not be too difficult (for a day at least).

Diagonally opposite where we live is the Hotel Sanxenxo, which last night and tonight is the home of the Danish cycling team – Team Saxo Bank Tinkoff Bank. (I confess that I’d never heard of them, and had to Google the name!) To the educated cycling follower they will immediately recognise this as being the team of Spain’s favourite cycling hero, and former Tour de France winner, Alberto Contador. I thought that I should hang around the door of the hotel (like an ageing cycling groupie), to get a photo, and then it occurred to me that I have no idea what he looks like! I guess I will have to stick to football.