Andrew Upton

Passion for Cycling

I've had a passion for bicycles and cycling from an early age. This stems partially from my early age interest in all things mechanical and my Grandfather's enthusiasm for helping me, as a young boy, understand these things. Particularly how to take care of my bike and the why it's so important.

One of my greatest experiences is to lead 6-day tours across the Alps for the company, Alpenevent.

I've been guiding for Alpenevent since 2014 and regularly ride over the Alps from southern Germany, through Austria, Switzerland and Italy at least 4 times per year.

When riding for Alpenevent, you certainly know we've arrived. The usual caravan exists of up to 30 participants, 3 guides and a very valued colleague who takes care of all the logistics.

My first adventure over the Alps was in 2005, from Erwald (Austria) to Lake Garda (Italy). I still remember the excitement of waking up in the morning and preparing myself mentally and physically for the day's ride. The feeling of euphoria at reaching the destination, looking back and seeing the mountains we had ridden over. This was the drug that drove me to ride again and again over the Alps. I've lost count now of how many times.

I'd ridden, as a customer, with Alpenevent many times over the Alps. In 2013, during their first Dolomiti tour, I was invitation to join the team as a guide. Although a little late in my cycling career, I gratefully accepted the invitation and enrolled in the required training with DIMB (Deutsche Initiative Mountainbike).

But before I could take the responsibility of leading paying customers, I needed to learn the tours in every last detail. That meant riding the different tours, alone with my rucksack full of maps, while taking copious notes and photos én-route.

Forcola di Livigno, Mountain Bike nach Comersee mit Alpenevent

This newspaper cutting is probably from between 1980 and 1982 while I was a member of the Beauvale Cycling Club, based in Eastwood, Nottingham.

From the age of 17, and for next 12 years, I held a British Cycling Federation Race Licence. I regularly competed in Road Race events of 70-80 miles (112-128km), city centre Criterium, solo and team time-trials.

Although I enjoyed the excitement of Criterium or the strategy of Road Race, my most successful discipline was time-trial. In particular, the two-up team time-trial with my training partner, Brian Fergie (deceased). We had great success together as our riding styles complemented each other; me with a fast start, Brian with a fast finish. We perfected the art of riding just a couple of inches behind each other to take advantage of maximum drag.

The enthusiasm for cycle racing started when I worked, during my student years, as a bike mechanic for Richard Harley (deceased), in Hucknall. Richard was an ex-professional cyclist and was the real driving force behind getting me hooked on racing. As a mechanic, he taught me how to building and maintain professional race bikes and custom wheels.

My race bike at the time was a hand-made Aendé from Alan (Pongo) Braithwaite, Nottingham. Aendé frames now have a cult following, shame I sold mine. The frame was made from British Reynolds 531 steel tubing. Today I ride a hand-made Stanton Switch9er mountain bike frame, also from British Reynolds 631 steel tubing.

Passion for Technology

I discovered my passion for technology while studying at Polytechnic in Nottingham. I was fascination that a simple, relatively silent, box could perform equations, store, sort and evaluate information, make decisions and return responses in plain English.

5-hole punched tape, 80-column punched cards, magnetic tape, programming with pencil and paper. This is where I started my career.

In those days it took two people to lift and mount a 98MB disk. When I think about my Smartphone, today I have over 1,000 times more data capacity in my pocket.

Back in those days, you were regarded somewhat as a genius that could tame those electronic beasts. Flashing lights, simple on/off switches on a front panel, water-cooling for the larger beasts, soldering cables, learning to count in binary, octal and hexadecimal.

I focused my career on programming, rather than electronics, and spent my early years developing financial accounting, payroll and stock control software.

As computing became more mainstream, I took the decision to market my own skills as a software consultant.

I took on engagements numerous organisation, on very diverse and complex projects. In doing so, it also presenting the opportunity to travel the world and deliver meaningful software solutions.

Having lived for much of my life in England (Nottingham & London) and in Germany (Munich), I've been fortunate to also live and work in Netherlands (Utrecht), Jamaica (Kingston), California (San Diego), Denmark (Copenhagen), India (Bangalore, Hydrabad, Gurgaon), Ukraine (Kyiv), Poland (Wrocław).

After spending 40 wonderful, but also stressful, years in my chosen profession, I've now retired from commercial life.

The passion for technology still excites me today. However, I spend my time tinkering with miniature computers such as the Raspberry Pi.

I lived through the age where computers would take up a huge room and were protected against the outbreak of fire. The Raspberry Pi and Pi Zero are one of the smallest consumer computers available today. With these devices I've been building portable servers, motion detection with miniature cameras, bluetooth communication devices, etc.

In addition I recycle old and somewhat obsolete computers/laptops with new operating systems. Why should we throw out perfectly serviceable computer, just because it won't run the latest version of Windows. Operating systems such as lightweight versions of Linux, JingOS, Chromium OS

Furcola Minor 2,445m

Passion for Cycling

Guiding for Alpenevent

Road Race & Time Trial

Passion for Technology

1980's Computing

Software Consultant

Computing Hobbies

Contact me