Today – at this very moment – I should have been on a plane flying to Japan. Clearly I’m not. So how best to use my time? How about an update of the podcast artwork? Great idea! You’d think that going from the ‘before’ picture on the left to the new ‘after’ picture on the right would be a simple business…
Clutching at straws here but it was nice while it lasted yesterday afternoon in the Scammonden Valley. Hoping for more sun next week when, well, more of that later…
Should you be so inclined, you can visit the CyclingEurope.org YouTube Channel and watch all of the videos. It would take you a while so you might be inclined to prioritise those that have been very popular… Bearing in mind the time and effort it can take to make some of the videos, might I recommend such epics as the recent masterpiece that is Scammonden: A Valley of Contrasts in all its 4K glory? Or perhaps one of the films from my 2019 cycling odyssey across northern Spain and Portugal? Or how about a hiking film from the ‘Hiking Europe’ collection? The Three Peaks… Of Borrowdale is a personal favourite but there are plenty of others from which to choose. Yet if you do just that…
I lived without a car for about 5 years when I lived in Reading and worked in Henley-on-Thames. I managed just fine but it was always – and it remains – a struggle to persuade most people that normal life is possible without having a car sitting outside your house. I remember the caretaker at the school in Henley asking me one morning if I was still cycling to work as if it was something out of which I would grow. It took a move to Yorkshire and a decision to become a supply teacher to persuade me to buy a car again but during lockdown I do wonder why I pay for an annual £350 service, hundreds of pounds of petrol, insurance, repairs…
It’s certainly something I’ve never heard of before but an email has arrived from Transport for Greater Manchester telling me all about it. And from the picture provided, it looks like an impressive bit of transport engineering. Clearly it requires the drivers to play ball and not drive like maniacs but with things like this, perhaps in some places at least, we are slowly – very slowly – making progress towards what is the norm in some countries.
It may be flatter in The Netherlands but can that really explain why women set off on their bicycles 25-times more often than here in the UK? It seems unlikely. Cycling UK’s Women’s Festival of Cycling takes place from 11th-31st July. Its aim is to encourage more women to cycle and The Cycling Europe Podcast talks to Cycling UK’s Helen Cook about the thinking behind the event and what will be taking place. On July 11th the 4th list of ‘100 Women in Cycling’ will be published by Cycling UK. The podcast speaks to Susan Doram who appeared on the list in 2019 about her cycling journey from the company car to cycling the globe, via much, much more…
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