Richmond, Yorkshire (Not Virginia, Not Surrey…)
Richmond is posh Yorkshire. I think William Hague is the MP and he is the ultimate in posh Yorkshire. You can hear it in the way he speaks. I’ve heard lots of people sing the praises of Richmond but I can’t ever remember having been there. Until today. […]
A Short Walk Around Penrith
After a second full English breakfast in as many days the walking party split and we all headed off in our respective directions; some back to Norwich, one to Cardiff, one to Derby and me in the direction of Yorkshire. I’m due to West Yorkshire to visit family […]
The Lake District, October 2013
Public Bike Transport: London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam & Nice
MoMondo (‘an emerging flight comparison site’) just sent me this; useful info if you are heading to London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam or Nice…
Charity Walk For Macmillan Cancer
Just got back to Reading after an invigorating hike around Henley-on-Thames with a group of pupils, parents & fellow teachers at Gillotts School. It’s never a good feeling waking up on a Saturday and realising that you had volunteered to take part in weekend work-related activities but you […]
The Reading ‘Protest*’ Ride (*See Below)
I’m not one of life’s protestors. In fact, I can’t remember ever having protested about anything in an organised way before. There must be something… [pause for thought / reflection…]. I once joined a teachers’ march in France during a six-week stint in Nice while training to be […]
Paris-Tours 2013
Today is the 107th Paris-Tours cycle race. I lived in Tours for five years during the mid to late 1990s and used to go along to the finishing line every year. It was an exciting carnival descending upon the otherwise sedate provincial French town. Fond memories…
Protest Ride Around Reading: Saturday 12th October
Just noticed this event via the Reading Cycle Campaign Facebook page; a protest ride around Reading “…to show the poor state of the cycling infrastructure in Reading. To give visibility to the poor job the council has done in making Reading safe for cyclists and to object to […]
Mark Cavendish Is Up For The Sport Relief Challenge
I need to know more about this…
The European Cyclists’ Federation Interview
The ECF have just published an interview with me where I discuss this summer’s cycle from Greece to Portugal along the rough line of the Eurovelo 8. The interview can be found on the ECF’s increasingly useful Eurovelo website in a slighted edited form. The full interview is […]
Word, The Words & The Wordle
Just as with the first book, the first thing that I needed to do requires nothing more than a bit of patience and a lot of copying and I have spent several hours today doing just that. I am conscious of not just publishing a blog. If you […]
Britain’s Most Famous Touring Bike Is Back!
It’s difficult to explain how nice it is riding a bike after not having done so for a month. My short journey from AW Cycles in Caversham to the centre of Reading was brief but unimaginably pleasurable. Apart from the new tyres, cables & brake pads, nothing needed […]
Whyte Cycles ‘Cambridge’ Bicycle @CycleShow
Very nice… And not excessively expensive… Mmm…
Lithuania: Forward Thinking People… On Bicycles!
Cycling Gear From… Err… Aldi?
When it comes to my supermarket of choice, I’ve always been a bit of a Sainsbury’s man, occasionally wavering towards Tescos and very occasionally Waitrose. Aldi? You must be joking! So, when I was contacted last week by a marketing company offering me a few free samples of […]
Bicycles Really Do Have Feelings: The Proof!
Nearly four weeks after we finished our epic 5,700km cycle across the continent, I’m recovering slowly (although currently have the sniffles) but my bike Reggie has found the return to normal life more of a struggle; he is currently in pieces!
Thanks WarmShowers – Great Hospitality!
I only stayed with four WarmShowers people during the summer’s trip along the Mediterranean coast but they were all great hosts. I’ve just been giving some feedback on the website and found this picture of Diego who hosted me at the end of June at his home near […]
The Eurovelo 8: List Of Blog Links
Having just spent several hours doing this, I’m also going to elevate what is otherwise hidden away in the Eurovelo 8 section of the site to its own blog post. Here are the links to the original blog posts made during the trip along the Eurovelo 8 (or […]
Eurovelo 15 / The Rhine Cycle Route
I used to regularly post extracts from emails that I received on here but recently I seem to have stopped doing so. For no particular reason. It’s a delight to be asked about the routes that I have cycled and, quite often, those that I haven’t. I try […]
The Tour Of Britain 2013: The Lake District
Love this photo. More pictures from Monday’s Lake District stage on the Sky Cycling website.
Cycle To Work Day: 12th September 2013
Ironically, after five years of cycling to work almost every day of the week, on national cycle to work day, I’ll be on the train as Reggie is currently under the knife at the bike shop for his post-cycle refurbishment. So I’m relying upon you…
“TT For Taz”
This weekend it’s my brother’s turn to get on his bike; along with 19 other cyclists he’s cycling in aid of Macmillan Cancer & the Yorkshire Air Ambulance from his home in West Yorkshire to the Isle of Man and then doing a lap of the TT circuit. […]
The Yorkshire Bicycle Show
In preparation for the visit of the Tour de France 2014 to my home region of Yorkshire, a bicycle show is being held in Leeds. Here’s the press release: “Tour de France fever comes early to Leeds with the Yorkshire Bicycle Show” “Across our region bicycle fever is […]
Cape St. Vincent, Sunset, Wednesday 28th August 2013
Greece To Portugal: Summary Statistics
Here is the summary of fifty days of cycling. The day I cycled up Mont Ventoux was officially a ‘rest day’ so not included which is why it gets a box of its own…
Heading Home…
It didn’t take long for the practicalities of life on the road to kick in after my arrival at Cape St. Vincent. As I was recording the video clip in the previous post my mind was on the clock as I knew that the campsite supermarket closed at […]
Video: End Of Journey Thoughts From Cape St. Vincent
Cycling Day 50: 5.50pm Cape St. Vincent & The End Of The Journey
Cycling Day 50: 5.10pm
Arrived at Camping Sagres – great site – and the tent is pitched. Reggie has been relieved of most of his panniers. All that remains is for us to cycle the remaining 6km to Cape St. Vincent. This plan is coming together…
Cycling Day 50: 2.20pm
Made it to Lagos & about to tuck into lunch; some pasta for that final bit of cycling. The N125 is now a lot quieter although the condition of the road itself deteriorates as each kilometre goes by. The wind is picking up however and I assume will […]
Cycling Day 50: 1pm
Slight change of plan (as ever). Both Albufeira & Portimão were inconveniently distant from the lovely N125 so I have pressed on. The latter didn’t look at all appealing from the modern bridge spanning the wide estuary just to one side of the city with a skyline of […]
Cycling Day 50: 10.30am
Just over 25km cycled. Leaving Faro involved snaking through back roads but I was eventually allowed back onto the N125. Not that there is much joy on this road; poor surface, heavy traffic, no real view… But it’s a necessary evil. I’ll pause for coffee in Albufeira at […]
Cycling Day 49: El Portil (Near Huelva) To Faro
So, the penultimate day arrives. Or rather arrived as it is now at an end. I bid my cousin farewell with the intention of seeing him again later in the day at a campsite somewhere along the Algarve in Portugal but even by 9am this morning I was […]
An Evening In Faro
Cycling Day 48: Seville To El Portil (Near Huelva)
It was a slightly delayed start to day 48 as I spent a little time cycling around the streets of Seville. Like many towns and cities in Andalusia, cobbles seem to be everywhere and I have spent a significant amount of time over the last few days teetering […]
Monday Morning In Seville
It’s a bit grey here but I did manage to find a little bit of colour in Seville…
Cycling Day 47: Lucena To Seville
When I sat down in the hotel in Valencia and planned the remaining few days of the trip I knew that cycling day 47 would be the crunch day. If I managed to get to Seville by the end of Sunday then I knew that there would be […]
Cycling Day 46: Jaén To Lucena
Time to catch up before I forget! Cycling day 46 was the big Vias Verdes day and after the mixed feeling about Via Verde number 1 from Albacete a few days ago I was hoping for someone far better. Did I get it? I suspect that if you’d […]
Cycling Day 45: Ubeda To Jaén
I’m not sure whether Pablo hadn’t offered me the private mini guided tour of Ubeda I would have got any further than Jaen today or not. It was a modest cycle by the standards of this jaunt across Europe – a mere 63km, only just over half the […]
Ubeda: A Private Guided Tour
Slightly delayed departure this morning but I don’t mind in the least. It’s not every day that the owner of the hotel where you are staying gives you a private guided tour of a nearby ancient monument. The one in question was the one shown here – which […]
Cycling Day 44: Peñascosa To Ubeda
Cycling Day 44 is easy to describe. I set off from Camping Peñascosa, I had breakfast from a bakery on the main street of nearby Alcaraz, I cycled about 125km from Alcaraz to Ubeda along the N322 pausing from time to time at petrol stations for snacks and […]
Cycling Day 43: Albacete To Peñascosa
Apologies for the lack of text to go with the pictures when I initially posted about cycling day 43. If I had written anything late last night it would have been rambling gibberish (‘no change there then’ I hear you cry!) as a result of the quantity of […]
5,000.1Kilometres
About 30 minutes ago I cycled my 5,000th kilometre. Unfortunately I was in a dark tunnel at the time… If anyone fancies working out approximately how many kilometres I still have to cycle (along the lines of the plan posted here a couple of days ago) I’d be […]
Cycling Day 42: Cofrentes To Albacete (Twice)
This morning things were going relatively well. I think I’m beginning to resign myself to struggling through the first 20 to 30 kilometres of the day as my increasingly weary legs take this time in warming up. Today was no different to recent days but I persevered and […]
Video: Cycling The Plain In Spain (No Sign Of Rain…)
Cycling Day 41: Valencia To Cofrentes
After having cycled the first 30km this morning I felt as though I must have cycled over 250km the day before last. Which is strange because I had. I hadn’t felt the effects of Saturday’s long-distance effort on my day off yesterday wandering around Valencia but once I […]
The Last Leg: Valencia To Cape St. Vincent (Portugal)
If the manager of this hotel were to walk in right now, I’d probably get thrown out for moving all the furniture around. I needed a space large enough to piece together the final three maps which has just allowed me to work out a little more detail […]
Rest Day 9: Valencia, Old & New
Cycling Day 40: Tarragona To Valencia*
The non-Guardian reader campsite (see cycling day 39) provided me with a supermarket evening feast which I ate whilst sitting in the tent as I failed miserably in my attempt to find a chair upon which to sit and do the same thing. At least I was spared […]
Cycling Day 39: Barcelona To Tarragona
To say I didn’t set off until around midday today, the distance I managed to cycle – some 93km – wasn’t too bad at all. But whereas quantity wasn’t lacking, quality was. It was not an enjoyable ride apart from one short portion in the ten or so […]
Cycling Day 38: L’Estartit To Barcelona
Dave and Pauline’s hospitality didn’t stop in the evening; it continued in the morning where I was presented with a very nice full English breakfast. The Cockers don’t even eat breakfast while in Spain – they prefer to eat later and have a large lunch – so it […]
Cycling Day 37: Perpignan To L’Estartit
The problem with writing these updates a couple of days after the events is that I forget so much so quickly. It can be very frustrating but here goes… I had breakfast in the centre of Perpignan and was still not sure which route to take into Spain. […]
Video: Barcelona Update
Almost live from central Barcelona…
La Côte Rouge, France
I’m about to enter country number 9, Spain, but this last ride in France along what I’ve seen referred to as the ‘Red Coast’ south of Argelès has, despite the cars, been a delight…
Cycling Day 36: The Pilgrims’ Nest (Near Villardebelle) To Perpignan
Eddy wasn’t just good, interesting company; he was useful company. Before the combined effects of the food, cycling and two glasses of local white wine (I know, sorry, I’m a lightweight) had had their effects, he talked to me about his own experiences of cycling through Spain and […]
Cycling Day 35: Béziers To ‘The Pilgrims’ Nest’ (Near Villardebelle)
Here we go. Apologies for the late update but I’m not going to move from my seat here in the garden of the Ibis hotel in central Perpignan until cycling days 35 & 36 are written. I may order another beer at some point. Life can be tough […]
Cycling Day 34: Nîmes To Béziers
I’ve just heard on the radio that the Prime Minister back in Britain wants a ‘cycling revolution’. Well, good luck with that but its a shame he wasn’t cycling with me yesterday as I made my way along the coast from La Grande-Motte towards Béziers. Some excellent examples […]
An Evening In Béziers
I tweeted earlier today pointing out how nice it was to spend Sunday morning cycling around an unknown town (see the next post for some of the pictures from Nîmes). I could say something similar about Sunday evening although in Béziers tonight it was without the bike…
Cycling Day 33: Villes-sur-Auzon To Nîmes
Today was, at times, at many times, a frustrating day. The wind, the roads, the signage, the route, the tourist destinations. They all conspired together. Perhaps they wanted to show me another side to Provence before I departed for the (mainly) flatlands of Langudoc-Rousillon, a meaner, grittier, kick […]
Rest Day 8: Mont Ventoux
Mont Ventoux is a place with iconic status but one about which I knew little about until just a few months ago. Scouting around for interesting cycling-related things to do whilst crossing southern France, I simply noted on the map that Mont Ventoux was actually in the very […]
Cycling Day 32: Gréoux-les-Bains To Villes-sur-Auzon
Time to catch up. I’m a little behind so if you are waiting for the story of Mont Ventoux, please bear with me as I first update you on cycling day 32. Even before I retreated to my tent at the end of cycling day 31, the campsite […]
Provence In Photos
Cycling Day 31: Castellane To Gréoux-les-Bains
Back in summer 2010 it took me 30 cycling days to get to Brindisi in the south of Italy from my home in southern England. It’s now cycling day 31 on this particular trip. I cycled 3,311km three years ago averaging 110km per day. I’m currently averaging about […]
Cycling Day 30: Nice To Castellane
Now in Castellane. This may not get sent tonight as 3G doesn’t seem to actually be 3G in this corner of the Alps of high Provence (that’s what the French call this department or county). Split infinitive there, sorry but moving the ‘actually’ elsewhere seems to change the […]
Video: Nice To Mont Ventoux
Rest Day 7: Nice, Côte d’Azur, France
Cycling Day 29: Limone-Piemonte to Nice
I can’t say for sure but it wouldn’t surprise me if great works of travel literature have been penned whilst sitting in laundrettes worldwide. If they haven’t, this short piece describing my cycle from the Italian Alps to the French Riviera may be a first. But I doubt […]
Video: The Tende Pass
Limone-Piemonte: Next Stop France
Cycling Day 28: Cherasco To Limone-Piemonte
May I first of all start with a public plea to the sign makers of Italy; sort it out! I experienced the same problems back in 2010 and am having to cycle through the frustration of the same signage ‘idiosyncrasies’ in 2013. I’m being polite. How difficult can […]
Cycling Day 27: Pragate (Near Voghera) To Cherasco
It’s now midday on Saturday and I’ve arrived in the town of Cuneo just above the plain of northern Italy. Not too high – just 550m – but the highest that I’ve been since arriving in Italy and from here over the course of the next 24 hours […]
Cycling Day 26: Cornovecchio (Near Cremona) To Pragate (Near Voghera)
It was the equivalent of one of those days when you turn up at work and just potter around doing bits and pieces but never seem to get to tackling the big issues in your job. This tends to happen for me as a teacher on the very […]
Video: 2013 Meets 2010 In Piacenza
Cycling Day 25: Verona To Cornovecchio (Near Cremona)
Time to catch up on yesterday’s events along the road to Portugal. Sometimes I arrive either too late in a place to muster up the necessary energy and concentration to write. In other places when I am staying with someone it would be rude to take myself off […]
A Morning In Fair Verona
Cycling Day 24: Venice To Verona
So where are you tonight? Who said that? It’s Ivan, Ivan iPad. Oh my… Haven’t we taken this too far? As I was saying, where are you tonight? Ask me for a Shakespearean quote Err… OK. Andrew, can you give me a quote from Shakespeare? Yes, I’d be […]
Cycling Across Italy – The Plan
My plans as they stand for the upcoming week are below. As always they will evolve, change, be scrubbed etc… as circumstances & events dictate. My arrival in France will miss the self-imposed deadline of the 1st August (quite considerably) but… If you have any comments or suggestions […]
Rest Day 6: A Damp Day In Venice
Cycling Day 23: Caorle To Venice
I started writing this last night but eventually gave in to the weight of my eyelids shutting… How could I not take a day off in Venice? That’s the plan for today but before that, I need to catch up on yesterday’s events, cycling day 23. I have […]
Cycling Day 22: Trieste To Caorle
So I find myself back by the Adriatic coast but this time in Italy. Just to the north of Venice in a place called Caorle. Or is it Porto Santa Marhgerita? I’m certainly staying at the (very busy) municipal campsite in the latter but I have cycled back […]
Trieste, Italy
Cycling Day 21: Novi Vinodolski To Trieste
Apologies. Another late update. The good news is that I am in Italy. I feel that I am at home. Which is very bizarre as I am not Italian, have never lived in Italy and have merely been an occasional visitor to the country over the last twenty […]
Cycling From The Unfamiliar To The Familiar
After my enforced day off it feels just like the evening before you return to work after having been sick. I am now more or less sure that I wasn’t suffering from dehydration after all and that my problem was a bug that I had picked up somewhere. […]
Rest Day 5: Novi Vinodolski
When I normally say ‘rest day’ it is no such thing. It’s a ‘day off the bike day’ but today really is a ‘rest day’. I won’t go into detail but I wasn’t particularly well yesterday evening. The symptoms were more associated with a bug of some sort […]
Cycling Day 20: Pag To Novi Vinodolski
Time to catch up on events of the last 24 hours… For the first time yesterday (cycling day 20) I suffered in the saddle beyond the point of comfort. I self-diagnosed myself as a little dehydrated, combined with that slight fever you can get from having lots of […]
The End Of Croatia Is Nigh
It’s not imminent – I will still be staying here tonight at some point along the coast – but I can see the end and finally another country. It seems such a long time since I crossed from Montenegro into Croatia. It’s actually only a week but it’s […]
Cycling Day 19: Skradin To Pag
This place is comedy gold but more about where I am staying tonight later… It was a very quick job packing up back at Chez Zorbin in Skradin. I had a quick chat with him before I left and he explained how he was an engineer and used […]
Cycling Day 18: Stobrec (Near Split) To Skradin
When I look at the map I don’t seem to have cycled very far today compared to the previous two. However, three days into my post-Dubrovnik campaign to make it over the border into France by the 1st August, the number of kilometres cycled has been comparable to […]
Cycling Day 17: Podaca To Stobrec (Near Split)
A few months after I had published “Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie” (available in all good book shops, a few not-so-good books shops and online), a chap contacted me to say how wonderful it was (honest) and I subsequently exchanged a few emails with him about […]
Video: Sunday Morning Thought For The Day
Cycling Day 16: Dubrovnik To Podaca
The plan over the next week or so is to cycle a minimum of 100km and find a campsite to stay in overnight. Today was day one of the plan, and it worked a treat! Leaving Dubrovnik and all the other tourists who had flocked there wasn’t difficult. […]
The Dubrovnik Festival 2013: Romeo And Juliet
The finest performance of Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet I’ve ever seen… It was a nice modern touch to include the theme music to The Apprentice as well. [Shut up & go to bed!]
Rest Day 4: The Sights And Sounds Of Dubrovnik
It’s easy to get quite snooty about the tourist crowd. I’ve already taken a few side swipes at the cruise parties that I seem to be bumping into (often literally) on a far too regular basis – and they are certainly here en masse in Dubrovnik – but […]
A Message For My Tutor Group…
The children at Gillotts School where I work had their final day of the academic year today. Here’s a message that I recorded for them this morning which they were shown during their tutor time. Apparently they appreciated it (although not the jokes…)
Rest Day 4: Dubrovnik Preview
These previews could catch on… Here are three photos from my morning. Full commentary & higher quality photos later.
Cycling Day 15: Tivat To Dubrovnik
If proof were needed (and can I say that it isn’t) that this was just one long mad dash from A (the Temple of Poseidon in Greece) to B (Cape St. Vincent in Portugal) then today was that evidence. Which isn’t needed. [Get on with it, please…] I […]
Cycling Day 15: Preview!
Haven’t had one of these before but I’ve cycled through some stunning places today… Here’s a couple of pictures to whet your appetite. Full update later in the evening.
Cycling Day 14: Ulcinj To Tivat
I wasn’t in the greatest of moods this morning when I woke. I had slept relatively well (who wouldn’t after most of a bottle of Montenegrin Chardonnay?) but was still narked that I had been taken in by the wide boy who had turned the patch of land […]
