I know you are all out there checking the blog avidly every day to see if a publication date has yet been set for my book recounting my little adventure of summer 2010 along the Eurovelo 5 from Berkshire to Brindisi… No? Well, I can’t quite give you […]
Rioting is clearly not a good thing. Neither is the Iranian government (although I would imagine that the vast majority of the population are very nice people indeed – when did they last riot for no good reason?). Forbury Gardens in Reading are nice, but not that well-known […]
En route home from my morning coffee and newspaper in town, it struck me how harmonious and diverse were the people sitting, playing, reading, chatting, sunbathing, relaxing, smoking, eating, drinking, kissing, thinking… in Forbury Gardens, Reading. There are probably around 200 of them. None, as far as I […]
You’ve got to admire the comedian at the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who took the initiative and sent this message to the British government. Pure genius which reveals as much about his country, if not more than it does of the problems in the UK. I’m still […]
Not my description, but my friend Basil’s description of his new website. Basil is the friend I stayed with in August 2010 at the end of my Eurovelo 5 cycle. He has just started his own WordPress blog and you can visit it by clicking here. His description […]
As mentioned yesterday I have started reading Mark Beaumont’s new book about how he cycled from Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina in 2009/10 while at the same time scaling the highest mountains in North & South America. Well, not quite at the same time but I’m […]
Great little documentary on Radio 4…
This blog has become a little more generalist of late with me discussing a varied range of topics from trips to France with groups of school children to how the re-decoration of my flat over the last couple of weeks has been progressing. I need to get things […]
In the cyclist’s own words; Approaching the roundabout, preparing to turn right I make a shoulder check and a clear right turn hand signal before moving into the RH lane. There’s traffic on the RAB, so I stop and give way to it. When it’s clear, I move […]
Kate Belcheva is from Bulgaria, a country that has escaped the web of the Eurovelo network of routes. Routes 6 & 11 pass through neighbouring Romania to the north (route 6) and through Serbia and Macedonia to the west (route 11), but Bulgaria itself is devoid of Eurovelo […]
Unfortunately, I don’t live in Kensington & Chelsea. Perhaps if the book becomes a best-seller I might earn a million and move down the M4 to the big city to pursue a career as an author / Eurovelo consultant. You’re back in the room! Ah yes, shouldn’t spend […]
…although they have yet to contact me about being involved. 🙁 They keep telling me in emails that this isn’t a sign that I am not wanted as an Olympic volunteer so in the meantime, this Olympic preparation event at the end of next week may be worth […]
This is cool (& useful). Designed by someone called Aaron Kuehn in California (I think). More details here. I shall consult before I next take Reggie to A.W.Cycles.
A while back, I posted something about a geography teacher called Lisa from London who was hoping to cycle to the Arctic Circle this summer. She is currently in Oslo by the looks of it – see her website for details. When we exchanged emails she said that […]
Cute safety message at the very end.
…the woman who had the idea of selling toys through the Internet was very proud of the fact that her website had ‘over 5,000 visitors’ per month. So do I! July 2011 has been the third most popular month since January 2010 (the peak by the way is […]
The following email arrived earlier today and the first line comes straight from a pitch on Dragons’ Den; Hi Andrew, You don’t know us but we are a new company that will focus on eccentric races and charity events, we are planning a 2600km bike ride across Europe […]
It’s a Sykes rather than a Rothko. Sorry to disappoint. Twelve months ago today I had just arrived in Strasbourg along the route of the Eurovelo 5. Today, I have spent much of the day in deliberation as to what colour to paint my living room, if at […]
My quest to clean / renew the flat has arrived in the living room and I have just untangled the spaghetti-like web of cables that have remained hidden behind the TV for the past few years. It makes an interesting picture but it does frighten me that I […]
366* days to go (*it’s a leap year).
The largest pile is fiction, the smallest poetry.
I can’t really say that I am renovating the flat – it’s only seven years old – but it certainly feels that way. The results so far are two-fold. Firstly, on the positive side, I have a main bedroom and en suite bathroom that could come from a […]
He is a well-known cyclist so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jon Snow has made a report for his own show, Channel 4 News about the risks of cycling, especially when around lorries and the curious statistic that although overall deaths on the road have decreased by 14%, […]
A chap from BT has just installed Infinity, high-speed broadband. It is lightning fast! The engineer did his test and said the speed was 39mb/sec with an upload speed approaching 2mb/sec. The online test I have just performed puts the speeds at around 30 & 1.5 respectively (and provides […]
1a. Finish correcting / editing the book. 1b. Make an effort to get it published…and then stick on Kindle. 2. Sort out flat (including cleaning carpets which, in a strange way, excites me) 3. Sell all my unused chattels on e-Bay. 4. Watch pile of DVDs that have never […]
Of course not, you fool! It’s Reggie’s new back wheel, a Mavic A319. ‘Even better than the Alexrims DH19’ to quote the guy at A.W. Cycles. Any thoughts? And why is it necessary to tell me that the ‘rim [is] subject to wear’? The apples in my fridge are subject to […]
…I set off to cycle to Brindisi. Just thought I’d let you know. Click here to read about what I thought about it at the time…and click here to read about some of the journey in extracts from the forthcoming book. If you like what you read, there […]
This Sunday – the one before the last week of the academic year – is the one on which I set off on my long cycle south from Reading to Brindisi. The date was actually 18th July which is of course tomorrow but let’s not quibble. It seems […]
…has mentioned me! 🙂 Not just in isolation, but in the same breath as the esteemed @jonsnowc4 , the Channel 4 News anchor. He is clearly a man of taste as he also has a WordPress blog. For those of you that don’t but can, follow me @apsykes .
Writing the book about my journey along the Eurovelo 5 has taken over the posts of this blog in recent times (I am still at the red pen correcting stage by the way and haven’t made much progress in the last couple of weeks) but the time is approaching […]
My eventful week continued (eventful, that is from the perspective of the pupils I hope but uneventful from that of a teacher, thank goodness) with two more visits to Boulogne following the previous post and then a visit to the cinema yesterday morning in Henley to see a […]
Being back in Boulogne (for the first of three visits on consecutive days this week) today with this lots, suitably obscured in this photo, reminded me very much that it is just over a year since I set off on my journey along the Eurovelo 5. It’s difficult […]
It has now been a week since Reggie was deposited back at A.W.Cycles for his repairs and end-of-academic/commuting-year service. And he is sorely missed. I appreciate that when he does return – perhaps towards the end of next week – he will look fantastic and purr like a […]
The former News Of The world reporter, Paul McMullen appears on every programme going and you have to admire his willingness to be mauled in public. He reminds me of an arsey teenager who will continue to argue despite not having a leg to stand on…
This could be worth a fortune one day… How much do Shakespeare’s First Folios go for? If it is, I’ll sell and donate the proceeds to my employers who have (unknowingly) paid for the ink to print it. They will thank me, I’m sure. Evening update: quite scared […]
It’s not every day you can say this, in fact I’ve never said it before in my life but I have written a book! It’s finished; 1 book, 302 pages, 998 paragraphs, 10,546 lines, 112,850 words and 498,698 characters. Goodness that took some counting! I started on the […]
This is scarily reminiscent of the gap in the wall in Dr. Who… But it is of course the rim of Reggie’s back wheel which after having sailed one sea, climbed three ranges of mountains, crossed a continent, been repaired in the backstreets of Airolo & Parma (& on […]
The University of Reading have given up on adult education. Not that they think the adults of Reading are so full of knowledge that they don’t need educating any more (if only that were the case), but it doesn’t make them any money so they shut down all their […]
Rachel, an artist from Grand Junction, Colorado has been in touch. Ever the teacher, my answers are in red; Hi, Love your blog Thanks! and I’ll have to get the book when it’s ready! Know any publishers? My husband, son, and I are considering doing the section from Colmar to […]
This is what the book currently looks like, all 42 chapters, 294 pages, and 107,835 words of it. It doesn’t look like a book when it’s all put together like this does it? The last couple of rows of pages are those that have yet to be transformed […]
What is it with cyclists also tending to have good taste in design and photography? I’ll let you make your own mind up about my taste in design and the qualities of the photos you can see on here but so many cycling-adventurers have cracking websites that have gorgeous […]
Here’s a man with a film waiting to be made about him; John Adrian Short. He has just posted a comment on The Book section of the site about his cycling journeys (presumably prompted by the discussion between my cousin Richard ‘Bill Bryson’ Birkby & me about Portugal). John […]
This may be an idea… unless you make me a better offer 🙂
Street View is a great tool for fact checking. As I write the book I have to piece together bits of information from many sources; the original blog, comments on the blog, photos, maps, books as well as my own memories of course.* It can be frustrating however when […]
Have a read of the following short extract from the book. Pay particular attention to the final sentence and bow down to the small inoffensive (French) word ‘en’. It is number 100,000 in the book… My short break also allowed me to look at the map in a […]
The view through the window of my flat earlier this evening was a spectacle of colour & light…
Kicks off next Saturday at the annual ‘Water Fest’ on my end of town and then continues all week, culminating in a big bike event at Prospect Park on Saturday 26th…
If you wake up at 3am and can’t get back to sleep, what do you do? Check your emails! And here is one from Hannah; Dear Andrew, Firstly, thankyou for your website it has come in extremely useful helping me plan a similar route! Thanks. It’s a pleasure. […]
The news is out! ‘Do you have a blog sir?‘ the pupils at my school have asked quite a few times in the last couple of weeks. A lot of them would benefit from a nudge in the right direction when it comes to finding a more environmentally friendly way […]
This article on the Bike Hub website is a good read and it’s worth taking a few moments out of your day to read it. Some interesting truths for the converted & unconverted cyclist.
I did one of these for the blog when I returned home to the UK last summer after the long cycle to Brindisi along the Eurovelo 5. The blog words totalled about 30,000. Now they are in the process of being re-written and I have so far got […]
Now available online for reading! Click here or follow the links at the top. Pisa to Siena was mosquito-ridden and the signs were not on my side either. The evening of the 12th August was a bit of a low point… Read on.
I think last time I mentioned this I was at number 15. I wonder why I don’t have a ‘proper’ title like the other blogs mentioned? Perhaps it’s in the WordPress settings somewhere. That said, does this blog have a name? Perhaps it should… I’m still not that […]
Thanks to Simone (now in Venice, not Pavia), I have updated the Part 2, Cycling Day 18 extract from the book. There were a few factual errors and things that needed clarifying. It does make me wonder how many other such errors and omissions I have made elsewhere… […]
Allan Muir writes; I wrote to you in the early days of your preparation for Eurovelo 5 – about GPS tracking, I think (I still enjoy dipping into your blog to see what you’re up to). At the time I and a couple of folk were planning a charity […]
Atoosa writes; I’m really interested in this route and want to start cycling from Milan to North. I’d like to know how did you pass The Alps? did you go with [the] train? No I didn’t – I went over the top! You would be doing it in the […]
I was at the Eiffel Tower if you didn’t guess… That was the high (although I didn’t go to the top). But disappointing that I haven’t got any tickets for any of the Olympic events… 🙁 No money has been taken from my account. But… I do understand […]
This could pass for a four star hotel…
…on the last day of term! Kind of. Off to Paris with 33 fifteen year olds tomorrow for four days.
An App that is actually worth downloading (must remove all the crap ones that do nothing whatsoever apart from amuse for a few minutes after being installed…) has just been published by Sustrans, so I just did but it is quite difficult to test while still in bed. […]
Now available online! Comment is, as always, free, so please do so. Follow the link above or simply click here to read the latest draft chapter of the upcoming book about my Eurovelo 5 journey… Day 18 was a guided cycle from Como to Pavia through the northern […]
Sounds like a new surrealist film? No, just a round-up of the topics that have fallen into my inbox this week. Read on to find out more… I was wondering what crossing the alps was like? writes Henry Ulmann… Excellent! If you follow the Eurovelo 5 / Swiss National […]
Great documentary on BBC4 in the early hours of this morning – a repeat from 2009. The blurb says; “Author Rob Penn travels around the world collecting hand-built parts for his dream bicycle and charts the social history of one of mankind’s greatest inventions.”. It’s based upon his […]
…visitors. 🙂
When cycling to work this morning, I was thinking that if ever The One Show were to have an article about the Eurovelo 5 on their programme then surely I would be the person they would turn to. This was tossing over in my mind (it’s amazing what […]
Yet another sample chapter from the book now available to read for free (!) online. Just click here to enjoy a wet romp (if indeed you can romp on a bike) in central Switzerland. If the climbing the Alps was the high point of the trip, my day […]
‘Mattie’ in the Channel Islands is planning a trip from St. Malo to Athens. He asked on one of CTC’s forums for advice as to whether to take the Italian route (which would potentially use part of the Eurovelo 5) or the Balkan route (which would use part of the […]
Another sample chapter of the book available to read online. A little bit shorter than previous ones reflecting the shorter cycle from Dabo to Strasbourg. Read it here or by following the links at the top of the page. Feedback welcome!
This is a fascinating photograph – click on picture and explore… Wow!
I really enjoyed that. Only the most hardened of cynics would fail to do so, even the republican ones. The whole thing was beautifully done, especially the music in Westminster Abbey and the bit at the end with the classic Aston Martin. Nice touch. It was the perfect […]
“Estimated time of departure: 5th May 2011. We are cycling across Northern France, a bit of Germany, Switzerland (the high bits) and zig zagging down Italy (trying to avoid the high bits) to Taranto in Southern italy which is where Mary Ann lives. Hopefully friends and family will join us from […]
Another sample chapter is available online! Click here or follow ‘The Book’ link at the top of the page. Day 6 was when the rain started as I cycled from Maubeuge to Charleville-Mézières in the north-east of France. Feedback welcome and if anyone knows a publisher… 🙂 Update @ 3pm: […]
The rich ones have the Pacific crashing upon the shore next to their Malibu beach houses. I have this… I really should do some work for going back to school tomorrow but I feel I have at least one chapter in me this morning, perhaps two… And then […]
You are probably getting a little bit bored of the mention of this book I’m writing so pass over the following if that’s indeed the case. It is quite addictive though. I’ve now written just under 20,000 words and have got as far as the end of the third day […]
A couple of cyclists are joining the roll call of those having cycled the Eurovelo 5 south although these two are going a little bit further than most. John Howe writes; This summer I am cycling from London to Greece, with a friend, Kit Alexander. The final destination […]
I’m at risk of getting a little bit ahead of myself here. Not only have I located my place on the bookshelf at Waterstones, but I have now attempted to design the cover of the book itself! I’ve only written half of the thing so far (and most […]
Not me. Not yet. I was just in Waterstones and located where my yet unnamed book could be slotted in the travel section. It would be in good company, just to the left of Paul Theroux’s ‘The Pillars Of Hercules’ (which I have on my bedside table poised […]
I wrote about 4,000 words this afternoon. Once I started I couldn’t really stop. It’s great having a story to tell. I can’t imagine how I would ever write fiction. But writing non-fiction is easy. Must try and join my sentences together however. And add a few opinions. […]
Just returned from a very quick overnight visit to Yorkshire to see family. I didn’t cycle up there but did hire a car and took the opportunity this morning to revisit the towns of Halifax & Huddersfield. The former has a small but relatively unknown jewel in its […]
…kind of.
Carlo Levi wrote a book entitled ‘Christ Stopped At Eboli’, Eboli being a town on the west coast of Campania in Italy, south of Rome. The book title comes from a local saying and is referring to the poverty and exclusion ‘from the full human experience’ in southern Italy […]
As promoted in today’s Independent newspaper; The London Cycling Campaign, which promotes safer cycling in the capital, has produced a nine-point-plan for reducing the toll of death and injury among cyclists: * Enforce speed limits and clamp down on drivers who use mobile phones. (A young woman in […]
Here it is in its raw state. All 39,153 words and 168 pages. Set in Georgia 18pt (italic for the blog entries), justified. Now all I need to do is transform it into a best seller, which may take a bit longer than the time taken simply copying and pasting […]
My book is now standing at just under 10,000 words and has 39 pages. OK, I admit it, I’m cheating just a little bit as most of those words are not new but text copied from the posts I made along the way. To begin with I didn’t […]
I Tweeted this morning that “I need to write that book about cycling from Reading to Brindisi last summer”. The thought may have been forgotten, as most thoughts on Twitter are, had @No_More_Beer responded within the hour Tweeting “Yes you do! Worth a read”. So I have started […]
From the BBC website; MPs could introduce a new offence of causing death by dangerous cycling. But how much of a danger do these two-wheeled travellers really pose? There is little that divides UK public opinion more sharply than cyclists.To their supporters, Britain’s bike-riders are clean, green, commuters-with-a-conscience, who […]
