street vehicle vintage design

Bicycle Frames: Alloy 6061, Titanium, Wood And… Grass?

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Wanda’s frame is made out of, err… an alloy! Sexy 6061. According to Wikipedia, “… is a precipitation-hardened aluminium alloy, containing magnesium and silicon as its major alloying elements. Originally called “Alloy 61S”, it was developed in 1935. It has good mechanical properties, exhibits good weldability, and is very commonly extruded (second in popularity only to 6063). It is one of the most common alloys of aluminium for general-purpose use.” So there you go. (I now need to work out what ‘extruded’ means in this context but moving on…).

Coming Soon: Wanda Reviewed!

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Wanda, my Koga WorldTraveller Signature bike, purchased in 2019, is currently back at the bike shop for a service; new tyres (Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tour to replace the Schwalbe Almotion tyres she came with), new bottom bracket, brake pads, Rohloff oil change… that kind of thing. But since purchasing the bike back in 2019, I’ve never formally reviewed it. So, after 20 months of riding the Koga, I thought it was about time I did. I’m off to Tadcaster later in the week to pick her up and cycle her back to Pennine Yorkshire at which point I’ll crack on with a review – probably posted to YouTube although I’ll no doubt write something here as well. It won’t come as a spoiler to say that my comments will be overwhelmingly positive, but there are few things that are worth pointing out should you be thinking of investing in one of bikes yourself…

The Cycling Europe Podcast: Episode 029 – Markus Stitz / Bikepacking The World

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Markus Stitz is a German-born, Edinburgh-based cyclist, writer and filmmaker. In 2015 he set off to cycle the world on a single-speed bicycle, travelling 34,000km through 26 countries. Since his return to the UK, he has been involved in a series of Scottish-based projects promoting both on- and off-road riding. However, in the autumn of 2020 he returned to his roots and embarked upon a 700km cycle along the strip of land that, until the fall of the Berlin Wall, was home to the border fence between East and West German. He talks about all his journeys, near and far…

Episode 029: Markus Stitz / Bikepacking The World

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Markus Stitz is a German-born, Edinburgh-based cyclist, writer and filmmaker. In 2015 he set off to cycle the world on a single-speed bicycle, travelling 34,000km through 26 countries. Since his return to the UK, he has been involved in a series of Scottish-based projects promoting both on- and off-road riding. However, in the autumn of 2020 he returned to his roots and embarked upon a 700km cycle along the strip of land that, until the fall of the Berlin Wall, was home to the border fence between East and West German. He talks about all his journeys, near and far…

Cycling Flanders: Limburg, Knooppunts And The UCI World Championships 2021

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In the summer of 2015 as I cycled from Tarifa to Nordkapp (and as subsequently recounted in the book Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie) there is one evening that stands out as being almost perfect. It was the day I cycled through the fruit orchards of Limburg in Belgium. The sun was out, the terrain not too challenging and the countryside around me a delight. Such was my mood that I treated myself to a rather nice B&B that evening in the town of Borgloon.

Cycling Germany: The Mosel / Langeoog

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In for a pfennig, in for a deutschmark… That joke no longer works obviously but after having just posted about Lithuania based upon a press release that arrived in my inbox earlier, here’s part of another one that has also just arrived. The German Tourist Office is trying to encourage us to #DiscoverGermanyFromHome and they have suggested a few ways of doing so. I have picked out the two that mention cycling; if you’d like to browse the full list, visit the webpage of Germany.Travel. I’ve also replaced the supplied video with one that I made when I visited the Mosel back in 2019.