Welcome to British Summer Time (or, indeed, Yorkshire Summer Time…) I never tire of watching this video: I made it as I cycled along this main road in the Dutch town of Vaals: I was close to the German border at the time, just a few kilometres from […]
As 2017 draws to a close I take a few moments to look back over the 150 posts from the past 12 months on CyclingEurope.org. It started in reflective mood, looking forward to the publication of Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie in May. Here I […]
I did promise to write one of the reviews after each country (here’s the one about Spain) but I am only now sitting down to write the review about cycling in France. As before, it may make more sense if you go back and read the post I […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Yesterday I made clear my (self-inflicted) frustration at not being back on a campsite but couped up in a small hotel room in Aachen. As I sit here by the banks of the Rhine at tonight’s campsite just […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. If an antidote had been required for yesterday’s humdrum, wet, cold, uninspiring, boring, gloomy [OK we get the idea; please move on…] cycle to Palencia from Benavente (if you dare, read cycling day 13), then the last 24 […]
Being interviewed in almost all situations (I’m excludingย being interviewed by the police here which I imagine is not a particularly pleasant experience) does, despite the often stressful nature of such encounters (job interview, other people listening…) have one very nice aspect. In life we don’t often have the […]
Under two weeks now until departure and I’m finally beginning to piece things together in a serious way. The flight is purchased and the Spanish course booked but you already know that as you have read this, no? Yesterday I spent the day in Leeds in search of […]
“Words and verse about the race” sums up this half hour programme called ‘Fear and Loathing In Harrogate‘ that was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 earlier this week. Recorded in, well, Harrogate on the day that the Tour de France passed through the town, it’s well worth thirty […]
Danny MacAskill’s latest epic production – watchย it here on YouTube – has got me thinking about using more video on this website. It wasn’t so much the video itself (which is just sublime) as the ‘making of’ documentary that I stumbled upon last night while looking for the […]
Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Not much cycling in this post, quite a bit about architecture but as I have never claimed to be an expert when it comes to writing about the former, I see no reason to hold back when it comes to waffling on about the latter. […]
I didn’t know what was in store for me when I left the campsite in Scourie. I was glad to be leaving; despite being listed in the Cool Camping Scotland book that I had bought prior to the trip, the only cool aspect of the place (and here […]
Not too much cycling today but a great day of travelling on many levels. I left you last night in the buffet car of the sleeper train to Inverness, or rather Perth. I didn’t get murdered by nine people who I have crossed swords with during my life, […]
During my European cycling exploits I have often cycled into towns and cities where there is a bike hire system up and running. Increasingly it’s not just the major cities that have them,ย the smaller cities and towns are jumping in and offering their own bike hire services. However, […]
My short speaking tour of Yorkshire ended last night here in Ripon. Appearing on the radio and making presentations is far more tiring that riding a bicycle long distances. Thanks to Russell of Russell’s Bike Shed, the people at Amici and Bici and Iain Pearce in Sheffield, to […]
Here is Russell of Russell’s Cycle Shed in Sheffield. You’ll normally find him in his workshop (and he’s about to move into new premises at Sheffield train station) but tonight to was at the cycling cafรฉ called Amici and Bici hosting my talk. The crowd was friendly and […]
Coming To A Radio Station / Cafรฉ / Pub / Bike Shop / Cathedral Near You! Well, if you live in Yorkshire… Later this week I’ll be talking a short break from putting together the final chapters of Along The Med on a Bike Called Reggie (due out […]
By guest blogger Tom Nelson With the National Road Race cycling route now confirmed and the weather picking up into longer, brighter spring days itโs time to get on your bike and explore the beauty of Britain. The plethora of exciting cycle routes in this relatively small country […]
From the BBC’s ‘week in pictures‘: “Pet Horstmann, who runs the Fahrradhof bike shop in Altlandsberg, eastern Germany, looks out of his house decorated with more than 200 old bikes.” Here’s another shot of the same house from Panoramio:
I’ve just been reading some of the online reaction to the edition of Top Gear that was aired on Sunday evening and which contained a piece about creating a public information film with the aim of making cycling safer. Oh dear… It doesn’t seem to have gone down […]
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 […]
They used to make a really cool little video showing a fly-through of the route of the Tour de France, but strangely, for the 100th Tour de France they have reverted to simplicity… Shame. My route this summer will pass over the route of the Tour de France […]
The recent death of actor & comedian Paul Shane brought a few mentions of this film into the press. It was made in 1972 for BBC Television, written by Alan Bennett & centred around a cycling trip during Edwardian times by a group of cyclists from my own […]
There does seem to be quite an overlap between my route from east to west along the Eurovelo 8 & some of the stages of this year’s Giro d’Italia which kicks off tomorrow. There is a good breakdown of each of the stages on the BBC website and […]
I’ll try and emulate some of these stunning photographs – see the full set on the BBC website – on my upcoming travels to France, Slovakia & then during this summer’s cycle along the Mediterranean coast. Amazing… More information on the World Photography Organisation website.
You did it! Just after midnight last night I sent ยฃ202 to BBC Children In Need thanks to all the people who downloaded the Kindle version of ‘Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie‘ in the first two weeks of November. Thanks if you were one of them. […]
Dear friends, Welcome to November! You’ve all be amazingly supportive over the last fifteen months since ‘Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie‘ was first published back in August 2011. A budding author could not have asked for more help, advice & encouragement. The last week […]
“Colin Murray presents a new series on cycling, with the latest news and interviews from the sport as well as a look at cycling leisure and lifestyle.” Here’s the iPlayer link…
Yesterday I did something that I probably haven’t done in the last ten years; I spent my day offline; no mobile phone, no computer, no iPad, no Twitter, no Facebook, no Instagram, no blogging, no Internet searching… Nothing! Now, fear not; I didn’t do this because I think […]
From BBC World News: “A 72-year-old Latvian, Leontis Romanovskis, chose an unusual mode of transport to visit the Olympic host city – a bicycle.ย He claims to have covered around 27,000 miles cycling across Europe over the past eight years, in an effort to test his fitness after fighting […]
A couple of days ago, I discovered that I had an Olympic golden ticket. Kind of. It wasn’t the golden ticket that the royals or David Cameron seem to have which would allow me entry into any Olympic event of my choosing ย but it was on the first […]
A couple of weeks ago I posted the BBC Olympic Trailer; sleek, stylish, arty… It’s not quite like that in some places around the World as these three television trailers for the London Olympics demonstrate. They all have their charms however, kicking off with NBC’s Hollywood take on […]
I had seen that Michael Palin was going to be in town a few weeks ago; Waterstones in Broad Street had cranked up the publicity machine and it had done the trick as I, along with many others were in the queue by the time the great man […]
I think I prefer this shorter version than the longer one aired last night; it packs more of a punch!
So, the Olympic flame has arrived. And so, it seems, have the sceptics. Or at least they have crawled from out of their hiding places to appear in the columns of newspapers, on our TV screens & through our radios, on Twitter, Facebook and every other possible orifice […]
I do like this music… I hope they use it for the Olympics when they start in July.
Well, actually it was Huddersfield Town 2, Yeovil 0. But fear not; I’m not about to start giving a classified check of the League 1 results every Sunday morning, ย As mentioned a few posts ago, my brother (and several hundred other people) cycled from Yeovil to Huddersfield in […]
On the BBC’s Countryfile yesterday afternoon, the weatherman shown here explained how April 2012 had been very wet indeed. He used this graph to explain that in southern England since January 2010, there hadย only been three months that had received above average levels of rainfall. Of those, August […]
Earlier today I made my way back down south after having spent the weekend in Yorkshire. Arriving by train in the capital I passed through Kings Cross station. I used to be a frequent visitor to Kings Cross when I worked in London about twenty years ago but […]
I suppose it’s the time of year that long-distance cyclists worth their salt come out of relative hibernation and start setting off on great adventures. Apart from me… And that’s a fact that makes me a bit jealous of the three people who I am about to mention […]
I finally received an email from the London 2012 Olympics this week about whether or not I had been successful in my application to be a ‘Games Maker’ (or volunteer). It was good news; “Congratulations! Following your interview to be a London 2012 Games Maker, we are delighted […]
The above expression was coined of course by The Inbetweeners to great comic effect but what follows is at the other end of the spectrum of mirth.ย A Bristol bus driver has been sentenced to 17 months in prison afer using his bus as a weapon to knock a […]
That was fun. It’s a good job that time in the real world, outside the studios of radio stations, doesn’t go by as quickly as it does inside those little sound-proofed rooms. We’d all be in our graves before we were out of the maternity ward. Fifteen minutes […]
Well, The Bike Show is available online so compared to Reggie’s five seconds of fame last Friday on BBC South Today, my thirty minutes on Monday evening surely compares quite well, no? Three ways to listen; if you live in central London the show is broadcast on 104.4FM, […]
Over the last few days, I have been crawling out of bed in the morning like a groom after his stag night. Not that I’ve been drinking the night before. Far from it. It has simply been the knowledge that Friday was the final day of term and […]
I first wrote something about this documentary – On Hannibal’s Trail – back in October 2010 when it was shown on the BBC HD channel. At the time, Middle-Age Cyclist Darrell (that’s his website by the way, not me being presumptuous) commented as follows; It is a great […]
I am in good company. Click here to find out why.
Listen to my BBC interview about the cycle and the book via Audio Boo. Read the article that appeared in the Reading Chronicle. Watch a 25 minute film that combines the BBC interview with pictures and videos from the cycle. Read about my forray into the media world. […]
My interview with BBC Radio Berkshire which will, unfortunately, disappear from the BBC iPlayer at the end of August, can still be listened to via Audio Boo. I have split the interview into seven parts and here are the links; Good Vibrations – Part 1 Good Vibrations – […]
The strangest thing about being interviewed live on BBC Radio Berkshire yesterday was not actually the interview itself; it was sitting in my living room about three hours before the interview listening to me being named and discussed by the presenter of the programme, Suzanne Courtney (Pop Idol […]
I have a category on this website that is called ‘Nothing to do with cycling’. I use it for all those bits and pieces that I put on here that are just that. The riots for example. Here is another one; property ‘to let’ or ‘for sale’ signs. […]
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 […]
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 […]
…has mentioned me! ๐ Not just in isolation, but in the same breath as the esteemedย @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 .
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 may be an idea… unless you make me a better offer ๐
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 […]
This is a fascinating photograph – click on picture and explore… Wow!
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,ย commuters-with-a-conscience, who […]
My commute was so much better than this guy’s… As was my commute back home this evening. Wonderful day. Just a bit chilly.
Mark Easton’s blog
Whenย I was a student at York University back in the late 1990s, a series of revolutions spread down through eastern Europe. Poland had been rumbling for years but in 1989 successive regimes crumbled. It was an exciting period of recent history but many students in York had their […]
Following my appearance on Radio 5 Live this morning and discussion with Shelaghย Fogarty (@Foggyon5), author and ex-BBC correspondentย Misha Glenyย (@MishaGlenny) responded to a Tweet that I had written about the goings-on in Ambridgeย (The Archers that is) and it was “re-Tweeted” by Linda Grant (@lindasgrant) who is a Booker short-listed […]
The debate this morning on the Radio 5 Live phone in is whether “motorists are the country’s cash cow”. I texted in saying that I cycle from Reading to Henley every day and that people are far too ready to trot out the adage that “I can’t live […]
…just a pity that WordPress can’t cope with non-YouTube videos being embedded on the site! Watch it here instead. Bah humbug. Apparently you can if you pay for a $60 “video upgrade”…
Labour MP Paul Flynn, a member of the Commons public administration committee… “The blogosphere is not an area that is open to sensible debate; it is dominated by the obsessed and the fanatical…” He was talking about government proposalsย to allow debate in Parliament of online petitions. He’s probably […]
My pictures of the Kennet & Avon Canal in Reading and The Oracle, posted here two days ago and yesterday respectivelyย have made it to the BBC Website! Iย replied to a Tweet from BBC Berkshire earlier this morning while still in bed while wondering if my water would ever […]
The following is from the BBC News website. It’s a pity that the guy concerned hasn’t put his videos on YouTube for us to watch although I would imagine if he did it might prejudice the chance of a prosecution which is what he is hoping for. I […]
If it had been any ordinary Friday, I would have called in sick. The weather, to a certain extent, beat my efforts to cycle to work last week. Reggie is currently locked up in the MFLย office at Gillotts, stranded by the ice on the roads; he cycled valiantly […]
It puts life’s problems into context…
Shocking news from NewsBiscuit.com; Education Secretary Michael Gove today used his speech at the Conservative Party conference to outline radical plans to scrap modern foreign languages as part of the National Curriculum. Under new proposals children will instead be taught to speak slowly and loudly, as if the […]
I caught the first five minutes or so of this programme last night on BBC HD… I was falling asleep at the time, despite the fact that the programme started at only 9.30pm! I blame the red wine that I had consumed in the afternoon with Johnny (see […]
I have many work-related things on my mind this week, despite it being half term; I have developed a complete lack of ability to switch off my school thoughts when I am on holiday. This isn’t helped by the fact that most of the people that I know […]
I’m at risk of soon appearing inside the covers of Heat magazine! Not only have I been invited to Decathlon’s VIP opening on Wednesday and have a potential visit to Siena on the cards to talk about my cycling adventure, I now have in my possession a ticket […]
I watched with amazement this week the tunneling efforts of the Swiss (as well as the Chileans of course) who have managed to bore their way through 37 kilometres of Alpine rock under the St Gotthard Pass. That puts my efforts to cycle over the top into perspective! […]
My uncle David was in touchย last week; he sent me a cheque to add to the donations for the BBC Wildlife Fund, the charity that I was supporting when I cycled along the Eurovelo 5. I’ve added it to the Just Giving site and it brings the total […]
At least something is glad to be returning to Benevento…. From the BBC News website ** Library returns looted manuscript ** A 12th Century manuscript which was housed in the British Library is to be returned to Italy because it was looted during the Second World War. < […]
Thanks to a couple of recent donations, my target has now been passed! To everyone who has donated a big thank-you and if you haven’t but are planning on doing so please don’t hold back. It means a lot to me personally that all my effort is helping […]
When I look at the map, Pisa sits in a lowland area with lots of blue lines indicating both natural and man-made waterways. The tower is / was sinking into the swamp / bog upon which Pisa is built. I can only hope that this means that as […]
Probably asking too much but I can dream… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/uk-england-berkshire-10755178?SThisEM
Today is Sunday 18th July 2010. The day has come for me to set off on my own road to Rome and beyond. Below is the first post written on this blog back in summer 2008; The ancient route from Canterbury to Rome, followed by archbishops travelling to […]
The brackets are required as I don’t know whether this will be an explanation (“How Twitter Works”) or a question (“How Does Twitter Work?”). I am, as you are aware, on Twitter. Over there on the left. My most recent post being about Dierdre Barlow (ha! I spelt […]
I’ve decided that, as an extra motivation to keep cycling (especially when I get to The Alps!) that it makes sense for my efforts to help support a charity. Over the last month I have been avidly watching Springwatch on the TV and then caught the BBC “Wild […]
Not according to BBC Radio 5 Live; the presenter ofย the early news programmeย welcomed the nationย this morning with the following words; Good morning, it’s 5 o’clockย onย Friday 18th July and welcome to Morning Reports… I didn’t sleep well last night so I knew for sure she was wrong and I […]
This cycling thing is catching on…. The following from the BBC website; Adventurers James Cracknell and Ben Fogle are to tackle a 2,745-mile bike race for their next TV challenge. The Tour Divide – which stretches from Canada to Mexico – is the world’s longest off-road race. Cracknell […]
Click on the pic! This is from the same part of the BBC website and I like how the blog post statistic is actually a number you can visualise…
I just came across these webpages which have been archived on the BBC website.ย They are about Jane Tomlinson and how she cycled from Rome to Leeds in May 2004. Here is an extract about Jane Tomlinson from Wikipedia; Jane Emily Goward was born in Wakefield in Yorkshire in […]
Some frightening moments in the 2nd of Mark Beaumont’s documentaries. I have only just finished watching this episode as 10.30pm on a Tuesday night is just far too late for a school teacher! On leaving Mexico and entering Guatemala, Mark was joined by a cameraman from the BBC. […]
Nearly there. Just one more day until the second biggest reason to be a teacher starts; the Easter holidays. I know that sounds a bit cynical so apologies to those educational purists who want us all to be teachers because it is our “calling”, but we all have […]
There is a certain irony that my previous post – Banned at Last! – appears to be having some problems getting published on this site. It doesn’t appear unless you are logged in, which means that only I can see it! Very strange. Let’s hope the censors at […]
Click on the picture to watch the first episode of Mark Beaumont’s American cycle. From the BBC i-Player site: Mark Beaumont, who broke the record for pedalling around the world is back on the road. This time the adventure promises to be more exhilarating and agonising – Mark’s […]
He might have a better chance of not falling off his bilke if he weren’t holding a camera at the same time but I suppose that is what you have to do for the sake of gripping television… Looking forward to Mark Beaumont’s documentary starting on Tuesday 23rd […]
Click on the image to see the trailer to Mark Beaumont’s new three-part series about his cycle from Alaska to Argentina via two very big mountains; Mount McKinley in North America and Mount Aconcagua in South America (no, I’d never heard of that one either). Some stunning images […]
This is a comical tale from the late 1930s, but the more you think about it, the more sensible it is. As the following article from the BBC websiteย explains, in the days before satellites, it was actually not a bad idea: Summer 1937. What could be more fitting […]
Quoted from theย BBC website: Mark Beaumont, the record-breaking cyclist, today had a final spin on the bike that he pedaledย 13,000 miles down the Americas. Mark, 27, from Perthshire, was back on the bike outside the BBC Scotland headquarters, where the finishing touches are being added to a three-part […]
He made it! Read Mark Beaumont’s valedictory message by clicking here.
I woke up this morning to find that someone from Ushuaiaย had visited the blog. This mythical place (the French even have an ecologicalย television programme named after the town) is of course the destination of Mark Beaumont on his top to bottom trek of the Americas. The information above […]
I mentioned in a post earlier today that, quite a few months ago, Mark Beaumont had been in touch and he had passed on some advice about tents. I remember telling him at the time that I had just finished reading his book about cycling around the world […]
My free transfer from Blogger (sponsored by Google) to WordPress seems to have gone well and I haven’t lost my readership. At least I think I haven’t; the statistics supplied by WordPressย for the first week are in the picture and are at least comparable with my latter days […]
