My home town of Reading is only thirty minutes or so from central London on the train and over the next couple of months, I will be very grateful for that small quirk of geography as I will be up in the capital quite a bit. First off […]
“This book is an entertaining read not just for serious cyclists or occasional cyclists (I am in the latter category) but also those who travel – using the word in its old-fashioned sense – and will recognise many of the difficulties but also joys that the author came […]
…of 2011. There will be much more in 2012 no doubt. We shall see. In the meantime, an end of year portrait of the bike that I call Reggie and a few moments to think about the year ahead. I’ve been on Twitter tonight and lots of people […]
I always find these lists fascinating. It’s the mathematician in me I think. Others may find them less riveting so if that’s you, you may like to move on… They cover what is now, most of 2011 (only around 40 hours to go). The top page is fairly […]
Another 5* review for Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie on Amazon.co.uk; “I really enjoyed the relaxed affable style of this author, making his points eloquently without ever being stuffy or superior. Sykes has an endearing almost vulnerable quality which makes his observations very witty; on […]
The new film will be called The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey and the first trailer has just been released. These two shots from that trailer remind me of my cycle to Berceto, high in the Italian Apennine mountains where I stayed at an idyllic camp-site near the […]
Dear Mr Sykes – I’m too full of respect to refer to you as Andrew – I’ve just completed reading your “Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie” and thoroughly enjoyed it, well done, not just for completing the journey, but also the book. You are […]
The ‘site stats’ section of the administrative pages of this website can be a fascinating place to spend a few moments. Alas, only for me… I noticed yesterday that someone had arrived here after having searched the term ‘9781849142137 synopsis’. That number is the ISBN for Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe […]
It’s been a funny old day. I wandered into Reading just before lunch with a simple plan; check whether Good Vibrations has yet arrived on the shelves of Waterstones in Reading (answer: not yet, but I did leave it displayed on the customer in-store computer for all to see) […]
The Guardian have Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie on offer; only £7.99 with free postage & packaging to anywhere in the UK!
In these days of email, Facebook, Twitter, online bank statements, it is a rare event that anything arrives in your physical letterbox that is remotely exciting. But today, I got something that was! Amongst the erroneous bank statements (addressed to a former lodger), union rants & home insurance […]
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about how the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) had revamped its websites – http://www.ecf.com, the Eurovelo ‘planning’ website http://www.eurovelo.org & http://www.eurovelo.com, aimed at punters like you and me. Now this latter website has yet to get off the ground (I remain hopeful), […]
Just noticed that there is another great review on Amazon for Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie, this time from a cycle shop in Launceton, Cornwall; “A truly inspirational read. I spend all day, everyday working on bikes similar to Reggie, and yearn to go […]
“I bought Good Vibrations for myself for Xmas but alas have started to read it already and it is now responsible for too many late nights reading when I should be going to sleep. It’s hilarious and a great read.” Sue
Most of the Kindle sales of Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie have so far been within the UK – 90% of them. The remaining 10% is made up mainly from sales via the Amazon.com site. These could be in North America or, quite frankly, […]
A few weeks ago, I noticed that a certain @Chris_Boarland had started following me on Twitter. It’s often intriguing looking at who follows who on Twitter. As I type I have 417 followers (that’s probably enough for a decent sect!)… but a fair number of those are just ‘people’ trying […]
Another busy day on the shameless marketing treadmill of life. Waterstones in Broad Street Reading now have a copy of Good Vibrations in the shop. Great! Well, perhaps. It’s there because I delivered it this afternoon for them to look at. If you remember, I’ve already submitted a copy […]
This little picture makes me so happy… Good Vibrations is in stock at Amazon! No longer a message that says that any prospective reader needs to wait ‘4 – 6 weeks’. There is only one thing that would make me happier and that is if Good Vibrations: Crossing […]
This is the second attempt at writing this post today. The first time, on hitting the ‘publish’ button, it disappeared into the ether of cyberspace never to be seen again. Fingers crossed. Good Vibrations has an exciting new spine! When I originally ‘built’ the cover of the book […]
Fear not; my marketing campaign for Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie continues a pace. It is my current mission to get the book onto the shelves of a bookshop. So far I have proof that Good Vibrations has made it as far as Iain Harper’s […]
Iain Harper wins the prize for being the first person to send me a picture of their new copy of Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie. Here it is in good company alongside Iain’s collection of cycling-related literature. Do you think he has placed Mountain High […]
Things happen quickly in the publishing world! Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie is now available to buy in paperback from Waterstones and from Amazon (nearly!). Breaking Breaking News: And WHSmith!!
If you get a mention in the acknowledgements section of Good Vibrations (Chris, Sally, Claus, Simone, Paul, Iain, Jim, Marcello, Basil & Liz, Alain and Mark), your complimentary copy of the book is about to start its journey to your letter box. Please let me know when it arrives. […]
It is, of course my old colleague Basil. How you must have chuckled at the thought of a random Italian finding the poster for Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie… He’ll soon be receiving his complimentary paperback copy of the book as it is now […]
Imagine how good they would look on the black shelves of Waterstones…
‘bikes4two’ has written some nice comments about the book on the CTC forum called ‘Eurovelo 5 information‘; Hi Andrew, Just bought the e-book as I’m in the early stages of planning a trip for me and Mrs bikes4two on our tandem. I’m in trouble already in that I […]
How does it look next to Bill, William, Peter and the rest? My typeface is slightly smaller than most of the others and the pages thinner… UPDATE: I have modified the text size which makes it easier on the eye and also a slightly fatter book on the […]
Were you wondering what the UK’s top selling cycling eBook published in the last three months is? Click here to find out…
It’s the news you have been waiting for; Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie is now available as a ‘traditional’ paperback book! Follow this link to order a copy online and enjoy the 5*-rated book that scores of people have been reading as an eBook […]
Following on from yesterday’s post regarding Yvette’s comment on the Amazon.com site that she would have liked some pictures to look at in the book, they are now there! Talk about responding to the wishes of your readers 🙂 For those of you who have already purchased the book, fear […]
I may have ten very positive reviews on Amazon.co.uk, but my Amazon.com readers have so far been silent. Until now. My first .com review has come courtesy of Yvette Lian who lives in Brisbane, Australia. She’s given the book a 4* rating and starts off as follows; Last […]
Another 5-star rating on Amazon; “A riveting tale for an armchair traveller: I’m not the cyclist of the family but nevertheless I could appreciate the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ of Andrew’s journey from Reading to Brindisi. It was written in such a way that I couldn’t wait to read the […]
So says the latest five-star review on Amazon; “For someone who has never, I repeat never, ridden a bicycle, I thought this book was brilliant, it almost made me wish I had learnt to ride.”
Maintenant disponible sur Amazon.fr ! Soyez la premième personne à écrire un commentaire 🙂
…One can positively taste, smell, hear and touch [Andrew’s] journey in his book ‘Good Vibrations’… Well done Andrew. If this book doesn’t inspire the reader to jump on their bike and go….nothing will. It did me… ! (Mary Ann Coupland) Read the full review, and others at Amazon.co.uk.
Good Vibrations’ highest ranking so far. Buy now while stocks last… Click here 🙂
This is perhaps a post I should not write. When my father had finished reading Good Vibrations, his first comment was that there were quite a few typos. I was a slightly put out by his comment. I had re-read the manuscript of my comical tale very carefully to […]
It exists! Here is a screen shot. The picture is very brooding sepia 1930s movie idol, no? What do you mean ‘no’!? Click it to explore…
Well, to the Spanish Costas where the listeners of Talk Radio Europe are to be found. The interview was quite short but I was able to give a short summary of my journey along the Eurovelo 5 and then plug the book at the end (I’m learning!). The video […]
Lee from the Czech Republic has read and reviewed Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie on Amazon. Here is what he has to say; All I can say this is a wonderful book to read and you really sense you are sharing the journey from Reading […]
An interesting list of recommended travel writing from the Guardian. Perhaps Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie will make an appearance next year…?
The Henley Standard writes: A teacher has had a book of his tales of cycling across Europe published. Mr Sykes, who teaches French at Gillotts School in Henley, rode 2,000 miles from his home town of Reading to Brindisi in the south of Italy last summer. Now he […]
And number 23 in the ‘Travelogue’ list! Could I make number the number 1 spot? It’s up to you! Click here (or here in North America).
Hi Andrew, I’m the artist that wrote to you about taking our 4 yr old on the EV5 next summer. First of all…I want to read your book, but Amazon says it’s not available to yankees! Good news: it is! You need to go to the Amazon site […]
…in Germany, with a few caveats. My German isn’t great (as you will know if you have read the account of my cycle across German-speaking Switzerland), but it looks as though Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie is the top-selling English language cycling e-book in […]
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. […]
Now go on and download the book itself by clicking here! Remember that you don’t have to have a Kindle to read a Kindle book downloaded from Amazon; you can read it on your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android or Windows 7 phone. More information on how to […]
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 – […]
I have spent too much time this summer sitting at my computer either writing the book or marketing it. It was time to get back on Reggie and explore so we have cycled the well-trodden path along the canal in the direction of Newbury. Very tempted to keep […]
Click here, now!
Buy now while stocks last… Click here now!
Here it is. Not quite the double page splash I might have dreamt about but hey! it’s better than nothing 🙂 Clicking on the picture should make it much bigger and you will be able to read what has been written. You probably won’t need to do that […]
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 […]
Alf Grant has posted the following on Amazon; I often wandered what on earth those Beach Boys were on about with those cheerful lyrics, but with this new book Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie by Andrew P. Sykes, I finally understand! Packed full of […]
I love this! Mark Beaumont, cycling hero & inspiration to all is next to me in the Kindle ‘Cycling’ list; he is just one place above Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie with his book The Man Who Cycled The World. He has a few […]
Well, kind of. More of a poster tour really which consisted of me cycling around the bicycle shops of Reading asking them if they could possibly put up the poster in the window. But they all did, so a big thank-you to A.W. Cycles (Reggie’s spiritual home of […]
It started with me having a good moan about the estate agents signs outside the flats where I live and has ended with me booked onto a radio show to talk about the book I have written! And the very same book is now available for others to […]
New title for the book; what do you think? The ‘vibrations’ makes reference to cycling, obviously but more specifically the numerous cobbles that Reggie and I encountered en route to Brindisi. It’s catchy, implies something not too serious which again matches what is between the covers. And better […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
…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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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… […]
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 […]
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!
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
