I was interviewed earlier this week by Keri Jones for the Great Destinations Radio Show (the interview will be broadcast sometime in June and also available as a podcast). One of Keri’s questions was along the line of “which section of your [Spain to Norway] route would make for […]
Is it possible? I cycled eight countries in nearly four months back in 2015 but five in one day? According to Karsten Koehler, yes it was and in April 2016 he set about proving his suspicion by heading to Belgium with his bike… Here he explains his motivation: I […]
Some of you may remember that back in 2013 as I cycled from southern Greece to southern Portugal and shortly after arriving in France, I deviated slightly to the north north to meet a friend on a campsite in a small town called Villes-sur-Auzon. The reason? This is what […]
It was August 28th 2013 when I completed my cycle from southern Greece to southern Portugal. The full story here or the even fuller story here… And here are a few photographic memories. Full marks to anyone who can identify where they were taken; Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, […]
A memorable final day of hiking; magnificent views of the Matterhorn after our final climb (and descent by train) of the trip… …preceded by an impromptu meeting with Theresa May, the new prime minister, in the morning. Here she is chatting to the senior walker of our […]
By Mark Shaw The Vélodyssée isn’t just long…it’s so long it stretches all the way to Devon! In fact, this incredible Atlantic coats cycling route extends for a full 1,245km, taking in glorious regions like Brittany, Pays de la Loire, Poitiou-Charentes and Aquitaine along the way. What’s more, with […]
It got really tough…
Don’t miss the video below the photographs!
It got tough. Snow, ice, steep mountains but ultimately good fun…
The weather has turned somewhat – I’m typing from the shelter of my tent with rain thundering down outside – but some spectacular hiking in France and Switzerland. Enjoy the photographs:
A quick, albeit temporary, escape from BREXIT Britain. Tomorrow I drive down to the Alps for two weeks of walking from Chamonix to Zermatt along the haute route… Watch this space.
I was fortunate to cycle through Nice in August 2013 after having spent six weeks in the city during early 2000. A real tragedy in a beautiful city. When you watch the news today, don’t forget what it normally looks like. And make sure you visit one day.
This Thursday, 14th July 2016, the Tour de France once again points its riders in the direction of the summit of Mont Ventoux in the south of France. As I was cycling from Cape Sounio in southern Greece to Cape St. Vincent in southern Portugal in the hot […]
I’ve recently republished some of the posts I wrote during some of the cycles of the past few years. I was wondering if there had been a few days when I had been cycling in each of my five ‘cycling years’. Alas the answer is ‘no’… …but I find […]
The second exclusive extract from the upcoming book, The 35 Degrees: Tarifa to Nordkapp on a Bike Called Reggie which will hit the shelves later this year. As with the previous extract – the fifth degree – what you read below is, of course, subject to change but it hopefully gives […]
A few weeks ago I was contacted by Catherine and Jim who live in France. They invited me to visit their place in the Limousin but, alas, circumstances are not going to allow me to take them up on their offer. However, I did say that I would […]
A few weeks ago I received an invitation from Decathlon to attend the annual Decathlon Innovation Awards in Lille, France. Great! Well, in the end I had to withdraw as I had the slight matter of a job interview to attend last Friday… However, this is the product […]
Between the nights of April 8th (Tarifa) and July 28th (Nordkapp), I was on the road for 111 days; 96 cycling days and 15 rest days. I stayed in at least 66 campsites for one or occasionally two nights. If you remember, I tried to post a picture via […]
Finally, here it is; the complete list of posts from this summer’s cycle from Tarifa to Nordkapp. In the reorganised framework of CyclingEurope.org you can find it under the ‘European Routes’ menu (Eurovelo 1) above and the listings for the individual countries can also be found in the […]
I thought this would be a complicated part of the journey home from Nordkapp, and so it is proving to be. It is only 11am but I am already on Danish train number 3… This is how it has so far panned out: Arrived in Hirtshal on the […]
I can’t believe it’s a year since I was sitting outside my parents’ house in the ‘Col de Greetland’ in Yorkshire awaiting the riders on stage 2 of the Tour de France. This weekend the 2015 race kicks off in Utrecht of course and SiS and Trek Factory […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Data is still an issue so just one picture tonight but I will update with others later in the week once my 10gb monthly allowance is replenished, hopefully on Wednesday. Let’s start back at midnight last night. Earlier […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. First up today was a short wander around this reconstructed Bronze Age village just next to where I had camped. It compared quite well to my tent accommodation… Then breakfast at the local supermarket where I bumped into […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. I usually write these updates while I’m sitting next to the tent. Tonight I’ve found somewhere rather more beautiful and even more peaceful… I’ll be honest. I’ve now returned to the campsite – only a couple of […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. I have found an idyllic place to camp tonight on the eastern side of the island of Falster on the shore of the Baltic Sea. This is the beach, just metres from my tent: How I managed to […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. When I went to the reception of the campsite in Borgdorf-Seedorf this morning to pay my bill, I owed 4 cents on top of the deposit of €10 that I had paid for the card that recorded how […]
My day has been spent in a German school in the suburbs of Hamburg talking about my travels. Nice students, nice teachers! Here are some of them: In the meantime, Reggie was in for repairs. It was always part of the plan to get the bike serviced […]
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. So, where were we? Ah yes; in a very wintery Munster getting hailed upon… On the terrace of the bar where I wrote up the report for cycling day 46 yesterday afternoon I was at least protected from […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Let’s start with the positive: I’ve arrived in Münster, the sun is shining sporadically and, on the whole, the physical cycling conditions today were good. For most of the time I was able to travel along dedicated […]
Press release: 5 COUNTRIES – 10 DAYS – 1315 KILOMETRES – £3600 RAISED FOR CHARITY Earlier this year we told you about a group of young men from Wirral who were planning to undertake an epic and unsupported bike ride from London to Berlin to raise funds […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. The collegiate atmosphere of the five cycling tourists on the one small patch of ground at the campsite south of Maastricht continued this morning as we all packed away our things are readied ourselves to head off in […]
By James Moore Taking place between the 1st and 3rd of May, the Tour de Yorkshire was a staggering success, the utterly new and refreshing racing event drawing one and a half million people as spectators whilst simultaneously showcasing the county to countless viewers hailing from 150 countries […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Tonight has been chuffing cold! I have now crawled into the tent at the campsite a few kilometres south of Maastricht wearing four upper layers of clothing, a beanie on my head and a Buff around my neck. […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Kevin Mayne and his wife Cheryl have been great hosts. Not only did Kevin make the effort to come and ‘collect’ me on Friday afternoon after I cycled over the border into Belgium from France but they wined […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. A little delayed, here’s the write up… I set out all my bits and pieces of paper on the an outside table of a café in central Maubeuge to sort out what could to be sent back to […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. It was a late finish today – back in Maubeuge! – so I’ll write the prose tomorrow or later tonight. In the meantime, enjoy the pictures… I’m back! It’s now Friday morning and I’m sitting outside the Café […]
2010: 2015:
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Don’t worry; until earlier this afternoon I’d never head of Seraucourt-le-Grand myself. It’s not too far from Saint-Quentin (and don’t worry, even French teachers like me pronounce it that way as well!) More of my destination in a […]
Colour where needed…
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. This morning it was my fourth attempt to navigate my way across the Bois de Boulogne and the fourth time I lost my way. The campsite was on the other side of the urban park – an overgrown […]
So nice to see not just a few but lots of familiar faces in Paris; colleagues and students from my old school, Gillotts, in Henley-on-Thames. It was honestly bizarre to be accompanying a group of children but ultimately having no responsibility for them whatsoever. That said, it has […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Enjoy the teaser? Thanks for coming back to read the text! (It’s not half as good…) If I have learnt one thing this week it is how to spell ‘Fontainebleau’ correctly. Ask me a few days ago and […]
I wish all the cities I cycle through had such an identifiable ‘centre’.
This is the route that I plan on cycling tomorrow, in reverse (well, not reversing but you know what I mean…)
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. A short cycling day – just 56 km – but it was planned that way and puts me within a normal cycling day’s ride of the centre of Paris. But back to Montargis… I’m pretty good at telling […]
In some respects it’s a dodgy campsite here in Montargis – more on that later in the day – but the view from the tent in the morning compensates somewhat:
From Clare of Mon Vélo Et Moi: “Earlier in the year I bough a French book from Chamina publishers which plots the route from Tours to Namur along the, as yet unrealised with signs, Eurovelo 3. The directions in the book weren’t great when I did Namur to […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. An average day in several ways but most obviously In that I cycled 75 km, my target average (which is currently exactly 74 km). I was out of the tent early. The fact that I didn’t know where […]
I’ve visited Orléans before – I can’t quite remember when or why – but the image I had in my mind is so different from the reality that I’m beginning to wonder if I ever actually came here at all. It’s beautiful! Clearly the focus is, unsurprisingly, on […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. One of those days where, when I set off, I really had no idea where it would end. I guessed somewhere between Blois and Orléans, the former being only 35 km from Amboise, the latter about 100 km, […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Did you follow that link? Yes? Thanks. No? Why not? If you are into your statistics you might enjoy finding out all about the quantative side of my cycling day. But hang on! Today, it doesn’t quite give […]
There was a little bit of cycling yesterday (rest day 3) – 30 km from Chateau-Renault to Couture-sur-Loir – to visit my former colleague Liz after a train journey from Tours, but much of the day was spent resting and the cycling didn’t count towards the continental crossing […]
A morning of memories (and a few changes and additions) in Tours…
As seen on Instagram:
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Most days I fight the urge to focus (quite naturally) upon the destination rather than the journey but I’m afraid yesterday and today, when I have been cycling to destinations that I know well, I have had to […]
Yesterday and today in Saumur:
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. On a day when I feel as though I have done much it’s ironic that I’ve struggled to start writing this. I first came to the Loire Valley back in 1993 to work for Eurocamp as a campsite […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. A no-nonsense bit of cycling from A to B (well, N to P I suppose…) today in an almost straight line. Quite a short cycle – just over 40 km – but that was planned after having stayed […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Ok. Before we get on with the usual business, a plea for help. I’ll say this now rather than at some point below as I suspect many of you just skip over the text and look at the […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Wind has been the theme of the day, at times quite cold but thankfully the rain petered out after a few short bursts in the morning. There ends today’s weather report. Rochefort wasn’t at all what I expected […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Back to the old fashioned method of doing this; I have no data coverage here on the Camping Municipal in Rochefort – my pitiful campsite WiFi allowance was frittered away listening to half an hour of Radio 4 […]
The good weather helped but it was a wonderfully tranquil spot, almost like a desert island…
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Today was a good day. The usual routine at the campsite this morning with one addition; I spent about 30 minutes attempting to remove all the accumulated gunk from the bike’s chain and mechanism that has developed since […]
These guys gave Reggie’s mechanism a clean in a way I could never have done. It was much appreciated! He’s been purring with delight all day… (or was it me?)
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. When I woke this morning (well, ‘woke’ is used to refer to the time of the day that people generally wake rather than the actual physical activity of stopping sleeping which happened many hours earlier), the pitter patter […]
I wish you could hear it as well…
Hopefully you can tick them all, no?
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. No video today, but I do have a sign that I came across on the short – just 10 km – ride from Arcachon to the municipal campsite at Gujan-Mestras: “Do not cross… without looking in both […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle.
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. A later than normal start to the day; I was up at the same time and packed and ready to go well before 9am but then got chatting with the other three cyclists who were camping in neighbouring […]
In the pine forest earlier today. Full story later…
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. This post is dedicated to Heltor Chasca. You were the first person I thought about this morning and have been thinking much about you on and off all day. On with the show! I spoke briefly to a […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycling. I emerged from the Europa Hotel clutching a banana and an apple (discretely removed from the breakfast buffet for use later in the day) and a replacement CatEye cycling computer. If you remember, the previous one stopped working […]
Before setting off on this little trip across the continent I wrote a piece for the website about my plans for cycling through each of the seven countries from Spain to Norway. I’m now nearly finished in Spain – just the small matter of climbing the Pyrenees tomorrow […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Today was hard work but ultimately a great day of not just cycling but simply travelling. The weather was very similar to cycling day 13 earlier this week and the arrival in Pamplona as wet as my arrival […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s ride. If you think what I’m doing is glamorous (No? You never thought that? Oh…) then think again. At least as far as today’s cycling goes. It was most definitely a Mercedes day (see Paul, Mercedes Days and Seville). […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s ride. Today I feel as though a pilgrim… Of sorts. It will come as no surprise whatsoever to hear that upon my return to the Plaza Mayor in Zamora this morning I bumped into Dirk, the German guy who […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s ride. A shortish cycle today – just 66 km – but the average has only slightly been dented, down to 74.5 km. I’ll try to keep it with 5 km of the magic 75 km over the coming weeks […]
My departute from Salamanca is a little delayed as the bike is getting a check over at a local bike shop and they weren’t able to do the job until later this morning. The extra time has allowed me to do one thing that’s been playing on my […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle This risks being quite short as I’m very tired… I really want to avoid cycling 100 km + days but I’ve just my first. There will, inevitably, be others, but with the average distance that I need to […]
Tomorrow morning, Tuesday 7th April, it’s a relatively short ride to Gibraltar and a final night of luxury in a hotel. On Wednesday it’s an even shorter ride to Tarifa and a campsite just to the west of Europe’s most southerly mainland point. Then on Thursday 9th I […]
I would happily class myself as an enthusiastic early adopter of technology, especially when it comes to cycling. Back in 2009 when I cycled along the Pennine Cycleway as a shakedown of my skills as a first time touring cyclist I blogged as I travelled having moved on from writing […]
You may remember – I’ve certainly mentioned it on here before, and probably elsewhere – that one of the principal reasons for choosing to study Spanish at the K2 language school here in Cádiz was not just its general location in the heart of the old part of […]
If you bump into Professor Henry Higgins in the near future, would you mind pointing out that currently the rain is Spain seems to be falling mainly on Andalucia and especially the corner where Cádiz is located. However, my mood has lifted somewhat from the mid-Cádiz blues that […]
Infographic courtesy of Blue Chip Holidays.
Being interviewed in almost all situations (I’m excluding 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 […]
If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve posted these country-specific commentaries about the upcoming Eurovelo 1/3 trip from southern Spain to northern Norway: Cycling in Spain Cycling in France Cycling in Belgium Cycling in Germany Cycling in Denmark Cycling in Sweden Cycling in Norway
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 […]
So finally, after Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and France… I arrive at the beginning (if that makes sense), in Spain. If you remember, my posts about cycling through each of the countries of the Eurovelo 1/3 route that I will be following later in the year were […]
If you choose to use the service discussed below, you can now save 5% by using the discount code CYCEUR15 Cycling to southern Italy in 2010 it wasn’t a problem; I set off from my flat in Reading and just started pedalling. At the end of the journey in Brindisi, […]
Here’s a press release from the European Cyclists’ Federation about Velo-city 2015: France is well underway in the preparations to welcome Velo-city 2015, the global cycling summit, from June 2-5 in Nantes. The programme is in its final stages, having been constructed from a record-breaking 740 submissions from 51 […]
By Ben Smith I’ve been on short cycle tours before but January of this year saw me leave on my first trip that would stretch into weeks and months. The route was loose and fluid but the general plan was to get the ferry to Cherbourg in northern […]
Here’s a nice little promotional video publicising Velo-City 2015 which will be taking place in Nantes, France from the 2nd – 5th June this year. I’m almost tempted to take a detour from my Eurovelo 1/3 trip to pay it a visit…
So, after Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Belgium I arrive in France on my pre-Eurovelo 1/3 quest to have put at the very least a bit of thought into the planning of the route. Only one country to go – Spain – which will be the first of […]
After pondering over whether to buy some new Ortlieb panniers (see previous post), my mind remained focussed on the general theme of ‘equipment’. I really need to set some kind of budget for getting hold of what I need to buy. After having cycled across Europe twice already, I […]
“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 […]
My journey across the continent continues… I have already posted planning notes on cycling through Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Here are my planning notes for Belgium after which only France and Spain need to be considered before I set off from Tarifa in Spain shortly after Easter. […]
