There was an interesting snippet in this week’s email from Cycling UK regarding something called The Cape Wrath Fellowship. It caught my eye as a few years ago I travelled to Cape Wrath as part of a cycle trip along the northern and western coasts of Scotland. This […]
Back in May, when the sun was beating down and the temperatures slowing rising (not sure what happened there…), I discussed some tentative plans to take Wanda (that’s the new bike, Wanda WorldTraveller of course – keep up!) for her first proper ‘adventure’ along the coast of Yorkshire. […]
Another fantastic video from Danny Macaskill (it seems a while since I saw the last one…). It’s a very cute film, or rather stars a very cute little girl who has fun in Danny’s trailer. It’s a shame that they tell us explicitly that she wasn’t actually on […]
The HandleBards are a unique cycling theatre company, who carry all of their set props and costumes on the back of their bicycles, performing charmingly chaotic Shakespeare’s plays at outdoor venues all across the UK.
In these dying days of Britain being within the European Union, a retrospective photographic look at what the freedom of movement – across a peaceful continent of countries with shared values and aspirations – means in reality… That freedom is about to be curtailed for most people within […]
By Tom Butcher I cycled the Great Glen Way earlier this summer and, apart from the infamous midges that Scotland’s famous for, it was a great ride. It took me two days in all. Due to the terrain and the nature of the route, this is a mountain […]
His name is Colin Baird and he wants to see all of Scotland by bicycle. So says the short biography of ‘Cycling Scot’ on his website, CyclingScot.co.uk. He likes cycling, he likes Scotland… and he also likes cycling books. He even has a short hall of cycling book […]
So, here is the complete film of my August quest to climb the highest peaks of England, Wales and Scotland. 26 minutes of hiking adventure…
The challenge is accomplished! Three peaks in three weeks? I didn’t need all 21 days in the end, just 18. OK, plenty of people do the national three peaks in 24 hours. On a physical level, I take my hat off to them. But then again, speed isn’t […]
There’s enough in and around Fort William – the local town to Ben Nevis – to keep the average man occupied for a day. I’m an average man and it has kept me occupied until 4pm. The campsite is at the foot of Ben Nevis itself… …and I […]
One morning last August I made an impromptu decision to head off to the Dales and hike up the three major peaks of Yorkshire: Pen-y-Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside. I did so over the two days of August 20th and 21st. I’m hoping to do something similar this August […]
It was an all-too-brief visit to Edinburgh to speak at the Edinburgh Festival of Cycling at the weekend, but a thoroughly enjoyable one. The event is now in its sixth year and spans across 18 days in June – there are still plenty of things going on until […]
Scotland is once again on my mind as, this coming weekend, I will be speaking at the Edinburgh Festival of Cycling (Friday, 6.30pm in the Pleasance Cabaret Bar – details and tickets here). The last time I visited the country was in 2014, shortly after the Commonwealth Games […]
Well, it’s a world tour if you ignore the other 194 countries… More details below or by visiting the speaking page of CyclingEurope.org. 8th June 2018: Edinburgh Cycling Festival, Scotland 23rd June 2018: The York Rally, The Knavesmire, York 13th July 2018: Vélo Retro Festival, Ulverston, Cumbria 21st […]
Here’s an interesting and important statement from Sustrans regarding the future of the National Cycle Network here in the UK. It’s worth a read: “The National Cycle Network (NCN) will undergo a major review of its walking and cycling routes to ensure they meet the highest design standards […]
The cycling-public transport mini-series of posts continues… It kicked off with my own story of how I managed to transport myself and Reggie the bike back from Nordkapp in August 2015 using an assortment of trains and ferries; that was Part One. Prompted by changes to their bicycle-carrying […]
A heavy-duty bit of research has gone into this post. I hope someone finds it useful… Not so much about the ferries this time (if you want detailed information about taking your bicycle on a ferry there’s some useful advice here), it’s just the trains. If you read […]
Following last weekend’s Cycle Touring Festival in Clitheroe, this year’s Cycling Europe speaking tour moves on to… Edinburgh in June: I’ll be speaking on June 8th at 6.30pm in the Pleasance Cabaret Bar (!)… …and tickets can be purchased via the Edinburgh Festival of Cycling website. More generally, […]
From the perspective of this seasoned continental cyclist, the best thing about a ferry is the fact that it isn’t an aeroplane. No hassle packing up the bike; just a case of riding over a ramp, finding a seat and relaxing while someone else does the hard work of […]
Well, not quite. More like losing my faith in the belief that cycling infrastructure here in the UK will ever improve. A report today from Cycling UK is headlined “Flatlining cycling numbers ‘failure by successive governments’” and it makes depressing reading. A few selected lowlights: In 1989 2% […]
Yes, single speed. Just to clarify: with one gear. It sounds a crazy idea to most but not to Markus Stitz, an Edinburgh-based bikepacker from Germany. In the autumn of 2015 (shortly after I finished my own somewhat-less-epic ride from Tarifa to Nordkapp), Markus set off to cycle […]
When posting this morning’s video about the snail on his little adventure across my back yard towards the bin (I haven’t seen him since by the way so he could have made it over the wall, across the field and into the jaws of a passing crow by […]
To save you looking, here are the results of a little piece of research that I’ve just completed. I searched for the word ‘cycling’ in each of the main manifestos: Conservative Party Manifesto 0 mentions… Labour Party Manifesto 1 mention… Liberal Democrat Manifesto 1 mention… UKIP 0 mentions… […]
Between Trondheim and the sixty-fifth line of latitude, Norway had been comparatively flat. Although my cycling route had taken me along valleys, and beside lakes and fjords, the mountains I was passing were modest in size. There was little to excite your average Munro bagger along the coast […]
This brings back a few memories of my own cycle along the north and west of Scotland in 2014… “The North Coast 500 (NC500) has been hailed as Scotland’s version of Route 66 and contains over 500 miles of stunning coastal scenery, historic landmarks and thriving communities. Recently […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Just as it was yesterday, rain has been a theme of the day, but when I ‘woke’ (for the third or fourth time) there was no pitter-patter of raindrops upon my tent. That said, dampness was still in […]
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 […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. It required a short climb out of Mérida this morning to rejoin my almost constant companion on this leg of the cycle, the N-630, but it wasn’t too many minutes into cycling along the road that I stopped […]
Sorry, but it’s time to sound like a nerd. At least I’ve warned you… Panniers. If you didn’t look away at the end of the first paragraph, you’re likely to have do so now but for the few of you left reading, panniers have been on my mind […]
An interesting coincidence last night. On the left of the photo is Alberto, my weekday lodger who is originally from near Vicenza in northern Italy. On the right is Alberto ( you can see where this is going…), my latest visiting Warm Showers touring cyclist who is from […]
At the risk of alienating potentially 45% of readers in Scotland, I am glad that the vote was to stay as part of the United Kingdom. Where else on our rocky island is there cycling like this… (all photos taken during my summer 2014 Scottish expedition)
A few months ago in late spring I was interviewed over the phone (I suppose that bit is important) by a journalist from The Weekly News. Excellent! It was a nice chat with Craig, I sent him some pictures and he proceeded to write the article and send it […]
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. […]
…courtesy of the Seaman’s Mission in Mallaig. Unless, that is, if you are vegetarian… I catch the train to Glasgow at 10:10am.
The cycling is now complete. Just a couple of miles short of 300 along the northern coast of Scotland from Dunnet Head to Tongue (via Thurso), along to Durness (and a quick non-cycling detour to Cape Wrath), south to disappointing Scourie, to the relative metropolis that is Ullapool […]
There was a faint air of dryness in the air this morning as I left the youth hostel in Ullapool. The sky was just as dark and foreboding as it has been for much of the last week or so, but it was at least hinting that I […]
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 […]
Grim. One word sums up quite well the experience of cycling today from Durness on the north coast of Scotland to Scourie on the west coast. When I woke (ha! Woke?) this morning, the campsite in Durness had been transformed overnight from one of Scotland’s most stunning to […]
Quick catch up: yesterday was a remote cycle from Tongue over the headland to, and then around, Loch Eriboll (or, as the café owner from Pontefract preferred to call it, Loch ‘Oribal which was strange as it wasn’t and it had made him stay there for the last […]
I think in recent years I have become too accustomed to cycling in kilometres. Prior to this little jaunt across Scotland, I had changed my CatEye cycling computer to show me everything in miles and obviously all the road signs are telling me how far away things are, […]
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, […]
I thought that the cycle from Reading to London to catch my train from Euston station would be a bit of a formality. Anything but… I have now come to the conclusion that National Cycle Network route 4 or rather the bit between Windsor and Richmond Park, is […]
Night train from Euston to Inverness on Monday, wake up in Scotland (well, stop making an effort to fall asleep on a train in Scotland…). I’m particularly looking forward to the photo opportunities the north and west coasts of Scotland have to offer. Expect more photographs and less […]
This morning I posted a picture to Twitter of some of the equipment that I will be taking with me to Scotland next week for my two-week cycling tour. Someone responded that I should do a video… Good idea! Here it is: Cue barrage of comments about what […]
Feel free to comment… The map, alas, is no longer available online. Sorry.
Fear not! It’s not another book, and it won’t be (unless someone calls with an offer I can’t refuse) but it does sum up my plan for August 2014 in terms of cycling. This afternoon I bought a ticket for the overnight sleeper train from London Euston to […]
Here’s an interesting press release relating to pro cyclist David Millar: “Cycling Films and Scottish Documentary Institute are looking for budding volunteers to shoot, record and photograph pro cyclist David Millar during his last ever Tour de France. Called ‘Capture David’, this is a unique opportunity to collect images […]
By guest blogger Emily Buchanan With the Tour de France set to depart from Yorkshire in July, there’s never been a better time to embrace bike culture in the UK. From a 100-day cultural festival in the North East to the second annual Edinburgh Festival of Cycling in Scotland, […]
UPDATE: Thursday 30th January – the decision of the ASA is under review… I’m not sure if this is legal or not but as here goes. Below is a television commercial that has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) here in Britain. It’s an advert – […]
The problem with writing these updates a couple of days after the events is that I forget so much so quickly. It can be very frustrating but here goes… I had breakfast in the centre of Perpignan and was still not sure which route to take into Spain. […]
Three weeks to go… Still so much to do in terms of planning and I am beginning to feel the same way as I did back in 2010 before I set off for the south of Italy; a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Excitement is the easy emotion […]
A man decides that there is more to cycling than the daily commute. Somewhere in his forties, he is questioning the direction of the second half of his life. He needs a little time to think so he resolves to set off on his first long-distance cycling tour. As a naive touring cyclist […]
Albania remains the mysterious part of my trip along the Eurovelo 8 from Greece to Portugal and I am fascinated by the stories of those who have cycled through the country. I met a chap called Gav McDonald recently at the London Bike Show. On his company website […]
If you’ve read Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie, you may well remember Iain who I stayed with overnight in Deal, Kent. I look up to Iain as someone who seems to know much more about the technicalities of cycling than me. It wouldn’t be […]
Sitting in my flat in Reading on a Saturday morning, I’m in dream mood; I just posted about my own past cycling experiences in the Alps and here’s someone else’s adventure immortalised in film: Reveal The Path. I spotted it on Twitter last night and the trailer is […]
Monday 20th August Vienna to Bratislava: 4 hours 7 minutes, 77km “I took advantage of the hostel buffet breakfast, feasting on 3 bowls of muesli and a couple of hot chocolates. I said farewell to Julien (who was driving off to Salzburg today) and cycled off out of […]
The Baltic Mill in Gateshead isn’t the most attractive of buildings; it was, after all built as a mill and the storage and processing of grain didn’t require too much ornamentation. There are visible attempts of grandeur; notably the tiled words ‘Baltic Flour Mill’ and the clean vertical […]
Matthias Pleyer, organiser of the London Cycling Book Club which will be discussing Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie in under two weeks’ time (more info on club’s website), has just asked me to answer some questions for the website. His final question was as […]
Look at all these people in the Princes Street branch of Waterstones in Edinburgh. They are mingling excitedly for the arrival of something… What could it be? The new Harry Potter? A famous celeb? No? What? Are you sure? It can’t be… can it? Yes it can… Good […]
My niece Annabel has a new bike; a BMC Streetfire (2009) purchased second hand from a director of Cycling Scotland. She’s named it Beatrice. What kind of nutter would give their bike a name?
From the Dummy Jim website; In May 1951 a profoundly deaf 30-year-old Scotsman called James Duthie – known to his local community as ‘Dummy Jim’ – cycled solo on a return trip from the small fishing town of Cairnbulg in the north-east of Scotland to the Arctic Circle. The journey of over […]
Now, what do you make of the following email? It is, I suppose, in response to the post about Lisa Baum and her plans to cycle to the Arctic Circle. The weirdest thing is that the man himself – Dummy Jim – was killed “in mysterious circumstances” in 1965. […]
A group of soldiers is taking on the Eurovelo 5 in (what I consider to be) reverse. This is what it says on their Virgin Money Giving site; In March 2011 team Tartan Cassino will start their arduous challenge. The team will cycle from Monte Cassino in Italy […]
Got home last night after a couple of days hurtling up and then back down the country for a couple of language teaching events. The first was a meeting of the schools involved in a national CLIL project lead by Do Coyle, Professor of Learning Innovation (great title!) at Aberdeen […]
If you happen to be passing through Siena today, 25th September, you could make a little detour to go and listen to Doretta Vicini who is talking all about Eurovelo at a round table discussion at the Ciclomundi Festival entitled “In viaggio lungo le strade della civiltà” or “Travelling along the roads […]
This coffee tastes as good as it looks. The weather is looking up; blue sky without any threatening clouds. Fingers crossed. I was changing the dressing on my foot at the campsite entrance this morning when a French chap struck up conversation. He had watched me pack my […]
A couple of weeks ago, Bill Vrabel (he is cycling from Scotland to Rome later in the year – see below and his fledgling blog) emailed me with the following questions; I wanted to ask you a general question, or maybe just need your opinion. I’m thinking of […]
As I have said before, I love the fact that people all over the World read my blog and contribute either through the comments or by taking time to email me. It is no doubt the nearest I will ever come to receiving fan mail (teenage school kids […]
A name from the earlier days of this blog has just emailed; Jonathan Scott is an Australian who is planning to cycle from Rome to London and he is one of the people to be listed down there on the left as a Eurovelo 5 / Via Francigena […]
Quoted from the BBC website: Mark Beaumont, the record-breaking cyclist, today had a final spin on the bike that he pedaled 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 […]
Lance Armstrong tweeted that he was going for a ride in Paisley, Scotland…. and 300 people turned up!Watch the video. What a nice guy! And he’s a fellow Trek man (although his is probably not “Made in Taiwan” like mine).
More useful info from the CTC forum: “We camped here in 2001. Marshall Meadows Farm BERWICK-UPON-TWEED TD151UT Tel: 01289 307375 The site was basic with no shop, but does have toilets and showers. It also has the main rail line running past it, although we didn’t find it […]
A few developments since I last wrote:1. I have been discovered – by the people I know who spend their summers in Puglia and whose idylic holiday destination / yoga retreat you can link to over there on the right under “The destination in Puglia”. Check out their […]
“The manuscript collections of the antiquary, Huntingdonshire landowner and administrator, Sir Robert Cotton (1571-1631) contain many maps, charts and plans. Cotton’s collecting was driven by a blend of patriotism and a passion for antiquity. The latter accounts for the presence of one of the earliest detailed European world […]
