Tag: Scotland

The Cycling Europe Podcast: Episode 034 – Steve Silk – The Great North Road / Laurence Warren – Austria

By on • ( 1 Comment )

One hundred years ago, the Great North Road closed and the A1 opened, heralding a century of domination by the motor car. The Cycling Europe Podcast meets BBC journalist (and one-time San Franciscan cycle courier) Steve Silk who set off on his bicycle to cycle from London to Edinburgh to rediscover what remains of the old road, its stories, milestones and coaching inns. Steveโ€™s book – The Great North Road – is published by Summersdale on July 8th. Plus: cycling in Austria with local resident Laurence Warren. Is there more to this Alpine country than just big hills?

Question: The Outer Hebrides? Answer…

By on • ( 1 Comment )

A few days ago, I posted an article to CyclingEurope.org about the possibility of visiting The Outer Hebrides this coming summer and cycling the Hebridean Way. The response was one of the best that any article on CyclingEurope.org has ever received. On the website itself and on social media, the comments came in thick and fast and such were their quality that they merit a post of their own. They are collated below but before you read them, I suggest you first of all read the original post that was published on May 23rd.

Summer 2021: The Outer Hebrides?

By on • ( 23 Comments )

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I had been sent a copy of The Great British Adventure Map. It’s now on my wall in such a position where, every morning, I spend a few minutes staring at it as I shave. Such is the level of detail that it’s the kind of map that will see me shave my chin many hundreds of times before I have exhausted its facts and figures. In recent days, however, my eyes have been drawn north. North west to be precise to a corner of the map that has had me examining the Outer Hebrides…

Ultimate Adventure Map Of Britain

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Despite the headlines on today’s newspapers that are screaming that we will be able to travel out of the UK this summer, I suspect that for the majority of us, it’s more likely to be another year of staycationing. So the arrival of a new map of Britain on my doorstep yesterday was welcome. But it’s not just any old map… MarvellousMaps.com make a series of these detailed themed maps of the country…

Cycling From Dumbarton To Strathisla Distillery For MND Scotland

By on • ( 1 Comment )

My name is Jon Hunter and in 2010 I bought an Edinburgh Bicycle Co-op Revolution Pathfinder over the internet after wanting to get back into cycling. The last time I rode a bicycle, I used it for delivering newspapers as a child! I rode the bike for quite a while until the pressures of family, young children and work reluctantly saw me put the bike in the shed to be ridden at a later date. I didnโ€™t realise how later that date would be.

Above Average: The Life And Times Of A Glasgow Cycle Courier

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Back in the 80s and 90s, bicycle couriers were a bit of a novelty. I remember seeing them when I lived in London. I don’t think many people thought they would stick around beyond their allocated period of being a fad. Surely a cyclist couldn’t match the speed of getting some important document from one corner of the city to the other! But clearly they could and 30 years later, cycle couriers are indeed still around, and with the likes of Deliveroo and cargo bikes, the sector is not only surviving but flourishing. And some people who were cycle couriers in their youth – Emily Chappell and Julian Sayarer come to mind – have gone on to greater things in the wider cycling world.

Mark Beaumont / Markus Stitz: Explore Your Boundaries

By on • ( Leave a comment )

Two of Scotland’s finest – one born and bred, one adopted – have come together to invite you to ‘explore your boundaries’. Both are familiar to listeners of The Cycling Europe Podcast; one is Mark Beaumont (episode 16), one is Markus Stitz (episode 29). Mark is an athlete and broadcaster with a string of cycling accolades to his name; Markus became the first person to cycle around the world on a single-speed bike and now runs Bikepacking Scotland. They not only share a name (nearly…) and a passion for cycling, but also great filmmaking and storytelling skills and they have come together to produce the following film, not in a far flung foreign location, but on their doorsteps in Edinburgh…

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

By on • ( 2 Comments )

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 farโ€ฆ