Tag: Yorkshire

Yorkshire Day: Tour De (West) Yorkshire

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I didn’t set out with the intention of cycling very far; just a short trip down the valley to Brighouse, along the Spen Valley Greenway and perhaps pay a visit to the new market in the centre of Bradford. Well, I did all that… but kept going. By later in the afternoon, via several coffee stops, I had clocked up nearly 103 km in what turned out to be a long Tour de West Yorkshire. Admittedly most of it was along familiar routes although not all. Some sections seemed familiar; the long climb out of Keighly for example, which I’m sure I’ve cycled before… but in the opposite (easier) direction. For a county that most in the country probably percieve as an urban post-industrial sprawl, it’s much more green and pleasant than dark and satantic. Full details below.

New Film: A Short Escape To The Yorkshire Dales

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Last week, as the weather forecast was looking so promising, I decided to head to the nearby Yorkshire Dales for a couple of nights of early-season cycle touring. Camping in April in the UK is not for the fainthearted (although I’m sure many people reading this will have camped multiple times in the depths of winter) but the daytime temperatures of around 20 degrees made up for the chilly mornings and evenings.

The Cycling Europe Podcast: Episode 089 – The Yorkshire Dales Monologue Special

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Andrew Sykes heads into the Yorkshire Dales for a few days and this episode of The Cycling Europe Podcast sees him travel from Bradford to Skipton, Appletreewick, Grassington and Buckden, via a canal and a couple of steep hills. Much of this episode, however, is given over to other cyclists who have recently contributed to the podcast in the form of a monologue. We hear from Justin Shiels about Welcome To My Garden, Neal Porter about his cycle around the coast of Britain in aid of MND and from Richard and Cath Jeffries about their winter LEJOG…

April: The Start Of The Cycle Touring Year (For Me…)

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February and March have been a quiet couple of months here on CyclingEurope.org. Indeed in March there was just the one update to the website and even then it was all about, err… hiring cars at Tirana airport in Albania. (I have to pay the website fees somehow…) But it’s now April and things are beginning to warm up, metaphorically and literally.

The Cycling Europe Podcast: Episode 080 – Cycle Touring 1970s Style – Rob Ainsley

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Writer Rob Ainsley has cycled from Barmouth to Yarmouth because they rhyme. Heโ€™s cycled from Britainโ€™s smallest church in Rhos to its largest church in Liverpool. Heโ€™s cycled the London Monopoly board. And he continues to amass a long list of โ€˜end-to-endโ€™ country cycles. So for Rob, cycling from Morecambe to Bridlington along the Way of the Roses cycle route may at first glance appear to be a little, errโ€ฆ pedestrian. But think again. He decided to cycle the route 1970s style. In this episode of The Cycling Europe Podcast we chat to Rob Ainsley in York where he reveals all. Was the naffest decade of the 20th century as good a time as any to be on two wheels? Or better forgottenโ€ฆ

Route YC: Cycling The Yorkshire Coast

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Markus Stitz has been featured several times on this website and here he is again. And when I write ‘here’, I really mean ‘here’. He’s been to Yorkshire with Mark Beaumont and Heather Graham to cycle the length of the Yorkshire coastline. The route the trio followed has been rebranded and relaunched as ‘Route YC’ (Yorkshire coast) and Markus has made another beautiful film to add to his growing collection of stunning cycling films.

Happy Yorkshire (Cycling) Day

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The weather may be more reminiscent of winter but it is August 1st and that means it’s Yorkshire Day. What better an opportunity (especially bearing in mind that it’s chucking it down outside) to sit back and watch three Yorkshire-themed cycling videos from recent years. If you happy to live in Lancashire, you’ll also benefit from a few minutes of your county at the start of the Way of the Roses film. Happy Yorkshire Day!

A Look At The Top Cycle Routes In North Yorkshire

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If youโ€™re thinking of booking a cycling holiday, thereโ€™s no better place than North Yorkshire.ย  Given itโ€™s the UKโ€™s largest county by area, itโ€™s no surprise that there are some incredible cycle routes just waiting to be explored. Travelling with a bike is also very easy. If you have enough space in the boot of your car, you wonโ€™t have to find a suitable transportation rack. If you do need one, just make sure to follow the general driving laws. Alternatively, you can travel by train. Most operators allow bikes in designated areas, so ensure you reserve a space in advance. Whether youโ€™re looking for a trip down quiet country roads, a tour through historical cities, or a visit to seaside resorts, weโ€™ve got you covered. In no particular order, here are our favourite cycle routes in North Yorkshire.

The Cycling Europe Podcast: Episode 065 – Matthew Sturgeon โ€“ Cycling To Mainland Britainโ€™s Lighthouses

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Matthew Sturgeon is an architect and cyclist from Ilkley in Yorkshire and heโ€™s onย  a mission to visit every one of mainland Britainโ€™s 186 lighthouses. Inspired by his late late wife Angela, who raised ยฃ40,000 for cancer research, Matthew is raising money for his A Bit Of A Break charity. It funds visits for cancer patients and their families to holiday properties around the UK. He started collecting his lighthouses with a ride along the Northumbrian coast and has now visited 100. But why lighthouses? Whatโ€™s his favourite lighthouse? What has been the most disappointing lighthouse? What has been the most difficult to cycle to? And what will be lighthouse number 186? Matthew tells his story to The Cycling Europe Podcastโ€ฆ

Gaslight Alert: “ยฃ200 Million To Improve Walking And Cycling Routes And Boost Local Economies”

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Here we go again… The announcement of another pot of cash which will fund a handful of schemes across the country and have minimal impact on the lives of the majority of people in the country. Good for those who receive it but for those that don’t, simply gaslights us into thinking that the government are committed to transforming our country into one where active travel is the norm. (Remember Boris Johnson’s “golden age of cycling”?) There is a scheme near where I live in West Yorkshire – a disused railway that runs along the Ryburn Valley from Sowerby Bridge to Ripponden and Rishworth (see below) – that would be a great candidate for a slice of this cash but it’s unlikely to happen. Expect the money to be allocated predominantly in Tory ‘red wall’ constituencies. And when the beauty contest decisions are made later in the year, expect the same announcement to be made again. Meanwhile in The Netherlands they are putting their money where their mouth is (as they have being doing for decades) and have just opened an underwater bike parking facility in Amsterdam…

The Cycling Europe Podcast: Episode 062 – Jeremy Wilson – Beryl Burton – โ€˜Britainโ€™s Greatest Athleteโ€™

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Beryl Burton was born in Yorkshire on May 12th 1937. Her upbringing was tough. Her school report described her as a ‘stubborn little mule. At the age of 10 she spent 9 months in hospital and doctors told her never to ride a bike uphill. She went on to become one of Britain’s greatest ever athletes – of either sex – and a cycling world champion seven times over. She was the country’s ‘best all-rounder’ female cyclist for 25 consecutive years from 1959 to 1983. She died, cycling, a few days short of her 59th birthday in 1996. Jeremy Wilson – chief sports reporter for The Daily Telegraph – has written an awarding-winning book about the life of this cycling enigma who remains little known outside her home county or the world of cycle racing.

‘Cycling Stuff’: Hostels In Scotland And Great British Gravel Rides

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Having a presence online, as I do, can create a rather skewed image of the person writing this. The books, podcasts, films, social media etc… don’t help in this regard. I dare say some of you think I lead a rather different life to the one that I actually experience myself. Yesterday, a colleague in the school where I toil asked if my work as a teacher subsidised the ‘cycling stuff’ or the other way around. I broke the news gently that, without my income from cajoling the 11 to 18-year-olds of my small town in West Yorkshire into engaging with the educational process, I would be living on the streets. Perhaps one day the ‘cycling stuff’ will be the bread winner and the teaching a nice add-on. For the time being however…

Cycling The Way Of The Roses: The Film (Premiere)

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If you are reading this before 7pm on Thursday 2nd June 2022 you are invited to a film premiere tonight at 7pm! That doesn’t happen every day, does it? It’s the film that I’ve made about my recent cycle along the Way of the Roses from Morecambe to York. If you are reading this after 7pm tonight well, your invite to the premiere is no longer valid, sorry. But you can, of course, still watch the film in all its 4K glory below. Don’t forget that you can get the full story of the three days of cycling across the Pennines by listening to episode 50 of The Cycling Europe Podcast. Full details below.

The Cycling Europe Podcast: Episode 050 – Cycling The Way Of The Roses

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To celebrate its 50th episode, Andrew P. Sykes takes The Cycling Europe Podcast out on the cycle path and travels from Morecambe on Lancashire’s west coast to the county’s historical capital at Lancaster, across the Pennines and through Yorkshire via Settle and Ripon, completing his trip in that county’s historical capital at York. The Way of the Roses is a route of contrasting landscapes and, at times, challenging terrain; join Andrew (and his bicycle Wanda) as they spend three days following one of northern England’s most popular cycle routes.

Coming Soon: The Film And The Podcast Of The Roses

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Now back home in West Yorkshire after my-day trip across the Pennines from Morecambe / Lancaster to York. It was a fun weekend with varied terrain; flat by the sea, beautiful gentle-sloping valleys, sharp climbs, even-sharper descents and then the flatlands of the Vale of York. Many of you will have been following the posts that were published here on the website in recent days – you can find them linked to below if you missed them – but there will also be a podcast and a longer film that uses the majority of the video that it wasn’t possible to use in the short films I managed to edit in the tent at the end of each day, including much more footage from the air, in glorious 4K.

New Cycling / Cat Film: The Cat Cyclist

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Remember the ‘lockdown project’? It seemed that most people had one; tiling the bathroom, writing an anthology of poetry, organising a series of parties that you would later deny were actually parties to the UK parliament (and even if they were, you had nothing to do with them…). That kind of thing. My lockdown project was to make an audio documentary about the life and times of Maximilian J. St. George. (I’ll post the link below.) Well, Easter has just finished and I had an ‘Easter Project’ (you heard it here first)…

Bicycle Commute At Sunrise

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Visit the dedicated Baltic Sea Cycle Route / EuroVelo 10 page of CyingEurope.org to discover more about the planned cycle around Europeโ€™s other big sea. Since 2009, CyclingEurope.org has established itself as a valued, FREE cycle touring resource. There’s now even a podcast, The Cycling Europe Podcast. If […]

Cycle, Work, Cycle, Repeat

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After last week’s trip down to London to meet and interview Tim Moore, another week of travel but this week much more of it on the bike. Ronnie, the Ribble Hybrid has just finished his first complete week carrying me to and from work. It’s the first time since, I think, 2017 that I’ve completed a full week of cycle commuting and long may it continue! It’s the back end of winter so the mornings are rapidly getting lighter and and weather has generally been amenable to cycling; just one of the ten rides last week was in the wet. Some mornings, there was even a distinct hint of spring…

Spontaneous Cycle Touring (And Advice For Educational Welfare Officers)

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I was always planning to cycle to Skipton this weekend – I have lined up an exclusive* interview for The Cycling Europe Podcast with one of the unsung heroes of cycling touring and we are meeting at the local Morrisonโ€™s at 10am tomorrow (apparently itโ€™s half price for Cycling UK membersโ€ฆ) – but it was only a passing thought a few weeks ago when I arranged the chat that I might cycle up to Skipton from my home near Halifax and camp overnight. At the gym this morning I thought about it again. When I got home in the early afternoon I thought about it yet again. At 1:15pm I made the decision to do it, by 2pm I had packed the bike and left the house and just after 2:30pm I was on the train from Halifax to Bradford.

Skipton, Settle, Sunโ€ฆ

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Phew! What a scorcher! It was predictable that, with horizon-to-horizon sun forecast for the first time in weeks, the cyclists would be out in force. And they were, especially in the few kilometres north of Skipton. As were, alas, hoards of drivers so, when the opportunity arose, escaping the main road from Skipton to Grassington came as welcome relief.

Cycling Route 66: Under The Sun

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If you live in the north of England, you donโ€™t have to travel far to get to Route 66. The other Route 66 that is; the cycling one. In my part of the north – West Yorkshire – itโ€™s the Calder Valley Cycleway and follows the Rochdale Canal. With friend Craig, I spent much of today cycling in a loop from home to Ripponden, up the hill to Batings Reservoir and then down the other side of the Pennines to Littleborough where we hooked up with the Rochdale Canal.

The EuroVelo 12 In Yorkshire / The Humber Bridge

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The Humber Bridge is the longest bridge in the world that you can cross on a bicycle… or it was until recently when the authorities. for ‘security reasons’, decided to prevent access to the bridge by cyclists and pedestrians. A (very!) long detour was suddenly required to cross the Humber Estuary. Not great.

The Calder Valley And The Drone

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Since purchasing the drone about a month ago, I’ve been continuing to take small steps towards making a film that involves some cycling. Although not quite there yet, this new film does tell the story of my 72 km ride yesterday along the Calder Valley and back with friend Craig. Hopefully the next film will involve some drone footage of a cyclist actually cycling. The cyclists featured here are all static; admiring the view, operating said drone or pumping up a tyre. It was a glorious day for a bike ride with barely any wind; it’s amazing to note how little wind is required to keep those turbines rotating. One day I’ll return up there with the drone and try to fly it through the turbines as they spin. Perhaps…

Winter In Spring: April Snow Showers In Northern England

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We seemed to have had more than our fair share of snow in the north of England during the winter of 2020-21. Last week, however, the temperatures were in the low twenties and people were sunbathing on the beaches at Scarborough so I wasn’t quite expecting to wake up this morning and see that the snow had returned in April. I put the drone into action and here is the result. I reckon that by midday it will have all melted – probably until next winter – but you never know…

L’Enfer Du Nord / The Hell Of The North

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The Paris-Roubaix cycle race has been postponed until later in the year. No surprise there bearing in mind the new lockdown just announced in France. Cobbles are an (almost) every day part of cycling here in the Calder Valley of Yorkshire. My bones have been shaken on a regular basis in recent years since my return to God’s Own County. Perhaps they should have just moved it to the north of England rather than waiting until the autumn of 2021… I wrote about the Paris-Roubaix in Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie.

Cycle Commuting When You Can’t Commute

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Over the years, one of the most frequent questions I’ve been asked about the long trips across Europe is ‘how did you train? ‘. The answer is easy; I didn’t. Well, not really… What I did do, however, was cycle to work most days each week for many months, years even, before setting off to ride from one extremity of Europe to another. I suspected – and I am think I am correct in saying this – that the biggest challenge of riding long distances over a period of a couple of months or more is not necessarily the distance, it’s the motivation to keep going day after day, irrespective of your mood or the weather. And this is why commuting by bicycle to work each day in the run-up to a long trip is worth its weight in gold.

New Year’s Day 2021

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Just returned from a 14km walk. I took my camera with me for the first time in quite a while. I’d forgotten how nice it is just to wander and snap… If you happen to live local, you can probably work out my route. Happy New Year!

The Yorkshire Dales… On A Bike Called Wanda, The Film

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I’m standing on the shoulders of giants with this; I have long admired the films of people such as Barry Godin (who curates the films shown at the Cycle Touring Festival) and, more recently, Ryan Van Duzer (who I interviewed for the most recent episode of The Cycling Europe Podcast) but also the long-format cycling films such as Tom Allen’s Janapar: Love, On a Bike from 2012. There are dozens of other cycling filmmakers doing similar things to an incredibly high standard. And now there’s me…

Dales Autumn Escape: Day 4/4

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So my short trip to the southern Yorkshire Dales came to an end yesterday with the long cycle back to West Yorkshire’s Calder Valley. Cycling friend Craig offered to join me for the ride and we met up for coffee in the busy farm shop in Airton which, by the time we left at around 10:30am was already heaving with cyclists.

Dales Autumn Escape: Day 3/4

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A full day of cycling but not a particularly strenuous one. If you remember, I have purposefully switched off Strava and the like for this trip to the Yorkshire Dales. The only things measuring my distance are the CatEye โ€˜computerโ€™ (the word seems a little grand for the […]

Dales Autumn Escape: Day 2/4

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If I were being assessed against my objectives, today I would have been granted some kind of promotion or pay rise. Most of the pre-trip โ€˜requirementsโ€™ were ticked off; I even ended the โ€˜working dayโ€™ with a bit of sketching… But it started off the bike with a […]

Dales Autumn Escape: Day 1/4

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Well thatโ€™s all gone rather well. Yesterday I spent all evening watching TV, eating and drinking. (For one week at least, Tuesday night was the new Friday night…) I kept staring at the rug in my living room where I normally assembly a pile of cycling kit prior […]

Distance = Speed x Time (Do You Give A F*ck?)

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I was teaching this formula to a group of disinterested 14 year olds earlier in the week. (Not including the bit in brackets.) They had clearly been reading the book I have just started reading myself; Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck… I give a f*ck far too often. I think I shouldn’t. I’m not sure if this ties in with what I’ve written below but I think it might. If it doesn’t, well, I don’t give a f*ck and clearly the ยฃ18.99 spent at Waterstones wasn’t wasted. I’m going to go back and remove the apostrophe in ‘Waterstone’s’ as I’m trying to no longer give a f*ck. I digress…

Summer 2020: Plan B…

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Plan A was, of course, to cycle the length of Japan. I should have arrived in the country today and be looking forward to cycling for around six weeks from north to south via Tokyo to take in the atmosphere of the Olympics. Next year? Perhaps… Time will tell. So it is on with Plan B which, until a few days ago, was a very vague “well, I’d like to go camping somewhere in the UK…”. The pesky Coronavirus has, of course, reached its tentacles into most aspects of our lives in recent months and ‘camping in the UK’ is one of them. Although many campsites have now reopened, many remain closed or open with limited capacity and facilities or, bearing in mind all the staycationers this summer, have no availability.

A Tale Of Two Cycles: It Was The Best Of Rides, It Was The Worst Of Rides…

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With a nod to Charles Dickens, that just about sums up yesterday’s cold, rain-drenched ride from Tadcaster back home after collecting Wanda the WorldTraveller from her pit stop at CycleSense. One of those days when it would have been all but impossible to actually get off the bike, fumble with the phone with numbed fingers and take any photographs. So there is no photographic proof that the conditions were as bad as they were; you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Is The ‘Golden Age For Cycling’ Already Over?

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As I have been doing ever since the lockdown started, today I went out for my daily exercise. It’s no longer my ‘permitted’ exercise as it seems that things are back to normal in terms of getting out and about, as long as we keep our 2 metres of distance. In the main, people seem to be sticking to that. This morning I set off on what would become a 20km walk to the Ryburn and Baitings reservoirs making the most of the warm day. There were a good number of people out and about despite it being Monday; I was certainly not alone. Then I looked online…

Scammonden Valley… In 4K

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You may remember a couple of months ago ago at the start of the lockdown period, I wrote a post for CyclingEurope.org about my local wanderings up and down the Scammonden Valley where I live here in West Yorkshire and how I had managed to discover some interesting nooks and crannies. At the time I thought I must make a video. And last weekend, I did just that.

The 4K Beauty Of Stainland Woods

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One of those posts for the ‘nothing-to-do-with-cycling’ category but I have no hesitation in sharing with you this video that I made earlier today during my lockdown walk through the local woods. I am so grateful to live in a place that, within a few minutes of my […]

Heading East (And Back…) With Wanda

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Today is promised to be the hottest day of the year so far. Yesterday was my longest ride of the year so far, albeit split into 3; 65 km from home in the west of West Yorkshire to Tadcaster, just over the border in North Yorkshire, 16 km to York and a final 10 km from Huddersfield station back home after a train ride back west. Why? Well, apart from the joy of the cycling, Wanda, the Koga World Traveller had been booked in for her first service at CycleSense in Tadcaster and I’m delighted to say she passed with flying colours. New brake pads, change of oil in the Rohloff hub and a few checks here and there… Good as new!

The Normality Of Self-Isolating On A Bike Ride

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We live in surreal times. The world is approaching a state of lockdown. The shops are emptying of toilet paper and hand sanitiser. The Italians are singing from their Juliet balconies. We are encouraged to ‘self-isolate’ at the drop of a, err… handkerchief. Work from home! Wash your hands! Sneeze into your elbow! This is far from normal.

Beautiful Views, Ugly Driving

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I’ve been on cat-feeding duty this week and this means an extension to the normal cycle from home into Halifax. It more or less doubles the length of the journey. This is no bad thing, especially as the road climbing from my house to the ridge that forms […]

The Trans Pennine Trail

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It was an epic 115 km by the end of the day, albeit not all on the Trans Pennine Trail itself. That was ‘just’ the portion from Dunford Bridge to Wentworth Woodhouse (and back). Good preparation for hitting the continent at the end of the month…

…Go: EuroVelo 12 In Yorkshire

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It seems fitting that the 3,000th post on CyclingEurope.org – that’s this one by the way – sees me return to the EuroVelo routes that have guided me across Europe three times. Here I am on EuroVelo 12, the North Sea Cycle Route, in Hull. Alas I won’t […]

A Summer Of Cycling (And Cruising…)

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So, summer has arrived. Well, meteorological summer. Pedants who insist on sticking with the astronomical one (which starts on June 21st) will still have to live in spring for a few more weeks but the rest of us are already basking in the sunshine… (That’s how it works, […]

Treacherous Times In Border Country

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Today has been a little like an episode of Line Of Duty; it starts all mundane and then quickly descends into all kinds of shenanigans. The day started with cats in Yorkshire and ended with a fall down a 30-metre ravine in South America. That should keep you […]

White Rose Classic Cycle Sportive โ€“ Ride The Yorkshire Dales This Summer

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The team at Ilkley Cycling Club are gearing up for the eighth annual White Rose Classic, Yorkshireโ€™s premier cycling sportive on Sunday, 23 June. Registration for this June’s event opened in 2018 and is proving as popular as ever, attracting riders from all over the country looking to experience challenging hills and serene beauty that Yorkshire has to offer.

The End Of Winter?

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I’m sure it will bite back soon but in this spring-like weather, can there be a better alternative to getting out on the bike? I doubt it… Today’s ride took me along the Calder Valley to Hebden Bridge… …over Oxenhope Moor in the direction of Haworth and then […]

Yorkshire 2018: Mea Culpa…

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Yorkshire 2018 never happened. It was my great plan to cycle all of the National Cycle Network routes in Yorkshire during the calendar year 2018. If you are seen as an optimist even by those at the positive end of the thinking spectrum, you might point out that […]

Walking To Work / Autumn Sunlight

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The sunlight yesterday was beautiful. It was the early morning / evening sunlight of summer for a full twelve hours and I took advantage by walking some of the way to work in Halifax. It also afforded me the opportunity of working in RAW for the first time. […]