There’s been much about the Far East in recent weeks, but let’s come back to Yorkshire and more specifically the Ryburn Valley. Some of you may remember me mentioning the Ryburn Valley Greenway project on CyclingEurope.org in the past – follow this link to read the previous posts. […]
UPDATE: Wednesday 11th July 2018 Today I drove over to Leeds to pay a visit to Woodrup Cycles and spent about an hour chatting to one of the guys who works in the shop. It was an interesting conversation and took place whilst standing over this bike (I […]
Impressive…
It’s almost as if the designers of The Piece Hall in Halifax had The Antiques Roadshow in mind when they built the place in the 18th century… Below is The Piece Hall, minus red gazebos and people but plus a bike. This is, after all, supposed to be […]
Cycling the Yorkshire Dales Cycleway (eastern loop) from Malham to Settle and back, travelling in Japan and an interview with Mike Webb of PulpedTravel.com and cycling to the summit of one of the Tour de France’s most iconic climbs: Mont Ventoux
There’s something reassuringly old school about the York Cycle Rally. Not retro, just old school. Nothing forced; no obligation to ride a bicycle that dates from a day before the word ‘comfort’ appears to have come to the attention of bicycle designers, just reassuringly traditional. Neither fashionable not […]
In order to cycle the length of Japan (more details here), one of my priorities needs to be to get fit again. I’ve got plenty of time; 2020 is my planned departure date. Prior to all three of the long European cycles, I was cycling on a regular […]
I often think that West Yorkshire – the county in which I now, once again, live – is a microcosm of Britain. Urban yet rural, modern yet old, beautiful yet ugly, cherished yet neglected… When I cycle, my commute to work, from near the village of Stainland to Square […]
In a stupendous example of failing to plan, after my talk on Friday evening and short cycle around Edinburg on Saturday morning, I was scratching my head as to what to do. Should I stay in Scotland, find somewhere to stay, do a little exploring on or off […]
The great and the good of cycling out in force for the pre-event launch of this year’s Tour de Yorkshire; Welcome to Yorkshire’s Sir Gary Verity, the Tour de France’s Christian Prudhomme and La Vuelta’s Javier Guillén. Is that a sign that Spain’s big race might be coming […]
Not sure how many of days 1 to 4 upon which there will be comment on CyclingEurope.org but here I am on the eve of ‘Le Tour Yorkshire’ in Leeds. The (non-cycling) action kicks off at 6pm in Millennium Square with the usual razzmatazz associated with any big […]
Here’s the route of this year’s race combined with a few memories… Look out for more posts over the next few days on CyclingEurope.org from the heart of ‘Le Tour (…de Yorkshire)’!
I had one big job to do today and lots of little ones. The little ones have all been done, but the big one remains untouched… Such is life. More of the ‘big job’ in a few moments. One of the ‘little’ jobs was to erect the new […]
Today you have a triple bill of media choice… CyclingEurope.org’s answer to the red button, albeit without a red button (or indeed any kind of button). If you’d like to be fully informed about my cycle from Huddersfield along route 69 (the ‘Birkby Bradley Greenway’ or ‘the place […]
The best thing about cycling to work is that work doesn’t start the moment you step into your car; it starts the moment you step off your bicycle… I usually do that here at The Piece Hall in Halifax, West Yorkshire, one of the country’s most surprising buildings.
…well, Todmorden, at the far western extremity of Yorkshire and home via Mankinholes and the rather muddy canal side Route 66.
Ultimately, yes. I’ve postponed my plans for this weekend due to the weather forecast but the planning was not in vain. I am now much better prepared to shoot off for a few days of bike-packing than I was just a few days ago. Below is a record […]
I find that by searching for ‘snow’ in the back catalogue of CyclingEurope.org posts, I’m not short of pretty photographs. From Oxfordshire, Yorkshire, Slovakia, France, Switzerland, Norway… There was even a film!
Yorkshire Summer Time starts on Sunday 25th March 2018. OK, so does British Summer Time, but bear with me… It finishes on Saturday 27th October 2018 and lasts for 217 days. The great thing about Yorkshire/British Summer Time is that it is handily located on the calendar when […]
I shouldn’t really mock the accent; it is, after all, my own… but this event – the first ever Cycle Expo in Yorkshire – from the 12th to the 14th October is something to look forward to. It will be taking place in Harrogate at the Yorkshire Event […]
Avid readers of CyclingEurope.org (I’m sure there must be one or two such people out there, no?) may remember this post from last March about my visit to the 2017 Sheffield Adventure Film Festival or SHAFF. Well, this week I have received an email about the 2018 festival […]
This is all very reminiscent of planning past continental adventures, the only difference being that this one will be in my back yard of Yorkshire (read here to catch up on the plan). My maps have just arrived from Sustrans and they nearly cover all of Yorkshire. In […]
Second post of 2018. Second quote from a book – a different book – that I’m reading: “Cycling is a popular pastime in Yorkshire, especially in the industrial areas – there are no fewer than sixty clubs in West Yorkshire alone. Indeed, the county’s dedication to cycling led […]
I now have cold feet…
It’s the first of the month (white rabbits etc…), which means just one thing; the next episode of The Cycling Europe Podcast is available to download from your preferred podcast purveyor or direct from this website! It’s episode 003 already (I’ll stop when I get to 999) and […]
…Stainland to Halifax. New commute; the (inevitable) new film:
I’m delighted to announce that as from tomorrow, I return to life as… a regular cycling commuter. It is now nearly three years since I said goodbye to my colleagues at Gillotts School in Henley-on-Thames where, for most of the previous eight years I had regularly cycled to […]
I’m going to start with a short extract from ‘Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie‘. I was in Denmark at the time and, having just paused to buy some new tyres, was en route to Copenhagen: Cycling route 8 had now finished and was replaced with […]
Episode 2 of The Cycling Europe Podcast is now available to download! More details on how to do so here… or simply click on the arrow below, sit back and relax: This is what you’ll find in episode 002: The Cycle Show (o minutes 40 seconds) Ridgeback Bikes (1″14″) […]
A few words from the Tour de Yorkshire, including some very good news for the CyclingEurope.org’s home town, Halifax: The eight host locations for 2018 Tour de Yorkshire have been unveiled today. The stages for the newly expanded fourth edition will begin or end in: Barnsley (South Yorkshire) […]
If only you could bottle autumn evenings like this one…
A few weeks ago at the start of September, I posted an article to CyclingEurope.org about something called the Ryburn Valley Greenway. You may want to read what I wrote at the time (and watch the videos that I made) before you continue to read this but basically… […]
Fantastic news from Welcome To Yorkshire, organisers of the Tour de Yorkshire: Yorkshire has received a huge boost today with the news that the Tour de Yorkshire will grow from three to four days in 2018. Organisers Welcome to Yorkshire and A.S.O had been seeking to extend the […]
Here is a post from Rachel Cullen’s website. She’s a runner but has caught the bug for cycling… For anyone who knows the Calder Valley (as I do), the hills she refers to will be familiar. I feel her pain!
Here’s a cycling event with a difference: ‘Up The Buttress…’. The buttress in question is a steep, cobbled 365 metre lane from Hebden Bridge in the direction of Heptonstall in the Calder Valley of Yorkshire. In the words of the organisers: “£10 to attempt the Buttress, then your […]
In fairness, the climb to the third of my Yorkshire Three Peaks was always going to struggle to meet the standards set by the wonderful hike to Ingleborough (see previous post). That said the not-always-favourable comparisons actually started on Ingleborough itself with a treacherous steep descent into the […]
A wonderful climb to Ingleborough this morning. Listen to my thoughts recorded at the top of the mountain: …and here are the photos:
Shortly after completing the previous post about La Vuelta this morning, I looked at the computer and wondered where my summer was going. I then looked outside and questioned the use of the word ‘summer’. Grey sky, breezy… but dry. August? Well, if the calendar says it is. […]
The observant amongst you will notice that, on September 1st, the first CyclingEurope.org podcast will be unleashed into the world! It is still very much a work-in-progress but I’ve decided to share with you a snippet (well, it’s a 15 minute long ‘snippet’ that will probably be trimmed […]
CyclingEurope.org has just received a bit of a makeover… and what better way to mark the event than an initiative that seeks to reinvent a disused railway tunnel into something that could benefit generations of future cyclists: The Queensbury Tunnel. This website has seen how disused railway infrastructure […]
12:33am: Talk went very well. Good crowd of 30ish. It’s been a long day. Another two hours until home… Goodnight from Leicester Forest East. 5:55pm: Bicycles and… err… cows: 5:45pm: Business on the Cam is brisk. Well, there seem to be lots of punters… (I’ll get my coat…) […]
As this year’s Tour rolls into Paris for its final étape, a longer post that you normally find in this corner of the Internet reflecting upon my visit to France last week with Welcome To Yorkshire to witness stages 10 and 11 of the Tour de France 2017. […]
Very often when you look back upon events of the past, they seem to have happened only very recently when in fact they took place many years ago. I have the opposite sensation about the 6th July 2014 as the events of that particularly momentous day appear (in […]
And a few videos:
I did think it would be difficult to replicate the atmosphere experienced in Yorkshire when the Tour de France arrived in the county back in 2014 but yesterday on the cobbles of the ‘Côte de Shibden Wall’ it came pretty close… Wonderful afternoon!
As I begin typing this, I note that the Tour de Yorkshire is exactly 7 days away, to the minute! Everything kicks off at 12.35pm on Friday 28th April in Bridlington… The images below were taken from the spectator guide that you can find here.
…well, the one in Calderdale. Route 66 of Britain’s National Cycle Network. “National Cycle Route 66 runs from central Manchester to Spurn Head via Bradford, Leeds, York, Beverley, and Kingston upon Hull.” according to those in charge. More details here. This afternoon part of route 66 was the final leg of a 46 km […]
It’s been a sunny day in West Yorkshire, the perfect day to film my circular commute to work. More details of the route on Strava. Over to you Bizet…
More details here…
I don’t suppose that the people who invented Strava ever had my relatively short commute from Stainland to Elland and back in mind when they invented their system but this week I’ve been putting it to good use doing just that. I even have a ‘heatmap’! It’s a […]
It’s Saturday afternoon (or it was when I wrote this) and my half-term break from social media (see previous post) encouraged me to get back out on Dale, the Cannondale… He’s been shamelessly inactive in recent months but this final week in February has finally seen some action! […]
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 […]
An email from Welcome to Yorkshire, organisers of the Tour de Yorkshire: STAGE 1 on Friday 28th April will start in Bridlington and finish in Scarborough – 173km STAGE 2 on Saturday 29th April will start in Tadcaster and finish in Harrogate – 122.5km STAGE 3 on Sunday […]
Here’s news about a local cycling business that is helping build Yorkshire’s reputation as a world-class cycling destination: “Proud Yorkshireman and cyclist with 25 years’ experience, Charles Oxtoby set up Yorkshire Velo Tours in 2015, largely on the back of the visit of the Tour de France to […]
If you can get past Ben Fogle’s mis-pronunciation of ‘Sowerby’ (in fairness, only locals like me will spot that he is sounding the silent ‘w’), here’s an interesting watch on the ITV Hub which is available until the end of November (2016 that is if you happen to have […]
Under a rather gloomy sky, I took the new bike out for a proper spin yesterday – 55km – across all kinds of terrain. The observant of you will note the saddle has been changed – I bought a standard black Brooks earlier in the week – and […]
Sir Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire: “We are delighted and honoured to announce that Yorkshire has been chosen to host the 2019 UCI Road World Championships. The sensational news was announced last night by UCI President Brian Cookson OBE live from Doha, Qatar which is […]
I’m still using the excuse that Reggie the Ridgeback Panorama is too heavy to use on a regular basis on the hills of Calderdale and West Yorkshire in general. It’s pathetic, I know, but there you go. When I lived in relatively flat Reading, Reggie was my ‘do-anything’ […]
I have mentioned Ian Street a few times on these pages in the past. He is the man behind the successful Leeds Bicycle Film Club (as heard on BBC Radio 4!) and his next project is… Pedalling Ideas. The clue is in the title of the event but here are […]
Here’s a nice place for a cycle; Calderdale. Anyone know it? And here’s a wonderful short film about the area that’s just been made by Shibden Digital: If you don’t know the area yet, you will soon, especially when The Piece Hall and Square Chapel Centre for the Arts […]
The sun has set over another academic year… For the second half of the 2015/16 school year I have been working at The Brooksbank School in Elland as a maths / French / cover teacher. It also happens to be the school that I attended myself, far too […]
A review of things cycling in and around Leeds in the coming weeks and months…
Melanie Rice writes: Yorkshire lasses Kate Horsfall of Wetherby and Judith Worrall of Thirsk are inviting all ladies who like to cycle to their Yorkshire Lass Cycling Club’s first charity sportive on 14 August – 140 entrants have already signed up and just 160 places remain. Supported by […]
As the winter nights draw in (OK, for pedants, they have stopped doing that as we are now the 23rd December but you know what I mean…) and cycle touring in the northern hemisphere is left to the hardy adventure cyclists out there – I’m afraid to say that, […]
Here are the stages… (More details here.)
Originally posted on Leeds Bicycle Film Club by Ian Street “Amazingly my idea to have a monthly film night themed around the humble bike appears to be working and our November evening will be the thoroughly enjoyable documentary Ride of My Life: The Story of the Bicycle ‘Anyone […]
Tomorrow morning I return to the wonderful world of being a secondary school teacher. I left the classroom at the end of January in order to complete my litttle 8,000km cycle across the continent… But it’s now time to get back to work! My final weekend of under-employment […]
Reggie: Wheear ‘ast tha bin sin’ ah saw thee? Andrew: On Ilkley Moor, with my hat. The Mountain Equipment one that kept me warm in Norway. It’s a very fetching bright blue. Reggie: Wheear ‘ast tha bin sin’ ah saw thee, ah saw thee? Andrew: I just said; […]
It’s been a quiet week at CyclingEurope.org; I’ve been busy getting a job! Anyway, I spotted this in an email that came from the organisers of the Tour de Yorkshire announcing the host towns for the 2016 race. Very pretty! (At the time I was somewhere in Spain/south […]
I had a bacon butty at the Bicycle Den today… …and here is what the town centre looked like earlier in the beautiful early autumn day:
Being temporarily somewhat underemployed – the supply teaching has yet to materialise to fill the gaps between procrastinating about writing book 3 – I have at least been afforded a bit of time to get out and see what’s happening in my new old home of Calderdale here in West […]
Think of Halifax and most people think of a bank. Some (especially those online when using the hashtag #Halifax) assume we are talking Nova Scotia. When I think of Halifax I think of the place where I was born; the nearest large town to where I spent the first […]
Today I am going to go and do in Halifax (the town where I was born) what I did earlier in the year in Gibraltar, Cadiz, Seville, Zafra, Salamanca, Zamora, Pamplona, Saumur, Tours, Orleans, Paris, Waterloo, Bremen, Hamburg, Mons Klint, Copenhagen, Helsingor, Gothenburg, Oslo, Trondheim, Tromso, Nordkapp and Bergen… …which, if you haven’t guessed, […]
Hot on the heels of the first (sold out) event organised by Leeds cycling impresario Ian Street comes the follow up film, the documentary “Rising From Ashes“. I went along to the first night and it was thoroughly enjoyable evening; good film, good venue (The Reliance in Leeds), good […]
This is once again my home territory and I have to say that on a day like today, with no wind to speak of and hazy sunshine, it compares very favourably indeed to anything that the continent can offer. My route took me from Blackley (the Yorkshire one) […]
Leeds Bicycle Film Club launches on Monday 24th August at The Reliance in Leeds! The first film to be shown is the 1979 cycling classic (and Oscar Academy Award™ winning) Breaking Away. I just bought my ticket from Eventbrite (only £4 + 89p admin fee!) so I’ll perhaps see you […]
Another one of those nights of ‘rest’ rather than ‘sleep’ on the Pride of Rotterdam. Having completely forgotten that the clocks change upon arrival in the UK I was up and out of the cabin by 6:30am continental time, 5:30am British summer time. Two and a half hours […]
I see land! British land; the spit of Flamborough Head at sunrise… CORRECTION! Spurn Point on the Humber! (Thank-you Mr. John Sykes of Elland.)
Having little to do on this ship is wonderful. I’ve read a book in just over a day, snoozed for many hours and have now put my mind to poetry. I give you the limerick of the cycle from Tarifa to Nordkapp! Can anyone do better? There once […]
Cycling from Tarifa to Nordkapp may, in retrospect, appear to have been a relatively simply jaunt compared the the trip that I am about to embark upon when I arrive in Bergen. I’ve just spent a not inconsiderable amount of time on the Internet and this is the […]
As the sun peeks over the hill at 5am, it’s just me and a certain bicycle waiting by the quayside in Honningsvåg for the start of our long and hopefully leisurely journey back to Yorkshire. The MS Lofoten has yet to dock but when it does it’s a […]
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 […]
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 […]
One sunny afternoon during my time living in Tours in the second half of the 1990s, inspired by some similar creations that I had seen in a gallery in Bradford by David Hockney, I took my analogue SLR camera to the nearby fine art museum to take lots […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. An interesting day… I had no great expectations that it would be. Just another few hours trundling along the N-630. I set off with no definite destination in mind; the plan was to cycle as far as Carcaboso […]
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 […]
The plan this morning was to first spend an hour or so meandering my way along the edge of the rock so as to complete a full circumnavigation. OK, it’s not perhaps the British Isles but it would at least give me claim to having visited most things […]
The plan for today was – and still is – to spend a few hours reviewing my notes from the Spanish course that I completed during the last three months of 2014 at Reading College. I’m slowly getting a little better at coming up with the important bits […]
About to leave Yorkshire after a brief stay of just three weeks to fly to Malaga, Spain. Reggie (the bike) may already be there… Back in six months!
I’ve been sent a couple of cycling guides to review by Cicerone: The Rhine Cycle Route (ISBN: 978-1-85284-797-5) and The Danube Cycleway (ISBN: 978-1-85284-722-7). The Rhine guide is an updated version of the original 2013 guide, the Danube guide has just been published for the first time. When […]
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 […]
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 […]
I’m not sure if some you have noticed (probably yes) but I occasionally post things on CyclingEurope.org that have been ‘sponsored’. You can work out what that means! Anyway, this morning I was chatting on Twitter with a chap called John Wilson who asked if I could help […]
It’s been a busy few days since relocating back up to Yorkshire but I’m delighted that the whole process is now complete. I first started to plan my return to the county where I was born, brought up and educated over twelve months ago and everything has now […]
