No wonder, in this era of neoliberal capitalism, red squirrels are struggling. Their old ways of social equality and communally-owned hazelnuts have been pushed aside by the aggressive, exploitative, money-making urgency of the greys. However, on the Isle of Wight, like amiable old lefties with control of some niche council, the reds still cling on….
Author: Rob Ainsley
Isle of Wight 1: Round the Island
The round-the-island cycle route is the keynote bike ride of the diamond-shaped island off the south coast. And it is indeed a gem. Because it’s got many faces and it’s hard. It’s sixty-odd miles of ups and down giving some splendid views and scenery along the way, but also missing a trick or two if…
Otterburn Ranges: Remote possibilities
This is as remote as England gets. The top of Coquetdale in Northumberland is over thirty miles’ ride west from the nearest railway station at Alnmouth. I was cycle-camping here to research a magazine article, exploring the Otterburn Ranges: Ministry of Defence land only open to the public a few days a month, like our…
Wilts White Horses: Chalking up all eight
Stonehenge. Avebury. Long barrows. Crop circles… and White Horses. There’s something weird about Wiltshire. Must be those open plains and smooth chalk slopes: a blank canvas to send messages to the gods, or them to us. Britain has many hill figures in the shape of a giant steed round the country. There’s one in Folkestone…
Wye 4: Ross to mouth (to Chepstow)
Day 4 featured the birth of the tourist industry, England’s most spectacular river panorama, Britain’s only surviving hand ferry, more quirky little pedestrian bridges, a mile-long unlit pitch-black tunnel, Chepstow’s magnificent historic border/ non-border bridge – and the conclusion of the trip at the sprawling confluence where Wye and Severn meet up again. Today was…
Wye 3: Hay to Ross
Day 3 featured ‘book town’ Hay, a cyclist called Elgar who like me also composed a bit, Hereford glimpsed, pedestrian bridges that could double as fairground cakewalks, and an idyllic pub-camping spot. I was away early. The market in Hay-on-Wye was just setting up and most shops – which in Hay, means bookshops – were…
Wye 2: Llangurig to Hay
Day 2 featured a fence made of gravestones, a coach road that would make you sack your coach, biking barbers, a chance encounter, and a wasp sting not by a wasp. An early start. My puncture repair work was evidently successful: the back tyre was still firm this morning. I headed to Llangurig through the…
Wye 1: (Borth to) Source to Llangurig
This is a leisurely cycle-camp down the 130-mile River Wye. (Route map below.) Day 1 featured a bit of Japan on a house, a pub Dylan Thomas never drank in, remote reservoirs, a puncture, and the source up in the mid-Welsh hills just a stone’s throw from that of the Severn. Please don’t throw stones…
Thorne: Going Dutch in Little Holland
Little Switzerland; Little Germany; Little Canada; Little Denmark; Little Holland. Yorkshire contains many miniature foreign countries, and I’ve cycled the lot. Which is most convincing? Answers revealed below. But first, today’s trip, in which I completed my globetrotting-at-home set with Thorne. The small town outside Doncaster is nicknamed ‘Little Holland’ for its supposed resemblance to…
Morley: Gone for a Beryl Burton
‘BERYL BURTON OBE / Was a cycling phenomenon’, states the blue plaque in Morley town centre. The ‘Yorkshire housewife’ (as they called her then, instead of ‘cycling superstar’) indeed was. She dominated women’s road, track and time-trial cycling in Britain through the 1960s: almost unbeatable from 1959 to 1983, winning 90 UK championships and seven…