One world of cycle touring

I’ve cycled in a lot of places with silly names. Dull, twinned with Boring. Jump. Bedlam. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, etc. But I’d never been to Silly itself, a small Belgian town southwest of Brussels. Today I took the very sensible decision to visit as I passed en route to Paris. Silly has a population of 8,500, and...

Last time I passed through Brussels, earlier this trip, I saw the Mannekin Pis in cycling gear. This time I saw his dog equivalent, but had to supply the bike interest myself. The sculpture is called Het Zinneke, ‘the mongrel’ – a reference to the nickname Brussels’ melting pot people apparently call themselves. With York’s...

One of the world’s most unnecessary ‘No Cycling’ signs is probably here in Liège. If you’ve been exploring the little Impasses of the Hors-Château quarter, at the foot of the citadel, you might be tempted to take the footpath to the top for a view over the city. Not when you actually get to the...

Liège–Bastogne–Liège is a notoriously tough one-day annual cycle race. It’s a classic of the calendar, particularly the bit of the calendar just before the end of spring when it still might be horribly cold, wet and snowy. It’s nicknamed La Doyenne, ‘the old lady’. No wonder it’s sometimes also nicknamed Neige–Bastogne–Neige. Cycling the 260km of...

I rode like the wind today. Not surprising, as it was a hefty southwesterly, and I was heading north-east. The w-assist powered me up the banks of the Meuse into the Netherlands which, unlike Belgium, was not closed for All Saints’ Day today. Riding along the river round Liège (which I’m researching for an upcoming...

A short day today: just two dozen miles or so of riding, finishing the Vennbahn from St Vith to Troisvierges just inside Luxembourg. This part of the route, unlike the previous 55 miles, mixes quiet streamside lanes, tarmac paths across farmland, and the odd gravel road with the railtrail sections, almost – but not quite...

British railtrails are typically smooth, wide tarmac. For two miles. Then gravel. Then muddy path. Then a fenced bridleway round a cement factory, then a path through a housing estate, then a shared-use track alongside an A road. Well, not in Belgium. Their RAVeL network, much of it on old railway lines, is generally excellent:...

Europe is strewn with points where three countries meet, so they’re not that special. (There are no genuine four-country points in the world, by the way.) But, being in Bratislava after finishing our Austrian End to End, we couldn’t resist cycling through the fog today to the junction of Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. A dozen...

If this Austrian End to End started with Bangs, it ended with – well, not exactly whimpers, but maybe a shrug and a meh. The last few foggy, drearily uneventful floodbank-top miles of Danube Path were like Philip Glass played on a hurdy-gurdy. For five hours. Except that I rather enjoyed the quiet solitude of...

A rest day (hence the brackets) in Vienna. Nigel went to Budapest to have lunch, while I stayed in town to do chores. I replaced brake blocks, did laundry, and attended to some work admin. Not especially because I had to, but I thought it sounded good to say I was ‘doing some writing from...