Cycling adventures across Britain and beyond
My friend Mark Wedgwood is on a remarkable journey right now: cycling all 204 OS Landranger maps, in order. It’s a 7,000-mile odyssey that will take him everywhere in Britain. To exotic, far-flung places even I’ve never been, like St Kilda, or Skegness. He’s blogging about his journey at ridealltheosmaps.co.uk, and Instagramming on @ridealltheosmaps. Today…
Three of Britain’s most decisive and pivotal battles were each fought a short bike ride from York, which probably explains it. I’ve previously ridden to Stamford Bridge, where in 1066 England beat the Norwegians before losing to the French at Hastings three weeks later. And I’ve been to Towton, a turning point in the Wars…
Britain’s de facto second city (sorry, Brummies) was utterly terrible for cycling until recently. Now though – thanks to some determined installations of segregated cycle lanes – it’s much better. Compared to the best large cities. Which means it’s only slightly terrible. To be fair – which would be a departure for me, granted –…
En route home from the Isle of Wight, I found Portsmouth surprisingly difficult to tear myself away from. Though that was largely because a station fire knocked out the trains for four hours. But spare time in a city is never a problem with a bike, so I spent the hiatus enjoyably exploring the city’s…
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….
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 it also misses a trick or two…
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…
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…
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…
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…