Cycling adventures across Yorkshire, Britain and beyond
Like our sense of pitch, and graphs to represent the awesome distances of the cosmos, Southern Bohemia’s canals are usually on a log scale. They were built to wash tree trunks down from forests to sawmills down below, in other words. But in Southern Moravia there’s a more familiar canal, with all the things you…
Angkor Wat, the Terracotta Army, Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, the Panama Canal, the Hoover Dam, and… the Schwarzenberg Canal. They’ve all been called the ‘eighth wonder of the world’, and even if the Czech Republic’s contribution to the list may not be quite as famous as the other tourist must-boast-abouts, it has the major advantage…
The idea of the Czech Republic having canals came as a bit of a surprise. It’s like finding cricket pitches in Denmark, or pork pie shops in Bangladesh. But I cycled along a Czech canal today, as part of my latest research trip updating the Bradt Guide to the Czech Republic. I was in Klatovy,…
On this sunny Sunday, a glorious half-day on tiny lanes and dry-valley bridleways in one of my favourite parts of the world, the Yorkshire Wolds. The twenty-mile circuit involved a hidden nature reserve, an earthwork-artwork resembling a giant plughole, East Yorkshire’s highest point (spoiler: it’s not very), a pint of IPA, and hooligan cows. →…
The annual three-day York Cycle Festival – a festival of cycling held each year in York for three days, if you’re not familiar with it – moved this year to Driffield and became the Yorkshire Cycle Festival. (Essentially, York Racecourse, where it used to be held, made it too difficult for event’s heroic volunteer organisers…
I’m doing regular visits to see someone in hospital these days, which involve me getting from York to Cottingham (aka ‘Britain’s biggest village’). So, of course, I’m trying to turn it into a cycling opportunity when weather allows. It’s also saving enough in hospital parking charges to buy me a new bike by Christmas. Today,…
Having a folding bike with me in this research trip for the upcoming Bradt Guide to the Czech Rep has been a revelation. A train can get you anywhere major. A bus from there can you get you anywhere minor. And a bike from there can get you anywhere at all. Even places so small…
I’m back in the Czech republic again, this time with a folding bike. I’m staying in Příbram, a former mining town an hour from Prague, and an easy bike ride away is the village of Vysoká. Here are various summerhouse retreats of the great Antonín Dvořák, composer and redesigner of computer keyboard layouts. (Well, OK,…
I’m spending a lot of time in the Czech Republic this year, updating a guidebook. (I have a separate blog on that.) Mostly this is using the country’s excellent public transport, but at last today I did manage to get a bike ride. With my friendly guide Pavel, I cycled to see some famous regal…
The workshop of Robert Thompson (1876–1955) of Kilburn, North Yorkshire, is famous for mice. Its wooden furniture often features as its standard symbol a life-size mouse, carved discreetly into the piece. Their products are often from oak and found in churches, and the cute rodents are a sly reference to woodworkers and artisans generally being…