Cycling adventures across Yorkshire, Britain and beyond
A long, sunny day of gently rolling green farmland that took us to the very highest point in Denmark: the lofty summit of Møllehøj, at over 1700m, or 5,577ft. Oh, sorry, I mean 170m, or 557ft. Yes, that’s as far up as the country gets. In fact, not counting comedy micronations such as the Vatican,…
Our zigzag up Jutland continued: yesterday was east coast to west coast, today west coast back to east coast. We had four hours of heartless, heavy, relentless rain, but I wouldn’t say we or our pannier contents got wet. I’d say we and our pannier contents got absolutely sodden. My ancient Ortliebs need replacing at…
Denmark is one of those countries with five million-odd people: Slovakia, Finland, Norway, Palestine, New Zealand, Ireland, Yorkshire. (Perhaps for Yorkshire we can remove that hyphen.) I’ve been to Copenhagen a few times, but never explored the rest of the place. This End to End aims to put that right. Or rather, centre-left. Because the…
My compact trans-Lux ride ended at Schengen, a once obscure wine-growing village down at Luxembourg’s southeast corner, now famous thanks to the border-controls-busting accord signed there. With Britain’s notorious exit from the EU in mind, everything today about my departure from Luxembourg was likely to be a metaphor for Brexit. And so it proved: thick…
Luxembourg likes to style itself as a cycling country these days, rather than say a tax haven. (So, the opposite of what Tory Britain is doing.) Today I got a glimpse of that, with a mixture of mostly lovely cycling which took me down most of the country to the capital, via the very Central…
A big small country, or a small big country? As European micro-states go, Luxembourg is macro. By dwarf standards, a giant. At 2,600km2, it’s positively Russian compared to compact Andorra (468km2), tiny Malta (316km2), bijou Liechtenstein (160km2), minuscule San Marino (61km2), microscopic Monaco (2km2), and nano-scale Vatican City (0.4km2). A proper country, with its own…
Want to sound like an East Yorkshire native? No, I thought not. But if you did, you’d describe today’s route as ‘Pock to Brid, via Drif’. We’re keen on initial syllables as nicknames here. Anyway, after a sound night’s sleep in my own bed at home in York, I got back to last night’s finish…
The Pareto Principle splits things into 80/20 contrasts (such as ‘80% of the work is done by 20% of the people’, an idea most of us in the 20% can agree with). On the other hand, the Football Principle splits things into two halves: usually, along the lines of, ‘we lost the first half 6-0,…
Another hilly day today, though to me it was a walk in the park. Because it’s the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and whenever it got steep I got off to walk. All thrilling scenery, though, as more quiet back lanes wound their way through, up and over the hills of Malhamdale, Wharfedale and Nidderdale. It…
I’m doing the Way of the Roses 1970s-style: the 170 mile coast-to-coast east across northern England, from Morecambe to Bridlington, on a 1978* bike and using only seventies kit. No gadgets, no lycra. A rain cape, not Goretex jacket. Terrible old Ever Ready lights, not LEDs. Fixing accommodation on the hoof, in a callbox or…