Cycling adventures across Yorkshire, Britain and beyond
The first full day of riding, and a chance to get some proper miles under our belt. Also under our belt went custard tarts, cake, muffins, Iberian ham and local cheese, cod empanadas, garlic sausage, enough fresh bread to insulate an Antarctic research station, and litres of coffee. That was some hotel breakfast. We followed…
I’m cycling the Portugal End to End, with my chum Nigel: from Chaves in the north to Faro on the south coast. It’s a journey of about 475 miles (760km), or about 25 custard tarts. We’re taking the old N2, once the main road that runs – or rather, crawls – the length of the…
I’m diligently researching a ride for an article that asked me to combine beer and cycling. Hmm. Clearly a mix to be approached with care, like ice skating while juggling machetes, or putting Brexiteers in the cabinet. I came up with the idea of a circuit round Kent: Canterbury–Ashford–Tenterden–Faversham–Canterbury. This should be an enjoyable one-…
The nearest you can get to Japan in springtime Britain could be Harrogate. Because the Stray – that picnickable green expanse in the heart of the elegant spa town – has two avenues packed with cherry trees. They give you one of the country’s top ten best sakura experiences: a little bit of Kyoto in…
Just two maps left to bag today. But getting from Whitby to the first of them, at Saltburn, was not as easy as the Tile Maps suggest, with their promise of a railway threading a picturesque coastal route all the way. That was one of mass-killer Beeching’s many victims in the 1960s. So I’d have…
Ah, Scarbados! Yorkshire’s Blackpool, its national beach resort. A bit cold for a dip today, but there were consolations. A ludicrously long bench. A superb, if frustrating, cycle path. And a Tile Map. The bench first. It’s on Platform 1 of Scarborough station, and ideal for introverts. Because it’s 139m (456ft) long. Two emotionally repressed…
I started a three-day trip today, relying for directions on a unique map that’s (a) made of tiles and (b) useless. It’s the mural atlas produced 120 years ago by North Eastern Railways showing their train network in Yorkshire, County Durham and Northumberland. They made 25, nine of which survive in their original locations, six…
Yorkshire is a country – sorry, county – of superlatives. Of stuff that matters, anyway. The best beer, finest scenery, tallest people, most interesting phone boxes, oldest and highest pub. And – I was delighted to learn – the World’s Oldest Working Railway. Because in Hunslet, a suburb of Leeds, there’s been a train running…
Of England’s 32 Minsters, 13 are in Yorkshire. York’s is the best known, biggest, and obviously, best. Ripon and Beverley are familiar too; Hemingborough and Howden less so. Those have been joined in the last thirty years by newly-minsterised churches in Dewsbury, Doncaster, Rotherham, Halifax, Leeds and Hull. I can hear pub quizzers busy scribbling…
In 1984, Yorkshire had 56 coal mines. By 2015 that figure was zero. Little is left of the industry that defined much of the county’s community life and character, except for one vibrant, enduring legacy: a loathing of Margaret Thatcher and her government. But Barnsley can point to another legacy: Barnsley Main. The old entrance…