Cycling adventures across Yorkshire, Britain and beyond
Another two-quid trundle – that is, a £2-flat-fare bus trip with a folding bike – took me to Ripon. It’s famous for its 800-year-old nightly horn signal, which I’ve experienced before with no clothes on. But my bargain trip today was to visit Yorkshire’s oldest continuously used building, and wander round the nearby Studley Royal…
The road to Castle Howard is one of the oddest in Yorkshire. It bounds straight over slopes of the Hambleton Hills AONB, as straight as a reformed ex-con arrow following a Roman Road with a ruler-defined GPX. And it has some cool gates that are only just big enough to admit a bus, or those…
There are plenty of reasons to come to Goathland, one of the North York Moors’ most characterful and interesting villages. Its setting for the 1990s ITV series Heartbeat. The station’s appearances in Harry Potter. A road built by a giant, or the Romans, or perhaps someone else. Mallyan Spout’s dramatic waterfall. Sheep. For me, though,…
Most people come to Whitby for the Goth festivals, the fish and chips, the quaint old fishing-cottage alleys, Captain Cook, the Abbey, or the Dracula shtick. Today, I came for a cobbled lane. Because the rugged harbour gem has a candidate for Britain’s steepest cyclable street. Well, cyclable in theory. Church Road, aka Donkey Track,…
I was researching a circular day-ride today, west from Paris to Versailles and back. I’m a great fan of monarchy as you know, and think we in Britain should preserve it. I hear that formaldehyde is the curator’s choice. Joking aside, I have great respect for Charles et al. It all goes to show how…
The world’s first ever bike race took place in Paris on 31 May 1868, and was won by English rider James Moore. So the story goes; but as we know, stories are often cobblers. (See also Kirkpatrick Macmillan, Leonardo da Vinci’s designs for a bike, my-helmet-saved-my-life etc.) However, I was in Paris researching routes for…
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…