Cycling adventures across Yorkshire, Britain and beyond
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…
I rode like the wind today. Not surprising, as it was a hefty southwesterly, and I was heading north-east. The w-assist powered me up the banks of the Meuse into the Netherlands which, unlike Belgium, was not closed for All Saints’ Day today. Riding along the river round Liège (which I’m researching for an upcoming…
A short day today: just two dozen miles or so of riding, finishing the Vennbahn from St Vith to Troisvierges just inside Luxembourg. This part of the route, unlike the previous 55 miles, mixes quiet streamside lanes, tarmac paths across farmland, and the odd gravel road with the railtrail sections, almost – but not quite…
British railtrails are typically smooth, wide tarmac. For two miles. Then gravel. Then muddy path. Then a fenced bridleway round a cement factory, then a path through a housing estate, then a shared-use track alongside an A road. Well, not in Belgium. Their RAVeL network, much of it on old railway lines, is generally excellent:…
Europe is strewn with points where three countries meet, so they’re not that special. (There are no genuine four-country points in the world, by the way.) But, being in Bratislava after finishing our Austrian End to End, we couldn’t resist cycling through the fog today to the junction of Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. A dozen…
If this Austrian End to End started with Bangs, it ended with – well, not exactly whimpers, but maybe a shrug and a meh. The last few foggy, drearily uneventful floodbank-top miles of Danube Path were like Philip Glass played on a hurdy-gurdy. For five hours. Except that I rather enjoyed the quiet solitude of…
A rest day (hence the brackets) in Vienna. Nigel went to Budapest to have lunch, while I stayed in town to do chores. I replaced brake blocks, did laundry, and attended to some work admin. Not especially because I had to, but I thought it sounded good to say I was ‘doing some writing from…
Johann Strauss’s first draft of what was to become On the beautiful blue Danube was a mundane song praising the virtues of street lighting. (This is true.) Well, today’s stretch of Danube path was definitely more in that vein than the azure lilt of the more famous version. It was foggy and chilly most of…
It wasn’t exactly Instagram weather for the runners doing the Linz Marathon this morning: thick fog, with a visibility of less than five metres. A hot-air balloon, burners roaring, was preparing for take-off, which seemed a trifle optimistic. The lack of views wasn’t going to trouble us unduly though. We spent all day following the…
The forecast rain came as something of a relief after days of autumn sun. It’s possible to have too much honey, after all. But all this Scotch mist was making me a little homesick, as was the headline in the morning paper about our government back home: Britisches Chaos. We had a good-humoured conversation about…