Cycling adventures across Yorkshire, Britain and beyond
I’m exploring the touring possibilities of a folding bike plus inflatable boat. The bike can carry the deflated boat; and the boat can carry the folded bike. Which enables amphibious linear journeys: you don’t have to paddle back to where you left the bike (or car, not that I can be bothered with cars). You…
If you only visit one ‘thankful village’ – one of the 53 in England and Wales to have all its sons survive WWI – make it Scruton, up in North Yorkshire, between Richmond and Northallerton. The last of my rides to all five of Yorkshire’s finished here today, at a village where, more than any…
The Egton Bridge Gooseberry Show – on the first Tuesday in August each year – is the world’s most ancient: over two centuries old, having started in 1800. A splendid excuse to visit the North Yorkshire Moors village today on my folding bike, thanks to a £3 trip on the 840 Coastliner from York, Britain’s…
Among England and Wales’s 53 ‘thankful villages’ – ones whose soldiers all survived WWI – Norton-le-Clay and Cundall, east of Ripon in North Yorkshire, are the closest together: neighbours, in fact, only a couple of kilometres of farmland lane apart. Today was baking hot and I wasn’t up for a long ride, so a bus-assisted…
My rides to all five of Yorkshire’s ‘Thankful Villages’ – whose sons emerged unscathed from WWI – continued this summer day with a ride from Hull to Catwick. (See map below). The small East Yorkshire village is that rarity, ‘doubly thankful’: one of only 14 in England and Wales that also came through WWII without…
After a few days in Denmark, I cycled a few days in Schleswig-Holstein. Why? Ah, that old question. Well, I’m planning a German End to End later this year, and this seemed good preparation. Northern Germany does good cycling infra. The hundred-plus-mile trip from Flensburg, on the Danish border, through the DK/DE ambiguity of Schleswig-Holstein…
Our Denmark Side to Side finished today: at Nyhavn. The colourful harbour is one of Copenhagen’s major tourist tick-boxes, and more picturesque than the underwhelming Little Mermaid. It felt a suitable end point. To get there we had a straight run of thirty-odd miles on good main road bike paths past Roskilde. Nigel’s mechanical concerns…
A long day – 75 miles – and a rainy one, but thanks to Denmark’s quiet country lanes and good separated bike paths, rather fun. If you call cycling in the rain fun. Which, being a cycle tourist, I often do. We surfed the commuter tide out of Odense on decent and well-signed bike infra….
Danish hostels are not cheap, but the breakfast was just what I needed: a big buffet of fruit, cold cuts, fresh bread, yoghurt, salad, coffee and juices. A cold cut above the average English hostel, I must say, although something this hostel has in common with its British counterparts is that it’s on top of…
I did Denmark last year ‘bottom to top’ (Padborg to Skagen, all the way up Jutland). Like the slightly guilty fan of the pricey coffee and full-fat pastries in a hygge cafe, I enjoyed it so much that I’m here again, to do the happy cycling country ‘side to side’. That is, from Blåvand on…