Cycling adventures across Yorkshire, Britain and beyond
Workaday Kidderminster, with its busy roads, isn’t near the top of many bucket lists for cycling. Nor its beauty: the Museum of Carpet is the main attraction, and the colour ain’t red, but it does have a handy canal towpath that takes you out of the centre north or south, and the many bike trails…
Yesterday was east; today was west, through Poole to the Isle of Purbeck via chain ferry, then back to Bournemouth via that endless seafront path. After the cycle path which runs north through parkland alongside the Bourne I took roads to neighbouring Poole. I came here in 2010 as the first of my Rhyming Coast…
Bournemouth’s epic promenade cycle path isn’t quite England’s longest car-free example – that’s Blackpool’s twelve-miler – but at 10 miles, the Dorset resort’s is long enough. The town boomed as a seaside resort in the 19th century, and as one source informed me, has a Victorian gentility still. So long as they use their Victorian…
Yorkshire. Home of Britain’s best scenery, best beer, best roast dinners, best writers, best cricketers. And, perhaps surprising for some, Britain’s – even the world’s – best library. Sort of. The British Library, at St Pancras in London, is nirvana for researchers. It gives free access to (in principle) every book ever published in the…
Dunsop Bridge is the centre of Britain: the point at which a cardboard cutout of the country would balance. Not, obviously, a full-size one. Thanks to everybody ordering everything off Amazon these days, there isn’t enough cardboard as it is. And my route today – a forty-odd-mile loop northwest from Clitheroe up the splendid Trough…
Today’s plan was a ride in diabolical territory – up through the Nick of Pendle to witch country – and the morning was certainly diabolical weather, with black clouds and furious rain. I sat most of it out by doing cafe and bike shop research (talking of which, the Green Jersey local bike shop–club–cafe is…
Clitheroe is gateway town to Pendle’s Witch Country, but today was magic of a different kind: a wonderful day ride up to Bentham and back over Forest of Bowland moors. It’s all hilly stuff: no wonder most of the many cyclists I saw today were on e-bikes. Who needs flying brooms when you have electric…
With my research for the trip done yesterday, today was for-fun, with just two items on my to-do list: Britain’s Smallest House, and Britain’s Lourdes. The Smallest House is in Conwy, on the harbourfront, a short ride south from my stay last night in Llandudno. Conwy is a characterful little place with an imposing castle,…
Britain’s longest car-free cyclable promenade runs 28km / 17 smooth tarmac miles from Prestatyn to Llandudno, and I rode it this gloriously sunny autumn day. Note I didn’t say ‘warm’. I was well wrapped up, especially as there was little effort involved: I had a bargain tailwind, and the ride profile was as flat as…
England’s longest continuous car-free promenade cycle path is in Blackpool. Rock on! It runs for 12 uninterrupted, smooth, flat, seaside miles from Starr Gate, just south of the Pleasure Beach and South Pier, up and round to Fleetwood. En route you encounter an organ played by the tide, Blackpool Tower, beaches, piers, a lighthouse in…