Want to sound like an East Yorkshire native? No, I thought not. But if you did, you’d describe today’s route as ‘Pock to Brid, via Drif’. We’re keen on initial syllables as nicknames here. Anyway, after a sound night’s sleep in my own bed at home in York, I got back to last night’s finish…
Author: Rob Ainsley
WoR 1970s 3: Ripon to Pocklington
The Pareto Principle splits things into 80/20 contrasts (such as ‘80% of the work is done by 20% of the people’, an idea most of us in the 20% can agree with). On the other hand, the Football Principle splits things into two halves: usually, along the lines of, ‘we lost the first half 6-0,…
WoR 1970s 2: Malham to Ripon
Another hilly day today, though to me it was a walk in the park. Because it’s the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and whenever it got steep I got off to walk. All thrilling scenery, though, as more quiet back lanes wound their way through, up and over the hills of Malhamdale, Wharfedale and Nidderdale. It…
WoR 1970s 1: Morecambe to Malham
I’m doing the Way of the Roses 1970s-style: the 170 mile coast-to-coast east across northern England, from Morecambe to Bridlington, on a 1978 bike and using only seventies kit. No gadgets, no lycra. A rain cape, not Goretex jacket. Terrible old Ever Ready lights, not LEDs. Fixing accommodation on the hoof, in a callbox or…
(Netherlands 13: The Lowest Point)
I started my Netherlands End to End at the Highest Point, down at Drielandenpunt near Maastricht, so – as I’d been a couple of days in Rotterdam – I couldn’t resist going to the Lowest Point today, between there and Gouda. At 6.76m beneath NAP (normaal Amsterdams piel, in other words, essentially, sea level) it’s…
(Netherlands 9: The Central Point)
Having completed the Netherlands End to End, I added the country’s middle point today. I seem to be collecting them: I’ve cycled to national foci in Britain, Belgium and Portugal recently. The centre of the country – in other words, the point at which a piece of cheese the shape of the Netherlands would balance,…
Netherlands 8: Groningen to Noordkaap
I finished the Dutch End to End today by riding the short last leg up to Noordkaap: the lonely, windy, northernmost point of the mainland, with little but electricity pylons, wind turbines and the odd oystercatcher for company. Another F route took me fast and car-free right from my hostel in the centre of Groningen…
Netherlands 7: Steenwijk to Groningen
A lovely long, easy day of tailwind scooting along the LF9’s make-believe seashore, going through a variety-pack of flat Frisian landscapes: heathland, marsh, woods, new towns. It was about as wild and remote as the Netherlands gets… well, ‘wild and remote’ in the same sense that the Yorkshire Pennines can get ‘lush and tropical’. But…
Netherlands 6: Zwolle to Steenwijk
I followed an imaginary coastline today: where the Netherlands would meet the North Sea if it hadn’t been for centuries of land reclamation. Given the recent few months of incessant rain and a fair bit of standing water still in fields, as in England, it wasn’t that hard to imagine. I started in Zwolle with…
Netherlands 5: Bronkhorst to Zwolle
Another day of banktop riding, with sunshine in the afternoon, following the meanders of the IJssel river on the LF3. I wasn’t due in Zwolle at my accommodation tonight until 7pm, giving me plenty of time to dawdle, which at the pace I cycle on my folder is just as well. After leaving the raucous…