A day of walking around the centre of Colombo, waiting for my bike and luggage to be returned to me. I was quite taken with the old building, now almost empty, that used to house Cargill’s department store (pic). The colonnades still help shoppers dodge the monsoon rains or the noonday sun, but not English…
Category: End to Ends
Sri Lanka 1: Colombo
I arrived safely in Colombo at four this morning. My luggage didn’t. Etihad managed to lose it somewhere en route last night. Most of my bike did turn up, though that’s more of a hindrance than help: the pedals and tools to reassemble it (and mend the minor damage such as trashed mudguards and bottle…
Sri Lanka 0: Colombo
I spent a sleepless 36 hours getting from York to Colombo, the idea being to cycle the Sri Lankan End to End. Etihad’s seatback entertainment didn’t entice me, and I spent most of the 12 plane hours staring at the live map. But I was disappointed when I clicked on the heading ‘Cycle Maps’. It…
Isle of Man 2: Douglas to Point of Ayre (to Douglas)
So, having started yesterday, this is our final day. We rode up the road that serves as part of the TT (‘Tourist Trophy’) course, the legendary annual motorbike race much loved for its lethal danger, which has been won by legendary riders such as Joey Dunlop and George Formby. On a previous trip with Tim…
Isle of Man 1: (Douglas to) Calf Sound to Douglas
I was here in the Isle of Man to cycle its End to End – a modest few dozen miles that, frankly, you could do without stopping – with my friend Nigel. We came from Belfast by ferry having just completed the Northern Ireland End to End, a comparative ultra-marathon at 193 miles. The Isle…
N Ireland 4: Ballycastle to Giant’s Causeway (to Derry)
A short hop into headwind and drizzle to the notional end of the End to End: Giant’s Causeway. The natural wonder consists of 40,000 hexagonal columns of basalt – the same sort of volcanic stuff the moon is made of – looking like a giant’s clumsily-laid garden patio. Visiting by bike isn’t all that convenient…
N Ireland 3: Straid to Ballycastle
Yet more tailwinds helping us on to Larne, where a shouty, belligerent local was furious that we didn’t follow his unsolicited directions. It was the last unpleasant thing of the day, though: from here is one of the loveliest stretches of coastal road in the United Kingdom that Mr Shouty was so keen on belonging…
N Ireland 2: Portaferry to Straid
We circumnavigated the bottom of scenic Ards peninsula, and north through shore towns with Union Flags and kerbstones painted red, white and blue. We took and coffee and light lunch in Newtownards, a friendly little loyalist town, with its pipe band braying away benignly in the market-stall square. A local chap admired my Raleigh. ‘Made…
N Ireland 1: (Dundalk to) Cranfield Point to Portaferry
Whatever your position on its relation to Great Britain or Ireland, and whether you call it a country or a region or a province, Northern Ireland has its own football team, which is enough to justify it for me as a standalone End to End country. I did it with my chum Nigel, on a…
Britain 21: Melvich to John o’Groats
From Melvich I passed Dounreay, site of the famous fast breeder (picture). Obviously, I wore a radiation suit for cycling. After all, can’t do any harm, and cycling is DANGEROUS, and the fact that the suit split after I passed the reactor PROVES IT SAVED MY LIFE. I think radiation suits for cyclists should be…