Cycling adventures across Yorkshire, Britain and beyond
A day short on miles (51), modest on elevation (3,600ft), but long on precipitation (6.5 cats and 4.3 dogs). Yes: rain had been forecast for the whole day, and for once the forecast was spot-on. Still, we at least kept positive, if not at all dry. My Ortlieb panniers, like me, are old, battered and…
UEFA, WTO, IOC: this French, western part of Switzerland is home to the HQs of various globally important abbreviations. Something, no doubt, to do with its stability, neutrality, and ability to satisfy expense accounts. Yesterday we passed the Union of European Football Associations, sporting a giant football alerting us to the current Euros, and the…
We’re cycling across Switzerland, land of milk and money, from west to east. That is, from the French border, at the splendidly-named Chancy near Geneva, across its mountainscapes right across to where it meets Austria at Martina. We’ll have the chancy to use our French, German, Italian and Romansh, and to spend ten days and…
The last day, all the way from the Fourth City, or perhaps the Forth City, up to the farthest-flung strand, literally, of Denmark. But quite not all the way for me. Like a surgeon in a faulty lift, my left ankle was not operating at the right level. So I thought it best to leave…
The longest day of the trip for Nigel, at 80 miles; the shortest day of the trip for me, as cycling any non-trivial distance on my damaged ankle was out of the question. I was pretty down about it all, though at least sitting on the train from Vinderup to Aalborg, I could stay dry…
It had to happen eventually: an injury on an End to End. Twenty-odd miles out of Aarhus I realised that my sore ankle tendon was getting worse. So bad that I decided to get the train for the remainder of today’s route: there was no way I’d make another fifty miles without further damage. My…
A long, sunny day of gently rolling green farmland that took us to the very highest point in Denmark: the lofty summit of Møllehøj, at over 1700m, or 5,577ft. Oh, sorry, I mean 170m, or 557ft. Yes, that’s as far up as the country gets. In fact, not counting comedy micronations such as the Vatican,…
Our zigzag up Jutland continued: yesterday was east coast to west coast, today west coast back to east coast. We had four hours of heartless, heavy, relentless rain, but I wouldn’t say we or our pannier contents got wet. I’d say we and our pannier contents got absolutely sodden. My ancient Ortliebs need replacing at…
Denmark is one of those countries with five million-odd people: Slovakia, Finland, Norway, Palestine, New Zealand, Ireland, Yorkshire. (Perhaps for Yorkshire we can remove that hyphen.) I’ve been to Copenhagen a few times, but never explored the rest of the place. This End to End aims to put that right. Or rather, centre-left. Because the…
My compact trans-Lux ride ended at Schengen, a once obscure wine-growing village down at Luxembourg’s southeast corner, now famous thanks to the border-controls-busting accord signed there. With Britain’s notorious exit from the EU in mind, everything today about my departure from Luxembourg was likely to be a metaphor for Brexit. And so it proved: thick…