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Category: Other

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Seven Summits: High achievements in the North Pennines

Posted on 17 August 20232 September 2023 by Rob Ainsley

The six highest roads in England are close together in the North Pennines, south-east of Alston. Close enough to make an inviting, but strenuous, day ride. I couldn’t resist trying it out today, for a magazine article. The exact summit heights are, and therefore identity of the highest is, a matter for debate. Locals with…

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Canterbury ales: Kent beer-hop

Posted on 7 May 20238 May 2023 by Rob Ainsley

I’m diligently researching a ride for an article that asked me to combine beer and cycling. Hmm. Clearly a mix to be approached with care, like ice skating while juggling machetes, or putting Brexiteers in the cabinet. I came up with the idea of a circuit round Kent: Canterbury–Ashford–Tenterden–Faversham–Canterbury. This should be an enjoyable one-…

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Birds Trail 2: Down to the reserves

Posted on 23 March 202327 March 2023 by Rob Ainsley

Another day researching birdspotting routes, this time on back lanes through woods filled with birdsong, and investigating two reserves noted for their birding possibilities: Pensthorpe and Sculthorpe, near Fakenham. (‘Do you like Fakenham?’ – ‘I don’t know, I’ve never faked one.’) The first two hours was a thoroughly lovely trundle along those quiet roads, where…

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Birds Trail 1: Hiding in Norfolk

Posted on 22 March 202327 March 2023 by Rob Ainsley

Identifying rare birds while riding is easy, even for beginner-spotters like me, if you know what to look for: a sixties couple with woolly hats and binoculars, standing at the side of the road, or sitting on a bench in a hide. They’ll have done all the hard work for you, locating and naming that…

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Painters Trail 2: Marginal Gainsborough

Posted on 21 March 202327 April 2023 by Rob Ainsley

Gainsborough House, Sudbury, is a cracker. The painter’s home, furnished in the style of the time, is a museum and gallery; behind it, a well-architected annexe is a spacious and airy art gallery and events space. I sat out in the garden under the same mulberry tree that Gainsborough knew, planted to provide food for…

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Painters Trail 1: Arresting Constable

Posted on 20 March 202326 March 2023 by Rob Ainsley

The Painters Trail is a seventy-mile roam of Suffolk back lanes that follows the Stour Valley in the oily footsteps of some famous daubers, chiefly Constable and Gainsborough. From the saddle you can enjoy the same views they did over two hundred years ago – all virtually unchanged, except for electricity pylons, telegraph poles, housing…

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Highest pub to lowest: Tan Hill to Marsden Grotto

Posted on 10 February 202327 March 2023 by Rob Ainsley

I’ve had various highs and lows in pubs when cycling, but never as literally as this. A magazine suggested that they might be interested in beer-related route suggestions, so I diligently decided to ride from Britain’s highest pub (the Tan Hill Inn, 1732 feet / 528m above sea level up in the Yorkshire Dales east…

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Paris 3: Royalty-free images from Versailles

Posted on 7 November 202217 December 2022 by Rob Ainsley

I was researching a circular day-ride today, west from Paris to Versailles and back. I’m a great fan of monarchy as you know, and think we in Britain should preserve it. I hear that formaldehyde is the curator’s choice. Joking aside, I have great respect for Charles et al. It all goes to show how…

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Paris 1: Chasing clouds of the world’s first bike race

Posted on 5 November 20229 December 2022 by Rob Ainsley

The world’s first ever bike race took place in Paris on 31 May 1868, and was won by English rider James Moore. So the story goes; but as we know, stories are often cobblers. (See also Kirkpatrick Macmillan, Leonardo da Vinci’s designs for a bike, my-helmet-saved-my-life etc.) However, I was in Paris researching routes for…

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Interrail 55: Silly ideas

Posted on 4 November 20225 December 2022 by Rob Ainsley

I’ve cycled in a lot of places with silly names. Dull, twinned with Boring. Jump. Bedlam. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, etc. But I’d never been to Silly itself, a small Belgian town southwest of Brussels. Today I took the very sensible decision to visit as I passed en route to Paris. Silly has a population of 8,500, and…

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