Every Sunday, from 7am-2pm, Bogotá cordons off (pic) long stretches of city-centre streets from motor traffic, opening them up for cyclists, walkers, skaters and joggers. It’s called Ciclovía meaning ‘cycleway’, loosely translated as ‘open streets’, and has been running for over 30 years. I hired a bike (pic) to take part. I chose it to…
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Canal du Midi: Midi life crisis
I was in France last week, cycling the Canal du Midi (picture). The 240km long engineering marvel, linking Toulouse with Beziers via Carcassonne (and hence, with other watercourses, the Atlantic and the Med) offers a flat, traffic-free cyclable route through the south of France. What’s not to like? Well, er, quite a lot, actually. The…
Amsterdam: IJ spy cyclists
I’ve just got back from a few days in Amsterdam. Everyone cycles here of course, except stag-party Brits, so I took a bike (picture) to ensure I wasn’t mistaken for one of them. It worked: the prostitutes ignored me. Also, when I bumped into another cyclist, momentarily forgetting which side of the cycle path I…
Madrid: Nobody cycles, except all these people
I’ve just come back from Madrid. As the pleasant young man in Tourist Info confidently told me when I asked for a bike map, there isn’t such a thing. Nobody cycles in Madrid. Last Sunday (top right and bottom right) I rode past several thousand of those nobodies, on the new 10km riverside cycle path…
Newcastle: Angel of the North, and other Gormleys
I was in Newcastle this week, with bike, obviously, researching routes, obviously. I like Newcastle, and the way it makes me feel so over-dressed and under-tattooed. More about the Toon soon, but first, the Angel of the North (right). Antony Gormley’s iconic statue is three miles or so south of the Tyne bridges, a straight…
Birmingham: Christmas and canals
German Christmas Markets seem to be everywhere these days. We’ve been visiting a few – Leeds, Sheffield, York, Birmingham – in the echt German way. That is, on bikes, and not spending more than we can afford. Which means not spending anything, when they want four quid for a sausage. The Birmingham trip was an…
Cramond Island: Rebel with a causeway
Cramond Island, five miles or so from central Edinburgh along the coast, is a kind of mini-Lindisfarne: a small isle connected to the mainland by a narrow concrete causeway. Most of the time the causeway is under water. But for a couple of hours at low tide, when the waters recede, it’s perfectly cyclable. Go…
Camino 10: Monte de Gozo to Santiago de Compostela
Thanks to the clocks springing forward, it was still black outside at 8am when I had to leave the hostel. Misty, damp, half-drizzling: it was all a bit anti-climatic. Er, anti-climactic. Well, both, actually. I slipped downhill and along trafficky roads through dreary outskirts, and followed my nose to the cathedral square and my entrance-finale….
Camino 9: Ligonde to Monte de Gozo
The clocks went forward at 2am, when I was fast asleep. When I woke it was nearly seven, ie eight, technically chucking out time from the albergue, though there was no sign of that happening. Which was good, as it was pitch-dark outside and still showery-chilly. When it began to get light I started gingerly…
Camino 8: Triacastela to Ligonde
I had to wait outside the hostel until 8.30, by which time most of the hostelers gone, for the Saturday bloke to come and let my bike out of the garage, having talked his way through the exact purpose of each key in his copious bunch. The morning looked grey but dry. Samos had a…