-
Scuffing the edges
Riding on the edge. Not the ragged edge but the blurred edge of what I think is possible. Travelling along ancient ways, drove roads and holloways. Ignoring the red and yellow lines on the map, following the narrow white lines left behind, the back roads and short cuts. Forgoing busy thoroughfares as if using a…
-
Kingdom of the East Saxons
a tour of Essex with forays over the border into Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk biplanes over rolling Cambridgeshire fields, skylark song the aural equivalent to the shapes of the wind in the crops outrunning thundering clouds along the northern edge of Essex an ancient Ford Escort smelling of spliffs and knackered gaskets rainbow fringed clouds…
-
The Lanes – Gorham’s Lane
Starting in the Ouse Valley Gorham’s Lane is essentially a dead end, you’re unlikely to ride up it unless you live in the tiny village of Telscombe hiding in a scooped out hollow in the downs or are looking for the Youth Hostel. For me it’s one of the nice ways to and from work.…
-
It was just one day
There was a girl I never met. She rode bikes and lived in the same town as me, but it was before I returned to cycling. By the time I became friends with her friends she had moved away. We had the occasional interaction online but we didn’t really know each other. People that knew us…
-
The Man of Kent 300
Start, kilometre 0 – Tonbridge, Saturday 20:30 Proof of passage: Sainsbury till receipt, 2 litre bottle of Evian Preparations for this overnight perm haven’t exactly been perfect. Last night George and I went to watch some crit racing in Hove Park and necked a couple of beers. That would have been fine but we then…
-
The Sussex Spring Classic
A couple of years ago I planned a ride for the Sunday of Paris-Roubaix incorporating some inappropriate sections for road bikes on skinny tyres. There are no cobbles or secteurs of pave in Sussex (except maybe a few metres here and there) but there are a lot of bridleways, gravel paths, farm tracks and tiny…
-
Vuelta de Los Picos // Dia 6 // Oviedo to Asturias Airport
The alarms go off at 7am. Today should be a relatively easy day but we’re flying home tonight so to avoid any panic later in the day we’ve decided to get on the road early. There is going to be some faff as we need to ride the wrong way initially, in order to get…
-
Vuelta de Los Picos // Dia 5 // Riaño to Oviedo
We wake up to a very different view out of the window to yesterday. Cloud hides the tips of the mountains all around us, just the lower slopes sliding into the lake are visible, their reflections bouncing back at them from the silver mirror like surface. The world is still and quiet. It’s a shame…
-
Vuelta de Los Picos // Dia 4 // Riaño to Cain de Valdeón to Riaño
We wake up to sunlight streaming through the apartment windows. It is an absolutely glorious morning, but on opening a window we realise it is really very cold. Then we remember that we’re up above 1000 metres. We put on all of the layers to pop out to get coffee back at the hotel bar,…
-
Vuelta de Los Picos // Dia 3 // Potes to Riaño
The original plan for today was to ride up to Fuente De in the morning before returning to Potes for the ride to Riaño. However the last couple of days have been quite hard and the riding time is longer than expected, and I know there is a lot of climbing yet to come this…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
the man from icon 