cycle touring
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Newhaven to Nyhavn
SATURDAY The smell of baking bread wafts through the air as I climb the hill away from the ferry. The streets are still and quiet. Beyond the light pollution stars prickle the black sky. The air smells of recently ploughed earth and the sound from wind turbines overhead accentuate the strength of the wind. For…
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Dolomiti
Last year I took part in the fifth edition of the Transcontinental Race but unfortunately didn’t finish the race, making it across parts of Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy before stopping short of Control Point 3 in the High Tatras mountain range in northern Slovakia. After recuperating in Poprad for 36 hours we rode…
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Seven hundred
Orange-pink cracks of light in the murky grey sky to the east contradict the weather forecast I saw the day before. This is good. If it lasts. The predicted headwind is present though. By 35km I’m cowering in a bus stop on a junction, 5km later when I spot an open café I’m wringing water…
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Newhaven – Welcome to England
Rolling off the ferry at Newhaven it’s lashing down, absolute stair-rods. I get to the train station only to discover there are no trains this weekend. It may be the metal roof of the station but the rain sounds like it’s getting harder. I zip up my waterproof jacket and pull up my buff. Four…
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Five Sevenths
Half way up the hill out of town I spot a bench nestled under some trees. Shade, at last. I pull over, lean my bike against one end of the bench, sit down, and take a swig of water. A few minutes earlier back down in the town a bar owner had kindly filled my…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
the man from icon 