cycling
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James Bond and cheap Jelly Babies
The rising sun gently lifts mist from the frosted hinterlands, the angular shapes of Arundel Castle stand out against the hill curving through the clear sky. I’m on an early train to Chichester for February’s ‘Randonneur Round the Year’ attempt: Buck Barn Sutton Scotney 200. It’s a week later than planned, thanks to storms Eunice…
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Bateau | Vélo | Chemin de Fer
South France calmly rolls around the horizon… It’s good to be riding on the wrong side of the road again, a smile on my face as I spin through the streets of Dieppe for the first time in over a year. I’ve missed the sight of the illuminated red diamond tabac and green cross pharmacy…
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Riding with Ravilious
We sweep down from the opera singer’s house past Virginia Woolf’s to the Ouse flood plain, the first of our Ravilious rendezvous. A heron nonchalantly flaps overhead. The riverbank into Lewes is beautifully overgrown, my shins whipped by wild grass and flowers. Butterflies skitter about. We’re the wrong side of the Ouse for the Ravilious…
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Winding Back
In the last post about Eurovespa I mentioned watching a couple of ’96 Tour stages on the side of the road. I found the negatives from a roll of film I shot at the time in a shoebox and had them scanned. Video of Stage 14 Video of Stage 15
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Winding On
An old point and shoot, one roll of film. A week off work. Aeroplane mode, wider world switched off. Perhaps an audiobook in one ear. The sun stays close to the wide crisp horizon, bright light skims the surface of the sea followed by my eyes. Low waves lazily sparkle and ripple towards the shingle.…
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Spy Deer
“Don’t you need it for Super Randonneur?” “Yeah but if we don’t finish it means I don’t have to ruin a perfectly nice holiday to Cornwall by trying to ride all the way home in 24 hours. Or do a 600 in October when the weather is cack. Maccy D in Newbury and a train…
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It’s Been a While
My elbows nudge into the hoods and my head hangs over my front wheel. I haven’t ridden in this kind of heat since southern Europe on last year’s Transcontinental. I’m empty and cramping, absolutely ruined. This is the second time Simon and I have had to ride straight to ferry check-in after what should have…
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Island Hopping
I make coffee in the almost-light that waits for sunrise. Shouldering the bike down the front steps into a silent city, the main road empty other than a gang of gulls ransacking the bins outside the local chippy. Urban foxes, an air of insolence and disobedience skulk suburban streets. Without the white noise drizzle of…
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Grey
No one bats an eyelid, raises an eyebrow, or tuts when a suggestion is made to drop down from the Downs to find coffee and some tarmac, maybe even the coastal suburbs to home. A quiet consensus. The weather hasn’t entirely matched the forecast, overcast has rather been cold driving drizzle. We’ve slipped and sludged…
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The Old Ways and New Ways
Jump on a train west to Chichester to make the most of the forecast weather. Head for home with the wind on my back and scudding clouds and an intermittent shadow for company, looking for a route with as little tarmac as possible rather than the shortest way. Out of the city on back streets…
the man from icon 