cycling
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Pleasant Valleys Sunday
Fancy a short cx ride tomorrow? Nothing serious, just pissing about. Sounds good, yeah. Tilt at Fiveways at 9.30 good for you? Yep. See you there dude. Where we gonna go then? Was thinking Stanmer via the golf course, singletrack and bluebells, up to the Beacon, along the ridge, down to back of Falmer, Uni…
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Sussex Spring Classic 2017
The annual homage to the classics of northern Europe. There’s no shortage of farm tracks and bridleways around here so more Tro Bro Leon than Flanders or Roubaix (except no one wins a pig). One hundred and twenty kilometres of tyre abuse and stupid fun.
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North Country
Heading south to pay a visit to the north country. Drifting off the ferry in a sleep-deprived daze and heading up the hill on autopilot. Riding in a puddle of light and easy familiarity in the silent blackness, red lights blinking atop the wind turbines I can’t see, beacons out across the coastal plateau. Knowing…
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Stamp Collecting
When I first heard the word ‘audax’ I was intrigued. The word itself sounded weird and it was described to me as “like fast touring”. Clearly this was something to find out more about. I discovered that in Latin audax means bold or daring. I asked other people about it but no one really knew…
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M+1
In 1990 I went off to Canterbury School of Art in Kent as a fresh faced scrawny twenty year old taking my Raleigh Scirocco racing bike with me. Not only would the bike let me explore my new environs but as I lived ten miles from college on the coast at Whitstable the bike was…
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I should have stayed in bed
It’s dark when the alarm goes off. I think to myself “I can’t be bothered today” and doze off again thinking about getting the train to work a bit later. Something in my brain makes me get up five minutes later and fall out of bed into my cycling kit. I laid it out ready…
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Mapping Out
I look at the map, planning a ride, following yellow and white roads, the quiet ones, linking them up, matching arcane symbols at junctions and hilltops with the key. Unfurled across the floor I crouch over the flat piece of paper surveying a land where the only ridges are the straight folds of the paper, the…
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Winter Wonderland
We can’t feel our fingers or toes but we are surrounded by the whiteness of an overwhelming silence. Mist and snow have muted the woodland around us. Last night messages bounced back and forth discussing whether to attempt the planned 200 kilometre DIY audax or not. The decision to set off from Brighton and see…
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Three galleries and chips on the seafront
Jerwood Gallery, Hastings De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
the man from icon 