offroad
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Dans la Forêt
A usual road from the port following the Arques valley to the first town inland where we turn over a small stone bridge and start up a narrow lane towards the forest. A pink hue floods the sky as the sun breaches the horizon hidden beyond the hill we’re climbing. A hare jumps from the…
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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…
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Sussex Spring Classic 2018
The Sussex Spring Classic 2018. 120km of stupid fun on the lanes, farm tracks, and bridleways of Sussex in homage to the spring classics of northern Europe (more Tro Bro Leon than Flanders). A bit late this year due to being disorganised and shit weather. The annual email to the usual suspects ended with… *disclaimer:…
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Out of the Shadows
Paths past garden gates, those neglected places where stinging nettles and wild flowers thrive. Next to a railway line and over a stream that is obscured from view throughout town; behind the houses, buried under streets, channeled through concrete, feeding into the Ouse somewhere in the Railway Land. It’s running high and fast now…
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Mary Towneley Loop Cyclocross*
The Mary Towneley Loop is 47 miles of bridleway that forms part of the Pennine Bridleway, and straddles the border of Yorkshire and Lancashire. I was expecting this to be like the White Chalk Hills UCX but a bit tougher – though the distance is pretty much the same there’s an extra 2000 feet of…
the man from icon 