I used to live in Brussels, until I left, on February 29th, this year. People who have never been to Brussels and have never enjoyed cycling up a hill say “oh you must have loved that, it’s pan-flat”. Cycling people who have never been to Belgium, but have watched the Tour of Flanders, or Liege-Bastogne-Liege […]
Read more "Barcelona’s biggest, best kept secret"The sun is setting. I’m belting along a dirt track through the Collserola forest, at the back of Barcelona, on a quick 30 minute ride before dinner. I go left at a fork in the road, never been down this way before. The trail corkscrews down into a valley and across a stream which leads into […]
Read more "March of the Pigs"Forget about the gods of cycling. What about the everyday heroes of every day cycling?
Read more "We Can Be Heroes"Nearly two weeks have passed since 3,500km, three-week cycling circus of the Tour de France has passed. While it perhaps unfairly overshadows other grand tours (Italy, Spain) it never fails to capture the imagination. I watched the final kilometres of penultimate stage through my fingers, convinced that Ion Izagirre Insausti was going to aquaplane off the road as […]
Read more "Transcontinental: The Madness of a Long Distance Bicycle Race"Nūlla umquam dē morte hominis cūnctātio longa est JUVENAL vi.221 When a human life is at stake, no delay is ever excessive 1 Waindale Close Mount Talbot Halifax Yorkshire “Dear friends, There as promised are the shots I took on the Clifden Cycling Club’s Sunday run. I enjoyed your company very much […]
Read more "Brief Encounter"39.7 KM. Consider that number again, for just for a moment: 39.7 KM. Doesn’t look quite right, does it? Not 40.0 KM, or even 38 KM, but 39.7 KM. It’s that 0.7 KM, isn’t it? Just sort of sitting there, like that sullen, spare sock that appears just after you’ve finished putting away the laundry. The one […]
Read more "How Hunter S. Thompson Helped Me Slay The Garmin Gremlins"by Jet McDonald A slow puncture is like a stilted sigh. Down on my knees I pumped my exasperation back into the tyre with a rusty pump. Again and again it deflated. Being in the middle of the desert I had no handy buckets of water and had to rely on inflating the inner tube and […]
Read more "Learning to Love Your Punctures "