Category: Cycling
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U-Turns in Pancras Road
Note: This is aimed particularly at anyone who cycles in central London and travels near either King’s Cross or St Pancras stations. Everyone else? As you were. Unless you work for Camden Council… While tube maps show King’s Cross St Pancras as a single station, anyone who visits will know that there are actually two…
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Bike Cameras for my Brompton
For some time now I’ve been thinking about putting a camera or cameras on my bike for my commute. While there was no single thing that tipped me over the edge, and I’ve been lucky to only have some rare incidents with other traffic, the ease with which you can fit cameras to bikes meant…
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RideLondon Classique 2017
A few weeks ago, it was the annual RideLondon. This year I didn’t get a space in the main RideLondon 100, but I still popped down to watch the RideLondon Classique race around a central London course. Unfortunately it was a miserable day, with fairly unrelenting rain. I meant to arrive a little earlier than…
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oBikes – Initial Thoughts
On Saturday night, I was returning to my north London home when I noticed something I’d not seen before – a new type of hire bike. Now us Londoners have become used to “Boris Bikes” – or Santander Cycles as they’re officially known. This is a scheme that I’ve been using fairly consistently since its…
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Tour de France 2017 Podcasts
At the 2015 Tour Le Tour is back underway, and while I’m sadly not planning to go and visit this year, I am of course closely watching TV, listening to the radio and podcasts and following all the action on Twitter. And of course, I’m helping out with The Cycling Podcast, the finest podcast covering…
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Women’s Tour 2017 – Stage 5 – London
Following Saturday’s Nocturne, I headed back into town to watch the final stage of The Ovo Energy Women’s Tour, which was concluding on a circuit not dissimilar to previous years’ Tour of Britain finishes. (This year, the men are finishing in Cardiff instead). Taking in lots of iconic London streets including Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus,…
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Rapha Nocturne 2017
This weekend saw the return of the Rapha Nocturne, with Rapha resuming sponsorship. These days, the event has moved from Smithfield Market to an area around St Pauls near the Guildhall. While I have no problem with the route, it’s a shame that it no longer covers an area with bars and pubs like Smithfields…
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A Tale of Two Ferries
I thought I’d document a few of my more interesting rides from last year. So here’s one I made over the August Bank Holiday weekend. The ride is a circular route starting and finishing at Colchester railway station. You quickly leave Colchester and head north into Dedham Vale where there are both a few hills…
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The Cycling Podcast Review of the Year 2016
I seem to have been a little backwards in coming forwards with details of this edition of The Cycling Podcast put together by yours truly and published over the Christmas period. Obviously it won’t be of enormous interest if you don’t follow professional cycling, and you’ll miss all the running jokes if you haven’t listened…
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Dave Yates’ Framebuilding Course
Earlier this summer, I spent a week in rural Lincolnshire building a bicycle frame, from scratch, starting with a box of steel tubes. The resulting frame was painted, and then I carefully assembled the bike from parts. The bike you see above is the fruit of those labours, and I’ve written a much longer than…
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Six Day Cycling 2016
I went to the inaugural Six Day London event last year, and wrote up my experiences (in a blog I oddly didn’t publish for a couple of months). From that blog: Essentially a two-man team competition, it’s racing in a velodrome over six nights, with an overall winner determined from the cumulative results. In between…
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How I Lost My Strava KOM
Did you know I had a Strava King of the Mountains? No? Well neither did I. First off, Strava is a social media app/site for cyclists and runners. You either use their app on your phone to record your ride or run, or sync the data from some other device you use to measure your…