2025 was an enjoyable year on the bike. I decided last year that mountain biking wasn’t for me (after an unfortunate spill near the summit of Whernside) so this year I stuck to roads and paths which suited me more. I don’t like getting muddy and my shoes and clothing aren’t appropriate for MTB use […]
Category: Cycling
Saturday 13th December 2025 When I check the definition of a professional cyclist, I get something along the lines of “A professional cyclist is a highly trained athlete who earns a living by competing in bicycle races…” So what’s the difference between a professional and an amateur? Surely it’s just the act of getting paid. By […]
Friday 21st November 2025 I have found myself once again cat-sitting for Felix (Emily’s cat) so I’ve planned a few things to do while I’m here. Cycling, gardening and writing Christmas cards are on the agenda. It was very cold overnight in Sheffield so I really didn’t want to venture out too soon. When I […]
Wednesday 1st October 2025 Veloviewer fans will know that there’s far more than just hunting explorer tiles. In fact there’s so much data now that even I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed so I’m just sticking to collecting tiles and increasing my cluster (a cluster being a group of contiguous tiles) My main cluster currently extends […]
Sunday 21st September 2025 I had thoroughly planned this ride with everything thought through beforehand until I received a text from my Sunday night Airbnb host in which he happened to mention that this weekend was the Kop Hill Climb, a large gathering of classic cars racing up Kop Hill (unsurprisingly). That was very useful […]
This chapter might be rather jumbled. It is neither a cycle tour, nor even a single trip away, but it simply records a few days in September when I decided to increase my Veloviewer Explorer tile cluster and in so doing, several events have conjoined, so I’m unsure how it will read. Tuesday 2nd September […]
Return to Alnwick
Tuesday 5th August 2025 My plan for the next three days was to gather more Veloviewer explorer tiles in a very quiet and scenic part of the country, and ideally not battling through wind and rain in doing so. I may have let lucky with these aims since Storm Floris had done her worst by […]
Sunday 8th June 2025 This tour was designed to help me continue in my quest to cycle in every English county, but it started with a tile-gathering expedition around Selsey in West Sussex. I’m staying with friends both before and after the tour and since they were out when I arrived, and to loosen up […]
Thursday 1st May 2025 I want to be sufficiently fit to enjoy the mountains in the Northern part of Mallorca when I get there in a few days’ time, so today was planned not just to gather some more tiles, but also to climb some decent hills. What I didn’t expect was that today’s jaunt […]
Tuesday 8th April 2025 I’d arranged to go to the Wooler Hostel in Northumberland in late September last year, but after arranging both the accommodation and a few cycle routes for ten friends, I managed to fall off a mountain bike a couple of weeks before which meant I couldn’t go! Everyone else managed it […]