Category: Cycling
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Gravel Rides Around London #1: Cambridge to London
93.2 KM (57.8 Miles) | 953 Metres (3,127 Feet) This is the first, in what I hope will be a short series of rides you can do on your gravel bike in the vicinity of London. The first couple are going to be point-to-point rides which means that you will need to do one leg…
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Rain, Wind and a Tyre Blowout
Saturday’s ride was always going to be a little interesting. The weather wasn’t great, with rain falling fairly constantly early on. I prevaricated a bit, but decided to do 100km or so circuit around Hertfordshire. So fully layered up in Gore-tex and waterproof shoe covers (which never stay fully waterproofed), I headed out. All was…
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A New Year’s Day Ride to Cambridge
Starting the year as I mean to go on, I rode to Cambridge on New Year’s Day, taking a slightly circuitous route to stretch it out to 100km. A quick ride through the city centre before heading back to the station for the return leg by train.
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The Rapha Festive 500 – 2022 Edition
For the second year running, I decided to embark on the Rapha Festive 500 challenge – riding 500kms between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. I’ve already documented a couple of this year’s rides. Here’s Ride #1, Ride #3 and Ride #4. I didn’t take a camera out with me for Ride#2, and while I…
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Festive 500 – Ride #4
Ride #4 of this year’s Festive 500 was the longest of my rides so far, heading out in the pre-dawn from Sheringham on the North Norfolk coast, southeast along the coast through Cromer, Overstrand, and down to Winterton-on-Sea where the seals gather on the beach. I stopped for a warm tea at the van (it…
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Christmas Eve 2022 – Festive 500 Ride #1
I’m doing the Rapha Festive 500 this year – riding 500KM between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. This was my first ride on Christmas Eve when it was damp and therefore very muddy. Not shown here is me cleaning the GoPro lens many many times during the ride. This was a ride between Sheringham…
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Boxing Day 2022 – Festive 500 Ride #3
I’m doing the Rapha Festive 500 this year – riding 500KM between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. This was my third ride on Boxing Day which was gloriously sunny if still cold. This was a ride between Sheringham on the North Norfolk coast and Norwich. The full route is over on Strava. So far…
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Repairing a Garmin Edge Mount
[Now updated with changed fix!] This week I had an accident on my bike and crashed in the rain on my commute to work. No damage to my bike… or to me. But my Garmin Edge 1030 bike computer came off the worst, getting detached from its mount on impact, and damaging the mount in…
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Urban Hill Climb 2022
The UK has some very individual events in the world of cycling – a good example being the classic 10 mile time trial, often take place on stretches of dual carriageway. And then there are the hill climbs. These events tend to take place in the early autumn, organised by local clubs, and involve riders…
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L’Étape du Tour 2022
There is an accompanying podcast to this blog! Listen at the bottom of the piece or follow this link. I’ve done a few sportives over the years, but the one I’d always wanted to have a go at was L’Étape du Tour, the sportive from ASO, the organisers of the Tour de France who each…
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Festive 500
The “Festive 500” was a cycling challenge cooked up by Rapha, the cycle-clothing company, in 2010 to promote more cycling across the Christmas and New Year period. Essentially the idea is that you cycle 500KM between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. With the advent of Covid, the “rules” allow to achieve this either out…
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Bikepacking King Alfred’s Way
Here’s a trip I made earlier this year, but didn’t write about at the time. I’m publishing this piece now because I did always mean to write about my experiences, but also because I made a podcast of my trip, and that podcast has just been published as an episode of The Cycling Podcast’s Explore…
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90s MTB to Singlespeed Conversion
Sometime around 1995 or 1996, I bought a Giant ATX 850 mountain bike. This was a rigid bike – not even any front suspension. It had an aluminium frame and 3 x 7 speed chainset. That bike went a lot of places with me. In late 1996, I rode it in the Moroccan Atlas mountains.…