I have been an enthusiastic cyclist for much of my adult life, over the course of which I have owned numerous bikes and built up a varied parcours, taking in routes covering much of the UK and many in France.
My most memorable ride was undertaken in August 2011 – the so-called End-to-End. Strictly speaking, this is not one ride, but a series of them, adding up to a long-distance cycle tour from Land’s End in Cornwall, England, to John O’Groats in Caithness, Scotland, a journey of near 1000 miles, which I completed in two weeks. My E2E diary can be read by clicking here
The best guide I know to the End-to-End is Phil Horsley’s, details of which can be found by clicking here
Other rides that are lodged firmly in my memory are ones involving a succession of long ascents I rode in the early 2000s of some of the iconic climbs that strongly feature in the Tour de France race, two of which proved especially hard to complete: Mont Ventoux and Alpe d’Huez.
An idea of how challenging these rides are can be gauged by viewing these three videos:
Alpe d’Huez, click here
Mont Ventoux (from Bédoin), click here
Mont Ventoux (from Malaucène) click here
And here’s a photo of me at the Tom Simpson memorial on Mont Ventoux:
The next photo shows my bike at the summit of Mont Ventoux. That’s me in the shadow holding the camera:
My favourite urban ride is the 6.2 mile loop of Central Park in New York, which I have completed more times than I can remember during the numerous visits I have made to the city.
Starting at the Fifth Avenue entrance of CP, the loop includes a sweeping descent around Harlem Meer, a sneaky climb through North Woods, and a final dash past the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The road surface is near perfect. The only difficulty is avoiding jay-walkers, other bikers, joggers and skate boarders!
Click here to view a video of what the experience is like.
The rest of this page of my website is devoted to describing more recent rides as well as discussing news about biking, including details of just-available cycles and results of races.