Cycling and Life
I am an ex-London cyclist and now a Goettingen rider – I have a fondness for cyclo cross and gravel cycling. This webpage is about my German gravel, naturweg, Panzer Weg and road rides. This will be a narrative of sorts regarding my cycle life in my newly adopted home country although I will not… Continue Reading
Video and picture links to UCI rated 2019/20 cyclo cross races unless otherwise stated. I am now based in Germany and the big issue is geo-restrictions on content which may not be shown where you are are (I try not to post links to stuff that may be taken down). There are VPN services that… Continue Reading
Featured images used as a ‘cover’ for each month since April 2018 when Cyclesport.London became Velo Klubhaus.com. See also Gallery for lots of pictures from across Velo Klubhaus. November 2019 (2) The roads and trails are getting a bit mucky. November 2019 (1) Making a trip to buy catfood a wee bit more fun (this… Continue Reading
Unlike my first RTF event I attended way back in August, 2019, this time there was no number to pin to my back. This slight disappointment was quickly erased as I hit the trails on the Wieter-Plesse-Biking-CTF organised by Cicli Club Northeim. The club had put together a challenging route which featured 95% forstwirtschaftswege (forest… Continue Reading
With weather forecasts saying that we were in for another summers day I wanted to do something a little bit bolder just in case we plunge into the darkness of winter next. I elected to ride to the Grenzmuseum Schifflersgrund near Bad Sooden-Allendorf on the Hessian-Thuringian border. This would take me past iconic places that… Continue Reading
Results, video and picture links from the cycle road race 2019 calendar which feature gravel, pave and dirt. Road races that have in common a touch of the ‘Roubaixesque’ about them. I am now based in Germany and so sadly I cannot say that all the video links can be viewed in other countries or… Continue Reading
The 7. IhmeCross der RSG Hannover promoted by Radsportgemeinschaft Hannover e.V. held on October 3 2019. It was great to attend this event in 2018 and it marked my first visit to a German cyclo cross. I had such a good time and enjoyed the cake so much I returned in 2019. The journey time… Continue Reading
My favourite road cycle races are Paris Roubaix and Strada Bianche. I savour these two races because they do not follow the tarmac roads exclusively. In the former the competitors ride the brutal cobbles of Northern France and the latter it is the white gravel roads of Tuscany which feature. My manifesto is outlined here… Continue Reading
Stage three of the Deutschland Tour 2019 started in Goettingen before heading to the finish at Eisenach. It was somewhat surreal to have the race in town and it is as if the citizens of Goettingen had decided to host the Deutschland Tour to make me feel welcome in my new home. Seeing the Jumbo… Continue Reading
Resurrected in 2018 the Deutschland Tour 2019 stage two came to town and passed close to my new home in Goettingen. I and many others lined the roads of Goettingen especially the two circuits of the Herzberger Landstrasse climb. Herzberger Landstrasse which is part of the King of Mountains competition climb is 1.1kms long, 238… Continue Reading
I was trying to think when was the last time I pinned a number on? It must be 2006 when I raced at the lost Eastway Cycle Circuit (bulldozed under the 2012 Olympic Velodrome in 2006). Looking back it was the process of putting a number on your back pocket or doing it for another… Continue Reading
Putting names and a history to people who are or were; immigrants, migrants, aliens, expats, exiles, refugees, asylum seekers or emigres, I believe can go some way to fight the use of such English terms to degenerate or even de-humanise our view of people. I am an immigrant, a privileged one as I am white,… Continue Reading
Or following in Grandma’s footsteps and German Castles are just not ‘hard arse’ enough. My image of castles was formed by visiting Wales where large and imposing castles were built to express power, deliver military dominance over and the subjugation of the Welsh by the English. Also ‘hard as nails’ castles built by the Norman… Continue Reading
A list of cycle road races on the 2019 road race calendar that feature gravel, pave and dirt. I have always had an interest in cycle races that deviate away from asphalt roads such as the Paris Roubaix ‘Spring Classic’ held over the notorious pave of northern France and I have often posted video, pictures… Continue Reading
I scream und Erdbeere (road to Duderstadt) Duderstadt was once linked by a small railway to Goettingen (Die Gartetlbahn); sadly this service which ran from 1897 was closed in 1957. Our gain is that almost all of it is now a cycle path that can be used with other cycle routes to carry us the… Continue Reading
We think we might pedal far and heroically but history tells us what suffering, travel and hardship really is and which at times can be beyond understanding. A visit to the Museum Friedland as part of my June 15 ride to Friedland. Personally, I am an (Cycling) Immigrant. In Transit Migration and immigration are part… Continue Reading
A short ride from my new home town is a place that played an amazing part in post-World War Two life – it was at the Friedland Transit Camp that millions of displaced people, POW’s and refugees travelled through. It was near the small village of Friedland that the US, British and Soviet Zones of… Continue Reading
The third in the ‘It’s A Small Cycling World’ series features the leader of the Giro d’Italia riding in the mountains alongside a snow bank that was created when the high pass road had been cleared. Water flows from the snow making it a wet and dirty ascent. Links: It’s a small cycling world 1… Continue Reading
A ride to the now defunct Internal Border. Every location has an intrinsic value and the landscape can be dramatic or even supine and a ‘back-water’ can have a story to tell, if often a little more prosaic than some. Additionally man’s intervention in the landscape can be dramatic (or traumatic) and with the passage… Continue Reading
For this ‘it’s a cycling small world – for the love of pave part two’ (Part One is here) I got a little more ambitious and imagined a scenario where it has been raining all day. At this point in the race it has stopped pouring down and the riders are beginning to dry whilst… Continue Reading
There is ‘London tight’ and there is ‘Roubaix tight’; this passed through my mind when after much bike preparation I hit the first stretch of pave at Troisville the first section of cobbles on the route used by the Paris Roubaix pro road race held in April. In the race the riders take in a… Continue Reading
Since my big change in life I have ridden my bike, listened to more LP’s and read more books in one month than I did in a year. Maybe this also has something to do with me being without a TV service which means no plonking myself in front of the ‘telly’ (which I do… Continue Reading
Mayday is a public holiday in Germany and like most public holidays and Sundays retail life slows almost to a halt and it all seems a bit old fashioned compared to the 24/7 shopping fuelled frenzied lifestyles (and endless sales) which seem the norm in the UK. Except, even here in Germany there are those… Continue Reading
Where I go mad on a road bike… and I win Paris Roubaix. “Don’t play in the dirt it’s dirty” – an often used expression to curtail an action of an adventurous child, and if inculcated deep enough it could mean a lifetime of avoidance of all sorts of things. Thankfully I know that there… Continue Reading
Around the globe most of the land is owned by just a few people and this affects how much access we have to it. I’m not a believer that land is somehow French, German or English and for me talk of sacred soil is weird and somewhat nudging on nationalist fanaticism. What I believe is… Continue Reading
Looking through a box in der German house (day 23 since I moved) I came across this first edition book – ‘Der Weltkrieg In Seiner Rauhen Wirklichkeit’ or ‘The World War In Its Harsh Reality’ published in Germany in 1926. The book contains 600 black and white photographs taken by Hermann Rex for the German… Continue Reading
Light snow had been falling all day on Tag 21 on the German Haus, nonetheless David led us into the forest for an evening ride – we did feel a wee bit like Hansel and Gretel especially when we hit some truly gnarly single track made slick by the snow. This forest was planted in… Continue Reading
I am a new immigrant; I am not an expat hiding behind a term because of prejudice toward immigrants, a prejudice that is oddly extolled by some people who themselves live in a foreign country. Whilst I am an alien I do blend in with the majority of people in Germany (even when wearing Lyrca),… Continue Reading
Video and picture links to UCI rated cyclo cross races unless otherwise stated. The big issue being geo-restrictions on content (I try not to post links to stuff that may be taken down) – 2018/19 calendar Latest posts are at the top and do watch out for updates. Livestreams are sometimes available on Eurosport (plus… Continue Reading
There is, of course, something great about adventurers who strike out, often to the ends of the earth for long periods of time. Heroic as such adventures are, they should not put the day to day journeys on the ‘home front’ in the shade. In my years of living in London I have taken many… Continue Reading
Paul Churchill was at the German National Cyclo Cross Championships at Kleinmachnow on January 13 2019. Defending champion Marcel Meisen takes page out of team leader Van der Poel’s play book. Despite wet and windy conditions the decision to hold the German championships in the suburbs of Berlin and Potsdam meant impressive spectator numbers and not… Continue Reading
I have been ignoring my YouTube channel for a while now ever since Facebook made posting video much easier and allowed good access to friends etc. Now I have renamed my YouTube channel Velo Klubhaus to reflect this (my) website. I shot my first video on November 13, 2011 at Stanmer Park, Brighton for a… Continue Reading
The South East Cyclo Cross Championships 2018 held at Cyclopark, Gravesend, Kent on December 2. On the first weekend of December across Great Britain the Regional Cyclo Cross Championships are held and I was at the South East Championships promoted by the London Cyclo Cross Association and British Cycling SE. The racing used almost the same… Continue Reading
It soon became apparent that when going through pictures for a recent feature on the Smithfield Nocturne held in 2007 I could not find one picture of a woman racer. This got me thinking about the creation of the ‘London Women’s Cycle Racing’ league. The London Women’s Cycle Racing was formed in 2010 to offer… Continue Reading
The first edition of the Smithfield Nocturne was held in June 2007 at the central London Smithfield meat market and a place of execution of ‘heretics’ in the 16th century. The event has now moved deeper into the City of London and has been relabelled as the ‘London Nocturne’. This event in 2007 marked for… Continue Reading
The 6. IhmeCross der RSG Hannover 2018 promoted by Radsportgemeinschaft Hannover e.V. and flanked by the Ihme River in Germany. Around the globe cyclo cross events have almost the same elements, of course a different spoken language stands out, but the general building blocks remain much the same. I bitterly wished I had seen the… Continue Reading
Cyclo Cross lends itself to the introduction of whimsy and cycle racing like many other sports can be enhanced in look and feel by racing in the dark under lights, an added nuance is that beer and food can add to a great evening out. For many, cyclo cross races at night offer a carnival… Continue Reading
Crawley Wheelers led by Doug Fox first promoted a London and South East Cyclo Cross League event at the Sussex Showground during the 2015/16 season. The venue soon became a favourite with its wide expanse of land, large car parks, great facilities, the commitment of a wonderful cycling club and a friendly host owner, we… Continue Reading
The Kinesis UK London and South East Cyclo Cross League held round five of the 2018/19 season at Herne Hill Velodrome, south London. Organised by Herne Hill Youth CC on October 7, 2018. In the mid 1990’s we held the first cyclo cross race at the Herne Hill Velodrome and a handful of people took… Continue Reading
All the pictures in this gallery feature on this site and are just a sample of what you might find on Velo Klubhaus. You can also find the pictures ‘featured’ on the HomePage here. If you would like to know more or be sent a picture do let us know – https://veloklubhaus.com/contact/
During 2018 I featured a number of cycle races that had a touch of the ‘Roubaixesque’ about them, road events that featured sections of dirt tracks, pave, green roads, gravel and farm tracks in addition to tarmac. The semi concrete steep climb to the finish of stage 17 of the Vuelta Espana on September 12, I thought… Continue Reading
Cycle road races that travel over gravel, pave and dirt. Listed below are races that I look forward to on the road race calendar of which some are well known and others not so much. (this page was updated on October 4) What all have in common is a touch of the ‘Roubaixesque’ about them, each… Continue Reading
