• Crystal Palace Cyclo Cross Reborn

    The second round of the ‘Kinesis UK London and South East Cyclo Cross League’ of the 2018/19 season was held at Crystal Palace, south London organised by London Phoenix on September 16. Crystal Palace had been a ‘Lost Cyclo Cross Course’ since the mid 1980’s and therefore it was a very welcome return because the… Continue Reading

  • International Cyclo Cross 2018/19 Dates

    Cyclo cross has a deep, deep programme of events at a local, regional, national and world level. Each one of these races can often attract 500 or more riders, plus huge numbers of fans at some and below is a calendar of UCI registered races. The UCI ranks each race in status with CMM (World… Continue Reading

  • To bin or not to bin… my Roubaix

    Cycling is healthy and good for the environment, especially when compared to motor vehicles, but we cyclists shouldn’t be complacent or too smug as we do have a carbon footprint. We are all part of a consumer society that is gobbling up resources and disposing of them often thoughtlessly when worn out. I considered this… Continue Reading

  • Metal Guru

    An August cycle tour that took in the home of Gustav Holst and the place of death of Glam Rock star Marc Bolan in Barnes, south London. In the 1970’s I started to get to grips with life when I took small and big steps to understand what was naff or good taste. I had… Continue Reading

  • Co-operatives and Brixton Cycles, London

    When I first came to London there were two cycle co-operatives trading, one was Mosquito Bikes and the other Brixton Cycles, whilst Mosquito forsake being a co-op in favour of a partnership many years ago and is now part of the Velorution chain, Brixton Cycles remains. Despite being in the south of London Brixton Cycles… Continue Reading

  • My Mum’s Wardrobe

    The story of my mum’s wardrobe by Andrea Hofling The stylish 50’s My mum, Ilse, was young (and pretty) in 1950s Germany and she owned some extremely nice and stylish dresses which she wore when ballroom dancing with my dad in their adopted home town of Göttingen.  Or when they attended the cinema together watching… Continue Reading

  • A good mental road

    I trained not to win races, although that would have been nice, but rather to be strong enough to ride and compete whilst having a ‘normal life’. And when I say ‘normal’ I mean being able to go out racing or riding without having to spend the rest of the time with my head slumped… Continue Reading

  • Epping Forest – Common Land

    Epping Forest is a Mecca for London cyclists and an area where access to the ‘people’s forest’ is seen as a birth-right. Well, it is now, but only after a fight. At the end of the 19th Century Epping Forest like other common lands, forests or heaths was in danger of being swallowed by London’s… Continue Reading

  • South London Murals

    Murals have a long history of presenting a narrative, a sentiment, a joke or simply a nice artwork. They are the embodiment of art in a public space. Thomas Hart Benton and Diego Rivera reflected the narratives of US and Mexican history respectively along with many others by creating epic art works that few people… Continue Reading

  • Thunder Crit 3 – Fixed Gear London

    I came to London in the late eighties and soon found myself involved in local politics including housing issues, and I enjoyed some great times with anarchists who sometimes weren’t really sure why I would talk about cycles, not political cycles but the pedal version. It was in 1994 when I and a group of… Continue Reading

  • Art in Community Spaces – Vauxhall, London

    Post World War Two the London County Council commissioned Peter Laszlo Peri to create art as part of a desire to enrich the public realm; “as emblems of civic renewal and social progress” (Heritage Calling). Three of Peri’s works are within a short walk of my home in Vauxhall, London. Peri was a Hungarian born… Continue Reading

  • Crystal Palace, London Circuit Races

    ‘If you can race at Palace you can race anywhere’ – I was told that when I first got involved in cycle sport in London. Crystal Palace is a park in the south London borough of Bromley which was once the home of the Crystal Palace, the star of the Great Exhibition held during 1851… Continue Reading

  • Box Hill – North Downs, England

    The 2012 Olympic Games cycle road races featured nine ascents of the Zig Zag road, better known as Box Hill, for the men and two for the women. It was intended that this North Downs climb would smash the race apart. Sadly, for the British team working for Mark Cavendish and despite setting the pace… Continue Reading

  • London 2018

    London has many lost rivers, all now almost unseen except for a few glimpses through drains, culverts or pipes. In Vauxhall the Effra is no longer the partly navigable river it once was and now is buried deep underground covered by roads and buildings. An outlet pipe into the River Thames is our only visible… Continue Reading

  • Tour d’Energie 2018 – Jedermann

    Germany has a strong cycle race scene covering the same territory as the UK with the addition of a good following for cycle football and artistic cycling. For us in the UK the idea that something is a ‘hobby’ is a bit like being told that something is ‘nice’, such words can be construed as… Continue Reading

  • Cycle Pilgrim – North Downs, England

    The North Downs are a long line of green high ground to the south of London. The Downs have become a place of pilgrimage for cyclists on and off road and here you can find sunken roads, great views plus killer climbs – not a place for the pious rather a place for any cycling… Continue Reading

  • At the Grenze under the Ski Jump

    In April 2018 I travelled back in time to the now defunct German internal grenze (border) at the Wurmberg Mountain. In the mid-eighties I had stood on the west side of the Grenze half way up the Wurmberg Mountain in the Harz, a region of mountains rich in folklore set in central Germany. Above my… Continue Reading

  • Paris Roubaix Rad Rennen – Media Wars

    Paris Roubaix is a race that attracts me because it doesn’t follow the tarmac. In the present era media giant SKY Television has built its global reach upon football, the sport was the lynchpin of the SKY satellite TV business model and it revolutionised how football and sport in general is now financed. Cycle sport… Continue Reading

  • Plastic Bertrand – Fahrrad in Belgium

    Belgium one cycling nation – Kassein or Pavé? / Belgien ist eine Nation von Radfahrern – Kassein oder Pavé? The picture above is of World and Olympic Champion Nicole Cooke riding the Muur de Huy during La Fleche Walonne Classic Name a famous Belgian ‘Plastic Bertrand’ I replied – ‘nah, someone famous, name me a famous Belgian’? My… Continue Reading

  • International 2017/18 Cyclo Cross

    Results and video links to UCI rated cyclo cross races unless otherwise stated. The big issue being geo-restrictions on content. 2016/17 Season – 2015/16 Season February 25 Internationale Sluitingsprijs – February 25 The final international cyclo cross race of the 2017/18 season was the Internationale Sluitingsprijs held at Oostmalle, Belgium. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ3O2yTH1tU Elite Men 1 Mathieu Van Der… Continue Reading

  • London 2017/18 Cyclo Cross Pics and Video

    Video and Picture links for the Kinesis UK London and South East 2017/18 Cyclo-Cross League. 2016/17 League – 2015/16 League – London/SE Cross Website Kinesis UK London and South East Cyclo Cross League Rd 1 Round one of the Cyclefit London and South East Cyclo Cross League (and Rd 1 of the Sussex League) held at Stanmer Park… Continue Reading

  • Spit out of middle Germany – Der Harz Mountains

    The Harz Mountains are 2,226 square kilometres of medium sized mountains and forest that seems to have been spit out of the ground of middle Germany. Circling the Harz are the cities of Hannover, Gottingen, Wolfsburg, Leipzig and Magdeburg. Much of the Harz today is a national park and the area is home to a… Continue Reading

  • Cyclo Cross at and abandoned Velodromes

    When so many years ago Good Friday Track Meeting promoter Graham Bristow organised a cyclo cross race at Herne Hill Velodrome in London approximately 25 people turned up for what was quite good fun. Since then cyclo cross has become British Cycling’s largest growing cycle race discipline and this is mirrored across the world including… Continue Reading

  • John Parr WW1 Cyclist

    A Sunday trip to visit a friend in Finchley, London saw me walk from Woodside Park Tube Station and along Lodge Lane. Although I nearly missed it, I spotted a plaque placed on the pavement in front of a modest house flagging up that the first British soldier to die in World War One spent… Continue Reading

  • Mud larking on the Thames

    Along the River Thames In London there are the obvious signs of its industrial and global shipping past. Redundant machinery, abandoned wharfes and slipways point to this industrial and commercial history, but if you look hard enough at the foreshore you can find more personal items associated with the people who lived or worked on… Continue Reading

  • Cable Street London 1936

    In October 1936 Sir Oswald Mosley attempted to lead the British Union of Fascists (BUF) along Cable Street into a London East End community and take control of the streets and enflame not only the local community, but also the country against Jewish people. Oswald was following a tactic that had worked in Germany and… Continue Reading

  • Lost Velodromes – dash for cash

    English Victorian’s seem to have invented everything, whether this is true is debatable, but what we can say for sure is that they were mad on sport. Historian Christopher Hill described it as the ‘World Turned Upside Down’ – the period when the UK moved from an agrarian economy to being one of manufacture and… Continue Reading

  • I found a velodrome, but didn’t, but I did….

    London is full of seemingly forgotten stories that can come alive if you have an enquiring mind and if you look beyond the obvious. Whilst I was hunting for a lost Victorian velodrome in east London I came across a rather nice mural painted close to where the velodromes northern banking would have been. Looking… Continue Reading

  • Earlsfield Cemetery – let’s create the NHS

    My post about the Gottingen Stadtfriedhof in central Germany and the sense of abandonment I felt whilst there, got me thinking. It made me think closer to home and so now I stand in Earlsfield Cemetery in Wandsworth, south London. At the dawn of the 20th Century European nations were tied together by many separate treaties, which… Continue Reading

  • Gottingen StadtFriedhof – abandonment

    Separation, abandonment or ‘left behind’ are words that will scare most of us. These thoughts came into my head as I stood in a Stadtfriedhof in deepest central Germany. Before me stood two grave stones and a third not in sight but close by of three soldiers of the ‘Great War’. What sparked a reaction… Continue Reading