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
Latest in: gravel bike
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace gravel cycle ride and a gem in London. In an effort to optimise the sales value of the cluster of luxury high rise towers in Vauxhall and Battersea, rebranded as ‘Nine Elms on the Southbank’, there was much hype about a new linear park to link Vauxhall with Battersea Park… Continue Reading
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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
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The River Thames towpath gravel cycle ride from Putney to Hampton court is just under 26 kilometres long and can be completed in a hour and a bit (plus the time taken to get to Putney or Hampton Court) making it a convenient London ride for when time poor. I often combine it with the… Continue Reading
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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
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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
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Even if abandoned, it must still lead somewhere? I said to myself. Is it a redundant motorway, an abandoned motor racing circuit or maybe an airport? It has shades of each? Now I know At one end of this traffic free concrete road or ‘Betonweg’ are modern and rehabbed housing, a college and public sport… Continue Reading
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The River Thames is 215 miles long and I have been riding my bike along the Putney to Hampton Court section for 20 odd years. The ‘gravel’ Thames path here lines the south bank of the river and has been my regular haunt to play out my ‘Roubaixesque’ fantasies. It’s not a tough ride but it… Continue Reading
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It’s one thing to witness cycling become so popular that I and others no longer feel members of a renegade tribe, but to have my long love of dirt riding suddenly to become fashionable with the added indignity of calling it ‘Gravel’, is almost too much to bear. But I’m not bitter. I have been… Continue Reading
