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
Latest in: Kopfsteinpflaster
-
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
Not all cycle races or rides are created equal but some stand out because they are more than just another race or ride. Not only do they offer extra drama (OK, chaos) but also add something different. I am drawn to races and rides that are in this camp. I like track cycling but it’s… Continue Reading
-
Dengie Marshes Tour “Hell of the East” / Chris Negus Memorial Road Race 2008-12 Race organiser Alan Rosner and I had been in his Volvo for a few hours reccying the roads, byways and green lanes for the 2012 edition of the Dengie Marshes Tour when I asked him why, it’s such a complicated a route? His response… Continue Reading
-
2014 saw the hundredth anniversary of the start of World War One and this caused a rekindling of interest in the long, bloody fighting line that straddled Europe between 1914 to 1917. To mark the occasion the 2014 Tour de France visited many of the major battlefields and stage five began at the Belgian town… Continue Reading
-
Homage to the Hell of the North Spring Classic Riding the bi-annual Paris Roubaix Sportive organised by VC Roubaix is a must do event and we cyclists are blessed that we can ride the very routes made famous by the top stars of our sport. The ‘Hell of the North’ Paris Roubaix Sportive follows the… Continue Reading
-
‘Brutal’, is all I could utter when asked how it went; what else could I say? A little earlier I had fallen into the arms of a friend in Roubaix Velodrome centre. I felt so weak and there was simply nothing left in my body, but my soul was full, very full. The bi-annual event… Continue Reading
