DayCycle – Tarka Trail

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Tarka Trail cycle route overall rating: (Colour explanation: blue = good, yellow indicates some warning, and red indicates issues to be aware of) The Tarka Trail in North Devon follows a disused railway that once linked Barnstaple to Hatherleigh, and onwards. It’s a very well-known traffic-free route, set in a stunning natural environment. The trail ... Read more

Top Cycle Touring Tips

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The beauty of cycle touring is the freedom is gives you, and that freedom includes how you tour. Some may choose foreign destinations, while others stay more local. Some may ride with everything but the kitchen sink, while others ride from hotel to hotel, carrying almost nothing on the bike. Broadly speaking, there simply is ... Read more

Family-friendly Cycling On The Granite Way

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The Granite Way is a stunning, traffic-free shared path that follows a disused railway, high up on Dartmoor. Skirting the high moor, it runs for 8.68 miles, from Okehampton to Lydford. It also forms part of the Devon Coast To Coast route. Built on the track bed of the old London And South Western Railway ... Read more

DayCycle – A Redlake adventure

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20 miles there and back, mostly gravel This route incorporates a significant amount of gravel riding. Not quite extreme off-road, but certainly not easy riding all the way. Gravel riding, especially when carrying luggage on the bike, is considerably slower than riding on tar, and although the Redlake route isn’t particularly long, it’s equally suited ... Read more

Book review – The Man Who Cycled The World, by Mark Beaumont

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Mark Beaumont set a new Guinness World Record for circumnavigating the world by bicycle in 2008, and this book tells the tale of that event. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? “Oh, he cycled around the world, and?”. Let’s put that in perspective: have you ever cycled 100+ miles in one day? If so, how ... Read more

GoCycle – Grand Union Canal

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144  miles  in  total,  mostly  flat,  with surfaces  ranging  from  excellent  to  dire The Industrial Revolution laid the groundwork for the world we live in today, and the UK gave birth to the Industrial Revolution. Nothing in that sentence is contentious. What you may find surprising is that the canal network, and in particular the ... Read more

The Primrose Trail

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In the late 1960s, the UK engaged in a staggering act of self-harm, during a process that became known as the Beeching Cuts. Under the scheme, spearheaded by Dr Beeching, the UK’s very wide rail network was decimated, while roads building was massively ramped up. As has been repeatedly demonstrated, induced demand is a real ... Read more

Camping cooking

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I’m not much of a foodie, and doing a post on food isn’t exactly how I envisioned myself spending a number of hours. Having said that, the fact remains that – regardless of how much, or how little you enjoy food – your body will need fuel to power each pedal stroke of your cycle ... Read more

Do you chart a course by the stars?

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Map showing the route of the Grand Union Canal
While being able to navigate using the night sky is a great skill to have, there are far better options available to you, starting with a simple map. I freely, and even proudly admit that I’m a map geek. I’ve always been one, since I can remember. Maps, you see, tell stories, and if you wanted ... Read more

Creatures of the night…

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Have you ever cycled in complete darkness? Night cycling is a totally different experience, and judging by rides such as the Dunwich Dynamo, it’s popular, too. And yet, so many people have never gone night cycling. There’s something magical about cycling at night. No, I’m not referring to urban night cycling, along roads with streetlights. ... Read more

SheCycles – Helen Langridge

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SheCycles is a series of posts in which I ask women some questions, and I post their responses. All women are asked the same questions, and are obviously free to answer as much, or as little, as the please. The very first SheCycles was about Annie Kopchovsky , who was the first woman to travel ... Read more

Cycle touring and Sustrans routes

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In the UK, there’s a charity called Sustrans, and they’re behind something called, perhaps overly optimistically, the National Cycle Network (NCN for short). NCN: a quality lottery NCN routes vary massively in terms of quality – from smooth, sealed, traffic-free surfaces, to swampy quagmires, to busy roads, congested with cars. As a result, many British cyclists ... Read more

Book review – Getting Hold Of A Gun Is Easy, by Alwin Wiederhold

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This book hit home for me. So much so, that I had to wait quite some time after I finished reading it, before writing this review. I need to explain that: I grew up in South Africa, during the Apartheid years, and many things touched upon in this book are things I lived through. If ... Read more

SheCycles – SuziQ

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SheCycles is a series of posts in which I ask women some questions, and I post their responses. All women are asked the same questions, and are obviously free to answer as much, or as little, as they please. The very first SheCycles was about Annie Kopchovsky, who was the first woman to travel around ... Read more

Things YOU can do for International Women’s Day

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Happy International Women’s Day! The single biggest reason why we still so desperately need International Women’s Day is simple: sexism remains rife in everyday society. Now, there’s a saying that goes like this: “If it’s to be, it’s up to me”. Like all change, every one of us need to do our part. Remember, it isn’t ... Read more