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Glorious Bike Rides

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Reviews

“Lost Lanes West is a joy” – road.ccc

“Beautifully produced… lovingly researched” – Podium Cafe

“The most beautiful guide to cycling in South East England” – London Cyclist

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Unleashed my inner Elgar on a ride to the top of t

Unleashed my inner Elgar on a ride to the top of the Malvern Hills - highest spot in Worcestershire. It's a tarmac bridleway all the way up! 👠👠 The views in all directions are mesmerising - from the Cotswolds across the vales of Severn, Leadon and be Wye to the Black Mountains where I live.
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#cycling #cycletouring #worcestershire #hallett #650b

Soft misty light on the #rawmilk run to Grosmont W

Soft misty light on the #rawmilk run to Grosmont Wood Farm. Skirrid, Sugarloaf & sheep.

Fire in the west

Fire in the west

The Hatterall Ridge, where England ends and Wales

The Hatterall Ridge, where England ends and Wales begins. A donkey looking on.

Monmouthshire looking 👌on my lunchtime 25 miles

Monmouthshire looking 👌on my lunchtime 25 miles

Cross a fairground ride with the Eiffel Tower and

Cross a fairground ride with the Eiffel Tower and a foot ferry and you are getting close to the sheer genius of the Newport Transporter Bridge. Truly something to behold. I was grinning like a loon as we sailed across then they asked if we wanted to go again - who wouldn’t? - and topped it all with a tour of the motorhouse. One of the best things I’ve done this year. Wales is famous for its hills, its castles and its beaches but this must be up there with the best of the best. Recommended.
#wales #cymru #newport #bridge @visitwales #engineering

Put the kettle on

Put the kettle on

Out storm chasing

Out storm chasing

Evening swim in the Usk. The air is calm but close

Evening swim in the Usk. The air is calm but close, thunder threatening from the west. Sheep nibble the parched cliff edge as sand martins wheel overhead and dive into their burrows. Paradise.

With a nod to the pot belge beloved of racing cycl

With a nod to the pot belge beloved of racing cyclists, here's my cycle touring magic potion. It can spice up the humblest bowl of noodles (or even cous cous) with a fragrant, warming, salty, umami laden rush of flavour. Just add an egg and any veg or foraged greens, finely sliced.

It's borrowed from 'Every Grain of Rice', @fuchsiadunlop's amazing book of Sichuan cooking. A mix of chili oil (home made with rapeseed oil, gochujang, ginger & sesame seeds), light and dark soy sauce and Chinkiang vinegar. I sometimes add a bit of minced garlic & ginger.

This tiny vial is enough for a few meals and weighs just 40g.

What are your favourite flavour tricks for lightweight camping foods?

#camping #cooking

Fresh back from a fantastic couple of days with @j

Fresh back from a fantastic couple of days with @jamesl_w exploring the beautiful #LostLanes of West Dorset.

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Ex-pro James (aka Hank) is more at home on a 6kg carbon race bike, flying around a crit course, putting the hammer down in the Tour of Britain or taking on extreme cycling challenges as a presenter on @globalcyclingnetwork.⠀
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But fair play to James, he really threw himself into my kind of slow cycling: stopping for brew ups, river swims and even spending a rainy night in a bivvy bag. I'm thrilled to have helped a hard core bike racer discover his inner cyclotourist. And I reckon James a natural, don't you?
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#westdorset #cycling #cycletouring #slowcycling #lostlaneswest #helllane #southdorsetridgeway #roughstuff #westcountry #dorset

Such clear light this evening. Sugarloaf from the

Such clear light this evening. Sugarloaf from the hill fort at Twyn y Gaer, my favourite viewpoint in the Black Mountains. In the other direction the Malvern Hills are a grey blue ripple on the horizon.

Always a pleasure, never a chore. Gospel Pass, the

Always a pleasure, never a chore. Gospel Pass, the road home.

One of the lesser used border crossings between Wa

One of the lesser used border crossings between Wales and England. An ancient byway beneath Hatterrall Ridge.

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#cycling #cycloexploring #650b #roughstuff #itsallrideable #greenlane #lostlanes

Candyfloss over Abergavenny. This cloud appears to

Candyfloss over Abergavenny. This cloud appears to be asking some kind of question. I only wish I knew the answer.

#clouds #cloudspotting

And so to the 30th and last of my special places f

And so to the 30th and last of my special places from #LostLanesNorth. This is the Wheatsheaf pub in Beetham, towards the end of Ride No. 30 "Brief Encounter", a route which begins at Carnforth railway station (where much of the film Brief Encounter was shot, and which is still recognisable from the ramps to the platforms to the refreshment room). The route heads north through Arnside and Silverdale, hopping by train across the River Kent to Cartmel and the edge of Lakeland before looping back through sleepy Witherslack and a string of limestone villages and country estates.⠀ ⠀

One of these villages is Beetham, and a very handsome village it is. Though a pub may have been on this site as long ago as 1609, this black and white Jacobean revival building with its elaborate oriel window was built around 1900. It's almost ridiculous and commands the corner where it stands across from the church. Anyone passing has to stop and stare. I don't know if the original interior ever matched the extravagant exterior but it's long gone now, replaced by the bland 'upmarket country inn' catalogue style. ⠀
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It's not really a destination in and of itself, rather it's one of dozens of places that will catch my eye in a day's riding: buildings, trees, rocks, fields, almost anything really. I never regret the places I stop at but I am often filled with remorse at those I pass by. There's something about the motion of riding a bike, and the psychology of travel that makes you want to keep on moving when it might be more rewarding to stop awhile. Fortunately, when writing a guidebook, stopping is part of the job. ⠀
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I hope you've enjoyed this series. You can see them all on the #lln30places hashtag. ⠀
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#lostlanes #jacobean #pub #architecture #cumbria

A few moments before the big meadow descent. File

A few moments before the big meadow descent. File under "I never go for a walk without my bike" and "what goes up must go down". #roughstuff #23mm #pinkshorts @rsfarchive #lostlaneswest #dorset #cranbornechase #cycletouring #choosecycling

Looks like a sunset shot but this was 6.30 in the

Looks like a sunset shot but this was 6.30 in the morning during in the heatwave of July 2016. After a bivvy night on Cranborne Chase in which I'd forgotten my sleeping bag but it didn't matter because it was so warm. This is my old friend and fellow travel writer Harry Adès disappearing into a meadow while descending a grassy path on his trusty 23mm tyres. Oh how we baked that day. It was one of several days I spent on Cranborne Chase researching for Lost Lanes West. It's an often overlooked cycling destination that offers plenty of lost lanes and some fantastic rough stuff on ridgeways and old drove roads. .
#roughstuff #23mm #pinkshorts #dorset #lostlaneswest #heatwave #outtakes

My 29th special place from #LostLanesNorth is the

My 29th special place from #LostLanesNorth is the Great Stone of Fourstones. It's from Ride No.29 "Take the High Road", which in 82km crams more variety into a day out than any other ride in the book. From the centre of the elegant city of Lancaster, out on the River Lune cycle path to the viewpoint at Crook of Lune then up into Roeburndale and onto the fabulous Hornby Road to Slaidburn then back via the Cross of Greet climb, the highest paved road in the Forest of Bowland and a return along the Lune. This is a good place to stop for a breather after the big climb. ⠀ ⠀
This elephantine lump of limestone is a glacial erratic. Pushed, dragged and rolled here by passing glaciers the strata are now perpendicular to the ground. The same glaciers carved out the U-shaped valleys of the Yorkshire Dales, the Forest of Bowland and much of Northern England (they didn't make it into the Midlands and Southern England). ⠀
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There were once four stones here (hence 'Fourstones') but the others were broken up and used as building materials. The stone is one of the traditional markers of the Yorkshire-Lancashire boundary. Proud Lancastrians might say that the 15 steps carved in the boulder allow Yorkshire folk to climb to the top and look enviously into Lancashire's land of milk and honey. The 5m tall boulder stands on the last sliver of Bowland that's still in Yorkshire. Traditionally, Slaidburn and much of the uplands were part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, but they've been annexed by Lancashire in the bloodless coup of the 1974 local government reorganisation (though meagre compensation for what Lancashire lost to Cumbria). ⠀
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Looking north the three peaks of the Yorkshire Dales are clearly visible and it's a good place to appreciate the connection between Bowland and the Dales.⠀
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#lln30places #limestone #boulder #geology #yorkshire #bowland ⠀

Socially distanced Friday beers on the hill

Socially distanced Friday beers on the hill

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