Newcastle

It’s a strange job that I do. Today I was at BBC Radio Newcastle for a bit of chat about triathlons. It’d been organised by Keith from Highlights PR , who does the business for our team of enterprise coaches . I would have cycled into the studio, but I had good reason not to: For...
Read more »

If you were campaigning to improve the quality of local cycle infrastructure, is this the sort of thing that you’d be demanding? Make my journey a pleasant experience and not a daily struggle for space. Give me and other cyclists priority over motor traffic. Include sections free of motor traffic. Stop buses, lorries and cars passing too close...
Read more »

This weekend, Robbie and I met up in Amsterdam - we were in town for the marathon on Sunday, and had each flown out on Saturday. It’s been a while (like 17 years) since I was last in Amsterdam, and on that occasion, I’d stayed in a tiny hotel (left) not far from...
Read more »

So after yesterday’s jaunt, we went out again today. For some variety, we went through the Tyne Pedestrian Tunnel (fitting a tandem in the lift is . . . a bit of a squeeze), and then through Jarrow & Hebburn, before taking the cycle path that runs parallel to the Felling Bypass to go...
Read more »

Von SmallHaussen came up for this weekend. It’s basically the only chance we’re going to get to ride together on the tandem before the Dunwich Dynamo, so we wanted to get out there and put some miles in, but also to do this in all sorts of traffic conditions. So yesterday, we dropped Daughter off...
Read more »

This was the soundtrack of my ride today - Out Ta Get Me, from Appetite For Destruction. (The bleeping out on this version of the song is really subtle - even if you’re not a G’NR fan, it’s worth watching for the awesome audio edit ) So, to my ride today - visiting a client...
Read more »

It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden my road bike, Christine - last July in fact. So on Friday last week, I gave her a good spring clean and lubing. Along the way, I used the handy chain wear checking tool I bought to check her chain. Good thing too - it’d done...
Read more »

No, we’re not talking about what’s coming up in this Friday’s Photo Caption Contest (though I do advise viewing on an empty stomach). No, this was actually what one of by clients said to me today about riding a bike to work in ordinary clothes - she’d passed me in her car some time...
Read more »

No - not that early ’80s thing with Hazel O’Connor, but the type that gets left all over the road. Actually it’s generally not left all over the road, and if it is, passing cars soon sweep it aside / grind it down to a harmless dust. No. I’m talking about the kind that gets...
Read more »

(You’ll have to click through to read the text of today’s Yehuda moon strip) Today on my ride into Newcastle, I had a passenger of a car lean out the window as he passed, shouting something or other (doppler - don’t you love it?), and pointing at his shaven head. He may have been indicating...
Read more »