Cycling Round Britain (Twice)

Cycling around Britain: #1 …ha ha ha!

It wasn’t a dark and stormy night. It didn’t have to be: I was lying in a field of nettles, my feet above my head and a slug in my face.

9 Precious Ps of Long Distance Bike Rides (and other expeditions)

You can’t rush around Britain. Even if you rush one day, you’ve still got hundreds, thousands of miles still to go. There’s no point. If you try and rush, then…

Amazing isn’t enough: Cycling 4,110 miles around Britain*

What inspires you? What do you admire in other people? What do you want to achieve ?

10 things you learn when you cycle 4,110 miles around Britain

Cycling right around the coast of Britain is unquestionably the single most rewarding thing I have done in my life. The wonder of it is that I didn’t do…

HELP! Cycling Around Britain Book Title Poll

As you may know, I have recently “finished” my book about cycling 4,110 miles around Britain. The only problem is that I haven’t got a title for it yet. And…

The Literary Consultancy Manuscript Assessment Review

I know some of you are writers or would like to become writers, whatever that means. One of the problems with writing is that it’s almost entirely subjective.…

Adventures in Approach and Avoidant Motivation

Have you ever read about approach and avoidant personalities?

Battles with bicycle maintenance (and a ghost)

When it comes to bicycle maintenance, I am, by my calculations, precisely halfway between heroic competance and its hapless opposite.

Not a bike ride

This week: cycling around Britain, river navigation, saving the cat, brain-melting thoughts and massive trees...

Proper adventure

This week: a proper adventure, plus Youtube and porridge...

Let's go to Mordor!

Cycling around Britain: Nine years

What were you doing nine years ago? Please, have a think. What’s changed? How have you grown?

Cycling around Britain: A cheese sandwich in a rainstorm

Sunday evening. It was getting late to find a camp spot. I’d run out of water and I only had rice cakes in my panniers for dinner. Southwold was full, with…

Cycling around Britain: Bikes are horses too!

Every single day I’m on my bike there are moments when I think: ‘I could have been killed there.’

Cycling around Britain: Leave no trace

Once I’ve recovered a faculty or two, I’ll be cycling across Dartmoor to a wild camp spot at Foggintor Quarries, following the trail of two awesome tourers I…

Detours

This week: the road less travelled (but mostly travelled up hill)

Cycling around Britain: Why is this happening?

On Tuesday, I kind of rolled into Bristol, after cycling 1,012 kilometres around the southwest of the country. That means that, since the easing of lockdown,…

Philoxenia around Britain

Philoxenia is the Greek idea of generosity and friendship towards strangers. During my cycle ride around the south of Britain in the summer of 2020, I was the…

Plumb lines and cockpits

The upshot of my visit, on a hot June day, to Neil’s upstairs studio was spending a penny to save a pound. Reader: I needed not a larger bicycle frame. I…

Wiener brecwast

Greetings from west Wales: a corner has been turned...

Stories in the lamplight

It's as if my bicycle is fitted with a lamp that illuminates brief moments in the lives of others.

Bygone Bicycles

There’s something exquisite about unfolding the worn creases of a forgotten map and following, again, the inky lines where my pen once traced the turning of my…

Cycling Connections from Kings Lynn to Whitby

I’m currently sitting in Sanders Yard Bistro, hidden away in a historic potted plant courtyard, a sharp cobbled descent down the looming cliff of Whitby Abbey.

How To Sleep In A Tent: A Story 11 Years In The Making

The last time I was here I was desperately searching, with the help of my dad (long suffering telephonist for round Britain cyclist) for Ravenscar youth hostel.

Round Britain IV: Cycling Diaries Kings Lynn to Ravenscar

Resuming where I left off two years ago, today I rode from Kings Lynn to a canalside camp just the other side of the lovely market town of Boston.

58 Days In Memory's Universal Flux

Following rides around Southern England in 2020 and Wales in 2021, I’m now 60 percent of the way round Britain… Or am I?

Arran - Islay - Jura

A montage

The Cataclysmic Event Hypothesis

Or: Nothing propinks like cycle touring.

Yes To Yes-vember!

Selfless heroes of the journey: closest to the upspray from the wet road, toes to the wind, 60 times a minute pushing on the pedals, and with every pounding…

Never Dread The Road Ahead

Everything I do for this bike ride is about finding the courage to connect. And it’s not just the bike ride. Cycling around Britain is a cypher for…

Coasting In Public

A previous iteration of David Charles would have felt threatened by this man’s speech and seen this fellow sauna dweller as an enemy to be fought and defeated

Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin & Me

'She wasn’t looking for me, she was looking for Kris Kristofferson; I wasn’t looking for her, I was looking for Brigitte Bardot.'

Writing In Public: Memory & Desire

While discussing the relationship between my favourite Heraclitus quote and cycling around Britain for the second time, a two-time acquaintance suggested I…

Round Britain Twice: From Egremont Castle

And welcome to Egremont Castle, in the shade of the ruined keep, where Amber has freaked herself out playing hide and seek and started first crying for her…

Round Britain Twice: Graham Eating Chips And Gravy

It’s not every day that you meet a motorcycling electrician called Graham eating chips and gravy in the sunshine at a village tearoom in Northumberland.