Its Not About The Tapas, Polly Evans (2003)

Bantam Books 0 553 81556 3 Paperback 301pp £6.99

An enjoyable account of a solo bicycle journey made around parts of Spain made (probably) in 2002. It would serve as a good primer to Spain but also have something for those who know the country well

Burned out and brassed off in Hong Kong, Evans decides to cycle around Spain. It is a familiar, if not downright unpromising pretext. But Evans is a good writer with a genuine knowledge of and love for Spain. Examining the map at the start of the book, it is clear that her tour did not really take in much of Spain at all – she rides from San Sebastian to Barcelona, tours a little in Andalucía and Extremadura, and crosses to Madrid.

However, her grasp of Spain is sufficient for this to provide a framework on which to paint a convincing picture of the country in the early years of the twenty first century. She deals confidently, if light-heartedly with both historical context and the recent dash for modernity. Here she is introducing an explanation of Spain’s monarchy.

‘When Louis XIV of France said: “There are no more Pyrenees”, he was clearly misinformed. He had blatantly not bundled his freshly powdered wig under a cycling helmet, stuffed his spare velvet knickerbockers in to a very tiny pannier and tried cycling from Versailles down to Spain.”
Dealing with everything from Iberian food, to the fashion sense of elderly Spainish women, she maintains a similarly well-informed, but jocular tone.

Her excursion into Extremadura also marks out this book. This huge area is thinly populated, little know and infrequently visited by outsiders. For those reasons it is far more like ‘old’ Spain that any of those areas served by low-cost airlines. Evans enthusiasm for the area is reason enough for more people to venture north of Jerez.

PS Mar 09

Travels With Rosinante, Bernard Magnouloux (1988)

Grafton Books 0 586 20828 3 paperback 252pp £5.99

A compelling account of a five-year, minimal-budget, round-the-world cycle journey starting in 1980. The author took in: Europe; the length of Africa, travelling south; the length of south America, travelling north; the USA travelling east though the southern states and then crossing to California; China to Nepal and some major excursions in India and Pakistan

To judge from his picture on the book’s cover, Magnoloux is the sort of person who might cause your heart to drop if he joined you in a railway carriage. He is using sacks for panniers, has a filthy suitcase strapped to his rack and is dressed as though from a charity shop he visited several thousand kilometres ago. But suspend your prejudices, for he has a compelling tale to tell and a considerable gift for expression – particularly given that his first language is French.

He cycled about 48,000 miles (76,988 kilometers), lived on an average of £2 per day and did most of the trip on a bicycle for which he paid just £15. Given the scope of his experiences, this is actually a very slender book, each of the 30 chapters recounting his highlights in some of the 45 countries through which he journeyed.

What plans he had, he appears to have made from maps copied down by chance at frontier posts and in airports. He lived among the people whose countries he visited – sometimes working as a labourer to raise funds, elsewhere, giving lectures on his journey. In some respects his experiences might seem like the boilerplate expectations of such a passage – robbed at gun point, fleeced at borders, shown enormous kindness by some of the poorest people, and the opposite from a few of the richest. But he tells his tales with a compassionate authenticity that gives them all - even his few amorous encounters – the stimulating grit of quality reportage.

It would be interesting to know more about Magnoloux himself. He describes himself variously as a stonemason (at which he is clearly skilled) and an author. Throughout the book he demonstrates his ability with languages. He is able to immerse himself sufficiently to pick up some native words nearly everywhere he visits, and he provides snapshots of dialogue and their translations in half a dozen tongues. And, as no translator is mentioned, one has to assume he wrote this book in English. What he has done since then, I have been unable to discover – but would be fascinated to know, if anyone can shed some light.

He also provides only a hint at what propelled him pedalling on this lonely, frequently hungry, quest. In Tibet he found himself contemplating the motivations of the pilgrims to Lhasa.

“I wondered if, under the surface, there is such a difference between the Tibetan pilgrim who prostrates himself every three steps for 2,000 miles on his way to Lhasa and the European cyclist pushing his pedals every couple of yards for 4,000 miles around the world.

“Is religious piety the real motivation for the Tibetan? Isn’t it more general – a kind of social pressure, or the force of tradition? And isn’t it exactly the same for the European?

“To go around the world has become, for young Westerners, the social and cultural equivalent of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for medieval Christians, to Mecca for present-day Muslims and to Lhasa for Tibetans. This thirst for travel, it seems to me, is a new form of initiation, a new set of atheistic rituals...”

The resultof his initiation is a fascinating picture of the world during the time of Magnoulox’ adventuring. It would also be a useful primer for anyone contemplating a similar venture. His broad brush impressions might well help with general route planning – Muslim countries are friendly, Africa is friendly, south America unfriendly, the US friendly, but full of cars; and in India, the village crowds who mob a western cyclist make progress near impossible.

The appendices, which aim to give more practical advice to would-be travelers, clearly cannot be depended upon given that the book was published 20 years ago – but in many of the less developed countries they are probably still as useful as ever.

For those of us less adventurous, his book provides a transport far beyond the railway carriage.

PS February 09

Cycling In The French Alps, Paul Henderson (2005)

Cicerone 1 85284 445 0 Paperback 217pp £14

A detailed guide to eight, multi-day cycle tours in the Alps including numerous colour photographs, route itineraries and ride profiles

Had this book been written by a life-long cyclist, then chances are its impressions of the Alps would have been framed by the routes and riders of the great tours. But it was not. Cicerone are an ambitious publisher with a good many cycling titles in their catalogue – but whose starting point is mountaineering.

In many respects this is refreshing. Far more awesome than the spectacle of, say, the Tour de France, are the mountains themselves and it is good to focus on them without the second hand perspective of the feats of Bahamontes or Pantani.

The ‘eight classic cycle tours’ through which Henderson guides us are each multi-day excursions. He envisages in his Tour of the Ain, for example, spending six days, covering between 46 and 77 kilometers a day. Daily height gain varies from 500 to 1197 meters per day.

This would certainly be a fabulous way to spend a week – although for many cyclists the schedule is perhaps a little unambitious. You don’t have to be a Category 1 racer to be able to comfortably contemplate double the daily distance and a height gain of 2000 meters over that period. Still, there is no reason why one should not cover Henderson’s routes in half the number of days.

For each route, the book provides detailed directions, showing each turn that you should take over the course of the route. Such information is critical in the mountains, as the roads are generally few and wrong turns can prove disastrous. These pages would be easy to copy and keep in your back pocket – or simpler still, programe into your GPS.

There is also a lot of good general information and some spectacular illustration. I would certainly consult this if I were planning a summer trip to the Alps. I would find it hard not to cross reference it with a guide to the climbs of the Tour before completely settling my plans

PS January 09

The Wind In My Wheels, Josie Dew (1992)

Warner 0 7515 0249 9 paperback 368pp £6.99

An account of journeys made in the late 1980s including most of Europe, the UK, Ireland, North Africa, Canada, India and Romania

This was Dew’s first book (she has written seven at the time of 2009). An enthusiastic cyclist since her childhood in the south of England, she started touring more ambitiously in her mid teens. The cover promises that, at the time of this publication, she has covered ‘four continents, 36 countries and 80,000 miles’, and her accounts of most of them are contained in this book. Whereas her subsequent books are based on journeys that appear to have been devised to deliver books, this is the summation of her travels up to this point.

She makes little of her courage or her eccentricity – although both are there in charming spade fulls. Precious few young women dedicate themselves to adventuring by bicycle, and yet Dew makes it sound like the most normal, natural thing imaginable. Not only that, but she fashioned her working life around her desire for regular long cycle adventures – she runs a catering service, towing ingredients around London on a trailer behind her bike.

Her approach is impressionistic and humorous. There is occasional cultural contextualisation – Granada is the ‘city that Lorca loved’, but he was shot close by early in Spain’s civil war, she explains. But for the most part, she is more interested in shopkeepers, bed and breakfast proprietors and encounters with passers by, than culture, architecture or topography. Much space is also devoted to the challenges of cycling in countries where a lone female on a bicycle is a rare visitor.

Here she is, for example, toward the end of a lengthy passage on the difficulties she had with a routine bodily function in Morocco.

“I sprang full-bladdered from my cycle to retire safely behind a rock, which promptly came to life. It turned out to be a big and startled Arab who had been peacefully snoozing among the genuine rocks in the landscape”. Thereafter Dew developed a technique whereby a cycling cape doubled as a portaloo.

At times her prose is pedestrian – her nose was ‘red as Rudolph’s’, Poland was ‘poverty stricken’ and Finland was ‘flat’. But the quick fire jump from country to country keeps the pages turning.
At this distance, the one thing missing from the books is some more precise dates (which may have been sorted out in more recent editions, or might perhaps in editions to come). For example, her travels in Ireland are nearly always troubled by fears of the IRA – an interesting indicator of how the Provisionals got into the British psyche during their 30 years of active campaigning. Dew crosses into Hungary ‘after the collapse of the Cold War’. But if we know precisely when this was, her observations would have greater value today.

Nonetheless, the journal bowls along pleasurably over an enormous number of miles – and provides a very reassuring proof that whatever is the addictive magic of cycling, both sexes are susceptible.

PS January 09

A Canterbury Pilgrimage, Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell (1885)

Seeley and Company 79pp 1 shilling

An illustrated account of a ride on an early tandem tricycle journey made by an American couple whose cycling travelogues did much to make wheeled touring respectable in Victorian Britain

In August 1884 the Pennell’s recreated the journey made famous by Chaucer’s pilgrims on what, I suspect, was a Humber Club Cycle Quadricycle Roadster. These extraordinary conveyances from the penny-farthing era are now completely unknown. Clearly, however, at the time of their manufacture, they made possible travel of a kind that had hitherto required a horse and trap.

This was the first volume penned by the Pennells – over the following decade they would traverse Europe and produce written and sketched accounts of their adventures. He drew, she wrote. That said, in this edition, there are two quite separate styles of illustration. One is naturalistic, the other a cartoonish take on Chauceresque emblams.

The Kentish jaunt is the basis for a charming, gentle account of the garden of England. They seek out the pilgrim’s milestones – the Tabard Inn, Boughton Hill and, of course, the shrine at their journey’s end.

They can have had no idea how completely the county would change in the century that followed. To read them now is to visit an almost unknown world. Deptford and Blackheath are villages separated by countryside. In places, the roadsides are thronged with tramps. And, the Thames is crowded with barges and commercial sailing ships.

There were clearly enough cyclists on this route for their wheels not to cause shrieks of amazement, although several people reacted with concern at the sight of Joseph trying to catch their likeness in his sketch pad.

The book is of the size and style of a school exercise book with a stitched seam. According to Irving Leonard, writing in Bicycling in 1967, this, and the Pennell’s other publications, sold in large numbers from railway bookstands. And their import to cycling history, was the role that they playing in making cycle touring respectable.

Unused to wheeled travellers without horses, some sections of Victorian society viewed bicyclists with alarm. The Pennell’s, by taking their travel cues from such respectable guides as Chaucer, and later John Bunyan, showed that were a conveyance suitable for gentle folk. And by painting such an attractive picture of their tours, they did their bit to fuel the ensuing cycling boom. Today, this account of a cross-county pilgrimage delivers readers an evocative transport in time.

Incidentally, Kessinger publishing are currently republishing this book, and much of the rest of the Pennell's work. Given that you can still pick up originalls for less than £20 (and sometimes less than £5), it might be worth holding out for an original.

PS December 2008

The Ultimate Scottish Cycling Book, Paul Lamarra (2003)

Mainstream 1 84018 617 8 207pp £14.99

An area-by-area guide to cycle touring in Scotland, based on a tour made in 2002, including extensive ‘how to’ information.

So many guides to cycle touring in the UK have been written that the job of squeezing some new juice from the format is a challenge. Of course, roads change and attractions come and go. (Only 20 years ago, I cycled the length of the A74 and the A9, something that would be neither fun, legal nor necessary today). Nonetheless, finding something new to say, or a new way to say requires considerable initiative.

And that is just what Lamarra has brought to this book. There may be precedents for the format he has adopted, but I am not aware of them.

Nine chapters each concentrate on different areas of Scotland. It is a pretty good spread – from the Western Isles to Galloway and the Borders. Inevitably, he does not cover everything. But he does go where many guides have avoided – rural Aberdeenshire, for example, which provides some of the best cycling country in the UK.

Each section recounts a carefully planned tour or several days made, I am guessing, in 2002. Lamarra is particularly good on capturing the flavour of places – he has the excitement of Oban to a tee, likewise the transition of wild Perthshire into the tourist attractions of Pitlochry. There are also some great route tips – anyone could miss the private, but easily accessible, roads built for hydro-scheme workers that allow one to get into the head of Glen Lyon, without cycling its length, for example.

His accounts are peppered with his own wry observations. He recounts the experience of the weather on the day that he made the rides and the difficulty or otherwise he had in finding accommodation, as well as entertaining historical asides. Each chapter then ends with a diagrammatic route map, map references, directions, accommodation and food stop suggestions and other important transport information such as ferry timetables. This information is particularly strong and he has clearly gone to some lengths to put himself in the position of a travelling on wholly unfamiliar territory.

As Lamarra suggests in his introduction, this is not a volume for the saddle bag. Rather, it is a primer to be enjoyed over the winter, while planning one’s own tours in Scotland. There is much of this routes that you may wish to copy turn by turn. But the real value of his book is in firing the imagination, and giving you the wherewithal to plan. Despite having read dozens of cycling books about Scotland and ridden quite extensively in many of the areas he covers, by the end of the book, I was back with my maps, dreaming of a fresh Caledonian campaign.

If I have a beef, it would be with the title. Such a grand promise is never going to be deliverable. However, books are published to be sold, and doubtless Mainstream were keen on something that they hoped would jump off the self. “An account of nine cycle tours in North Britain, with accompanying notes for wheelmen hoping to emulate the author’s progress”, might well have been the title had it been published in the 1880s. More accurate it might have been – but it would hardly be the stuff to tempt the armchair cyclists of today.

PS November 2008

Daisy, Daisy Christian Miller (1980)

Routledge & Kegan Paul 0 7100 0709 4 180pp £5.99

Miller is the mother of grown up children who sets off to cross the United States on a Bickerton. The date is never specified, but at a guess it is 1978 or 1979.

Her account is amiable enough. She carries a tent, accepts lifts where they are offered and gets into enough scrapes to make this an entertaining read. By the close of the account she has journeyed from Yorktown, Virginnia to Portland, Oregon, via Kansas, Denver, Salt Lake City and the Rockys. More than anything it paints a picture of the USA beyond the major costal cities – much of it small town, agricultural and frequently with very little money.

Perhaps the most intriguing things about the book is that it was published at all. For sure, Miller is a more than competent writer. But today, it is rare for someone to undertake an epic adventure on a whim, and then write it up. Books that bare any comparison to this one published today tend to be by time-served professional writers, who start with a clear plan to generate sufficient material for a book.

To the extent that this does not appear to be a contrivance, and that a major publishing house chose to take it on, it is refreshing. Whether it captures enough of the time and place that it charts to merit a continuing readership is a more open question.

PS Sep 08

101 Mountain-bike routes in Scotland Harry Henniker (1998)

Mainstream Publishing 1 85158 936 8 223pp £14.99

There are any number of guides to various kinds of cycling in locations various. Henniker’s stand out for a number of reasons. His knowledge is that of a life-long enthusiast who runs Bike Bus – a service providing transport for cyclists. He packs all of Scotland into a single volume. And, his routes are straightforward to follow.

Given the size of Scotland, covering it all in only 200 or so pages is no mean feat, but he manages it. There are routes described from Dunnet Head to Maidenkirk – or very nearly. There are also immensely varied – including both modest circular routes and some of the more ambitious journeys that are possible in Scotland.

Henniker’s kind of rides are the tracks and trails that were once the preserve of the Rough Suff Fellowship. Glentress does get a mention, but his main interest is not really the high octane thrills and spills of downhilling.

Each chapter is accompanied by rudimentary maps, and is described. In all probability, you would need a set of OS maps to actually take to the hills and follow most of these routes. Indeed, one wonders how long it will be before volumes such as Henniker’s are offered with CDs containing sat nav files that riders can download to their own handlebar guiding devices.

The author maintains that Scotland is the best country in the world for mountain biking. That remains a matter of contention – but he certainly provides more than enough evidence for someone to make a comprehensive evaluation of the quality of Caledonia’s potential for aficionados of the knobbly tyre.

PS august 2008

Trial By Tandem, Alan McCulloch (1951)

George Allen & Unwin 236pp

The author and his wife, Ellen are killing time between jobs. At this point, in late 1940s, he is old enough (probably about 40), to have progressed from life working in a bank, to that of a professional art critic. Indeed, later in life, he and his wife become some of the most eminent figures in art curation in their native Australia.

In Paris for a conference, the couple buy a tandem on a whim and set off on an Odyssey through France and Italy. This is a book about cycling only in the sense that the tandem exists and a generally unwelcome gooseberry in their relationship. Indeed, McCulloch insists that despite her time pedalling behind him, his wife never properly learns to ride a bicycle. Certainly, the experience of cycling and travelling on a two wheels take up very little of the story.

Their journey, and his writing style, are gentle - although the prose is shot through with perceptive observation and taut writing. "A curious feature of bicycle travel is that, although you are whistling along, utterly unprotected, through the atmosphere as it were, you have a strong sense of privacy, the feeling of being unobserved. Consequently one soon develops a lack of self consciousness about clothes, and quickly sheds all items superfluous to the job in hand". Thus, McCulloch introduces his being barred from entrance to the casino at Monte Carlo because he resembled a tramp.

They stay at rowdy youth hostels, enjoy the hospitality of a Vicomte, search for signs that Van Gogh is remembered in Arles and eventually return the tandem to the dealer from whom they procured it in Paris. The book has a witty observation about all of them - even his wife being with child by the end of their travels.

Throughout, McCulloch brings the sensibilities of an artist to his account, and the book is illustrated with pen and ink drawings that he did en route. It is a charming book, and a record of post-war Europe that seems a million miles from France and Italy today. There are moments when he appears to be spinning out his tales, to fill the pages and there is not much in the way of narrative drive to keep the pages turning. But the book has considerable charm and provides a more than pleasant means to pass away and afternoon.

PS July 2008



Ellen, by this point is with child

Cycling Is Such Fun, Ragged Staff (late 1940s)

Skeffington & Sons no price shown 131pp

A series of fictional sketches and tales featuring a 'clubman' and his family traversing the countryside in the forties and fifties

Ragged Staff is the pen name of Rex Coley, a journalist on Cycling (which became Cycling Weekly) in the 1940s and 1950s. The pieces collected here are, I believe, ones that had already appeared in The Comic, and they offer an glimpse into a world that now seems impossible remote.

Each article is an entertainment - a short tale or scene from the life of a keen cyclist, who is never happier than when traversing the country on two wheels. There are endless social mishaps, with boarding house land ladies who have a low opinion of cyclists; hotel porters who insist on carrying saddle bags like the baggage of grandees; and station masters who don't approve of means of transport that do not require the purchase of tickets.

Much of the time Ragged is accompanied by his wife, Ann, his foil and frequent debunker. On occasion, the son, and even the pet dog join them awheel.

Coley was an accomplished writer. These are simple little tales with no pretensions to literature, but Coley makes them a pleasure to read. Each is alive with incident and dialogue. In the hands of a lesser wordsmith, an account of an ill-conceived cycle ride from south east London to Nuneaton simply to return a milk bottle would be stogy fare. Coley's deftness of touch and feel for the absurd make it a pleasure.

It is a period piece in every sense of the word. The roads are empty, the clothing woolen and the enjoyment of simple pleasures after the privations of war is palpable. Not everything rose-tinted, however. Even if there are still vicar's wives alive who would badger passing cycle tourists into 'blacking up'; to play Sambo in their husband's dramatic productions ('you merely have to act in an ignorant and absurd manner', she advises), it is unlikely that they would be celebrated as they are here.

Nonetheless, this is book is a considerable pleasure - even for those of us for whom this era seems impossibly distant.

PS July 08

Incidentally, I would be fascinated if anyone has any further information about Coley. There are other books of his Ragged Staff pieces, I know, but any other information would be great.

Cycling Across Spain, Tim Dawson

First published Cycling Plus c. October 1998

I am squatting on the hard shoulder of the motorway between Toledo and Madrid trying to mend a puncture. The pounding hailstones will cut open my face any second, I am sure, unless one of the full carriageway of speeding lorries hits me first. My head spins with fatigue, after 60 miles into the wind, I am soaked to the skin and, a powerful gust has just toppled my upturned bike down the steep ditch beside the road.

As I gaze down to see my saddlebag lying beside the partially rotted corpse of a German Shepherd dog it is impossible not to wonder, why I am doing this?

The answer is that I wanted instant adventure. I am in my mid 30s, married and do a demanding professional job, so time is limited. Backpacking around the world, crewing a yacht in the Caribbean or hiking in the Himalayas are not feasible. Cycling alone and unsupported across the Spain - from Gibraltar to Bilbao - seemed heroic and just about possible.

Ten days would be enough, I had calculated. Ninety miles a day seemed within the bounds of my capabilities. A few weeks with a pre-recorded cassette provided me with half a dozen words Spanish. But without prior bookings, sag wagons, tour leaders, useful guidebooks or knowledge of the Spanish interior, it felt like a genuine adventure.

And if it was going to be an adventure it was possible that things would go wrong. There would be roads that were not ideal for cycling, punctures and bad weather. Not that this made fishing my bike out of the diesel enriched mud beside the motorway any more fun. But I had achieved one objective.

All that I could think about was my journey. How much further would I have to go before I would find a hotel? Would my strength hold up for the second week of cycling? And would I be able to dry my few clothes before I had to set out tomorrow? After five days riding, the anxieties and pressures of my daily life back home were completely forgotten.

And most the experiences that displaced my work-day worries were ecstatically joyful. The sight of Toledo and Segovia from their best road vantages are high octane experiences when you have made the journey to them alone on two wheels. Spain's roadside blooms - in spring at least - are the most dazzling flower show. And the climb up to the monastery of Escorail easily repaid ten years of dreaming.

The idea of crossing Iberia came from Laurie Lee. Bored of London in the 1930s, he spent two years wandering south from northern Spain to Andalucia. His prose conveys a feeling of poetic wonder and exploration.

And such a journey gives you an incredible - if no doubt unreal - sense of knowing a country and its people. The extent to which the language changes from province to province, for example, is rendered uncomfortably real. My attempts to order sandwiches were perfectly understood in Andalucia, but met with incomprehension as I rode into Old Castile.

The varying approaches to Holy Week celebrations reveal the enormously differing attitudes to religion and display. In Seville, over a million people crowded its labyrinthine medieval streets to watch marching penitents carry elaborately carved floats depicting Christ and the Madonna. Several processions each day for a week encountered equal enthusiasm, I learned.

The same ceremony in Cuidad Real - an ancient city so completely rebuilt it could be a new town - was shambolic. A desultory crowd trailed behind a gaudy modern float without obvious interest or passion. And in Madrid the procession appeared to excite no one but the tourists. Once it had passed though the city's central square providing momentary excitement for the video-camera-touting classes, it marched on uncheered.

My decision to start in Gibraltar was arbitrary, and a few hours looking around seemed sufficient. The view from my hotel, The Rock, was stupendous however. The Bay of Algecerias is massive - I could see over 40 merchant ships as well as the coasts of Spain and Africa. Best of all though, as I sipped my sherry, was the sea, which, if everything went to plan I would not see again until the end of my ride.

I had planned my first day cycling to be among the hardest, and the 212 kilometres from the coast to Seville lived up to expectations. The road climbs though gentle, rocky hills which, during spring at least, are indecently green. Meandering between small lakes, the scenery could have been Alpine. It was not the hills that did for me, though, but the wind. My twisting and turning route set me alternately with and against it. The latter was a real struggle and after seven hours in the saddle powered only by breakfast and a couple of energy bars, I had the worst hunger knock I have ever experienced.

Fortunately I was able to stumble into a roadside bar where enormous Spanish lunches were still being served. To the amused encouragement of half a dozen old men I stuffed my face and allowed my body sugar to work its magic. The next 70 kilometres felt like they were fuelled by adrenaline alone, but without the food, I could scarcely have walked 70 steps.

Reaching Seville felt an epic triumph, but the welcome I received exceeded all expectations. As I neared the city centre I hit huge waves of people dressed up to the nines, taking part if the first perambulation of Holy Week. By the time I reached the cathedral, the streets were too packed to progress at all. Eventually I reconciled myself to retracing my steps to join the ring road en route to the friends with whom I was staying.

The stiff jabs of pain from my legs the next morning were not to disappear until long after I returned to Britain. But sore though they were off the bike, I was never troubled on the road. Nor did my muscle's fatigue affect my ability to pedal - perhaps this is what professional cyclists feel like during the three week tours?

Happily the road from Seville to Cordoba is quiet and, as it follows the course of a river, flat. It was here though that I first encountered the curious Spanish practice with unwanted dogs. Many owners appear take their animals onto a quite stretch of road and slit their throats. I saw the corpses of endless individual dogs an one pair of very fresh Alsations. Those who feel unable to bring their pets lives to a swift end simply leave their unwanted animals to the mercy of speeding traffic - which if you are on two wheels rather then four can be terrifying.

It was also in Cordoba that I realised how difficult it would be finding accommodation during the country's main national holiday. From the grandest hotels to the simplest pensions there was not a room in town. I was forced to cover a few more miles before finding a motel with vacancies.

In the days to come, it was the search for hotels that gave me most cause for concern. Beds in the tourist centres were mostly full. Far more worrying, however, were the long empty roads where there could be 30 miles between villages, not all of which boasted hostelries.

On one day I was fortunate enough to come across a fabulous hunting lodge from which wood smoke puffed in a steep gorge between mountains. The next day I rode on and on, searching villages with ever greater desperation looking for a place to sleep. Long after I wanted to give up, a simple barn of a building, with the word 'camas' (beds) painted on its gable wall, hoved into view. Never have I been happier to break bread with itinerant farm labourers.

My journey into Madrid was also a long, forlorn search for somewhere to sleep. I had planned to miss the capital entirely. In Toledo, one of the big effects of Spanish tourism, there was no chance of a bed. I set off on the motorway feeling sure that there would be a travel lodge on its outskirts. The skies opened and the road rolled on without a sign of anywhere to stay or even a promising looking town to which I could have turned.

The upshot was an unexpected 70 kilometre drag and an unscheduled night on the town. After five days without hearing anyone speaking English, it was as reassuring to hear my native tongue, as it was to be taken for a Spaniard in one of Spain's endless Irish bars.

Until now I had been lucky with roads - no real disasters and only one stretch of motorway. From the Royal monesty of Escorail just north of Madrid - to Segovia, however, proved to be the most sever physical test I have ever endured.

The map showed two possible routes - a flat main road and an obviously hilly minor road. I had this 75 kilometre stage planned as a rest day, and decided that bit of climbing would be fun. From the sunny spring of the plain, however, the road went up and up. Soon there were patches of snow, but I was generating plenty of heat. It rose further until everything was covered in half a meter of white carpet. Cars carrying skis were now passing me en route to the ski station of Navacerrada.

Here two and three meter icicles hung from the gables, snowboarders ran around in day-glo quilted jackets and my spit froze on contact with the ground. I had stopped only twice on the ascent of 2000 meters and was feeling like a polka dot king.

Until I started to descend. By the third hair pin I was wearing every piece of clothing I had with me and still had to stop every kilometre to choke back the tears of pain and try to warm my extremities. By Segovia I felt freeze dried.

Before my departure I had joked that once I reached Spain's centre, the rest of my journey would be down hill. And although not strictly true, the five days after Segovia turned out to be far the easier. My legs were stronger, the wind more accommodating and the towns and villages of La Mancha flew by.

Nevertheless, by Vitoria - the Basque country's second city - I was beginning to tire of my routine. Every day I looked for a hotel, unpacked, handwashed my kit, found somewhere to eat, had a quick look around and then collapsed into a long deep sleep. After nine days, I wanted to stay in one place and to wear ordinary clothes.

Happily, the high of eventually reaching Bilbao kept me going a little longer. Rain poured during my last day on my bike, and the industrial detritus that surrounds the Basque capital is as widespread as it is depressing. But I scarcely noticed.

The appeal of crossing a country is the feeling of achievement. I had come from the shimmering heat of Gibraltar depending on my wits and self propelled. Soaked again from the rain I rode to the shore of the Bay of Biscay, ten kilometres from Bilbao. There I waded in fully clothed and dizzy with joy.

ENDS

Cycling in cities, Tim Dawson

first published in Cycling Plus cDecember 1996

Cycle touring has an image problem. So set is our view of what bikes are good for, that we are missing out on their most exciting possibilities.

Since the first hearty wheelers emerged into the countryside from Britain's industrial towns and cities more than a century ago, they and their successors have been the pass-time's living embodiment. So much so, that it is impossible to say 'cycle touring' without thinking of hairy-legged, cord-shorted, beardy-weirdies who only stop peddling up hill and down dale to quaff flagons of foaming real ale.

But why is this a problem?

Its simple. The saddle of a bike is a great place from which to see the countryside. It is probably the best way to see the countryside, but it is not the only way. Even a die-hard velocipede would be hard-pressed to deny the pleasures of viewing our open spaces on foot. And, loath though they might be to admit it, there are parts of rural Britain best seen at speed.

The Settle-Carlisle and West Highland Lines both bring a magic to the mountains unsurpassed by other means of transport. And it would be churlish to deny the pleasures of crossing Shap on the M6.

Cities, however - the great engines of human development - are quite a different story.

A bike is the only satisfactory way to explore, and discover a metropolis. By bike you can criss-cross a city, meandering where it interests you, flying though where it does not: seeing its sights, as well as uncovering its underside.

Let me give you a taster.

I spent a fortnight this summer seeing Barcelona by bike. One of Europe's most exciting cities, it has been an important port since Roman times. And each subsequent generation has left its marks on the cityscape.

Early one morning I rode out into the city's southern suburbs beyond Montjuic, the hill that towers over the city. By chance, between two buildings, I caught sight of a huge complex of modern buildings on the side of the hill that faces away from the city.

I thought by this time that I knew Barcelona - I had visited before, I had read all the books. So, as I picked out a route, I raked my mind trying to recall any mention of this city on the hill.

I took it to be a new university, perhaps modelled on Warwick or Bath. From my vantage point on a suburban road, I could see dozen of small regular windows in the sides of the blocks. Student residences, perhaps, or a large administrative centre?

With some difficulty I steered a course though industrial areas and run down housing schemes until I started climbing towards the concrete campus above. Only as I overtook a long black car did I realise my mistake.

Montjuic cemetery is immense. The Spanish place their dead, embalmed in coffins, into custom built blocks. Each body merits a slot into which the coffin is pushed like a peg and then plugged with a grave stone and glassed over. Wreaths, now dried in the hot sun decorated the windows from which I had seen students waving.

The huge white concrete blocks at Montjuic were built in the 1950s. Rising over 30 feet, each is ten courses of coffins high, 30 wide. On the side of the hill, arranged in avenues, streets and parades there are more than 100 blocks, some almost enveloped in a dense, moist, foliage. A handful of old women, wrapped in thick black head scalves and cloaks, climbed precariously high step ladders to commune with their loved ones. And as the morning's heat rose, the air grew heavy with the sweet smell of decaying flowers.

Had I been travelling by any other means I would have never discovered this astonishing place, nor a hundred others in the many other cities I have explored by bike over the years.

Consider first the facts. For the last 200 years cities have been the theatres in which all important human drama has taken place. In them are built the great monuments of our civilisation - churches, factories, offices and houses. And around those, the detritus of past centuries is wove in an elaborate tapestry. The number of us who choose to live in cities increases each year and, in their confines the important events of human existence are enacted a million times each day.

So why are bicycles, that most enduring invention of the modern age, the only way to discover them?

The physical scale of cities makes them inaccessible by foot. One can traipse around an assortment of tourist attractions but to really see any but the smallest cities, walking is just too slow. Spot something that looks interesting at the end of a street, and the pedestrian faces a dilemma. Is it worth the walk just to have a look? It does not take many blind alleys to dull your curisoity

With two-wheeled transport, you can afford to take a chance. The scale of cities is perfectly suited to the bicycle. In a few hours you can cover the main streets and roads of cities like Norwich and Bristol. The mighty connurbations of Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow are within the scope of the modestly fit. And even London, although perhaps best taken in parts, is better seen by bike than by any other means of transport.

By bike you can get pleasantly lost, safe in the knowledge that it will not be unduly taxing to retrace you path. Set off in one direction, double back, dodge down a narrow passage and if it comes to nothing you can be back where you started without losing your breath.

Cars by cotrast are too fast. Driving takes such concentration. Unlike the great outdoors, in the city the sights fly by. A gap between buildings visible for only a few seconds might give unique view or open up a completely new vista. But travel by car and you've missed it. Even if, from the corner of your eye, something catches your attention its usually impossible to stop.

Traffic planning makes car travel in cities a nightmare. Unfamiliar with the roads, no sooner have you set off in one direction than a one-way sign forces you in another. By bike the world is open around you, you can stop, get off, slip down a pavement, or chat with a passer-by.

But bikes can be fast when you need them to be. On foot in New York, I was more interested to see the neighbourhoods I knew from films than the Midtown shops. But as I wandered from the main streets in Harlem, I was repeatedly accosted by more and more threatening young men. By the time I dived back into the subway I was soaking with sweat and shaking with fear.

By contrast, when the residents of a housing estate outside Seville, charmingly named Six Thousand Habitations, appeared unwelcoming, I simply dropped onto my bottom cog and made hastily away. On another occasion, a guard dog took chase in the wilderness of Liverpool's waterfront. Fearing a mauling, I summoned up such a burst of speed that I would have left even Cipollini in the jaws of the hound.

The coutryside is not even that assecible to cycle tourists. Most of us live in cities. Travel by air, rail or road typically starts and ends in cities. But try escaping them by bike. Ribbon development beside roads makes a ride out of even our smaller connurbations a long slog past an endless dreary parade of shops and houses.

And see how much of the countryside you can take in if you set off on a day's circular trip from the centre of Paris or London. Even if you start by train in the south-east of England, it is impossible to escape the car. The roads in Kent, Hertforshire and Buckinghamshire are every bit as car-clogged as the city centre. The only difference is that in the country cars travel faster.

Recent projections of the increase in car travel our rural areas suggest that in the next two decades this can only get worse.

It is an illusion to think that one can escape the rush of every day life in the country - better by far to accept this, and enjoy yourself in the city centre. You'll find far fewer cars in the City of London on a Sunday morning than you will anywhere in the Home Counties.

Which ever city you choose, you will see more of it by bike. Only on two wheels can you quickly understand how a city fits together and get a sense of how its inhabitants lead their daily lives.

But why with so much to see, is cycle touring in cities not more popular? Our bookshops are groaning with tomes detailing rural rides. If you can't find any about seeing cities this way, perhaps it is because of the image problem.

For so long as cyclists head for the hills, they will miss their bike's greatest potential. It is time to reclaim cycle touring from the saddlebag and cape brigade and discover the frontier on our own doorsteps.

STREETWISE CYCLING

Most of us can start city centre touring outside our own front doors, but getting the most out of it requires a little planning.

1 Arterial routes are invariably clogged with cars and, although they are inescapable for some journeys, they are never going to be much fun. Locally produced cycle route maps show designated cycle paths which usually trace routes though quiet streets that are inaccessible to traffic. Even in a city you know, making a familiar journey by a different route can be quite a surprise. If you wonder what London's docklands were like before the developers arrived, for example, take a ride out to the Royal Docks, where it is easy to believe gangland disputes are still resolved.

If you can't get hold of a cycle map, try a street plan. Look for the lines of blocked off roads, designed to stop rat runs. A nightmare for motorists - a warren of quiet, undiscovered roads for cycle touring.

2 Waterways are also the source of endless reclaimable routes though cities. In both Birmingham and Leeds tow paths will take you into canal basins that have, until recently lain undiscovered. Beside the lesser river banks and tow paths in Glasgow and London you canl still see sides of both cities with which few of their natives are familiar. Tow paths can be overgrown and do sometimes end without warning, however, so be prepared to double back, or haul your bike over a fence or two.

3 The lines of old railways provide another set of routes accessible only by bike. Edinburgh closed down a network of suburban railways in the 1950s leaving behind a maze of bridges, junctions and branch lines. They allow access to almost anywhere in the city, but lie unseen from the roads and pavement. Some of these have now been properly converted into cycle paths. But elsewhere you will find the lines of old railways marked on maps. They are occasionally impassable, but more often than not provide unique routes for cyclists.



CITY TOURING TIPS

Any bike will do, but a mountain bike with slick tyres is best - city streets are full of craters. If you are riding a polished titanium frame equipped with this year's groupset borrow a trick from the couriers: cover your frame with insulating tape to disguise it from would-be thieves.

Wear flat soled shoes. You are bound to want to get off fairly frequently - to buy a coffee, get a better view or look around a building.

Avoid too much lycra unless you are supremely self confident. A Banesto team strip is an invitation for those you pass by to call out unfavourable comparisons with Miguel as peadle past.

Attach your map to your handlebars with either on a bar bag or a clip. In an unfamiliar city you will often need to check that you taken the right turn.

Always carry a lock and the necessities of puncture repair - a long unnecessary walk is just as dispiriting in the city as it is in the middle of nowhere.

ENDS

One More Kilometer And We Are In The Showers, Tim Hilton (2004)

HarperCollins 0 00 257194 3 £16.99 396 pp

A collection of memories, autobiography and lists by a talented writer who provides a treat for anyone who has been touched by cycling culture

Hilton - an art critic and journalist by trade - has assembled a glorious rattle bag of a book of memoires. He opens with his introduction to cycling as an escape from the communist household in which he grew up in the 1940s. So dedicated to the cause were his parents that they named Hilton, their only child, Timoshenko, after the Soviet war hero.

Little wonder then that 'All Spare Parts' bicycle that he found at the bottom of his grandparents' garage provided a welcome relief from party meetings devoted to the desirability of scientific socialism.

This is a book of vignettes and digressions in bike culture. He ranges widely, from the rivalry between Coppi and Bartali, to the history of the socialist Clarion cycling clubs and way that cyclists choose their occupations. An unusually large number of artists, musicians and writers are cyclists, he claims. Many postal workers are cyclists too - it provides long afternoons for training. Also - he claims - cyclists are won't to seek employment a decent training run distant from their homes.

Hilton is also keen on lists - classic steel frame builders of industrial England, the hills of The Tour of Flanders and successful women racing cyclists of the 1950s, to mention just three.

Even to those who have read dozens of books about cycling, Hilton has something fresh to reveal. He is a writer of such easy, professional competence that he is always a pleasure to read. Indeed, to anyone who has stumbled into cycling and is trying to make sense of why clubs style themselves 'VC' or why British cyclists are obsessed with time trialling, this is a great starting point.

PS July 2008

The Man Who Loved Bicycles, Daniel Behrman (1973)

Harper's Magazine Press 0-060120350-5 130pp $6.95

A series of essays an recolections about life and the culture of cycling as a form of transport by a perceptive US writer, living in France in the early 1970s

"The bicycle is a vehicle for revolution. It can destroy the tyranny of the automobile as effectively as the printing press brought down despots of flesh and blood. The revolution will be spontaneous, the sum total of individual revolts like my own. It may have already begun." So writes Behrman, an American scientific writer "existing in Paris and living in Brittany" in the early 1970s. The book contains far more than pro-cycling invective, however. It is a catalogue of intelligent reflections and ruminations on France in that period. He is a fine writer with moral fibre and an eclectic ear for scientific snippets. The treatise is laced with personal stories and remissness.

Reading the book today, however, (I read it in around 2004) the book does throw up some questions. Where did these pieces of writing come from - they read as though they might have been magazine articles, and who was Behrman?

That the book itself does not answer them however, does not make it any less enjoyable a read.