Tony Lenihan, a retired policeman, works for his local council in the English Midlands as their ‘Sustainable Travel and Wellbeing Coordinator’. He’s also a keen cyclist and, in the early autumn of 2022, after more than 40 years of work, he decided to take a career break and head off on a solo cycling adventure from Bilbao to Athens. It would be a 7-week ferry-hopping Greek odyssey that took him through northern Spain, to the islands of Sardinia and Scilly, across the heel of Italy to Brindisi before sailing the Adriatic to his final destination of Greece. He talked to The Cycling Europe Podcas ..read more

In June 2022, Tim Boden - an experienced group cyclist - set off on his first solo cycle tour, to Brittany in north-west France. His route took him from the port of Roscoff along the Vélodyssée / EuroVelo 1 to Redon. He then joined French regional route number 42 to follow the coast to Saint-Nazaire before  returning to the Vélodyssée for a cycle beside the Loire to Nantes and back to Redon. Here he rejoined the eastern portion of route 42 to cycle north to Saint-Malo. Tim talks about the routes but also the history and culture of this distinctive French region. We also revisit two encoun ..read more

A few months ago I was approached by Jet2 Holidays who asked if I would be interested in discovering the joys of cycling in one of their winter destinations in southern Europe. Of course I said yes and had a look at the map. Where would be nice and warm in the middle of February? The Canary Islands seemed the most likely place to deliver good weather so I arranged to travel to Costa Adeje on the island of Tenerife. I hired a bike and headed along the coast and up the hills… This was a different approach to travelling on two wheels. How did I get on without a tent and four panniers but in a lux ..read more

Matthew Sturgeon is an architect and cyclist from Ilkley in Yorkshire and he’s on  a mission to visit every one of mainland Britain’s 186 lighthouses. Inspired by his late late wife Angela, who raised £40,000 for cancer research, Matthew is raising money for his A Bit Of A Break charity. It funds visits for cancer patients and their families to holiday properties around the UK. He started collecting his lighthouses with a ride along the Northumbrian coast and has now visited 100. But why lighthouses? What’s his favourite lighthouse? What has been the most disappointing lighthouse? What ha ..read more

An ever-increasing number of people have cycled around the world. Not many have done it on a tandem. Even fewer have broken a world record in the process. Laura Massey-Pugh was on the back and her husband Stevie was on the front of their custom-made tandem when, in June 2022 they set off from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, destination the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. 175 days later they completed their journey. Before setting off, Laura recorded a short monologue for episode 32 of The Cycling Europe Podcast. Now she returns to tell the full story of what it means to cycle 18,000 miles around t ..read more

“Hours, days, weeks and months in the saddle does something funny to your brain. We came back from the trip convinced that cycling was the answer to all of life’s problems and that if we could convince every last one of you to choose a bike not a car, we’d be well on our way to saving the planet. Easy, right?!” Those are the words of Beth Ward who, alongside her partner Robin, cycled from Wales to Istanbul in 2019. As they pedalled an idea grew in their minds to set up a community bike workshop. When they returned home, that’s exactly what they did in Llangollen. Beth has now been included in ..read more

Beryl Burton was born in Yorkshire on May 12th 1937. Her upbringing was tough. Her school report described her as a 'stubborn little mule. At the age of 10 she spent 9 months in hospital and doctors told her never to ride a bike uphill. She went on to become one of Britain's greatest ever athletes - of either sex - and a cycling world champion seven times over. She was the country's 'best all-rounder' female cyclist for 25 consecutive years from 1959 to 1983. She died, cycling, a few days short of her 59th birthday in 1996. Jeremy Wilson - chief sports reporter for The Daily Telegraph - has wr ..read more

Gareth Dent has a long-term relationship with small-wheeled bicycles. Growing up in Stevenage in the late 1960s he made the most of the town’s futuristic network of cycle routes on his 14” Moulton Mini. 40 years later he rekindled his love for small wheels during an organised folding bike challenge from London to Paris, in the process meeting a group of like-minded enthusiasts. It was with these new friends that , several years later, he started to cycle the route of the 1903 Tour de France, in stages, over 4 years. The interview was recorded in Halifax’s covered market where we also bump ..read more

Tristam Newey is a science-fiction writer from Southampton who loves all things sea, air, space.. and cycling. Inspired by H.G.Wells' 1896 comic novel The Wheels of Chance, in July 2022 Tristam set off to retrace the journey of the book's main protagonist, Mr. Hoopdriver - a frustrated draper's assistant from Putney - from London to the south coast of England (and halfway back). As he travelled, he rediscovered the places that H.G. Wells wrote about and recreated the sketches that appeared in the original book. In the words of H.G. Wells himself, "Whoop for freedom and adventure ..read more

The Cycling Europe Podcast continues to follow Andrew Sykes as he concludes his ‘Grand Tour’ cycle around Europe. In this episode of the podcast, after completing his ride along the Via Rhôna / EuroVelo 17 in Andermatt, Switzerland, he sets off to cycle the Rhine from its source high in the Alps to the North Sea at Rotterdam. His journey takes him along the Rhine valley in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, France, Germany and The Netherlands meeting friends and strangers as he pedals. Will the Rhine Cycle Route (EuroVelo 15) live up to its reputation as one of the best cycling routes in Eur ..read more