Last weekend I got a bit of a shock. My cycling mate Andy, recently appointed as the Bike Doctor by Devon County Council, has signed us both up for the Dartmoor Challenge in May. As part of our preparation, Dr.…
We Are Recycling Our Old Bikes! Each year I have to wrestle with this logistics problem of getting a load of new bikes out to 5 separate depots in France and Italy. This year we have to bring back about…
A Tour for Lovers of Wine This was the 2nd tour that we designed. Running the Dordogne tour in 1997 awoke my interest in wine, and inevitably I started reading about the wines of Bordeaux, the greatest wine producing region…
One of My Favourite Cyclists I got a letter from one of my favourite ever Chain Gang cyclists earlier this week, Albert Ayton. Albert first joined us in 2000 at the age of 79 in the Dordogne. He’s an accomplished…
Good Reasons to Choose a Cycling Tour in The Loire Valley First off, the Loire Valley. It’s relatively flat, which usually means not such nice scenery, and certainly Provence, the Dordogne, Tuscany and Umbria are all more beautiful. But there…
If You’ve Never Travelled With Us, How Do You Know Which Bike Tour Is Best For You? Our first bike tour was based around the Dordogne, in France and as you might imagine, we tried to choose the best area…
Last night I went along to the inaugural meeting of ‘Wines, Vines and Good Times’. Rubbish name, but a very nice lady called Ruth setting up a wine appreciation club in Balham, London. Last night was just an introduction –…
In last month’s issue of ‘Pro Cycling’ there was a little snippet about Lance Armstrong, particularly about a 6-minute clip on YouTube. We all know about Lance on a bike. Back in the ‘90s we had 5 years of Miguel…
Last Saturday I had a real treat. A few days before I got a call out of the blue from Ranju, Sandeep’s other half, and we arranged to meet for lunch at Villandry (in London, not the chateau in the…
Tandem Bicycles I Hear You Ask? You May Have to Buy Your Own Years ago – and I really mean years ago, in 1979 – I cycled around Exeter with my brother Mike on a tandem bicycle, displaying placards for…
