
After days of rain the skies cleared to an autumnal chill so Phil (who’d invited me up here) and I planned a ride around Loch Awe. At 40-km end to end, it’s Scotland’s longest freshwater loch, just inland from Oban on the coast. To complete a full circumnavigation on roads and what few tracks there…

West Country Rides Yesterday around Lands End was all sunshine, today the Lizard was overcast with rain forecast by the afternoon. So we drove to Helston start point to save time then set off, semi-unwittingly in reverse of the Gravel Rides South West guidebook’s 57km lap, following a trail around the east side of Loe…

West Country Rides After reviewing the Gravel Rides South West guide book (right), we were inspired to nip down to Cornwall and Dartmoor to try out a couple of routes: Route 1; ‘A Lap of Land End’ looked like a good one, followed by Route 2; ‘The Lizard & the Loe’. They were rated 5/5…

See also: Wales Heatwave #5 of the 2026 summer was getting underway, a good day to be in the shady Forest of Dean and the Wye Valley, following another route from the Bikepacking Wales (BPW) guidebook. From Pembrokeshire it was a half-day drive towards Chepstow, made easier by the M4, aircon and podcasts.After yesterday’s short coastal…

See also: Wales After the Ice Cap retreated around 10,666BC, the best way for a wayfarer to get around Britain was to follow the high ground above the tree line of the densely forested plains, the haunts of evil elves, brigands and giant sabre-toothed squirrels. The Ridgeway in England is a well known ancient trackway, but…

See also: Wales I t’s back to Wales to try out my new bike transporter, tick off the bits of the Trans Eryri and Trans Cambrian Trails I skipped in the June washout which damaged my Tero e-bike, and try some other biking routes from the Bikepacking Wales book I recently reviewed (right). I headed…

See also: Wales This boggy byway won’t be most riders’ cup of teaBikepacking Wales guidebook It was only while having a chat with a rider pushing his flat-tyred MTB back to the Claerwen dam car park, that I realised I’d just traversed the 10-km Monks Trod, a historic and now controversial ancient road built 800 years…

Trans Snowdonia with E-bikeRiding the Monks Trod Riding across Snowdonia from Llandudno to Machynlleth, lined me right up for the 160-km Trans-Cambrian Way which runs from Knighton to nearby Dovey Junction. For some reason they pitched the TCW west into the prevailing winds then ended at Dovey of all places, a forlorn rail stop marooned…

See also: WalesTrans Cambrian Way Wales. A great place to try the Tero out in the wilds over a few days. Snowdonia was the site of my first independent teenage adventures: trekking the snowy Carneddau; rock climbing Llanberis Pass; riding our Triumph 750s through Beddgelert, strung with colourful bunting for the 1977 Queen’s Jubilee. Blue Remembered…