Jo Allred 1960-2021

I sorry to have to report that my beloved wife, Jo, passed away on 11th April after her two year fight with Pancreatic Cancer. Yesterday was my first time on a bike after her passing and I cycled out to Richmond Park, one of our regular destinations via Wimbledon Common. In recent times, in London

Back on the static bike again

There must be something about getting two rides away from completing something and lockdowns! Last year, I had documented all but two of the Spokes before myself and my wife were forced to shield and I haven’t been able to travel out by train to Knockholt and Caterham to check the last two since…. This

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everybody – to get you into the spirit of imagining your walks and rides for next year here’s a calendar of views all from the Lakes, and all from this lockdown year. January – the first snow of the New Year on Blencathra Staying with friends near Troutbeck, we woke up

London National Park City 1st anniversary

To celebrate the first anniversary of London becoming the world’s first National Park City this week, the National Park City Foundation are holding an online event to showcase 100 people who are doing things to make London greener, healthier or wilder. 100 diverse voices, speaking on a wide range of topics and from every corner

Virtual Worlds versus Virtual Cycling

One of the challenges of being locked down and shielded is that I can’t go out on my bike at all. Fortunately I bought a smart trainer just before they disappeared out of the stores so I’ve got a way of keeping fit, although it doesn’t replicate the feel and freedom of being on a

Cycle Touring Festival

I’m really happy to be participating in the Virtual Cycle Touring Festival this weekend. A wide range of live and pre-recorded content has been pulled together for this event which replaces the cancelled CTF that was due to happen at the end of May. The programme can be found at https://cycletouringfestival.co.uk/virtualctf/ The theme of the

Occupying isolation

So my wife and I are now both classed as extremely vulnerable due to pre-existing conditions (pancreatic cancer and earlier lymphoma respectively) – and we are now in “shielding” isolation for the duration – 12 weeks to start with, but suspect it will be longer. So how to occupy ourselves? The first thing that I

The art of mapping

I love maps. I love reading them, l love interpreting them and I love creating them. There is a trick to getting enough information onto them to be informative without overfilling the screen with information. Just over 10 years ago, I went trekking in Bhutan. One of my fellow trekkers was a young Canadian. As