An introduction to myself as a cyclist (of sorts!)
I have been a keen cyclist since I was about fourteen, some twenty-two years now. In recent years my work obligations (as a teacher-translator-interpreter) have led to a substantial decrease in the amount of cycling I do, but the interest remains. The high point of my cycling was when I was a student at the University of Birmingham, England, when I would frequently go out on day-rides of between sixty and a hundred miles. The countryside around Birmingham (the English Midlands) is beautiful and a lure for cyclists. The longest one-day ride I ever did during that time was on my Claud Butler Dalesman, from Birmingham to Portsmouth, on the south coast of England, a ride which took thirteen hours and which I estimate to have been approximately one hundred and fifty miles (two hundred and fifty kilometres) - this was before cyclecomputers were cheap enough for a student to buy! The Dalesman was a superb touring machine, comfortable and responsive, and was a source of great pride to me. It was with a very heavy heart that I had to sell it in 1986 before moving to Greece, where I have lived ever since. I could now buy an even better bike spending twice or three times the money the Dalesman cost, but again it is the work that provides that money which deprives me of the time - and energy - to get out on a bike as frequently as I used to. I am still a member of the Cyclists' Touring Club, although for a number of years after university I allowed my subscription to lapse. The club magazine has changed over the years, from what I would describe as a homely cycling magazine in the late seventies/early eighties to a more forthright publication, with the CTC pushing hard to make sure cyclists and cycling matters are taken into account by the British Government in an ever increasingly motorised environment.
My present machine is a Shimano Exage-equipped Ideal Target, which cost approximately £400 (approximately US$600) in early 1996. The frame is Tange Cr-Mo butted tubing, in a deep metallic blue finish, the wheel rims are Alesa 6021 (26" x 1.75"). I have fitted it with a front lowrider rack, a rear flat rack, a Cateye cyclecomputer, Cateye lights (Krypton halogen front and flashing red LED rear) and smoother Michelin WildGripper Rock road tyres than the knobbly tyres it came with. On the bars I have fitted extenders and a Cateye Racing rearview mirror, which I couldn't do without. I have Shimano cleated shoes linking to Shimano PD-M747 pedals. The saddle is a Velo GeLite (gel), relatively comfortable but not a scratch on the old Brooks B17 of my Dalesman. I also have Karrimor front and rear pannier for future tours. Last, but not least, the Target sports the same Karrimor saddlebag (which I imagine goes to show my Britishness!) that I used to have on the Claud Butler Dalesman back in the early and mid-eighties. That saddlebag has done me good and long service. Below are two pictures of the Target, one after a particularly muddy section of off-road in Spring of 1999 and another by Lake Doirani, which lies on the border between Greece and Macedonia. The village in the distance is Dojran, on the Macedonian side of the border. Incidentally, fifteen years ago the lake was much more extensive than it is now - the bike is on the jetty where boats used to be moored! - but uncontrolled, downright irresponsible exploitation of the lakewater, principally by the Greek side, for purposes of irrigation has meant that the waters have receded at a phenomenal rate. But that is another matter...
Pictures of my Claud Butler Dalesman were taken with an even more unsophisticated point-and-click film camera than the above pictures, and are correspondingly poorer quality. I recently bought a Kodak DC200Plus digital camera, and my plans are to get some great cycling shots to add to these pages. The best of a bad bunch, the picture below on the left was taken in about 1983 and shows the Dalesman leant against the county sign at the border between Cumbria and County Durham, high up on the Pennines of Northern England near England's highest pub, the Tan Hill Inn. That was one of my favourite rides, two and a half hours of uphill, a bowl of steaming soup in the Tan Hill Inn, and then the exhilarating thirty-minute downhill through the hamlet of Langthwaite Arkengarthdale (what a wonderful name!!!) and on to the village of Reeth (famed for being the main location of the television adaptation of the books by James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small) and finally back to Richmond (North Yorkshire), where my family lived at the time. Strangely enough, I have a picture of my first "proper" bike, a Raleigh Scorpio, taken against the very same sign, some years earlier. That too is below, to the right.
It is my intention to add a page of pictures of the Dalesman on a separate page - I had the habit of taking pictures of the bike against various county border crossing signs! That page will come soon.
Links to my cycling pages
Cycling in Northern Greece: Cycling around Lake Kerkini.
A travelogue of my September 1999 two-week self-contained tour of Brittany, France, with photos.
Links to other cycling pages and cycling resources on the Web
Europe's biggest and, in my view, best collection of links about cycling: the Trento Bike Pages.
The excellent touring mailing list maintained by Alex Wetmore (was T@CO, Touring@cyclery.org, until recently) - great for getting information about a wide variety of cycling and touring issues from people with a love of cycling and abundant experience and knowledge. Principally contributed to by Stateside cyclists.
Please do not hesitate to email me.