I rolled out of bed feeling every one of my thirty-seven years. A sea of bruises mottled my skin and lethargy paralysed me. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I was a cyclist. I rode up mountains. I…

Writing, for me, is painfully slow. Gone are the days I would sit down, spill my thoughts onto the page and emerge with something that sang with poetry. Something never to be published. Never to be read by another. But…

Pirmasens was nothing like the images I’d conjured from my grandfather’s tales. He would close his eyes and his kitchen would fall silent as he breathed the memory of his childhood home. The rolling hills. The vineyards. And the shoe…

I’ve never fancied myself as much of a politician. Honesty, integrity and people’s opinion of me are far too important. But after coaxing myself to the top of the Col du Sabot with nothing more than promises I couldn’t keep,…

1991. Two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I visited the former East Germany for the first time. A wide-eyed twelve-year-old, it was like stepping back in time. Rows of ugly, identical high-rises lined the streets, coal covered…

Mont Ventoux (or mount windy in French) is one of the most legendary climbs of the Tour de France. It has been used fifteen times since 1951 with possibly the most dramatic stage seen in 1967 when British cyclist, Tom…

This is the third time Colby and I have been to Germany. But for all our visits, we’d never stayed in Berlin. We’d made the obligatory day-trip for a selfie in front of the Brandenburg gate, complete with its ‘Russian…

At 2715 meters above sea level, the Col de la Bonette is one of the highest mountain passes in Europe, but despite the many claims, including the plaque at its base, it is not the highest. Not far from the…

Photo from www.businessinsider.de After six months in beautiful France, we crossed that invisible line in the mountains earlier this week, finding ourselves in Germany. And as the landscape evolved, Fiats and Peugots were replaced by the sleek lines of Mercedes…