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The UniCyclist

Malta and beyond

Travel has taught me never to greet people by shouting out the names of fish dishes. Oh yes, it has. Last weekend I found myself on a tiny island visiting this adventure's twenty-second country and capital city. Malta, or at least Valletta - the only part of Malta I had an opportunity to see on this all-too-short visit - has a wonderful atmosphere. The buildings are tall and grand though their splendour is faded and dusty. Walking around its regular grid of streets at...

There's no place like Rome

Millions of people visit Rome every year but, unfortunately for them, they have to get their city info from guide books and the internet. I was luckier than that. I was privy to inside information. Rome and its environs proved to be a goldmine of OU students and they helped The Lovely Nina and I decide where to go and what to see. Mostly what we saw, if I'm being honest, was the inside of pizza joints, but we did also manage to see nearly everything on the shortlist they helped to prepare for...

Cycling, farming and the laws of pasta

If you go right back to the early days of this blog, you might remember a tale about Ken, a man I met while walking in the mountains of southern Spain who, with a miniscule income - something like £3 per day - lived on his own terms on beaches and in caves. I've always been interested in people who live their lives differently, away from the mainstream, and even better if it has an element of cycling in it. When he was in the UK, Ken's only mode of transport was his bike. [[[image-0 large...

An evening in Parma

Italian OU student Silvia with her daughters Zoe and Valentina

There are times in life when it has its ups and downs. And then there are the times when you get trapped in a lift and you have neither. I was taking my left pannier, and my heavier right pannier, and my bar bag, and my tent, and my rucksack down from the third floor of a rickety hotel in Piacenza. The lift doors closed but then the bugger wouldn't budge. But then, after stabbing the buttons repeatedly, it eerily began to slowly sink, seemingly without power. I quickly...

Philosophy beach party for one

Last night I hosted an evening beach party. Admittedly not many people came. Actually, it was just me, sat on an Italian beach with a picnic of bread, cheese and salami, and a bottle of red wine but I had a great time. The party was to celebrate finally being told that I've passed my MA in Philosophy with Trinity St David (formerly Lampeter), the dissertation for which I submitted just before Christmas. I thought it was appropriate that the party should have a philosophical theme and so, as the...

Crossing the river

The river Ebro is huge. While it's only the second longest river in Spain, it has the greatest water flow of any of the Spanish rios. As a comparison, the longest river in the UK, the Severn, is a lot less than half the Ebro's length and on average discharges about one-seventh of the Ebro's water. Perhaps that's why it's called the Severn. But I doubt it. Why the geography lesson? I stopped for the night in a strange place called Caspe. Despite being in the north-west of Spain and not far from...

A tale of two cities

Juxtaposition is a word I like. The everyday, mundane 'position' glued on to the rarely seen and Scrabble-winning 'juxta'. The word itself offers a juxtaposition, and the first Platform blogette from the road this year tells of another. On Wednesday I find myself in the city of Toledo with its massive, and massively expensive, cathedral and really quite beautiful ancient centre. Toledo is famous for its steel. In many ways it's the Sheffield of Spain except that, as I said, it's beautiful. And...

Some weird and wonderful facts from Europe...

Map of Europe with flag in it: Thinkstock

After the last few months of pontificating on here about the meaning of life, the horrors of globalisation and how lucky we are to be alive, it's time for this blog to return to its real purpose - the bike ride. On Friday 30 March, my massive journey continues. I will leave Nerja on the Costa del Sol and head straight for Madrid. If all goes according to plan I will arrive in Graz in southern Austria 12,000 kilometres later and some time towards the end of September...

The OU and the meaning of life

As part of my philosophy MA, there was a module on the meaning of life. As this was philosophy there was a lot of discussion and very few accepted conclusions, which is fun if not very helpful. Since the birth of philosophy, as each of the questions within it has become answerable, it has separated off into its own discipline - maths, physics, chemistry, etc. - leaving modern day philosophy with only the supposedly unanswerables. But is this question of the meaning of life really unanswerable?...

Why I hate skinny iced caramel macchiatos

Steven Primrose-Smith taking in the views in Graz

After the upliftingly optimistic, pre-Christmas message of my last blog post, I'm now aiming for maximum depression. Well, it is January after all. In two months' time I set off on my bike again. I snake my way from the south coast of Spain, back across the Pyrenees into France, down the boot of Italy to Malta, along almost the entire coastline of mainland Greece, through Turkey to Cyprus, back across Turkey to Bulgaria, before hitting Albania and all the former Yugoslavian states, and I finish...

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About The UniCyclist

Follow @unicycle50

Hi, I'm Steven Primrose-Smith, otherwise known as The UniCyclist – one bloke, two wheels, two degree courses, one portable university and 50 capital cities. Nice to meet you!

I'm 40-year-old full-time student with The Open University and University of Wales, Lampeter. I got my first degree in 2008 in Philosophy and English from the OU and I'm currently planning my dissertation for an MA in philosophy with Lampeter as well as working through the necessary modules at the OU to get a degree in maths and another in physical science. The aim, once all these courses are done, is to be a well-rounded private tutor covering as many subjects as possible. But that's three years away. I might get squashed by a truck before then.

For 15 years I was a technical author and internet software developer, but other jobs that I've been paid for include (in order, from age 14): delivering newspapers, stocking supermarket shelves, working in a video shop cum off licence cum sunbed centre, playing a synthesizer (with one finger) in an awful band called The Slaves of Circumstance, buying electronic components, playing a synthesizer (now with two fingers) in an even worse band called Tuco Talks, graphic design, laying out newspapers, writing computer games, selling software online, knocking up websites, performing comedy, doing voices for radio ads, writing magazine articles, teaching people how to improve their computer skills, writing comedy sketches and, most recently, maths tutoring.

I did my first cycling tour in 1994 when I had a week on very windy Orkney. Shortly afterwards I was working in Austria and only did the occasional weekend tour although I had many a tipsy day-ride with friends out into the vineyards south of Graz. It wasn't until 2007 that I decided to get a bit more serious when I did an 11-day tour of western Andalusia. But the longest ride to date - in 2009 - was from the Isle of Man to the Costa del Sol, through the UK, France and Spain, lasting 32 days and covering 2,688 kilometres. It was that ride that gave me the idea for this one.

Other things I love doing include playing my guitar and keyboard (now with more than two fingers, but still not all of 'em), sailing, walking in the mountains, running, swimming and cooking.

This life is damn short, and it can be snatched away at any given moment. Whatever it is you want to do, just do it. Don't hang around. In other words, literally or metaphorically, get on your bike!

To find out more about the ride, including the rough route I'm planning to follow, or to donate money to the charities I'm cycling for, please have a look at my website at www.UniCycle50.com. And if you have any questions or would like to meet up, please email me at steven@unicycle50.com. See you on the road!