Rob Penn


Robert "Rob" Penn is a British writer, photographer and broadcaster.
He is a frequent columnist in UK national newspapers and has written widely on such subjects as cycling travel British woodlands and life in the Brecon Beacons, Wales.
Penn was born in Birmingham and grew up in Wales and London before studying history at the University of Bristol.
He has cycled around the world and across Wales in the dark.
His most recent book, The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees was in December 2015.
His other books include The Wrong Kind of Snow – a survey of the British obsession with the weather, co-authored with Antony Woodward – and It's All About the Bike, which documents his worldwide search for the perfect custom bike, while narrating the social history of the bicycle. It's All About the Bike was a Sunday Times bestseller in the UK; it has been translated into thirteen languages.

Television

In 2010, he wrote and presented the television documentary Ride of my Life: the Story of the Bicycle, based on his book It's All About the Bike, which was broadcast on BBC4 and BBC2. In 2012, he presented the six-part series Tales from the Wild Wood for BBC4, about British woodlands.
In 2013, he cycled 1,200 km through the heart of the Amazon rainforest with former England cricket captain Andrew Flintoff for the two-part Sky1 documentary Flintoff's Road to Nowhere.
In 2014, he travelled round Britain in a fish and chip van with Andrew Flintoff, making a six-part series for Sky1. was broadcast in February and March 2015. The second series, Flintoff Fries Again was broadcast on Sky 1 in February and March 2016.

Publications