Steep Hills & Learning Curves: Cycling Lands' End to John O' Groats

Dawn Rhodes

Description

"The furthest I'd ever cycled in a day was thirty miles; a one off. And I had no experience of camping or cycle maintenance. But all I could envisage was some romantic notion about becoming a cycling nomad: travelling wherever my heart desired, camping in the great outdoors, visiting beautiful and historic places, and searching for a place to call home. The universe though had other ideas."An honest and detailed account by a first-time cycle tourist, riding from Lands' End to John O' Groats.Travel with Dawn as she describes the challenges of bicycle travel, bringing her journey to life from moments most magical, to most miserable: from deluge to heatwave, bustling cities to remote landscapes, friendly welcomes to threats of violence, Dawn experiences it all, transforming her from a woefully unprepared novice, attempting a one-off challenge, and into a life-long advocate of bicycle travel.For aspiring cycle tourists and armchair travellers alike, read a travelogue of a journey through Britain, told from the unique perspective of a young woman on a bicycle, who decides to go it alone.

Sujets

• Reino Unido
• United Kingdom
• Cycling
• Great Britain
• Royaume-Uni

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 19 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781803138169
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2022 Dawn Rhodes

The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Some of the information in this book – for example, location of campsites, volume of traffic on specified roads, facts I knew about people at the time, facts and statistics about political and social landscapes – was all relevant at the time of my ride in 1997 but may not be relevant or accurate now. But it has been left in so I can describe my journey just as it happened back then

Matador
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ISBN 978 1803138 169

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd



In loving memory of my parents


Contents
Rules Of Cycle Touring
Prologue
Allow Me To Introduce Myself

Part 1 The West Country
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11

Part 2 The Middle Bit
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17

Part 3 Up North
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23 & 24
Day 25
Day 26
Day 27

Part 4 Scotland
Day 28
Day 29
Day 30
Day 31
Day 32
Day 33
Day 34
Day 35
Day 36
Day 37
Day 38
Epilogue

About The Author


Rules Of Cycle Touring
1. Break yourself in gently.
2. Until you have arrived at the place you intend to sleep, then the ride isn’t over.
3. It always costs more than you think.
4. The camping routine can be just as tiring as the cycling.
5. Seek advice from the locals.
6. Sadly, busy roads can’t always be easily avoided.
7. Purpose-made cycle clothing isn’t just a gimmick to make you feel ridiculous. It really has been designed to be the most comfortable, practical option.
8. Knowledge of basic bicycle mechanics will spare you pain.
9. Concerning alcohol: have a guess!
10. Never underestimate how many calories you will need to consume.
11. Beware of fellow travellers bearing gifts.
12. Don’t invite strangers to sleep in your tent.
13. If cycling uphill gets too arduous, stop for a rest.
14. Cycle tourists will always look out for each other.
15. Eight miles at the end of a long hard day may as well be eighty.
16. Be certain how far away your next source of food is and never risk running out.
17. Beware of getting directions from car drivers.
18. When you see a sign that says Scenic Area Ahead , it means the area you are about to ride through is very, very hilly.
19. As a rule of thumb: main roads tend to be built around the hills or mountains, whereas back lanes traverse up and down each and every one.
20. Gradients can be deceptive.
21. The further you travel, the further away your destination feels.
22. No matter how capable the body is, if the mind isn’t willing, then you’re screwed.
23. Looking for the perfect saddle is like looking for the perfect partner: There are no set rules which, if followed, lead to success. You simply have to endure the trial-and-error method.
24. Make absolutely sure your saddle will be comfortable over longer distances.
25. Taking care of your mental health must be a top priority.
26. It takes time to adjust back to normal life after a tour.
27. There are no rules.


Pr ologue
‘T hat must have been easy. I know a man who ran it .’ The woman’s words were a sucker punch to the midriff and as I hurried outside, they rang around my head. That must have been easy… I know a man who ran it… that must have been easy. Those callous words threatened to take the most challenging, most exciting feat of my life thus far and turn it into something so ordinary, it shouldn’t even be called an achievement. I slumped against the wall, blinking back the tears I knew were coming and stared vacantly for a long, long time. Had I been deluding myself; believing I was doing something worthwhile with my life whilst other people disparaged me?


Allow Me To Introduce Myself
C laiming my cycling adventures were inspired by a dream (and by dream, I mean thoughts and images occurring in the mind during sleep) will likely sound rather banal. But before I come to that, I would first like to talk about the other kinds of dreams: our cherished aspirations, ambitions, or ideals, because I believe these are at the cornerstone of everyone’s existence. They keep us alive, move us out of our stupor, and they can be swayed by the most unexpected event or person we encounter.
As far back as I can remember, my head had always been full of rather wild, ambitious dreams. At the age of ten, I began planning a walk from my home in Sussex to Bangor in Wales. (What can I say? It felt at the time like a far-off mystical place.) My intention was to rescue all the neglected or abandoned horses I might encounter along the way and then live in the Welsh hills, surviving on berries and other wild foods whilst my horses roamed free. I already had my route marked out in my parents’ road atlas, but by the time I was fifteen, my dreams had morphed. I began saving my wages from my Saturday job so that as soon as I was old enough, I could buy a van. My plan was to convert it into a campervan and join a convoy of New Age travellers. The dream I held on to involved cooking over open fires, living in a like-minded community (lots of people with dreadlocks and guitars) and sleeping out under the stars. But when I had to give up my job in order to concentrate on exams, life continued more conventionally. I went to college to study for A-levels, but there was always a part of me that was lured away by other wayward souls, who chose to consume cheap lager in the park rather than attend lectures. Somehow, I still passed my exams and then found a job working for a railway company, and I began to save my wages again. Only this time, my dream was to buy a field so I could live in a caravan and run a small holding.
Then I met a man called Jason and the pendulum of my life began swinging once again when he introduced me to the concept of long-distance cycling. On weekends, we would load our bicycles with camping gear and head for a beauty spot, but whilst I struggled up even the shallowest of ascents on my old, heavy bicycle, Jason would be miles ahead on his sleek new tourer. It was not the most promising of starts, to an activity that would become a life-long passion. But I persisted and gradually my fitness improved, and I started to enjoy cycling for the first time since childhood. I parted company with Jason just then and became entwined in another relationship. It was around this time that I had my dream.

I’m stood atop a mountain road in the Scottish Highlands. I close my eyes so I can sense the world in all its splendour: the warm breeze on my skin, the sun on my face, the smell of bracken in my nostrils and the distant “peee-uu” call of a buzzard. I open my eyes and reach out my fingertips, longing to touch the rugged mountains in the distance. Then I pick up my bicycle and begin the long descent down this twisty mountain road. Everything feels so tranquil, and I feel so happy. More serene than at any other time I can recall.

Up until this point, I’d never believed that dreams have hidden meanings. I thought they were just a person’s thoughts, memories and emotions all jumbled together at night, which result in some pretty wacky images. But to believe in the sensible scientific explanation all of the time, to always hear horses not zebras, is to be in danger of becoming closed-minded. And so, not long after, when I read an interesting proposal that: dreams are answers to questions we haven’t yet realised we need to ask ourselves , I froze. I reread this paragraph several times, thinking, yes, I like this. I like it very much . Then I recalled not just my dream but also the holiday a few years ago, when I’d first clapped eyes on the Scottish Highlands. I remembered how it had felt akin to falling in love (an affinity that clearly had not gone away), and the concept whirled around my mind that maybe the two definitions of dream were more similar than I’d realised. But one thing was crystal clear: I was going to explore the Highlands by bicycle.
Without mentioning this to anyone, I began to scour cycle shops and research the different types of bicycles available, and a few months later, I’d bought myself an expedition bicycle: a mountain bike-touring bike hybrid. It was beautiful. This red bicycle, which had been handmade in Sheffield, was marketed as suitable for any terrain … from Iceland to Indonesia was the boast. Even though my plans didn’t extend much beyond the Scottish Highlands at the time, it was hard to resist. Almost immediately I took my new bike (which I named Loopy Loo) to Scotland for a trial run, and the cycling was every bit as enjoyable as it had been in my dream (although maybe not as warm).
The next year, my sister,