They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and there’s a lot we’re appreciating about being back in the UK and our local area. I’m really proud to be part of the Ordnanace Survey #GetOutside Champions team this year. Click here to see the team, including Ben Fogle. It’s made me think a lot about my own acitivities outside, and also what everyone else could enjoy about our beautiful country. When the sky is blue, I’m not sure there’s anywhere better, so here’s a few ways to appreciate brilliant Britain…
1. Find your nearest top-rated walk – the recent ITV Top 100 Walks had loads of inspiration for great places to wander, climb, hike or meanders, depending on your required level of exertion. In Leicestershire, our closets walk from the programme is Bradgate Park. We’ve been going there for years and love it. Even when it’s busy, you can still find quieter areas, especially if you walk north of the main path. Wander by the ruins of the old house, a bubbling stream or clamber on the rocks by Old John Tower.
Look out for: Deer, the park run a large herd; views of Leicester, Bardon Hill and surrounds from the highest point.
Access on foot from Anstey or Cropston, bus to Newtown Linford, or three car parks on the edge of the park.
More information: the OS GetOutside site has a full list of all 100 walks here.
2. Walk around your town or city centre in your lunch hour or after work. Anyone can do this. For us it’s Leicester, and if you’re local, you’ll have noticed a fair few changes over the last few years. While we were out of the UK, the city didn’t just go Richard III and Premier League winning crazy. There’s been lots of improvements to pedestrian and bike routes in the city, and a lot of new information boards to tell us all about Leicester’s past. Have a read of these, pop into the Cathedral or hunt out as many blue plaques as you can!
Look out for: Thomas Cook, all the football murals.
Access from anywhere in the city, travel in by foot or bike using the Great Central Way or one of the other National Cycle Network routes. There’s an information board at the train station, which has an impressive frontage.
More information: Look around in your town! Or try your local library.
3. Ride some country roads on your bike. Pick the smallest roads on your map (especially any labelled ‘gated’) and head out. While it’s still chilly aim for a coffee stop somewhere en route. For Leicester this means some of England’s very best cycling in the area around Market Bosworth. That’s right, England’s best – (very) gentle rolling countryside, pretty villages, narrowboats on the Ashby Canal, steam trains on the Battlefield Line. In particular, between Hinckley, Heather and Orton on the Hill there’s a network of small lanes that on a weekend mornings usually have more bikes than cars. Our favourite stop to get warm is Jasper’s in Market Bosworth – probably the best coffee in Leicestershire. Or try some local cheese at the Leicestershire Handmade Cheese Co in Upton. Plenty of pubs around too!
Look out for: Boats going over the aqueduct at Shenton; lots of other cyclists; us!
Access: Pick a sensible cycling route from your area using low traffic roads. If you’re not sure, contact us or your local Breeze/Let’s Ride Leaders for advice. You can also use the British Cycling site to find ride buddies. You could make it easier from the centre of Leicester by popping your bike on the train to Narborough or Hinckley to cycle from there.
More information: Use OS maps online to look for areas with lots of small roads (and your refreshment break).
4. Do a journey by foot that you would usually use other transport for. Being car free, usually it’s a bike ride or train trip to get from Narborough into the centre of Leicester. A few weeks ago I had a look at my OS map (Landranger 140 map fans) and realised I could get right into the centre of the city with very minimal road walking. It took me about 1hr45 mins, so a bit longer than usual. I walked along part of the original Fosse Way (Roman road), through countryside, and along a river. In the 12km ish I only had to walk by a road for about 1km. I had a great time and saw a few things on the way that I’d not noticed from cycling a similar route, like the amazing Aylestone Packhorse Bridge.
Access: If your journey is too long, get a bus or train part of the way, then walk the rest. I’ve now walked from Leicester city centre to Fosse Park a few times and got on the bus from there. I don’t have to walk on the roads at all in that journey!
Planning: Use OS maps online to look for footpaths. Visit your local tourist information to see if they have walk/bike maps for your area.
5. Go to your nearest woodland area or Forestry Commission site. Walking in woods is even good in the rain. There’s plenty to look at and lots to do if you’re out with kids. There’s a number of these in the midlands, most recently we went to the National Forest Cycle Centre at Hick’s Lodge, near Ashby de la Zouch. You can take your own bikes, or hire there. There’s different off road trails depending on how hard you would like to work. Even the most challenging trail there can be done by most riders – you can make it harder by going faster or trying some MTB tricks. We saw a family with a 4 year old cyclists taking it on last week – they just had more rests!
Everyone will have ideas about how they can get outside more in their local area. I suppose the bottom line is – just do it!
This post, like most, is long overdue. Spoiler alert: we made it back home. I (Jo) have just completed my second week back at work; Debs has been back almost two months. Life is very much back to “normal”, although we’re still not entirely sure what “normal life” is. For almost two years “normal” was not knowing where we might be at the end of the day, sitting on a bike seat for most of our waking hours and regularly eating sandwiches with crisps in. “Normal” is now knowing exactly where we will be every night this week (and month), sitting at a desk for most of my waking hours and trying to keep our calorie consumption within the recommended daily allowance. Sadly this means a serious reduction in the number of cakes in our new “normal” life.
Enjoying a final slice of Dutch apple cake on the ferry
It’s actually more than three months now since we rolled off the ferry in Harwich and started riding our final week of the trip on English soil to get us back to Measham, Leicestershire where we first pedalled away from on 27th September 2015. Because of events of the last few months this was not the homecoming we had imagined for a long time – as we had only been in England two months earlier, this return didn’t really feel special or momentous at all, despite being the culmination of over 31,000kms riding and almost two years on (and off) the road in 30 countries on 4 continents. We can only imagine what it might have been like had things gone to plan. We didn’t expect our families to be particularly excited about seeing us after only a couple of months away. So without a grand homecoming planned, we were looking forward to finally completing what we had started and arriving home “properly” this time – by bike rather than plane. And enjoying some quiet English roads and scenery (and cake) along the way.
There was no “welcome to the UK” sign so this had to do
We’ve done the ferry journey between England and the Netherlands a few times before, but always in the opposite direction – which is an absolute delight. As soon as you step off the ferry in Hook van Holland, you are bombarded with cycling signs and paths that present a myriad of options to ride wherever you might fancy in the country. Going to Den Haag? Well there’s two options straight away, a scenic ride along the coast through the dunes or a slightly more direct route a bit inland. Both as flat as a pancake, on dedicated cycle paths and signposted the whole way, of course. You’ll pass a Lidl at the start where you can stock up on cheap pastries and sit in a pleasant square. The arrival from the Netherlands into Harwich is pretty horrific in comparison. There’s a decent cycle path to take you from the port into town, but after that, you’re on your own. The road then climbs uphill out of town through a particularly unattractive estate, we were shouted at by at least three separate groups of alcopop-fuelled youngsters wandering around, a car sped past us and then cut us up on a roundabout…. The whole experience does not scream “come and cycle in beautiful England”. It actually screams “What? You left the Netherlands? *Sigh*! PS watch out for the potholes!” Dutch cyclists, used to their flat car-free paths and easy to follow routes, must feel like turning back after a few miles this side of the water. On the plus side, there are a few decent options for fish and chips, so it’s not all terrible. We celebrated being back on English soil in one of them.
Cycling in England can be a pleasure. Our first full day back started with small quiet country lanes and blackberry picking. It became less of a pleasure when the rain started at about 10am and continued for 24 hours. We stopped early on under a shelter on the edge of a village green (a nice welcome back to England). This only increased the severity of the rain (a not-so-nice welcome back to England). At one point an elderly lady came out of the pub opposite and told us that the forecast was for heavy rain for the rest of the day. We smiled, thanked her, and said it was ok, we didn’t have far to go, only about 25 miles. We forget that to elderly ladies in villages that this is actually quite far, even without the rain. “You’ll never make it,” she said, deadly serious. You’d think we had just suggested doing backward rolls the whole way. “Go around the corner and catch a bus”. We didn’t feel like an in-depth discussion about the difficulty (impossibility) of taking bikes on buses in the UK, so agreed to give it some thought. Our survival was at stake after all. Ten minutes later we had eaten all of our allocated morning snacks. Sadly we had also eaten our lunch (it was still well before midday) and drunk our flasks of tea so there was nothing else to do other than put our waterproof trousers on and ride off. The next few hours were some of the worst in the whole trip. The rain bounced off the roads, our helmets, our hands, and flooded the cycle paths. We had two route options – a scenic, quiet and lengthy route on small roads, or the direct and easily fastest route which was a cycle path alongside the A12 dual carriageway. The weather made the decision for us – no more than the minimum mileage today – so we rode alongside one of the busiest arterial roads into London whilst the sky fell in around us. The cycle path/small stream that we had to ride on/through was on the right hand side of the road so we had huge trucks riding towards us and soaking us with their spray. Always a pleasure to be soaked from the side and above at the same time. Eventually we arrived at Debs’ aunts house, dripping everywhere, as excited about dry clothes, a cup of tea and a roof for the afternoon as I think I have ever been about anything, ever. The fact that she had made cake for us was… the icing on it I guess.
Cambridge
The rest of the final week passed fairly uneventfully. We visited friends in Peterborough, Hinckley and Market Harborough, and stayed with some lovely warm showers hosts. The very impressive Scott (as in Captain) polar museum in Cambridge made an interesting diversion one afternoon. I think we ate a cooked breakfast five days running. We rode less than 40 miles each day and had lots of tea and cake. I suspect we put weight on in this last week. It was all very enjoyable. We woke up in Hinckley on the final morning knowing that we had less than twenty miles to ride to Measham, and then the trip would be over. It was a strange feeling. The ride itself felt like nothing special, but something in my head knew it was, and willed my legs to slow down, savour it, enjoy the repetitiveness of turning the pedals that had become more familiar than walking over the past two years. Debs was riding in front, as usual, and as I stared at the back of her head and panniers I wondered how many thousands of hours I had looked at this exact view, and that tomorrow I wouldn’t have it, or the next day or the next day. Then my stomach rumbled and told me to man up, crack on and get there in time for lunch. Again, a familiar feeling.
Before we knew it we were sat eating lunch with Debs’ parents, trip over. The bikes were unceremoniously dumped in the garage. In the interest of symmetry we took a trip (in the car, treat) to Cattows Farm for cake, where we had a final meal before we left in September 2015. It seemed an appropriate end for brakes and cakes that we spent our first couple of post-trip hours at one of our favourite places for cake ever, just a few miles from our start and end point.
On the ferry back to England, in an attempt to get over the sadness of the trip coming to an end, we wrote a list of things we were looking forward to. We would miss many aspects of this lifestyle – not knowing or caring what time it is, being so physically tired at the end of each day that we would often fall asleep mid conversation once we laid down, being outside for most of the day and night, eating as many cakes and pastries as we liked guilt-free, to name just a few – but it’s not all glamour. We might make it sound it, but life on the road has its downs as well as its ups and some aspects, particularly those relating to hygiene, we would not miss at all. Yet eating cereal out of a bowl rather than a cup, sleeping in a bed, cooking on a hob, eating cheese sandwiches that aren’t sweaty, were all laughed off the list, as they were things I felt we would definitely miss. So here it is. Three months after writing it, I can genuinely say that although I now have these things back in my life on a daily basis, it’s hard not to get a bit misty eyed at (most of) this list.
Things we were looking forward to coming home for:
Knowing that the spoon you are about to use has been washed rather than licked clean (and not necessarily by yourself)
Drinking water from a glass rather than a dubiously clean water bottle that has definitely had algae growth at some point in its life
Not having to squirrel away extra toilet paper every time you go to the toilet for fear of not seeing any for the rest of the day
Opening panniers/unrolling clothes/unwrapping food and being confident that an earwig won’t crawl out
Not having to wash underwear by hand every evening
Wearing clean socks every day
(Usually) knowing where the toilet is
Real milk in tea rather than powdered milk, or worse, coffee creamer (or worse, powdered milk or coffee creamer that an earwig has crawled out of)
Having my own plate to eat off rather than sharing a pan full of food
Using a full set of cutlery for meals
Not having to spend what feels like an hour every evening trying to get into a sleeping bag liner that is now more hole than material
Not having to blow my bed up
Chopping vegetables with a real knife rather than a Swiss Army knife which has previously been used for every other food item that needs chopping/slicing and also….
Washing greasy pans etc with warm water and washing up liquid every time
Putting a dry pair of shoes on in the morning rather than the ones that are still wet from the day before
Understanding whether supermarket checkout workers are asking us whether we want a receipt, a bag, have a reward card, or something totally different
Being inside when it rains, rather than trying to shelter from a downpour under a tree and not knowing if this is keeping you drier or making you wetter
Always being able to wash our hands with soap before eating
Boiling water by flicking the switch of a kettle
Eating lunch somewhere that isn’t a bus shelter.
Yes, life back home has a greater level of hygiene and far fewer earwigs. These are good things. We are enjoying many things about being back home, particularly spending time with family and friends. I’m even looking forward to our first British winter since 2014 (mostly for Christmas, but I don’t mind the dark and cold yet so far). But there’s definitely a part of me that would happily trade the electric kettle for a tepid cup of tea made with powdered milk, drunk out of a flask that has not been washed for a week, sitting in a bus shelter listening to the rain, because the next moment we could be enjoying the thrill of a great descent, some amazing fresh food or the enthusiastic conversation of a stranger. We’re not done yet, that’s for sure.
Quiet English roads, rolling countryside and sunshine. Yes please.
Thanks to Carol and Martin; Stephen, Debs and neighbours; Charlie; Tracey; Curry, Lisa and friends; Lucy and Kirsty; Chessie and Sarah; and our families for being excited at us being back despite only seeing us two months earlier.
At the risk of repeating myself from previous posts, even in Schengen Europe where borders are just ‘Welcome to’ signs at the side of the road, there are usually instantly noticeable differences when you cross into a new country. In Estonia, people waved to us and smiled. This was a marked difference to the previous week (sorry Latvia) where one of our best interactions was with the old lady who was worried about our cold forearms outside a shop that didn’t look like a shop. In the first large town in Estonia, one group of people waved and cheered so vigorously that they nearly fell off their seats. They were outside a bar though, and there was a lot of empty glasses on the table. There was a helpful map of bike routes with distances., and even better a sudden increase in availability and quality of public toilets. Not exciting or glamorous, but extremely useful. On the downside, cheese had somehow doubled in cost. The cheese fiend half of our team was very disappointed.
Clockwise from top left: 1. Welcome! 2. Remains of midsummer partying. 3. A whole cake to make up for the lack of cheese. 4. Actual bike routes, not beaches. 5. Quiet roads.
Keen to continue its new reputation for stimulating encounters, on day two Estonia gave us all of the weather. All of it. Except snow. The wind blew strongly all day with unpredictable gusts. After 2 hours and 13km we sat in a bus stop for partial shelter and questioned our life choices. Later, we spent an hour huddled in an old woodshed that we found open, while torrential rain and hail smashed the road. The saving grace was the pack of hot sausages I had bought at the supermarket, which just about made up for the nasty smell in the shed.
It was definitely not this bright. And the hail was as big as melons. Well, grapes at least.
By evening things had calmed down. We were heading for the islands off Estonia’s west coast, as recommended by a Swiss couple in a camper van who made me a lovely cup of coffee in a campsite in Latvia. The ferry trip was smooth and sunny, it was like a different world. Jo continued to get some come-uppance for telling everyone about how few punctures she has had, with another as we rode off the ferry. It was getting pretty late by this point but as we were now further North it didn’t really get dark so she managed a quick roadside change and we enjoyed another good campsite on Muhu Island.
The sun came out, the roadworks went on forever, Jo got a puncture.
The plan for the next day was a 45km ish ride, a ferry to another island, then another 45km ish towards the next ferry for the following day. There were only three ferries per day, so if we missed the 1pm it would be a seven hour wait for the next one. I’m sure you can see what’s coming here. Obviously we left the campsite a little bit later than intended. Then we got a bit distracted reading the history of a cool causeway bridge thing. And by some kangaroo signs. Then there was a cute town (with lovely toilets). Leaving town, Jo’s puncture bad luck continued. We executed an extremely slick tube change but by this time it was after 11am and the ferry was still 30km away. Cyclists will read this and think that’s not sure a tall order. On road bikes or even unloaded hybrids it wouldn’t be. However on hefty 45kg touring bikes when you don’t really know where you’re going it’s a bit of a challenge. Add a killer headwind (we had turned westwards) and we were not feeling super confident. We made a quick start after the repair, until a few minutes down the road I realised the sun was in the wrong place/we were going the wrong way. Minor setback – we had left town on the wrong road. U turn required. Still 30km away, the race was on.
Lies.
We pedalled hard, with just one emergency banana stop and made it with almost ten minutes to spare. It was a beautiful ride, and should you be in the area I would definitely recommend taking a trip to the islands. Quiet roads, loads of great campsites, lovely coastline.
Riding really fast. For us.
Back on the mainland, ruins were turning out to be another fun feature of Estonia. Most were signed from the road and had information boards with stories about the previous inhabitants. These seemed to have been written by members of the Soap Opera Writers of Historic Buildings Association, they were usually about controversial marriages, grand gestures of love, and murderous family members. Our favourite though was one that gave details of the St George’s Night Uprising of 1343. This described the killing of 28 monks and the burning down of a monastery as ‘only a minor setback.’ Seems like we should all reassess the barriers in our lives. Other than the odd buttress for safety the buildings had been left as they had been found, and were great to explore. The weather had cheered up and we were almost always on quiet roads. We were also meeting a lot of people doing cool trips – a German family with two toddler age children doing a three week camping tour, an Estonian family who moved to Austria for snow sports back visiting family, and in towns lots of retired Brits sailing around the Baltic (#newlifegoal – though I may need to improve on my RYA level 2). It was pretty dreamy cycle touring, and that was before we got to Tallinn.
Brill ruinsChilling in the castle, Haapsalu
People ask us a lot ‘what’s been your favourite place?’ It’s an almost impossible question, as everywhere is so different, and fun/interesting/awe-inspiring in different ways. I can however quite easily pick out the cities that are worth going out of your way for (Rome, Granada, Tokyo); those that are good if you’re in the area (Riga, Bergamo, Seville, Malacca); and those that you could avoid and not feel like you’ve missed out (Napoli, many US cities, Vang Vieng, Siem Reap). Tallinn is definitely in the first group of awesome ones – there’s just so much to look at. Incredible old buildings, brilliant city walls, interesting food, and it’s a manageable size for walking. We had two days wandering around, helped on the second day by the lovely Toomas and Veronica, who we met in Laos some months earlier, and had recently returned to their home town. Go if you get the chance. If you don’t get the chance, go anyway.
Terrific Tallinn
We said goodbye to Estonia on a rainy Saturday morning, though it’s probably more of a ‘see you another time’, there’s a lot there still to see. Horizontal rain smashed into us as we cycled along the exposed ferry access road to board the ship to Helsinki. Once there we would be back on the route proper, finally turning back south west and towards the UK.
Thanks to: Toomas and Veronica, Anna, Federico.
After our unplanned return from China and two months at home we were itching to get back on the road, so we had planned a final European loop to get us to Helsinki, from where we would ride home, completing the round the world cycle trip. It is now a few weeks since we pedalled away from Measham for the second time. As with our initial departure in September 2015 we were aiming for the Harwich-Hook of Holland ferry, and as the first time, we rode in glorious sunshine through beautiful English countryside. There really is no better place to ride when the sun shines. We mainly followed national cycle routes on small country lanes, though with a few more hills than our out of practice legs and lungs would have liked.
An overnight ferry (full of other cyclists, none of whom spoke to us – strange lot us Brits are) landed us in the Netherlands at 8am on Debs’ birthday. What better way to celebrate than to stock up on pastries at Lidl and head to the beach for a birthday breakfast. The sun was still shining, the wind was behind us and we were back on the best cycle paths in the world (not confirmed) surrounded by elderly Dutch cyclists on their upright bikes. The paths are almost totally flat, but can have a short steep(ish) incline and then drop at times. On one of these, one of our Dutch cycling friends warned us that “there is about another ten of these steep hills on this path ahead”… a Dutch steep hill that is. Two or three hard pedal strokes and you are up and over the peak. Rocky Mountains they are not. We were pleased to be back in Europe.
We had a lot of time on the ferry
A short ride to Dan Haag (we will be back…) and four trains later we were in the port of Travemunde on the north east coast of Germany, via Hamburg where we stayed with a friend for a couple of nights. The ferry from would take us to Leipaja in Latvia and we were mostly in the company of truck drivers. We settled in with a Lidl picnic and enjoyed the sunset from the boat. It was the smoothest sailing I have ever experienced. A mere 28 hours later we were in Latvia.
As we arrived at 10pm I had booked a cheap hotel room to save us having to “ride around a strange town in the dark” looking for a place to stay. Rolling off the ferry at 10.15 pm, the sun was still above the horizon. We were five days from midsummer and the days were long. Ah well. The Sport Hotel was the bargain of the century at only €14 for the biggest room ever, with the answer to every British cyclists dreams, an electric kettle. There was even a sofa. Welcome to Latvia.
Shops were sometimes hard to spot. Few windows. The signs helped at this one.
Finally we were back in the saddle, and set off the next morning with no idea what to expect from Latvia and no real plan, other than “ride to Estonia”. Riding up the coast seemed a good place to start, without realising we were apparently following a Eurovelo route (though we are a little sceptical of some of their “routes” that are often just someone’s nice idea) and before we’d even left town we saw five other touring cyclists. That’s more than we saw in the whole five months in Europe at the start of our trip. Cycling in the summer is more popular than the winter then.
Leipaja had a few sights including a very shiny Russian Orthodox Cathedral and a soviet-era prison but soon we were on the open road and navigating by keeping the sea on our left. The sun was shining but our legs were weary from riding the loaded bikes for the first time in a couple of months. Ride all you like at home but nothing prepares you for carrying the weight of the bags. The first night in the tent since February was strange, it didn’t get properly dark at all so we had to use our buffs as a blindfold to give the illusion of night time. After a night camping by the sea we turned inland and with the help of an amazing tailwind that we savoured every minute of – as most of this leg will be riding west into the wind – we were in Riga two days later. Latvia was flat, green, and mostly well kept. Towns had attractive parks, old wooden buildings, castles and were very pleasant indeed. There was the odd soviet style concrete tower block but not as many as we had expected.
Making friends with the locals.
It was a rainy morning’s ride to Riga, and included a comedy moment of hiding in a bus shelter when the rain was particularly fierce only to be completely soaked by a truck riding through a huge puddle/lake that had formed next to the kerb. By the time we arrived in the picturesque capital the sun was shining again. Riga is mostly known these days as a stag party destination thanks to Ryanair and cheap beer, but the old style buildings are ornate and the different pastel colours makes the whole place very easy on the eye. I say old style because most of the city was destroyed during WW2 and has since been rebuilt to look old. It’s actually pretty compact, we had a day to walk around but found that we had covered most of the old town in a few hours. Including sampling a couple of bakery treats.
Great fancy buildings in RigaGreat fancy cakes in Riga
Luckily we had arrived on party weekend. Midsummer, or ligo (pronounced leegwa, strangely) in Latvia, is celebrated on 23rd June and is said to be bigger than Christmas. Though most people celebrate by heading out into the countryside, lighting fires and drinking all night, there was a music festival in the city which had a nice atmosphere, even if it was like being in the middle of the Eurovision Song Contest. Latvian pop music is not to our taste. People were drinking and dancing, we saw at least three people fall over they were so drunk, and at one point there was a circle of women close to us who were all at least six feet tall. Apparently Latvian women are the tallest in the world, and on that evidence, I wouldn’t argue against it.
An annoying-to-navigate ride out of Riga (as most cities are) had us riding up the coast towards Estonia. Our mistrust of the Eurovelo bike route deepened as the bike signs seemed to direct us into the sea – it actually went along the beach for 6kms. The sand was mostly hard packed but the bikes are so heavy it was tough going. Once off the beach the rain returned and we hung out at our usual bus shelter, watching as youngsters stumbled past drinking and singing, the beach party clearly rained off but not their enthusiasm. It was still the holiday weekend and we pulled in to a campsite that evening to find groups of Latvians keeping the fires burning and the alcohol flowing. One guy could speak fairly good English so spoke to us at length about immigration policies (“your mayor, she doesn’t want Eastern Europeans in the country but she lets all the Muslims in”; “do you see any brown people in Latvia? No, we kill them”) before rejoining the party. We fell asleep to the soothing sound of more Latvian tunes, hoping that when we crossed the border into Estonia the next morning the music as well as the weather would improve. I’m not sure I can ever watch Eurovision again.
Latvia had been a nice return to the cycling lifestyle. Flat, easy camping, cheap food, tailwinds. It was good to be back on the bikes again, although I found the first few days quite tough mentally. I had optimistically assumed that normal life would fall back into place as soon as we were cycling again, but in reality everything had changed and it was hard to focus on what we were doing rather than what we would have been doing if we hadn’t had to return home from China. Cycling also gives you a lot of time to think – I had spent most of my time at home busy and suddenly my mind was empty and I thought a lot about my dad and what had happened over the past two months. Even though I often felt sad, I knew it was the right thing to be back cycling and finishing the trip off in the best way we could.
Thanks to: Svenja, David and Zane.
Just like our initial departure in September 2015, the weather was beautiful as we pedalled through Leicestershire a few weeks ago. Blue skies, rolling hills, sunshine, pretty villages. England can be simply wonderful. However it is also home to some of the least cyclist-friendly drivers the world has to offer, with a good smattering of rudeness thrown in. Our trip was just 1.78km old when a driver rolled down their window and called us ‘F-ing assholes’ as we cycled on that first day 20 months ago. We were riding two abreast on a low traffic country road. Like many, he failed to recognise that this reduces his overtaking time.
Beautiful Leicestershire cycling
It’s nice to know you can go away from home for a long time and some things don’t change. Fish and chips are still brilliant, and some motorists are still ignorant. We met a fabulous guy in June in delightful Market Harborough. It was a beautiful day and we were on the way out of town on National Cycle route 67. On the little uphill near the station, we moved out to ride around a parked car. There was an oncoming truck. The road is not super wide. We heard a vehicle behind us. As other cyclists will know, you can tell from the sound when the approaching vehicle isn’t slowing down, and sure enough a van driver decided to squeeze between us and the oncoming truck whilst we were all passing the parked vehicle. At best the driver left 30-40cm between the van and us. I was in front, and as the van pulled back in I selected a choice hand gesture for the driver in response to the unsafe pass.
The van now cut in front of us and pulled in suddenly to the side of the road. The driver jumped out, and we got to meet a charming man.
CM: “Don’t you wag your finger at me”
(That’s right, I had selected the offensive ‘finger wag’)
D: “You came far too close”
CM: “I had to get past you and avoid the truck on the other side”
D: No, what you had to do was wait.
(J is now level with the van)
J: You could have slowed down. (Meaning to slow down and wait until we had passed the parked car)
CM: I was going slow, we’re going uphill you tit!
As I said, a real charmer. Maybe he was trying to bring ‘tit’ back into fashion as an insult. Certainly a while since either of us has been called that and probably the first time by a grown-up. We were quite taken aback. I would like to say that we said something funny back, but we were a bit past the van by then and I’m sure you can come up with something funnier.
It has been continually shown that reeducation is more effective than punishment (Welford, 2017), so here is some helpful advice for our Charming Man:
1. The Highway Code tells you to leave as much space for a cyclist as you would if you passed a car. Imagine the cyclist is a car or a horse. Would you pass then? If not, you shouldn’t squeeze past. UK Police recommend 1.5metres minimum. In lots of countries this is the law.
2. If you are so desperate to speed up your journey, I would suggest that waiting 3-5 seconds for us to pass the parked car would have been significantly quicker than parking up for a spot of verbal cyclist bashing.
3. If you do feel the need to stop your vehicle and abuse some upstanding citizens, it’s probably best not to do it in your branded work vehicle. This is particularly important if you work for a small organisation and are in fact the registered director of said company, and it is absolutely vital if you have your hometown as public on your Facebook profile. That’s right, I know exactly who you are. Good job I’m only a bit vengeful. So far. Brilliant Fish and Chips. We don’t name drop often, so you know these must be good, from Pie Seas in Harwich
Thanks to: The overwhelming majority of people who stop to talk us around the world. Almost all of them actually are charming and lovely.
Brakes and Cakes 