Below is a blog I kept during a one week cycle ride from London to Glasgow (510 miles) to arrive at COP 26 in late October 2021 and make our cycling point . The ride was created by a collaboration of individuals and Adventure Uncovered/Brake the Cycle, two environmentally conscious adventure companies . I’ve left the blog mostly unedited in the form I tapped it out on my phone for social media each night whilst curled up in bed, just added a few useful links.
I arrived in London from Totnes, Devon on GWR trains ( who will endeavour to break your spirit if you dare try to book and travel with a bike. Not the fault of the actual train staff I might add) to meet with about 100 others to set off cycling to Bonny Scotland for COP26.
London to Oxford – 70 miles . I’m enough of a country bumpkin these days to get a buzz out of riding over Blackfriars bridge then past the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace . On then out through the outskirts of North London , into the Chilterns and a descent into Oxford. As hunger kicked in I remembered a South India cafe called Dosa Park from a previous trip 10 years ago, and there, by the railway station it still was. It looks like a pretty basic cafe superficially, but the food , oh yes, I highly recommend if you’re in the area ..
Oxford to Coventry – 70 miles
Travelling through Oxfordshire and Warwickshire and areas I don’t know at all . Through Olde Englande type places with names like Bloxham, with an ancient public school in the middle, and a fat church and tall spire somewhat out of sync with the size of the place. To then arrive in Coventry where I’ve never been and don’t know much about apart from the cathedral ( which IS amazing when you arrive to it ) and of course the home of The Specials.
My bike and Ganesh Power; some people on the ride ( many cycling geeks ) think my bike is bespoke in some way – but I have just stuck two Ganesha motifs on my frame – I adopted Ganesha (the elephant god) from S.E. Asia a long time ago as ‘the remover of obstacles’ and ‘bringer of good fortune’ . I wear him round my neck too – I’ll take all the help I can get . In actual fact my bike is a Specialized AWOL – an indestructible touring bike, the heavy tank of touring bikes. Add Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres and a Brooks saddle and it’s comfortable, not that quick but generally indestructible. Many of those on lighter road bikes had more mechanical problems and punctures. It was a case of the tortoise and the hare, had it been a race I would have been near the front by the end.
Coventry to Stoke on Trent 65 miles
This was perhaps the easiest cycling day ( and will be ) with forgiving undulating gradients and still kind weather ( so far ). I’ve found my cycling tribe of lovely people going at a similar pace , though we are really one big tribe of over 100 people , it’s impossible to know who everyone is so full are the days.
We’re starting to push north now – into Staffordshire and Tamworth ( the royal centre of the old English Kingdom of Mercia ) . An old castle , solid rectangular houses with Georgian windows and very randomly a Thai temple and meditation centre in Kings Bromley ( where ? Yes exactly ) . Samey but nice enough country side to arrive in Stoke on Trent , the Potteries ( Stoke away on a Tuesday night )
Human beings did not evolve to ride bicycles, that much is clear, as my ass and other parts of my anatomy are starting to remind me. Everyone has their own way to become one with the bike; for me as for many things in life, Yoga is the answer, even a book I recently read by a professional bike fitter in conjunction with Sports Scientists/Osteopaths etc concluded Yoga had a big part to play especially for older cyclists . The body though does adapt-my quadriceps are morphing into something like swollen steel cables and so far the weedy hills of middle England haven’t touched me like the Devon ones . Perhaps where cycling does come into its own on the fitness practices spectrum is the cardio fitness-I can just feel blood and life force pumping through me .
Onwards we go !
Stoke-on-Trent to Preston 75 miles .
Every day’s a marathon . I feel like I’ve been away a month already ! What day is it ? Cycling day
We’re Ooop North , and my viscera and blood know it; home turf (grew up in Manchester) , you can never change where you came from. Out of Stoke into the lanes and farm land of East Cheshire; flat , pretty at times , then through the tunnel under Manchester Airport runway and into Manchester for lunch at Alexandra Park. Our route through Manchester took in the more stoic and gritty parts of the city rather than the more modern glam bits – but I love it for that too . Out through Salford and on the long steady up along Manchester road through Swinton, Walkden and out into the Lancashire high ground . I enjoyed chatting to a fellow cyclist originally from Singapore about what she made of this raw , grey skied Northern higher ground – about as far from SE Asia as you can get – she loves it and so do I . I get that , the relentless heat in South East Asia can get to you. Eventually we rolled into into Preston in the dark and rain .
Despite this my initial impression of Preston is really positive. We were welcomed and fed at the local sports ground social club, and joined by local politicians who gave talks; it’s a safe Labour seat with a history of activism and which proactively supports cycling . I’m not even sure who half these people are who keep turning up at at our arrival venues and giving us stuff ( a credit no doubt to Brake the Cycle and other organisers ) , but we were even given Epsom salts for a bath (quite often a bath at Premier Inns !). These people are re-igniting my faith in the people of this country after the Brexity and Covidy divisions, squabbles and questionable behaviour (from some) of recent times. And let’s hear it for Premier Inns – potentially a faceless chain hotel but of course run by human beings – they let bikes in and the Preston one gave me breakfast free when I told them what we were doing .
Who’s on the ride ? Whizzy younger career sustainability specialists working with or for institutions and corporations to help them sort their environmental and social footprint, as well as individuals and randoms like me who believe in the cause and/or just like riding their bike a long way. Lots of young muscly fast riders on super light road bikes juxtaposed with fairly fit old bastards like me who know how to dig out the miles and keep smiling and everyone in between , some struggling, some flying, all riding on – warriors – I salute you all .
Preston to Penrith 89.9 miles. The longest day at 90 miles with serious hills and a challenging weather forecast . The shit’s getting real.
Okay I was warned, but this was a hard day with the length and hills . When my eldest son ( who has cycled a bit) saw the mileage and elevation gain figures of this day, he astutely commented ‘YOU’RE GONNA DIE !’ Not quite but I get his point .
Actually I handled the cycling fine, but in my group there were 5 punctures meaning we lost a lot of time – we are are waiting for each other while we sort out any problems-making a long day longer . 8 am to 8 pm with too much of that stationary sorting out problems-it’s not like this most days, why today!
The weather was wild and woolly as we hit the high ground of Cumbria . Amazing, dramatic and moody, but a bit much at times ! Hills (going up them) are part of the story in cycling, I’m okay at them, and even like them in a way, but some do find them a bit soul destroying. If you pick up speed before a hill you can beast your way up them pedalling and dropping gears, and/or just relax your upper body and face and dig in to go up longer ones-relaxing really helps – there is an art to it .
Food-channelling the inner hobbit (not hard for me in some respects). Cyclists need to eat a lot including the infamous hobbity second breakfast to keep fuelled up in advance of getting hungry . It seems to work but I could never eat this much normally. For breakfast this morning before 7.30 am I had eaten a bowl of fruit with two pots of yoghurt and muesli, a bowl of porridge and a full cooked breakfast ! Unthinkable normally ( I can’t normally eat anything first thing) but totally doable at the moment. Plus a full lunch and evening meal and endless snacks – it’s the only time I can get away with it without popping. Even at this rate of eating by the end of the week I had lost 4 kg.
Scotland tomorrow and a shorter day !
Penrith to Dumfries 60 miles
What should have been a relatively easy cruising day was livened up by the weather as it had to be at some point at this time of year; the theme of the day was water and that special quality of cold that only UK rain can give . After a comfortable enough morning and lunch in Carlisle the temperature dropped like a stone and there was about 2 hours in intense wind and horizontal rain that we had to cycle directly into. For a while it felt unrelentingly bleak with all the hope taken out , perhaps the hardest cycling I ever did. My wet weather plan of staying in shorts regardless sort of worked because everyone else said their waterproofs failed and became useless and heavy. But then hey , the wind dropped and the sun appeared and it all looked very different. Plus we were in Scotland which after a savage introduction suddenly looked stunning , if watery … We were treated to food and an evening of short films at the Dumfries Robert Burns Centre.
Am I Scottish ? I’m a fairly standard mongrol product of these North Western European Islands – nothing to see here . A few years ago I did the Ancestry.com DNA test and it showed me as 50% Western Continental Europe , 20 % Irish, 20% Iberian peninsula and a smattering of Viking and Roman . But I looked again recently and they have reviewed it ( which makes you wonder the accuracy ) to nearly 50 % Scottish plus a mix up of Irish and other Northern and Western European, either way, not English . So I’m home ?
Dumfries to East Kilbride 73 miles
Today was why you might choose to come cycling in Scotland with awesome landscapes and skies . No rain but getting cold; wearing shorts has been great , and a few of us have continued, I’ve basically done this whole thing in the basic kit I use for going out for 2-3 hours in Devon , only just borderline warm enough for today. I might invest in leggings for this winter
Through lots of beautiful high ground and then lunch at the Crawick Multiverse, an outdoors landscape art installation , maybe like a cross between Stonehenge and a Roman amphitheatre, a pretty awesome place . The lunch was also a multiverse of stuff I never eat – chocolate and ginger ice cream was amazing despite not being no 1 on my list of fancies at that moment .
Tomorrow is a procession into Glasgow I think ! Very nearly there ..
East Kilbride to Glasgow 7.3 miles .
Well we’re in Scotland alright . The Covid contradictions so far have been pretty spectacular even compared to England; intense mask wearing , QR coding and phone number collecting at the Premier Inn breakfast. And then at the pub in East Kilbride the same ( sort of ) , wear a mask at the bar ( sort of ) then allow a rammed pub of drunken carnage ! No wonder there cases are high despite stronger ‘rules’. I don’t do so well in loud pubs these days , plus I’m on one year no alcohol, so added to ( super friendly ) people with thick Glaswegian accents asking me about the bike ride ( I think ? ) that I couldn’t really hear, I lasted about an hour; maybe if I was less knackered ( and younger )… Some of the younger ones went nightclubbing and met the locals and someone had battered pizza and deep fried cheesy chip cheesy chip wraps (apparently enough calories/ fuel to get you from London to Glasgow all by itself ).
We all rode more or less together on a kind of victory parade into Glasgow which looked great for a first impression on my first visit ( All accommodation completely booked for COP26 , so I couldn’t stay). On arrival we met NHS doctors who had also cycled from London to highlight the hugely ( and not really properly documented ) damaging effects of air pollution particularly on children’s lungs .
All in all the best thing I did this whole fractious, difficult Covid punctuated year of 2021.
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