interview – overview of the ride
This interview appeared shortly after I’d done my ride, in the newsletter of my local cycling campaign group, Dynamo. It provides a summary of what I did and why I did it.
So, how was it?
Really amazing! I got very lucky with the weather. I think April was the driest on record, so I barely got wet. The rain and wind finally got me in the far north of Scotland, but by then I was nearly there, so didn’t get despondent about it. It was an excellent time of year to do it; I felt like Spring was perpetually springing as I rode north. The countryside was verdant, the scenery superb. And I met very many warm, wonderful and deeply inspiring people.
How come? Weren’t you cycling all day?
No, most days I met up with people connected to cycling. Sometimes I’d talk to them early in the day, sometimes in the afternoon or evening, and some days I spent pedalling between two or three interviews. So I had to fit the cycling around these different appointments.
What were you doing that for?
Research for a book I’m writing, Ride: a journey through cycling. Land’s End to John O’Groats is a legendary journey in British cycling, and one which ought to be celebrated. Every year, thousands of people rise to its out-of-the-ordinary challenge. The route also makes a great narrative for a story, exploring the tremendous energy and diversity in British cycling. I want to tell a story about cycling made up of lots of little stories about cycling. So I pedalled between inspiring people and places to get at those stories.
Can you give us a taste for some of them?
Well, there are stories which centre on riding. I rode to Land’s End with the Penzance Wheelers and was struck by how they spoke about cycling as something they did away from their families, but which was vitally important to family life. The competitive camaraderie of club riding was an escape from life with a young family, which enabled them to return more happily to that life.
But other cyclists tell very different stories, whether it’s fifty-something Warren from Edinburgh whose goal was to retire and spend as much of his life as possible on a bike, ‘it’s the only time I’m truly happy’, or 7 year old Byron learning about the world through riding alone around the sea-front car park in Portreath. Then there’s Lynne Taylor, women’s end-to-end record holder, in a tad over 2 days, who was clearly keen to take the record below 2 days, ‘you just need the right weather’. Cycling touches so many people’s lives in so many different ways, it’s astonishing.
But I also traced stories about making bikes, selling cycling, promoting cycling. For example, I talked to staff at Sustrans HQ in Bristol, professional cycle planners who work for Cycling England, and grassroots campaigners in cities such as Manchester and Edinburgh.
Hold on, you rode through Manchester and Edinburgh?
Yes, and Exeter, Bristol and Birmingham. I wanted to ride through big cities. After all, that’s were we need people to get on their bikes. So I was keen to get a feel for what it’s like to ride a bike in those different places, and to talk to people about cycling there. Much of the cultural vibrancy around cycling is centred in the cities too.
What do you mean, cultural vibrancy?
Well in Manchester, for example, there’s a real buzz around cycling. That’s reflected in the recent opening of a huge Edinburgh Bicycle Co-op store there. But it’s also reflected in people riding fixed wheel and single speed bikes, turning up to Critical Mass on unicycles, stuff like that. Edinburgh also has all kinds of stuff going on; I went for a recumbent bike tour of the city, which was great! I also got a guided tour of Exeter, which – like Lancaster – is a Cycling Demonstration Town. The guy in charge of Exeter’s project, Zsolt Schuller, showed me round.
What were your impressions, compared to Lancaster?
I was only there an afternoon, but I was really hit by Zsolt’s obvious commitment and huge enthusiasm for the project. He’s clearly a man on a mission, and has been allowed to assemble a dedicated team around him. They’re also being bold down there, taking the ‘demonstration’ part of the project very seriously. Zsolt sees that Exeter’s been given the chance to try new things, and he’s going for it. My own feeling is some of what they’re doing is misguided; for example, there’s too much emphasis on converting pavements to shared-use routes, and – as here – far too little emphasis on taming the car. I suspect Exeter is likely to go down as ‘the CDT success story’, but I also suspect that in the cycling future, when the long history of attempts at cycling promotion is written, the CDT project as a whole will be seen as one of the final attempts to fiddle as Rome burnt.
Back to your ride, it sounds like you strayed well away from the traditional end-to-end routes?
Well, I tried to take a reasonably direct line, but one dictated by key issues, ideas, places and people. I rode lots of off-road trails, like the Camel Trail in Cornwall and the Tissington Trail in Derbyshire. I went over the Cotswolds, the Peak District, the Lake District, none of which is ‘normal’. But I followed one of the standard routes through much of Scotland, albeit with various detours to get some good stories around mountain biking, which has quickly become central to the rural Scottish tourism economy.
All up I rode around 1200 miles, which is a bit more than most.
How long did it all take?
16 days of riding, a day for travel at either end, and a rest day in Lancaster to celebrate my 40th birthday and to enjoy the Party on the Prom, marking its official opening to cyclists! That was great, having that at the half-way stage.
Longest day?
Umm, in terms of distance covered, it was probably the day between Exeter and Bristol, which was around 90 miles over sometimes tough terrain. But other days felt longer. The next day, I spent all morning talking to people from Sustrans, rode out of Bristol to meet an old friend, and didn’t really get going to my night’s destination at Stratford-upon-Avon until mid-afternoon. So the 80 odd miles over the Cotswolds felt hard. Other days I went for a ride after my day’s ride; a tour of Exeter with Zsolt, Critical Mass and bicycle polo in Manchester, a ride up CairnGorm mountain after reaching Aviemore. And my shortest day was from Peebles to Edinburgh, but I started it mountain biking in Glentress forest and finished with a recumbent lesson and ride. So riding between places often felt the easy part!
You must’ve got a lot fitter by doing the ride?
That was the idea, but I got home feeling totally wasted! Mind you, I’ve been getting out on my bike a lot more since coming home, so I think I’m joining the growing legion of ‘born-again roadies’!
What were the best and worst bits?
From a raw cycling perspective, I loved descending off the Peak District, down through Stockport into central Manchester along the A6. There’s a real buzz to mixing it with cars, trucks and buses at 25 or 30mph. And I loved riding around Rusholme, especially the curry mile, with its smells, sights and sounds. I think we could make a lot more of the pleasures of urban riding, rather than always banging on about how unpleasant it is. From a campaigning point of view, cities like Edinburgh and Manchester give me considerable hope for cycling’s future, because it doesn’t feel too outlandish to imagine the bulk of journeys being made by bike there. And somewhere like Stratford-upon-Avon feels like it could easily attain 50% of journeys by bike. In terms of scenery, I feel very parochial in saying north Lancashire and Cumbria, but there’s really nowhere I’d rather live when it comes to cycling.
As for the worst, a couple of times I ended up on really fast, straight stretches of busy roads, and for me there’s nothing worse. Crossing a couple of the firths in Scotland was nerve-racking. And the place I’d least like to live, as a town cyclist anyway, is Buxton. It felt like the place was being choked by trucks and 4x4s. My least favourite city was Birmingham.
And finally, having taken the temperature of cycling so-to-speak, what’s your overall assessment? Are you more or less optimistic about prospects for cycling after your ride?
Optimistic because I’m more aware that cycling is full of deeply committed and hugely inspiring people who are working hard for its future. There’s also clear signs of a cultural revival of cycling in cities. In Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh, cycling is undoubtedly becoming cool. I’m not sure whether I like it, but bike shops are also getting bigger, brasher, more savvy. And across Scotland, mountain biking is really big. I’m also more optimistic because all along my route I was treated really well by other road users. Beforehand, I was wondering whether such a journey might soon become a historical curiosity, as road conditions worsen. So I was relieved and pleased to discover that the vast majority of drivers treated me as a cyclist very well, and that it’s still intensely pleasurable to ride the length of Britain.
But at another level, all that’s irrelevant. What matters is whether we can force government to get serious about cycling. That’s still far from happening. Government-financed promoters of cycling are everywhere still tinkering around at the edges. I think it’s definitely the case that we’ve yet to begin the serious work of boosting cycling. That’s the big issue, lobbying central government to sink hundreds of millions of pounds into creating a cycling future.
And really finally, would you do it again?
At the drop of a hat, but I think Sue, Bobby and Flo would insist on coming with me next time!
