Category: #freeLEJOG 2014
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What Exactly Does ‘Freedom’ Mean When Travelling?
Freedom – or the sense of it, at least – is the one thing that keeps bringing me back to cycle touring. I have all practicalities whittled down to a slender routine; there is nothing more to learn from the act itself of travelling by bicycle itself. Yet back to it I come, year after year, because of the sense of boundless liberation that comes from simply being on the road. At least, I thought it was freedom. Then someone pointed out that my adventures had all involved using money to get where I was going – just another tourist with… Continue reading →
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One Year On From #freeLEJOG, Here’s Some Thoughts From The Brink Of Departure
This piece was originally written for The Ride Journal, created to share personal stories from people obsessed in one way or another with bikes. You can download past issues for free from TheRideJournal.com, and connect with the project on Facebook and Twitter. The gates swing back with an affirmative bleep and I wheel my bike onto the platform. I hunt through the hordes of hurried commuters to scan the departure board. It’s a lonely old place, a railhead at rush hour; no talking, just mis-matching footfalls, heads down, like marching to prison or war, and I feel like the one man… Continue reading →
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#freeLEJOG: What Happened To Tegan Phillips & Charlie The No-Budget Touring Bike?
Last summer I offered to give away a full touring bike and equipment. The winner was Tegan Phillips, a South African student looking for a way to spend a month or so before starting a semester as an overseas student in the UK. Tegan won the giveaway by making this awesome video: Then she turned up at my flat in Bristol and wobbled off to catch a ferry to Spain. Her blog about this trip, Unclipped Adventure, was – quite literally – the best blog I’d ever read about cycle touring. Now? She’s cycling through Africa with her whole family. Her amazing blog continues here, but… Continue reading →
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#freeLEJOG: How Tegan Gave My Touring Bike A New Lease Of Life
A couple of weeks back I offered up my no-budget touring bike and gear to whoever came up with the most appropriate plan for what they’d do with it. The winner, a South African student by the name of Tegan Phillips (whose video entry you just have to watch), is now en route for Spain, having dropped by last week to collect it all. I’m not going to ramble on about Tegan, her trip plans, what happened the day she departed on her first big cycling adventure, or anything like that. Instead, I’d like you to take the time you’d put aside for reading my blog and spend it reading… Continue reading →
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#freeLEJOG: The Total Bill For A Bicycle Journey The Length Of England (Hint: It Was Less Than £1)
If you haven’t heard of #freeLEJOG, start catching up here. Otherwise, enjoy the final chapter! Good travelling is characterised by a great number of very painful goodbyes. It is a difficult thing to accept; that the better the time spent in the company of new friends, the more torturous will be the moment you venture forth once again in the knowledge that this episode of your life is over — done for, never to be returned to, incapable of being relived in any form but in some happy daydream — and that even your memory will one day let you… Continue reading →
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#freeLEJOG: How I Found A Secret Cave (With Free Beer), And Why I Can’t Tell You Where It Is
I hit an unexpected seam of gold in Cumbria. What started as a 24-hour detour turned into the most unpredictable adventure — four days during which I became part of the fabric of a stunning little side-valley in the heart of the English Lake District. I could easily have stayed all summer. Continue reading →
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FreeLEJOG: The Moment When, Aged 30, I Realised What Money Actually Was
Lancashire was where it all started coming together. I had been on the road for a fortnight, two thirds of the all-too-meagre time allowance I had in which to make this journey. It had been a fortnight since I’d last spent or handled money in any form, and the notion of carrying around bits of paper and metal and plastic to give to people in exchange for goods and services was a fast-dwindling memory. What the hell is money, anyway? I wondered as I rode through the tangle of canals and motorways and industrial estates that populate the corridor between Manchester and… Continue reading →
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#freeLEJOG: On Eating Food Out Of Bins
The West Midlands were not particularly kind to me. As a result, of course, I learned a hell of a lot. The weather was the least of it. Leaving Bridgnorth and finishing the last of my leftovers I found myself riding in the rain once again, with no food and no prospect of finding any. I was getting used to being utterly soaked, fingers wrinkly and cold, feet tingling and throbbing as they dried out after having been soaked for hours each day. I followed railway-cutting green routes which in nicer conditions would have been lovely, but which today were just a traffic-free… Continue reading →
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#freeLEJOG: Unexpected Adversity in the West Midlands
Rain started to pound against the kitchen windows. I had collected heaps of asparagus, been taken on a tour of the farm, discussed at length the changing nature of British agriculture, and now I was sitting at a big oak table, having devoured two bowls of the heartiest soup imaginable while my kind-hearted host waxed long and lyrical to a stranger she’d taken in off the street about the inhumanity of mankind. (Catch up with last week’s blog to find out how I got here, or start at the beginning.) Tea was offered. More tea. Cake, perhaps? And it was… Continue reading →
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#freeLEJOG: Pedalling North Without A Penny
Were it not such a clichéd turn of phrase, I’d be tempted to describe the adjustment to travelling without money as an ’emotional rollercoaster’. The first few days of my Land’s End to John O’Groats attempt felt like a series of nervous dashes from one safe haven to another, like a river paddler hopping between eddies in avoidance of its potential unknowns and dangers. Continue reading →