Adventure

Is cycle touring dangerous?

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Will I die if I go cycle touring? Will I be run over, or murdered as I’m sleeping in my tent? Will I be attacked, robbed and possibly beaten? Is cycle touring dangerous? Let me start answering those questions by asking you how you define dangerous. Some things are obvious: walking up to a pride of hungry … Read more

January 2022 Giveaway

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We all like a freebie, don’t we? Well, during 2022, I’m doing 12 freebies! That’s right – I’m doing ONE T-shirt giveaway per month. How to enter Entering is simple, but requires a Twitter account. Just follow WillCycle on Twitter, then browse through the T-shirt designs available and pick your favourite. Next, click the link … Read more

Cheshire Ring – the beginning

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The Cheshire Ring – for canal boaters The Cheshire Ring is well-known to canal boaters, forming a very rough triangle, and is made up from six different canals in Cheshire: the Ashton Canal, Peak Forest Canal, the Macclesfield Canal, the Trent and Mersey Canal, the Bridgewater Canal and finally, the Rochdale Canal. The Cheshire Ring … Read more

The death of wild-camping in the UK?

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wild-camping is simply the best

Wild-camping, at least in England and Wales, is strictly speaking against the law, unless done with the explicit consent of the landowner. Here’s where things immediately become murky: against the law is not the same as being a crime. In fact, under the law (at least in England and Wales) trespass is a civil offense, not a criminal offense.

What this means in practice is better explained with an example: Imagine you own a piece of land somewhere, and I trespass onto that land, for whatever reason (but I’m not breaking any other laws, and certainly not damaging anything on your land). In this scenario, your options are extremely limited. Basically, you can ask me to leave. If at that point, I humbly apologise, and start packing up, legally there is nothing further you can do. If you tried to frogmarch me off your land, I can charge you with assault, which is a crime, and if you break anything of mine, that may incur some extra charges.

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But baby it’s cold outside…

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Person walking in snow, as part of cold-weather camping

Tips for staying warm You might know your stuff when you go cycle touring and cycle camping in summer, but how do you stay warm in winter, while still going riding (and hopefully camping)?  Hypothermia can be a killer, so from the outset you need to be able to manage your plans, so you can … Read more

LEJOGLE Relay

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LEJOG is a British cycle touring rite of passage. It is short for Land’s End – John O’Groats, and refers to cycling between the two destinations. Prevailing winds mean most people start at the bottom and cycle up, but a fair number cycle it in the opposite direction, when it’s referred to as JOGLE. The … Read more

GoCycle Guide – Kennet and Avon Canal cycle route

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A picture of my laden bicycle, taken on a bridge, while cycling the Kennet And Avon Canal cycle route

Cycle the Kennet and Avon Canal Ah, the romance of cycling along canals, wind in your hair, sun on your face, and birds swooping around! You’ll smile and exchange pleasantries with boaters as you pass each other by along the Kennet and Avon Canal cycle route. Canal cycling is gorgeous, usually flat, incredibly scenic, and a wonderful introduction to cycle … Read more

A suggested cycle touring pack list

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Happy cycle camping! A hand holding up a tin mug, with Happy Camper printed on it

Why  do  you  even  need  a  cycle  touring  pack  list? If you’ve read anything else on here, you will realise by now that I’m very enthusiastic about cycle touring. So much so, I have an entire category dedicated to cycle touring, and another dedicated to cycle camping. Of course not everyone who goes cycle touring … Read more

Cycloffee

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Cycloffee is a challenge that will benefit both cyclists, and coffee shops. As is commonly known, cycling and coffee is a match made in heaven!
The idea is to visit as many of the coffee shops as possible, and get your Caffeine Card stamped. Rules are simple: a visit to a coffee shop only counts if you cycled there, and obviously you can only get a single stamp per café.

To overcome the monster…

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Hills – love them, or hate them, you cannot alter the reality that they exist. You can try and avoid them – move to the Somerset Levels, or the Cambridge Fens, or most of Lincolnshire, for that matter, but sooner or later you will have to cycle up some hills. Some refer to monster hills, but … Read more

Preparing for a cycle tour

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How do you prepare for a cycle tour? How do you prepare yourself, so your cycle tour is pleasure, not punishment? No, this post will not turn into a detailed, structured training plan (though it does contain a link to a simplified training plan). If you were preparing to tackle the Hour record, I’d expect … Read more

Frazer’s Tour – Part 3

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This is the last instalment of Frazer Goodwin’s guest posts, in which he recounts his adventurous 1 400km ride from Belgium to Sweden, and his return to Belgium. If you haven’t already done so, I suggest you read Part first, then read Part 2. Part 3 This summer I managed to cycle from Brussels to … Read more

Frazer’s Tour – Part 1

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This guest post is by Frazer Goodwin – he’s on Twitter as @FrazerGoodwin and you really should follow him. Frazer is English, but lives in Belgium. Enough from me, I’ll hand over to Frazer now.

Part One

“Aren’t you too old to travel that far on a bike?”

It’s a question I’ve been asked by both friends and family. But I have finally managed to complete a multiday bike ride I’ve been planning for years – a ride from my home in Brussels to my in-laws place in Sweden on an island north of Gothenburg. When I posted that I’d done it on Facebook, a good friend here in Brussels simply responded “Nuts”.

Well, I didn’t get to ride that far at 57years of age by just climbing on the bike and setting off. So this short series about my bikepacking will start with the planning and preparations I undertook before the next post details the trip itself and then a final one will review what I’ve learned and plan to do next…

I have been thinking of riding to the island off the Swedish west coast where my in-laws have a house for a couple of decades. It is after all where my wife and I married more than 20 years ago. I had planned the ride in detail for last year, but the pandemic kyboshed it then. I managed to turn it into a tour of the Netherlands to at least use some of the accommodation I’d already booked. And that trip provided me with a lot of insight about how both my bike-setup and I coped on a multi-day bikepacking trip.

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Devon Coast To Coast – A Travelling Ouballies Ride

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Devon  Coast  To  Coast,  aka  NCN  27 This past weekend I cycled Devon Coast To Coast again, along with my friend Caspar (follow him on Twitter – he’s one of the good guys). I know the route very well – after all, I published what I genuinely believe to be the most detailed route guide … Read more

A Redlake Ride

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I’ve posted about Redlake before – it’s out on Dartmoor, and there’s a disused china clay mine, which left behind three things of note: a large spoil heap, a pit that’s long-since filled with water, forming a pond, and the remains on what used to be an old railway track. The name predates the mine, … Read more