Carry On Camping – quest for better campsites

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Cycle  camping  in  the  UK Camping is great – that feeling of waking up under canvas is a great start to the day. Of course, wild-camping – as in camping away from formal camp sites – is the best, but there are issues with it, too. For starters, some people prefer to have showers and ... Read more

Lungs recover, bones heal, but mental health is important

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Mental  health? Are  you  having  a  breakdown? There’s so much more to mental health, and it’s not a binary thing. Just like physical health, you see. After all, there’s middle ground between perfect physical health and lying in an induced coma in an intensive care unit. Some physical ailments, such as having a cold, is simply ... Read more

Giveaway – Food For The Road

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Food For The Road - a cycle touring cookbook
Food  For  The Road Food  For  The Road is a new cookbook with a difference: it’s aimed specifically at cooking delicious meal, using just a single pot. The booklet is small – intentionally so – and will take up no space at all in your panniers. It contains 19 recipes, one of which is for ... Read more

Preparing for a longer cycle tour

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Is  longer  cycle  touring any  different? There isn’t a simple yes or no answer to this question. Yes, it’s different, because it’s longer. No, it’s not different, because you’re still cycling, and carrying all your gear. Both preceding answers simply look at one aspect of cycle touring, but the reality can be far more complex. ... Read more

Book review – Miles From Nowhere, by Barbara Savage

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Miles  From Nowhere,  by Barbara Savage The very short version is that this is a book about a round-the-world bike ride. That description, while true, doesn’t come remotely close to doing this book justice! Published in 1983, it tells the story of how Barbara Savage and her husband Larry Savage, set off to first ride ... Read more

Am I good enough?

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The burning  question  everyone  asks Just four simple words: Am I good enough? Such destructive four words, too. All your life you were taught and told to somehow “measure up”, to be better. Better than what, though? Destructive? Absolutely! People’s lives have been ruined because they were made to feel inadequate. And even if their ... Read more

Mass campout postponed

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Best-laid plans, and all that On Sunday, I had a gorgeous ride. Unfortunately, some 2 miles from home, things changed rapidly. While cycling downhill, along a very narrow rural lane, I crashed. From the state of my bike’s front wheel, it seems something must’ve gotten stuck in the spokes, breaking at least 10 spokes an ... Read more

The WillCycle Mass Campout

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A cluster of dome tents on a mountainside
A  mass  campout? Indeed! You are invited to participate in the WillCycle Mass Campout, on the 18th of June, 2022. Now we dealt with when it will happen, we’ll swiftly move on to where it will happen. Here’s where things get, well, interesting. A  virtually  physical  event Wait, or maybe a physically virtual event! This is getting confusing, ... Read more

The making of a GoCycle route guide

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GoCycle  –  route  guides  you  can  trust You may have wondered what goes into the making of a GoCycle route guide, so I’ll explain the process here. GoCycle guides are multi-day leisure/touring route guides. If you’re a regular visitor to WillCycle, then you would know I’m a huge fan of cycle touring and cycle camping. Alongside ... Read more

Cycle commuting for beginners

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Cycle commuting in London
Thinking  of  starting  to  cycle  commute? Well, warmer weather is starting, and the bikes are coming out of sheds and being dusted off. Those two points are valid reasons enough for starting to cycle commute, but when you throw the massively increases in fuel prices into the mix, it’s clear that cycle commuting is a ... Read more

The £100 Cycle Touring Challenge

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But  cycle  touring  is  expensive… Or is it? I mean sure, it can be expensive, but does it have to be expensive? All the marketing tells you to buy expedition-grade kit. To be fair, price is often (but not always) an indicator of quality, and higher quality kit usually lasts longer. With that in mind, there’s a ... Read more

Sub 24-hours Overnighter

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Cycle camping at Redlake, as part of a mini cycle tour
What  is  a S24O? Adventure is to be found where you look for it. In a hectic, modern life, it can be so easy to lose sight of that though. We are under constant pressure at work, and often at home, too. So how do you find time for adventure? Sub  24-hours  Overnighter A Sub ... Read more

In a Now world, learn the value of slow

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I want  it, Daddy, and  I want  it NOW! If you ever watched the original Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (the Johnny Depp remake isn’t worth watching!) then you will be familiar with that phrase, uttered by Veruca Salt. It’s so easy to dismiss her character as an obvious exaggeration, from a humorous children’s ... Read more

WillCycle Adventure Fund Winner

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We  have  a  winner! When I started the WillCycle Adventure Fund, I was naïve enough to think it would  be far more popular than it turned out to be. I was quite mistaken, but at least we have one lucky winner. Given how unpopular this was, there won’t be another one, but that’s neither bad news, ... Read more

The Cheshire Ring – a Travelling Ouballies Ride

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My laden touring bicycle
The  Cheshire  Ring If you’re a regular visitor to WillCycle, you’d know that I’m quite a fan of cycling the very many canals in the UK. The reasons are simple, and very obvious: canal routes are often extremely stunning, are almost entirely traffic-free and are relics from the Industrial Revolution. I freely admit to being ... Read more