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Just finished ‘One Man And His Bike’ by Mike Carter. One day he decides to ride around the coast of Britain over the next 5 months after being disillusioned with work and life etc.
Uplifting, interesting throughout, educational, poignant and written in a really witty and engaging way. Loved it and now quite sad it’s finished. Wholeheartedly recommended.
I’ve put it on my wish list, thanks for the recommendation.
I haven't read it but how the hell do you take 5 months off work to pedal around just because you're a bit fed up? Is he a city banker or something?
I enjoyed it too, but thought that the last section of the trip was a bit rushed.
I doubt it was truly a spur of the moment decision.
Not heard of it but I’ve just ordered it on the strength of the recommendations. Sounds in similar vain to a book I read many years ago, The Adventures of Goodnight and Loving by Leslie Thomas, if you haven’t read it I highly recommend it.
I also really enjoyed it, as someone who generally has a poor opinion of people there was plenty of positive and uplifting stories of human interaction, it definitely gave me a warm feeling inside.
"The Adventures of Goodnight and Loving by Leslie Thomas"
There's a blast from the past, I read that many moons ago.
On my wish list too.
Currently reading "Race of Truth" by Leigh Timmis, about his Trans European record, but also a lot about his mental health battles, gives it more intetest.
Got Jenny Grahams "First Coffee, then The World" next in line, and I'm on the waiting list for the copy of "Beryl" thats going round the cycle club.
"Back Seat Rider" by Laura Massey is a great read about their round the world tandem record.
Bike called reggie series are good too.
Lives in hebden I think from memory.
I had a spell of reading those sort of books
I haven’t read it but how the hell do you take 5 months off work to pedal around just because you’re a bit fed up? Is he a city banker or something?
He's a freelance travel writer. Makes it much easier to spontaneously go travelling.
It is a great book and thoroughly recommended, but I don't believe for a minute that he just decided to start pedalling round Britain without a lot of planning.
I enjoyed it too, but thought that the last section of the trip was a bit rushed.
Pretty much sums up my thoughts too.
It's like he had a word limit, put too much effort in to the first half and ran out of words.
Certain areas that I was looking forward to reading about got glossed over.
Back Seat Rider” by Laura Massey
That's next on my list after hearing her chat about their experience at a club night. Sounds like it was really tough for her partner.
It is a great book and thoroughly recommended, but I don’t believe for a minute that he just decided to start pedalling round Britain without a lot of planning.
It took me a while to get into it, I tried 2 or 3 times to read it before I actually got past the first dozen or so pages.
And yes, the first chapter is all about the total lack of planning, what to take etc and how he coped in the early days carrying way too much stuff, all the wrong things and so on.
Once I'd got into it, it was actually good and it's one of those books that really turns on its head the notion that you *need* this that and the other for any sort of cycle ride or hours on forums going "what are the best [things] for a long tour...?"
That’s next on my list after hearing her chat about their experience at a club night. Sounds like it was really tough for her partner.
Think I've just identified you from the Teams app! 😉
He’s a freelance travel writer.
A travel writer and disillusioned with his job!? Must have been travelling to some pants places - was he only being sent to Pontins sites!
...and then took 5 months off to, err travel - which he then wrote about. 🤷♂️
I really enjoyed it too. Think I read it during covid and it gave a great mental escape!
If anyone in the Plymouth area wants my copy for free just let me know.
Think I’ve just identified you from the Teams app!
lol, it goes both ways when you get a nice refurb'd retro bike 😉
excellent, I've just bought it on Audible now as he reads it himself. Had given up on Red Dwarf as it just didn't work for me as an audio book
Mike is a really nice guy who lives just down the valley from me. He was recently the back end of the horse in our local Panto 🙂
EDIT: I should have said that the front of the horse was played by Rob Penn, who also wrote a great cycling book "It's all about the Bike"
I read it a few years ago and really enjoyed it. I remember feeling a bit sad that I'd finished it.
I've cycle-camped for up to three and a half months. Each time it's been one of the many ideas germinating at the back of my mind that's eventually come to fruition.
I suspect if he'd thought about it more and done a bit of reseach he'd have gone somewhere more interesting but maybe that wouldn't have been idosyncratic enough to write a book about. With 5 months to play with why spend it riding around a wind and rainswept island when there's the European cycle network a ferry crossing away ?
Welshfarmer - I love the fact he lives in a small village in Wales now. He’d seen enough beautiful, quiet parts of the UK on his travels to reinforce his reluctance to live in a city again - good on him!
Was thinking about the Rob Penn book next…good but different to Mike’s?
@rascal. Yep, Robs book is very different but a very good read. Basically a great excuse for a world wide road trip to find the very best parts to build up Robs dream bike. He wrote it not long after his return from cycling around the world! There is also a TV program that came out after the book.
That sounds familiar! I think I’ve read it 😳🙄
Cycling around the world appeals more so thanks for the Rob's book tip. Bert whom I rode with in the 70s did it twice, the second time at 70. He didn't have much to say about it apart from rabid dogs and making sure he wasn't seen before lying down to sleep. I doubt he saw much, he did a hundred miles a day and was always head down on the drops.
I've got it lined up to be read next.
I'm reading the rob penn book on the train home from work, not very long so almost finished it.
Enjoyable.
My big bike ride last 18 months ago was in some ways planned in detail - in the stuff I took and the bike. But the route? I had an outline in mind and some folk I wanted to visit but day by day and week by week it was much more disorganised / spontaneous. I would get up in the morning and decide what direction i was heading in and each afternoon decide what campsite i was heading for. I( was away from home for m more than 4 months
Very interesting to meet other tourers and see their philosophies. From the folk with many kilos of expensive kit and expensive bikes with every day planned to the mm and every campsite booked for 3 weeks to the chap who proudly told me it was his first bike tour, his bike cost 50 euros,as did his tent and if he got fed up he could just leave the bike and kit and get a train home. He was even more random than me as to routes. Also the woman who got fed up of her high powered job, went to decathlon and bough a 500 euro bike and a cheap tent and just set off
Dervla Murphies books? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dervla_Murphy
These aren't cycling, but for anyone who likes books about long journeys I can heartily recommend:
1. 'The Long Walk' by Slawomir Rawicz. A 'based on a true story' book about escaping from a Siberian WW2 gulag on foot to India. This is personally very moving for me as my grandfather actually did escape from a gulag and wind up, via Karachi, in Britain and the RAF (sadly, how he actually did it has been lost in the mists of time).
2. 'A Time of Gifts' and 'Between the Woods and the Water' by Patrick Leigh Fermor. A totally different, absolutely joyous travelogue about a young man who travels on foot from London to Constantinople in the early/mid 1930s, across a Europe that is half aware of the coming storm, and half still a romantic tapestry of ancient castles, deep woods and Counts and Countesses.
Yep, Robs book is very different but a very good read. Basically a great excuse for a world wide road trip to find the very best parts to build up Robs dream bike. He wrote it not long after his return from cycling around the world! There is also a TV program that came out after the book.
I'd been trying to remember for ages exactly who was in that TV programme. It popped into my mind when someone was talking about a "bike for life" and the ensuing discussion that I didn't believe such a thing existed any more due to the ever changing standards etc. I knew I'd seen a TV programme on a guy travelling around building his dream bike but couldn't remember who.
Anyway, this thread cleared that up and I found the programme on YouTube:
Oh and it features Charlie Kelly and Joe Breeze with some back in the day Repack footage! Worth it just for that segment alone. 🙂
Having just re-watched it, I stand by my comments - what he's got is a reasonable bike that presumably means a lot to him but looking at it now is little more than a rather dated steel frame and some nice enough parts.
What happens when 2 authors with a passion for bikes get roped into the local village panto. To be fair they made a great impression as Cinderellas white stallion
I haven’t read it but how the hell do you take 5 months off work to pedal around just because you’re a bit fed up? Is he a city banker or something?
He was a journalist at the time working for one of the big papers in London. The Guardian, I think.
Mike sent weekly articles in to the paper as he cycled around the coast line. The book is all those articles put together in one volume.
Sounds like a book I read about a guy fed up at work so he buys a BMW FS800 and just sets off riding until his money runs out. Cannot for the life of me remember what it's called. In a similar vein to the other book I can't remember the name of about a guy travelling round the UK surfing.
I read the book a number of years ago. Really enjoyed it. Keep meaning to re-read it but it seems to have vanished in a house move.
Not bikes but I enjoyed The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. A good 'what have we got to lose' story of walking the SW coast path.
The audio book of Rob's book is on Spotify if you have premium.
Not listened to it yet but discovered it whilst looking for One man and his Bog by Barry Pilton.
(The latter book is out of print but the abridged version of Barry's walk on the Penine Way is on 4x and BBC Sounds)
Another couple of books I thoroughly enjoyed this year:
Round Ireland with a Fridge
https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/round-ireland-with-a-fridge-tony-hawks/863690
The classic Dervla Murphy Ireland to India with a bicycle
https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/full-tilt-ireland-to-india-with-a-bicycle-dervla-murphy/84868?ean=9781906011413
Bought the paperback, it arrived yesterday. Returning it to Amazon, the typeface is uncomfortably too small for my old eyes and varifocals 🙄.
Asked my wife to give it a go and she agrees. Maybe time I got a Kindle..
What I found to be a bloody excellent book (which includes cycling),was -->> Short Ride On a Fast Machine (Magnus McGrandle).
A cycle courier from London and his mate go on an surreal trip to Norway,to pick up a stuffed owl.
Sounds daft,but the description and details around the cycling parts (IMO) are most excellent.
Call of the Wild by Scot Guy Greive is a bloody good read.
I haven’t read it but how the hell do you take 5 months off work to pedal around just because you’re a bit fed up? Is he a city banker or something?
Sometime you just have to say f*ck it and take a gamble 🎰
Aged 52 (having worked in the NHS / education / health & social care - so far from rich) I am in the middle of an amicable but lengthy separation, I quit my job and after scootering around northern Thailand and island hopping the south (with my son), i'm now currently cycling from Kathmandu - Pokhara in back roads on a £220 (brand new) MTB in a pair of Teva's.
Whilst in Bangkok I successfully interviewed for a new job in the UK. This was absolutely winging it seat of the pants luck!
Sometimes you just have to take a gamble that things will work out, I guess it's how much control over those things you want that may impede your decisions, but it'll be different for each individuals personal circumstances.
I return to a bank balance of zero.
The only certainty is death (actually that's incorrect - the only certainty is compost and the ongoing cycle of life forces - but that's a whole other discussion) - I opted to take a look around before i go. It's also compounded how lucky I am to live where I do in the UK (Stroud, Glos.).
^^Superb and more than a little inspirational. 👍
took me a while to get into it, I tried 2 or 3 times to read it before I actually got past the first dozen or so pages.
And yes, the first chapter is all about the total lack of planning, what to take etc and how he coped in the early days carrying way too much stuff, all the wrong things and so on.Once I’d got into it, it was actually good and it’s one of those books that really turns on its head the notion that you *need* this that and the other for any sort of cycle ride or hours on forums going “what are the best [things] for a long tour…?”
Me too! Although I didn't have your patience and it's been stopping dust from getting on the shelf for around 4 years now
. ‘The Long Walk’ by Slawomir Rawicz. A ‘based on a true story’ book about escaping from a Siberian WW2 gulag on foot to India. This is personally very moving for me as my grandfather actually did escape from a gulag and wind up, via Karachi, in Britain and the RAF (sadly, how he actually did it has been lost in the mists of time).
I thought it was generally accepted that this was a work of fiction? There seems to be very little evidence for any of it.
Just finished this as well (‘One Man And His Bike’ by Mike Carter) and it is indeed a bloody excellent book. I actually listened to it on Audible and it is read by Mike Carter himself which makes it even better as of course it sounds exactly as he intends it to sound. Listened to it while I was out running and was continually laughing and crying. He really nails how I at least remember touring on a bike and it was brilliant right to the very end, he can really write.
Just started 'One man and his bike'. Easy to pick up and put down, and instantly 'into it'. Started reading it whilst camping a couple of weeks ago. Off camping to Bala next week, so will pick it up again.
Thanks for the heads up, started the audio book over the weekend. Really enjoying it. Just at the bit where he goes kayaking with the outdoors trainer who had enough of working behind a desk in his 40s and quit to start his company, properly how I've been feeling for a while now. The whole book just seems like a great idea.
With 5 months to play with why spend it riding around a wind and rainswept island when there’s the European cycle network a ferry crossing away ?
Perhaps because the scenery is so different in various places without traveling a huge distance, plus it didn’t require a ferry, and a bunch of documents to get through various different countries might have had something to do with it. Also, if things go completely to shit, home is a coach or train ride away.
Just a thought… 🤷🏼
Just finished reading it after this recommendation, also bought it for my touring pal. Both loved it, captures the spirit of both touring and this country very well.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/gallery/2009/nov/06/mikes-big-british-bike-ride
Andy sykes buke called reggie series is brilliant