Another one bites the dust!

Every cyclists nightmare when you return to your once locked and secured treasured bicycle to realise it is no longer there. (This is in fact the 5th bike me and Jimi have have had stolen this year!)

A small possession for some which is in fact is my whole means of getting around, to and from work, to the shops and for pleasurable rides at the weekend. It is not only that they took my bike but I now have to sit on a bus in rush hour traffic, (something cyclists do not have to put up with) for an hour when it normally takes 10 minutes on my bike to get to work, it costs me my well earned money and is very time consuming. I look out of the window and felt a little bit jealous of the cyclists weaving in and out of the traffic cruising down the road whilst we re sat still.

Well, little did they know but they in fact did me a favour, my trusty (and rusty) old bike was in need of replacing anyway and now we have insurance (after numerous thefts) I can in fact buy the touring bike to train ready for our big trip next year. So thank you bike thieves for taking the decision out of my hands of when and how to buy the new bike ready for our tour. My bike will hopefully be as good to you as it was me, that is if you get the brakes fixed, put a bit of well needed oil on the gears, get new tyres and give it a good clean, but in fact you’ll probably sell it for a tenner somewhere!

The police officer said bike theft is one of the highest crimes but I hope in other countries around the world this is not the case. A new bike will be on its way soon, when Jimi kindly chooses and buys me one.

From South Korea to the Dales (full version)

I never thought I’d be a member of a website called Warmshowers and I certainly never thought I’d be telling people! However, its kinky sounding name belies it’s more innocent function: it’s couch-surfing for cycle-tourists.

I joined for a ride to Holland last year and stayed with some lovely students in the Hague who set the hosting bar very high. Six months later I received an email entitled “Could I Stay Your Place?”. After reassuring my girlfriend to let two South Korean strangers into our home I was given the go-ahead to welcome them in.

They were quite a sight: tanned, sweaty, weathered and laden but most striking of all was their attitude – they were “full of beans” as we say up north. We spent a great weekend in Manchester cooking for each other, them: traditional Korean food and me: less than traditional “Spancunian”. We saw the sights (Old Trafford), soaked up the culture (down my local) and had a game of kickabout in the park.

They learnt that I had just become unemployed and therefore saw no reason why I shouldn’t go with them to Edinburgh. Unable to provide them with any valid excuses, I got my permission slip and bought myself a pannier rack. Thanks to the hard-work and diligence of Manchester’s bike thief community I had recently been relieved of 1.6 bikes. So with a mixture of trepidation and padded lycra I set off with Joo and Soo on my (less-than-suitable) single-speed bike.

We spent an amazing week cycling through the breathtaking countryside of the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland National Park. We wild -camped, cooked big meals, played cards and stayed up talking every night, becoming firm friends along the way. We had a few hairy moments too: I’ll never forget settling down in my tent to go to sleep by a stream in Yorkshire and beginning to dream about gunfire. I then realised I wasn’t asleep. “Strange”, I thought, too tired to put the pieces together. “Jimi, sounds like gunfire”, says Joo’s tent. I agreed with him. “It is gunfire”, confirmed Soo’s tent, who’d just finished his military service. All of our tents agreed that we were too tired to move the camp so there we slept for eight hours to the soothing sounds of the British Army out on night time manoeuvres.

My recomendation to readers is that cycle touring is something anyone can do; it’s not a race and you just go at whatever pace feels right for you, it’s a holiday. I used opencyclemap.org to find cycle routes including the Route 68, known as the Pennine Cycleway. I learnt some important things that week; that traveling the world by bike is my dream and South Koreans have an unhealthy appetite for pork scratchings. I also know I’ve got some where to stay in Busan if I ever find myself cycling through South Korea, or at least somewhere for a warm shower.