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pennine bridleway hannah collingridge. vertebrate publishing paperback. 116pp illus. £15.95
if nothing else has emerged from the covid pandemic, at least we know that the british still love their bicycles. or at least likes them enough in preference to buses, trains, the underground, cars, and where the distance is too great, walking. those early years in life, when learning to ride a bike was regarded as a rite of passage, have engendered the knowledge that things once learned, are often regarded to be as 'easy as riding a bike', presumably on the basis that it's a skill once learned, never forgotten.
however, where childhood bike riding encouraged idyliic days of exploring the neighbourhood, with little concern for passing time, the contemporary model fields a more pragmatic use of what has often been deigned one of man's greatest inventions. suddenly, the bicycle has been awoken from its slumber and put to good use along hastily constructed, 'pop-up' cycleways, while routing the industry of more shop floor models than it had available. a colleague of mine had to wait almost seven months to have a warranty replacement for a fractured e-bike frame, because the manufacturer was unable to source a suitable substitute. employment in taiwan's bike factories must surely now be guaranteed for many years to come.
however, imagine for a moment or two, that you are one of these newcomers or adult returners to the way of the saddle. riding to and from work each weekday might just have awakened a desire and the possibility that the bicycle might have a wider range of uses, some of which might seem quite enticing, yet perfectly doable, given the inherent social-distancing fostered by virtue of its historic design. keeping fit is one obvious benefit, but exploring the surrounding countryside, while actually being a part of it, will seem for many, almost too good to be true.
and once the locale has been placed under the velocipedinal microscope, with travel and personal restrictions lifting even as i write, perhaps there are hitherto unexplored nooks and crannies of this country that might offer even greater vistas. the pennine bridleway for instance. this route will take the intrepid cyclist from derbyshire, through the yorkshire dales, north to cumbria. or, indeed, vice versa.
and though the excitement of discovering things for ourselves is one that extends from childhood, through adulthood, when time comes, a helping hand surely never went amiss? the helping hand, in this case, comes courtesy of author hannah collingridge. a cyclist for more than forty years, with a background in history, archaeology, landscape studies and language, it's hard to think of a better guide to take you from start to finish.
bridleways. almost by definition, are offroad, horses and their riders largely preferring to keep themselves away from motor traffic as much as possible. thus, unless your road bike features particularly stout tyres or you're a dab hand at repairing punctures, this is probaby a route more suitable for mountain bikes, cyclocross bikes, or, darlings of the industry, gravel bikes. the book is divided into seven stages, the shortest of which is a paltry 16.1km, extending to a joyful 71.7km. in fact, three of the stages are listed as just over the 70km mark, but in total, from start to finish in either direction, the route encompasses 384.2km.
probably not the sort of distance you'd undertake in a single day, nor, considering the surroundings through which you'll pedal, a distance you'd want to cover quite so quickly. assuming we're in total agreement, there's a not unlikely demand for overnight accommodations, a number of which are thoughtfully listed in a three-page appendix at the rear, along with rail details to get to and from the area. and if your bicycle turns out to be not as up to the task as you'd originally thought, there's a list of bike repairers too.
each section features a tour de france style profile of the parcours, along with details of which are the necessary os maps. should the latter not fit within your skillset, there is also a set of downloadable gpx files, in case you have had the forethought to make use of a gps computer on your travels. while the maps in the book are quite comprehensive, it would be quite the stalwart who rode all those kilometres depending purely on this compact and bijou volume. the chapters are also impeccably illustrated with photography by the inimitable joolze dymond.
i'll not fib; in any guidebook such as this, the directions are less than rivetting unless you're already en-route in the middle of heavy rain and cold winds. however, directions are not the sole vocation of ms collingridge, with numerous sidebars of local information.
"After 800 metres there is an 80-degree bend at Gotham which was so tight it required a check rail to prevent derailments. It's a further example of how new the technology of building railways was; bends this tight worked on canals, but severely resricted the speed of trains."
either way, whether you're a lifelong cyclist with every bit of bikepacking gear the catalogues have to offer, or one of those identified in my opening paragraphs, who has arrived at cycling by way of the pandemic, there's a great big world out there, just awaiting your knock on the door. assuming you've passed the apprentice routes near home, now it's possibly time to learn the true meaning of the word 'intrepid', just as long as you slip a copy of pennine bridleway into the top of your bar bag, or, at a pinch, a jersey rear pocket.
wednesday 12 may 2021
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