Musings

Photograph of a yellow bicycle leaning against a dry stone wall

25 February 2016

Hard to Write

Sophie Walker Bike, Going Home, Musings 15

Returning after a year of adventure, Sophie and Tom grapple with the challenges of settling back, the difficulty of writing, and the journeys they embarked upon.

15 November 2015

The Statistical Analysis of a Cycle Tour

Tom Passmore Bike, Going Home, Musings, Stats 3

For nearly 9 months we have been cycle touring around the U.S.A, Canada and, to much lesser extent, Mexico. Today we want to tell you the real reason we have been on this journey; to gather, collate and analyse data of the trip to give you folks an interesting insight in to the numbers. Whooo!!! […]

Photograph of Sophie Walker underwater smiling with thumbs up

1 November 2015

Plans Are Made For Changing

Sophie Walker Bike, Going Home, Musings 7

My motto, or at least one of them, is ‘plans are made for changing’. I love making plans; they give you something to work toward, something to aim for, look forward to. But I don’t believe in being tied to them. And I don’t think this is because I’m a quitter and give up, I […]

30 October 2015

Negotiating Changes

Sophie Walker Bike, Musings 5

Many of you will remember Tom’s post Cycle Touring Fatigue where he talked about having a tough time of it; the stress of the uncertainty, the boredom of the routine of the bike tour, the lack of knowledge acquisition and intellectual stimulus. Not to mention his most recent post “What Constitutes a Failed Cycle Tour?” […]

Photograph of Tom Passmore resting on a wall next to his yellow bike

28 October 2015

What Constitutes a Failed Cycle Tour?

Tom Passmore Bike, Musings 16

Tom Passmore’s introspective cycling adventure: challenges, doubts, and the quest for success. Is it a failed cycle tour?

15 July 2015

Cycle Touring Fatigue

Tom Passmore Bike, Musings 11

In all honesty, at the moment, I am not having that much fun cycle touring and have not been probably since leaving Lilloet at the start of June. One of the issues is the boredom of the repetitive and uninspiring scenery. There are of course exceptions such as the glaciers down to Stewart or the […]

30 June 2015

Positive Attitude = Positive Experiences

Tom Passmore Bike, Musings, Rest Day, Touring 2

Ok so I’m going to spare you some whining by pretty much glossing over the days of riding between Prince George and Houston. It was 3 days of riding, it rained every day, we camped in Vanderhoof and at a rec site off the highway, our tent was wet (though when we’re inside it we […]

22 May 2015

Hill Dread

Tom Passmore Bike, Musings, Touring 5

I have this thing that I have termed ‘Hill Dread’. I don’t remember exactly when it started, but I remember suffering from it acutely on our first multi-day mini-tour from Sheffield to Devon when I found out about Porlock Hill. For days beforehand I was consumed with a gnawing anxiety about facing this hill and […]

5 May 2015

A Night Off

Tom Passmore Bike, Musings, Touring 1

We were really tired. We both love meeting all the awesome people we’re meeting, we love the cycling, the seeing new stuff, we love the camping too, but after 8 weeks on the road we felt really beat and in need of a bit of down time, just the 2 of us and somewhere comfy […]

26 April 2015

Failed Attempts and Car Journeys

Tom Passmore Bike, Musings, Rest Day, Touring Bike, USA 2

There are a couple of aspects to the United States that completely blind sided Sophie and me when we started this journey. We knew, for example, that the the country is massive and that some of the states themselves were much bigger than England and some bigger than the whole UK. What we never understood […]