ADVENTURE CYCLING                                                          Howard Ashton
 
My first bike was, to be more accurate, a tricycle, a bright red Gresham Flyer with a ‘boot’ and a chrome plated fold-away handle at the rear by which means it was supposed that parents could resist the urge of the rider to pedal off into the sunset! It was, at least with me, a futile gadget though I never did abscond very far! It was brought to me by Santa Claus as a Christmas/Birthday present (since I am one of those who, perforce, has to celebrate both festivals virtually simultaneously!)
 
I was, in fact, a cyclist some considerable time before I could be a pedestrian. I was born affected by cerebral palsy and my first attempts to walk did not happen until I was about eight years old. However, this progress I am sure, might not have been possible were it not for the fact that pushing the pedals of the much loved and rather badly treated Gresham most certainly built strength and tone into my leg muscles; the progression to balancing on two wheels came at about the age of ten or eleven. My memories of this transition centre on the use of privet hedges in the local park as a means of stopping and falling off with a fair degree of ‘comfort’!
 
My father’s desire for adventure was essentially satisfied by his early life in the Merchant Navy. However, he certainly got a lot more than he bargained for with the onset of the Second World War  -  the Atlantic convoys, the ‘ball bearing ‘ runs to Scandinavia and then latterly a tense life in ‘bomb alley’, supplying Allied troop action across the length and breadth of the Mediterranean.
 
Had I been physically A1 it seems very likely that I too would have wanted to explore the world by way of the high seas and get paid for it! As it is the family connection with the oceans courses with the blood through my veins. My adventures have been on two self-propelled wheels but so often I am lured onto routes where the crash of waves can resound in my ears as I skim along the coastal tarmac. So islands have great appeal and have figured much in my travels; Iceland, Sicily, Cyprus and Cuba, for example.
 
Over a span of some twenty years I have adventured on two self-propelled wheels through greater or lesser chunks of some 66 countries ranging – alphabetically – from Albania to Ukraine; globally from the Faroes to New Zealand. The earliest tours, to places such as Nordkapp in Norway, the most northern point of Europe, the Maritime Provinces of Canada – and even Hong Kong! – were made on a trusty, somewhat rusty and most definitely weighty Peugeot Mixte. But for the majority of my exploits I have used a Sheffield-built Orbit, on 700 rims and 35mm Michelin World Tour tyres, and in more recent times Schwalbe Marathons. A well broken-in Brookes saddle has never given me cause to complain either!
 
Narratives (and nowadays ‘blogs’ see crazyguyonabike.com) of cycling adventures include those of Josie Dew, Bettina Selby and Anne Mustoe, and many one-off ventures recorded for posterity. I have built up a small library of such publications; my own writings have yet to be published!!
 
But if you think you must have a modern, high tech, high spec machine to have an adventure of this sort then let me direct you to a couple of books recording remarkable feats of ‘bicycling’ endurance:
 
Thomas Stevens ‘Around The World on a Penny-Farthing’ (first published in 1888 as ‘Around The World on a Bicycle) records his three year circumnavigation which ‘pushed off’ in San Francisco in April 1884!
 
‘Round The World on a Wheel’ (John Foster Fraser) is “the narrative of a bicycle ride of nineteen thousand two hundred and thirty seven miles through seventeen countries and across three continents by John Foster Fraser, S.Edward Lunn and F.H.Lowe (first published 1899). The Preface concludes with this paragraph:
 
Our adventures therefore were of a humdrum sort. If only one of us had been killed, or if we had ridden back into London each minus a limb, some excitement would have been caused. As it was we came home quietly.
 
And this particular feat of persistent pedalling commenced in July 1896.
 
But perhaps ‘modern’ cycle touring was kicked off –so to speak – with Dervla Murphy’s classic trip from Dunkirk to Delhi and recorded in the cycling classic Full Tilt (first published 1965). Her machine was an Armstrong Cadet, personified as Rozinante, and from which the three speed derailleur gear was removed as “it was reckoned to be too sensitive to survive Asian roads”. Murphy set out in January 1963 – and into the coldest European winter on record – and she has been on the road incessantly ever since, though largely as a pedestrian!
 
So, apart from the bicycle, what gear do I need?
 
Perhaps this can be looked at in three categories:
 
What you could take;
What you should take;
What you must take!
 
From my experiences the latter category includes essentials that you just cannot buy (even on the Internet!!) Patience, Humour, Humility, Self Reliance!
 
Josie Dew, in particular, sets out in great detail in her Appendices the kit she used/carried. By her standards Murphy’s was absolutely minimal but did include a 0.25 automatic pistol and four rounds of ammunition!
 
Anyway, such lists can be both very useful but also induce a certain degree of paranoia about what to have with you, though it seems logical to realise that in a big chunk of the globe you are just not going to get spare parts for modern bikes. Yet there seem to be ‘wizards’ around who can fix almost anything (if it’s steel it can be welded!). And pals back home could always send you stuff via DHL or FedEx!
 
You can do it!
 
You should do it!
 
So invite Common Wheel to build you a bike on which you can rely and just sit back and enjoy the ADVENTURE!
 
Sorry, you’re without an engine so you will need to put in the effort, often lots of it – but it will be well rewarded!
 
 
To show you don't need a fancy bike, this is Howard's Peugeot. We hope one day to persuade the Transport Museum to display this.


The thing on the top of the stem is a Pletscher map holder, the sign of a true cycle tourist.