'End to End' has an appealing simplicity: riding a country from one extreme to the other. Top to bottom. Alpha and omega. All-embracing, complete.
You do the place, in all its authenticity and reality. Not only the beautiful scenery and tourist honeypots, but cement factories and humdrum garrison towns too. (You don't want too much of those, obviously, though a little gives you bragging rights as traveller-not-tourist.) Encountering the people, the places, the history. Interacting from the saddle in a reciprocal, positive way, impossible by any other form of locomotion.
You want a clear narrative: a strong sense of beginning, middle and end. Islands are promising for that reason. You want totality: the feeling you've at least glimpsed something of everything. Linear countries help with that. And you want a pleasant, practicable, affordable journey: most of us have finite holiday, and limited appetite for subsistence wild-camping.
All of which rules out some places too inconveniently shaped, crazily-driver, big or expensive, however Instagrammable. So, goodbye Iceland, Italy, Australia, USA, Japan, Antarctica, etc. I'm also discounting sabbatical-sized projects such as Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, or Tarifa to Nordkapp. And, conversely, weekendable drollery like the Isle of Man or Luxembourg. There are no definitive routes and we haven't included them all here. Yours should fit around your own requirements.
Bu hikaye Cycling Plus UK dergisinin August 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Cycling Plus UK dergisinin August 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
GANARY A COALMINE
The James Brown tune 'It's a Man's Man's Man's World' comes on the radio, filling the coach, and does nothing for my pre-event nerves as I sit surrounded by serious-looking, wiry, tanned men in Lycra. It's 6.30am, pitch black outside and I'm feeling very out of my depth as a relative newcomer to the world of clipless pedals and hurting for fun. Last night's stress dream involved being very unprepared to get married and being handed my great-grandmother-in-law-to-be's hideous silver dress with lace trim to wear minutes before the ceremony was due to start. I'll let you psychoanalyse that one.
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The toxic effects of pollution have been known about for years. 'Just two things of which you must beware: Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!' sang 1960s satirist Tom Lehrer.Over recent decades, though, pollution has dropped down our list of things to worry about, thanks to ominously capitalised concerns such as Climate Change, AI, Global Conflict, Species Collapse, etc. That doesn't, unfortunately, mean the problem has expired. Air quality often exceeds safe limits, with far-reaching and crippling effects on our health.
