For years I have been idly toying with the idea of cycling from my back door near Ilkley to my Dad’s back door south of Manchester. It would be a slow version of part of a journey I have made all my life by trains and car – from home to University – from my family home to my first proper job – between my Dad’s house and where I now live with my own family. I decided that if I didn’t have a go this year I never would, so moved from toying with the idea to talking about the reality, buying maps.
When I mentioned my plans to Shane he said, ‘We ought to do it from your place to mine.’
My place to Hull has advantages. The lack of Pennines. A flat practice run for the real thing. A trip with Shane would mean a culinary as well as a physical adventure. The psycho-geography would be different but no less powerful – a slow journey across my home region, a chance to follow water to an estuary, a journey with a friend, and perhaps a healthier one than previous bike-less trips together in Holland and Spain. From here to Hull became the real thing.
So we met up to plan and agree dates in our favourite Leeds lunch place, Distrikt. We agreed dates but our plans only got as far as deciding that our first stop on our first day would be … Distrikt – after all Rosita and Johnny who run the place are cyclists, it would be rude to ride past. We also grabbed a twitter ID and bought a domain name because we realised that as we had been exchanging messages from Leeds-bound trains, almost by accident, our adventure had named itself.
