And the end of the street … Steve

Steve Dearden — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:57:36 +0000

Our first planning meeting in Distrikt took place on 17th of January, an important date for another reason; something that had sounded completely crazy became concrete … or tarmac.

For a couple of years, Gary Verity and what some people thought of as his spectacularly deluded Welcome to Yorkshire team, campaigned to bring to the region not only the biggest annual sporting event in the world, but one so essentially of another nation. Shortly before Christmas we heard that the 2014 Tour de France would start in Leeds and spend two days looping around the region. On 17th of January they announced the route.

Shane and I stood in the driving snow with more serious cyclists than us, watching suits and gowns arrive past the fire eaters for a celebratory dinner. We strained to hear rent-a-celeb-ratories, on that little screen to the left, saying how wonderful all this was for Yorkshire. It was a naff event and we left before the fireworks.

But the Tour coming is wonderful. Last year’s TV Olympics were pretty amazing, but this is amazing on an entirely different scale. To experience the Tour I won’t have to enter a lottery open only to those with the sponsor’s plastic, I will simply walk down to the bottom of my street.

The Tour has had its effect on Le Jaunt too. An idle fancy, a bit of fun for mates, has become even more fun – though I expect a call soon from the Tour’s logo police. And for anyone who cycles round here, however occasionally, however much we rely on muscle memory, the Tour coming has reinforced, or reconnected us with something essentially of this region, from Lal White, through Beryl Burton to all the people on bikes who all-day-everyday, quietly populate the roads round where we live.

This makes us shy about the limited ambition of our jaunt, but a little more confident about sharing it.

Door to Door … Steve

Steve Dearden — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:18:50 +0000

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.

Le Jaunt » Distrikt

And the end of the street … Steve

Door to Door … Steve