Why Cycle the UK?
So you want to cycle tour The UK? As I write this blog post I just got back from a recent bike trip riding all up the east coast. Some incredible history, (everything is pretty much older then my country, (Aussie here!) Beautiful scenery, vintage infrastructure, humble and friendly locals. Oh and did I mention the enormous amount of cycling paths?
As a beginner bike tourer, I really believe that the UK is one of the best places to go to get your toes wet. As there is so many bicycle paths, you don’t have to worry about dealing with cars most of the time. If you follow the dedicated routes mentioned later, you can explore the entire UK on some really fun hidden paths.
Personally why I was interested in cycling the UK apart from being invited by my good mate, Eric. Was I have a ancestral connection, to the “mother land” as we like to call it. As I believe my heritage stems back to this very area. It was incredible to be somewhere where others walk many years ago. And to see the stunning structures that still stand to this day from hundreds even thousands of years ago.
If you have not already watched our adventure I suggest you check them out. We vlogged our journey on YouTube. If you are planning to cycle tour the UK it is a great insight to what you can expect. Watch my mates (The College Picker) UK videos HERE and my own perspective HERE. Subscribe to my YouTube channel for more upcoming travel videos and films about bicycle touring and bikepacking all over the world, if you like.
Routes
So where do you ride when you get to UK? How easy is it to navigate? What are your route options like? Terrain, and expected route conditions? First of all I highly suggest you use these helpful resources for finding routes in the UK.
The Sustrans is a charity organisation that provides information of more then 16,000 miles of routes on ‘The National Cycle Network’. When you arrive, there is signed paths to help navigate your cycling endeavours.
For the entire National Cycle Network Map click here.
If you are on mobile or pc you will be taken to a similar screen, like above, where you just see a map. Navigate to the second circle in the bottom right corner of the screen. And select ‘National Cycle Network’ and it will populate the entire map. Congrats you are now ready to ride! Well unless you want to stick around and finish this blog post to get some tips for cycling the UK.
If you want to find the perfect route, you can filter by region, distance or even traffic-free. Check it out here.
Knowing that we had pre-existing routes to just follow turn by turn, we didn’t do that much planning and just followed a route number #1 all the way up the East Coast, from Paris to Dover, catching the ferry and then following the coast all the way up to Thurso, in the North of Scotland.
Navigation Tips and Lessons from first hand experience!
At first it was a little troublesome to figure out where the little blue signs were to direct us at most corners on the route to see where we had to go next.
I was very pleased with the work that they have done to be able to supply all the signage that there was on our route. But there was some intenseness where the signs had been sun-kissed or faded. Making them very hard to make out.
A lady did tell us that the kids in the town we were passing through would turn the signs around to point opposite directions to be funny. Which is annoying, but very uncommon.
Overall the signs provided some great direction, although we did have to stop and look to see if we were on the ride track and were often times heading in a different direction to the suggested route.
It still meant that we relied less on our phones for navigation and could just follow the little blue signs.
Getting Food When Touring
Supermarkets are the most common place to find food, when on the budget. Most common stores are Co-Op, Tesco, Aldi, ASDA and Morrisons, just to name a few.
I was very surprised to see such a large selection as a Vegan, of prepackaged, prepared and ready to eat vegan foods that there was.
We would just buy food from supermarkets most of the time, and sometimes eat takeaway, from cafe and sometimes at pubs.
Getting Access To Water
Drinking Water
Just like I mention later about the ability to charge electronic devices. It was also rather difficult for us to find drinking water in public places too. Not sure what it is but most public parks don’t have a tap where you can just fill up your water bottles. If they did they were turned off, and sometimes we got lucky and there was parks were there was dedicated water refill stations.
Not all but some church graveyards have taps where the water is fine to drink. It makes sense as they generally need a water source to maintain the gardens. We went as far as drinking water out of the sinks in public toilets, not the best solution but if you find ourself in a stint it works.
Your best solution is to just deal with having to buy water every time you need some. I always forgot to buy water every time we visited a supermarket and I need more. As it is not something that I have had to do on a bike tour before. Or when you visit shops, like, cafes, restaurants, or pubs, even libraries. Just ask if they would be able to fill up your water bottles for you. They will be most likely willing to help.
Keeping Clean
Keeping hygienic on a bike tour, especially when you are not riding from hotel to hotel, can be tricky and is important to keep under control. We found some places that make for a nice clean reset.
Leisure centres / public pools
These are something we would go to maybe once a week to get that proper, refreshing clean. They would cost around £5.50 for adult to gain access to the public pool. And then you get to shower too. These locations often have a viewing room where we found as a great place to charge and work.
Random water holes, rivers
A more common cleaning location for us was waterholes and rivers or streams that we would cycle path every other day. Making great places to stop for a quick dip and decent clean.
Water falls
Probably not worth mentioning, but I am going to anyway. I did find one waterfalls which made a great shower fro a few seconds, because the water was freezing.
Finding Toilets
This was a difficulty from the very beginning of our trip in Paris. As soon as we rode out into the country side we found it very hard to find any public toilets and had to use the ones in ‘Tabac’ shops. Which are like small cafe that are licenses to sell tobacco and alcohol. It is like the place the locals would go to buy the newspaper. But a shot of coffee for 1 Euro and use there toilet.
As we moved further up north we started to come across public toilets. But some required that you pay up to £0.50 to take care of your business. Which I was not the biggest fan off, but when you gotta go, you gotta go!
When To Travel
Travelling during the summer time is best around, late June to Late September is the best time to explore the UK by Bike.
Weather and Seasons
Even during the summer, you can expect rainy weather from time to time. The rain in the UK summer is strange. It seems to drizzle for about 10 minutes then stop completely, most of the time.
Average temperatures were about, 18°C to 22°C. We did encounter a 40°C heatwave in France.
Public Transport With A Bikes In UK
I caught the train with ScotRail and they required that I called their number and make a booking for my planned travel over the phone. I am sure you could book online. But some stations did not seem to have the infrastructure to allow you to buy a ticket the day of your travels, or they would not be open. So it is worth noting that you need to plan ahead for your train journeys.
I know Cp caught a bus from a small town with his bike. And he had to wait around for a bus that could take him and his bike. Some of the buses didn’t have the room.
The reason I believe they want you to book ahead of time, is that they can designate you to a service that with have room for your bike.
Internet
Connecting to the internet and getting access to free wifi in the UK if okay. It is hit and miss like many places. In libraries you can find fast wifi and then in another library the wifi will be so slow that it struggles to load Google search results.
Getting a large SIM card data pre-paid plan seems to be the solution. Especially for data on the go. MacDonalds would be good for wifi and Starbucks. Best if you need them for writing blog posts and working if you have that remote income going for you.
Charging Our Devices
We mostly charged our devices on the solar panels (learn more about that here.) CP had some great success with his solar panel. He was able to charge his GoPro battery within a hour, on a sunny morning while we had breakfast and packed up our tents. It proved a very helpful solution, for especially the UK.
You can find places, like restaurants, cafe, libraries, pubs and stores to charge your devices. But it was harder to find charge at public places like parks and outside sport recreation buildings for example. Like you can find in Australia and the US. Mainly because all their buildings are very old and simply where not built to accomodate power plugs and outlets. Not even out the front of supermarkets were we really able to plugin devices while we got food. Your best bet is to eat at a cafe shop and other mentioned places to charge while you eat.
Favourite Things To Do In UK and Places We Visited
we are not those to do very touristing things, which is why we explore by bike. I generally believe it is one of the best ways to explore a country. Seeing its true charm! Away from the crowds.
It was nice to ride through the country side of small town Northern France. While it seems to be honest I personally enjoyed the country side of the entire UK.
There was nothing like a main attraction that really stood out that much.
However we did stop at Alnwick Castle which is famous for the first and second Harry Potter films as the Castle where the movie was set.
Having that said the castles and cathedrals were stunning sight and very popular in my book. I was a big fan of the huge gothic cathedrals, and there extreme detail.
Stove Fuel Accessibility From My Experience
I have the Trangia stove and it requires a alcohol fuel source and every time I write these bike touring destination guides after I finish a tour. I just like to quickly mention how I go with the accessibility of fuel when in that country. It seems that most supermarkets stock a alcohol fuel that is strong enough to power the good old Trangia. It was just a little difficult to find in small towns with limited supply.
How To Cycle UK On A Budget – Money Saving Tips
- Camp for free! To set up your tent for the night and be gone in the morning without paying a dime to camp. One of the things that was great about bicycle touring UK, especially in Scotland was the large opportunity to free camp and wild camp pretty much anywhere. They have no real results to camping anywhere on public land in Scotland and pretty much encourage it, which was incredible. One way to off set the costs of travel is having a go at camping. If one is able to express frugality and resourcefulness it can be a huge money saver. And also give you many memories and stories to tell from your adventures.
- PoundLand! And other store equivalents, just like a $2 store in Australia. They have are large amount of bits and bobs that you may need upon arrival, like a Aus to UK wall converter for example.
- Most supermarkets will discount food throughout the day. And you can find a specials area of the store. Where you can find groceries heavily reduced.
- Buy Secondhand. This is just a life tip in general, always buy second hand is a great way to save cash. But when buying gifts and souvenirs consider buying secondhand. Charity shops had some great items for gifts and also for clothes and other items.
How Safe Is It To Leave Your Bike and Bags In Major Cities?
Not so safe! As a pair we never really locked up our stuff. But when I began riding solo, especially riding through big cities like, Belfast. I was advised by the library staff to not leave my bike out the front ‘locked up’. I was like “really?” and they explained to me that even though my bike will be securely locked, that people would just go through my panniers. Which was sad to hear. I have a huge trust in society. But fortunately for me they were willing to let me store my bike out the back in a locked up car park, until I was ready to leave.
other times we never had any issues leaving our bikes locked together while we went into supermarkets to buy groceries and all that. Definitely not a safe as places like Japan, but maybe similar to US and Australia, in that regard.
Camping in UK
When on a bike tour I love to camp and wild camping in particular is my favourite. Nothing really gets me excited to go camp and pay for a spot of grass at a local campsite. Instead I prefer to hike my bike through thick scrub to find a secluded camp distant from the commonly travelled path.
Urban and Wild Camping UK
We camped in many public places, like, parks without any issues from authorities telling us off. We also made sure to get up and out early. however there was many times locals walking their dogs came across our camps, and even local park maintenance and nothing was mentioned about us not being allowed.
A common camp location was at churches. If you don’t mind sleeping with the grave yards. It is a nice quiet place to get a good nights sleep. I was a little fearful in the beginning, but after the first night it was all right and we camped at many churches.
Wilding camping was a very common type of camp for us, like I mentioned. Just find some grassy area on Google maps and head over and check it out. There was some forests and other places that made for great camp spots. Just insure to pack in and pack out.
Cycle Touring UK Tips and Hints
Camping in UK, especially Scotland can be done easily and for free.
Go to some Leisure centres for a clean.
See some of the UK’s stunning buildings! I was in awe of the buildings in the UK. And the overall vibes of the history and age to this place. It is not like Australia in the sense of the rich and very old history, it was refreshing.
Pick the best time to travel considering the weather or Prepare for the weather with the right gear if you plan to travel through the colder and wet months around December to March. But if you can travel around June, July, August is when we travelled and it is as it seems to be the better time of year, in regards to weather.
Enjoy the food! Worth trying some traditional British fish and chips.
Follow any of the cycling paths apart of the National Cycling Network. That is best! No need to worry about the logistics of planning routes, just follow those blue signs all your way around the UK.
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