Cycling Land's End to John O'Groats on a Folding Bike | Riding the Transcontinental Race

Imagine cycling from Lands End to John O'Groats...on a folding bike! Well Listener Bobby Reading who has just set off to do exactly that.  JBobby's family sadly lost three grandparents in the space of just a few weeks and he is using the ride as a fundraiser for Care Rights UK. Follow Bobby via his instagram account - @bigbobsadventures and you can donate to his fundraiser here. 

We also hear from Tom and Gavin from @BlindlyCycling about being the first pair to attempt the Transcontinental Race on a Tandem bike.

Watch my video all about Spectating at the Tour de France here.

Head over to Old Man Mountain and checkout the Manzanita Cradle 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:25

Hello everybody, it's Bella Meloy here, host of Sleek Travel Ride, and welcome to another midweek mini episode where I aim to keep you inspired for all things like travel. This week we're going to hear from Bobby Redding. And he has just embarked on a landed to John of Gross charity ride. And the purpose behind his ride is really moving. I came across this from Bobby just last week and was so moved by it that I asked him to send me through some audio so I could feature him on the show. Bobby recently lost three grandparents within the space of a few weeks. And I can't actually fathom the type of grief that would hit when that does occur. Bobby wanted to find a way to challenge himself during this time of grief and also commemorate the memories of his three lovely grandparents. So he has chosen a charity ride and he decided that he will take on the land to John of Gross route. And he's doing it on a folding bike, and he's going to be world camping the whole way. Now, this isn't the first time that Bobby's done a long distance ride, but it is certainly the first time he's done it on a bicycle. That's right. Bobby's previous adventures have involved a motorbike. So it will be interesting to see how he goes now on a bike that is human-powered and a folding bike, no less. The charity which Bobby has chosen to fundraise for is CareWrights UK. It's a charity that is near and dear to his and his family's hearts right now in this time of grief. So, listeners, I'm going to play Bobby's audio for you now. It's going to give you a bigger insight into what he's been dealing with, what his family's been dealing with, and what is up ahead for him. And I've also put a link to his charity fundraising page in the podcast show notes as well. Let's hear from Bobby.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Hi better. My name is Bobby, and I'm going to cycle the length of the UK for Care Rights UK from Landsending Cornwall to John O'Groats at the northern tip of Scotland, and I'll be wild camping in instead of shelling out for accommodation. This is all on a folding bike as well. Something which everyone tells me is a terrible idea, particularly when you've got a bad knee and you're not exactly used to bikepacking or wild camping or anything like that. The reason why I'm doing it is because my family lost three grandparents within two weeks around late June. Both granddads on the same day. Try and have something positive, try and do something which uh makes everyone, me, my family included, have a little bit of pride in something else. It's obviously in honour of our grandparents. You know, they're great people. When you think about when someone has lost their grandparent, depending on how much time they've spent with them and how much they grew up living with them, some people might say that losing a grandparent happens to everyone. Some people would say that it can affect you a lot more if you lose a parent, for example. But it's just the close proximity of these three grandparents being lost so quickly together in two grandads on literally the same day. It's just that's heartbreaking. And it takes a toll. You know, you're mourning not for one person, not two people, but three people, then it's it's not easy for everyone. Everyone at the moment seems, you know, they're relatively down all the time, not too happy, not too smiley, you know, it's just quite a rare occurrence for my family, just people that know them would attest. And it's not just the fact that my grandparents have you know have died, there's a lot of other things that have been happening as well. My mum broke her arm, you know, two or three days before before my nan died, before all of this happened, you know, and she's currently still not really in a good way. She has you know, she has the broken, it's the humorous bone. Thankfully, that looks like it's you know been stitching together quite well, finally. She's got an infection under it, and it's just tough to it's a bit of a road ahead for her getting back to full health. Our remaining Nan's partner is also in hospital at this moment, and you know, he doesn't look good. So, yeah, there's just a lot going on, and I'm hoping that this bike ride can just be something that we can look at. And it's for all my family, it's not just for me, it's not just for me to process my grief, it's for everyone to sort of I don't know, it's hard to explain exactly what I'm trying to say, really. It's just something good, something powerful, a bit of effort, a bit of pride in something which isn't all about depression, death, and the horrible things that have been happening. And then just to give you a rundown on a charity Care Rights UK is your care champion. It's the charity focused on promoting the rights of older people in care to know their rights and how to use them. Offer information, advice and support to empower people using care services and their relatives and friends, fight for better lives for people in care, challenge poor care, highlight good practice and demand a better system. So, yeah, it's a charity that's very pertinent to what's been going on in my family's lives in recent times. It's just been a real struggle to work out what we can, what we have access to, what we have the right to ask for in care, what's even possible. It's been a real strain. My grandparents they lived in Bexhill, which is fair way away from London, so it's difficult to care for them or to be there for them every day. So it's trying to work out what is and isn't possible. It's just you just have no idea unless you've been in the situation before, and most people haven't. So, yeah, a charity that gives you this advice and will advise you on the best course of action or what to say to the NHS representatives is invaluable. In terms of choosing to do this ride, grandparents dying was kind of the final catalyst that pushed me to do this ride, but I'd already been thinking about doing it. I did motorcycling, I took a bike and went motorbiking across Vietnam and Indonesia. I did the whole from south to North Vietnam in about six weeks and Indonesia, all across Flores, Sulawesi, and Sumatra as well. And I absolutely loved it. You're just focused on what you're doing, you're focused on not crashing into that chicken or the stray dog, or you're watching out for that lethal pile of gravel on that curve that's really to send you into the jungle hundreds of metres below, or you're you know, you're trying to work out how to navigate the latest enormous mudslide, you're really honed in on what you're doing. So it leaves a little room for for thinking, which is good when you're in a situation where you you know in a time in your life when you're not you don't necessarily want to think too much, such as right now, and even when you do think about things and what's going on in your life, you've got the space and the freedom to actually unpack it, no distractions, just you and nature. And I think the bike is going to be similar, and actually a little bit of a natural progression after the travelling that I've been doing over the past three years. Going on a motorbike is is you know it's pretty hard, it's not great on your tush, but it's you know, you're not putting a massive amount of physical effort into it, and you're also going a lot faster, so you reach where you need to reach, you invariably are going to reach where you need to reach, and you're less worried about a lot of things, really. Whereas cycling on the pushbike is a lot more, it's a lot more of a challenge, it's a lot tougher physically, and I just think it's a bit of a natural progression to move on to this as a challenge after the motorbiking and the travelling that I've done so far. That's not just I mean, I'm still gonna bring a book with me, I don't want to risk losing it completely mentally. It's also just something to focus on. Obviously, I said that during the motorbiking, you're not thinking too much, and when you think you've got the space to do it, but this is a proper project. You need to plan for it, you need to decide your route, you have to decide what you're gonna bring with you, what equipment you're bringing. It's just something different, a personal project, instead of just focusing on the bad stuff that's happening. And I think it's gonna be good for me personally to be able to just work out a lot of things, not just really what's been happening with my grandparents and everything like that, just in general. I went travelling for three years, basically blew up my life to do it. Had a good job or was renting a nice flat and just saved up the money and went on a long trip. But a lot of people go on these trips and they come back and they're ready, ready to take on their old life and they're good to go, they've experienced this wonderful, wonderful different cultures, friendly people, saw amazing things, but I haven't really had the same experience. I've come back and I came back in in December last year, 2024. I was trying to work out what I'm gonna do next. And to be honest, though, it was really the whole travel experience. I was just asking myself, even while I was doing it, why am I doing it? What am I trying to get out of it? And I've constantly been struggling to find the answer. Actually think maybe the book I'm gonna write about my experiences, maybe based on that, maybe based on the question of why travel. We'll see, I keep flitting across different ideas for the book. But yeah, I haven't been in a great frame of mind since I've been back. The thought of going back to the normal 9-to-5, by the way, for everyone who's listened to this and who's never done travelling or anything like that, you're probably thinking, you know, it's in it's embarrassing to think like this. It's you know, just get on with it, like that's life, you have to work and all that. But I've found it a real, real struggle to even contemplate the thought of going back to a nine to five, you know, just to essentially earn money for you're earning money for you in your salary, but you're basically a cog in a wheel that earns money for some person at the top. I'm just not really interested in doing that anymore. The problem is not doing that leaves a vacuum, a financial vacuum, and you know, a what am I gonna do with my life vacuum, both of which I'm really struggling to work out how to feel. So yeah, depression's played a big part in wanting to do this, and I've always liked to challenge myself, this is probably the first thing that I've decided to do that I'm not a hundred percent sure that I can finish. I mean, I went on a couple of training rides, I just went for a ride on the bike, on the London Loop actually, which is more for hiking, which I found out, and I only did, you know, less than 45 kilometres, 42, 43, something like that, and I found it incredibly difficult. After the first training ride, I had I got back to my parents' house. My legs were just there was like a an ache within them that just wouldn't abate whether I like if I sat down the pain would still be there. It was crazy. Yeah, it was a real quite intense pain, and then the thought, you know, comes into your head that I've got to do double that distance, even more if I want to finish it in any sort of you know, less than a month. So, yeah, a little bit worried that I'm not totally physically ready to do the challenge, but uh that's that's fine, that's what a challenge is. It's not a challenge really if you know you can do it. So I'm looking forward to it. In terms of why I'm doing it in in the UK as well. I just I've been travelling quite a lot, you know, in the last three years. I've I've been to I've done a lot of Southeast Asia, I did a good chunk of for South America, and yeah, I just realised that I really haven't seen a lot of the UK. I grew up in London, I've mostly lived in London with a stint in Canterbury, and I just I've got this sneaky suspicion that I actually have no idea what my country's like. You know, I've travelled a little bit in a car and did some hikes in different places, I've been to Scotland already, you know, I've been around the country, but not in this way with the bike slow, being able to talk to people that you're st on the way, you know, very rarely have I stopped in remote, remote places. So yeah, I think it's going to be awesome. And the UK's really expensive. There's not really any other way that I can see myself at this current time being able to travel through for any length of time if I was paying for hotels and hostels or whatever. So wild camping, it seems like the only sort of way I can do it feasibly, and in general, I often complain being from London that there's not much nature, and I am starting to realise once I've got this bike that there's a lot of amazing parks in London. The parks are proper amazing, and there's some decent nature around where my parents are living now in North London, but it's for cycling, it's not really it's not brilliant, it's not easy, it's a little bit stressful or can be. And after travelling and doing everything I've done, I've realised I mean I always thought that I was what they call a city boy, but I'm slowly realising that's not really the case. I really do value nature and I'm dying to get back into it and do something where I can be a little bit immersed. I don't know too much about the nature in the UK, and it's a lot of green, a lot of green hills, rolling hills, and a few mountains up in Scotland, so I'm really looking forward to seeing it and going through it slowly. I'm dying to get back into nature, I'm dying to see what the UK is really about. London is a massive bubble. The opinions you encounter there are not necessarily what you encounter elsewhere. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what it's like elsewhere, how people think, just what these places are like. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm also really looking forward to just to just to being by myself on the bike, just being somewhere and being alone and looking around me, and there's no one in sight, and there's there's nothing in sight other than trees and fields and nature. I know what that feels like after having done the motorbiking, and I just I can't wait to to do it again. Yeah, I'm just dying for it. I'm pensive about obviously the physical nature of the challenge. I don't know whether I'm gonna be able to finish it. I like to think I'm the type of person who will just push myself until finishing it, until I physically really cannot do anything else. But I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope I just enjoy it and I'm able to do a good, you know, hundred to hundred and fifty kilometres a day. That's the plan. But we'll see. I think the hills will have something to say about that. It's a struggle with my seven gear folding back, and then just all the general stuff. You know, I've never done a bikepacking trip cycling wise, I've never really done that. I have uh little bits while travelling, but not solo, getting food, getting water, finding the right camping spot. I haven't got a clue about any of that, so we'll see how that goes. But I've got high hopes, we'll see how it goes. I really appreciate you being able to fit me into the podcast. I love the podcast, and yeah, I'm just really pleased to be able to jump on and talk about what I'm doing. But yeah, I think it's gonna be I'm really looking forward to it, and we'll see how it goes.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Thank you so much, Bobby, for sharing all about your challenge there. Listeners, Bobby took off yesterday, the 11th of August, and I have included links in the show notes to his Instagram channel as well as his charity fundraiser so that you can watch along with his progress. And Bobby, I really hope that this challenge is able to do all those things that you said for yourself to give you space to give your family something to focus on that's a little bit positive and help you through your own grieving process as well. And I hope it also helps give you better insight into your own country and the beautiful natural spaces that you will be riding through. Nothing like cycling slowly through a landscape to watch the transformation take place as you pedal through all those kilometers, go through all the different counties and feel the undulations of the terrain around you as well. I'll also be really interested to see how you get on with the wild camping. Like you said, it's a very expensive way to get around the country if you're staying in hotels, so I can totally understand why you've chosen to wild camp. And I hope that everything goes well for you and your aching knees as you make your way there through the UK. I'm sure that it's going to be a lot different to the motorbike trip that you took through Southeast Asia. But I feel the purpose that you're taking this on will give you the energy to keep turning those pedals as well. Okay, listeners, I wanted to give you a dot watching update from the Transcontinental Race. A good friend of mine, Stevie Titten, who is cap number 29, and she's putting on a phenomenal effort. She's now in Albania. She's finished one of the final parkours and now just has the finish to get to there in Romania. It's a monumental effort. And my mind is blown by the idea, everybody, that's it. It was just over a week ago that I saw Stevie here in my backyard in France on the tour mole, and I can't believe that she's in Albania now. It's monumental. Something else is monumental, is a few days ago I had the pleasure to dot watch again, and this time I went out on the road to meet Tom and Gav. They were the first tandem to take on the transcontinental race. And I saw them on the day that they were about to take on the climb of the cul de tourmaline. Funnily enough, I saw them loitering outside of a lingerie, and then I excitedly waved them down and said, Hello, hello, this is me. I've been following your dot. Let me get some more of your story. And they were really magnanimous with their time and allowed me to record a little audio from them and get a little interview audio on the roadside. So I'm going to play that now. Just be aware that this is roadside audio. So isn't that what you're accustomed to on the show? This was just recorded on my phone, and we have a little bit of noise there from the traffic on the road. But I really wanted to share it with you because I think this story is a powerful one. So let's listen to that now. Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour. Coming to you on a beautiful, pretty sunny Thursday in the town of Pure Feet. And I'm with two absolute mega legends, Tom and Gavin. Who what are you guys doing at the moment?

SPEAKER_02 20:57

So we are in the process of doing with the first inviting them to attempt the transcontinental libraries. Um I'm visually impaired, so they've let us in for accessibility reasons. Tom Butchman, amazing guy, proposed it to me. He said he'd be the pilot and he will um try to, you know, guide us across Europe, which is has been what we do for the last 10 days.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Someone up to the TCM takes a little bit different in training. Has your lust being fully from this one t and muscle like the lust six months? You know, you've been able to get in.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Um we've been asked when the TCM is not gonna be a brand canceled in the nothing else to do with us all the way to announcement. I was like, oh, cool. When they announced TCM room. With another plant and something else. From that point on, we don't have to get a switch. So we didn't we never wouldn't happen together before. We bought the tank, it was 500 pounds in the late. It was 20 years old. And then we had a kind of pick it up a little bit from a little bit of my shop.

SPEAKER_03 22:16

You gotta put a nice big massive clumbing case on the left as well. You know you're gonna use, but you still gotta give me one, give me one, give me one.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

The thing that you do when you're on bike ordinarily is not possible here. And they've done an amazing job of getting us a bike, the chance of this money, you know. It's been it's been really good.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

It's been really and what it's not within its challenges. When are you remembering the calls? You have the language everyone? What are you coming on board here? You have a shit ton of common. And you've got the tomorrow and coming up now. But just the concept of them, some of the boundary. So they could well, and some of the women is a boundary at the base of the common, and then the woman about seven kilometers into it. And there's a great little syllabus and the must be. It's a beautiful bunny for the tomb.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

I think it's not as remembering as well. Like, this is an amazing mate to be mummy, you know. And these are amazing money. Like you come in the tomb and it's not as epic, you know. You've got to be jumping in, you've got to dig in when necessary. And we're getting better all the time. It's hard work.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

It's a massive emotional roller coaster. I've got a I've got an amazing friend Stevie who podcasters listeners, you'll know, because I featured her twice on the show. And uh I met her on the tourmalet a few days ago and cheered her on, and she's been sending me voice notes at the end of every day. And it was two days ago she sent me one and she was totally broken describing what it was like going over the parkour at the Asieta in the dark and the freezing cold on a descent that you can't ride on a road bike tire. And then I kid you not, within about an hour and a half, another voice message coming through, and she's like flying on cloud nine. So with a tandem, have you managed to always have it that one's up and one's down so you can lift each other up? Like, has that been a benefit as well?

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Yeah, I think I mean it's definitely a team effort, and there's no escaping it. With with this, you have to hold each other up. Physically, emotionally, everything. It's because I think as soon as there would be any discrepancy there, it starts to fall apart. And so I think we've been amazing. I think we've worked really well together. But the emotions do ebb and flow, and there's an element where I think we're honest with each other. You have to be, you have to be. When we're on the bike, we're like, okay, you know, we just dig here, we keep going.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

Yeah. And do you have a strategy? Like, is it just because I was saying before we press record, like even shifting in the saddle on a tandem is just not really an option. Like, do you have a strategy of how far you go before you stop, you stretch, or it was one side, I've got to stretch, I've got to stop, one eight to eat. Yeah. Have you synchronized your toilet brakes?

SPEAKER_01 25:01

On flat ground, cruise creep well, upper climbs. Like, I I find in my batch that's quite a lot of work it takes for me to keep the control of the front of the bikes at slower speeds. Keeping it valanced is quite hard. So I like something which I've not experienced on my road plate. So yeah, like when we were climbing at Bisque yesterday, we stopped a couple of many times, didn't we? On the way, it was maybe every 300 meters of climbing or so to kind of stretch the back out a little bit and just be pressure.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

It's a different type of climbing. The only I've never ridden a tandem before. The only thing that I can equate it to was a couple of years ago I did the raid pyrenees with my husband, fully loaded, so panniers, front racks, or front forks stuff. I think the bike was about 35 kilos. And what I realized, because I'm like you, I need to stand every now and then when I climb. And I generally do every few hundred metres, I'll stand and just to shift, but you can't when the bike's like loaded, and it's just you know, knowing these climbs because I live here, I know what I normally do, and then with panniers, it was like, oh, this is this is like total mixed level, this is totally different. But you go into a different mindset as well, which helps you, don't you?

SPEAKER_02 26:07

You have to, and it's interesting you talk about the training as well. I mean, we've discussed so much how do you actually prepare prepare for the TCR. Kilometry, the mileage that people are doing is phenomenal on a daily basis, you know, the lack of sleep. But from our perspective, it's also like you need to be fully loaded all the time, you need to be on the tandem. Like there's so much you have to do to get up to a level to be able to navigate the road, and it's gonna cost never mind some of the parkours where people have been taking on the gravel sections.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

Oh my god, I'm just thinking of the gravel sections on the tandem.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Yeah, that was a key moment because we avoided the gravel section, but even the other way was still a long, long slog. Yeah, there's there's been nothing easy. The tournament descent is gonna be easy.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

And you know what? You've got a clear day, there's not gonna be fog, you're not gonna um because the tornado is one of those climbs like all the mountains, and actually or bisque more so. Or bisque more often than not can be enshrouded in cloud and and fog bare. But it's a beautiful climb. I had my emotional moment riding when I rode across the Pyrenees. It was what reached getting near the top, that's the point where I cried because I think it was the first hard climb that I had done, like all the category of climb I'd done loaded like that. Yeah, and it was like, I can't believe we've just done this. And I don't know whether you were having those moments. Like, are you having moments like that? The emotions because like Talking Lad's a mega historic climb, doing it on a beautiful sunny day, yeah, you're gonna get so many people cheering you on, regardless of knowing about the TCR, like even just general Frenchies in their cars will be like it's been quite a lot of support in that way, and it's lovely because it does keep you going.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

And I think in the TCR data checkpoints, like you have to map out certain milestones, don't you? When you get to a point where the mileage is gone, you know, you're just sticking at it as long as you can, then you you start to find other little things to spare you on, and certainly, you know, going up the top of it and any support you get. But when we got to the top yesterday, I think we both looked at each other and we're like, that was good. Oh my god. Just dip in.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

We just got goosebumps because it's reminding me of how I've I did that with my husband, and it just says it is it isn't it? It is. It is, and you've done hard stuff before this and hard moments in times, but yeah, you'll have those moments. The thing that I love is you'll both now have those shared experiences. You can randomly just message each other, you know, in the future. Do you remember this? Yeah, or you'll go, you know, this was grim, but it wasn't as hard as that bloody parkour. Oh god.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

I don't do it already. We're kind of like trying to reflect back on that ridiculous 26 hours of no sleep and 365k to get to control point one. And we'll be like, Do you remember this? And be like, wait, was that?

SPEAKER_03 28:43

To the point where you don't know what day of the week it is yet.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Yeah, that's gone, yeah. That happened quite quick.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

Oh god. Well, you legend, you're both legends. I'm speechless. I feel so honoured and privileged to have been able to share a few minutes with you here on the road and cheer you on. And um, listeners, I've I've accosted them on the side of the road at a boulangerie. Unable to actually gift them a pastry because that would that would be against the TCR rules, but they have agreed to a full interview. So we're gonna get into the real nuts and bolts of this story. I am wishing you, as the French would say, courage, bon courage, bon chance, alay, alay, ale, the tourmale awaits magic memories are being made, and you've got so much to look forward to ahead of you. Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Have a good day, lovely.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

There you go, listeners. I hope that you were able to make your way through that very raw audio file. But what a monumental effort by Gavin and Tom. And I can report that they made it to the very top of the tourmole a few hours after that recording and descended down safely. They got themselves to the town of Tab, and both decided that that would be the end of their TCR journey. They were absolutely spent. But what a monumental effort. I'm still blown away by the fact that they hadn't actually ridden a tandem bike before this event. And they bought one off eBay, a nice 20-year-old bike, got their local bike store to get it ready for the TCR, and yeah, took on a monumental journey. I feel like that's what these events are about, and really it's what bike adventures are about too, isn't it? I've said it many times before. I think success is getting to the start line, the rest is an unknown, that's where the adventure lies. And I'm looking forward to getting an interview with Tom and Gavin and hearing more about their incredible journey. So keep your eyes appealed for that. Now, listeners, a couple of weeks ago I shared with you during a midweek episode what my experience was like spectating roadside for the Tour de France. I was lucky enough to get myself roadside for two mountain stages of the tour this year, and it really is just such a carnival atmosphere. I took some dime shooting some videos on both of those days, and I have finally put them together and released it on the Seek Travel Ride YouTube channel. So if you want to see the visuals behind that journey, click the link in the show notes to see the video or otherwise head to YouTube and find our channel there. It is Seek Travel Ride and you'll get to witness what it was like for me roadside for the Tour de France. Okay, now it's time for my favorite part of the show where I get to shout out you, my super fans, who've been absolutely magnanimous and bought me some virtual coffees. These coffees come in each and every week, and they really filled my heart with joy. This week I'm thanking Sebastian P and he said, Your pod has been a favourite for a couple of years now. Thanks. And also, has Eleanor Moseman ever been on your radar? Well, firstly, thank you, Sebastian. You're an absolute legend for tuning into the pod and for supporting the show. I wasn't aware of Eleanor Moseman before you sent through this message. So I can say that she's on my radar now. So let's see whether I can get a podcast interview with her to share her bike adventures as well. And then also want to say a big thank you to D Pak. DPak, you also bought me a coffee, you didn't leave me a message, but thank you for supporting me and the podcast. And listeners, if you want to do as Sebastian P and D Pak have done and support Seek Travel Ride, you can head to buymeacoffee.com forward slash seek travel ride. Buy me some virtual coffees, and more importantly, tell me what it is that you love about the podcast and where your next bike adventure is going to take you. And until the next episode, I'm Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.