A little bit about us
We met in 2018 – at work of all places. We used to take our lunch breaks at the same time and share cycling stories. Within a month we’d bonded over bikes, the outdoors, and endurance cycling. Stew wow’d me with the stories from his solo John O’Groats to Lands End (JOGLE); a cycle across the length of the U.K and a bike ride I had always wanted to do.
One weekend he challenged me to a bike ride over the highest pass in Wales and I accepted.
Honestly, it was just a bike ride between colleagues, but halfway through I started to hope it might be more. The hilly 30-mile adventure was better than any date from my online dating escapades.
One week later Stew asked me to dinner and we went to a tapas restaurant in town. The date never ended, Stew stayed that night and never went home again.
A month or so later Stew said the words that you never want to hear: ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
I braced myself for what was coming next. “Here we go…’ I thought.
‘In ten months I’m going to quit my job and cycle around the world, do you want to come?’
Zoe’s cycling stories
It took me four years to really get into cycling. It was 2017 when I started to take it a little more seriously. I started taking part in local events like the Severn Hospice Big Bike Ride, Wye Valley Brewery Sportive, and my favourite, the Danny Mason Highlands Challenge
It was my brother’s birthday and he’d been to Toys ‘R’ Us. He’d tried all the bikes, rode them around the shop, and bought his favourite home. I watched in awe from the sidelines as he circled the car park on his black bike with stabilisers. My parents felt guilty, so we went back to get me a bike too! My brother was young, maybe six years old, was eight and we weren’t the jealous types, so, me getting a bike on his birthday didn’t cause any problems; he didn’t bat an eyelid. I picked a white bike with multicolour splashes and by that evening we were both whizzing around the car park.
Earliest cycling memory?
It was my brother’s birthday and he’d been to Toys ‘R’ Us. He’d tried all the bikes, rode them around the shop, and bought his favourite home. I watched in awe from the sidelines as he circled the car park on his black bike with stabilisers. My parents felt guilty, so we went back to get me a bike too! My brother was young, maybe six years old, was eight and we weren’t the jealous types, so, me getting a bike on his birthday didn’t cause any problems; he didn’t bat an eyelid. I picked a white bike with multicolour splashes and by that evening we were both whizzing around the car park.
Worst cycling mishap?
I was out on a ride, alone, on a route I knew well. I’d often cycle from Ludlow to Clun/Aston-On-Clun. It was one of my favorites, about ten miles, pretty hilly in place, but very beautiful. The ride was part of the Danny Mason Challenge one year and I remembered seeing people walking up some of that route.
One weekend I was out and the chain snapped. I didn’t have a clue what to do and I had no phone signal thanks to the area – rural Shropshire. I tried a bit of brute force, which was unsurprisingly unsuccessful. Just as I resigned myself to the fact that I was walking eleven miles home a VW drove passed me on the quiet country road. He had a family of bicycles on the back, and I prayed my luck was in. He had the tools to fix the chain and luckily I was able to ride home. Thank God he stopped!
Stew’s cycling stories
I’ve always liked the outdoors and I’ve travelled quite a bit with my dad. Before I started cycling I’d taken a year of work and got into hiking. It was during my year off work that I realised that bike packing allowed me to travel more distance, so I strapped my things onto my bike instead of my back and started cycling.
I heard about Mark Beaumont and his world records. His journey inspired me, so I decided to cycle John O’ Groats to Lands End, taking the extended route along the west coast of the United Kingdom. This JOGLE took 35 days and I covered 2,500 miles. It was tough going. It was my first bike packing trip and there were no opportunities to take my time or change schedule as I had to get home for my mum’s wedding.
Worst cycling mishap?
This is easy – I buckled my wheel in Scotland. It happened within the first week of my first ever bike packing trip, the John O’Groats to Land’s End ride. As I was coming around a corner my front wheels dug into some mud as I was turning and it threw me off the bike and over the handlebars and I was clipped in!
The front wheel was pretty much bent in half. I was alone in the middle of Scotland with no phone signal and a broken bike. Luckily for me, a man named Bruce drove past and offered to help. He asked me if I was ok, took me to the train station and better than that he drove around the village trying to find a spare wheel for me. I managed to get the wheel fixes at a local bike shop. The next day I took the train back to where I left off because I wanted to say I had cycled JOGLE by the end of the trip!
With Scotland being so remote my dad was able to find Bruce online and thanked him from Shropshire via Facebook.
Earliest cycling memory?
It was the day my dad told me that if I could ride without stabilisers he’d buy me a new bike. He tells me that he didn’t think I could do is. He took the stabiliers off, and I rode down the road without them like it was nothing. True to his word, he did get me a new bike!
