Cycle adventures for all

Over the last few years there has been an explosion of multi-day cycling routes – not least from Cycling UK. Often a mix of road, traffic-free and off-road cycling, they are making adventure cost effective and accessible for so many able-bodied adults.

If you’ve got younger children or have a disability, however, it’s easy to feel unseen by route planners. When Cycling UK launched the Rebellion Way, I was thrilled to hear that a handcyclist on a recumbent trike was one of the inaugural riders. Finally, I felt that there might be a chance for my daughter CeCe and I to join the multi-day ride party.

As a mum/support worker for a young person with disabilities, it’s easy to feel left behind when other friends hop on their bikes and pedal off to explore. That one throwaway comment – that the Rebellion Way had been designed to be more accessible – lit up in my brain like a neon sign.

I immediately contacted a couple of friends who are also mums, and asked if they’d like to try three days of cycling with us in Norfolk. They agreed.

Smiles, not miles

On closer inspection, even the Rebellion Way’s shorter loop was still going to take about a week for us to complete towing our youngsters. We’d also miss all the beach bits with that shorter version. We weren’t deterred!

Kelly-Jayne (Kell) Collinge and Phoebe Sneddon are my go-to mum adventurers. We were determined to find a way to ride at least part of the Rebellion Way. Phoebe started playing with options on Komoot, and soon we had a ‘taster loop’ that was approximately 30km each day. At this point we had no idea how realistic that was going to be.

Phoebe’s son Torben was only seven months old, Kell’s son Atlas was two and my daughter CeCe was about to turn 17. We were towing all three on trailers: Torben and Atlas in Thule and Burley models, CeCe on her Mission Cycles Piggyback trailer trike.

None of us had electric assistance on our bikes. It was deep winter, with piercing sunshine, heavy frost at night and short days. Within a few hours of starting our first day we realised that we’d have to make significant changes to our route to stand any chance of progressing.

“It’s OK, we can cut out Hunstanton today and just go straight to Heacham Manor,” Phoebe said. Prioritising warmth and comfort, we chopped off sections of route with alacrity. The secret to inclusive bikepacking is to keep expectations loose and remember that just being out together is what counts.

The following day we again found ourselves racing against the fading light when we pedalled through Holkham Park. As twilight replaced cold winter sun, we had our third puncture of the day. CeCe began to panic that we wouldn’t make it to our accommodation.

Between soothing her anxiety and fixing the puncture, we pulled together as a unit, seamlessly taking responsibility for different jobs. Before long we were pedalling along the lane to Wells-next-the-Sea. At that moment a barn owl swooped from the trees and along the hedgerow, starting her evening’s hunt. We pinched ourselves at how lucky we were to witness this moment.

I wrote an article about our adventure towing our children along the Rebellion Way. It was also made into a film, ‘Along for the Ride’.

Eighteen months on from that, we launched our second film, ‘Kids & Coastlines’ which is about bikepacking part of the Route YC cycle route in North Yorkshire. GPX files of all the route options can be downloaded from Komoot.

So what have we learned from making these films and from all our other riding? Is it realistic to make cycle routes that are family and disability friendly? And how do you go about actually getting out the front door and having an adventure when you’re responsible for more than just yourself and your kit?

Why do it

Firstly, we need to address motivation. Why on earth are you even attempting to do this? For me it’s partly selfish. The amount of care that I need to arrange and fund to get away on my own makes it infeasible on anything other than a day-by-day basis.

Quite simply, if I take CeCe with me, I stand a better chance of getting out on an adventure and I get the extra pleasure of exploring together.

Secondly, I was brought up having adventures with my parents (largely on boats rather than bikes but the principles are the same) and I’ve adopted the same parenting style with my kids.

They see you deal with uncertainty; they see you enjoying the freedom that time outdoors offers; they see you working hard but also they see you sitting back and enjoying the ice-cream or cuppa and laughing about the highs and the lows of the trips. In my book, this is all part of learning to be an active adult.

Children, young people and folk with disabilities often feel they lack autonomy in their lives and their family units. Bikepacking adventures where they can carry their own kit, help plan the route and even help fix things when they go wrong are powerful tools in helping that individual grow in self-esteem and confidence. They are no longer the ‘child’ in the equation but a fellow team member.

Over the course of one section of the Cinder Track between Scarborough and Whitby, we went from showing CeCe how to negotiate the slalom gates to her heading on and doing it herself with the rest of us following in her wake. A couple of kilometres later the same thing happened with a washed-out section of the track.

Where, previously, she’d struggled with the confidence to ride over some loose ground, suddenly she had the self-assurance and muscle memory to navigate the ruts without stopping to assess them first. The grin on her face told us everything we needed to know about just how happy it had made her feel.

Where to ride

The relics of the UK’s industrial revolution have become the future of accessible bikepacking in my eyes. Former railway lines, predictably straight and flat, have become multi-use paths that cyclists and walkers can share.

Victorian seaside promenades, like those that line the Viking Trail in my local Kent are a treasure-trove of accessible cycle tracks. The difficulty comes in linking them together, but route planners don’t need to worry about that too much.

The main thing we’ve learned over the last couple of years as bikepacking mums is that we rarely need more than 5-10km to have an adventure. We’re not aiming to recreate the long distances that other cyclists crave. Simply getting out the front door and keeping everyone moving is enough of a challenge to make these trips feel worthwhile.

Adult learning-disabled or physically disabled cyclists may be riding with support workers who are not necessarily keen cyclists themselves. Equally, families who are venturing out for the first time with their offspring in tow may find themselves feeling more cautious than they did when they were riding as adults with no dependents.

The way to help all these folk feel welcome and supported is for route creators to give as much information as possible in their route guides. At a basic level, route planners could highlight the traffic-free sections, along with providing a description of the ground conditions and any gates, tight corners or off-camber sections that riders will encounter.

The next level of information would be to add details of car parking, refuelling points (from basic shops to cafés). The gold standard of planning would cover all this and then highlight public toilets and specialist Changing Places Toilets.

The dream has to be for route planners to include adaptive cyclists or family cyclists in the planning and testing process. France, where cycling is a more common mode of transport and recreation, has maps and websites showing its cycle tracks. Across the country is a network of routes that are graded by colour and description to help cyclists choose where they’d feel most comfortable riding.

How to do it

This is the trickiest bit, I think. Adaptive cycles and good-quality trailers are not cheap, and it’s not always easy to know what works best for you and your crew.

When we first rode together on the Rebellion Way, I was towing CeCe. While towing an adult-size young person on a heavy trailer is a physical effort, the mental load was greatly reduced as I had complete control of her safety.

Likewise, Kell and Phoebe’s little ones were tucked up in trailers. By the time we rode on the Route YC this year we’d added Phoebe’s seven-year-old daughter, Sabine, riding independently; Kell’s son Atlas was swapping between a child seat on her top tube and his trailer; and CeCe was riding a recumbent trike.

This time the logistics of the on-road sections were completely different. We tried to box in Sabine and CeCe with adults in front, behind and alongside them. I’ll never forget cycling alongside CeCe on a residential road in Scarborough.

As the incline increased, CeCe’s trike automatically adjusted the gears and support so that she continued at the same speed and cadence, while I dropped away despite pedalling frantically. I had visions of her popping out the other end of the street onto the busy main road. Thankfully the others were waiting at the top to corral her until I caught up.

The easiest way to try out different kinds of cycles is to tap into the resources of your local community. Disabled cycling groups are dotted around the UK and have a range of cycles you can try. Organisations like Get Cycling CIC and Wheels for All are able to offer advice and demo rides.

Cycling UK has the Inclusive Cycling Experience project in Manchester and Inverness (see the sidebar). Networks of parents are usually keen to offer advice and a chance to have a ‘sit on and see what you think’.

Cycling UK, Cycle Sprog and other websites all have articles that help riders looking to learn more about the different options available to them. Sharing resources and information is the key to getting more families and individuals with disabilities out on their bikes or trikes.

Who to ride with

In an ideal world we’d all have a group of friends and family to go out cycling with, but I know it’s not always that easy to find. As the number of inclusive cycling groups and family cycling Facebook groups grows in the UK, it’s possible that there will be more chances to find your adventure tribe among wider friendship groups.

In our experience, having extra adults and even someone following along in a car is a great asset when you’re doing a multi-day ride. It’s hard to know when a young person or person with disabilities will run out of steam.

Being able to accept and adapt plans to meet that individual’s needs means they will feel comfortable voicing them. Also, they’ll be more inclined to give it another go next time you want to go bikepacking.

The day after the screening of our latest film, ‘Kids & Coastlines’, I received an email from someone who came to watch it with her seven-year-old daughter. She wrote that the first thing her daughter said in the car on the way home was: “Mum, can we go on a bike adventure like the people in the film?”

Simple words but they reveal the power of sharing stories and show why it’s important that we start to spread the word that bike adventures and bikepacking aren’t just for able-bodied adults but for everybody.