2020: The Year of Roaming Home

“Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down…”

Hey everyone, It’s been a while since I posted here! I hope you’re all well, that you’ve managed to maintain some sort of sanity & wellbeing and here’s hoping for much more positive year!

So… 2020, the year of roaming home. I’m going to start by saying it wasn’t a bad year at all – not by any stretch of the imagination! Sure, plans were cancelled & we all missed out on a lot. But hey, why focus on what we couldn’t do when there was still so much we could do. We saw record numbers of staycations, people exploring more of what’s closer to home. Less people driving & flying, more people riding bikes. People pulling together & doing incredible things in their communities – it was a year that really did bring out the best in people. 

I wanted to write this blog to share my little bits of positivity & thoughts from 2020 – the year of roaming home. It was a year that really caused me to shift my perspective big time. It was supposed to be the year where I left my job & set out to cycle around the world. A dream which had been put off for years due to work & university commitments, then with plans finally in place – a pandemic came along!

I could’ve thrown a real tantrum & sulked about it. But what does that achieve? Rather than get upset about what I couldn’t do, it became obvious I needed to shift my focus onto the positives of what I could do. Sure, I wouldn’t be able to ride my bike along the Pamir & Himalaya mountain ranges, I didn’t get to ride in South America or South East Asia – but I did get to ride my bike with friends & that’s always a positive!

The year of roaming home was really just about keeping busy. I’d invested so much time into planning my career break that it become a hobby. Planning adventures kept my mind busy, I needed something new focus my mind on. When you break it down, adventure isn’t really a thing with any set definition, but a feeling. So that opens the question, why do you have to travel around the world to have an adventure? Well, quite simply, you don’t. It’s much more about how what you do makes you feel.

This idea of ‘the year of roaming home’ was really borne out of wondering what on earth am I going to do to fill my time. I mean, riding a bike & going on adventures is cool, but I need some kind of aim, a goal… something to plan, something to look forward to. That said, making plans during 2020 was easier said than done what with restrictions on travel & socialising changing seemingly every week!

A quick browse online through some bikepacking forums & channels, I found some routes that appealed & set about putting some plans in place. The routes that appealed were the ones closer to home, yet included sections I had never explore before. Routes like the Yorkshire Dales 300 & Lakeland 200. They made logistics easier, but also offered that sense of adventure from riding something new.

One particular highlight was riding the Pennine Bridleway with my younger brother. It was his first bikepacking trip & I couldn’t have been prouder of the effort & determination he put in to complete it. From the southern part of the Peak District to the northern part of the Yorkshire Dales, it was 4 days of riding over some pretty tough terrain – with plenty of climbing & plenty of British summer weather (rain).

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The simplicity of riding all day, eating & sleeping is so underrated. When you strip adventure back to its simplest form, it really is all about how it makes you feel, rather than what & where you’re doing it. Those 4 days of being outside, getting from one part of the country to another under our own steam, just focussing on the what we needed to do to complete the route really epitomised what adventure is all about for me. Views that require effort, meals that you’ve earned & sleeping somewhere warm and dry – you really do learn the value of these otherwise normal things.  

In amongst the chaos and bikepacking adventures, a couple of spontaneous trip up to the Lakes and Scotland topped off what was otherwise a pretty incredible year in terms of bike riding. Watching the sunset from the high fells, witnessing cloud inversions & sunrises in the morning, riding new trails with mates – looking back I have some pretty fond memories from the year of roaming home.

2020 was also a productive year for learning. I’ve always been a ‘take my bike to someone who knows what they’re doing’ kinda person. But with restrictions in place, that wasn’t practical. I figured if its broke, it can’t get any more broken, let’s give it a try. Sure enough, I learned that bicycles really aren’t rocket science! Trail side bike maintenance really is an invaluable bit of knowledge. Not only is maintaining your own bike cheaper, but it also helps you get to know your bike a bit better & know how to fix it, should the worst happen.

It wasn’t all rosy & perfect adventure though. I did have this ongoing battle in my head throughout 2020. With social restrictions in place, solo adventures were pretty frequent. I love a solo adventure as much as I dislike it. Adventures with friends are always the best – hi-fives at the bottom of trails, the banter, helping each other fix stuff, laughing at crashes (absolutely acceptable) & sharing epic views in epic places. Quite simply it can’t be beaten. Flip side is, as an introvert, I love solo adventures simply for the fact you can do what you want, go as far as you want, for as long as you want. It’s pretty tranquil to have a few hours alone with your thoughts – I find it important to get the balance of social vs solitude right.

The biggest battle I have with solo adventures is motivation. When it’s there, I’m free to do whatever I want & it’s quite honestly the most refreshing thing to wake up and decide you can do whatever you want with a day. Likewise, with no-one to commit to, it’s just as easy to decide to do anything if the weather isn’t ideal. Motivation is hard when you aren’t working towards something – that was the hardest part of life under lockdown for me personally. An inevitable side effect of losing out on something you’d looked forward to & planned meticulously for over a year. It’s hard to switch focus in a year that has provided so many other challenges.

So yeah, here’s just a few of my positive stories from 2020 & the year of roaming home. Here’s to another exciting year, one we should fill with hope, excitement & adventure; one where we can hopefully get back to some kind of normality – although working in pyjamas is one thing that needs to stay!