{"id":252776,"date":"2025-10-31T08:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/252776\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T08:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:15:09","slug":"i-rode-3000-miles-following-a-david-bowie-lyric-and-this-is-why-you-should-do-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/252776\/","title":{"rendered":"I rode 3,000 miles following a David Bowie lyric \u2013 and this is why you should do the same"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019re going on a long bike ride<\/a>, there are many things to consider. Distance, scenery, potential cafe stops \u2013 and of course whether there is a pub at the end where you can click-clack your cleats across handsome flagstones and guzzle frosty pints while horsing down their entire supply of Scampi Fries. All these things were entirely unguaranteed when fate decided my long ride would be to follow a David Bowie song lyric.<\/p>\n

It was mid-2016, Bowie had just passed, Prince too, and, well, it seemed like the country was in an irreversible aquaplane into a ditch full of sodden vegetation and division. I wanted out, not of Europe, but into it. And it was the Starman\u2019s journey of the mind that would take me there. One day, just as I\u2019d started mournfully singing his classic \u2018Life on Mars?\u2019 I passed my bike in the hallway \u2013 and an unexpected route presented itself. \u201cSee the mice in their million hordes, from Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads\u201d. The lyric was, for Bowie, a sneer at mass tourism, but to me, in my ready-to-burst midlife crisis, it demanded to be cycled. I undertook the ride over six weeks during autumn 2016, and wrote a book about it<\/a>. Now, 3,000 miles and nine years later, here are six reasons why everyone should ride a song lyric.<\/p>\n

\n

\"James\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: James Briggs)<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll see the world<\/p>\n

From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads, according to Google Maps, could\u2019ve been a straight-ish 103-hour romp from southern Europe that passed through Valencia, Pamplona and Biarritz and then headed up France\u2019s western seaboard to stock up on cheap plonk at Ouistreham. A ferry to Portsmouth, a spritely dash around London to Norfolk, and I\u2019d be done.<\/p>\n

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But Google Maps is a bothersome chump that often leads you down dead ends, very wet streams and across people\u2019s back gardens. If, like me, you were considering a more sonic approach, Bowie\u2019s musical waymarkers could spirit you from Olympic stadiums he played in Catalonia, the hometown of his artistic inspiration Salvador Dal\u00ed, the Berlin wall he helped fell, and Parisian studios he recorded in. Such a route may be musical, but it\u2019s definitely not glamorous.<\/p>\n

Expect long verges of bland, wind-battered French dual carriageway. Yes, that\u2019s you, D-6086. Dusty flybys of stonemasons\u2019 yards that leave you covered in ghoulish chalk. Autobahns whose entrances you accidentally breach will confirm that BMW drivers deserve their reputation the world over. Ditto English village store masters who refuse to believe what you\u2019re doing even if you buy two kingsize Snickers and a yoghurt-topped flapjack. Oh, don\u2019t forget the Dutch rain. That\u2019s got your back… and your head… and your shoes. And the pannier you lazily left open.<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll get you fit<\/p>\n

Hours spent listening to David Bowie\u2019s music is no substitute for hours spent not doing any training<\/a>. Fortunately, having 3,000 miles to cycle means you have a lot of road to get fit. Obviously, the first four days will feel like your lungs are an accordion being manhandled by a Frenchman; your legs are essentially empty tubes where waste products joyfully gather before manifesting in spectacular, spasming cramps on Catalan hard shoulders; and your refusal to buy chamois cream will mean your buttocks will develop a prune-like polyp that\u2019ll have you shifting from one bum cheek to the other for around 400 miles. But rest assured, fitness is coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cYOU\u2019LL BE SO FIT, THE ONLY THING YOU\u2019LL HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IS YOUR AGEING BLADDER\u201d<\/p>\n

An extra fitness boost came with a 13km detour up an Ard\u00e8che mountain to see if a mountain village called Saint -Pierre-la-Roche was home to Bowie\u2019s namesake make-up man. It wasn\u2019t, but my thighs were whittled like silken balsa wood. Calf strengthening is assured by cranking your pedals to a blissful cadence and then bringing them to a grinding halt as you navigate Parisian traffic. And fast-twitch muscle fibres will be gained through terrified sprints back to your youth hostel as you dodge nouveau-riche millionaires racing matte-black SUVs on terrifying six-lane Moscow highways.<\/p>\n

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In fact, by the end you\u2019ll be so fit, the only thing you\u2019ll have to worry about is your ageing bladder and the lack of public toilets lining the route between Norwich to the Norfolk Broads.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find your limits<\/p>\n

No matter how many moodlifting David Bowie songs you listen to, injury is inevitable. \u2018Space Oddity\u2019, \u2018Let\u2019s Dance\u2019, \u2018Sound and Vision\u2019 and \u2018Moonage Daydream\u2019 will have you thrashing along no-handed as you attempt air-drumming while sitting atop a bike saddle for the first time. But beyond the 3,000mile mark, you will inevitably succumb to a range of age-related injuries.<\/p>\n

Kneecaps, once able to withstand footballs, English winters and bacon-heavy diets, will start to creak and grind. Not in a musical manner, but that of a man in his late 30s who had previously been sedentary for most of his life. That strange numbness in your finger that makes it feel as though it\u2019s someone else who is picking your nose? That\u2019ll be 48 days of vibrations coursing through your nerve endings. And God forbid you buy a cheap pair of glasses that snap on the second day of the trip, rendering your eyes receptacles for grit, dust and an aperitif of black flies.<\/p>\n

\n

\"The\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: James Briggs)<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll make friends with your local bike shop<\/p>\n

Having all the gear isn\u2019t compulsory, but a few key instruments are essential. Bowie wrote the bare bones of \u2018Life on Mars?\u2019 on a battered 12-string guitar but was accompanied by a cast of ensemble musicians, including lead guitarist Mick Ronson and classically trained pianist Rick Wakeman, who made the song really sing. I was accompanied by my fly-by-night camping gear, consisting of a second-hand tent, musty sleeping bag, stove and knackered soup pan, all bundled together inside a blue Ikea bag.<\/p>\n

My bike set-up needed more professional assistance. I\u2019d rolled into an east London bike shop with a 1980s racer, asking what panniers I could hook on, and was met by a certain amount of laughter. Fortunately, Brixton Bikes, a stone\u2019s throw from Bowie\u2019s birthplace, but now devastatingly closed for good, introduced me to the cycle-to-work scheme, touring bikes, hex keys, \u2018bulletproof\u2019 panniers and 30cm-long pedal spanners. Remarkably, I didn\u2019t have a single puncture in 3,000 miles on which to use said skills. That said, the tools they recommended for dismantling my bike to the satisfaction of a budget airline and judgemental train guards proved a godsend. May your demise not be in vain, Brixton Bikes. Do use your local bicycle shops, even the ones who laugh at you.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll get lean<\/p>\n

Diet is important on a long ride \u2013 mostly in the sense you can put whatever you want in your face without seeming to put on any weight. Bowie\u2019s favourite foods in the 1970s were supposedly red peppers, cocaine and milk. A heady cocktail. But on a bike ride from Spain via France, Switzerland, Germany, Russia and Holland, you can expand your palate into farm-fresh huevos, golden croissants, absurdly pricey Swiss ice cream, mountains of kartoffel and carb-laden potato and mushroom Russian pastries that would be well suited to building houses.<\/p>\n

Ch-ch-changes-inspired ch-ch-chocolate chip cookies are go, as are Haribo Minions shovelled into your trap on French D-roads. Hell, even strawberry-flavoured drinking yoghurt, the likes of which I hadn\u2019t been near since I was nine, provided delightful sugar-laden hydration, and probably diabetes, too. Looking to stay extra lean? Simply cycle for eight hours in 35\u00baC heat dining on cheap supermarket cheese. In other tales of dehydration, consoling yourself after a rain-lashed, goosepimple-packed ride across middle Germany with four tall yet deceptively strong bottles of Helles lager, will temporarily make you feel emboldened to text ex-lovers \u2013 but will also leave you with a thumping headache in a waterlogged campsite, wondering what the German word for paracetamol is.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll meet interesting people<\/p>\n

Cycling a David Bowie song lyric is a sure-fire way to provoke conversation, and sometimes, anger. You\u2019ll get a steady stream of \u201cMan! David Bowie? That guy was a maverick\u201d, but you\u2019ll also get Russian cyclists from Kazan telling you about the River Volga\u2019s start and end point; Spanish road cyclists too busy enjoying a tailwind to comment on your heroic musical endeavour; a Russian ballerina telling you she\u2019s mad for Chris Rea; and, when you shelter from an autumnal downpour over Suffolk, a blazing argument with a woman in a ski jacket who\u2019d rather have Cliff Richard wiggily singing her to sleep than the Starman. Is there life on Mars? Well, David, your song certainly put life in my legs and sodden soul. Indeed, whether you\u2019re cycling a lyric from one of the greatest songs ever recorded, out for a weeknight blast to blow away the cobwebs, or simply setting forth for a Sunday jaunt, there\u2019s music everywhere \u2013 from the wind whistling around your ears, the thrum of tyres on cool tarmac and the dawn coos of the narcoleptic wood pigeon. You\u2019re a cyclist. The open road is a hymn to music and living, and there\u2019s nothing like it in the world.<\/p>\n

The route: Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads \u2013 via Moscow<\/p>\n

After a quick whizz across Ibiza, I took the ferry to Barcelona and its Olympic Stadium where Bowie had played. I then pedalled east past Salvador Dal\u00ed\u2019s house in Figueres and over the Pyrenees to France, headed to Switzerland for Bowie\u2019s marriages, mountains and more. After dropping in on a Parisian studio where he recorded, I took the old Trans Europe Express to Russia and the Kremlin Palace he played. Then it was back on the train to Berlin, site of his Seventies sojourn, before cycling through Germany to Holland to catch the ferry to Harwich. Finally, I headed north via English villages, stargazing observatories and the \u2018Life on Mars?\u2019 piano player\u2019s home, to the Norfolk Broads.<\/p>\n

\n

\"A\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

The full, original version of this article was published in the 25th September 2025 print edition of Cycling Weekly. Subscribe online<\/a> and get the magazine delivered direct to your door every week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you\u2019re going on a long bike ride, there are many things to consider. Distance, scenery, potential cafe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-252776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}