{"id":264895,"date":"2025-11-05T19:03:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T19:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/264895\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T19:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T19:03:11","slug":"it-was-a-big-up-yours-to-modern-society-how-bikepacking-can-strip-life-back-to-the-bones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/264895\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It was a big ‘up yours’ to modern society’: how bikepacking can strip life back to the bones"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part of a series of Going Long with Cycling Weekly stories about long-distance, bike packing and adventure riding. Click here<\/a> to listen to explore dozens of Going Long podcast episodes.<\/p>\n

One Sunday morning at around 0400hrs, amid the first fuzzy fade of a new day, I found God. I was riding through the little village of Pegglesworth \u2013 a hamlet tucked in among the gentle rucks of rural Gloucestershire \u2013 when I happened upon a cottage, at the front of which lay an immaculately manicured lawn.<\/p>\n

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It was contained by waist-height featherboard fencing topped with clematis-entwined trellising, and bordered by a tenderly nurtured flowerbed. It smacked of class: the lawn, the rockery, the sundial, the wall-mounted hose reel.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

The. Wall. Mounted. Hose. Reel.<\/p>\n

I was taking part in an annual off-road ultra event run by MTB Epics. The Cotswolds 200 may sound innocuous \u2013 perhaps even rather quite quaint \u2013 to the layperson, but to those in the know it\u2019s one of the most brutal 200 miles imaginable. The parcours describes a sinuous path up and down the Cotswolds (an area of Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the UK), sending riders on an intrepid voyage across sweeping landscapes, through ancient woodland and up every hill it can lay its hands on. The event takes place in September meaning nights are long, the ground is often moist and mulchy with the first offerings of autumn, and temperatures can dip into low single digits in the small hours.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d prepared for such conditions of course – two sets of lights front and rear, wheels shod with Maxxis Ardent for grip and protection, and extra clothing to match any potential chill.<\/p>\n

What I had neglected to do though was to make a note of how woefully provisioned the Cotswolds is for resupplies. Yes, the weary cyclist isn\u2019t exactly fighting away offers of sustenance here: gas stations, convenience stores, fast food vans were all notable by their absence. If you want any pastureland or a country pile you\u2019re quids in, but if you\u2019re bang out of luck if you need anything to eat. Or drink.<\/p>\n

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It was midnight in Chipping Campden, halfway through the ride. I was fresh out of water and had a thirst on me that prevented an efficient means of progressing in a forward direction.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d drained the dregs of my last bottle about an hour ago after having made what I thought was a quite reasonable assumption: that there would be some form of liquid refreshment in the town I was currently in. A pub, a takeaway, an outside tap \u2013 anything would suffice.<\/p>\n

But it quickly became apparent that Chipping Campden \u2013 despite its elegant limestone-clad charm \u2013 was one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. The lights were off. Doors were closed. It was deathly quiet. I thought I\u2019d taken a wrong turn and ended up in downtown Pyongyang.<\/p>\n

An hour and a good few clicks to the south later things had gone from parched to positively arid. To be genuinely thirsty \u2013 not just a little bit dehydrated, but a bonafide \u2018I can literally think of nothing else but the procurement and consumption of water\u2019 kind of thirst \u2013 in a world where we\u2019re able to simply turn on a tap and imbibe at will, is a strange sensation. One that only few of us will ever have the misfortune to experience.<\/p>\n

So when I saw a church hove into view under the haze of a flickering street lamp, I thought I\u2019d been spared. Churches, you see, are invariably equipped with an outside tap. The thought sent me into a delirious frenzy as I hustled through the graveyard and circled the building, certain of catching the glint of a tap in the beam of my headtorch round the next corner. Or the next one\u2026 Or the next?<\/p>\n

Nothing. I\u2019d found the only church in Christendom without any exterior plumbing.<\/p>\n

This was a blow. I sat down and considered licking the dew beginning to form on the grass next to the church. A puddle to my left started taking on the form of a basin full of Dr Pepper. I had to get out of here before I caught a dose of dysentery.<\/p>\n

In and out of the wee small hours I rode, dragging acute dehydration up hills, skirting fields, wondering when I\u2019d find some semblance of civilisation.<\/p>\n

Then, the first fuzzy fades of a new day, and Pegglesworth. It\u2019s practically non-existent on the map so my hopes weren\u2019t high. Nevertheless, there WAS hope.<\/p>\n

And then I saw it. The quaint little cottage, the manicured lawn, the trellis-topped featherboard fence. And the hose reel. The. Wall. Mounted. Hose. Reel.<\/p>\n

It was too early for pleasantries with the cottage owners but I wanted this drink. I NEEDED this drink. Propping my bicycle up on the featherboard fencing I made a beeline for the hose, gently opened the tap, and enjoyed what has since been marked down as one of the top five greatest moments of my life. The water touched my tongue and I was reborn.<\/p>\n

Never, and I mean, never, had the simple act of rehydrating taken on such an ethereal experience \u2013 I was, well, in heaven.<\/p>\n

This is when I first started to love ultra-distance riding. Not because of this particular hose pipe in Pegglesworth (although it will forever remain in my heart), but because life had been stripped back to the bare bones \u2013 food, water, warmth, survival. Every time I go long it feels like an \u2018up yours\u2019 to modern society: I\u2019m going out on my bike, I\u2019ll leave the mayhem to you.<\/p>\n

Leaving that little cottage and its manicured lawn behind, I doffed the proverbial to its unseen occupants and, restocked with enough water for the next few hours, rode into the sunrise and another day of undiluted living\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is part of a series of Going Long with Cycling Weekly stories about long-distance, bike packing and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-264895","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\/264895","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=264895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}