It’s now almost a decade since Laura and Tim Moss organised the first Cycle Touring Festival. The ‘in-person’ event ran each year from 2015 until the arrival of COVID. After a number of online festivals running alongside some ‘gatherings’ in Clitheroe in Lancashire, 2024 saw a return of the festival to its pre-COVID slot on the calendar – May – but to a new location: Coniston in the Lake District. I’ve had the privilege of attending each of the festivals apart from that first event in 2015 (I was cycling from Tarifa to Nordkapp at the time) and at many of the events I have given a talk.
Here’s a short video to give you a flavour of what took place last weekend:
As you can see, it was a damp couple of days (but that’s the Lake District for you…) but it was interesting to listen to a variety of speakers and meet up with people who, over the years, have become good friends. Many of this year’s speakers had previously appeared as guests on The Cycling Europe Podcast: Mark Wedgwood (who cycled every OS map in numerical order), the poet Caroline Burrows, musician Paul Cheese, writer Martyn Howe and the unflappable polymath that is Rob Ainsley. My own contribution this year was to give a brief introduction to one of the films that I made following my cycle around Europe in the summer of 2022. I chose part three of Le Grand Tour series which told the story of cycling the Via Rhona. You can watch it here:
The whole point of the festival is to provide a bit of wanderlust and, as someone with no firm cycling plans for either 2024 or 2025 (or indeed beyond), I was fertile territory when it came to being inspired by the travels of others. South and Central America were featured, as was South-East Asia along with several European and British tales. I didn’t leave the festival with any one idea that I will carry forward but it has prompted me into starting to think seriously as to how to answer that eternal question: where next?
Who knows? Talks and inspiration aside, the festival is always a good place to do a bit of tent spotting. My MSR Hubba Hubba was one of many Hubba Hubbas pitched on the playing field of the John Ruskin School in Coniston. But take a look at this short video:
Aside from the tents, quite a few people had come in their camper vans. Now before I go any further, unless sales of the the new book take off in a very unexpected (but very welcome) way, I am not, alas, in a position to be able to buy a camper van. A few years ago at the Outdoors Show in Birmingham, I had a chat with the chap who was selling this beauty:
£62,500 of quality German engineering. With customisation, that figure, according to the man who fitted it out, could jump to over £80,000. Not just that, such is the demand for the VW camper van that it is actually more expensive to buy a new second-hand van that it is to buy a new one as the waiting time is considerably shorter.
Yet, as my body ages and consecutive nights on a camping mat in a tent become gradually less appealing (I’m not at the point of abandoning the tent quite yet by the way), I do see the attraction of combing cycle touring and the use of a camper van. Here’s the campsite in Kehl, Germany in 2022:
There were quite a few nice vans being used by cyclists there. And I seem to remember that when I met these couples in 2010 near Strasbourg and in 2015 in Spain, I was fascinated by their vans:
I think both couples get a passing mention in the books that I wrote about each journey, as do their camper vans. The van on the right was actually very compact but had all the home comforts. Perfect for one or two people and the bike rack on the back carried their bikes (although I seem to remember they weren’t using them for anything long distance). This couple from Yorkshire that I met in 2022 were doing more cycling but they used their camp van to travel to a base for a few days and then head off on longer journeys each day:
They get a mention in the new book:
That was a nice encounter. But back to the camper vans. I can’t afford £80,000. But how about one of these at ‘only’ £35,000.
If you click on the image it will take you to the Volkswagen website where you can watch the videos. Alas I can’t afford £35,000 either but who knows? Perhaps one day. Second-hand vehicles from Volkswagen are also well over £30,000. I need to sell more books… If you want to help me, you know what to do!
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Categories: Cycling
This sounds like a fantastic event for any cycling enthusiast! I’m curious, with the return to in-person gatherings, did the atmosphere feel any different compared to the online festivals? Also, combining cycle touring with a camper van sounds like a game-changer—do you think it adds to the adventure or takes away some of the raw experience of traditional bike touring?
The in-person events have always been distinct from the online events and, in my humble opinion, much better. I’m not convinced there will be more in-person events however, not in 2025 anyway. As for van life… it will be a long time before I have saved up the money!!