CHARLIE THE BIKEMONGER THE HIGHLAND HEIST

You know what? Bikepacking can really change you. Around ten years ago I cycled with my two great friends Crashy Simon and Beardy Martin from the south coast of England to Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands, so we could race the Single Speed World Champs. Naturally we cycled up on single speeds, largely because we had no idea what we were doing and bravado gets you up hills quicker than thinking things through (maybe).

This adventure turned out to be a tipping point in my life. I had temporarily left my job, my family, children, home, pets… and replaced them with almost nothing. I had never been so happy with so little. We never had accommodation, or bookings; we had a tarp and the woods beside the road. Even the simple luxury of an iPod was used only once on a massive climb. I know it was massive because the climb lasted the duration of three songs and one of them was a Pink Floyd track. Maybe this is how climbs should now be measured. It would make the Tour de France commentary more interesting… “Will Froome win on Alpe d’Huez today? He has a 15-second lead on Sagan, but he’s run out of Erasure tracks, and Sagan has shifted from the steady cadence of Pink Floyd to the more sprinty Psychedelic Porn Crumpets for the final kilometres – the gap is closing…”

It was a revelation to travel with so little: sleeping kit, not even a change of clothes, a stove, one pan for all three of us to eat from, the ingredients for a risotto, and a bottle of whisky. If we needed something we would – one way or another – find it along our way.