EXOTIC Bike Packing ADVENTURES (aka riding from Birmingham to Cheltenham for work)

At the end of September I had to work away for a weekend in the Cotswolds, and wanted to bring my bike. Staying in Cheltenham, the first half of the train journey was fine and the second half wasn’t. This is my vlog of the lamest bikepacking trip you have ever seen, starting on the train and finishing at a hotel.

Leg one: https://www.strava.com/activities/9943363931
Loop: https://www.strava.com/activities/9953311044
Leg Two: https://www.strava.com/activities/9955521773

I’m a bit self-conscious doing this on the train taking your bike on the train in the UK is non-trivial cuz today I’m going from Liverpool to cheltonham uh which means changing in Birmingham which means two different train companies each with different policies about taking your bike on a train the company I’m with now West Midlands or London Northwestern it’s just first come first serve and then if it’s not to too busy that’ll let you put your bike in these sort of areas the next train would have been cross country and they wouldn’t let me book my bike on they said 50/50 you can walk up and you can hope there’s no other bikes on the train already and I’m terrified about the idea of get to Birmingham and then having a bike and not being able to get on a train so I’m going to cycle from Birmingham to chelham today um with this big bag as I say I’m working this weekend it’s a bit weird um I’m doing a training course about perfumery in the cotal which is great good opportunity um but I wanted to bring a bike cuz the cotswalds are awesome and for those of you who know busum Lane I’m staying 2 miles from the bottom of bush gum Lane imagine being there and not having the chance to cycle it so I’ll just do maybe a boring video of me cycling through Brum suburbs down through the cot walls to them uh then hopefully one day going out doing Bush Lane and trying to get home on Sunday with my bike it’s going to be a hassle of a weekend I’m going to be exhausted at the end of it but uh yeah s a bit different maybe quite interesting I’m big on glamour on this channel as you well know and here is Birmingham New Street Station the most glamorous location I could have filmed from but seriously I’m quite excited about this video however much I factiously call call this bike packing or a commute really it’s just something a little bit different I’d be amazed if this isn’t my worst viewed video ever cuz cycling from Birmingham to chelham I think I’m on Route next stop chelham probably doesn’t seem very exciting but I just love the opportunity to do something a little bit different to what I normally do on my bike this was a great opportunity to cycle somewhere different but also cycle in a different style I do use my bike to get from A to B as a commute but that’s a very consistent well-known thing it’s very rare that I’m like oh I’m going to this new place I’m going to cycle there so after I got over the stress of planning this um I know that sounds silly but it was a bit stressful it’s places I don’t know I don’t know how convenient it’s going to be Etc um I actually was really glad to just throw myself into it as we come down here I think this is Edge Buon on the right on the left sorry if you’re a a cricket person I’ve not included all of the Birmingham suburbs they were fine I didn’t feel at risk but cing through suburbs is never nice Birmingham gets a bad rap by the way it’s unfair how much people say it’s a hole it’s just like any British City there’s loads of good bits and there’s quite a lot of bad bits as well just like my glorious Liverpool but it didn’t take long to turn left out of Birmingham suburbs and then you’re in glorious Countryside I was actually quite surprised at just how quick it was to get into uh into this nice Countryside and then south of Birmingham it’s really Pleasant it’s there’s no like massive Hills but it’s it’s rolling it’s not flat don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s flat um which is cool but hard with a big bag on this is hard amazing though I’m so glad I brought my bike so something I think it’s important to remember uh for me is that riding bikes is fun now I know that sounds like a silly thing to say but I have this theory that when you’re running after you’re done with a run you’re like oh that was great but in the moment running is just hard cycling in the moment is just an absolute Joy I love it and maybe I don’t get that across enough on this channel but every time I sit on a bike I get to go this is really fun this is what I want to be doing with my time so now I’m cycling through basically around Reddit which is a town I don’t really know much about apart from the mighty Kyle Jackson uh is from there and this whole little piece of infrastructure this road is for buses and bikes only which blew my mind I kept thinking is this right am I really doing this right but see all these blue signs it says local buses and bikes I overtook this lad and he was uh he was proper sound he gave me a bit of banter he said that I was looking strong and then he pushed to keep up now he’s doing way better than me cuz his bike must weigh 10 times what mine does uh to push up that hill then I took a wrong turn and I went through this weird little shopping center um I nearly ran an old person over by mistake and they were so nice about it we we had a little laugh and told him I took a wrong turn um and that’s why I titled this ride bromy are people too brummies brummies get a lot of just like scousers do I’m used to that um everyone here was so friendly I have an opinion of the South that it gets less friendly as many Northerners do but all of the bommies I encountered absolutely lovely now here’s one of the reasons that I loved this ride this is a town Gold oler I did not know olster existed there’s signs that say Roman olster and look at how like old and new it is stitched together this like Tudor style housing the old church stuff like that it’s maybe not the sort of place that being from Liverpool you’d come out to for the day but just to cycle through you see places you never would have seen you learn things about your country and your surroundings that you never would have known and it was beautiful it was really enjoyable uh to go through there on the other hand lots of the roads were a little bit and a little bit busy so be it you know that is that is the reality of riding a road bike in Britain I’m afraid but uh the reason I mentioned that is because this Range Rover for quite a long time had been trying to overtake me and credit to it it never actually did slam past me but I was quite conscious that it was up my ass here I am um crossing the river Avon I think this is town called bidford I think if I’ve got that right I probably could have done some research doing this voice over paused and checked but yeah I think that’s bidford I think it’s the river Avon I’m crossing um which is uh very picturesque there were some houses there that had like um Jetties in their Gardens and I thought wonder how much it costs to buy a house like that then I’ve gone past this glider club which is cool so it’s so flat on this little playe here um playe as in the geographical feature not the uh Airborne vehicle the the they fling gliders up into the air and people Glide around which is cool and I finally entered the cot walls themselves I think um really characteristic type of housing around here this yellow brick and I’ve done a video from the cots wals before but no one watched it so you know if you’re interested in the cot walls watch that this is Broadway my brother-in-law calls this the poshest place on Earth and you almost don’t believe it’s real whilst you’re there it feels like you’re in a film set or something or a you know downt to Abby uh sort of thing it’s bizarre and there’s coaches and coaches of old people who’ve come here for the day which is great cuz they can’t look into the road while they cross apparently it’s very hard not to scream at old people when they just step out without looking and you know you’re going to break their hip if you hit them but I tried not to cuz you know try and be polite and as I went through the cot walls there were lots of little bits like this that are probably very affluent but they’re incredibly picturesque like little manicured Estates nice roads I love roads like the one I showed just before that just have the fencing along the sides feels like um you’re going through someone’s Country Manor uh and this is I believe stanway so I didn’t know this area very well and I have to confess by this point I was trying not to check my um check my Garmin at all because I sort of didn’t want to find out the that I had a long way to go I was trying to push on uh as hard as I could but also I had that big bag can’t really get Arrow it was quite heavy uh but I knew there was a big hill coming up and I knew after the big hill it was still quite a way to chelum so this is wincham wincham is another beautiful cotwall town okay it’s it’s quite touristy um but it’s really lovely and I I did enjoy winum admittedly mostly cuz there was a butcher making sausage rolls and they smelled absolutely amazing I struggled with how to eat on this cuz I left my house at awkward timings I didn’t want to just grab from the train Etc so yeah I knew coming out of here that I was coming up to a hill it’s called cleave Hill so that’s what’s ahead of me now and I thought I might just have a punt at cleave Hill see what happens um it’s amazing how quickly my mental resolve goes look at me out the saddle big bag sweating around lovely view behind me um but eventually I I just sort of pushed on a little bit and I didn’t go I didn’t go full gas basically because I couldn’t so when I got to chelham my col eages told me that I’d absolutely made the right decision cuz the train they got from Birmingham to cheltonham the one I would have tried to hop on was so full that they could barely stand on it without a bike let alone the idea of trying to get a bike on there so I would have been stranded there’s no way I could have done this so I’m really glad um that I did it the way I did and I’m just pulling into chelham now Premier in you know the deal um I’ve literally just arrived I’ll admit I started finding that not quite so fun and towards the end it was block edwind the entire way uh and this backpack I’m not meeting Matt for dinner for two hours but I am right on the verge of bonking I think I’m going to sack it off feel free to judge me if you want it’s a bit lazy in it but I think I’m going to sack it off have a shower get a little snack and and refuel and stuff and just chill that was great I mean what a privilege to have spent my day cycling through almost all beautiful landscape um I’m really really glad I did this so I’ve got obligatory work stuff this isn’t a sleeping bag this is a rain coat that packs up nicely um yeah cycling rain coat I have to leave my bike in the room tomorrow while I’m at this work thing so I’m going to lock it to the bath just in case um absolute bare minimum on toilet trees I’ve got a toothbrush and a barely uh full toothpaste I can’t compromise on hair gel I do apologize that’s my only vanity and a small deodorant cycling kit pump uh I’ve got cycling nutrition on the sides of my bags which I haven’t actually used uh and then clothes I’ve got one jumper oh sleep mask in case I need it one shirt one t-shirt enough pairs of boxes as in I’m just wearing a clean one and one for tomorrow and that’ll be fine and a pair of jeans uh ample socks I’m going to do the old washing my cycling kit in the sink you can get fancy soaps right that um are supposedly gentle on your skin for your cycling kit this is water what I called SES sodium lather sulfate um and Coco Meer propile bet and they’re the main soaps in there and they’re fine they’re absolutely fine for cleaning your clothes so I’ve put a few pumps of that in I will give them a bit of the scrub and then I’ll dry them so draining the water I’m literally just going to ring it all out in the sink in the sink in the bath and then do the old Tavel trick L your kit along it roll your kit in it and then just ring it you will get a soaking wet towel and comparatively dry kit and then you can just leave it to hang dry overnight in your room so that’s not worked quite as well as I’d hoped cuz it was a bath mat not a towel but is that simple the home tricks people don’t teach you a I say that my dad literally taught me that so I was at my work thing all day today and I was a little bit nervous about leaving my bike in the Premier in I brought a lock unfortunately there is literally nothing to to lock a bike to in the Premier in like these are solid you can’t lock it around the table here or anything so oh yes locked it to the [Music] [Laughter] [Music] bath good morning from celum High Street at Sunrise it’s 7: a.m. and I’m going to go out and do a 30k loop that includes Bush gum Lane I’m going to do a little bit of a loop through the cot walls themselves afterwards but come back cuz I need to then pick up my bag from upstairs check out go and get breakfast and cycle to Birmingham uh to get the train so yeah I’m going to have a full on day but a full gas effort of bush should be a laugh it’s only well it’s supposedly 18° but it’s cold in that actually right onward so this really is the ride that I brought my bike here to do if you’ve seen my bush cam Lane Hill Climb video that covers the main climb on this ride but this is just some clips otherwise from it beautiful sunrise lovely morning I was really just delighted to be on my bike in a beautiful part of the world um enjoying such a great time here I go up Bush cam Lane like I say do do watch that video If you haven’t cuz it’s a a horrible and remarkable climb really um really Sensational uh straight up there for some of the hardest things I’ve ever had to cycle up which uh was fantastic but in this video I’ll show you more of the the loop I did as well uh nice to be out in the morning and frankly nice to be out quite early on a Sunday day before all the um Range Rover golfers were were out trying to kill me so this is cleave Hill I cycled up on my commute out um just descending it um which was much nicer and also thankfully just for this little section I didn’t have the bag with me left it in the room as I said and then this was the next Hill which was a bit of a a nothing climb as in it didn’t have many people on straa doing it and again I thought I might have a proper go at it um then it wasn’t on Garmin and frankly I don’t know quite what was in my head this weekend but I just couldn’t be bothered I was enjoying rid of my bike um I couldn’t motivate myself to really turn myself inside out knowing that I had 100k with my bag on ahead of me as well so yeah I I went um half ass full gas if uh if that makes sense and instead decided to just enjoy the surroundings which did vary and I really enjoyed this little wooded area as you’ll see in a second the views were fantastic but I knew that front and rear you weren’t going to get them so tried this would you reckon it’s not bad for a commute the nice thing about the cot walls is that you do get these Vistas um because the land around it is so low I’ve almost missed it haven’t I God damn it Tred my best maybe that’ll get something C WS man I think I might have accidentally voted Tori this morning and if that sort of joke’s not your sort of thing I do apologize but um it felt affluent around here to the extent and I’ve never really felt this before I did feel like an outsider like people are looking at me like who who is this greb so I went back to the hotel checked out grabbed my bag and went for a coffee before leaving Ritual Coffee Roasters if I may say so the coffee I had here was the best coffee I’ve had since I got back from Lisbon it was phenomenal and they were so nice and they were so happy to let me put my bike inside if you whoever in the area check out Ritual Coffee Roasters it’s the sort of place that I’d love to return to then it was business on with my commute that was wincham again on my way home I’m just going to show you the same things I showed you from the way out there’s nothing new in this um but it was really nice once again this time I had a howling Tailwind which was lovely cuz on the way out it was a straight head wind and the problem with riding point to point point is you can feasibly have a headwind for your entire Journey uh which I did this bit if you ever played Red Dead Redemption 2 reminded me of when you go to that manor house with the inbred family um and you walk down their treelined driveway thought I’d throw that out there back to bidford there’s those houses with their Jetties onto the Avon again and although the weather was still dry it was a bit worse than than all my commute out and I’d been considering hopping the train at Birmingham but getting off early to get even more miles in you know hop off at crew and I can cycle home from crew pretty easily and that saves me getting to Liverpool and having to get another train back to mine cuz cuz by Liverpool the river Mery is between me and my house whereas if I get off a crew I can cycle up the WHL with no faf unfortunately as I was texting ranan on the way she said the weather here is absolutely horrific so here I am get the train all the way into Liverpool like a lazy lazy boy cuz I couldn’t bring myself with my bag on to get absolutely soaked uh riding back from crew and it’s still at least a couple of hours to do that ride maybe three so going through Lime Street this is you know something I’ve done for 30 years so I I know it pretty well uh the escalators to the whel line were out but uh here I go buying my ticket and everyone every Mery rail staff member is trying to go don’t bring it bike this way mate and I’m going no no no I’m fine luckily my bike’s light but I hate lifts I absolutely hate standing rammed up against a bunch of strangers uh when I could be walking in my own space I was not getting in the lift I’ll walk down this escalator in my cleat carry and my bike thank you very much yeah all good thank you just to wrap up as you see me get the train to biren head their cycle home great thank you this was a bit silly you’re a bit a way to make a working weekend away more fun and I loved it I’d really encourage you if you like riding your bike if you genuinely like riding your bike try and do stuff like this work it more into your life so that it’s not on top of your day job it’s like more a part of of what you do I know that’s got a bit preachy um I really enjoyed this this was some of my favorite riding for ages um so thank you very much for watching I’ve only put this in to show you the flooding near my house to prove that it was pretty horrible I did make the right choice to not go all the way U and here’s my journey out you know fast enough decent power uh there’s the little loop I did around uh busam and back to Cham and then there’s my final journey home thanks very much for watching guys