A very British Adventure: Bikepacking (without bringing my bike)

Is it possible to go to another country, buy a cheap bicycle and then go bikepacking? I was about to find out. Travelling to the United Kingdom from Australia, I met my son in Shrewsbury where we purchased two very cheap mountain bikes and cycled to Bristol over four days.
Loads of laughs, lots of fun, we got up close and personal with the country lanes, small towns and villages and bridle ways that crisscross England and Wales.
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[Music] So, I’ve come all the way from Australia to come cycling around England and a bit of Wales, but I haven’t brought a bike. The question is, can I buy a bike, set it up with bike packing bags, and then tour around England, and can I do it for £100? So, I’m not really interested in the motorways and the big cities on this trip. I’m much more interested in the small rivers, the little villages, and the bridal ways. My son is coming over to join me and we’re going to buy a couple of shabby secondhand bikes and cycle from up in uh Shrosbury down to Bristol. What could possibly go wrong? [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] Whenever you’re involved in videos, Joe, we have to mute a lot of the bits. Hello. Um, cross the seven bridge up to there, [Music] which means this has got to be changed perfect. All right, a couple of hours of building bikes and we are on our way. Here we go. We’re like about 100 meters down the road and we’ve already got to start making adjustments. My bike has no gears at the front. It’s only got the one big gear. It won’t change. And at the back it’s a bit iffy. So, this is going to be Yeah, it’s going to be it’s going to be a trial. Here he comes. Panorama and I’m still too far away in on the first day and I’m deeply regretting my decision. The saddle’s too high. The top gears don’t work. The reach is too long. It’s very hard. The tires are awful. But apart from that, it’s great. [Music] It’s been a very long day for me because I started at 3:00 yesterday afternoon in Koala Lumpa and then I’ve flown to Dubai. I’ve flown Dubai to Manchester. Manchester I’ve got the train to Piccadilli. Piccadilly I got the train to Shrosbury. We’ve then spent a couple of hours building bikes and now we’ve cyggled over here. So I think I’m about a day and a half into this day or maybe even two days. That night, we were both off to bed very early. The following morning, we woke fresh and ready to go. Okay, good morning. It’s 6:00 in the morning. It’s rained a bit overnight. Uh, which is not great. Um, but yeah, I’ve come down. I’ve got a bunch of fixing and changes to make on my bike before we have breakfast and then head off for the day. Okay. So, what I’ve done is I have uh twisted these handlebars so that they flared up a little bit more. Um I’ve dropped these forward a little bit. I’ve dropped down the uh brakes so they’re actually at a proper angle to use with your hands. Uh the saddle I’ve dropped the nose down and moved him slightly forward. And then with the rack, we’ve squared it up cuz it was falling across the back. got like a little booster seat. We haven’t left the car park yet. And Joe’s chain’s come off and his water bottle carrier has broken. Yeah, I hope we’re going to get there, but you never know. I think we could end up on a train. Ironbridge is affectionately known as the birthplace of the industrial revolution. For us, it was going to be the start of a bridal way. Although we weren’t going to follow it all the way, it’s 2 to 300 miles of bridal way. [Music] [Applause] Yay. For those of you who are playing along at home, we are coming down the Seven Valley Way today. Um, which is also the Mercian Way, which is one of those longdistance pathways. So that way 75 mi to Chester that way I think it’s 26 mi to bootley. We’re about to head up to Bridge North. Um there’s a bike shop up there and then we’ll come back and hopefully join a rail trail around uh towards beauty this afternoon. [Applause] The same thing. So it’s minor adjustments. I just turned it around to the same Yeah. racks. Um, I’ve got a slow puncture. I’ve got a I’ve got a back tube that won’t hold air. So, about every half an hour, I got to repump it for the moment. But when we get to Bridge North, which is 8 miles away, uh, I think there’s a cycle shop, which should be open. We get some new tubes. But, uh, yeah, we’ll get there. Go and go out. Heat. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Push it to the limit. Push and push. I’ve only got a front gear and I got a flat tire. [Music] [Applause] The man in the shop promptly and efficiently replaced my rear tube while we overboard the bikes and we bought a couple of spares. Then he took a look at my front gears and proclaimed they’re seized. So there would be no chance of any low gears for me on the hills. Still could be worse. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] completely undone. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Oh, I see what’s coming. [Music] That’ll do. No, [Music] and all of a sudden we’re in beauty, wherever that is. Welcome to Burberry. Where are we? Budley. Beley. Welcome. Yeah. So, we’re now down in Budley, um, which was where we were originally heading for lunch. Uh, it’s quart to 5 in the afternoon. It’s taken us that long to get down here, but we booked into a pub. We’ll have a nice wash and then some dinner, and then we’ll work out what we’re going to do tomorrow. So, how did we go today? Oh, we went Heaps fire. No, we had 38 km of off-road, as in grass and farmland, with a million fences to get over and an awful lot of walking. Yeah. Hiker bike. Yeah, that was a tough day. [Music] Beautiful. Just cracking my back. I’m just resting my back. Yeah. Are you feeling refreshed? Yes. You’ve had a massive shower, clean clothes. No. And a Moretti. Very good. Happy days. Stella zero. Moretti not zero strength. So, let me give you an honest opinion. Oh, he’s got lipstick on the glass. Nice. Plus, it smells like a beer. Tastes like a beer. Very nice. had a whiz furious gold. [Applause] All right, here we go. This is day three. Joey’s still got a mountain of stuff on the back of his bike. His bottle holder is now entirely gone. The brakes are nonexistent. They’re ordinary at best. Um, casually and gracefully bringing him to a stop. Um, on my bike overall, it’s actually quite a small bike. Um, but it’s actually not a bad size for me. As I say, if you look at these front gears, they’re just a massive rust. So, there is no there’s nothing happening there at all. Brakes um starting to make quite a bit of noise as I use them. So, I suspect they’re uh on their last legs, but so far so good. Hopefully, we don’t have too many hills to go down today. Um but apart from that, it’s all going well. [Music] pint of milk. Hell yeah. Breakfast. [Music] [Music] So today is a day for Joe’s gears not going well. He’s just dropped the chain into the spokes. And now he’s just dropped the chain off the other side into the frame in about 200 m. Here he comes. Good as new. [Music] [Applause] [Music] that we keep on our company drinks there. [Music] He’s guarding the bikes. So, we might have cheated a little, but we’ve got the we’ve cycled to Droid Witch Spa and now we’ve got the train to Heraford. So, couple of hours down to Droid Spar and now we got a train to Heraford and then we’ll go a couple of hours down to Monmouth and we’ll stay in Monmouth tonight. This is horrifying. That’s not Joe. We’re going to go around that corner. King Street. For the moment, we’re on a rail trail out of Heraford heading towards Monmouth. We’re still coming out of Heraford, but it’s cycle trails all the way. And there’s a huge network of paths here. I think we’re going to hit a pretty nasty a- road at some point, but yeah, at the moment, it’s delightful coming out of here. [Music] Once we pulled off the A- roads, we’re back on country lanes and we could cruise our way down to Monmouth downhill all the way. [Music] the only person here. This is This is a twin room. It’s not a double bed. We’ve got See, there’s a tiny 5 mil gap between the beds. Anyway, I’m too tired to care. Food station. Food station. In you go. Breakfast three. Good morning. How are you? Jolly good. Not sore at all. We’re at the back of the pub in Monmouth. And uh this should be the final day getting down to Bristol. So we’re going to go from Monmouth down to Tinton Abbey, Tinton to Chepsto, Chepstone across the seven bridge then into Bristol. All being well. Um Joe still doesn’t have any real brakes of any sort. So that’s full brake. Yeah, full brakes. Not much happening. Front works. Does have suspension, which is nice. Um I still don’t have any gears. Um so we’re hoping very much today that there aren’t too many hills cuz we’re a bit sore. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Where are we? We are in the middle of the Y valley heading towards Tintin and on the edge of offers dyke. Who’s dyke? Offers dyke. Offer offer. This is the town of Tinturn right before the abbey. Hello. [Music] [Music] Tinton Tinton Tinder Tinton Abby Tint. [Music] That was fun. When we were climbing, 10 minutes of descending. So this is a chapstone have [Music] Yeah. We’ve just come from Shrosbury to cross we go. Tinton Tinton to Budley. Beley to Dwitch Spa. Got a cheeky train across to Heraford. Heraford train to Monmouth. Monmouth down to Tintton. That was a banging ride. And then Tin turn across to here. And that was that was hard, but not not the hardest thing we’ve ever done on this trip. But we did it. But we’ve done it. And then it’s just across into England. And then we might do a cheeky train into Bristol. Yeah. Down. [Applause] [Music] So this is now the motorway approach to the seven bridge which we’re about to go over. [Music] Old Blazy. [Music] [Applause] [Music] You can feel the cars. [Music] [Applause] Yeah. Go to England, go to London. You’re like, why isn’t you just stay in Sydney? Whereas if you go around through the countryside, it’s like going and seeing Australia and going to the countryside is so different to going to Sydney. Yeah. I just don’t get why you do that. Yeah. What? I’m playing a trumpet at the station. Gregs. That’s all I got to say. We are now approaching Shia Hampton. [Music] So, we reached Bristol, the town of my birth. Can you bike tour on cheap, old, unreliable secondhand bikes? Yes, you can. It takes some effort and some patience, but we had so many laughs along the way. Yes, there were a lot of difficulties on the hills, both going up for me and going down for Joe. We were both pretty sore for a couple of days after we finished, but it all came together to create a trip full of great memories, and we found a wonderful way to get up close and personal to the many layers that is Great Britain. Some bits of Bristol haven’t changed for the better. There’s a lot of caravans, people living in them. I don’t know why. Britain is a complex, messy series of layers from its Neolithic beginnings, its Norman invasion through to Henry VII and the dissolution of the monasteries. It’s got an industrial past as well as an agricultural past. It has modern ways intertwined with its ancient bridal ways. It doesn’t generally try to be pretty, but when it does, it is magnificent. [Music] Good, good. [Music] [Music] [Applause] Counting the days until summer. Feeling the warm rays upon my face. Leave all my worries in the gentle breeze. Big sunshine, new life in the way I need. Counting days until summer. Feeling warm upon my face. Leave all my worries in a gentle breeze. Done.