The Long Way Home: Why the Best Rides Aren’t Always the Fastest

There is a particular kind of junction every cyclist knows.

Home is left.

Right is a road you've never ridden.

You have enough daylight, probably enough water and no particularly convincing reason to be back yet.

So you turn right.

And sometimes that turns an ordinary ride into the one you remember.

Not every ride needs a purpose

Cycling comes with a lot of numbers.

Speed. Distance. Power. Heart rate. Cadence. Elevation. Training load. Personal bests. Segments.

They can all add something to riding.

Training towards a goal can be enormously satisfying. Watching yourself become fitter or faster is one of the pleasures of cycling.

But not every ride needs to be training.

Sometimes the entire objective can be to go somewhere on a bicycle.

That's enough.

Leave something unexplored

The more you ride an area, the easier it is to optimise it.

You discover which roads have the best surfaces. Which junctions are annoying. Where the good climbs are. Which lanes are quiet. Where to stop for coffee.

Eventually you build a collection of reliable routes.

There's nothing wrong with that.

But familiarity can quietly remove the discovery.

You ride past the same turning because your route goes straight on.

You see the same village name on a sign without ever visiting it.

You notice a lane disappearing between two hedges and wonder where it goes.

One day, take it.

Adventure doesn't have to be somewhere else

Cycling imagery has given adventure some fairly demanding entry requirements.

Epic mountains. Gravel tracks disappearing towards the horizon. Bikepacking bags strapped to every available tube. Wild camping beneath enormous skies.

Those things can be brilliant.

But you don't need any of them to explore.

Adventure is relative.

If you've never ridden the lane five miles from home, you don't know what's around the corner any more than you know what's beyond the next mountain in another country.

You can discover somewhere new on a Tuesday evening.

That's one of the great things about a bicycle.

Take the road you normally pass

Next time you have time, change the route.

Not dramatically.

Just enough.

Take the turning you've always ignored.

Ride through the village you've only ever passed.

Follow the road towards the place with the interesting name.

If there's a legal trail or bridleway that's appropriate for your bike and ability, see where it goes.

You don't necessarily need a destination.

Discovery can be the destination.

Some roads will turn out to be disappointing.

Some will contain ridiculous climbs.

Some will lead precisely nowhere useful.

And occasionally you'll find a road that immediately becomes part of every future route you plan through the area.

You won't know until you ride it.

Stop measuring every good ride by speed

There is nothing wrong with riding fast.

There's something immensely satisfying about getting home, uploading a ride and discovering you've covered familiar ground faster than ever before.

But average speed is only capable of measuring average speed.

It can't tell you whether the ride was good.

A fast 40-mile training ride can be brilliant.

So can 25 miles involving a wrong turn, a climb you weren't expecting, a view you stopped to photograph and a café you didn't know existed.

Neither is a better version of cycling.

They're different rides.

Make room for both.

Give yourself permission to stop

Cyclists can be strangely reluctant to stop.

You spend an hour riding through beautiful countryside, see an incredible view and immediately ride past it.

There is no reason for this.

Stop.

Look at it.

Take a photograph if you want one.

See a bakery? Go in.

Find a café you didn't know existed? Have a coffee.

Notice a path down to the sea? If you can legally and safely get there, go and have a look.

The average-speed number will survive.

A bicycle is one of the best ways of experiencing a place precisely because you're travelling quickly enough to cover ground but slowly enough to notice what's around you.

Take advantage of it.

Carry enough to change the plan

Spontaneity works better with a little preparation.

You don't need to pack for an expedition every time you leave home, but carrying the basics gives you freedom.

If you've got enough water, some food, basic repair equipment and an appropriate extra layer, adding another hour to a ride doesn't need to become a problem.

A phone and some means of navigation make exploring unfamiliar roads considerably easier too.

Our What to Take on Every Bike Ride guide covers the basic kit worth carrying.

If you're turning a short ride into something substantially longer, remember that you'll need to fuel it too. Our What to Eat and Drink on a Long Bike Ride guide covers that in more detail.

And knowing how to deal with the most common roadside problem helps enormously. That's why learning How to Fix a Bike Puncture is worth doing before you need to do it beside a hedge.

Preparation shouldn't restrict an adventure.

It should make one easier.

You don't need an adventure bike to have an adventure

You can spend an extraordinary amount of money preparing to explore.

New bike. New bags. New clothing. New navigation computer. New everything.

Good equipment can absolutely improve a ride.

The right bike can open up different terrain. Good luggage can make carrying equipment easier. Reliable clothing can keep you comfortable when the weather changes.

But equipment isn't what makes a ride an adventure.

Use the bike you've got.

A road bike can explore thousands of miles of unfamiliar tarmac.

A gravel bike can open up tracks and byways that connect those roads.

A mountain bike can take the exploration further off-road.

A hybrid can do a bit of everything.

Choose terrain that's appropriate for the bike, your ability and local access rules.

Then go somewhere.

Getting lost isn't the objective

There's a difference between exploring and being unprepared.

Modern navigation makes spontaneous riding easier than it has ever been. You can deviate from a route without completely losing track of where you are.

Use that.

You don't have to follow a planned route turn by turn, but knowing roughly where you are, where you're heading and how to get home gives you more freedom to experiment.

Keep an eye on distance too.

Ten miles further away usually means something suspiciously close to ten additional miles required to get back.

Enthusiasm on the outward leg can become arithmetic on the return.

Know when to turn around

The long way home still needs to end at home.

Keep an eye on the things that matter.

Daylight.

Weather.

Water.

Food.

Battery levels.

How you feel.

The condition of the bike.

If the weather is deteriorating, you're running out of daylight or something doesn't feel right, change the plan.

Turning around isn't failing to have an adventure.

It's making a sensible decision during one.

The unknown road will still be there next time.

Go further without going far

One of the easiest traps in adventure cycling is believing that interesting riding begins somewhere else.

It doesn't.

Look at a map around your home and you'll probably find roads, trails, villages and places you've never visited.

Join familiar roads together differently.

Ride your normal loop backwards.

Start from home but head in the opposite direction.

Use a train to create a one-way ride.

Plan a route around somewhere you've always wanted to visit rather than around a target distance.

Or don't plan much at all.

Give yourself an afternoon, choose a direction and see what happens.

Going further doesn't always mean going farther.

Sometimes it just means breaking the routine.

Remember why riding a bike is fun

For many of us, the first bicycle wasn't a training tool.

It was freedom.

A bike increased the size of the world.

Places that were too far to walk suddenly weren't very far at all.

You could leave home and get somewhere under your own power.

Adult cycling can become more complicated.

We add expensive equipment, training plans, performance data, events, targets and expectations.

Most of those things can make cycling better.

But occasionally it's worth stripping the whole thing back.

Get on the bike.

Go somewhere.

See what you find.

Ride. Discover. Escape.

That's really what RDE means by Ride. Discover. Escape.

Ride because riding a bike is good in itself.

Discover somewhere you wouldn't otherwise have seen.

Escape the routine for an hour, an afternoon or a whole weekend.

You don't need to cross a continent.

You don't need an epic route.

You don't even need a particularly impressive distance.

Sometimes you just need to turn the other way at the junction.

Take the long way. See where it goes.