Many of the speakers at the Cycle Touring Festival have written books about their bicycle travels. We love reading them, to get a sense of the speaker’s personality and to experience their adventures vicariously.
Books by this year’s speakers include the following:
With the Sun on Our Right – Tim Moss
This book is due to be launched at the festival. It tells the story of the bike ride that Tim and Laura Moss undertook, covering 13,000 miles over 16 months. However, the book is not really about cycling. It is about the people they met along the way, those who took the duo into their homes and those who looked out for them on the road. In a world filled with negative headlines and countries turning in on themselves, the story is a timely reminder of the common humanity that links people the world over.
In the interests of full disclosure, Laura Moss founded the Cycle Touring Festival and Tim, her husband, plays a huge part in it every year. The whole idea for the Festival was born while the couple were on this trip, coming up with the idea in Iran, setting up the website while in Oman and booking the venue from India. Apart from the obvious bias/conflict of interest/nepotism, we think it’s an excellent book and well worth reading.
Pre-order ‘With the Sun on Our Right’ now
Joining the Dots: The Highland Trail 550 – Lee Craigie
Lee is a former pro mountain biker who rode for Scotland in the 2014 Commonwealth Games and for GB in World and European Championships. In 2017, she rode the spine of the Rockies in the Tour Divide event, and is showing the film of that ride at this year’s festival.
Joining the Dots is the story of another iconic off-road ride, closer to home. The Highland Trail 550 covers 550 miles through the Scottish highlands and this beautifully illustrated journal tells the story of Lee’s journey through euphoria and darkness.
All proceeds go to The Adventure Syndicate, to directly fund their work to inspire, encourage and enable others (especially women and girls) to discover what they are capable of through outdoor adventure.
Buy ‘Joining the Dots’ here
Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie – Andrew P Sykes
This is the third book from Andrew Sykes about his bike trips, and in our opinion, by far the best.
Andrew is a lovely guy and it comes across in his books: he is entirely without ego and the warm, self-deprecating style makes his books a hit among festival attendees.
Andrew also runs the Cycling Europe website which is well worth checking out. He will be speaking about his travels, and about his latest venture, the Cycling Europe podcast, at this year’s festival.
Buy ‘Spain to Norway’ here
Through Sand & Snow – Charlie Walker
Charlie cycled 43,000 miles through 60 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, on a journey that lasted over 4.5 years.
This book tells the story of that journey.
We are delighted to welcome him to this year’s festival, where he will be telling us about his adventures.
Buy ‘Through Sand & Snow’ here
Mainly by Bike: A Senior Cyclist Tours the World – Ann Wilson
Ann is one of our heroes. She took early retirement aged 59 and set off on her own to cycle the world, having only taken up cycling properly in her mid-50s. Her fancy touring bike was stolen in Bulgaria, a few weeks into her trip, but she found a cheap replacement and carried on.
She came to the festival as an attendee for the first couple of years, and was too modest to mention her cycle touring pedigree. We only found out about her background from another guest, who suggested we get her in as a speaker. She spoke at last year’s festival and was a massive hit, so is coming back again in 2018.
Her book about that first trip, which launched several others, was published just a few months ago.
Buy ‘Mainly by Bike’ here