A Solo Bike Ride from London to Scotland
At ten years old, I stole a book.
Not from a shop, mind you-from my father’s bookshelf. A fat, crusty, illustrated hardback titled The Pilgrim’s Progress. Its cover was garish, the pages smelled of dust and pipe smoke, and the sentences read like Shakespeare had taken up CrossFit. I didn’t understand half of what Christian the Pilgrim was running from, or to-but I knew he was going, and I liked the pictures. And something inside me, even then, ached to go too.
Looking back, I suppose that strange little book planted something in me, a soft rebellion against the easy path, and a craving for the long, uncertain road.
And so there I was, years later, leaving my friend Jordan’s Café in West London with more emotional baggage than actual luggage, pedaling a road bike northward like a man possessed. Possessed by what, I’m still not entirely sure-grief, stubbornness, a half-remembered metaphor from childhood, perhaps all three. There was no real itinerary. Just a compass needle humming in the direction of Scotland and the deep, silent places I hoped to find along the way.
They say pilgrimages are out of fashion now. Too impractical. Too poetic. Too analog in a world of digital dopamine and Deliveroo. But I think we’ve lost something when we stopped believing in holy wandering. When the only journeys we take are tracked by GPS and monetized for likes. I wanted something quieter. Something un-shareable, even. A walk (or in my case, a wobble) toward wholeness.
This trip wasn’t about miles, though I’ll count them. It wasn’t about scenery, though I did try to notice it. It was about learning to love my own company again. Learning to sit with myself without distraction, without shame, without the need to be needed.
After a brutal, very public divorce, solitude didn’t just feel like medicine-it felt like justice. But maybe, if I stayed on the bike long enough, it would begin to feel like grace.
I didn’t know what I’d find at the top of Scotland. Probably rain. Possibly midges. I just know I longed to find a quieter version of Jonathan. One who could laugh again. One who could make peace with the past without needing to rewrite it.
And so, I rode.
Because Christian walked. Because Bunyan dreamed. Because something holy still happens when we trade certainty for motion and comfort for pilgrimage.
And because, frankly, I’d already told too many people I’d do this, and my pride wouldn’t let me quit on Day One.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
