Welcome to the official website of Josie Dew: cyclist, writer and cook.
Near Katwijk at the helm of my Circe Helios Triplet. That trailer in the distance is actually attached to me making it a precariously long road-train. This summer Gary converted the triplet to a tandem with homemade extended wooden-topped rack.
Just in case we weren’t carrying enough Jack wanted to add a mini surfboard. A few days later we added another surfboard we found in a bin. We thought it only our duty to give it another life.
It was also 30 years ago that I cycled around Hawaii and across America – a total of over 6000 miles. So here are some of my USA snapshots from yesteryear.
When people ask me are my lengthy bike-touring days behind me I reply, ‘Not on your Nelly!’ because I like to think I’ve got a lot of wind in my wheels to get under my belt yet. It’s just that I’m currently in the midst of a child-rearing phase (interspersed with regular doses of school-holiday-length voyages by bike and by foot). But once my young threesome are older and the restraints of school no longer apply the wider world beckons. Daisy has expressed keenness to join me cycling from Alaska to Patagonia. Then there’s the appeal of riding up through Africa and cycling home from Australia (via Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Island – I fancy re-cycling around those fair and wind-blown Nordic lands again). Last year even Gary expressed interest in cycling across Russia with me though frankly I think he would rather go in his 64-year old Morris Minor. There again, he’ll probably rather be in his workshop making more things like go-carts powered by old electric drills.
Crossing the Continental Divide in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
Gary’s 1958 Morris Minor with Jack doing a fly-past on his go-cart made by Gary out of a few lumps of steel.
Night-dwelling with a crocheting Molly and Daisy (their new-found fad). Jack’s in his upper sleeping shelf quarters watching Thomas the Tank Engine.
Of course you can start and finish the ride wherever you like but tradition has it to start and finish in Winchester near the cathedral at King Alfred’s bronze statue, erected in 1899 to mark one thousand years since Alfred’s death (he’s buried in Winchester). We started from home so did a sizeable chunk of the immensely hilly South Downs Way before we even made it to Winchester.
We carried everything we needed on the bikes and my Bob Yak trailer (water, food, tent, clothing, books, radio and sloth) and navigated our route with 8 Ordnance Survey maps. Each day we didn’t know where we would spend the night apart from hoping it would be somewhere near the side of the track in our Terra Nova Starlight 3 tent.
We ended up cycling 232 miles but didn’t do the whole of the official route due to veering this way and that (cycling with children you have to keep them happy by going with the wind). Sometime soon I’ll go back and ride it all again (official route) and maybe even do it alone (wishful thinking).
Jack rode his second hand 24-inch wheel Squish.
Daisy rode her 27-inch wheel Scott.
I rode my 26-inch wheel, 35-year-old Orbit.
About to tackle the south face of Butser Hill (highest point of the South Downs – 889 ft, 271 metres)
Our one and only night in doors in 3 weeks and our one and only bath. Good for doing our one and only proper clothes wash. Travelodge, Amesbury.
Warning: Tanks ahoy! Crossing the ‘pretend’ war zone of the military training area of Salisbury Plain.
The sad sight of a ‘ghost bike’ placed at the spot where David Davenport, a 59 year-old from Eastleigh was hit by a car in June this summer while cycling along this road. He was taken to Southampton General Hospital where he died a week later as a result of his injuries.
Long bike, narrow bridge
Picnic spot on the Ridgeway on Penning Down. We’re sitting beside the memorial that commemorates the death of a German soldier who died here in 1993.
Thanks to lockdown growth Jack has grown about a foot and Daisy is now taller than me -not difficult seeing as I’m the human equivalent of perfect travel kit (small, compact and packable). So here are the younger pedalling team, demonstrating their bigger bikes at Bosham.
Picnic spot bike park. On show: Jack’s 24-inch wheel Squish, Daisy’s 29-inch wheel Scott, my 30-year-old 26-inch wheel Orbit.
2.5 years is a long time for a granny not to see her only grandchildren. We couldn’t see Gary’s mum in 2019 for one reason or another and then. when we were about to see her in 2020 Covid struck with its multiple lockdowns and rules. So at the beginning of June, when more freedom returned, I bundled bikes and offspring and camping kit into the battered leaking camper and took off to cycle around Dorset and to see Nanny Val at last.
The reunited reunion.
We will be carrying all the food, water and camping clobber that we need and putting up our tent wherever we can – hopefully somewhere near the side of the track.
We are raising money for our primary school and village hall (money raised will go towards sports/play/exercise equipment – like bikes!). If anyone would like to spur us on please go to:
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/bike4school
Well, that’s Feb half term done and dusted. It rained and it rained and it rained and then it rained again and then there was a rare glimmer of sun so I put the sheets out and then it hailed. And then it rained. I think the highlight was going litter-picking in the roadside muddy ditches with Daisy and Jack and finding 2 big-cupped bras. (Anyone out there missing any?).
Another highlight was cycling to the dump to get rid of an old kitchen sink that Gary found at work on one of his building jobs. A lot of wisecrackers think that because I cycle with so much baggage and clobber and weight on my bike that I must have a kitchen sink on board. This time I really did – minus the mixer taps. We’re using those in our kitchen.
So along with some snow and putting-large-things-on-bikes photos here are some slightly more sunny pictures to warm the winter cockles – pictures from bygone days a-wheel.
Lockdown 3 homeschooling in full swing. The lesson: DIY sledging on an old piece of plastic we use to grow veg under.
Crossing USA 1992
Propping up the pram. If I let go I’ll be flattened. This hill near Harting Down is a lot steeper than it looks. My right arm is quivering.
The South Downs Way (a Bronze Age trading route) is 100 miles long (we went west-to-east – Winchester to Eastbourne) with a total of around 13,000ft of ascent. There were downhills too but, when you’re pushing what feels like the equivalent weight of half an elephant, most of the way felt very uphill. With various excursions to find food or diverting off course to look at interesting sights etc we did 118 miles altogether.
We started off heaving and hauling all our kit in a Dutch Walking Wagon (a glorified wheelbarrow) but it was so heavy and slow I swopped it for a fourth-hand pushchair. The girls walked while Jack pushed or cycled his bike.
We carried a lot of excess clobber with us including a dumper truck. But it kept Jack happy for hours.
We spent 3 weeks on the move (half of August and the beginning of September) which was about a week longer than I estimated (heatwaves and days of storms and rain at the beginning hampered progress).
The worst storm to hit was Storm Francis which the Met Office said had lashed the UK with ‘unseasonably strong gusts of nearly 80mph (129kph) winds and heavy rain’. We were camping near Cocking Down at the time. We nearly got blown into oblivion.
It’s raining men, hallelujah.
Life in tent during the build up to Storm Francis.
One of the advantages of living outside for 3 weeks is that children sleep through anything – even tent-flapping storms.
Heading down off Butser Hill, which at 271m (889ft) is the highest point along the South Downs Way. (Molly is with her school friend Lucy who joined us for some of the walk).
On the Downs what goes down must go up. Near Mount Sinai, south of Elsted.
Chilly camping on Graffham Down. Wild camping is not allowed on the Downs so every night where we couldn’t get permission (which was most nights!) we tried our best to tuck ourselves out of the way.
Apart from one night in a hostel’s bunkroom at Southease, we camped at the side of the track every night, often sleeping on hard, lumpy ground beside old chalk pits, Roman roads and ruins, Iron Age hill forts and tumuli (burial mounds). The views from high up on the whale-back ridge of the Downs were constantly magnificent: a line of coast and expanse of sea on one side; the multi-varied patchwork of fields and woodlands and villages of the Weald on the other.
The rough and rutted tracks caused the pram to capsize far too often. The effort of re-righting needed a lot of effort. By the end I had a lot of names for the pram none of which were complimentary.
Misty morning view from camp spot.
Jack and Daisy eating through some of the contents from the local bakery in Steyning High Street. We had to come down off the Downs to replenish food supplies.We carried enough food for a week (we only saw 3 shops in 3 weeks) and 8 litres of water, which was about enough to last 2 days depending on the weather. (Water taps are dotted along the Downs at rather irregular intervals).
Jack had his 7th birthday in a field above Buriton. Gary came out to meet us there with a prepared-before-the-programme cake I’d made and frozen. It rained very hard and we sang happy birthday to Jack while kitted out in full waterproof regalia.
We had 1 shower, several washes beneath cold taps and 3 punctures in 3 weeks.
For navigation I used a small OS 1:25,000 scale map book of the Downs. I gave Daisy and Jack daily lessons on how to map read, identify symbols, read a compass and estimate the time of day from the position of the sun in true Rambo style. The advantage of using an OS map is that it doesn’t need charging – plus it makes great reading. It told us we were passing places like Scabby Brow, Plonk Barn, Cheesefoot Head, The Bosom, Mount Sinai, Muggery Pope, Granny’s Belt, Grandfather’s Bottom, Winding Bottom, Well Bottom, Bushy Bottom, Moon’s Bottom, Deep Bottom, Long Bottom, Loose Bottom and Breaky Bottom. Yes, up on the Downs you look down upon a lot of Bottoms.
The wind tends to blow from only one direction on the Downs (south-westerly) giving most exposed trees a bad hair day look.
Dog poo bag swinging in the breeze – unfortunately an all-too-common sight of fence adornments on the Downs. TAKE IT HOME!!
Finally, on a perfect cloud-free day, we tackled the dramatic roller coaster coastline of the Seven Sisters. It was a long 13-mile day. Not long after the sun set behind Belle Tout lighthouse we donned head torches so as not to fall over Beachy Head by mistake and made it to Eastbourne in darkness.
Night time arrival at the end in Eastbourne. Or the beginning if you’re about to head for Winchester. (The signpost says: Winchester 100 miles.
Instead, sometime in early August, I’m swapping my bike wheels for four wheelbarrow ones as I fancy attempting to walk the 100-mile length of the South Downs Way with my three boisterous offspring: Molly (13), Daisy (10) and Jack (6). Molly’s school friend Lucy will also be coming with us. We will be pushing and pulling, hauling and heaving a Walking Wagon (a large glorified Dutch wheelbarrow) containing all the camping kit and clobber that we need to keep us going for a fortnight or more.
I last did the walk with Molly and Daisy and 11-month-old Jack (he crawled a lot of the way) in 2014 accompanied by my Dutch friend Anoek, her young daughter Mila and Anoek’s ex-PE teacher friend Guust (Goose) who helped to push the wagons. This time I will be the only adult so it will be hard work as the Downs are very steep and the Walking Wagon is leg-quiveringly heavy. Oh, and my knees are a bit dickey.
Daisy and Jack are raising money for their primary school to help buy sports and play equipment that the school needs. If anyone would like to sponsor them please go to: https://www.gofundme.com/operation-walking-wagon
Molly and Lucy are raising money for the NHS (National Health Service). If you would like to sponsor them please go to: https://www.gofundme.com/operation-walking-wagon-2020
I will try and send an update on our progress (or lack of it) on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/itsjosiedew/once we hit the ups of the Downs. I will only have solar power to charge my phone so if all goes quiet from me, I think you can safely presume it’s raining. Either that or there’s been a mutiny and my wagon-pushers have abandoned ship. Both options are high possibilities.
To give you a taster, here are some photos from the SDW mission we did back in 2014.
After pushing a wagon up a hill I would retrace my steps to retrieve the pram. No wonder we got nowhere fast