Riding Out by Simon Parker is an uplifting and interesting take on a journey around the United Kingdom by bike.

Loved reading this, great to read about a cycling adventure.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

Hmmm… This is a completely engaging read, but perhaps not the best example it could have been, and not exactly what I think the author wanted of it. We start with all the evidence we need and more of the author being a battered soul, with school friends dying, these people dying, this person close to death – and there is a good argument to be had for saying there is too much of the medical in this book. I don't just mean what cycling a thousand miles and more in a month does to your a-hole, but the mental reasons for it, the quibbles and first world problems leading to doubt about doing it, and all the grief slathered on. I assumed the author expected more sympathy from all his readers – which is probably what means he's a travel writer and I won't ever get to be.

But the book is also a look at a country in a unique place – the Covid lockdowns thrust and thrust again upon us. To some extent he wants to survey the UK and its people and how they are reacting to the restrictions, but this part of the book is (perhaps thankfully) briefer than expected. He meets a few people, when I thought he would be interacting with more (more fool me – this is under lockdown!!), and he doesn't really lead to much other than a couple of farmers who refused the jab, much to his surprise.

Still, for all the mental health reasons for the journey and the not-quite-there journalistic revelations of the story-telling here, this is a fairly remarkable achievement. I would not ever intend to cycle John o'Groats to Land's End, let alone go a longer way between the two, let alone have a few days' run-up to the traditional start, and certainly let alone the return leg via Margate and Scarborough. Our man manages it all, with the help of a stalwart partner back at home, lots of charitable Tw*tter followers, and a heck of a lot of legwork. And let's face it I was here for the travel side of things, not the mental and grieving revelations, nor the lived-through-that-thanks coronasniffles stuff. I was there for the experiences with punctures, bad beds for the night, inappropriate weather – and all that is certainly here. He seemed a personable, trustworthy guy on the page (although he dismissed Berwick too easily), and I liked the reportage from the saddle.

The book does do what the cover wants – show a man heading off, bright red panniers ahoy, into a potentially dazzling new dawn. But it seemed a book with a lot more on its mind, and not all of that worked for me. This is a book whose thesis is that the outside world, the freedom of lockdown, the open air and empty road, is the mental panacea for us all. And just two years later we have uber-privileged twonks unable to behave in theatres, a mahoosive increase in fan incursions and attacks on the football field, and so on, and I bet you anything you like the lockdown price reductions (£200 hotel rooms for under £50, and so on) are definitively a thing of the past with the greed-of-living crisis. I can see a cycling ordeal made a new man of our author – it's remarkable this is his first book, considering what, how and where he's travelled before – but I think his optimistic love of the road and his fellow Brit is not that well-founded. Still, living with that – for want of a subtler word – delusion is still worth three and a half stars.

I enjoyed reading about the cycling adventures and enjoyed the tone of the book. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review this book.

During the start of the pandemic Simon Parker's career as a travel journalist disappeared overnight, to tackle a multitude of problems piling up for him, he chose to cycle around the British coastline, initially from the Northernmost point in Shetland down to furthest part of England he could reach. During the early part of his journey, tragedy strikes and his travels become even more a quest for working through grief, mental health and finding connection with local people all struggling with their own hardships. After a brief rest be chooses to continue his adventures by doing a return route along the Devon coast & around the east back up to Shetland.
This is such an interesting book, not only for cycling enthusiasts, but for anyone who has an interest in nature & the simple life. Simon's encounters across the lengths of the British isles highlight what kindness there is amongst communities, the resilience of people during tough times and how issues such as the pandemic and Brexit etc affected different areas of the country.
A very honest, brave and entertaining read