Great rides: Questing time

In early March 2020, I returned from a curtailed tour of Colombia to a face-masked and hand-sanitised Britain. A week later the country, and soon the world, went into lockdown.

My first days were spent idly on the sofa. I searched online for a better sleeping bag, tent and water filter. Then – even though international adventuring was clearly off the agenda – I began looking for ideas on where I might travel next. That was when I came across the British Cycle Quest.

“The what?” my friends have asked, even long-term Cycling UK members. The British Cycle Quest, or BCQ, is a unique, domestic cycling challenge. There are 402 checkpoints to visit throughout England, Wales, Scotland and many of the surrounding islands.

At each one, a place of interest that you might otherwise pedal past, you’ll find the answer to a clue. There are certificates and medals you can earn by completing checkpoint questions but there’s no time limit. The only rule is that you must arrive by bicycle.

As I explored the BCQ map of multicoloured checkpoint pins, an unexpected question popped into my head: “I wonder how it would be to visit all 402 checkpoints in one continuous cycling line?”

There is doubtless a mathematical way to determine the shortest and most efficient route between 402 points but it’s beyond me. I decided to use my love of a linear route and my ‘let’s see how it goes’ approach to touring for a UK-based, post-Covid adventure.

A logical place to start was the most northerly area with BCQ points: the Shetland Islands. I’d then cycle south to Lizard Point in Cornwall, the most southerly point of mainland Britain. I would roughly follow the Sustrans JOGLE route, meandering about to visit as many checkpoints en route as I had the time and energy for.

Post-Covid touring

As the first lockdown was lifting in July 2020, I arrived in Lerwick, Shetland, on a grey and drizzly morning. Getting there involved long, face-masked and near-deserted train and ferry journeys. Reality struck.

Not a single café was open for the cyclist’s breakfast fry-up that I had imagined as I looked over the squat, grey town while the ferry docked. The best I could find was a warm, soggy pastry and a machinedispensed coffee from Lerwick Co-op.

I ate breakfast huddled under the shop canopy, sheltered from the wind and drizzle but sadly not from the midges. A Google search for campsites or B&Bs revealed that everything this far north would remain closed for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, wild camping is allowed in Scotland. I’d have nowhere warm and dry to shelter from bad weather, no handy power sockets, no bacon baps, no hot showers and definitely no comfy sofas to relax and eat cake on. But I could continue – and it did stop raining. I set off to find my first checkpoint and answer its question.

I spent a week questing around Shetland Mainland, from north to south and east to west. I hunted down war and whaling memorials, Sullom Voe oil terminal, magical sandy beaches, lighthouses.

Cemetery walls were great wind protectors. The island’s abundant public toilets were all open for washing (myself and clothes) and water supplies. And the honesty cake-fridges were well stocked.

Boats and bicycles are the best travel combination, and the ferries were all running. On the Orkney Islands, I visited standing stones, prehistoric settlements, fascinating features remaining from WWII, and the Old Man of Hoy. I learned the sad story of Betty Corrigall, who died by suicide.

Meandering south

Back on the Scottish mainland, I went to look at John o’ Groats to say I’d been there. Then I pedalled to Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of mainland Britain. Exhilarated, I stood shrouded in cloud, feeling the void in front of me.

The base of the lighthouse was barely visible, while seabirds shrieked and wheeled in and out of sight. Turning around, I imagined the kilometres of cycling ahead of me, stretching away southwards.

The coast road was crawling with campervanners doing the North Coast 500, so I diverted through Strathnaver, which was empty.

Meandering from east to west and east again, I answered BCQ questions at battlefields, Rob Roy’s grave and monuments to notable figures I had never heard of. I had planned to head to the Western Isles but the year was marching on.

While camped beside Loch Ness, I realised that if I continued with my ‘let’s see what happens’ plan, I would still be riding in December. I then did some proper planning and took a more direct route from Glasgow to the border.

In England, I collected BCQ points at an RSPB sanctuary, the Liver Building, a planned village, a mariner’s beacon, waterwheels and a cliff railway. By the time I reached Exeter, the days were short, the nights were cool and the weather was mixed.

I took a few rest days at my daughter’s home to hide from Storm Alex, before a loop round the north side of Dartmoor and a final few days to collect the checkpoints on the south coast of Cornwall.

I reached Lizard Point in mid-October after pedalling 3,188km in almost three months. In completing my north-to-south linear route, I’d ticked off 51 checkpoints. I took the train back to Exeter from Penzance. With 351 places still to visit, this BCQ project was going to take a while!

An intermittent journey

Nearly a year later, in September 2021, I returned to Penzance by train to pick up where I left off. I explored the north coast of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, visiting BCQ checkpoints in those three counties. Never again would I have to push my bike up a steep, narrow, sunken Devon lane!

At Taunton, I paused again. The world was starting to return to pre-Covid accessibility. I was able to fulfil my touring adventure plans for Europe and then South America. But the BCQ Continuous Cycling Line project was still on the back burner. In April 2024, I was back at Taunton station.

First I had to head northwards to visit the Somerset 03 checkpoint, which I hadn’t been able to find in 2020 on my north-south ride.

The database and map of clues and locations is maintained by Cycling UK volunteers, and checkpoints and clues can change slightly. Always check the website for the most up-to-date information for the checkpoints you plan to visit.

Checkpoint located this time, I then meandered about completing Somerset and Dorset, passing a chalk giant, visiting a hilltop monument and a clifftop globe. Then I crossed the Solent to the Isle of Wight.

Six checkpoints in three days on a circumnavigation of the Isle of Wight felt very efficient. A two-checkpoint day is satisfying, and a three-checkpoint day is exciting. My average checkpoint rate overall is just under one per riding day, but there are often days travelling between points with no questing.

I needed to get a move on for a date in Lincolnshire, so had to take a direct route there. En route, I hit a record four-checkpoint day crossing Greater London.

In July and August, I explored East Anglia. I visited all the checkpoints in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, looking for unusual-shaped postboxes, village name signs, cathedrals, a three-legged bridge, windmills, more statues of local celebrities, and a scene from a famous painting.

I could see geographical puzzlement in the faces of those making friendly enquiries about where I’ d come from and where I was going. My route was certainly convoluted and I could always have got to wherever I was by a much more direct route than the one I’d taken.

Eventually I pressed my fully loaded touring bike through the tourist hordes at Greenwich on a sunny Sunday afternoon to visit my final Greater London checkpoint. Afterwards I pedalled to Waterloo Station, where my BCQ journey paused again.

Five years and counting

As I live a nomadic life, with no fixed abode, Waterloo Station was going to be an accessible point from wherever I happened to be when I was ready to continue. In May 2025, I negotiated my way past the taxis and buses to exit Waterloo Station and ride south-east into Kent.

Cycling infrastructure in London is among the best I have seen in the capital cities I have pedalled through: segregated cycle lanes, cycle traffic lights, signposted routes and so on. It certainly felt safer than the busy rural roads in Kent that I sometimes couldn’t avoid.

I answered BCQ questions about a mosaic frieze, a medieval jousting post, fancy railings and a public water fountain. The traffic-free cycleway around the Kent coast was a joy to pedal, and I hunted down the coastguard cottages in Ramsgate and Sandgate where my grandfather had been stationed and my mother spent her teens.

My BCQ journey had to pause at Folkestone for a few weeks. Then I returned to visit the East Sussex checkpoints, reaching the summits of Beachy Head and Ditchling Beacon, and enjoying glorious off-road riding across Ashdown Forest. At Redhill Station, I temporarily halted again.

As I write, in October 2025, my ‘tyres-on-tarmac’ line is 7,006km long. I have so far logged 139 checkpoints in 146 riding days but have spent many more days on the road, allowing for rest days, rain days and sightseeing days. I’ve camped almost every night.

I don’t know if I will ever complete the British Cycle Quest or my plan to do so in one continuous line; there are so many places in the world I want to ride my bike. But already I have visited interesting places and glorious parts of the UK that I would never otherwise have seen.