Bikepacking England is English outdoor adventurer Emma Kingston's debut book, comprising 20 off-road routes in England. The accessible routes are intended to be discovered over multiple days, and the route descriptions offer all the necessary information about the route, services and transport needed to reach them, making it an excellent book for anyone looking for inspiration for off-road bikepacking adventures.
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Bikepacking England by Emma Kingston - Content details
Published in paperback form in 2021 by a well-known-adventure book publisher Vertebrate Publishing, Bikepacking England consists of 176 pages and is split into five sections. The first includes a little background to Emma’s inspiration to curate the book and is followed by her very concise, but adequate advice on bikepacking, safety, wild camping and anything else one might want to know before planning a bikepacking adventure.
> Buy now: Bikepacking England by Emma Kingston from Amazon UK for £15.09
The following sections are the actual routes, split into four geographical sections; South West England, South East England, the Midlands and Northern England. All the 20 routes are visually displayed on a map on the very first pages of the book, which makes it easy to have a quick overview of what might be the routes that interest you - and on what page you might read more about them.
Bikepacking England by Emma Kingston - Routes
The routes are obviously the core of this book and they are really where Kingston's writing skills shine, as well. Each route section starts with an introduction and moves into giving a route overview which is followed by a more thorough description with highlights to look for when riding the route. The first page of the route overview is accompanied by an informational graphic that includes an elevation graph, a difficulty grade, distance and elevation in numbers, percentage of off-road riding and route location details.
The fact that Kingston has designed these routes on a mountain bike is detectable in the route difficulty ratings that vary between blue, red and black - although a mountain bike is not necessary for completing the routes that are suitable for a gravel bike, as well. The grading is not directly comparable to trail centre route grades, but instead, Kingston says they portray the technicality, remoteness, navigation and accommodation options on the route. It's a nice and simple way to label the routes and give a first glimpse of what the rider can expect.
And before getting to the more detailed description, the routes are visualised on a map that spans the whole page spread. Although these maps are not the most detailed and show every path and smaller road, they show the route and all the major towns and some details of the topography in the area. I would personally not head out for a bikepacking trip with a book as my only navigational device, but because all the routes (including shortcut versions) are provided as GPX files, there is no need to do that with this book.
The detailed route descriptions are my favourite and something that not all cycling route books manage to nail as well as Kingston has. Each setting creates a strong sense of place, take for example this one for the Bridport and the Jurassic Coast route: "It is late summer - the school holidays - and the sun glares above Symondsbury. In the village, a wedding is underway; the chatter of guests bubbles over an ornamental hedge and a vintage Bentley waits opposite to the church. The heat is stifling. Climbing out of the village, Shute's Lane looks dark and inviting up ahead. Tarmac becomes track, becomes gravel, becomes sand as the lane sinks into the earth between the vertical walls of rock...".
Not only is this a joy to read, but it shows how closely Kingston has explored the routes before compiling them into the book.
The photography of the book nicely compliments the route descriptions and highlights the sights of the routes beautifully. These maps include also icons for good, wild swimming spots (great addition) and different colour lines for shortcuts.
The margins of the book have been utilised effectively, as each route description margin is filled with useful information on the best time of the year for the ride, warnings, water points and food and accommodation recommendations.
Bikepacking England by Emma Kingston - Verdict
If you are looking for a well-written, captivating bikepacking routes book this is an excellent option. The routes cover exclusively England, but in case that is an area you wish to explore (and you will want to after reading it), Kingston's book offers a comprehensive source of varied, accessible routes with plenty of supporting information for those that might be new to bikepacking. There is a little blank spot around Norfolk in terms of routes, but we can only hope that Kingston is planning to write another book with even more routes...
Bikepacking England retails for £20 and comes with GPX files of all the routes, including any possible shortcuts and optional routes. Evaluating the value of a book isn’t quite as straightforward as say, cycling energy bars, but comparing this to others, such as the Bikepacking - Exploring the Roads Less Cycled Book (£35) and Ed Shoote's Gravel Rides Scotland (£25), which is also a regional route book, I argue that Kingston's book is great value for money.
I think this book is good value for money and makes an excellent inspirational and informational route source for any off-road rider.
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